Parenthood is not a sedentary occupation.

I walked through the bush over Tinakori Hill to have morning tea at Fords, I walked back up to get the car, picnic, togs, wetsuits, and inflatable floatie duck and frog so I could collect Anne, Hazel and Iris from the Bolton Chapel and take them to the beach. We ate our sausage, avocado and strawberry rolls, climbed a rock, swam in a beautiful pool that wasn't all that freezing cold considering, and then went for a fun visit to Anne's storage unit (if your mind is flexible enough most things are fun). I then popped out for a quick spot of disc throwing practice at VUW.

Am I going to sleep well tonight? Oh, yes indeed.

Hobby horses.

Last night Hazel liked the mop so much she mopped up after Iris missed the loo so she could ride it back to the cupboard.

If anyone said "Hey Susan, do you want to run after a frisbee in the rain?" I'd be so there.

I made up a person, it's just a game you know.

Congratulations!

I just discovered that in August my friend Catherine Sweeney's team (Australia) won the Ladies Elite Underwater Hockey World Championship! I don't know if she's in this photo, but I wouldn't be surprised if that one in the centre on the bottom looking at the camera was her, she always used to be the fastest to the puck. I'm not absolutely sure what "Elite" means in this context but they've got Under 19s, Masters, and Elite, so I guess it means they're the Women's World Champions. Wow.

Today was a good day. I fell in love with a polar bear.

The polar bear was swimming in Central Park, huge and beautiful beyond belief. It likes to push off the glass with its perfect feet.

Iris was sticking her bottom out and pointing at it despite a polite request not to,
"Put it away!" I yelled at her across the park,
"She doesn't know where it goes!" said Hazel.

We threw the frisbee to each other once we got to Sheep Meadow. We were totally outclassed by three groups of frisbee throwers close by. I was totally outclassed even by the return throw from the poor bystander I almost hit with it, but I'm feeling pretty good about my catching, and Sean reckoned my throwing wasn't bad. On Gillian and Dave's lawn in Pennsylvania I caught it after having slowed it down with the bridge of my nose (now slightly bruised) and bouncing it off my head. Today I slowed it down with the end of my nose but didn't catch it. I don't know which was better. I hope I won't make a lot of experiments trying to determine this.

I came to New York City eleven years ago and twelve years before that. It's a lot cleaner now. The Brita pitcher (water filtering jug) only has a few dots of black when I go to refill it. My skin hasn't got a tiny black dot where each pore is. This is a big difference.

I bought a DVD today, there's a guy hawking them outside the movie theatre on the corner. He directed, produced, and starred in it apparently. I bought it for luck for The Great Snail Chase (the movie my cousin Edward's making at the moment.

I also bought Anansi Boys again, and some other things, including the DVD and more new sandals for Iris, but no birthday or wedding presents. It seems that one night we set off to drive from Gillian's to our hotel with one of Iris's sandals on (rather than in) the car. The replacement sandals wore a hole in her heel, despite their beauty and Manhattan requires a lot of walking.

I wonder if I'll do some of the driving tomorrow. I've not done as much as I thought I would. It's been more like going back to being a beginner-driver and less like trying to drive while balancing a cup of water on my head than I expected and I've found that a bit nerve-wracking.

Things I've done while in labour.

(For http://beautifulbirthstories.blogspot.com/)

• Eat at a restaurant (early stages of a long slow part of labour)
• Take my eldest to our local playground while hanging off trees and yelling during contractions ("Mummy tummy working hard?" "YES! Mummy tummy working VERY hard!")
  
• Drink castor oil (didn't seem to speed up the slow one)
  
• Machine quilt (brought the sewing machine to the hospital)
  
• Eat chocolates
  
• Moan, grunt, growl
  
• Breastfeed my eldest
  
• "I don't think the baby will come tonight but you may as well ring the support people just in case, but tell them to bring their books." (Denial)
  
• Bathe (great!)
  
• Gaze at a lit Christmas tree
  
• Hide my head in a pillow
  
• Visualise pushing a truck up a hill with my support people beside me, cheering me on but not helping
  
• Bite
  
• Demand acapella singing, reading aloud, acupressure, no - different massage, food, drink, ice, cold cloths on the back of my neck, silence and distracting conversation.
  
• Move around
  
• Wish I could still move around
  
• Try not to push
  
• Wish I'd mentioned to my midwife that I'd prefer any vaginal exams on my hands and knees
  
• Push
  
• Poo
  
• Bleed on things
  
• Forget what people were saying during their sentences
  
• Have a baby (twice)
  
• Enjoy the boneless sliding of the placenta on its gentle way out (twice)
  

Both my babies came out fast once I was dilating, the first was late and I didn't start dilating for 10 days of on-and-off-again patches of labour (and having been through "real" labour I can't call that "false" because it was the same). The second was early. I birthed both kneeling, though I wanted to get into a different position for my second as she was part way through and I just couldn't get up. Both were natural and pretty much drug free (I had a little gas when my midwife broke my waters for the first, late, baby. It felt stupid, like why would I do recreational drugs when I was busy having an important baby). The first was in hospital, the second at home. The home birth was fantastic, the hospital birth was fine.