one small change: March

Now I know on the one small change blog - it says to post at the beginning of the month - but you may have picked up - we have had a bit of a month. Well a bit of a few months actually! It doesn't seem to be getting better quickly either. Hmm.

Still. Here I am. March 30th. 'By the skin of my teeth' I think is the saying! Oh and isn't that just a weird saying for children, foreigners and aliens!

This month has been all about community and yogurt! An odd combination perhaps but there you go - I said I was sleep deprived! Even with my mad month I have been able to talk - yes my mouth still works just as well - not so much sense but still it just keeps on going!

So I have been promoting making your own yogurt with a starter culture, ideally with raw milk from returnable bottles.

I have been mentioning this to a few people over the years but since the idea of ripple change came to me with the one small change commitment, I have been waxing lyrical about it all...

Veritable strangers who knock on the door find they are pressed with tastes of yogurt, sent links. Encouraged to try it themselves...

So far, I know of a few people who have gone from regular purchasing to making their own regularly. So on my figuring - only with the definites that I know about, I have changed 10 pots of shop bought yogurt a week into 10 pots of home made yogurt a week. At least 4 of those pots are using raw milk in returnable jars so that is about four milk cartons a week saved as well.

So the tally so far is 520 yogurt containers a week (with who knows how many food miles) and 104 bottles of milk a year. From me just mouthing off! Just imagine!

And that is just the beginning - if people think I am going to shut up now they are going to be sorely disappointed!

Still, that is just a drop in the ocean of what this post is about.

Really - the whole one small change project is about communication and encouragement and excitement. If you tell a neighbour or a friend about any good thing and they make only one small change in the year on account of your words - that is still a large ripple spinning out from a small conversation.

I have just chosen to use yogurt as my example. I would like to think that over the next 10 years, my words, enthusiasm and encouragement will be responsible for thousands and thousands of yogurt containers NOT being made from oil and thousands of litres of yogurt NOT being shipped from one side of our vast nation to the other.

Like I said in my last one small change post - just think of the pile of yogurt containers from the year of your family eating yogurt - or 10 years or the life of your child?

Surely - you too could consider making your own yogurt? Sourcing local milk in glass containers?

If you would like to - go to this post to find out how!

(I'll hop off my soap box now - but welcome to my community!

Come change with me!)

(1) every child needs sand and water

When my first boy was just small, I was chatting to a friend - a child psychologist from Germany. She said one of the most important things to a child's development was sand and water play. She talked about how schools, playgroups and kindys are minimising and cleaning up and taking away sand and water play. She was concerned that the 'system' had no idea of the consequence of these actions - the long term consequence for educational and social and behavioural development.
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We don't want a tidy life and OHSW ticks do we?
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Don't we want happy, fulfilled and joyful children?

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I hadn't really thought about sand and water much at that point, but in the years that have passed I have come to realise the benefits of sand and water play.
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I suspect sand and water play is one of the nearest things to meditation for a child.

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With water and sand so much goes on for kids. It is absorbing and can take them to kitchens, work sites, the beach, houses, cities, gardens, the stars. It can bring friends to visit real and far away. It can provide a space not just to play but to do real and important work and replay ideas and thoughts.
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Of course having joy filled good times goes without saying. And naturally there is always some learning about things like sand in eyes, bottoms, mouths and nappies. Still - life wasn't meant to be just about the Ferris wheel was it?
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Texture and sensation; size, shape, consequence, reaction, mix, make, be, repeat, under and over, hard, soft, wet dry. Make, talk, represent, build, take down, repeat. Talk, reply, do, repeat.

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Be.
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When my first boy is tired or grumpy in the day - a sand pit meditation is what is required.

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When the heat is too much for my boys - a water meditation is what is required.
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When a day has been long and busy - a slow long bath meditation is what is required.
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The growing and thinking that my boys do in the bath, the sand pit and the bucket this year is more growing and thinking that I have done in the last ten years I suspect.

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If you haven't got a sand pit, sand box, sand shell or sand bucket at a pinch. you need one.
If you haven't put your kids in the bath for no reason at an odd time of day. You should think about it.
If you haven't put your baby in a bucket in the yard - you have no idea what you are missing out on.
Give your kids a bowl of water in the yard and a few wooden spoons and you will suddenly have time on your hands!
You will be surprised how sand in your bed and drenched children is more than made up for in joyful growing and being - the benefits will transform you all!
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Sand and water - well, I guess they have been here longer than all of us so they must be good! Cheap, easy and no special requirements - no wonder the 'institutions' and the 'system' promote the 'Hoozit wooly head space educational game for early learning' instead.
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Go on - get sandy. Get wet.

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ps. this series may occasionally or regularly land in the area of the 'bleedingly obvious' hope you don't mind but I always love to be reminded of the obvious as in my life, sometimes, I just forget it occasionally! Please let me know what you think...
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words...

the other day my partner and W were in the bathroom together.
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Neither had any clothes on.
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W said:
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Dad, you have hairs on your tentacles.
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every child...

A very good friend said to me today that she was surprised how little I had been posting. Lack of sleep gives you a foggy head - no interesting thoughts, no time, no enthusiasm I replied (or something like that, I can't remember). So she replied 'but isn't your space?'

I guess it is. I have been so tired that it is hard to be inspired and write correct sentences off the back of 4 1/2 hours sleep split into 3 sections. But she made me remember that in some of the house bound, tired moments in the past, which obviously I can't remember due to lack of sleep, blogging connected me, revived me and made me think, plan, craft, raised a heart beat, a thought and reminded me that there is a an 'I' somewhere in the madness of midnight mothering.

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Still, since I completed my slow series, another series has been pottering around in my head...

I loved writing, thinking about and hearing your thoughts on my slow thoughts. It was great doing the series as it got me thinking - helped me grow.

So I am going to poke this idea out into live space and see what happens.

Stay tuned if you want to think about what every child needs...

Come grow with me again...

Womadelaide

Amidst my tiredness, a beautiful friend gave us last minute cheap tickets to Womad. How could we resist? Having an event like this in your hometown - in park lands between the zoo and the botanical garden - is amazing but one more of the fabulous arts events we get to take for granted in Adelaide.
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T and I went for one night last year but this year but this year we all went and indulged!
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Amazing performance preparation - face painting that took most of the day! These people lay still for hours and hours! Mind you, in my sleep deprived state I think I might audition just for the lying down part!
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Being a kangaroo. A crucial part of it all apparently!
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Loads and loads of watching and listening. We saw lots of different acts from local Indigenous performances to world famous big names to things we had never heard of. We tended to wander rather than plan...
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Of course oodles of groovy dancing. My son seems to save some of his most special grooves for Indian style music!
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And then do it all again the next day!
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What a fabulous event - so great for families!
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What amazing stuff does your home town boast and host?
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March 5th

2010: cinnamon rolls

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2009: yabbies

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2008: Japan


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When you get stuck inside too much...
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Go out if you can.
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The outside, is, just outside after all...
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or
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Enjoy remembering...
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and plan the next chapter...


What were you doing on March 5th?
What might you be doing on March 5th next year?
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sleep...

I slept for three hours in a row last night.
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The first time I have done that in over two months.
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We even had a long phase - over two weeks I think - where my lovely happy boy K would only sleep for 20 - 40 minutes at a time.
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Oh sleep.
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So useful.
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What do you think?
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