Digital immigrants

I once heard my favourite educationalist, Sir Ken Robinson, refer to the notion of 'digital immigrants' being all those born before the 80’s; while all those younger generations that attracted an alphabetical moniker are known as 'digital natives'. I lost track after the Baby Boomers…are we Gen Y, X or ‘i’?

OK, so I may be showing my age when I can recall the Apple IIe, PacMan, VCR v Beta, cassette recorders, record players, electric typewriters and having to get up to change the channel; but I think I can legitimately claim a visa into the new age.

I am now the proud owner of all things ‘i’ – iPhone, iMac, iPod and iPad. Apparently, we also have an AppleTV, seemingly a product that escaped the ubiquitous ‘i’ prefix…not sure what happened there, Steve? (Clearly, that was a rhetorical question to which I am not expecting an answer…)

It is really ironic, though. Before I met my geek husband, I was a big Apple fan, still am. I had always owned Macs; disregarded PCs as inferior Mac mimickers. In our early dating days, when my geek boyfriend (as he was at the time) was courting me, he would deride my loyalty to such a product.  I, in turn, would just bag him endlessly and call him a geek. (Surprising really that he hung around…)

But marry we did and slowly over the years I have crept up on him like an insidious virus that just won’t go away…he is now a MacMan – wishing he was Steve Job’s love child.

With this as a family context, it is no wonder that our love child is in fact 'digitally indigenous' - approaching digital media with all the confidence of one with no fear, nor understanding of its potential. Which leads me to my next point…

Lily’s first foray into digital communications.

Her first email

The fact that she can’t read or write yet is superfluous to requirements, apparently. She can email and no one is going to stop her…

Thankfully it went to a good friend who could decode child-speak! (Sorry, Leah!)

I would have made a good pope…

…or so the 37^th US President, Richard Nixon, thought. I am not sure how or why he arrived at that conclusion, however.

A fetish for dressing up in long bejewelled gowns, perhaps?

A proclivity for wearing tall pointy hats?

A tendency to drive around waving regally at passing crowds from a bullet-proof glass pope-mobile?

Or maybe he was just trying to get his kids into the local Catholic school.

Unbelievably, the time has come for us to start thinking about potential educational institutions for the short one. Being in the game (as opposed to on it…), I feel I am somewhat versed in all things ‘school’. But I quickly realised that looking in from the outside gives one a whole other perspective.

Not unlike Nixon, I am assuming, our lineage finds itself steeped in Catholic traditions. Both sides of the family spent years growing up in RC schools and for the main, it hasn’t done us any harm…well…except for maybe those subjected to the ways of the Sisters of ‘No’ [sic] Mercy. They did have a tendency to instil their values and beliefs via the swing of a cane…

But I digress. 


We thought we would try our luck at the local Catholic school and apply for enrolment. Aside from filling in more paperwork than at tax time, there is a set of criteria that one has to meet before you are even deemed suitable to hand over several thousand of your dollars, ensuring that sought after placement. Reading down this list, our chances seemed to be getting slimmer and slimmer…

1. Regularly worship at parish
2. Active parishioners
3. Frequent church attendance

It appeared that we needed to do a little bit more research into this gig. 


OK, so we know there are a number of truths within the Catholic faith.

1. They own the best real estate on top of every hill in every city and town on earth.
2. They love a good drink.
3. They feel guilty about everything.

Now, I would consider myself all over points 2 and 3 and in anyone’s books, two out of three are pretty good odds.

You know…I think I would have made a good pope!

Short one's baptism with her two beautiful God parents

Mud, mud, glorious mud…

These lyrics, from the Hippopotamus Song, are clearly lost on me.  I fail to see anything glorious about wet, dirty, sloshy product unless it is in the form of a face pack.

Two thirds of this family unit enjoy the whole gardening experience, whilst it is largely lost on me. The end results of manicured lawns and flowering beds I am all for, but the actual arriving at that point is not my thing.

Now, I am no Don Burke (for those of you who remember the 90s and the cottage industry of visually impaired knitters), but I wouldn’t have thought that mowing the lawns and having a bit of a tidy up entailed water and dirt. Apparently though I am grossly mistaken. In order to knock up a batch of mud pies, one needs one vital ingredient...mud.

So with a plumbers’ in hand (or tracky dack as the case may be), one set off to engage in this all time childhood rite of passage, whilst I went in search of the napisan.

Choose your five

Unless you have been living under a rock lately – or in a media vacuum, you would be aware of the latest move in the war on groceries.

An unprecedented mail-out of loyalty cards started a couple of weeks ago, to purportedly every household throughout Australia. I don’t believe in giving this mob any free publicity so I will refrain from mentioning any names, but I am sure you know to whom I refer.

Alongside this marketing mayhem is the opportunity to choose your own 5 products, in order to attract an additional discount, creatively referred to as My5. No doubt shareholders paid some overpriced marketing genius to come up with that catchy name.

OK…I admit it, I fell victim to the marketing and have signed up for the loyalty scheme.  Choosing My5 was a little more challenging though…there were just too many to choose from.

So here goes…here are my top 5...

Number 1: Trolleys that generally head in the vaguest of directions in which the handler wrestles it.

Number 2: Fruit and veg bags that easily open without the need for a forensic examination.

Number 3: Checkout staff that can readily discriminate between cold and non-cold product and equally as readily identify a cold bag from a non-cold bag.

Number 4: Close parent supervision of any short people using those ankle-destroying learner trolleys.

Number 5: No standing signs throughout the aisles preventing long-lost family and friend reunions.

Look, in fact I think I could go on here…I mean, why stop at 5...

Number 6: Staff training in basic vegetable identification – Tip: if it is not pre-packaged with barcode and appears to be leafy, green or bulbous it is more than likely an item your mother spent your formative years trying to get you to eat.

Number 7: Staff training in job satisfaction, effusion and variants in greetings. “Hi, how are you?” could in fact be modified so that you sound a little less programmed. 

Number 8: Staff training in product fragility determination – such as eggs or bread which I can guarantee will be worse off under the 1kg sugar and tins of tomatoes that you have just thrown in.

Number 9: Staff training in poisons identification and potential cross-contamination. Here’s an idea – don’t pack the cockroach baits with the baby food.

And lastly... 

Number 10: Trolley airbags – my car lays testament to all that is the run away trolley. Airbags are to be deployed immediately upon any detection of a hand release yet motion remains in play.

Ahh, grocery shopping! You gotta love it or hate it. It probably wouldn’t be so bad if you didn’t endure a financial haemorrhage at the end of each outing, just for the sake of keeping your family in nutritional value for the week…

Eating...it is so over-rated!

Names have been changed to protect the innocent

Inbuilt obsolescence

While toddlerhood presents with many varied challenges, I have taken solace in the fact that we have reached a point in time where many things have become obsolete. Bittersweet as it is, I have moved on to the next stage of motherhood with the removal of many baby relics.

I think it is safe to say that around three years into this gig, I can regain some real estate in my house.

My top five space savers:

1. The pram - I no longer need the biceps of Xena to wrestle the German engineered contraption into the boot. I have just realised that the short one has two working legs - and it's about time she used them.
2. The nappy sack- one of those baby accessories that you felt that you just couldn't live without. The one that you pained over when selecting, making sure it color coordinated with the nursery…only to find that a Huggies box was far more practical, stuff the colour scheme.
3. The change table – that raised mobile platform dedicated to all that is waste product.
4. The nappy bag - the one accessory that I was really glad to see the back of...regaining the handbag option was so liberating. I could be a big girl again! An over the shoulder accessory that contained grown up things, as opposed to nappies, wipes, nursing pads, nappy cream etc etc.
5. The toddler bed - progression from bassinette to cot to toddler bed was mostly predicated by necessity and polite medical advice. A head injury, an ambulance trip and 6 hours of neuro obs tend to prompt some serious re-thinking in terms of sleeping arrangements. Who would have thought that toddlers don't bounce?

To be honest, it was hard at first...those early pangs of 'my baby has grown up'. But then came the overwhelming feelings of freedom, space, maneuverability, independence...

I do have to keep myself in check though - I have successfully managed to un-encumber myself so much now, that I run the risk of throwing the baby out with the bath water...so to speak.

Do what you love and love what you do…the rest comes naturally.

What the ‘rest’ is I am not quite sure – but if you don’t follow the first bit one assumes ‘it’ doesn’t come naturally…

For me, it’s writing.  I love to write. It is soothing, infuriating, calming, frustrating, painful and confronting. Putting pen to paper as they did in the old days has been replaced by pixels to screen, but the creative flow remains the same.

Team O’Connor’s genesis was in the form of a digital post card, chronicling our European travels with a toddler in tow. It quickly became a labour of love, a ball and chain, a hypnotic tranquiliser capable of lulling me into another paradigm, away from my roles as mother, wife and daughter.

And now it has come of age…

The blog has been nominated under the parenting category in the Sydney Writers’ Centre Best Australian Blogs for 2012 competition. The People’s Choice awards are driven by you, the readers. A click of your mouse on the above hyperlink, a valid email address and a vote for Team O’Connor may just see the rest come naturally.

M xx

Metaphorically speaking…

I was caught out this week. I had arranged to meet with some dear friends for morning tea at a place of complete decadence. While I have to confess, the very thought of that consumed all my mental synapses, I completely forgot that the venue in question was also home to a man-made beach and water park for toddlers.

There was nothing else for it…unprepared as we were, the short one had to strip down to her undies and a great spontaneous time was had by all.

Later that afternoon, I was overheard saying that we had a fabulous time and the short one had a ball in her knickers. It was about then that I heard a little voice, somewhat perturbed, asking after the whereabouts of said ball in her knickers. It made me stop in my tracks and consider what I had just said. Unless she had lined up for some gender re-assignment, I also would be quite perturbed by this flippant comment.

But it was this very comment that got me thinking…Australian English is such a colourful language, it embraces native speakers in such a way that we don’t think twice about the continuum of literal to metaphorical. We think nothing of expecting our young ones to ‘pull their socks up’ or they will be ‘in the poo’. Just the other day I asked the short one to ‘wrap her laughing gear around her vegemite sanger quick sticks so we could get on the frog and toad and get going.’

Now, I knew what I said…and many other Aussies would too, but for one who is just embarking on the journey that is language it was perhaps a little confronting. And I suppose, non-Australian English speakers would struggle to recognise it as their first language too.

Not for a minute though, am I thinking of tempering my language (except for maybe some of the bad…). Australians, sadly, have a poor record when it comes to linguicide (the killing off of languages). Many indigenous languages have all but vanished, and I suspect Aussie slang is fast heading in the same direction. Professional linguists may beg to differ that our colourful colloquialisms even constitute a language. But I for one do not want to see it all but go by the wayside.

So, I am going to throw my hat in the ring, for what it’s worth. A shut mouth catches no flies. Give us a hoy sometime and share your favourite Australian expression.

Curiouser and curiouser

With all things ballet enveloping what was once my easy-to-please daughter, I decided to take her to the real thing. She was fast becoming a true balletomane. We had ventured to the movies twice by this stage in her career and she mostly managed the two hours of darkened quiet confinement. So... I thought I would tempt fate that little bit more and book tickets for the family to see the Queensland Ballet’s performance of Alice in Wonderland.

What could have proven to be an expensive gamble certainly paid off.  We had many conversations prior to the big day about theatre etiquette and what to expect. Ita would have been proud, as clearly some of it stuck. She was not backward in pointing out other children’s indiscretions – usually with just enough tone and volume as to ensure they were not mistaken about her admonishments.

There are so many things to consider prior to embarking on such an excursion with a toddler…just to name a few…

1. Timing – matinee or evening? I considered the health and welfare of all other audience members and went with the matinee option. Witching hour and theatre experiences should be mutually exclusive.
2. Seats – prior experience taught me that darkened theatres seem to have an effect not unlike laxatives. Similar to all confined spaces that requires one to have allocated seating – go the aisle.
3. Pack-a-snack – may be construed as bribery and what’s so wrong with that I ask? Just don’t be like those annoying people at the cinemas who spend half an hour trying to undo a cellophane packet that clearly requires something more along the lines of a set of hedge trimmers or flamethrower.
4. Booster cushions – while theatre seats are built with adult height in mind, short people get a terrific view of the seat in front. We learnt from this cultural foray to get in early with the complimentary boosters.  Apparently they go like hot cakes, regardless of one’s stature. While our height-challenged one missed out, it was comforting to see so many giraffe-like people getting a bird’s eye view… of the gantry. I was sorely tempted to echo Lewis Carroll’s very words ‘Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.’ Fortunately two of those said giraffes behind us knew the rules and took pity, handing over two cushions, affording our charge a great view of the actual stage.

Whilst all this pre-planning definitely paid off – I really need not have worried.  For two hours, our short one was transfixed. It was difficult to tear one’s eyes away from her face and watch the action on stage, the performance that we actually paid for! The sheer delight, enjoyment and involvement in the performance were quite incredible. She was clearly transported into the Wonderland on stage, so much so that when it finished she literally cried for more. Evidently my pre-planning had failed at this point in time. I hadn't considered the need to explain that live performances generally can not be rewound and played again.

As we turned from our seats, the giraffe behind craned her neck forward and said, ‘Your little one was so very good throughout that performance.  She obviously loved it.’


Hypnotic trances are like that. Complete envelopment in all that transpires. Moving beyond the literal, Lewis Carroll's words echoed true once again...trance is really fast paced. You are constantly dancing and jumping around. Our little Alice did not miss a pas de deux, a plie, a pirouette...she lived and breathed every last step.

A true balletomane indeed!

Vaccination against Mother Guilt

I had this funny feeling come over me the other day. Something I could only describe as foreign and just a little bit uncomfortable.

It took me a while to recognise it for what it was…Mother Guilt.

I have heard about this phenomenon. I have even read about the condition, but I don’t know that I have ever really fallen victim to it.

I am here to tell you…it wasn’t all that pleasant.  But it made me stop and think, why do so many fall prey to this emotional rollercoaster?

But most of all, how did I vaccinate myself against it?

So, here’s my five-point plan on how to vaccinate yourself against the insidious ‘Mother Guilt’ disease. 

1. Sign up for Catholicism – all guilt will be instantly re-branded.
2. Go into Witness Protection – if your kids can’t find you, you stand a much better chance.
3. Sign up for some reality TV show such as Wife Swap, Brat Camp, The Supernanny, The Kardashians – or some other equally IQ-retarding form of entertainment. You are guaranteed to feel better about yourself after that episode.
4. Become a Ninja – similar outcomes to Witness Protection, just less paperwork and you get to wear a really cool outfit of which even your kids would be proud.
5. Put your kids up for Time Share. A popular scheme in the 80’s –  must be due for revival with all things vintage.

And if all else fails, take a deep breath, step back and see the funny side of things.  Despite a good laugh being infectious, it is the best form of protection against Mother Guilt.  Take it liberally and keep within reach of children.

The joys of toddler travel

Over the last couple of years we have become what I would consider veteran toddler travellers, as opposed to the virginal variety when I first started this blog.  There is not a lot that we can’t handle now, well so we liked to think…then our favourite Australian airline, made famous by juvenile choirs hanging off cliff faces and traipsing through waves, threw us a curve ball.

In a moment of questionable clarity, we booked seats on the red eye out of Brisbane. Ordinarily flights to our nation’s capital take just over an hour.  With a just-after-5am scheduled departure, we would be in Canberra close to 8am (allowing for daylight saving) and we would have the whole day ahead of us for touring the sights. Whilst it would mean a 3am wake up call, we thought it would be worth it. That was our first mistake…

Things were going along swimmingly.  

Then…across the loud speaker came the announcement passengers always fear… ‘Would passenger O’Connor please come to the service desk adjacent to Gate 16, passenger O’Connor?’

Daddy O’Connor headed over with the ever-trailing toddler. He returned wearing a wry smile, yet appeared somewhat ill at ease. ‘They just had to change our seats.’ He declares confidently. What he wouldn’t tell me was why.

  

With a prompt departure on the cards and the promise of breakfast, things were looking up.  Well…as much as things can when airline food is on the menu. The captain reassured us that we were on time and he would have us disembarking in Canberra at 8am. Something to look forward to.

Toddlers on a grounded plane...
more terrifying than the cinematic great, Snakes on a plane

Sadly mistaken…

Along with the announcement of our descent, the captain informed us of a heavy fog in Canberra (something I have since discovered is not an unusual occurrence).  Several planes have had difficulty landing and we were in a holding pattern, circling the nation’s capital. Twenty minutes later, the captain reassured us that the weather had cleared enough for 50 000kg of metal to come hurtling down towards the runway. A sharp descent ensues, followed by a severe case of whiplash as the plane is wrenched back up into a vertical position, reminiscent of Maverick and Goose.

Apparently not. All the while the short one snored on.

OK. I got the distinct impression that we were now going a lot higher than if we were just continuing our circling idea. Nope, I think we have gone back to altitude and we seemed to be suspiciously heading in a straight line as opposed to banking right…Sure enough our friendly captain returned with more good news…Sydney anyone? Apparently the weather is fine there.

It is about now that my beloved informed me of the reason why we were moved.  It was not because of the captain’s dislike for small children after all.  It appeared that one of the instruments on the plane was malfunctioning.  It was about now that I turned to Paul with eyes like saucers and said in a particularly measured way, ‘Two words that should never be placed together in a sentence are plane and malfunctioning.’

He went on to say that he didn’t want to worry me. Well, why in God’s name had he chosen this particular point in time to worry me instead?  That same particular point in time when the bloke up the front in the hat and stripes had just told us that he couldn't get this hunk of metal safely on the ground because he couldn't see anything; that we had just about run out of fuel after circling Canberra for over 40 minutes; and that our type of aircraft did not have a vital instrument that allowed pilots to land planes safely in fog…

Right, so let me get this clear…not only did we have malfunctioning instruments, we also had missing instruments. We were cruising at around 700km per hour, we were stuck up at a great altitude…and we were about to run out of fuel.

Look, I am no pilot, granted. But you would think that IF we were scheduled to arrive in Canberra in the early hours of an autumn morning, in a valley notorious for heavy fog, one would allocate a plane that had all the bits to do it. Clearly not. It is far better customer service to cancel a flight. Re-direct passengers to another state.  Disembark all passengers – including the dead weight of a sleeping three year old. Not offer any customer service or assistance. Make you walk the entire length of Sydney airport, carrying aforementioned dead weight. Make you queue for a further 15 minutes while your boarding passes are re-issued. Then tell you that your new aircraft (with working bits) is scheduled to leave on time at 11am. 

Our new friendly and one hopes competent captain informs us that as soon as the aircraft is re-fuelled we’ll be on our way. Fifty minutes later we are still sitting on the tarmac while we await the re-fuelling crew…

For God’s sake, give me the bloody keys and I’ll take it down to the servo myself!

Jemima and Daddy catching up on email