It’s been a funny weekend here… I’ve lost most of Saturday and spent Sunday and Monday pretending people weren’t staring. It’s all the fault of the winter offshores…

After what seems like a year of rain, it was the most beautiful week. One I hadn’t seen in far too long. Clear blue skies, light offshore breezes and perfect little beachies. Saturday morning looked like being the last of the waves though so I snuck down to the beach for a mid-morning surf sans kids.

I was right! It was everything I thought it would be. Cold, clear water. Schools of fish. Perfect waves. I caught a few and thought about heading in when it happened. As I came off the wave, the wind caught my board and flung it back at me hitting my face with a loud “whack”. My hand flew to my face pressing down as I hoped and hoped that there was no blood. It seemed ok but I decided to go in anyway.

Arriving home I paused on my way to the shower to ask, “is there a bruise near my eye?” My partner’s face told me there was and the swelling, graze and black eye proved him right!!! The rest of Saturday was spent in a concussive haze.

Now I can notch up another injury in my list of surfing related incidents and accidents. It joins numerous scratches scars, bumps and bruises… and it could always have been worse, at least there were no sharks around! But even with all that it was worth it. It’s been raining and windy since.

Its a tricky thing making a good sandcastle… If the sand is too wet it sticks in the bucket, but if its too dry, your castle doesn’t have form. You have to have just the right combo of water and sand and it’s different depending on the type of sand. Then there’s the structure and the embellishments. It can be a whole lot of work to get it just right!
I used to just chuck some sand in a bucket, turn it over and tap, tap, tap voila! Castle! As I get older though I’m seeing the joy in the search for that ultimate combination. Finding all the right elements to make my castle just right. Some days I find it wanting. Some days I feel like it’s got too much and I need to pare it back to the bare essentials. Right now though I’m enjoying the building, keeping the bits that work and discarding those that don’t and searching for that perfect combo…

One of my new years resolutions was to be on the ball with this whole blogging thing and, I swear, in my head I’m doing fine… I’ve composed amazing insights while sitting out the back or driving along or lying in bed feeding my bubba. Now I look back and realise that none of this has actually translated itself magically into cyberspace (ok, I’m actually kinda thankful that my thoughts don’t automatically get an HTML encryption and find their way here but, yanno, sometimes it would be helpful!).

What’s driven me to post today is two things.
1) I’m super excited that the Noosa Festival of Surfing has come around for another year. It’s a fun week and, though it sounds odd, one of the reasons I like it is because we always raffle off a board (kindly donated to us by our sponnos GSI – plug, plug, plug for their awesomeness). I love walking round talking to people from around the world and this gives me the opportunity. I met some great folk from all over today including some from New Caledonia which made me uber keen for a surf trip there with the fam. This brings me to point two…
2) Why? Just why??? I’m always surprised by the great reaction I get when talking about surfing mums with people. Not just people like Taj Burrow, who gave our Perth group a board, Tom Carrol, who is the only guy in a family of women and loves what we do or Bob McTavish, who consistently buys tickets in our board raffles to win a board he shaped, but people from all over the globe who love the concept.
In my four years with Surfing Mums, I’ve only ever come across two who felt they needed to cast aspersions on it.
One was a few years ago when a prominent young(ish) free surfer was in Noosa for the festival. Mate, I get that you get paid to surf and don’t have to even compete but that’s not real life for most of us. Real life is getting in the water whenever we possibly can!
The other was today… A guy I’ve known for about 10 years and is a self-styled “soul surfer” in the local community felt the need to comment on the surfing mums raffle saying “it sounds like an excuse for a couple of mums to get some money to drink.” Really? No, really? I love surfing. In no small way my family’s attachment to surfing affects our lives – where we live, where we travel, the jobs/careers we follow, how we spend our free time. I’m not in mags, I don’t have any segments in any movies. To discount me and all other surfing mums though is just plain rude. Next time I see this “soul surfer” in the surf I may just drop in on him…

It’s been such a busy time since the AGM that I’ve been MIA for the last few weeks… Whoops!

So to catch up, the AGM was so much fun! We were lucky to have great weather and even better surf. The big beachies were a bit of a challenge for some but with the support and encouragement (and perhaps a bit of peer pressure) everyone headed out and both mornings and got some pearlers. Global Surf Industries came to the party and lent us some boards for the weekend, including a brand new 7S SuperFish which wasn’t quite the same when we returned it… It was great to meet mums from across the country and to explore what direction Surfing Mums will take in 2011, and awesome to see mums travel from Perth and Newcastle all the way to the sunny coast for the weekend!

Since then we’ve had two new groups start up and new sponnos come on board. Big welcomes to the Wollongong and Brunswick Heads mums and huge thanks to SurfDeck and the learn-to-surf strap for putting their support behind surfing mums.

And what does the future hold? Well there’s big things in the works here at Surfing mums HQ… Stay tuned!

So I’ve been working on a theory lately about surfing – Surfing Mums Inc. In particular… I see my job as a WAHM is not simply look after my kids, but to nurture them. To tease out that spark that makes them who they are and encourage them to shine. To be there and support them when they’re struggling or when something they try doesn’t work out and to celebrate their successes with them. Often this takes a lot of emotional as well as physical energy so it makes me wonder what we do to look after ourselves? To nurture the nurturers so to speak? My answer is surfing.
A big surf company is running a promo at the moment “I surf because…” and for me it’s because in the ocean, I can be me. I’m not defined as someone’s mum, so and so’s friend, someone’s partner/wife, or by my past or present jobs, I can just be me and while sometimes that can make you vulnerable, in the ocean it makes me free. But how can I do this with kids? How can I nurture myself like this when leaving the kids on the beach by themselves is somewhat frowned upon? Well of course, I just rock up to the beach with my surfing mums and it’s easy! So thats the gist of my theory… Surfing Mums is soul food.

What feeds your soul?

The Surfing Mums AGM is almost here and I’m, strangely, looking forward to it! While the main purpose of the weekend is to get the association in order, I’m stoked to get the chance to meet and surf with parents from all over Australia. With board demos, hive giveaways, a beer or two and a BBQ it is shaping up to be a great weekend!
I was unable to make it to the AGM on the Goldy last year, but my son and I flew in from the Solomon Islands in 2008 for the first ever Surfing Mums Inc AGM in Byron and it was almost too much fun. My partner, who went instead to an in-country meeting in Honiara, certainly thought I had too much fun… He was super jealous -somehow megapodes and sulphourous gasses just don’t compare to the waves and company in Byron.
So it’ll be an exciting wait for me for the next few weeks. Somehow I think it won’t just be the kids getting up to mischief…

After a less than stellar winter here on the East Coast, spring has finally arrived! I’m not sure what happened this winter… Maybe Huey went on holidays to warmer climes or maybe he just misplaced the memo that winter = perfect glassy beaches, great swells and gentle offshore breezes. Nope, this winter was all about wind and rain! So it is with joy and hope that I greet spring, say goodbye to the wettie, slap on the zinc and bring on the warmer weather! The Surfing Mums Inc AGM is nearly upon us (it’s the weekend 24-26 September) so hopefully Huey will come to the party…

I’d also just be happy if the girls from Perth brought some of their waves with them! They all seem to be wave magnets and to be honest, I’m getting more than a little jealous! 🙂

Given that the weather has been pretty awful and the wave situation has been worse, I’ve been spending a bit of time in the kitchen of late (my partner is pretty happy I found it, its been a while… still allergic to the sink though and am thankful that my three-year-old is happy to do the dishes). So I was feeling all culinary this week and decided to share some fine food with some fine friends. No big deal but with 5 kids under five and six adults to please odds were something would go wrong. At 6 all is good, three kids happily eating burritos, one having some mush and the other breastfeeding. Plan is to get all kids fed and to bed, then for grown-up to eat at 7:30pm. Menu? Stuffed field mushrooms, roast tomatoes with olive oil, bean salad and chunky homemade wedges.

6:30 all kids in jammies, teeth brushed, plan running smoothly. Youngest two being settled while eldest three watch 1/2 hour of a surf movie. Tomatoes are almost done and potatoes go in the oven.
7:00 5 kids in bed. 0 kids asleep. Plan beginning to look shaky.
7:30 5 kids in bed – much calling out, squealing, shrieking and general loudness. Plan falling by the wayside.
8:00 1 child asleep, 2 trying to get to sleep, 2 still alive thanks to great parental restraint. Plan pretty much scrapped. Plan B? Liquid dinner anyone?
8:30 5 children pretending to sleep and thats good enough. Tomatoes have now gone from roasted stage to semi-dried and potatoes are somewhat crispy.
9:00 Adults finally eat.

Ah… its the simple things in life isn’t it? Thank goodness we woke to a sunny, off-shore day to provide a much needed mental health day!

Could you recognise the signs when someone is drowning?  Having done my bronze medallion (surf rescue certificate), I’m pretty confident that I can help someone in distress in the water, but I just read a great article about drowning and thought that it was so relevant to what we as surfers and mums do everyday that I’d repost it here…

http://mariovittone.com/2010/05/154/

It talks about the Instinctive Drowning Response,  which is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water and how it does not look like most people expect.  There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind.  Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don’t look like they’re drowning.  They may just look like they are treading water and looking up at the deck.  One  way to be sure?  Ask them: “Are you alright?” If they can answer at all – they probably are.  If they return  a blank stare – you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them.  And parents: children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.

With drowning such a common cause of death in our kids, I think its essential reading…

Its been pretty chilly of late all across the country, but the winter waves keep on coming… Gotta love a steamer and a warm shower I say!  Of course, not everyone feels the cold as much as I do and the Currumbin mums have been getting out there and enjoying all the winter has to bring.