No news is...

This year seems to be out to prove the accuracy of the “No news is a good news” saying. It started with the natural disasters and there were plenty of bad news since. Granted there were lots of good news so far as well, mostly of the “new baby” variety, however last few months were stressful due to various changes in our lives and I’m feeling more and more nostalgic about the previous unexciting, nothing-is-happening, everyday-is-ordinary-day year.

Today’s news is that I doN’T have thyroid cancer. This in itself is great news, but it came with the weeks of tension and worry. While she was here, my mum noticed a lump on my neck. My thyroid gland was slightly enlarged for years and I had blood tests done previously to check that it is functioning correctly. I wasn’t too concerned (most of the time, though occasional fearful thought would flutter through my mind), but made the earliest possible appointment to see our GP. In England one has to be registered with a GP/GP clinic and can’t see just any one. The one, we are registered with, is very oversubscribed so the earliest appointment was 1.5 weeks away. During it I was told to book a blood test and a referral was sent to the hospital for the ultrasound. Another week until I could see a nurse to get the blood tests done. They came back normal and I started getting a bit more worried. Another two and a half weeks wait for the ultrasound. Finally on Friday morning I went to the hospital hoping to hear that everything was fine and I had nothing to worry about; instead the doctor, after performing the ultrasound, told me that she had to do fine needle aspiration biopsy and since I had Max with me I had the option of giving him to the nurse to hold or coming back some other day. I didn’t want to wait even longer, so Max went to the nurse, the doctor performed the biopsy and told me that she’ll recommend the referral to thyroid specialist as my GP won’t have a clue of what the results mean.

What’s the first word that comes to your mind when you hear biopsy? Right. I walked home in total shock, trying not to burst into tears. At home I read a lot about thyroid cancer, cried a bit, went to pick up my daughter, made dinner constantly wondering what are the chances that I have cancer and hoping that I don’t. Probably thinking the same way as everyone does “I’m too young… I have two young children… One of them is not even 3-months old… etc… it can’t be cancer” I’m grateful that my husband is a positive, caring, loving person and talking to him puts me into more optimistic and peaceful state of mind. I altered my search parameters to something along the line of “neck lump without cancer” and all of the sudden the search results were creating a more positive picture of the possible outcomes of the tests. Both kids came down with a cold that evening, which was very helpful as it gave me something else to concentrate on.

On Tuesday I got a phone call from the GP to organize the appointment to discuss the results (they don’t call if the results are normal) – the earliest appointment Monday 7pm. I called back the next day to see if it was possible to see the doctor earlier as it was hard not to fret and imagine all sorts of unpleasant scenarios, and while the receptionist couldn’t tell me what the results meant (not being medically trained), she reassured me that if it was something serious they would see me the same or next day. So another week of waiting only to find out that the ultrasound doctor was right and my GP couldn’t interpret the results even with the help of a Google search. He requested an urgent referral to a specialist (urgent == to be seen within two weeks) and printed out the results for me. I knew that thanks to my previous work in IT I would be much better at finding out information using Google than he was, so more research was done that evening. It looked like I didn’t have cancer, though there was possibility that the test results could be inconclusive (I couldn’t tell for sure with all the various similar looking medical terms). The hospital called next day – they had available appointment in one weeks time on Wednesday. And today I went to the hospital, waited for extra 40 minutes trying to stay calm and got seen ahead of some other people, because Max was getting unhappy, and FINALLY found out for sure that there weren’t any cancerous cells and I had nothing to worry about. I was happy, relieved, grateful. I didn’t realise the full strength of the emotions until I noticed myself shaking after leaving the hospital.

If you want to find me I’ll be hiding under a nice woollen blanket trying to process all the emotions I went through in the last few weeks. Please, (for now) don’t bring any news with you.

Staying in UK

Malander had an idea and was trying to work it out, but it would take him time. Sometimes people never saw things clearly until it was too late and they no longer had the strength to start again. Or else they forgot their idea along the way and didn't even realise that they forgotten.
Trove Jansson The Summer Book

--
Due to my husband's work commitments will be staying in UK for another 2.5-3 years. In the last few months (years?) I was trying to imagine how our lives would be on coming back to Australia. I guess now it is time to look at my life here and find that idea, which will make it more interesting, challenging, satisfying.

Random

I love spring, but I feel restless: I want to move, change my life, travel, discover new places, try something new. Feeling restless and taking care of a newborn doesn’t make for a great combination.

I used to laugh that my parents moved to a different side of the country from their families, I moved to a different side of the world from them and so my children will have to move to a different planet to keep up the tradition. Suddenly with all the talk about the private space flights and the new interest in the developing of the space technologies I’m starting to wonder if travelling (and living) beyond Earth will be a possibility for my children. And if they do move far away would I, who would happily run away from home to join the Starfleet if it existed, be able to understand and accept?

Speaking of Star Trek – forget about transporting to a surfaces of the different planets, wouldn’t it be cooler if you could beam a fresh clean nappy onto your newborn in the middle of the night? “Beam it on, Scotty”

On Wednesday morning the nappies seemed to fit just right, by Wednesday evening they were leaking and looked a bit small. Of course I just bought two packs on Tuesday morning, so now we have one pack of newborn size one nappies left over.

In the last few months my daughter started to preface her future dreams with “When we move to Australia and have a big house…” I suspect this is due to the combination of our friend going back to Sydney, my talk of homesickness for Australia and spending online time researching the property prices in Melbourne. So far we have
“When we move to Australia and have a big house, can we plant palm trees at the front?”
“When we move to Australia and have a big house with a big backyard; we can have 4, no 5, chickens”
“When we move to Australia and have a big house with a big backyard; we can plant an apple seed and see what will happen”
“When we move to Australia and have a big house with lots of big trees we can build a tree-house” (there is one in the local neighbourhood not too far from us, which must be the envy of all local kids.)
“When we move to Australia and have a big house, baby and I will be able to sleep in one room, so the baby doesn’t get scared at night”
“When we move to Australia and have a big house, we should also have some rabbits, so we can brush them and spin yarn from their hair” (She wanted to try spinning yarn out of our hair, but I had to tell her that we’ll need sheep fleece or angora rabbits hair. At least there is no talk of keeping sheep as yet)
Between her dreams and mine the definition of the perfect home is becoming very precise. In reality if we ever move back, based on the current property prices in Australia, we’ll be lucky to buy a shoebox.

Ironically eight months previously she was adamant that she doesn’t want to live anywhere else in the world as this is our home and we belong here.

Labels and haircut

Last night I missed a step while walking downstairs and ended up on the floor in a lot of pain. I feel pretty silly about spraining my ankle in my own house and frustrated at the limited ability to move around. As the result today we are spending most of the time on the couch and on the floor: reading books, making puzzles, watching TV and sending strange emails and SMSs to my husband (my daughter seems to be at the stage of the total fascination with the letters and the various form of communication, which also includes making and sending birthday cards). In reply my husband sent me a link to this article about another study into how mothers’ working choices affect the childrens’ weight. Does it seem to say that thoughtful parenting, healthy eating and physically active lifestyle are the keys to raising a healthy/happy/etc child? I feel that most studies like this one (or at least the way they are reported in the media) raise a lot of questions without providing interesting or helpful answers. Maybe I would feel differently if the news reports included graphs and numbers.

While trying to find (unsuccessfully) the actual numbers to see how significant the differences were I stumbled on this article. How many of us think of ourselves in terms of the job titles? How many of the mothers would label themselves a janitor and a psychologist? Maybe I should add a hairdresser to the list of my titles. 10-points to Rachael for spotting that my daughter has a new haircut. Few weeks ago I got frustrated at the tangled mess that her hair was becoming and timidly trimmed a bit off. The success of doing it myself spurred me to try cutting her hair even shorter yesterday and after watching this video on youtube we ended up with this (I obviously need more practice and better scissors).

Spring

Thaw
Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed
The speculating rooks at their nests cawed
And saw from elm-tops, delicate as flower of grass,
What we below could not see, Winter pass.
Edward Thomas

--
The snowdrops were photographed in Brighton more than two weeks ago. There are signs of spring all around, but the winter's cold and rain don't seem to want to pass. I long for the spring and all it brings: the warmth, the blue skies, the sunlight, the promise of new discoveries and accomplishments, the lifting of the soul, the renewal.

Beloved

I was recently taking a long bath, partially because I like to, but mostly because we no longer had any working showers in the house. And the realisation of my own uniqueness suddenly hit me. Let’s see how many Russian women, who lived in Australia and are now living in UK and are married to South African and love painting, drawing & crafting do you know? But this awareness of my exceptionality went beyond all these and other random attributes I may be able to list about myself. I used to say that we are all unique, but this was different. For the first time I marvelled at how beautiful, precious and special I am. Not because of how I look or what I do or don’t do, but just because I am. And how I feel about myself or my current place in life at any given point in time doesn’t change the fact of my uniqueness.

I’m afraid that by this point you are rolling your eyes in the amusement or the incredulity at my self-centeredness. But do you know what the logical conclusion of that realisation is? I can’t do anything, but believe that each one of you is unique in a very beautiful and precious way. And I hope that instead of raising an objection to my momentary ability to treasure you and myself, you can smile and celebrate yourself as you are at this moment in time.

I’m back (yet again)

I took this photo of the snow and a robin planning to wish you all Merry Christmas, only to discover on trying to upload it that our Internet router died completely. And then we went to Cape Town at the exact time when I needed to escape the multiple levels of confusion, stress and self-doubt, in which I was slowly wrapping my everyday life. And there, having time to sit still without thoughts of n0t-done housework and ever-growing ToDo lists nagging at the back of my mind; I achieved some sort of clarity and found some answers. They were scattered like little gemstones through watching the children play joyfully and freely, the sincere warmth of family and friends, slow evening conversations and accidental book choices. Ah, I discovered that looking through my sister-in-law’s books is a dangerous activity for someone who already has too many dreams and interests. I finally got to read up on permaculture and now want to attempt to grow a bit more than just carrots.

Carrots - August 2009

After glancing through a book on cob building I’m dreaming of building a small round house for my studio one day. And do I really need the desire to try out Papier Mache for the first time in my life when I’m already struggling to figure out how to find time to practice crochet, knitting, drawing, sewing?

And then we were back to London covered in snow and grey clouds and somehow this time the subdued colours of my surroundings didn’t trigger the feelings of dejection and gloom, but made me feel at home. And yet, in Cape Town from the first breath of warm air I felt sharply homesick for Australia.

Eucalyptus leaves in Cape Town

Home is where the heart is. Sometimes it feels like my heart is shattering into ever smaller and smaller fragments, but I also know it is getting filled by being able to observe the beauty of so many different places and various people.

And eventually the Internet was fixed and I am back here. But I have a chest infection and am on antibiotics for a week, which are making me feel very weak and worse than the infection did on its own. I haven’t made any New Year’s resolutions regarding regular blogging, so no promises about the next time I’ll write.

Christmas traditions

Oh, jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh

--
Recently one of my friends, who doesn’t like the commercial side of Christmas, asked me about our Christmas traditions. I laughed and if you read my blog for awhile you’d laugh as well. Is buying a present for one’s husband on Christmas Eve a tradition? If it is, I broke it this year by getting his present back in November.

Despite of feeling that I personally don’t have any Christmas traditions (while my husband has plenty) or maybe because of my perceived lack of commonality between my own and my husband’s traditions, I managed to write her a very long email. And writing that email was the perfect step towards my decision to attempt to spend next year exploring celebrations from our (and maybe even other) cultures, in the attempt to figure out what really works for our little family.

This year our Christmas celebrations are turning out to be somewhat ad-hoc and slightly strange. The tiny plastic Christmas tree, given to us by our friends few years back, is standing in my daughter’s bedroom on her request, which we were happy to oblige due to the lack of good place for it downstairs. The Christmas lights are hanging in our bedroom, because this is the only place truly off-limits to our toddler visitor, who I don’t trust (potentially wrongly) not to try to pull them down. Together with my daughter I started decorating the house. I’m hoping to involve her into writing Christmas cards, baking and wrapping presents.



She learned two Russian New Year songs about Fir tree and now sings them randomly and whenever she sees anything remotely resembling a Fir tree. At the moment she is trying to master signing Jingle Bells by constantly asking to listen to it online.



I thought it would be fun to hear the jingle sounds during Christmas, but since we don't have any horses or reindeer I hanged some bells on our front door tied with the round brocade knot and the cross knots. According to ”Chinese Knots for Beaded Jewellery” the round pattern of the round brocade knot denotes good fortune, so it felt appropriate to have it next to the entrance to our house. I even bought the Christmas wreath to hang on the outside of the door.

I don’t want Christmas to be about getting large amount of presents and toys, but rather keep it as a celebration of our family and friendships, of our differences and similarities, of the gratitude for having food on our table, the roof over our heads, the skills and drive to make our surroundings and our life beautiful, of our joy for life.

Sucker for punishment?

Visitors left on Thursday late evening and came back today with the promise to move out on Wednesday. Fingers-crossed. I find it very hard to share a house with another parent, who has a different parental style to me and makes parental decisions with which I don’t always agree.

Ironically, I looked after my friend’s son few times previously and was surprised to discover that looking after two toddlers isn’t that much harder than looking after one. I guess having two kids in the house is the best possible preparatory experience all of us can have for a time when we’ll decide to add more children to our family, even though I suspect it’s still pretty different from actually having to parent two kids 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

What's that noise?

A friend and her almost three-year old son needed somewhere to stay for one week and our house was the only sensible option. With them they brought some of his plastic button pushing, light flashing, music making, battery-operated toys. And since my daughter doesn’t have any she loved playing with his today. At some point there were three of them singing three different equally horrible tunes all at ones. I have “A is for apple. D is for Dog” stuck in my head together with that unnatural extremely happy, over-enthusiastic voice that only battery-operated toys for babies and toddlers seem to have. That voice all on its own makes me feel irritable, stressed and grumpy. I think I’ll listen to some peaceful classical music before going to bed tonight. I'll need a totally different state of mind for getting through tomorrow.

The year of visitors

While the last year was the year of travel, this one turned out to be the year of visitors. I experienced so much joy chatting to people I love, sharing daily tasks with them and having some adult company during the day. New comers to London also remind me how magical this city is, how much there is to see and to do here. After five years many sites, customs, events that appeared amazing became familiar and marching through my daily life I forget to notice the beauty and wonder that surrounds me.

Royal Observatory, Greenwich Park

I always find it fascinating which small details various people notice. The latest visitor to London was surprised at how tame the birds and the squirrels are, so when we went to the local park I couldn’t resist taking some photos for her.



However there is a slight drawback to constant flow of guests. In between welcoming and saying farewell I swiftly lost my daily rhythm. And I rely on it to carry me through the days as much as most toddlers do. Without it I feel lost, dejected and unenthusiastic. It is so easy to spend my evenings in front of TV. Yet it’s exactly the wrong thing to do, so I’m slowly working towards re-establishing my routines. This week I serendipitously stumbled across Are So Happy blog, whose author is currently writing a series of posts on daily rhythm. She also posts a quote with a photo every Sunday – maybe it is time for me to resurrect my “quote of the week” posts under a new name. See you tomorrow with a quote.

Days without naps

I drew this sketch back when I was drawing everyday. I’m glad I did, as it helps me to remember the exact way she looked while sleeping at that age. So many moments fly away too quickly to be savoured and remembered.

She no longer naps, I no longer draw. There are advantages to the days unbroken by naps, but I’m still too new to this stage to savour them fully. She wakes up so early, we enjoy the day, she falls asleep also earlier than before. However, as morning person myself, after the fullness of the day I feel stuck in the dim fog. What were those brilliant ideas I thought up in the morning? Why was I excited about all the little things I noticed throughout the day? What did I want to share with you? Too tired and lost I start doing whatever happens to pop into my mind first. I used to wake up before everyone else to plan my day, to assign priorities, to choose few tasks to start or even to get done. Without the morning planning I feel that my life and my surroundings are too cluttered. I wish to step outside the front door, to hide away from my own life. Yet I know that I will adjust, I will figure out a way to simplify, to plan, to keep the excitement, to dream. I just need to give myself enough time to puzzle out this new shifted landscape of my life.