Gabrielle Gassin

A mother’s musings on life

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  • An Important Reminder: on loving your kids.

    I write this to the chorus of mama, I love you by The Spice Girls and I am overwhelmed by feelings of gratitude for my life. Today I’ve had both of my boys home because one is coughing like a baby seal and the other hasn’t stopped since four am, so they’re not exactly a picture of health. But it doesn’t matter, because this morning I walked into the living room and they were sitting together on the lounge, reading the story, “boys will be…” to each other. “Boys will be…kind, loving, funny, respectful, playful,” and it goes on. Moments like these are, of course, interspersed with those same boys whacking each other, yelling and screaming at one another followed by tears and tears and tears, and then there’s also the growling, the use of various random items as weapons, the refusal to eat, sleep and drink, among many more. But when it’s beautiful, wow. There is nothing else like it that exists, and what truly fills me with disbelief is the knowledge that it really is so fleeting. The thought of it – of a floor covered in toys, of a home cooked, half eaten meal, of load after load after load of washing, of minimal time to myself, gone, feels just like a dagger to the emotional heart.

    Being “home” with the kids, one is privy to certain experiences that would make even the childless adult cluck their feathers, a lurch in the reproductive organs reminding them of their inescapable, primordial instinct to procreate. Today, I overheard Aston playing with some toys, using the word “humpdink.” Apparently, it’s his own interpretation of a character from a Disney cartoon book. Later on he told Arlo, “you to have this ball (pats soccer ball) and you not to hurt me.” Even typing these little bits and pieces here is diminutive though, taking away from the angelic two year old voice, the acquisition of English and all the grammar it entails, and the development of this small person. The culminating effect of two and a half years of absorption being reproduced in his actions, is really something to behold.

    Days like today, when I’ve had sufficient sleep to function as a moderately capable person who doesn’t lose her shit multiple times for reasons that really, are not worthy of such a reaction, these are the days that make all of the other days worthwhile. I was reminded that this time will not last for ever (gulps lump in throat) and one day my boys won’t even be living in the same house as me – although Arlo has disclosed to us that he will be living with us forever because he doesn’t want to get married. He also cried at the thought of having to move away from us.

    My unsolicited advice to you is to cherish those little ones. Bend to your child’s height, look him in the eye when he tells you how Bakugans unfold and how Miles Morales became the Black Spider-Man, and listen when things emitted from his mouth don’t make sense because you’ve lost your sense of childlike imagination and it looks like a lopsided hat, not a snake eating an elephant, and read him a book when he needs to hear it from you, and give him a mummy cuddle when he’s the one in the wrong because the day will come when he doesn’t want it anymore and that will hurt most of all, and for god’s sake don’t give him everything he asks for. Postponed gratification is one of the most important building blocks for a stable person – that, and your time, so give it! And if you don’t have it, make it. Re-arrange your life for your children because that’s what having children is about and they need it, and we need it, because they are the future for everybody on this planet and they thrive when they are LOVED.

    Every one of us has days that are hard, and some days I’m sure most of us wonder how we’re going to get through them. For the majority, though, we do. And things are never quite as bad in hindsight; that’s the joy of time passing. You can only sample the memory of a really tough time as you do a delicious wine at a tasting. But you don’t want more of the bad stuff, so you look to right now, and then you look ahead. And then, your child throws your car keys at you and it actually hurts your finger, but then he takes your hand and he kisses it, and he says “sorry, mummy,” into your eyes and what’s more he pulls your head in and cuddles you…and you know you really are going to be okay.

  • “Parenthood”

    I was awoken at 1:52am to the sound of my earbuds dying. I had fallen asleep during my meditation at 10pm and slept, for once, soundly, until that annoying little noise disturbed my slumber. At 3am my sleep is broken again, this time by the distressed cries of my toddler: “Mama! Mama!” Lurching down the hallway, I spend five minutes resettling him. Then, toilet. Then, bed. Then, 4am. The toddler again. Followed by the five year old. And then, everyone is in the bed, and no one wants to sleep anymore. It was night, and now it’s day, and where did the sleep disappear to?

    Two boys are ready for the day, but are they really? The little one spends the first hour whinging, being intermittently antagonised by the bigger one. The first slice of peace happens once there’s toast making its way from the plate to his mouth. And then. I notice: There is vomit on the floor and all through the dogs bed. Good. I strip the mattress and pile the blankets, instructing my two year old to stay away from the wet floor, whilst fielding questions about the crucial location of a superhero colouring book from the older boy.

    Arlo is half way through his toast when the window of plopportunity arises, and he decides to take his Lego with him, so that he can play whilst sitting there; he later reports to me. Initially, though, he comes out of the toilet to ask me if I have a pair of rubber gloves handy, in order to rescue a piece of Lego from inside the toilet bowl. Said Lego, a piece of armour, is floating in amongst pee and soggy paper. I was thrilled to have been selected to carry out this task for my child.

    Following this, Aston takes only moments to revert to toddler tantrum mode, whereby an absolute necessity arises for him to be seated on the kitchen bench whilst I load ingredients into the Thermomix. I surrender to his two year old desires in the hope that it might buy me a few minutes of tranquility to make my god damn banana bread, which is of course, for the children. The moment lasts approximately two minutes, until he decides to lay on his tummy on the bench, and one of his adorable, fat little feet kicks over my full cup of hot coffee. Why, why, why. I become, what I feel in hindsight is unreasonably angry, with the latest little thing being the straw that broke the camel’s back. I am an angry, angry camel.

    When I reflect on such a morning, I consider sadly that it is more a frequent occurrence than not. Most mornings are filled with chaos. Most mornings involve me yelling at someone, whether the children or the animals. Sometimes I just growl really loudly, and that scares everyone enough anyway. And, I always feel guilty afterwards.

    I spend the aftermath of such an experience always wondering how damaging my anger has been to my innocent children. Today’s morning was particularly bad, with my younger son absolutely losing it over me having cut his toast, as opposed to…not cutting it. As I have every single day for over 12 months. I had to take him outside in the cold twice to calm him down, but I was angry…I wasn’t calm myself, which is counter intuitive. The little ones feed off the energy of the big ones, etc.

    And those are the moments that I hate myself, for not being the lighthouse in the storm for my children. For not being that mother that floats around the house, angel-like, softly spoken even when the opponent is absolutely firing hard, and fast and unrelenting. I find it difficult, despite being someone who closely analyses her behaviour, to alter mine. Especially when my body and brain haven’t rested properly due to a nightmare of sleep.

    Am I allowed to burst without regret? The fresh, cold air was supposed to calm a sad and grumpy boy down, but am I attempting unreasonably to reason with a two year old child, telling him to take some deep breaths through his nose whilst he alternates between squelchy sobs and banshee screams, and “I need a mummy cuddle” ? How do I keep my own acrimony in check without subsequently falling apart in contrition?

    Being the parent in charge is both a beautiful and a challenging role. The beautiful moments, of which there are absolutely many, fill me with gratitude and love. The challenging moments force me to question everything about who I am, and the choices I’ve made. I suppose the benefits of the patience-testing are that they foster a longing for improvement, so that future me can reflect on the pandemonium without self-condemnation.

    The so-short days are fractured with many opportunities for education, and as parents we mostly do seize those junctures without permanently injuring the emotional development of our children. What would be good to have is a radar, so that we can gauge child behaviour against parental response, and know that they are both within reason. And then respond in an adequately calm, even-tempered manner. Is there such a helping thing, in this day and age? Oh wait. There is. It’s called Experience, I think. Or maybe it’s alcohol. Or Valium? Or is it marijuana? Somebody let me in on the floating-mum secret, please.

  • Goat-scapades

    Yesterday, a Prado rolled down the gravel driveway which was white, originally, but looked as though it had been sprayed with red dirt. It had a trailer attached, and inside were three little goats.

    I was putting the little boy down for his nap when I heard my older child gasp and then obnoxiously open the bedroom door. “The GOATS!” he whispered loudly. Naturally I told him to shush and close the door.

    The next two hours was spent altering some existing accommodation to accommodate the new friends. Weaned, six months old, two girls and a boy. They were flighty after having travelled 170km and quivering, the winter’s day not being too kind to their lean bodies and young coats.

    We enclosed them in a disused vegetable garden, which had most fences already intact. The husband turned Farm Man in his red flannelette shirt, which he insisted was absolutely necessary now that we live on acreage, was literally handed a small goat to move from trailer to pen, and it seemed to attain a relative sense of calmness in his arms.

    They started nibbling grass straight away, and we set up a piece of colourbond scrap against one opening. Having seen them run, it would not be a pleasant experience to have them free on seven acres set between two roads and not properly fenced. Writing this now, I feel like we were somewhat unprepared for their arrival. In fact, I found out they were coming a mere 36 hours before – not a lot of preparation time.

    They seemed quite content, and when I told Shane they needed a shelter, he set up a makeshift one for the time being. I then disappeared for a few hours to clean our other house, and it was only after dinner and once the kids were asleep that I got down there to check on them. I was worried about them in the rain and the cold, so wanted to make sure they were using the shelter.

    Now, I have a thing about living “remotely;” we are not at all remote because we have neighbours within walking distance BUT being surrounded by trees and darkness at night has certain a creepiness to it, which reminds me constantly of the last scary movie I saw, YEARS ago whereby a woman who is living on her own is attacked by a free range murderer who actually first kills her friend, having just left her place to walk back to her own property next door. There are several pretty huge dissimilarities with myself and this woman, the big one being that the main character is actually deaf, BUT going out in the darkness puts me on high alert for lurking murderers.

    Shane knows about my unreasonable fear of being murdered. I think that it’s for this reason that he approved me going down to check on the little goats before bed, in case he was ever out and I had to do it all alone. “Practice,” I believe they call it these days. AND OF COURSE. When I’m down there, a car pulls up outside the fence and remains there with its high beams on me – the only moving object for many many metres around. It was obvious that once the lights hit me, they decided not to continue driving. I turned my torchlight off my phone, and froze in the darkness hoping someone wasn’t coming to kill me. I sent Shane a quick text. I remained there for several minutes and so did the weirdos in their car, engine running alongside my growing suspicion.

    I decided I couldn’t stay there all night, despite knowing that moving to the gate would put me in direct line of sight of the headlights. Bravely, (I know) I took the plunge and moved to open the gate, squatting down then quickly twisting the wire back through and hooking it as firmly as I could under the pressure of Flight Mode. As I was finishing what I thought was a stable closure and preparing myself to run, MF, run, who appears but my husband. In his new Nike slides and pyjamas. Gratefully, I hurriedly pointed out the car still parked with bright lights shining, though I needn’t have done so because in the darkness it was as clear as day that this wasn’t normal.

    It was wet, cold and dark and accessing the exterior of the property would involve ducking and weaving through dirt and bush, so after trying to to signal the car by using our own phone lights pointed in their direction, we retreated to the house and checked that all the doors were locked. I also then called Crime stoppers (131 444) and reported this little occurrence. The car remained there for some time – we checked every few minutes from the house, and I continued to wait for some creepo to appear at one of my windows.

    We found it funny that of course, something weird happened when I went down the back, given my aforementioned trepidation. Anyway, the rest of the night passed uneventfully – unless you count several wake ups courtesy of two small boys, one husband snoring very disagreeably and one toddler trying to sleep literally on top of your face. We weren’t killed, and that’s a bonus.

    Scene set: Monday morning. Work day, school day, daycare day. One human trying to get herself and two small ones out of the house dressed, fed and prepared for the day. New goats in the backyard…let’s take them some vegetable scraps and check in on their welfare. Long shot: Goat pen. Close up: ONE goat in the pen. Close up: Gabrielle’s face – despair. Two goats had escaped the pen, the girls, actually, and our boy was inside the enclosure clearly forlorn at his mateys having exited. Panic. Time was lapsing literally by the moment, and the goats were foraging in the scrub. I glanced up at my bedsheets hanging on the Hills Hoist and wondered how long it would take the goats to realise they could have something other than grass for morning tea, given the clichéd and popular notion that “goats eat EVERYTHING!”

    Following this, I sent several spam-like texts to Shane conveying the sense of alarm I was feeling, and when he didn’t immediately reply or call me, I called him…twice. Because he didn’t pick up the first time. And then the second time, he answered with a somewhat exasperated tone, as I had clearly inflicted a disturbance upon his morning ritual. Absorbing the information that the goats were loose, however, Farm Man threw on his imaginary Akubra and galloped home to save the day. He and our five year old spent the next hour low to the earth, channelling their inner goat in order to herd the chicky babes back into their pen. Wild.

    To think that two weeks ago, we lived on a normal suburban block with the biggest issue being our neighbours disliking the dachshund barking is a little bit mind blowing. It’s real and true that now, we are facing a different reality entirely, which is certainly going to evolve rapidly. An interesting adventure, it’s sure to be. Stay tuned!

  • Book Recommendations

    I’ve been reading. And at least I’ve been reading, whilst I haven’t been writing. For this reason, I’ve decided to share the books I’ve finished, because I only finish them when they’re worth my time. I can pick up a book and drop it (either instantly or within the week) because I know it’s not going to tickle my mind in the most perfect way. I have friends who persist, purely because it’s a task they’ve begun and feel the need to finish…but not me. I will not drink a glass of bad wine, and I will not read a bad book.

    Here are the titles I’ve read in the last 12 months, that I wholly believe are worth reading. They are in no particular order, except for those written by Lian Hearn, as they’re part of the most wonderful series I’ve ever experienced.

    There are 14 books here. So if you can manage to read one book per month of the year, you’ll get them all done with two spares. And if you devour words, of course you’ll be done sooner. I’m not going to review, I just want to share them so that others can experience the melange of emotions I did when I had the privilege of turning those many hundreds of pages.

    Thank you to my friend Helene, who has the same taste in printed word as I do and recommended many of these.

    Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens

    The Secret History – Donna Tartt

    American Dirt – Jeanine Cummins

    The Last Migration – Charlotte McConaughey

    A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

    Melmoth – Sarah Perry

    Across the Nightingale Floor – Lian Hearn

    Once there were Wolves – Charlotte McConaughey

    Grass as his Pillow – Lian Hearn

    Pony – RJ Palacio

    Brilliance of the Moon – Lian Hearn

    The Harsh Cry of the Heron – Lian Hearn

    Goldfinch – Donna Tartt

    All the Light we cannot See – Anthony Doerr

    I would love to hear your reports, if you do get your hands on these beauties or if you’ve read them already. Comment on this post or get in touch with me if you have my number.

    Big Love so

  • On life:a reflective reflection

    Sleep quietens the hive of action from the outside world. Once slept on, if the mind settles deeply enough to allow it, a problem is no longer seated at the height of unease and uncertainty, but seems more approachable and solvable. Such is the glory of a full night of rest. It is simply that – glorious, for brain and body to stop. Because at this moment in history, us young people are overwhelmed with doing life, working hard trying to look like we’re not struggling, not even a little bit, in fact not at all.

    It is not now, as it always was. Of course, such is the passage of time; expectation and understanding of change is compulsory. Now, no longer is it suitable to simply find a girl, settle down, if you want you can marry. You can do these things, yes, but it doesn’t either abruptly or even slowly finish at that.

    You have to grow, in any way possible.

    Grow your body in the right way. Look after it and continue to learn how to nourish it, and then teach others how to fix their own, which they have probably lost control of themselves.

    Pass on information in the hope for the altruistic success of those also on the path. Don’t hold one single job – do many things, most of the time and perpetuate learning and growth by learning and growing. Find things out, and lodge them somewhere accessible in the recesses of your grey matter. Share them too, because the wealth of one is the wealth of all.

    Develop personally. Receive information, layer it onto your person and embody its code to keep improving yourself. Grow. Be better and strive for more, and don’t stop there – teach others the way how-to and what-with because what good is a life alone?

    Keep your temper at bay. Practice methods to calm it, for uncontrolled rage is the enemy of mediation. Practice accepting your flaws but continue to try and outwit them. Learn some more. Keep your hair untangled, your skin unblemished and your attitude clean. Be outspoken – stand firm on your values and do not be stamped upon by compliance if all things are not aligned for you. Save your money, but not too much because you have to live now, now, now.

    Take time to yourself, for looking after yourself improves your ability to look after others. Don’t overdo it though, because others must come before the self now and always, all the time, for ever and that’s why self care is necessary at all.

    In your everyday be careful to be carefree, but not careless. You have to care some, yes, but with only exactly the right amount. Too much will be seen as obsessive and not enough classed as selfish or ignorant. It is a challenge to balance it all but what would life be if it wasn’t the top balancing act of a show played out by absolute amateurs?

  • Looking For Something

    It’s becoming clear to me as I travel through life that a sense of satisfaction is transient for many of us. Framed in myriad ways by thousands who have come before, is the concept that we are all on a similar expedition; we are all Looking For Something.

    Sometimes the desire to satisfy this at times, seemingly unquenchable thirst is entirely what drives a person: to set and complete daily habits, to work every day towards Goals. But what if you, the hunter, are in the forest with all the right gear…but you don’t know what your target is? There’s a recurrent feeling pervading our thirtysomething-year-old psyche: this notion that we are standing blindfolded, bodies clothed yes, but our fumbling hands are anxious, feeling around for something stable to calm a mind that is naked of fulfilment.

    The search for meaning is perpetual; for when one thing fills us up and even spills over the edge of the cup, contentment is rife and satisfaction abundant. But slowly, it seems as if the cup has a sad little leak. With it, the bounty of meaningful joy seeps out, the question begins to niggle and eventually the voyage begins again. But hope isn’t lost, for the desire to go Looking For Something with Purpose will bring Purpose to the seeker, and hopefully too, those who follow in her wake.

  • Bare feet | a prompt

    Barefoot bliss is a state of being experienced only by some of our kind. As we all know, us humans walked the earth barefoot for millennia and were content to do so, before the invention of shoes. Nowadays, shoes play an absolutely pivotal role in several areas of society. Not only is footwear there to provide the feet with a barrier of safety from the nastiness of city pavement, it also enforces stereotypes of class, providing yet another system of segregating those who are essentially born equal.

    Removing shoes from a scenario altogether conveys one of two messages: either your shoe-clothing is embarrassingly out of shape for the environment you’re entering, or you are rediscovering a lost connection with Mother Earth. The latter, when being observed by a shoed onlooker, would be accompanied by an assessment of clothing, hair and jewelry as to judge whether the “hippy” archetype fits the build. Generally this image is accepted.

    Age is also a strong determinant of characterising a shoe-less person. The younger the culprit is, the more accepting we seem to be. Many parents encourage children to go without shoes: perhaps attempting to keep aflame that primitive desire we have as humans not to shod our feet in man-made materials like plastic and rubber. Children are closer to what we innately are; the biases and rules of culture are yet to infiltrate untainted minds – so this might feasibly explain such behaviour.

    If one is exposed to a grown person, in public, wearing daily attire but without shoes, a silent and scathing critique would at first ensue, followed by a realisation that this person might actually be in grave danger – perhaps he or she removed their shoes to flee. No offer of help would follow this inaudible verdict, however, despite the self-made justification. Why else would a person be barefoot in public?

    What a strange and interesting thing we have created by designing and producing covering for our feet.

  • Birds (in your head and on your screen) | a prompt

    If you’re in the realm of disposable income that allows you to spend in excess of three hundred dollars on a little piece of technology to assist in your meditation practice, you’d want to hear the birds that sing when you hit the bliss brain wave.

    The ‘Muse‘ headset application plays the lovely sound of gentle, chirping birds, when your brain remains in a state of calm for long periods of time. It’s quite nice to use, really, and one feels a sense of real achievement when there are multiple birds listed on the review and tracking screen.

    But this isn’t a sales pitch. The question potentially more fitting for those serious meditators – is this the sort of device that would be used by a Tibetan Monk? Trust our generation of humans to take an age old practice and modernise it by convincing people they should wear a special little headband to meditate, and then check over a fun little series of graphs and charts to see what progress was made. Our consumerism-driven society is alive and well in 2021, that’s for sure.

    I’m informed that evidently, the name of this little game is ‘bio feedback’. For correcting and practicing the art of meditation, receive real-time feedback about how your brain is dancing whilst you sit still and breathe. Well, why not, I suppose. If you do have the sort of aforementioned cash to throw around on this little treasure, you’ve probably also got a lot of noise in your brain that a bit of assistance and good natured nudging could help to dislodge. Good natured, because you can choose either the beach or the rainforest to listen to during your practice. The thing monitors when your brain goes haywire: (did I lock the front door? Is that the baby crying? Is there enough bread for breakfast?) and plays increasingly stormy weather in order to jolt you back into the ether. Once you’re calm for an extended period, the birds start – and then theres no going back.

    A luxurious purchase, for sure. Excessive, some might even say. But worth it? That’s for you to decide. Meanwhile, I’m going to borrow my husband’s to see what all the fuss is about.