Doing Our Bit

Along with donating cash here, the boys and I helped get some goods together to send across our town's swollen river. One suburb and a few smaller communities further out of town are still cut off with no shops or supplies.

Another friend did all the organising, we just rocked up and helped load things onto utes. I think it was a good experience for Elliot to help him understand that there are lots of people that are much worse off than us, very close to home. He's only 3, so obviously has no idea of the devestation that has happened. He now though knows what a flood is, understands that they can be very dangerous and to stay away from water over roads or water that isn't normally there. He's also started playing 'floods' with his toys, one car rescuing another from flood water or cars and trains not being able to cross bridges or roads because there is water over them. For me, he's seen enough and has enough understanding. I don't want to traumatise him by going into all the details, but he's learning from this real-life experience.

Loading up the ute to be driven down to SES boat at the river. I'm on the right with Archie in the Ergo. Seriously don't know how I'd get stuff done without my Ergo!

Cheeky boys in the ute.

He is also starting to understand about food and what a precious commodity it is, although we've always been very open about where our food comes from. He sees the cows that give us milk. He knows that when we eat chicken it was once a chicken. He knows that vegies grow in the ground and what most plants look like.
When we went to the shops a couple of days ago to get some fruit and veg, the shelves were bare. He wanted zucchini, but there weren't any, he wanted to get beans and broccoli and capsicum and all the things we usually eat. I explained that we can't just have what we feel like at the moment, we have to make do with what we've got. He seems to be ok with it so far but who knows how long we'll have to ration for?

We have one more meal's worth of fresh veg and then it'll be onto freezer and pantry meals. As a real vegie boy, I'm anticipating more questions from him! But if not eating fresh vegies for a while is as bad as it gets for us we've been extremely lucky.

Bel at Spiral Garden is donating 50% of all orders to the Red Cross Flood Appeal. Also Pip at Meet Me At Mike's has an extensive list of other ways people can help.