Bluey

Keeping Mum

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Instructions for motherhood. Eat plenty of healthy foods while pregnant. No, not that much. Exercise regularly during pregnancy. No, not that way. And not that much. Be consistent in your everything. But also, you need to be flexible and recognise that everything changes all the time. Talk to your baby as much as possible. This is how they learn language. Don’t use so many words when talking to your child. They can’t take it in. It overwhelms their brain. 

It’s this last one that I have been working on lately. Maybe a month before Christmas, I stopped. Not entirely, of course. But my verbal output has drastically reduced. Here’s why and what I have noticed as a result.

The why. Have you seen the episode of Bluey (yes, there’s an episode for everything) called Show and Tell? Well, that’s why, in a nutshell. Grownups talk too much. Kids can’t take in all those words. Minimise the words to maximise the understanding. Well, not so much understanding as engagement and connection. They have better things to do, and even if their body is trained to stay still and listen and say an appropriately-timed “Okay” or “Yes” or “Sorry”, their brain has really moved on.

Further to the why, though, is the why for me now. I mean, I’ve been a huge fan of Bluey since C started watching it during lockdown. And I have been reading parenting posts on social media for quite some time now in order to glean all the helpful tips I can without going the next step of enrolling in a child psychology course. I thought I was fulfilling the “talk but not too much” criterion of parenting. I was still, though, frequently saying (please don’t judge me I’m still learning) phrases like, “Am I talking to myself here?”, and “Is anybody listening to me?” Bonus, E is in the 4-year-old girl phase of super chatty combined with the lack of impulse control from E and S that means that I am interrupted allllllll the time. Reducing my output has reduced my frustration at being interrupted and at not being heard 

Also in the why for me now category is volume control. I am trying soooooo hard to reduce my shouting. Yelling. Raising my voice. For a huge number of reasons, most of which I think will be bleedingly obvious so I won’t waste anyone’s time here, but also, C is super sensitive to loud sounds so any shouting just upsets her and doesn’t have any other effect, and also, shouting has no effect. Kids don’t magically listen if the volume is raised. Kids don’t instantly stop doing the thing that made the shout happen. Often, they just keep going but now think it’s a game and isn’t that fun. My number one job of keeping them safe needed a better way.

I took inspiration from Mrs March in Little Women. Hold it in. Keep mum. Purse those lips. If necessary, do something else with my body, like rage washing or rage cleaning or rage sorting. She doesn’t call it that, of course, but the result is the same. 

There was also the What If making me still talk a lot of What if they are about to do something that will hurt them or another? But you know what? We are into the learn by doing stage. It has other names, too, but I’m not going to type them here for my mum to read (Hi mum!). The general idea is, do what you can to keep your kids safe but there will come a time when they’re just going to do what they want anyway and then they can find out for themselves why it was a not recommended course of action. Like, if you climb on those rocks, cool, but when you fall off (which you will because I know you don’t have that much rock climbing experience or balance capability just yet) then you’re going to fall into that big mud puddle there and being muddy isn’t a sensory experience you enjoy. Oh look at that. You fell. You’re muddy. You’re screaming about being muddy. The Old Me would have then given the lecture. The, “See? This is why I said not to climb on the rocks. I could see” – and honestly, I’m bored by myself. Poor kids. New Me: “Yep. You’re muddy. Shall we try to clean you up here or head home now?”

This approach of minimal talking has become most apparent at bedtimes. Bedtimes, when I am still on and haven’t been able to do much of anything for me or on my own since a walk (ideally) around 6am. Bedtimes, when I have been trying so hard all day to be thoughtful and caring and curious about what on earth led them to do that thing that ended up with everyone in tears. Bedtimes, when I’m actually just wanting to curl up in bed myself because it’s actually really hard to function every day on an average of less than five hours’ sleep a night for years. 

Keeping mum started out for me as a little experiment. Did it make a difference. Did it reduce my shouting. Did it reduce my stress. Did it reduce my guilt. Did it make bedtimes easier. The answer? A resounding “yes” to all of these. Especially yes to reducing the guilt. That may sound strange, but when you talk more, you say more, and if you’re at the end of your tether, it’s easier to let words slip out that are regrettable, that you hope were words that were ignored like so many other words but you can never tell, can you. Three years from now you may have a kid saying, “Remember that time when I was four and a half and you said you wanted to run away and join the circus because at least animals go to sleep when they’re tired”. Not that I’ve ever said that, but you get the idea. Children don’t hear a word that you want them to hear. Children hear things when you think they’re not listening.

I feel I should spell out, though, that this hasn’t meant I have stopped talking altogether. In fact, I don’t think anyone has even actually noticed my reduction in wordiness except for me. More importantly, though, the important things are definitely still said on a daily basis. I love you. I’m so glad you’re with us. I’m so glad I get to be your mummy. 

There are newer snippets that I am trying to work in, too, thanks to my parenting gurus on social media. I’m feeling very frustrated right now so I’m going to do some deep breaths and try to push the wall away. I got so worked up earlier today, but you helped me so much by just being calm next to me so I could take deep breaths and calm down, too. 

And my new personal favourite (from Nurtured First) because I don’t think I’ve been explicit enough in sharing with my girls that I can handle all their emotions (because, to be brutally honest with myself, I don’t deal very well with the bigger emotions) and that I love them always and forever, no matter what: 

I love you when you’re happy. I love you when you’re mad. I love you when you’re silly. I love you when you’re sad.

What We Have Been Reading (13/09/2025)

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The eagle-eyed among you, or the regular readers, may note a different title than usual. But you may have noticed I haven’t posted much for a little while, either, so that explains the former. Life has been busy – good busy, which really means I have had lots of work to do when children are sleeping, which cuts down on my writing time. (I have noticed, though, what a difference this writing makes to my life. The combination of alone-time without 15 ‘mummy’s a second, a cup of sanity tea, and the process of expressing myself and often working through problems as I write, just helps life.)

Books have featured heavily in our lives lately. There was Book Week. Which meant there was a lead-up to Book Week, too, with lots of reading. Last week had a pupil-free day and so my parents came down to see the girls and took them book shopping. C has been off school all this week and one of her screen-free activities was reading. Another was helping to tidy the girls’ room. C is a kid who needs very precise instructions, as well as a different take on things. “Tidying” doesn’t go down so well. I get the rolled eyes and body flop of “This is the worst, most boring thing in the world that you have asked me to do and I protest”. Ask her to make an area look nice, though, and she excels. If there are too many things in that – like, put the books away AND fold the blankets AND stack the cushions AND put all the little things that accumulate and drive me nuts and why do we even have them – those things in the pouches on the door, well, that’s just too much. Stick to one thing at a time and it works.

At the bookstore with my parents, S got right into it. Like we were at a library with no limits on loans. The stroller very quickly had a stack of books in it, then she sat down and had my dad read Peppa Pig stories to her for the rest of our time there. Which meant, unfortunately, that I put all her choices back and we got home to “Where’s my fish book?” – oops. Mum bought her Mr Archimedes’ Bath by Pamela Allen, and she has listened to it but not asked for again. E quite enjoyed it, though. Mum had a particular book in mind for C, a chapter book by David Walliams. Mum worried that it was too big for her. I raised an eyebrow and told her that the Penny books (Penny Draws A Best Friend and that series) that mum gave her the first one of, you know those really thick chapter books, C will read one of them in a weekend. Sure enough, C started her new book that afternoon and read it at every opportunity, finishing it before we left for a birthday party at 8.45am Saturday. She loved it.

E’s choice in the bookstore was a Snow White book. We already have two Snow White stories, one in the Ultimate Princess book and one as an early reader. I said no. The one E wanted was a simple board book version. I said no. E refused all other suggestions. I figured this was not a battle I needed. I relented. Guess which book has been the most-read, most-loved, taken-to-daycare (and home again) book. Yup. All the girls love it. It’s one of those board books with push/pull/slide, and the story words rhyme, and I put in extra bits for the action parts. E can’t read yet but knows all the words, and when she or C read it, they put in all the action parts, too. S has had screaming tantrums at bedtime because she wants E’s Snow White book. I have read it while sitting next to her. I have read it while sitting next to E. I have read it while sitting next to E and holding it up so C can see it from her bunk. I think… I think it was a good choice of book.

E has lately started ‘needing’ a story so she can sleep. Wait, after two stories she’ll be able to sleep. Yes, two stories and then she will sleep. Wait, because she is four now… After four stories, she promises she will go to sleep. And apparently, reading Pig the Fibber (one of the Pig the Pug stories that has recently come back into the limelight and has my girls squealing with laughter) four times doesn’t count as four. Humph. 

S is still obsessed with The Big Frozen Book and because C put all the books away I haven’t been able to find (yet) The Small Elsa Book. The Bluey Summer Treasury has also been pored over lately, as has The Very Hungry Caterpillar. C has been reading Geronimo Stilton as well as all the Roald Dahl collection. Also, C and I finished Little Women – apparently the last two chapters were booorrriinnggggg but I get that that was boring for a 7-year-old who has little experience of the world. I loved that it had several elements pertinent to our family, though, like the part where the girls decided to have a break from their chores and then their mother let them have it and it was chaos. Rather pertinent to our weekend, actually, as we have an inspection on Monday so my days are spent picking up Disney coins and hair bows and tissues and pencils and no you can’t do painting today because nobody cleans up afterwards and also could you please just this weekend please leave your quilts and pillows on your beds and maybe somebody could help me make this place just a tiny bit nicer so I can actually clean it before we have a total stranger coming in to take photos of our mess to send to the owners and WHO EMPTIED THE ACTIVITY TUB and OH MY WORD WHO PAINTED THIS ON THE WALL. Humph. Fortunately, even though C is the leader of “Don’t give away our toys”, she also really appreciates and relishes a calm/uncluttered/clear space, so when I put everything on her bunk into two (that’s right, TWO) large garbage bags to be stored FOR NOW in the wardrobe, she was ecstatic. 

Bonus of clearing spaces – girls can stretch out on the floor to read and choose books. Love. C and I are now reading Anne of Green Gables, which we started a while back but didn’t get very far. We are loving it this time around, though. It was always a favourite of mine and it is really something special to share a much-loved book with the next generation of readers.

What We Read This Week (22/06/2025)

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One of my favourite things from today was listening to C read to E, and listening to E be read to by C. It reminded me of the first day E was home from the hospital and, in the middle of the upheaval of a new person and visiting grandparents and new furniture to accommodate new person, I found C leaning over the side of the bassinet, “reading” (reciting as she knew it so well) Goldilocks quietly to E. This evening, E literally pulled up a chair to where C was, and C read The Book With No Pictures, and E let loose on her best laughs. They are loud, and joyful, and I will need to find better words to describe them but they are glorious. Then, as I nixed any further readings of THAT book as it was time for bath and bed and S was nearly asleep, C read a Rescue Princess book to E on the toilet. As you do. So S fell asleep listening to the calming sound of C reading quietly, which was rather nice, I must say. 

This week, I have also read (groan) Peppa Meets the Queen (groan) more times than I would like. Which, admittedly, means more than once or better yet, none, but still. Nightly seems to be the go. The book is nearly as annoying as the shows. So far E has remarked that the Queen is a person – which does actually seem odd in that animal universe – but has not yet commented on the placement of a fish tank on top of the TV. That gets me every time. Goldilocks has also been on high request rotation, and has been part of E’s calm down routine. Not the best-written version, but I can deal. 

I have also read Sleeping Beauty way more times than expected. Surprise! E seems to love this one. I love hearing my slightly-lispy 4-year-old have a crack at saying “Maleficent” multiple times in a 15-minute timeframe. This is one that I feel would not make it past the higher-ups these days. An arranged marriage plus waiting for a prince feels so old-fashioned. That said, every time it is mentioned that the princess is due to marry the prince on her 16th birthday, I comment about how young that is, and you never know. It might provoke some good conversations soon about child marriage and choices.

I have been steadily trying to make our place a bit nicer, and that resulted in a more obvious bookshelf. Seeing girls in front of it, contemplating, pulling out a book, sitting down and reading it, are all things that make my mummy heart happy. S spent rather a long time in the last few days just sitting and reading. Bluey books, mostly, so absolutely no complaints here.

C and I are sooo nearly finished The Secret Garden. I wasn’t expecting this when we started it, but it is helping us off screens. Not from the whole book reading instead of iPad time angle, but more from the content of the book, with children getting healthy from digging in the garden and spending their lives in the fresh air. 

Meanwhile, C’s preferred book to read before sleeping is (drumroll) … The Dictionary. For real. Which, honestly, is a great choice. No staying up to find out what happens next. No potentially scary plot points Just. Words. Best Christmas present ever, thank you very much.

What We Read This Week (15/06/2025)

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I have been wracking my brain trying to remember books I’ve read to girls this week. E and S have both been so fantastically ready for sleep by the time they are in bed that bedtime stories haven’t been an option. It’s been a case of getting S bathed and into bed; by the time E is out of the bath, S is asleep; E has just wanted quiet hand holding for a bit while she drifts off within minutes. I have been so relived by this, but there has really been not much by way of reading. There has been some Disney Princess Story reading in the mornings, though, usually when I am trying to get people dressed and ready to be presentable out in the world. Reading is preferable to clothing or brushing hair, apparently. 

Also, a note for illustrators. Consistency, please. If you put a princess on the cover in a ballgown that has a bejewelled collar, please have at least one illustration of said princess in that same exact ballgown in the story. E is entirely convinced that there should be a sixth princess story because that aspect hasn’t matched up. Thanks.

A week like this used to have me worried that they were not getting the benefits of books. But bedtime is not the only time for books! Daycare has books. Story time is part of each day. There is a book corner in each room, and I know my girls each spend some time in there independently each day, as well. Nearly every day that I pick them up, E is looking through a book. Then there are the occasions like today when I was sending them to the balcony. Nature play was happening and that was going to involve dirt and glue and just no, so out they went. As I was clearing some of the washing, E came out with a book my mum sent along with a birthday present, “A is for Aunty”, which is an Aboriginal alphabet book. C read it out loud while E, it turns out, pulled every leaf off one of the opportunistic succulent plants. Then Bluey’s Hammerbarn had a turn as well before a lot of glue was used as girls created nature pictures while I got on with weekend tasks. Of course, C being who she is, she also read the About The Author section and was suddenly asking me about the Stolen Generations. Not at all light, especially for a high anxiety 7-year-old. 

C and I are making great progress with The Secret Garden. I think it will be finished within a week. This is partly due to me reading to her while she is in her bed. It’s dim in there because by this time of the night, E and S are already asleep. “That’s okay, mummy. I’ll read it to myself”. Just to the end of the chapter… next morning, “I’m in chapter 21!” Ah. I see I will have to do some independent reading of my own to remind myself of what is in the rest of chapter 18, plus chapters 19 and 20 and the start of 21. 

I am not at all sad about this. 

What We Read This Week (04/05/2025)

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Christmas in May is a thing, isn’t it? I’m all for seasons of the year, and keeping some things to that season, but then girls will find a book and want it read on repeat and it just happens to be a Christmas book so what am I to do? Like, not read it or something? Crazy talk. (Same with Christmas clothing, honestly. If they want to wear the Christmas overalls I made C when she was two and has been worn randomly throughout the years and still going strong then who am I to complain??)

So. Bluey’s Twelve Days of Christmas has been flavour of the week. S and E have tried to get me to sing it every night which has its fun but really we get to the end and my tired voice mostly just says, “And a fruit bat in a mango tree” go to sleep now okay please sleep now goodnight! Which unfortunately just adds to the hilarity and they, crazily, don’t just go to sleep then and there. Weird. S then insists that the book goes to her, and she reads it backwards, usually. Nearly always like this:

S: Two! Mummy, I two!

Me: You sure are.

S: [counts to twelve] twelve guitars! So many!

Me: [clicking] Ah yes. Twelve guitars, and you saw the number two?

S: Yes, because I two! [turns pages, backwards and forwards] ribbit. Ribbit. Hehehe. [random page turning] mummy, what’s that?

Me: [knowing by now what she is looking at] yabbies.

S: snap snap. [more random page turns with the occasional ooh or aah or giggle] BLUEY/BIN CHICKEN. Mummy what’s that?

Me: [checking out which page she’s on] that’s a fruit bat. Bluey’s hanging like a fruit bat.

S: [closes book, places it about halfway along the side of the cot, stands her water bottle on it. Tries to lie down which makes the bottle fall over] Oh MAN. Not again. [repeats the bottle stand up/lying down attempt a few times before remembering to put the bottle into the rails a bit more. Lies down. Sleeps.]

E’s bonus Christmas book has been We’re Going on an Elf Chase. Lift the flaps. Trace the path. Very E things. Like also finding her engrossed in the Pop-Up Punctuation book. She is so careful, and loves them so much. Not Christmassy, but her other choice with me this week has been Thelma the Unicorn. I so love all the questions E asks, revealing her consideration of the story and the pictures and the characters. 

Speaking of questions, C and I finished What Katy Did. This wasn’t Finished until I had asked her the questions that were in the back of the book and she had added her own. We have now started on The Secret Garden which meant discussions about cholera and death and transmission of diseases. What a fun end to my day. 

How Was Your Easter?

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You always get that question, don’t you? “How was your Easter?” Asked with such enthusiasm and the questioner’s desire for the answer to be positive. I feel that acceptable answers are: “Lovely, thanks! We had a whole extended family camping trip out at Whoop Whoop so, you know, no reception so the kids couldn’t be on their phones the whole time. It was SO wonderful being with the whole family. The cousins just played out in nature all day long”. Or, “It was wonderful! We went to the dawn service and it was so, so special. Then we had family over and it was just such a special day”. Or, “Great, thanks! It was so nice having a four-day weekend, wasn’t it? So much time to spend with the family, just relaxing. The whole street put on an Easter egg hunt for all the kids and it was just so special”.

Variations on “It was amazing!” 

But what are you allowed to say if “amazing” was so far from your reality that you just… can’t?

If the sneezes of S on the way to the children’s service on Good Friday – I should elaborate, the 12 sneezes in quick succession – were followed by a day of her wiping her snot on you and you realised that, yep, we’re not going anywhere this weekend. If E suddenly has a nasty sounding cough that is just a cough and isn’t accompanied by any other symptoms of unwellness but oof it doesn’t sound good and … and … you yourself recognise the signs of sickness in yourself.

If the children’s service on Good Friday turns out to be a), a wonderful experience for children and explains all of Holy Week within about 45 minutes, and b), a demonstration on the part of your girls of how much they get into experiencing things , and c), a demonstration on the part of your girls of how much they ignore instructions from you about things like “Please stop hitting the rocks on the cathedral floor even though I recognise it is a new sound experience for you” or “Please stop waving the palm leaves so vigorously as you are hitting other people and even though they’re really nice about it, you just scratched me in the eye so I know they’re just being polite as this really hurts”.

If a basic shopping trip is filled with “I’m bored”, “I don’t want any fruit but can I have a yoghurt pouch instead”, “I’m so huuuuuungrrryyyy” and then girls going wild in the Easter section as you chose one (1) Easter treat for your husband and when you have chosen it you discover your – yes, your – kids have pulled out half a dozen bunny ear headbands and E is dancing with a ginormous and quite lovely bunny dressed up including ballet slippers but you are not letting any more soft toys into your place and C has found all sorts of things that she jumps around telling you about and asking you for all at once.

If taking girls outside to get them doing something other than bickering inside and watching shows means major shouting and screaming and fighting and crying over little things, looked at the situations from the perspective of grownup eyes, but clearly mean the world to the person feeling wronged. If taking them outside makes you doubt your ability to parent at all.

If you feel ignored and disobeyed all weekend.

What do you do with that? How do you avoid saying in response to an enthusiastic “How was your Easter?”, well, actually, it was horrible and I was so glad when Tuesday arrived. I was upset and cross with girls all weekend and they were ignoring any request or instruction from me all weekend and I was so frustrated I wanted to claw my face off several times.

You have to dig deep and find those kernels of joy and loveliness and delight. Bring them to the top. Polish them. Display them. Cherish those gems and make sure that’s what you tell people and especially your children about. After all, deep in your heart you know that your reasons for grumpiness – initially, anyway – had nothing to do with your girls. You know that none of them was trying to be naughty or to push your buttons or seeing if they actually land themselves in hospital to find out if the Easter Bunny actually does visit kids in hospital. You know that two of them were also unwell and that brings irritability. You know that all three of them were excited for Sunday. You are coming to learn that C will have in her mind how she wants the day to go – wants, thinks, imagines, plans – and the more excited she is about that, the more fixated she will be on having only those things happen and other things that pop up like me needing to give S a cuddle or E wanting a hand held will derail her plans and that affects her, big time.

So instead of all the grr of the weekend, I am going to focus on these things. 

I am going to focus on how wonderful it is that the girls feel so comfortable expressing themselves, and that they feel so comfortable at church, in a space that is also incredibly awe-inspiring. 

I am going to focus on the three rainbow-eared bunnies I brought home with me from the shops, each with their own new breakfast set of bowl, cup and spoon. 

I am going to focus on the calm that settled in when we took to painting the Easter eggs. The fun they had painting themselves, as they nearly always do, after the eggs were painted. 

I am going to focus on the way S and E sat on my lap in turn while I did little bits of sewing, each quietly playing with pins and only occasionally pressing buttons on my machine, and then only by request. 

I am going to remember that C roller skated down the small hill and past the bend in the path all by herself for the first time. I am going to remember E scooting so confidently now, with her unicorn helmet and princess dress and C’s long socks and her sparkly pink jelly sandals. I am going to remember S just cruising along on her flamingo tricycle, holding up the impatient traffic, then doing melodramatic dives to copy any stacks that the older two did for real, complete with token wailing.

I am going to remember that there was a Bluey-worthy Easter egg hunt on Sunday morning. An Easter egg hunt so wonderful that this is the first thing the girls share about their Easter. There were clues, just like Bluey and Bingo had! A picture and a magnet creation and plants and blocks in the wrong spot and a doctor kit item in the wrong box and then it could have just been something else on the floor but the doctor knife pointed to the table and the Easter Bunny hid the Easter eggs under daddy’s bandanna!!! I hope you read that in a voice that became higher and faster and louder as it went through.

I am going to remember that kids see things differently. They don’t bring all this history and awareness and “Should” to the table. They just want to enjoy it and learn to get along, however loudly that might happen. 

Did I mention the Easter egg hunt? Sorry. It was kind of a big deal.

How was my Easter? Kind of amazing, really.

What We Read This Week (16/03/2025)

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It didn’t feel like we read a lot this week. Superworm and Tiddler are still way, way up the top of the list. But then I noticed the pile of books at the end of my sofa. Just like years ago, long before S was born, and when E but really C would pick books for bedtime and a pile would develop on sofa arms and tables. I noticed the pile. I thought, you should really put those books back on the bookshelf, Anna. 

So I started to gather the books, and what had started off looking like maybe 3 or 4 books just kept getting bigger. It was like Mary Poppins’ bag. Because I am who I am, of course then I started taking photographs so I could make notes of which books they were. This isn’t strictly speaking what we read just this week, but definitely in the last 9-10 days.

Tabby McTat. Zog and the Flying Doctors. Tiddler. (Side note: Superworm and Zog are in the girls’ bedroom, along with the Boy Who Ate Everything, two copies of Little Red Riding Hood and Pop Up Punctuation). Matilda. What Katy Did. Little Ash: Party Problem! Bears in a Band. The Story About Ping. Don’t Call Me Bear! Pig the Fibber. There’s No Such Thing As Monsters! A Sleepy Snorey Dino Story! (Lots of exclamation marks, I’m just noticing now). The Other Ark. Ten Minutes to Bed; Where’s Father Christmas? That’s Not My Lion… That’s Not My Reindeer… Never Touch a Grumpy Unicorn! Hammerbarn. Bluey: 12 Days of Christmas.

My goodness.

Clearly, C abhors a vacuum and has added a Dragon Girls book to my sofa arm, as well as reintroducing Matilda, What Katy Did, and bringing Black Beauty and Heidi to the sofa. Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé is still being read by me and currently resides on my current sewing project and underneath What Katy Did.

Yes. I am trying to be better at putting things away. In my defence, this book stack lasted for less than a fortnight, so there’s that.

What We Read This Week (09/03/2025)

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What to read with young girls in the event of an impending cyclone.

What young girls will ask to be read in the event of an impending cyclone.

What to read to escape from the anxiety of an impending cyclone. 

What girls want to be read after the threat of the cyclone has passed and we are stuck with rain and rain and rain and rain.

There have been new favourites. There have been old favourites. There have been books unearthed by curious hands. Comfort books. Books that have things for fingers to do, like touching textures or moving a bee around a maze (which has turned out to be surprisingly comforting for all of my girls, rather like a finger labyrinth). New-enough books that they are still “not boring” to a nearly-7-year-old. 

In our emergency kit – which ended up being a chair in the main bedroom with a pile of leaf blankets, filled water bottles and a soft bunny toy and a pile of books  – I put Matilda, a Dragon Girls special edition, Never Touch a Grumpy Unicorn, Tiddler, Superworm, Tabby McTat, Hammerbarn, Busy Bee, and Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé.

We did not need our emergency kit. It was quite windy on Friday night, and I started to worry about the window nearest my bed. Girls slept right through, solidly, like they were exhausted from all the waiting and then just wanted to wake up to no more cyclone. Sleep was tricky for Glenn and me. I was worrying about trees and windows. Glenn had E next to him (she comes in most nights) and it was not one of those nights where she is asleep and still but rather one of those nights where she is asleep and you cannot wake her but she is flapping around like a gasping fish. Still, it was rather comforting to have this Just In Case emergency kit an arm’s reach away.

I woke up the morning after the cyclone that wasn’t a cyclone anymore to quiet. Such quiet that I thought maybe we were, bizarrely, in the eye of the cyclone. We were not. It was still sitting over the islands and we were calm because the cyclone threat had passed. And E asked me to read her The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which she wanted so many times when she was a baby that her 1st birthday cake was inspired by it. She wanted it repeatedly Saturday morning, and often since then, and now puts her hand over my mouth for a couple of the pages so that she can say the words herself. This afternoon was also a Very Hungry Caterpillar jigsaw puzzle festival, with Sage doing one of our set of four puzzles over and over and over for at least an hour, and then the other girls joining in with the other puzzles. Milo Goes Bananas has also been a popular choice this week, as well as Goodnight Baby Moon, and Slinky Malinki. 

E has started “Just going to the red bookshelf for another book. I be right back” when she can’t fall asleep, and this evening I could see she was in the indecisive muddle that comes with too many choices poorly displayed. Tomorrow daycare is closed and school is supervision only so we are all staying home again, and although the girls probably think they will spend the day jumping up and down in muddy puddles, or at least the growing swimming pool in the garden, some of tomorrow will be spent reorganising the books. 

What We Read This Week (02/03/2025)

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Well. It has been a while since I have memorised a book from reading it so much. Some that are in my repertoire are Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes; Time For Bed; Where Is the Green Sheep?; and This and That. The number of times S – who is currently fighting her worst ever cold – has asked, “How about we read Tiddler?”, or said “Read me Tiddler”, or “Let’s read Tiddler”, has resulted in me reading it any number of times, back to back, at all hours. It’s not quite entrenched in my brain just yet but I reckon by next Sunday it will be. It is becoming her comfort book, her go-to, her first choice for reassurance.

Books also saved us when I took S (with E as well) to the doctor on Friday. A midday appointment, that may or may not be running late, with one child who absolutely hates being at the doctor’s – I mean, chances are you’ll get stabbed (vaccinated), so I see her point – and was not very happy about being strapped into a stroller when she has recently gained a fair bit of freedom in that department, and another child who was being dragged along and not really enjoying being told to do anything like stay close and not climb on all the chairs because it’s not your own personal indoor gym. Dreading the experience, I felt like a magician when I said, “Let’s see if we have any books in here… Oh look, Hammerbarn!” And the mood switched from grizzly anxious to the calm familiarity of a well-known, well-loved book to hold and read and look at. 

E has been fascinated by Letters From Felix this week, one of those perfect books for her age. A favourite toy, lost on holidays. Letters from all over the world. Actual letters that are a sheet of paper folded inside an envelope in the book. Lots of fine motor skill practice has happened this week, all in pursuit of letters and curiosity.

C was ecstatic on Tuesday this week, as she could borrow two of one of her favourite chapter book series from the school library. And then she read them both in about half an hour that night and then fell right asleep. The EJ Spy School series even inspired her birthday party last year. Then on Thursday, when homework came home, she was ecstatic again as her home reading book was an Ella and Olivia book. Usually she rolls her eyes at how simplistic the home readers are, but this week she read it without prompting more than once.

I have been making progress on Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé, with lots of downtime cuddles happening and no shopping or park plays or any outings whatsoever. I am so enjoying it, as I knew I would, but I am also feeling like I fell asleep in a show and woke up in the next series. I suspect some books in between Chocolat and Peaches will be in order soon.

As an aside, as today is Dr Seuss’ birthday, we had green eggs for breakfast. This sounds like more of a novelty than it really is, as Glenn makes “Baby Yoda eggs” (steamed eggs with spinach) on many weekends. But green eggs (scrambled eggs made with eggs whizzed with kale and avocado) was it for breakfast. C acknowledged what was up, but E and S were a bit more puzzled, even though I explained that it was Dr Seuss’ birthday and he wrote that book, Green Eggs and Ham… And even though we have quite a selection of Dr Seuss books, we don’t have THAT book, and the girls didn’t want to read any of his other books. To be fair, they were quite keen to watch anything they could that was based on a Dr Seuss book, but that was about it. Happy birthday, Dr Seuss.

School’s Back!

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Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

Bye, darling girl! I love you! Have a wonderful day!

School is back, and holidays are done. Holidays that went better than last summer and better than feared but still … still had that feeling of gritted teeth. We’re getting through it. How much longer now? Grr.

Morning walking. Walking for physical health but also to find some space in the day, to carve it out for myself, to have the morning sun in my eyes, to breathe fresh air and not have to answer five questions fired at me from multiple sources all at once every ten seconds. Walking because looking after me in this way helps me reset and look after everybody else. 

Taking myself to the bedroom for a break so that I don’t explode. Breathe. Be interrupted during that minute – that one tiny minute of 60 seconds – because sometimes girls can’t even last that long or I have left my breathing space mental break cool down time too late and then I am rushing back out to nurse the injured child or to remind girls of something like we don’t hurt others to get our own way or that sometimes it’s okay to let others do their thing and let me deal with them.

Two girls going to daycare two days a week. The pre-holiday financial stress of knowing there may be zero income to cover this but also the holiday family stress of having three girls together for all the other days so balancing it out to be two days a week of daycare and then five long and tricky days where they’re all together. The relief – such relief! – when I actually was allocated work for every single day that they were at daycare and I could work and earn just that little bit of money that meant that I didn’t have to use up my entire savings to get through the holidays.

Having that little bit of money meant having freedom to buy girls things like an ice cream on a day out, or buy sushi for them for lunch, or buy craft supplies, or buy replacement sandals when one child just stepped into a pond and when I hauled her out immediately there was only one sandal on one foot and the other was lost at the bottom of a pond and there were so many tears but she didn’t have to go home barefoot. Money that meant I could buy C black school shoes, which are not essential for this school but still a nice thing that she asked for and I knew it would help her feel Proper. Buying school shoes and realising that school socks will be better than her multicoloured rainbow unicorn socks so being able to say yes to school socks. I know this doesn’t sound like much but if you’ve been there, you know. Money that meant I could take her to the uniform shop when it opened last week and buy her uniforms, all secondhand, but not stressing that if there was nothing in her size secondhand then I would be buying new. 

Big Days Out. People hearing about these massive outings and saying how amazing I am but me knowing inside that this is just because I am so far from amazing that this is the only way I can keep girls from fighting with each other all day because when they are out they are so beautifully behaved and just seem to get on better. Big Days Out that wear them out but it’s still a balancing act of Big and not so Big that they are actually worn out and get sick from exhaustion then have to stay home from playgrounds and daycare and then we implode.

Big Days Out this summer that included the trip to Bluey’s World and the day at the City Botanic Gardens playground and the trip to my brother and sister-in-law’s new place on Boxing Day where we also saw my parents and my sister-in-law’s parents and brother and it was a huge day that had girls falling asleep on the way home. There was a Big Day Out to the shopping centre to beat the heat and have girls playing in the shopping centre play areas for three or four hours. There was a mummy-daughter shopping trip that was promising to be a wonderful pre-Christmas shopping trip but ended prematurely when the heat and the sunlight and the people and the noise and the noise and the noise and the noise caused poor C to be so overwhelmed she was nearly vomiting. 

There was mummy cooking more. This makes me happy but also oh my goodness the stress of trying to prep dinner just before taking girls outside when it is shady enough but they are definitely at the point of the day when they need to be outside it is real, this stress, and I finally worked out the need to prep dinner way, way earlier, like at lunchtime sort of earlier and then we managed to have maybe three nights at the end of the holidays where it was not so stressful. 

Baking, both together and partially together and managing to do some on my own as girls were doing their own thing. Relishing this together time while also simultaneously finding the stress of having girls fight over the ladder and the step stool and whose turn it is to tip or stir or taste and that moment when you realise you need an ingredient which requires you to leave the preparation area because you don’t have extendable arms so there will be at least one child unsupervised next to uncontained ingredients and stove knobs.

Craft. Not as much as there could be because the mess is a big factor. Also not as much as there could be because then once they have finished gluing coloured pasta shapes to cardboard or gluing cotton wool to a plastic bottle with fairy lights inside it or making glass jars into tea light holders (actually those are quite lovely) then we have all those things in our place needing places to live because of course they cannot ever be thrown away or repurposed. They are Special. 

There were regular trips to the library. I had neglected it somewhat because I feel libraries are a place of calm, for order, for quiet, and this is all the things my girls are not. Plus the lack of cooperation when I say it’s time to go meant it was a very stressful place and experience for me. However, the last few months I gave it another go and it is such a hit. The children’s area with its pretend cafe and its wall games and big armchairs and ‘doctor computer’. New and colourful and attractive and enticing books. Row upon row of chapter books for C. Indoor drinking fountains. The rituals of borrowing books and returning books.

“Hey Siri, play rock and roll music.” “Hey. Siri. Play … STOP! HEY. SIRI!!!!! PLAY. ROCK. AND ROLL. MU. SIC.” As it turns out, I have three rocking rock chicks. Especially E. They love Kiss and Queen and ABBA. All girls can now activate Siri on the HomePod. They are expert at requesting movie soundtracks and have been practising other options like Mamma Mia and I Was Made For Loving You Baby and Rock And Roll All Night. The HomePod is now unplugged as turn taking took a dive and there are only so many times I can listen to children shouting at Siri and then listening to We Will Rock You (much as I love it).

New indoor climbing equipment and balloons and outside time with balloons and scooter and tricycle and ride-on car and playing mermaids and jumping in the massive swimming pool puddle that forms when it rains a lot and the mud oh my goodness the mud that I have had to clean up because when it’s available it is the most favourite thing for the girls ever in their lives.

Even though this feels like it is over, it’s also not really over. All these things will still happen, will still be happening, for the next little while. Weekends still exist. Sick days still happen. We just have all the added extras of school and lunches and activities and girls not having to be in each other’s faces most of the time. 

Annnnd breathe.