Imperfect Pandemic Parenting: So long 2020

2020 is almost over.

What a year huh. One of the weirdest. Some pretty terrible things happened. But there were also lots of really good things about this year (eg Trump losing the election🎉). It has been quite a unique year.

I am writing this blog post like a Christmas letter, to let you know what we’re all up to, but also to sum up and bring to a close this collection of ramblings about how to embrace the crappiness of imperfect parenting through a pandemic. Realistically, as much as I love keeping a record of all the things the kids are doing and the latest Covid developments, I really don’t have time to update a blog. There are so many other things that seem more important to do right now.

Suddenly we have a teenager living in the house who is taller than me. Lucy is doing really well at school and her German is becoming pretty impressive through the German Immersion program. She recently won a silver academic award for her excellent report card this term. We are very proud of how organised and dedicated she is to her schoolwork, and also of how independent and grown up she has become. (Well, mostly grown up... except for when we’re having a screaming match about unloading the dishwasher or something.) School and homework tend to take up most of her time but she still adores activities like indoor climbing or stand up paddle boarding, and she and Molly have been having tennis lessons together.

This is Lucy on the stand up paddle board at Brown Lake, and Molly up a tree at Point Lookout (Stradbroke Island):

We just found out that Molly has been accepted into the school band for next year, playing bass clarinet. She’ll start learning it at the beginning of the year. She’s come a long way on the piano this year and is playing some pretty great little songs.

Her drawing skills are still amazing and she’s been churning out super cute pictures of animals every day. Molly has really taken to our quails and spends a fair bit of time with them in their pen each day, cuddling them and feeding them. The other day Penny the quail passed away after a very hot day (got up to 39!) and we were all sad but Molly was absolutely devastated. Penny had been looking a bit glum for weeks and the heat just took it out of her. We buried her in our Alex Memorial garden out the front and planted a Cranberry Hibiscus bush over her. All just part of (urban) farm life I suppose. The other quails all seem pretty perky and are still giving us plenty of cute little speckly eggs.

Emma finished kindy this week, then off to Prep at big school next year! I can’t believe it. She has also just grown up all of a sudden. She’ll be 5 in January. Emma is our feisty little entertainer who keeps us all in giggles and in awe of her physical strength and enthusiasm for everything (except for things like holding her pencil correctly or having a bath). She is also quite the little artist, learning from copying Molly’s drawings over the last year or so. I hope she’ll start learning the piano from Grandma once they move up to Brisbane, because Emma really loves to sing and sit at the piano and make up songs, something which the other 2 rarely do... but she doesn’t like me helping her at all (she knows better) which is why she hasn’t started lessons yet.

All three are still mad about dogs and Charlie gets a lotta love from them. He has squeezed his way into the house and it seems he is now an inside dog.

(This is not our new dog. It is Stirling the dingo who lives at Lone Pine Sanctuary.)

Scott is still working from home mostly but rides his bike into the office once or twice a week. Not much else to report on Scott... he is working most of the time, and the rest of the time he plays with the kids, or drinks beer while watching Netflix. Oh and he builds quail pens and pizza ovens and various other garden structures in his spare time.

I have just finished the Design part of my Permaculture Course and will be presenting my design to the other course students around the world on Monday (if I can figure out how to use Zoom and how to make a PowerPoint). I plan to get really stuck into the garden after Christmas and get all the fruit trees planted and food forests started, before continuing with the teaching part of the course. Unless, of course, Australia is on fire again like last January, when we couldn’t go outside at all because the smoke haze was so bad.

This king parrot ate all our tomatoes. But we forgave him because he is so beautiful.

The herb spiral is looking great and making the bees and lizards very happy.

The pizza oven is coming along, only one last layer of lime plaster to go! Just in time for us to make very hot pizzas in the summer heat. Actually cob ovens are meant to be good for cooking in hot weather and near small children, as the outside doesn’t get very hot. We lit a fire in it the other weekend and it sort of worked -it cooked the pizzas but took 15 minutes instead of 3 minutes because it didn’t hold the heat long enough. This was probably because we didn’t keep the fire burning for enough hours, or maybe it hasn’t dried out inside enough yet. Anyway, soon we’ll be wood fired pizza experts and everyone is invited to come over for a pizza party.

Australia is slowly getting back to normal (or the new Covid normal) and borders have reopened. I hope I’ll get to see my family again soon. Mum came up for a quick visit in July which was nice but I haven’t seen my dad or older brothers in over a year. Luckily I have my little brother Dave and his awesome family very close by. And we had a lovely visit from Aunty Kelly (Scott’s sister) and Uncle Chris recently. But I think Scott won’t be seeing his U.S family for quite a while yet...

So that’s where we’re at. School and kindy finished last week and so now the girls and I will start planning our Christmas. Last year we started our new tradition of picking a country and making that the theme of our Christmas celebrations. To take the focus off presents and all that. And also to learn about the customs of another country. Last year we chose Mexico and we made decorations and a piñata and a nativity scene, Mexican style. I also tried to cook real Mexican Christmas food and it was fun and delicious. This year it’s Germany (Lucy’s vote). We haven’t thoroughly researched it yet but luckily we have our good friends Jess and Christoph (aka Jesstoph) around to give us lots of authentic ideas. (Christoph is currently working on how to turn an ice cold mango daiquiri into a traditional German Christmas beverage...🤔🤷🏼‍♀️)