My clever girl

Time for another braggy post about my little Peachfuzz, who is not quite 22 months old. Last night she said her first full sentence. We were having dinner at my parents house and dad was holding her. I guess he asked her where she was going to sit and she said "I'll sit on mummy's lap". The whole room went into stunned silence, and then in true proud mama fashion, I got a little teary over my clever, growing-up girl.

Tonight at dinner, Peachfuzz said her own prayer, without prompting, for the first time. We always pray before meals, and she will often take a few bites of food after the prayer, then fold her hands together again and ask for "more more pare". Tonight she did the same, and as soon as Papa Bear and I held her hands, she started praying. It went something like this... "Dear God, thank you, little Poppy, little Dan, little Mel, Amen". Another beautiful moment that filled us both with pride at how grown up our little girl is becoming.

Below is a picture of our little prayer warrior, who decided to pray in the middle of a maternity photo session we did yesterday. Thanks to Miranda for the gorgeous photo!

The belly, the belly!

As promised, here's a belly photo taken tonight, at 35 weeks and a few days. Already Peachfuzz really enjoys "cuddles" with her little brother or sister.

Greening our water use & other bits and pieces

Let's start with the other bits and pieces. Though it's a little late because I haven't posted in over two weeks, I wanted to say how wonderful it is to have my sister home from her travels. She's shared some great stories, photos and souvenirs with us which has been lovely. But the best thing of course is being able to hug her and hang out again. I missed that girl! Now that she is home, this also means a belly photo will be posted soon.

I also wanted to say a big welcome to the newest member of our extended family. My cousin (who is more like a big sister to me) and her husband welcomed a little baby girl into their arms and hearts a week ago. She is the tiniest, sweetest little thing I've laid eyes on, at least since Peachfuzz was born, and it makes me very excited to meet Tiny in a few weeks now that I've had some newborn cuddles!

And now onto some of the changes we've made around here in the last week or two. You may know from recent posts that we're pretty concious of issues such as climate change and peak oil around here, and we are trying to do a little more every day to lighten our footprint on the earth. Sometimes I feel like we have so far to go, and so many changes to make that it seems overwhelming, impossible even. But we are trying to focus on one or two small changes at a time, and knowing that these changes will lessen our impact while not being so drastic that we can't keep up with them.

Despite the fact that we have had a lot of rain recently, and there is talk of lifting water restrictions from level 4 back to level 3, we are still becoming more concious of our water use. I know the bucket in the shower trick is nothing new, but we have no garden as yet, so we didn't really know what to do with any water we saved. As such, we didn't bother with the bucket, until I had a brainwave one day. We now keep a bucket in the shower, as well as saving Peachfuzz's bathwater and keeping a basin in both sinks to catch all our water from handwashing. We use all this water to flush the toilet. This really wasn't a difficult change at all, and simply means having to manually refill the cistern after we flush. It takes us only an extra minute and I wish we had have started a lot sooner than we did. Papa Bear remarked that whoever invented flushing toilets really got it wrong when they decided we would use clean drinking water to flush our waste away!

As well as recycling this water, we have adopted a new policy that you may have heard of before - "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down". Flushing is such a habit that it took a few days to remember not to do it every time. Now not flushing is the new habit, and I have to remind myself to make sure we have flushed before we have guests over.

Feeling rather... pregnant

I have about 7 weeks, give or take, till Tiny is evicted, and I'm really starting to feel heavily pregnant. I get tired more easily, both sleepy tired and muscle tired. I can't stand as close to things as I used to, and if I try, Tiny usually kicks to let me know I need to move. Some of my joints are starting to ache. I can't carry Peachfuzz for as long as I used to, and feel terrible when I have to ask her to sit next to me instead of on my lap. Overall I just feel big and heavy and ready to meet my baby. A belly photo would be appropriate, but I'm waiting until my sister sees me in person before posting another one on the blog. Only another week to go!

In unrelated news, Peachfuzz seems to have some sort of tummy bug. She woke up fine this morning, but slept close to three hours this afternoon, which is unusual for her. When she did wake up, she was very cuddly, not wanting to be on her own, and had a sniffly nose. I was worried she was getting another cold, and then a minute later she coughed, and puked on me. It's so miserable watching your babies be sick, and not being able to do much for them. She's a trooper though, and seemed to feel better for "getting it out". That is, until Papa Bear came home from work. Unluckily for him, she saved the best till he was holding her, draining the entire days food all over his jacket, pants, and the floor. The poor little thing is in bed asleep now and has had a few sips of water. I'm really hoping she wakes up in the morning feeling absolutely fine, and that this is just one of those 24-hr things.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

After hearing only a little about it, I decided that Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life was definitely something I would enjoy reading, and asked (begged actually) Papa Bear to buy it for my birthday. A little over a week after my birthday, I have finished the book and definitely have a lot to think about.

Years before I ever heard of this book, or peak oil, or any of the things that have been on my mind lately, I became interested in the idea of self-sufficient living. I dreamt of living on an acreage, growing all our own food, raising chickens and sheep, keeping bees and so on. But it always remained just a dream. After reading this book, the dream has been rekindled, and Papa Bear and I have been talking about how to make it a reality. We have a few ideas, but we would need other families to get involved, and that is a post for another day.

For right now, we need to do what we can with what we've got. Our current land on our suburban block is large enough that we could grow a lot of our own fruit and veges, and maybe have a couple of chooks too. Of course, why would you need chooks if you don't eat eggs? Well, the author actually made some very thought-provoking arguments for local eating as opposed to veganism or even vegetarianism. No promises that our eating is about to change, but it has made me think.

A lot of people are starting to realise the importance of eating locally. There's the Slow Food Movement, the 100 Mile Diet and more recently The Bullseye Diet as suggested by Sharon at Casaubon's Book (a brilliant blog which everyone should read!). It's the bullseye idea our family is aiming for, which starts with providing as much of your own food in your own backyard as you can, and working outwards from there.

We have a lot of work to do. As much as I have known for some time that local eating is best for the planet, I haven't exactly taken any real action. Yesterday I did our weekly shopping and was alarmed at how far from our ideal we really are at the moment. I made sure to buy mostly seasonal produce, but I did still buy some that's really not in season for our area, which means it's been shipped from somewhere that it is. For some time I've been making sure not to buy any imported produce. At the very least, all the produce we eat was grown in this country. But that's not enough, and I need to start finding local sources for as much as I can, and preparing ourselves for a gardening adventure.

I'll leave you with a quote from the final chapter of the book:

"It's impossible to become a fuel purist, and it seems like failure to change our ways only halfway, or a pathetic 10 percent. So why even try? When the scope of the problem seems insuperable, isn't it reasonable just to call this one, give it up, and get on with life as we know it? I do know the answer to that one: that's called child abuse. When my teenager worries that her generation won't be able to fix this problem, I have to admit to her that it won't be up to her generation. It's up to mine. This is a now-or-never kind of project. But a project, nevertheless. Global-scale alteration from pollution didn't happen when human societies started using a little bit of fossil fuel. It happened after unrestrained growth, irresponsible management, and a cultural refusal to assign any moral value to excessive consumption. Those habits can be reformed."

Good things in blogworld

While looking for a way to reuse some old pantihose that have ladders in them, I stumbled across How can I Recycle This?, a great website you can email your recycling questions to. Readers add suggestions via the comments on how to recycle everything from deflated helium balloons to tablet blister packs. And yes, there's plenty of ways to reuse old pantihose.

SouleMama, my most favourite blogger, has written a book which is available now on Amazon for pre-order. March 2008 seems like such a long way away, but I know this book, The Creative Family, will be very much worth the wait!

Gorgeous little houses over at Bella Dia (via One Hour Craft).

In non-blogworld news, today I finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will be sharing some more thoughts on it tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Pray for the children

I was recently listening to a song called Pray by Tina Cousins. One of the lines in the chorus stood out, and kind of sums up how I've been feeling lately after doing a lot of reading about global warming and peak oil.

Pray for the children whose time is to come
Pray they forgive us for the stupid things we've done

We are messing up the world. We want what we want and we want it now, with no thought or regard for the future generations we are affecting with our choices. I have a long way to go in "greening up" my lifestyle, but I am committed to start trying. I am going to do whatever I can for Peachfuzz and Tiny, and their children. I'd hate to think I lived my life always getting exactly what I want, only to have my children and grandchildren left to clean up the mess.

Sometimes I'm overwhelmed by how much there is to do, and how few people seem to understand that global warming is happening right now. It can be really discouraging to think about how much needs to change and how slim the chances are of enough people changing their ways. But I'm trying not to feel overwhelmed or discouraged. Instead I'm going to do my bit, one day at a time, one change at a time, and know that I'm making a difference, however small it may be.

I'm starting by trying to reduce our petrol consumption. That's why I'll be sticking to one "errand day" a week, and trying to leave the car at home other than that one day. That's why you may have seen me this morning, 7 months pregnant, pushing 25kgs of toddler and stroller up a hill as we walked to church. No more excuses for driving such a short distance (well, except pelting rain). Yes, I'm very pregnant, but I'm still very much on my feet. I need to allow myself a little extra time to get places on foot, as my arms and legs seem to wear out a little quicker these days. But being "big with child" is not a good enough reason to jump in the car for a trip that takes only ten to fifteen minutes by foot. And anytime I feel like it is, I'll remember Peachfuzz and Tiny, and remember that I'm doing what I can to leave them with a better earth to live in.