the fifo wife - Page 23 of 191 - somethings I wish someone had told me.

{a fifo wife} The stuff I used to worry about when the kids were little..

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Isaac-Hempsted-Wright-as-Bran-in-Game-of-Thrones-Season-6

I woke this morning thinking about Game of Thrones. I woke as you do at 2.47am because if I’m not worrying about rubbish, I’m thinking about other rubbish. I mean what importance to my life is it that Bran from Game of Thrones is north or south of the wall?

None.

Then as I started to drift off to sleep my eyes snapped wide open, and I started thinking about all the stuff I had worried about with my kids. The stuff that kept me awake for years. Stuff that would wake me in the middle of the night, that would worry me, consume me for nights and days on end. Thinking now how crazy it was because I lost sleep over it. Lost time. Lost energy. Lost patience and lost ‘presence’ with my kids because I was worried about stuff that now is nothing.

So what was so important that took so much from me and yet I don’t bat and eyelid now? Well let me tell you

That I was wholly and solely to blame for my son’s Autism. Born with a minor defect he required surgery. Sent to another city no room at Mc Donald House or room for us at the hospital I was placed in a hotel- alone. Eight days from a C-section with no family, my husband on his first offshore job I had to give him a bath and at 10.9 pounds he didn’t fit in the sink so the bath was my only option. I lowered him into the water, the bath was warm, and he was slippery. He loved the water finishing up, one hand under his head I reached backwards to get a towel I should have had it on my lap but I didn’t, and he slipped from my hand under the water. He was under less than a second, but I never forgot his eight-day-old face eyes wide mouth open screaming. I cried, he cried and I carried it for years that I had done this to him, that this and every other bad thing I had done gave him Autism. So as he grew and more difficulties came, it ate at me. However, Autism didn’t come with him slipping from my hands in the bath it’s inherently in my husbands family and I didn’t ‘give’ him Autism.
That my bad mothering would hurt them later. When my youngest son was 18 months old, I succumbed to exhaustion or depression I don’t know which because the two are so similar. Envidetibly one will if you allow it will become the other. For six months I yelled, I spit venom and it would eat me but then sleep would come and I would love them. I would be the mother I wanted to be. However sleep would then disappear and yet the process would start again despite everything I tried. It felt at the time inescapable. Eventually, I broke I could do nothing but cry and my children were taken out of my care by my mother for a couple of weeks so I could mend. The decision to remove my children from me because I was so tired and broken is the most horrible thing I have ever had happened to me and it will not happen again. I have since learnt to stop, to rest and to care for myself but for years after I worried that I had damaged them with my exhaustion with my tired, venomous, parenting. That I again had caused my son’s autism, that my bad behaviour of losing my temper, yelling and screaming had damaged them. That I would be the reason my sons went to jail, made bad choices or become horrible human beings. Yet none of this is true. Whilst, not an excuse to behave in such a way it has happened now I can’t change it but my sons don’t remember that six month period of their life that seemed like an eternity only I do, and it doesn’t reflect in their personality or behaviour, in fact, they are as opposite to the fear I had as I am to the mother I was.
That my small social circle meant that my children would have trouble making friends. That they wouldn’t be social enough as adults. That they would become loners in an already lonely world. I worried so much about this. I tried joining groups. I tried to find my tribe. I tried making play dates but to know avail I just never found my place and so play dates never emerged. I should say however with the exception of one other young mum I found relating to other mothers hard. However as it turns out it made a little difference my B1 is Autistic so naturally making friends is harder, B2 is a social butterfly and B3 well he is the star of the show all with no help from my limited social circle.
That I didn’t spend enough time teaching them. Don’t get me wrong I read with them, in fact, I read a lot. I played, I cuddled especially with B1 but the more children I had I didn’t have time to teach the ABC’s or to count. So later on as I saw other people’s children recite the ABC’s I worried I hadn’t ‘taught’ them enough that I hadn’t given them the ‘best start’. However, it made no difference because the same parents whose kids knew their ABC’s at two years old are still in my kid’s classes with some having a below-reading standard and the only difference is that we played our way to prep school and my kids learnt the ABC from Sesame Street.
That I wasn’t enough as a parent. When we fell pregnant there were was an odd radio silence and it was only natural in hindsight given how anti-child I was that it happened. The reality was however, all our children were planned, there was no oops. After the loss of a baby in 2002, I realised how much my husband wanted a child and loving him as I did we planned. We planned that after we were married, travelled it would be time and so it was. So to get radio silence should have come at no surprise what I didn’t plan for was the spoken concern for the welfare of the child with comments such as ‘we are you worried about you having this baby Deb and No one is here to do this job for you. So while those comments were meant to be with love, they were taken in by my already scared pregnant mind, run with and blown up. I think it’s what caused my eventual breakdown and my insane ability to be so hard on myself, to think I wasn’t enough. I couldn’t rest until everything was perfect. I had to prove a point after all. I would rise at 430 and not go to bed until 1030 or until the house was clean. I think without laying blame, in fact taking it all it was these comments and not being able to see them for what they were that set my anxiety in full blown motion that I wasn’t enough. However, I was enough more than enough and it’s only just understanding this that has got my anxiety under control making me a better parent than before.

So don’t worry about the moment you snapped because you are hanging on with 2 hours sleep or them making friends. Don’t worry about being enough or having play school teach them their ABC. Don’t worry about any of this parenthood doesn’t come with a manual, with rules or a one fit all outcome. Do what it takes to feed, love and nurture them.

Don’t worry about anything it only robs your kids of you.

xxDeb

{image with the thanks to here}

The Every Day

{fifo wife} slow cooker beef and broccoli

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I love Beef and Broccoli, it’s my favorite Chinese takeaway dish. Although I don’t buy it often because I’m cheap, and it’s rather oily from my local kitschy Chinese restaurant. But I love it all the same however I think that’s obvious from my roundness.

So seeing a video on the net one night of the same recipe for a slow cooker I gave it a try, and it was a hit with the kids and it is now going to be on loop as a regular dinner. And the best part it can be put in the slow cooker and forgotten about until 30 minutes before serving.

Slow Cooker Beef and Broccoli

What you will need:

1 beef stock cube
1 cup warm water
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon sesame oil
700 gms beef sirloin, cut into 1-inch strips
2 tablespoons cornflour
1 head of broccoli florets, or to taste

How to:

Crumble beef stock cube into warm water in a bowl and stir to dissolve; add soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, and sesame oil and stir to dissolve sugar.

Put the beef strips into a slow cooker crock. Pour sauce mixture over the beef.
Cook on Low for 6 to 8 hours (or on High for 4 hours).

Spoon 2 tablespoons liquid from the slow cooker into a bowl. Whisk cornstarch into the liquid and stir the cornflour mixture into the liquid in the slow cooker until consistent in color.

At this point add the broccoli and cook on High until the sauce thickens about 30 minutes. Spoon broccoli beef over portions of cooked jasmine rice and garnish with sesame seeds.

{image with thanks to here}

FIFO life/The Every Day

{a fifo wife} FIFO and Friendships

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A guest post by Kieran you can follow him on his facebook page : A Fifo man’s weight loss journey

Let me ask you this – excluding your husband, wife, fiancée, boyfriend or girlfriend; who is your best friend? Do you even have one, that one person who you are super close to, you may have been friends since childhood, since you entered the workforce or perhaps like me you can’t pin one person down in particular who is your bestfriend.
For me, FIFO has taken a toll on my ability to have really close friends, in saying that I can’t really blame FIFO for this, thinking back on my school days as far back as grade 5 for me, I’ve never been a person who has had a lot of friends, I was teased a lot at school, I’m not sure why, I wasn’t brilliant at sport, I wasn’t in the cool group, and I guess I have just never really had the ability to attract friends and maintain those friendships. High school was a similar story, quite often I would be sitting on my own around the corner at lunch times, or down the back of the oval under a tree in the back corner, I guess I’m just a bit of a loner, I’m ok with that but sometimes it gets lonely…really lonely.
Do you have that one person you can pick the phone up and ring and talk to about anything and it not be awkward? I don’t, I wish I did. I talk to counsellors instead, sounds like fun hey.
So how do people make friends? Friends that will hang around, friends you can hang out with, I’m not one for partying or going to a pub. I’ve joined a sports club that does multi-sport and I’ve met some people there but only a few, however, they are more just acquaintances that I see if we have an event on or some training etc, I don’t hang around afterwards and mingle as I have responsibilities to my wife and kids, and being FIFO, means I need to manage my home time carefully as I don’t want to take away from time with them which in turn means I have restricted time with “friends”. People in the club don’t even know me, I rock up and just stand at the back.
I’ve been paying silent attention to what goes on when it’s nearly time to fly home from work, I’m always here guys at work arranging stuff to do with mates on their breaks, on the phone chatting to their mates etc, I don’t receive one call, I don’t receive one invite to a bbq, nothing at all, my social life consists of inviting my parents (who I am not overly close with) to come around for a bbq so they can see their grandkids.
My contacts list in my phone consists of my wife, my bank, my doctor, my travel agent, the kids school office, EHP for crocodile sightings, my coach, my younger brother, the medic at work and our neighbour, I have a mate who now lives in cairns and I have his number too (he would be the closest person I have to a good friend, they are really good to us and our kids, but he’s not that mate I can call and discuss anything with).
Sad isn’t it! but I am not one to dwell on it for too long, it’s just the way it is I guess, I have mates all over the country from FIFO construction work but once a project is over we all go our separate ways.

You can read more of Kieran’s staff here and here. And don’t forget to follow him here.

{Image is with thanks to here.}

Food/The Every Day

{a fifo wife} The best slow cooked lamb shanks

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Slow-cooked-lamb-shanks

Good things come to those that wait is a saying I half-heartly believe except when it comes to lamb shanks. You can’t rush a good lamb shank recipe and this one is no exception. This has to be my favourite winter meal.

You throw everything in the slow cooker in the morning, head to work and after a big day I swear there is nothing better than coming in from the cold to the smell of this.

The best slow cooked lamb shanks.

What you will need:

2 tablespoons olive oil
4 French-trimmed lamb shanks
1/2 cup plain flour
2 medium brown onions, chopped
2 medium carrots, chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cup red wine
2 cups of beef stock
2 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes
2 tablespoons sugar
bouquet garni made up of bay leaf and rosemary.

How to:

1. Heat half the oil in a large frying pan.
2. Toss the lamb in flour that has been seasoned with salt and pepper; shake away excess. Cook lamb over high heat until browned all over; transfer to the bowl of a slow cooker.
3. Add remaining oil to the same pan with onions, carrots, and garlic; cook, stirring, over medium heat for about 2 minutes or until the onion is starting to soften. Add the tomato paste; cook, stirring, for a further minute.
4. Add the wine to the pan; bring to the boil. Stir in stock, undrained tomatoes, sugar and bouquet garni. Bring to the boil; pour over the lamb in the slow cooker, making sure the lamb is covered by the liquid.
5. Cover; cook for 6-8 hours on the low setting or until lamb is soft and falling off the bone. This will depend on your cooker.
6. Remove the lamb from the slow cooker; cover to keep warm. Turn the cooker to the high setting; cook, uncovered, for about 30 minutes or until sauce thickens slightly. Remove any fat from the surface.
7. Serve the lamb with the sauce, mash potatoes and a green vegetable.

FIFO life/The Every Day

{a fifo wife} Seperated by work the newest FIFO Resource.

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Latest estimates reveal an alarming percentage of workers in the resources industry, working in fly in fly out (FIFO), are the population most at risk of mental health issues and obesity. Recent reports have highlighted that while the FIFO lifestyle might sound lucrative and glamorous, the stress and strain on families is real. 2015 figures, released by ECU, state that FIFO workers suffer double the rate of depression compared to Australia’s general population. There is also a growing number of divorce rates and partners are struggling to cope at home. Helping organisations and families navigate their way through the minefield is Kirsty O’Callaghan – executive consultant, mentor and author.

Having coached and mentored FIFO families, individuals, and organisations for over a decade and hearing their calls for help, Kirsty put together her years of experience into a new book ‘Separated by Work.’ The result is a 280- page user-friendly, all-inclusive handbook. It is filled with

It is filled with real-life stories from her clients and proven strategies that work – and Kirsty should know, she has been a “FIFO” wife for seven years and offers a rare insider’s understanding to this life. “I’ve been in a unique position over the last seven years of supporting clients and hearing their stories. Over and over the issues were the same. There was a common thread of uncertainty, change, judgment, and overwhelm through each FIFO story I heard. It became clear to me that letting my clients know they weren’t alone was vital to normalising their experience. It was cathartic for me as well. I knew it wasn’t just my family that was experiencing struggles and unexpected happenings, especially in the initial stages of FIFO life.” Families aren’t the only ones benefiting from the wisdom – industry is recognising the value of this new book. An International Operations Manager at Downer EDI Mining who has raised a family through FIFO life over the last 20 years said, “I can honestly say we could have stressed less and been happier sooner if we had access to some of the resources and had conversations mentioned in this book.

This is an interactive instruction book based on real people and real experiences not just theory. It provides real tools on how to avoid or work through the challenges we all face with this lifestyle. As an employer in the field and a FIFO survivor, I can strongly recommend this excellent manual to anyone contemplating or in the middle of the FIFO experience.” ‘Separated by Work’ is warm, encouraging and laced with gentle humour giving readers the tools and support they need to take back control, help themselves and each other through the toughest of times – and to be happier for choosing a FIFO lifestyle. The book is filled with practical tips from leaders in their field, and hands-on exercises for the whole family.

Separated by work can be brought here and here.

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