Curran Christmas Missive 2021
I think its fair to say 2021 will go down in our family annals as the most intense year on the books. I write to you from rural Victoria, Australia on the eve of our first Christmas Down Under.
Flicking through my photo reel for the last 12 months surfaces a staggering record of change: the arrival of Ruth, our journey to Australia, Jack and Will’s growth, our new home and exploration of the Victorian countryside.
I imagine we are one of the few families whose year has not primarily been directed by the whims of COVID regulations, so fundamental have other shifts been. For one we have been on baby-imposed lockdown since late May as the whole family has contorted around Ruth’s schedule.
After Jack was born I recall feeling short of hours in the day. Following Will’s arrival I found it increasingly hard to eek out free minutes. With Ruth in the picture one is left to either get things done with a baby strapped to your chest or the things simply don’t get done.
(Click to enlarge photos)
Midway through 2020 Cath and I found ourselves grappling with two major decisions — immigration and whether or not to have a third child. With neither a sure bet we made an out of character decision to shoot for both and deal with the consequences should both come to fruition.
They did!
In most instances we found ourselves dealing a double blow to friends and family as we brought them up to speed with our news. Australia’s fluctuating border access and Ruth’s imminent arrival meant we ultimately had 7 days notice of our exit flight — and would only have had another opportunity to leave in 8–10 months if it fell through.
We arrived in Australia in early April, spent two weeks in quarantine in Adelaide and then made our way to neighbouring Victoria and our new home in the town of Traralgon — about 2 hours East of Melbourne.
Ruth was born two months after we arrived and we found ourselves with a three month stint at home together (Cath on maternity leave and myself funemployed). We managed a couple of trips away to Melbourne, Loch Sport and Inverloch during this time, taking advantage of the unique flexibility.
Now eight months in we have gained some traction, made some friends and seen the boys settle into their schooling. Interestingly Cath and I both fell apart physically after a few months of sedentiary baby nurturing — old injuries held at bay by regular exercise took the opportunity to reassert themselves and its taken the last three months of diet and rehab to get back onto an upward trajectory.
Jack and Will are in many respects a single entity these days. They eat, sleep and play together — separated only for midday naps and school. It is an adversarial alliance; powerfully drawn to each other but always yelling. So much yelling.
Jack continues to exhibit an intense curiosity about how the world works. Earlier in the year he would scavenge small appliances and extension leads from around the house and network them together in hair-raising electronic webs. For a time he was sleeping with his bunny and a multiplug. Last week I found him examining the cistern mechanism in the loo. He spends a lot of time asking our Google speaker about distance, weights and times. He has also become adept at Uno and Monopoly Deal — two card games - regularly beating Cath and I at both.
Will is a little harder to read — not only is he younger and inevitably biased toward the interests of his older brother, but he seems to have less acute interests. He is more adventurous and charming, regularly speaks about how he’s feeling and prefers imaginative play. Time will tell but we are trying to give him space to lead activities where possible. He is definitely more into food and I look forward to having a more adventurous wingman for future cooking and eating adventures.
Cath is working about three days a week on aggregate, including an all-nighter once a fortnight. Its manageable when Ruth sleeps well but we both feel it when our nights are fractured by cries from the adjacent room. Cath has been tasked with a couple of organisational projects alongside her clinical work. She is otherwise adjusting to a case load largely free of trauma.
Since September I have been at home with the kids when Cath’s at the hospital and have thrown myself into fulltime house-husbanding. Proverbs cautions us ‘Without vision, people perish’ and I can certainly vouch for it in the domestic realm. One does not simply wing it when you’re outnumbered 3:1 for 24hrs at home.
My parenting style could definitely be described as combative — with much of my own yelling and threatening as I heave prams, bikes, blankets, backpacks and milk bottles into our van for morning activities. The boys are good sports and have accepted some compromised access to me while Ruth’s awake — I do my best to make it up during her naps.
Our agreed parenting strategy to maintain control of the boys is to wear them out as soon as possible everyday. Jack and I have already done a few 7km run/rides together, and 3-year old Will even managed a 5km cycle last weekend.
Our decision to immigrate was based on the common concerns of the average South African — our ultimate choice of location a pragmatic effort to be as close to family as possible. However leaving behind familiarity and the people closest to you obviously shakes your foundations. Once you recover from the move, and in our case Ruth’s arrival, you inevitably get to a point where you find yourself sitting on the couch wondering…
‘Now what?’
I think that is approximately where we find ourselves at the moment. It is an expected moment of reckoning but remains an obstacle to inner peace. While we feel some relief from the existential threats bearing down on Joe South African it remains our responsibility to carve out a meaningful existence in our new home and seek out new friends to build a community with.
It has been so good to spend weekends in Melbourne with Cath’s sister Tracy and husband Matt, watching the cousins bond. Similarly we have become great friends with our neighbours, the Ogabiela’s, also African expats, who we enjoy much commiseration with. More recently we have spent good time with new friends from our church.
If you’re interested I wrote a 100 days in Australia blog a couple of months ago which will flesh out some of the details of our move.
I could write so much more on our experience of immigration, the incredible South African expat network in Australia, my homemade biltong project and the Victorian countryside to name a few, but the kids aren’t going to let me lie in tomorrow so I need to get to bed.
Much love from the Currans Down Under,
Rog, Cath, Jack, Will & Ruth
