At table

Let's pretend we are all sitting around the table together, talking about our lives. Can you please pass the salt?

How was your weekend? Ours was absolutely lovely, filled with little moments that in the grand and global scheme of things probably hold no great significance but, in the tiny universe of our family, may become milestones to how we live and love.

I taught Ralph the word "grapes" and he pronounced it "gapeths" with gusto. So cute!

Scout helped me cook dinner last night, perched on a stool beside me with her apron on. Everything was a sensory learning experience. "Mummy can I touch this garlic?" she would ask, softly stroking the peeled clove. And, as I opened a jar of capers, "Can I just try one little one?" followed by frantic evacuation of said caper from her mouth, and the endearingly optimistic pronouncement, "I think it probably will be better when it's cooked."

Ralph, who still doesn't walk or even stand on his own, taught himself how to climb onto the bouncing zebra toy, ride it, then get off again. All by himself. He was immeasurably proud.

Scout spent a good hour yesterday being my mummy. As her baby I am required to spend a lot of time asleep, so it's actually quite a restful game. She tucks me in, and kisses me, finds me a toy to cuddle, then says "I love you a moolion boolion troolion my dahlink. To the moon!"

Another new word for Ralph this weekend was dance ("danth"). Ralph LOVES to dance, and once he learned how to say the word, he would yell it at the end of every song, before the next one came on. I also found it very sweet and telling that when I offered to play some music for him, he crawled as fast as he could not towards the Sonos speaker, but to the record player.

After Scout and I had cooked, we ate dinner together as a family last night. This is SO rare in our house, because the kids tend to eat and go to bed quite early, and Mr B doesn't get home from work until quite late. It was such a treat to sit down at the big table and share a meal, all of us, that we had cooked together.

Of these small things are memories woven and held.

Thank you to everyone who wished me well with our "VIP lunch" on Friday. It went really well and everyone had a great time, complete with an impromptu octogenarian and nonagenarian dance party to The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. I've already posted all my thank-you notes to our guests. I'm trying to get better at sending thank-you notes.

I'm a celebrity! OK not quite, but the mail I sent to Pip Lincolne for her 52 Hellos project made it onto her blog yesterday. I was proud and a little bit embarrassed to be there. I think I knew but it didn't really sink IN that the letter I wrote her might be publicly displayed for people to read. Maybe that's how people on reality TV shows end up doing silly things on camera. They KNOW the cameras are there, but there's too much going on in their immediate world that they forget about the potential others who are witnesses to what they do and say. I don't mind, but maybe I would have tried to be a bit more clever or witty or write about something more momentous than being rejected in an umbrella incident if I'd thought of that. So maybe it's good that I didn't, because nobody enjoys reading self-conscious writing.

How about you? What will you share at the table today?

On being needed

Ralph has nightmares. He has since he was quite little. We often wondered what it was in his little life that could feed his nightmares. Not receiving milk in a timely fashion?

During the day, Ralph is the happiest baby you could ever meet. And that's not just his parents talking: friends, doctors, daycare teachers, everyone comments on how cheerful and loving and easygoing he is. Ralph's real name starts with H, and from Week 1 of his little life, his big sister was calling him Happy H. She still does.

But at night - not every night but most nights - Ralph cries out. It is a sudden, piercing wail that has me leaping from the dinner table or couch or bed at double-time, and racing up the stairs to his cot. More often than not, though, the crying stops before I make it to his door. I tip-toe into the unmatched peacefulness of a bedroom with a ticking clock and a sleeping baby, softly sucking his thumb. On the other side of the room, Scout sighs in dreams of her own.

Last night Ralph's nightmare must have caught me in the middle of a REM cycle. I was out of bed and into his room and reaching into his cot before my brain had even registered that the crying had stopped and he was peaceful once again. It was too late. I picked him up, and snuggled him to me, feeling tiny shudders as his sobs subsided. Ralph rested his head on my shoulder, snuggling just under my chin. One arm reached around mine and tiny, chubby fists opened and closed, opened and closed, on my arm, just the way he used to do when he was still nursing.

Before bed, I'd washed Ralph's hair. Scout had helped me. He smelled divine. So I just stood there in my babies' room, feeling Ralph squeeze and release, squeeze and release, on my arm, listening to Scout's regular and heavy breathing, and inhaling this tiny, close, intense world of early-motherhood that I'm in.

Sometimes, being the mother of tiny humans can feel claustrophobic. I'd read about this before but didn't really experience it the first time around with Scout. Partly, I think, because she would only sleep during the day if it was in the pram or the Ergo, so at least twice a day for several hours at a time, I could walk and walk and walk, with only my own thoughts for company, and that gave me the precious alone-time to think and imagine and process and renew.

But by the time Ralph was born Scout was walking, and soon after that talking, and there has been no rest since then. Not one day. Probably not an hour, or even a minute. They talk and cry and play and laugh and gurgle and eat and wail and crawl and grab and smear and break and yell and squeal and kiss and tumble through life from sunrise to sunset, and a good few hours either side of that. I'm not alone, I'm not exercising, I'm not renewing.

Even of an evening when they are in bed asleep and I pull out my computer to write this blog or pull out some pencils and paints to send some snail mail, half of me is still on mama-alert. I'm listening for the sounds of someone being sick, I'm checking the temperature in their room, I'm packing bags and preparing menus for the next day, I'm racing upstairs at the nightmare-call.

All of that can wear you down after a while, and leave you feeling closed in. Where am I, in all this?

And then I stand in the stillness of their bedroom with Scout shifting and now snoring softly, and Ralph's hand relaxed at last, limp over my arm. His jaw drops softly open and he is fully asleep. Gently, I place him back into his cot, tucking him in tightly the way he likes it. I listen to my own breathing, deep and slow now. I think about these exhausting and all-encompassing days and nights with my babies and I remind myself, "This too shall pass." But I don't want it to. Not yet.

Being needed can sometimes feel like a burden. But not being needed is heavier to bear.

Mean it

I want to share with you one of the best and most important lessons I've ever learned.

In my early 20s I used to babysit for a family who had four children under six. [Insert multiple exclamation points and utter parental exhaustion here. How did they survive!?!?]

The parents were (and are) dear friends of mine, and mentors. I’d known them since I was a rather lost and confused teenager, and our age-gap fell perfectly into that in-between state: they were not old enough to be my parents, but old enough to seem all-knowing while still fun and relevant.

As a teenager I looked up to them in every way and, in many respects, I still do.

One night, as they were preparing to go out and I was helping to tuck all the kids in and brush all the teeth and read all the bedtime stories, I witnessed their father breaking up some sort of disagreement between the children.

“I didn’t mean to do it!” cried one child, over some small crime I can’t remember.

“That's good,” their father said, “but you should mean not to do it.”

I don’t know about those children, but that was a lesson in intent that I have never forgotten.

It is one thing to be blameless on intention. To be going about your own life, and not deliberately causing harm. But to swap those two words around is a whole other level: to deliberately not cause harm is a conscious act in intentional kindness that is so much more powerful.

Last week, not far from my house, a young man was killed while cycling to work. And the person who caused his death did nothing more dastardly than open their parked-car door without looking. The cyclist was thrown into the path of an oncoming truck. Death was instant.

In my compassion for the family of that cyclist, I also feel devastated for the person in the parked car. That person is probably a good person. A kind person. Someone who loves their family, and hugs their Nanna, and sometimes buys lattes for their friends at work. All they wanted that morning was to get out of their car.

But they will carry the burden and consequences of the cyclist's death forever.

People all over the news this week are talking about penalties for opening car doors in cycling lanes. They want stronger legal consequences because otherwise how will the rest of us learn, and remember? I'm going to stop here because this is getting too heavy and too sad but the whole horrible incident reminded me of my friend's advice to his small children, all those years ago.

Dear friends, let's consciously do good. Every time.

Too often, we stop at intent. We like to say it's the thought that counts, but we let the lack of thought go without remark.

Mean to do it. Mean not to do it. But don't ignore it.

Folks, let's mean it!

Image credit: Joshua Earle Photography, licensed under Creative Commons

February alone

February finds me longing for a day off. I don’t want to complain because I love my life and I am INCREDIBLY blessed, and I know this. But I am greedy and what I would really love, what I find myself longing for with an increasing fierceness, is a day that is all mine. A few hours, on one of the days when the children are in daycare, during which I won’t have to work and won't have to speak to anybody.

I want to be alone, and I want nobody to need me. Nobody to wait for me, nobody to send me emails or briefings, or to call to ask me if I’m happy with my current electricity plan. Maybe I will go and see a movie, or get a massage. Maybe I’ll paint some pictures or spend the whole day writing my book. Maybe I’ll just go for a walk, or grab a coffee. Somewhere where nobody knows me or wants to talk to me.

That day would be pure gold.

And at the end of it I would pick up my babies from daycare and kiss them all over their faces and love them all the better for the new energy I had to give them. I would kiss my husband when he came home from work and be ready to give him the smiles and time and attention he deserves, instead of hiding away in this blog or watching TV because I am too exhausted to talk.

And the next day, when I wake up to little voices calling my name at an hour when little voices probably shouldn’t be calling anything our to anyone, and spend the next four hours managing meals cleaning nappies and toilet-training getting them dressed mopping up spills getting them changed packing bags moderating arguments finding lost toys finding lost shoes changing more nappies more trips to the toilet wiping noses washing dishes (mopping up spills, getting them changed) dropping them off to daycare and THEN starting an eight-hour day of work (emails and phone calls and briefings and research and deadlines and backaches and headaches and hand-cramps and blurry vision and creating things for other people to other people’s tastes) before picking them up and starting all over again…

On THAT day, I will do it all with added joy. Because, the day before? That day was MINE.

Let's talk. What have you been longing for lately?

Image credit: Doug Robichaud (licensed under Creative Commons)

Dress your baby in Week 1 (winter baby)

This is Part B to the post I published a couple of weeks ago, on what clothes to buy to prepare for a new baby. The previous list was for babies born in the warmer months, this is a checklist for babies due when the weather turns cold.

My goal is to help you create a short-list of clothes to buy for your baby when you’re expecting, that you'll have ready for Week 1 of life as a new parent. I’m trying to help you avoid two things:

* Having to rush out (or send somebody to rush out) because you discover an essential item of clothing that your baby needs, when what you really need is to bunker down with your new baby and recover and enjoy * Wasting money and time and space by buying clothes that your baby won’t fit or can’t wear or both

The idea is that you minimise spending before your baby is born, and then go shopping a week or two after they’re born, once you know what size they are and have a better idea of what the season is doing and find a routine that suits you personally. My list should keep you going for those few weeks in between.

My top tip for winter babies is to dress them in layers. Your instinct will be to rug them up against the cold, but if you’re inside the house or in the car or in a cafe etc, you don’t want them to overheat, especially when they’re sleeping. So if for example they fall asleep in the pram, it’s a lot easier to gently remove a layer or two than to have to get them completely changed, which almost always wakes them up (aaargh).

1// T-shirts x 2

Use these to layer over singlets and onesies, and under cardigans. Don’t buy too many because they’re probably not overly weather-appropriate, it’ll just be handy to have one or two as back-ups

2// Winter hats x 2

I found little hats a very handy way to regulate the temperature of my baby. Because babies lose so much heat through their heads, hats are a very efficient way to either warm or cool your baby, and can generally be removed without waking them up (big bonus!)

3// Pairs of socks x 3

Because those little toes can get icy cold, even under a blanket, and especially if you’re “wearing” your baby in a carrier that leaves their feet and legs exposed

4// Bibs x 3

These are handy to catch dribble and spit-up. Without them, your baby will quickly end up with a soaking-wet top and you’ll end up having to change (and wash and dry and fold and put away) even more clothes

5// Cardigans or jackets x 2

I said this last time, that know those little knitted cardigans that people make you when you’re pregnant are adorable, but they can be quite hot and bulky. For me, even when the weather was cold enough to warrant a thick wool knit, I preferred to put something softer on my baby, like a light cardigan and/or a fleece jacket, then layer with blankets for warmth. That made it easier to adapt when moving between inside and out

6// Short-sleeved onesies x 2

It’s more likely that you’ll be sticking to long sleeves for your winter baby, especially as a lot of babies like to sleep with their arms out above their heads, so they won’t be under the blankets. However, I recommend having just one or two of these at home when your baby arrives. This way you’ll be prepared if either the weather or the room are warmer than you expected, and you can always use them as back-ups teamed with cardigans, if you don’t get around to doing the laundry in time!

7// Singlets x 6

I found singlets essential for both my babies during the colder months. I love that they create that extra layer under their clothes to keep their chests warm, without smothering them with too much bulk. And when you’re changing nappies in the middle of the night, it’s nice to give them a bit of a barrier from the chilly air

8// Long-sleeved onesies x 6

As I mentioned in my summer baby list, I prefer onesies to t-shirts for newborns, because they don’t hitch up and make the baby uncomfortable while sleeping, or expose their little tummies to the cold air, and they help in a limited way to keep nappies in place, which trust me is something you really want. For this reason, I think you’ll love the long sleeved onesies for your winter baby.

You can also get onesies with legs included, like a jumpsuit, and I used these a lot with Scout. However, with the benefit of hindsight and experience from my second baby, I recommend going with the leg-free kind. The press-studs all the way up the legs and down the tummy of those all-in-one jumpsuits can drive you mental, especially if it’s the middle of the night and even more-so if your baby is crying and wiggling while you’re trying to do them up. I have found it significantly faster and easier to just pop on some little elasticised pants.

9// Long pants x 6

See above for why I prefer to go with separate long pants rather than all-in-one jumpsuit-style onesies. You can also get little pants with the feet covered in, which I found very handy when my baby kept kicking her socks off, especially if I was wearing her in the carrier. On the down-side, you get less wear out of these because they’ll grow out of them sooner. I recommend sticking with the standard pants for now, and buying the foot-covered type after a couple of weeks, because by then your baby will probably have already gone up a size.

ps.1 It should go without saying but here I am saying it again that every baby is different and every family is different and what worked for me might not work for you. This is the best I can give you, based on my winter baby of 2012 and my summer baby of 2013. I hope it helps at least a little!

ps.2 The photo at the top is of me with my winter baby Scout, when she was three weeks old. SUCH a proud mother!

Hello Bendigo

Over the Christmas / New Year period we spent a few days in Mr B’s hometown, Bendigo. In between visits to Nanna and all the cousins and a birthday barbecue out at Uncle Mark’s place where dust and snags and lollies and water fights made it Scout heaven, we decided to play tourist.

Have you ever pretended to be a tourist in your own town? It’s something I really enjoy doing now and then, just for fun, and I highly recommend it. You do all the things that as a local you would normally skip/avoid-like-the-plague. Visit all the tourist sites. Ride the hop-on-hop-off bus (if there is one). Eat the crappy tourist food in the crappy tourist cafes. The cheesier the better.

Of course I actually AM a tourist when I visit Bendigo, but I’ve never looked at it in that way before, since every visit is all about family. It’s such a beautiful and historic place to visit, when you take the time to look! And for Mr B, who was born and bred in Bendigo but hadn't lived there in 20 years, this was a fun way to reacquaint himself with what was perhaps a different side to his home town.

Bring on more iPhone photos.

Dress your baby in Week 1 (summer baby)

I was approximately seven-and-a-half months pregnant with Scout before it began to dawn on me that this beautiful bump I had been cherishing for more than half a year was actually going to have to come OUT. And aside from feeling mildly nauseous with terror, and narrowing my eyes at the suddenly-enormous-looking circumference of Mr B’s head, I also started to panic about what I would need to have ready for the baby.

After several hours of Google searching, during which each new page left me even more confused than the last, I called my Mum and between us we did our best to create a “new baby checklist.” Two babies later I’ve honed that list and I thought maybe, just maybe, I could save YOU some Google-related anxiety and share some of my discoveries.

Today’s tips are about baby clothes for a baby born in the warmer months. This is a short list, just designed to get you through the first week, after which you will probably need to buy more clothes. Why such a short list?

* It’s hard to estimate what size your baby will be, so if you buy too much you could end up with a lot of clothes that just don’t fit * Babies grow incredibly fast (Scout moved up a size at the end of her first week), so if you buy too much of any size your baby will probably grow out of them* before they get a chance to wear them

This is the part where I say every baby is different and every family is different and what worked for me might not work for you, and all that. Which is true, but I still HOPE my list helps. Here it is:

1// Short sleeved onesies x 6

Your baby will probably live in these. They’re better than t-shirts and nappies because they still keep your baby cool but will also help keep the nappy in place (you can probably imagine but it will become abundantly clear that this is rather important)

2// Light cardigans x 2

If you step out at night, or if the weather turns windy or cool, you might want to layer your baby and that’s where the cardigans come in handy. I know those little knitted cardigans that people make you when you’re pregnant are adorable, but they’re probably too hot and bulky for a summer baby. You want something a bit lighter weight but still long sleeved

3// Bibs x 3

These are handy to catch dribble and spit-up. Without them, your baby will quickly end up with a soaking-wet top and you’ll end up having to change (and wash and dry and fold and put away) even more clothes

4// Nappy-covers x 2

These are cute little bloomer-style things that fit over the nappies. On really hot days when your baby is dressed only in a nappy, or just a nappy and a t-shirt, they look quite sweet and more “dressed.” They also go a little way towards holding the nappy in place (again, more important than you ever want it to be)

5// Long sleeved onesies x 2

Mostly for a warm weather baby you are better off layering short sleeves with little cardigans when it's cold, rather than having to get them completely changed. But it’s good to be prepared just in case (as was the case for my summer baby Ralph) the weather is so unseasonably cold that you need proper long sleeves in that first week.

6// Long pants x 2

Again, while little blankets may serve to keep your baby warm enough, if the weather is unexpectedly cold you do want to be able to cover their little legs, especially when they’re out of bed such as when you’re feeding them. (A little tip: you can get onesies with the legs included, but in my experience those are a LOT harder to change in the middle of the night - all those press-studs! argh! - and if your baby gets spit-up all over his or her top, you'll only have to change and wash and dry and fold and put away HALF the outfit)

7// Socks x 2

Just to keep those little toes cold in the night (or unseasonably-cool day) air

8// T-shirts x 4

As I’ve said, I prefer short-sleeved onesies for newborns because they hold the nappies in AND they don’t hitch up, exposing tummies or making backs uncomfortable while your baby sleeps. But t-shirts are still good to have around as backups, to swap over soiled onesies, or to add an extra layer if necessary

So there you have it. My Week 1 "dressing bub" survival list. After you’ve made it through this week, you’ll have a much better idea of what size your baby is, how fast they’re growing, what the weather is doing, and the kind of clothing/blanket/cot/pram/baby-wearing schedule that suits you, so you can go (or send someone else) shopping to buy more clothes. Have fun!

* Ralph was a summer baby and I’d bought a whole lot of adorable little newborn singlet-tops and shorts ready for his arrival. But when he was born the weather was unseasonably cool, and Mr B had to rush to the shops to buy him some little pants and long sleeved tops. By the time the summer temperatures returned, Ralph no longer fit those cute little singlets and shorts. We gave them away never-worn.

Scout says...

Lately, around our house...

SCOUT: Hey Mummy you my lunch. I gonna gobble you up.

ME: Oh no, don't gobble me up! I'm not your lunch!

SCOUT: Shoosh. Lunch can't talk.


:  :  :

SCOUT: I really need Weetbix Mummy. My tummy's lonely.

:  :  :

ME: Hey listen to this classic old song

[Split Enz plays “I see red I see red I see red”]

SCOUT (singing with gusto): I see pink I see pink I see PINK!

:  :  :

ME: Yeesh Scout, that’s two poo-filled nappies in half an hour!

SCOUT: Happy birthday Mummy.

:  :  :

MR B: We are a Bulldogs family. We all barrack for the Bulldogs, don't we Scout.

SCOUT: No Daddy.

MR B: Oh! Then who do you barrack for?

SCOUT: Mummy!

She sure does make me smile.

14 tips for a first birthday party

A first birthday is tricky, you know, because you can't focus on the child's age. So you can't plan party games because they'll most likely be too old for some of the kids and too young for the others; but you can't have no games at all because then you'll have a lot of bored kids (and nobody wants that).

Same goes for food: you've got to cater to the adults AND the kids. You've got to plan around nap times, and factor in the limitations on your time and energy when it comes to cooking and cleaning and being the perfect host in general.

We had planned a picnic for Ralph's first birthday, and figured we'd order in pizza and have some cakes and slices made and that it would all be super easy and super fun. I intended to hang paper lanterns from the trees, and put out croquet and petanque for the adults, with bouncy balls and bubbles and - let's face it - a whole playground for the kids. Easy, right? But three days before the party, the forecast was for heavy rain and 30 kilometre winds, and we had to make an emergency dash to an indoor venue instead, so everything changed.

Here's what I learned.

1. Get creative with the invitations. If you want to do something similar to ours (above), you can buy one beautifully laid out and designed by Particular Paper. By the time I found this design it was too late to order the invitations, so I painted my own. Not as pretty, but the personal touch was there!

2. Arancini balls. Everyone loves them! The mums and dads, the babies, even the fussy toddlers! Make or order loads and loads. Ours were even more popular than the mini burgers and fries

3. If you live in Melbourne, don't plan a picnic unless you have a really good wet-weather option

And on that…

4. Before you hire out an expensive "kids' party cafe," or book a community hall months in advance only to find yourself having to lug everything there on the day and then clean up for hours after… talk to your own local cafes to find out if they have a back room or an upstairs area you can use. We moved the 'picnic' to upstairs at the Paragon, and it was a fantastic venue (plus no room hire fee, and we were packed up and out of there half an hour after the party ended)

5. Music. It doesn't really matter what because once the party gets going you won't hear it, but music makes the room feel like a party when people first start arriving

6. If you find yourself short of children's entertainment (for example if you'd planned on having the entire resources of a park at your disposal and instead found yourselves locked indoors with a bunch of sugar-hyped toddlers), face paint and balloons are a great fall-back. I called We Love Facepainting literally a day before the party, and they sent the beautiful Julia who spent the entire party making balloon animals and painting faces (plus she had a Working With Children check and public liability insurance). We had kids at our party ranging in age from 10 months to 12 years, and everyone was happy without me needing to provide any games

7. Themed parties are great, but sometimes they're more trouble than they're worth. I THOUGHT about making Very Hungry Caterpillar cupcakes and fruit and lollipops… but it all got too much for me. Instead, I chose a sunny colour scheme of orange and yellow and let that guide my decor, and that was enough to pull everything together

8. Pick one thing to create "wow factor" in the room decorations. I chose giant balloons and made tassels for them (then I failed to put enough helium inside the balloons and they kind of sat weirdly on the table instead of floating up high on long strings, which I actually thought was kind of cool), and ordered some more balloons filled with confetti, which the kids all LOVED

9. Use your fancy china plates and cake-stands for the dessert table. Give it height, give it interest. That will make things look special, and you can still make do with paper plates and cups (to save on washing up!) for the rest of the party

10. A croquembouche birthday cake may seem like a good idea at the time, but too much toffee and that baby will be impossible to dismantle and pass around. Just sayin'

11. Be prepared for a LOT of presents. A first birthday often involves a lot of adult friends, many more than are likely to come along to any subsequent birthday parties, and suddenly you'll find yourself needing a "present table" and it will look like Santa came early

12. Related to the above, consider a toy cull in the lead-up to the party. Use this as an excuse to give away or throw away all those soft toys and teething rings and rattles that your baby doesn't use any more

13. Do the whole wedding thing and make a note of who gave your baby what gifts, so you can properly thank them later.

14. Give the party an end time. Not only does that politely protect you from folks who are prone to linger (after all, you have a baby who is probably in desperate need of a nap), it also gives people a sense of what to expect and how they can plan their day without finding it dominated by your party

(Photos are mostly from before the party, just to give you an idea of our simple, picnic-adapted decorations, because I didn't want to show other people's children and almost every picture included someone else's child. It was a good party that way!)

That's all I've got for now. Have fun!

The Secret Garden

And then she took a long breath and looked behind her up the long walk to see if anyone was coming. No one was coming. No one ever did come, it seemed, and she took another long breath, because she could not help it, and she held back the swinging curtain of ivy and pushed back the door which opened slowly - slowly.

Then she slipped through it, and shut it behind her, and stood with her back against it, looking about her and breathing quite fast with excitement, and wonder, and delight.

She was standing inside the secret garden.

{Excerpt from The Secret Garden (Chapter 8) by Frances Hodgson Burnett; photographs by me from our recent visit to Lambley Nursery and Gardens}