Advance Australia Fair

oh, the calm before the storm! six luxurious weeks in a warm, furnished apartment with nothing to do but enjoy Adelaide and our beloved friends.... well, in theory. actually, just as i wrote that last sentence, payton sat down beside me, glanced at the blog pics and said: "man! i never want to do THAT again! all those weeks in limbo between our permanent adelaide and albuquerque residences... that was exhausting!" so, maybe my memory is waxing sentimental (i am FINALLY writing this blog post six months after moving back to the states).

the eye of the storm, centered between the whirlwind move out of 12 sheldon and the long flight home, settled on team gardner once we were in 8/85 kensington. payton still went to work, nova still went to school... but we began wrapping up our "lasts" and all too quickly, we'd gone full circle and started racking up "firsts" again.

after nearly two years of regular kindergym attendance, nova had her last class with teachers trish and sonia. i stumbled onto kindergym when we first moved to adelaide and met two fantastic friends and their children: maike and anna (and eventually, little bro noah) and kathy and georgia. i credited kindergym with teaching nova strength and coordination, which it did, but it turns out the whitehurst-gardner klutziness is still strong within her.

sonia, nova, trisha - sonia and trisha are incredible women with big hearts and huge amounts of energy!

sonia and nova

in an effort to see one last place we hadn't visited before, we took a day trip rapid bay on the fleurieu peninsula. it was one of those trips that is more a memory for what it wasn't rather than what it was. windy and cold, grumpy kids... but in true south australia fashion, we did find a great middle-of-nowhere place to eat lunch.

life at 8/85 kensington:

canon was endlessly amused by all the drawers...

this picture was taken at the awkward angle of a mother pushing two kids in a single umbrella stroller... i was so charmed that nova and canon were, more or less, holding hands! they share a space well. on a sort of related note - about the bond between brothers and sisters - i was walking down the parade one day and noticed a boy and a girl walking ahead of me in their school uniforms. the girl was taller and older than the boy and though they each could have been of dating age, the way he comfortably and casually walked so close to his older sister, bumping shoulders, and the way she was able to make him laugh and then got tickled herself, made it clear that they had a long history of sharing spaces: a home, a bath tub, a backseat in the car, possibly a room... it was a moment that, whatever the reality, was recorded only by my imagination, and i found myself hoping that one day nova and canon will share that bond - comfortable, easy sibling love; a common history.

winter sunshine and a big picture window with a good ledge made for many hours of play.

teeny, tiny kitchen

nova's best friend, jack warren

we made good use of the local library branch - and canon made good use of the books.

nova, ever the doting big sister, loved feeding canon. and frankly, he ate better for her than for payton or me!

nice hat.

payton, exhausted by our transience, was targeted for decoration by nova.

a first and a last: our last walk on the heysen trail in the adelaide hills; it was our first hike that we found in adelaide. alas, we didn't make it far either time, but it sure was beautiful.

a final hike along the coast south of adelaide. this, too, was the first and last time we walked this section. the brisk sea air and wintry skies seemed very fitting - a sort of salty good-bye.

in the usual gardner style, we threw ourselves a going away party. we had a fantastic afternoon grilling with friends in one of adelaide's beautiful parks. there is always some secret reserve with big beautiful gums, green grass, a play structure and barbys tucked away on one of adelaide's quiet streets. it was a lovely way to share hugs and good-byes with good friends.

karen brown (jack's mum) playing with nova, anna robinson, georgia cavill and karen's son, jack brown.

karen cuddling canon and maike robinson holding her son noah with her husband, anthony.

dear friend kathy cavill chatting with kate canaway (another awesome kindergym connection) and her partner. kathy, also an ex-pat (canadian), lived near us. she was the first aussie friend i had who jived with the casual drop-by-for-a-cup-of-coffee-unannounced-and-sit-and-chew-the-fat-to-while-away-the-long-stay-at-home-mom-afternoon-hours. always ready with a cuppa and the casual play date that is more about chatting with another adult than the kids actually playing (though georgia and nova truly did enjoy each other), kathy always welcomed nova and me into her home. we even got some short, tuesday runs in while nova was at school and before the bob got shipped back to the u.s.

american PA gone aussie, amy schafer - whom i worked with at the queen elizabeth hospital - with her fiance and his two boys.

well, everyone in this picture is familiar - and in familiar places! payton and brian in charge of food and socializing with each other and nova referring to jessica as a second mom. more juice please!

nova and jack.

like 12 sheldon on the OTHER side of the parade, there was a park nearby (closer, actually) to 85 kensington as well. we took advantage of some sunny afternoons and enjoyed a few picnics there. we also had the bittersweet pleasure of playing with our dear friends maike, anna and noah one last time. it was a refreshing break from the chaos of prepping and packing for our international journey - only two days away at this point.

canon still in his turnout rug.

c-man

nova and anna. (maike, a german ex-pat married to a lovely south aussie fellow, and i started chatting one day after kindergym in the adjacent park. both with girls about to turn three and big, expectant bellies, we instantly enjoyed each other's company as much as anna and nova enjoyed each other. as it turned out, maike and i each had boys and though her kids are about 5 mos older than mine, they are also three years apart. kids do inspire friendships between their adults, if not out of necessity, than proximity. however, there are sometimes those connections that reveal a true friend and it just happens the kids were the ones to introduce you.)

noah and canon.

maike and noah

we left adelaide on july 30th, but not before celebrating canon's first birthday on the 28th! he may not have australian citizenship but at least he got to spend his first year there! we had a birthday lunch from red rooster - fish burger!! - and picnicked in front of the redlegs oval.

beautiful big sister, nova

for canon's proper birthday celebration, we partied with - who else? - brian, jessica, glenn, nikki, zara and laila at the harrington house. It was also our final good-bye (lots of good-byes in this post) to glenn and nikki. gg - gloria gardner, our reliable, golden nissan patrol - would soon become a harrington and get kitted out for glenn's long service leave and a long, awesome trip around australia.

a little new mexico nod with fresh flair from adelaide fruit.

mmm, cake. they always know what to do with that first piece of cake!

nova and zara showing their seasoned cake-eating skills.


zara is exactly one year older than nova and one of her most beloved australian friends.

and finally, the days were gone, there were only hours left. brian and jessica - they need no introduction or explanation! - came over to help us with the last few things: eating dinner (one of our favorite activities with them!), packing, keeping things we couldn't pack until the next time we see each other, getting the keys to the apartment so they could collect the crib and high chair the next day and helping load gg. and, of course, saying good-bye. ah, a sad good-bye, that one. but made more sweet knowing that these are life-long friends and that we will see them again - here or there or even in c-eh-n-eh-d-eh.

boy in a box

our last (for a long time, but not ever) departure from adelaide airport. look at all that stuff!! you can tell it's just the beginning of the trip because things are still put together. everything looks a little more disheveled at the other end of the journey. despite having two kids for this move, we may have pulled it off a little smoother than our original trip to aus. maybe.

proof we were on the plane. after this quick shot it was time to put the camera away start active-parenting for the next 30 hrs.

good-bye, adelaide! this was a WONDERFUL two years. we will be back!

Last Days at 12 Sheldon St. Norwood, SA 5067

may/june 2011

well, it's official. we are leaving australia and moving to albuquerque, new mexico at the end of july - as i write this, it is only 3 1/2 weeks away!!! time is definitely speeding up. payton accepted a research scientist position at sandia national laboratory and will be working on, among other things, nuclear waste reposition. nova asked payton today, as he was preparing to leave for work, what number (age) she would be when she could go to work with him. we decided on about 15 or 16, but opted to wait to explain "security clearance" and why there is no "take your child to work day" at sandia. but hey! she'll be able to go to work with me, right?! anyway, before winter's rain and cool temps set in, we enjoyed our last few weeks at 12 sheldon...

nova is teaching canon about hiding places and would shut the two of them in to her wardrobe. canon thought it was a great game until he realized he wasn't allowed to come and go at will - well, at his will.

helping me bring in the clean diapers... babies are so helpful!

nova and canon on the "train". it's so fun to watch the kids play together and see how nova includes canon in her games. i don't think you can see it, but nova actually has a fantastic shiner on her right eye - the result of a meeting between her head and her bed after she dived off the railing and cleared the entire mattress.

a walk around the neighborhood, at the "memories and mateship" fountain (i can't explain it, but that name just cracks me up, it seems so manly and chick-exclusive; i think many of the happy memories for guys in this country involve a pub, drunkeness, and other dudes).

aha, see the two threes there? happy 33rd birthday to me. payton made green chile stew, brian and jessica brought over a sparkling pinot noir and a chocolate torte, we drank fine wine... and somewhere along the way i got food poisoning! so i had to give it all back. to the toilet. so unfair!

canon the climber... what baby isn't happy in a large drawer?!

yummy food!

nova making sure canon has plenty of toys in his crib.

ok, i owe chris and bill an apology, who were here last winter, and to whom i was largely unsympathetic to their perpetual chill. like many other houses in australia, 12 sheldon is cold and uninsulated with 12 foot ceilings that have the very practical feature of vents to the outside. so while the top two feet of the house is probably nice and toasty, us bottom-dwelling humans would never know it. i tell myself it doesn't matter because all the heat is flowing out through the holes in the wall (i.e. vents) anyway. but none of this mattered to me because i was still pregnant. and the truth is, when you're pregnant, you are more akin to a planet - with your own climate, gravitational force and heat-producing capabilities. so bill, chris, i'm sorry! no longer pregnant, i am now sympathetic to the chill. which is why canon has a "turnout rug" (a horsey term) just for eating breakfast at 12 sheldon (what he's wearing in this photo is set of thick, lined, fleece pajamas with a fleece, hooded jumpsuit on top). if the house is cold, the kitchen is arctic and for the health of the children, jumpers and slippers are required attire for breakfast - which is usually oatmeal because its warm.

nova requested this 'do.

post-bath

well, an international move makes for a LOT of activity in a household, and once it was clear who was moving us where and when, we began the exodus of our beloved ikea furniture. nova was incredible during this weeks-long process, actually "helping" to push her wardrobe out of her room - with graham cracker bear snacks in hand and mouth motoring along about moving back to the united states - and load it onto some stranger's trailer. happily waving good-bye, she never looked back. in fact, at 9pm one night, way past her bedtime and facing a change of sleeping venue (i.e. the floor), nova watched her bed and many other household items whisk out the door. mostly she seemed excited to have someone to talk to other than her parents and kept the guys buying our furniture well supplied with three-year-old stream-of-consciousness chatter. nova is an amazing child. she is happy and bubbly and positive (remind me to re-read this part of the blog when she is in high school) and resilient. i think now is beginning the time as a parent when you begin to be in awe of your children, when you think "how awesome, what a cool person" (and then you wonder if you would have been cool enough to be their friend if you were the same age - probably not), and wonder of wonders, you love them MORE! again! it leaves you breathless.

so, with the warmth-retaining things thinned out of 12 sheldon and mornings consolidated to standing over the stove, glaring at the stove-top espresso until it started steaming, nova and i worked through her coloring book (a fantastic and cathartic exercise) during canon's morning nap and slowly collected into the extra bedroom the things we would be shipping back to the US.

neither of the things in this picture got shipped.

nova and i proudly sporting cowgirl boots - we are TOTALLY out of style in aus. but not in new mexico!

nova and canon's bedroom - still pretty comfy but pretty empty. the bear chair became the nursing chair for the last few days...

it's hard to see how bare the house is, but the living room was largely furnished with toys at this point - and the coffee table and rug...? we couldn't pay someone to take them. the poor rug was bought by a fellow down the street and returned 20 minutes later because his wife didn't like it (so he said). i mean, it's not THAT bad!

our lives consolidated to part of a room.

of all the days to wake up a knob, the one when the movers come to pack and ship all your belongings is NOT it. but guess what?! that was MY day to be a knob. so, despite careful planning and consideration on my part, weeks of collecting and separating what goes and what stays, and particular attention to details such as "those roller blades and that book go back to the neighbor" and "the vacuum is just in this room to keep the kids from playing with it", when the movers came, i walked them into what was the guest bedroom and said, "everything in this room." and he even repeated me - "everything?" "yep." in my head, it was obvious that what i meant was everything of ours. not the other things that needed to be returned or removed. and i had this notion that half way through, the guys would come to me and say, here's where we're at, how're we doing? and i would say, fine, fine - not the vacuum, obviously, and oh, those roller blades don't go, here let me return them right now... and it would somehow all be very smooth and i would have some sense of control. not so! something about their frantic pace and and my own frenetic but unfocused energy made for a quick morning where suddenly everything was done, was packed. and going over the list as they loaded the final, huge, bubble-wrapped package, it finally struck me what "everything" meant when the fellow said, "the vacuum is wrapped with the stroller." what?! we just shipped back a vacuum full of a dirty bag with an aussie plug and energy requirements that simply cannot function back home?! (i am so glad sandia is moving us!) and that's when i realized our neighbor's book and rollerblades (residing at our house since the garage sale in the ever misguided hope that someone would buy them - this is a universal hope, isn't it?) were on an international adventure too. so what can you do? store the vacuum with the wine so it has some aussie company? i mean, seriously, i had palpitations that night thinking about what would have happened if canon had accidently crawled into the room. he would have been bubble wrapped and packed in a huge truck. this is one of those thoughts, that, like you're child crossing a street unattended or nearing a cliff with you too far away, makes you grab them and hold them tighter, as if there, in the living room, with their eyes bugging out because you're squeezing too tight, you are saving them from this horrible fate. to think what could have almost happened! sigh. if any of you people know someone who is moving to australia, let me know - i have a vacuum cleaner for them.

for memories' sake... we moved out of empty and clean (thanks to our OTHER neighbor's shop vac) 12 sheldon and across the parade to 8/85 kensington rd, equidistant from everything we already frequented, just in the opposite direction. it's a furnished apartment, complete with dvd player and flat screen, digital tv. this is luxury we have not know for the past two years. and get this - it's warm!!