book-review

What We Read This Week (09/02/25)

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I have read so many stories this week. Stories to girls who are wanting to go to sleep but their sleep train has been delayed so they ask for a story instead. Stories when S is stuck in one of those dreaded 2-hour overnight wakes which you just have to ride out with no amount of anything that will speed up the process it’s just done when it’s done and you’re asleep and you only know you’re asleep when you’re being woken up by the next child needing you. S still suffers these, and as part of her Overnight Wake Routine she will inevitably ask for a story and whether or not I agree, she will manage to bend her arm into the bookshelf next to her cot and retrieve books and books and books. Her favourites right now seem to be Flood (Jackie French and Bruce Whatley), Never Touch a Grumpy Unicorn (right up her sensory-seeking alley), and The Boy Who Ate Everything, which seems to be a firm favourite for all my girls.

We had a trip to the library yesterday, mostly to return bags and bags of books but also to borrow some. C borrowed her usual Geronimo Stilton fare but branched out to Thea Stilton as well as a Pixie book, which prompted Playing Families (Pixie Land Edition) to be the game all afternoon. At the library, E was desperate to explore but also desperate to borrow some books, but also also desperate to borrow chapter books like C, so for the first time ever she borrowed some chapter books. Two books in the Little Ash (Ash Barty) series, and it was her first real experience of me stopping reading at a totally logical point, having read enough of a story for her to have been read to, but not having finished a book and having to wait until tomorrow night for the next bit.

I am pleased to report that, not quite within the 4-week borrowing time set by the library, and not quite within the confines of a calendar month, but nonetheless I am about to finish The Last Family In England. Mere pages to go. I have loved reading this book. I have loved being in this world inside this book. I have loved reading this author, who I came across by chance on Twitter years and years ago, and he struck a chord for all sorts of reasons, and I had wanted to read a book of his for such a long time. I have also been conscious that this is modelling a behaviour that I want to see in my girls. We read. We read for necessity, like to find out what signs mean and how to get somewhere and what the news is. We also read on our devices, for necessity and for pleasure. We also read actual, physical books that have been written by a person and published and printed and are a thing you can hold and smell and get right into. Reading a book on my phone is something I do, too, but it’s not the same, either for me or for my girls’ experience of my reading. Real books are in order.  

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. 

What We Read This Week (19/1/25)

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There was not as much reading at home this week as there was last week. It was one of those weeks where a few books were read, and a few bedtimes included a story request or 3, but it was not a book-heavy week. 

Actually, this is the sort of week that Old Me used to worry about. “Read to your child every day” can carry a lot of guilt with it if, say, your child thinks it’s hilarious to run as fast as she can away from you, or if you try to start reading them the story that they have picked out and *asked you to read to them* but about three words into the first sentence you are told, quite firmly, to shush. No. No reading. The Old Me used to stress about this until I realised that they actually get a fair bit of reading exposure without me sitting them down after a bath to do Story Time. There is reading throughout the day. They have reading at daycare. More and more, the younger two are seeing C and me doing reading. The New Me has realised that forcing things on toddlers and preschoolers is a futile and frustrating course of action that has the opposite effect than that which is intended.

So this week there was not much, and that’s ok.  C read this chapter book today, which she seemed to enjoy.  “Pearl the Flying Unicorn” by Sally Dodgers and Adele K Thomas. E’s favourite book this week has been “The Moon Book”. Yeah, not its real name. “Goodnight Baby Moon” is NOT it, but the book she borrowed last weekend about Eid is. What a find. All the girls have also been loving a Japanese lift-the-flap type of book, about hatching animals. It makes me want to revise my Japanese characters!

S now has a bookcase next to her bed, with books she can access, so she has gone a little wild. She often falls asleep with a book under her cheek or pushing into her tummy, or being ruffled by her feet. Currently in her cot are the following: Hammerbarn (Bluey); Never Touch a Grumpy Unicorn; Where is Baby’s Belly Button; and an Ella at Eden chapter book. I am not allowed to read her any.

What We Read This Week (12/1/25)

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Things have progressed somewhat since my last “What We Read This Week” post. My girls now all love books. Phew! 

C now reads voraciously. Mostly she now reads silently, but when she does read out loud I am very proud to hear her doing voices and expression. She is very engaging! 

E switched from being impossible to read to, to loving books. She doesn’t always ask for one at bedtime, but if she has missed a sleep train then “May you please read me a book?” comes out.

S. Hoo boy. What a journey it has been. They say it’s not a good idea to compare your kids, but really. C: lift the flaps and board books and paper books all fine from age dot. E: enthusiastic lifting of flaps as a baby means there are some that are no longer attached. S: all flaps removed; all board books pulled apart; now very careful and sincere with paper books.

All this, plus a developing ability for my girls to adhere to my “It’s time to go now” statements, have meant we have started visiting the local library again. Christmas was a very “book-y” Christmas, from us as well as from relatives. I am often pondering how to incorporate a reading nook for the girls and how to house the books and how to keep on top of library books.

So what we read this week is rather more wide-ranging than it used to be. Hallelujah! Instead of listing alllllllll of the books that have been collecting on the girls’ floor this week (and on my bedside table and on the sofa and on the rocking horse of all places), I picked a book the girls have each favoured reading this weekend, plus some that I found for them that I am loving, plus – gasp – a book for ME! Astonishing.

Whenever I need to take a breather in the bedroom, S comes in to help me feel better (that new doctor kit is getting a workout), and insists I read “Blossom Possum” as many times as she can wheedle out of me. I think it was a find at the school library’s culled book fair, and it is chock full of  Australianisms and rhymes. E found a book about Eid at the library and I read it to her 3 times at the library and another several times today. It is a beautiful book. C is on a mission to read every Geronimo Stilton book that the council library has to offer. I’m not sure how many there are. I’m not sure how many she has read. “Happy Birthday, Geronimo!” was the find yesterday, which was finished by the afternoon. 

“Be You” is one I feel every kid should have in their mind as early as possible. “What Feelings Do When No One’s Looking” is a very lovely approach to accepting our emotions, something I struggle with but am trying to overcome. And “My Name Is A Gift” is the one that makes me tear up. We thought long and hard about names for our girls; their names and meanings are so precious to us. “My Name Is A Gift” is a beautiful expression of the importance of a name and the importance of saying it correctly. 

Because C had finished her sole library book within a few hours, and I had cleared off my bedside table with its stack of her books, “What Katy Did” was floating around and, sure enough, C started reading it and just casually left it on my pillow. 

I actually started reading for me again recently. I have a large number of books on my phone, and I read a murder mystery last month, the kind of thing that I used to read all the time. When I started the second in the series, I got tired of it. I won’t blab on about why, but it reignited my desire to read good books. So at the library, I went on a hunt for books by an author I have followed on Twitter and Instagram for years but never read. Two books by Matt Haig were found; I borrowed one, “The Last Family In England”, and I have no regrets.