family

How We Shop

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I think I have mentioned somewhere here that we live right next to the shops. As in, looking out the girls’ bedroom window, you can see into the carpark of the shopping centre. We live on the “wrong” side, though, as we are relegated to a single staircase for entry. No problem before we had kids. Very annoying problem when we used a pram, as we would either carry the pram and child and everything else up or down the stairs, or go the long way which is along the long bit of our street and down the busy road and crossing at the lights and past cafes and shops and around the corner and past all sorts of life and then into the shopping centre via the ramp. Then home again, which is then all uphill and sunny. Ugh. 

Now that we can do no pram and even sometimes no stroller, we can take the girls through the convenient staircase. This has been a wonderful development in our lives. The problem is coming home, though, when we are faced with a descent with minimal rails for holding. For smaller people, this is quite intimidating, and I am often suddenly dealing with a child frozen to a step, refusing to move anything for fear of tumbling down. The number of things I have carried down those steps! The number of kind people who have helped me carry things down those steps!

Then we are on a stretch of road with a wide footpath but girls tend to treat it as a place to fight. Which side of the stroller they are “meant” to be on. How fast they can race even though I’ve asked them not to. Who can scale the wall (the germs!!!) at all, or more than the others. Ugh. And there are just enough cracks and holes in the pavement for it to be necessary for younger ones to still hold onto my hand or a hand or the stroller because guaranteed there will be a trip from at least one child along there.

That’s, of course, after the actual shopping bit. The actual shopping bit has turned horrible lately. Maybe it always was but I could just bear it more easily. Maybe it is actually that girls’ behaviour is becoming more pronounced, more wilful, and more independent which is great, I know this, but I am also aware of other people and I am tired. I’m tired of asking kids to behave one way and being ignored. I’m tired of apologising to people because we are blocking the aisle or one kid is riding the basket and not looking where she’s going or pushing the basket along the floor at high speed. I’m tired of kids being insistent on what we buy and then wailing or screaming when we aren’t buying it. I’m tired of buying 10 yoghurt pouches even after the free fruit for kids because after the fruit girls then want yoghurt and then more yoghurt. I’m tired of being worried that the next person won’t be lovely, because they’re not always. 

A few weeks ago, when we had had an enforced shopping trip because we were out of milk – disaster – I had a think. C had definitely not wanted to go and I am determined to move away from “I’ll buy you x if you come”. S had been a bit on the snotty side so that’s another level of wariness when shopping. No girls had stopped when I asked them to stop. They had some sort of competition that I couldn’t work out but was getting them in the way of other shoppers and preventing them from listening to me at all. Nearly finished, and E was suddenly busting. Sigh. 

Once we were home and unpacked and girls were eating again, I had a think. Why is this so hard? I’m making them do something boring. Even with behaviour expectation reminders, that doesn’t make them suddenly want to do this. Their behaviour is telling me they don’t want to do this so they will do their best to make it fun in their own way which happens to be tricky for me to navigate around unknown entities. Right. How can we change this.

Home delivery. 

I used to think home delivery was for rich people, or rich sick people, or rich lazy people. So. Wrong. (I’m sorry! A thousand apologies!) Yes, it costs us a little bit more to shop this way. But no, not nearly as much as I feared it would be. And I am so willing to pay that small amount to be able to shop this way. From home. Without the dramas of children. 

Said children, by the way, love this. They love having deliveries. They love having a knock at the door. They love looking in a bag and finding something – anything – that I’ve ordered. Apples! Juice boxes! Tissues! CHEESE! And it is much easier to find a willing helper to put something – anything – away. In fact, I usually find myself with helpers before I have even asked. And if not, well, it’s really not hard to put it away myself. Our place is notatall big.

Shopping in an app also brings online only specials and app-only specials. I can see boosted items more easily without trying to work out if the extra points for buying that item instead of another that is cheaper per 100g is worth it while also trying to stop a 2yo from pulling out all the items with green labels or listening to the pleading for something from a 7yo that is being copied by a 4yo then finding the 2yo has dropped half her free banana on the floor and is picking up bits to put in her mouth before I notice. I can add items to the cart whenever. Sudden brain cell just before I go to sleep – ooh, add it to cart. Conversation with Glenn after E and S are asleep – I’ll just find that now and there they are, in the cart. Waiting for files to show up at work – get onto that shopping. 

Another bonus, which I was hoping for but, you know, “home delivery is for rich people” got in the way: limits and saving money. Having shops right next to us has meant convenient shopping. We’re out of milk? Okay, better get some more and also while we’re there… Or, today I feel like sausages for dinner – okay, get over there and buy what you need. When we are well stocked at home, though, this is a luxury in which we have indulged. Now we are getting much more into the zone of, we’re not getting a delivery until Friday and today is Wednesday so what are we going to feed children for dinner? We still have this and this so why don’t we make that into this? Perfect! No more of that popcorn that was only bought because it was a half price special? Oh well. We’ll see if it’s on special next week and then I might (or might not) buy some more. Have a piece of fruit instead if you’re hungry. 

And yes, this has reduced our grocery bill. I didn’t do any official calculations before we started home delivery, but it was around the $350 mark I think, sometimes considerably more if it was a week of buying laundry detergents and olive oil. Now it is hovering around $250-300, a number I like much, much more.

Now, I love a good list, as you may well know. Keeping one on the fridge is no longer an option – our girls are tall and artistic – but we have Apple. We’ve had a “children quotes” shared note for some time now, and I made a shared note for shopping. I call it our master shopping list. Everything we buy, vaguely sorted in sections, goes on the list. If we are running low on something, one of us puts an emoji next to it on the list and when I am doing a shopping order, I look for it. Some things can definitely wait until they are on special so have had an emoji for a couple of weeks now, but some other things make it onto the top-up shop that I order for Monday or Tuesday, depending on when Glenn is working. 

Now please excuse me. I have to finalise a delivery order.

Meal Prep Monday (14/07/2025)

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A few things happened this weekend. Friday was the Friday for a fortnightly funky food farm box of fruit and veg. I add a dozen eggs to this order because we love eggs. By the time we came home from the park at lunchtime, it was waiting for us at our front door. S very enthusiastically carried the eggs to the kitchen while I watched helplessly until she had speedily and carefully put them on the bench. 

Then through some glitch in the system, the other dozen eggs I had ordered to be delivered from Woollies – first extra large, then I had to change it to large, then that wasn’t in stock so it would be jumbo – well, it made me feel like a magician. Or more accurately, a magician’s assistant, most likely a volunteered audience member, as I found not one, not two, but three dozen jumbo eggs in our delivery. 

Having 48 eggs did affect my weekend food plans, I must admit. That, and the other thing that happened which was the hot water system beeping every 10 seconds on Saturday. Every. Ten. Seconds. No. Matter. What. It turned out to be needing a battery change. Yes, this was the day I found out they have batteries and yes, I had asked the internet and ChatGPT for help, and no, nobody told me this until our real estate phoned me and told me. Thank goodness we had some of the right size battery in stock. But this did mean that irritability was high, and that Saturday washing was put on hold. Baking took over.

So. Friday dinner was salmon bake from my childhood (5 eggs). Saturday morning breakfast was scrambled eggs (7 eggs). I made “sheet pan eggs”, as this person calls it, which is usually in our household baked by Glenn in a round pan and called eggy pizza. Same deal, though – lots of eggs (10), lots of vegetables, a bit of cheese, baked until set. Great for breakfast or lunch or a snack. Great to have on hand for when you ask a 4yo what they want for breakfast after the time you actually normally like everyone to be eating breakfast and the 4yo says enthusiastically, “eggy pizza”, and the first reaction is, “but it’s too late for that”, but the second reaction is, “but that’s okay because I made some on Saturday!” This one had broccoli, cherry tomatoes and capsicum in it. Also to be mentioned in the delivery oddity was an extra bag of frozen strawberries, which I hadn’t really wanted in the first place, either (I was aiming for raspberries). S helped me make strawberry and chia jam with some of our bonus strawberries. I made chocolate chip zucchini strawberry muffins (2 eggs) – these are a new favourite, I think – and zucchini and blueberry baked oatmeal (2 eggs). 

Sunday was prepping some sandwiches for school lunches. Today, with E home with me and both of us not well, I boiled some eggs (4 eggs) and made some chocolates. I think of them as “loaded chocolates”, as they are dark chocolate mixed with a hefty dollop of nut butter, and combined with, in this week’s batch, dried blueberries. There are, um, not as many now as were made this afternoon…

With other fried eggs for breakfasts, our 48 eggs are down to 12, which seems like quite a normal number, and I feel well-stocked for lunches and snacks and breakfasts. For now.

What We Read This Week (12/07/2025)

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E: Can you read me a story? Me: Okay, but it’s already really late, so see if you can just listen without asking lots of questions, okay? E: OKAY! Me: Right. Which story would you like? E: PrincessAuroraSleepingBOOOdy. Me: A long time ago, a king and queen held a party to celebrate the— E: What was the queen’s name? 

Yeah. That’s how well we do.

Now. I had a realisation this week. Wait, some history first. When I was a little kid, I loved princess stories and movies and outfits. I didn’t ever have those dresses or anything, and as I was #3 child with brothers all around, princess anything was usually overruled. When I was older, I shied away from the princess stuff. Waiting for your prince, having to have a prince come and save you from the dragon or the spell or whatever, was so at odds with the independent, feisty, women’s lib DIY person I was. I thought, if I ever have girls, they’re not getting to watch princess movies or read princess stories. No. Way. But then Frozen came along. Another “True love’s kiss” thing to save the poor princess – but wait! Sisterhood! Okay, Frozen is allowed. Then I watched Beauty and the Beast, and that was another without a damsel in distress being saved by the handsome prince. It’s allowed.

With this Ultimate Treasury of Princess Stories that is the current go-to book, there are five princess stories. I have been asked to read them A LOT over the last couple of months, and have come to a realisation. There is much in these stories that can prompt discussion, shall we say, about differences in how we live now, in this country, and also much to prompt relationship discussions. Now. Princess – or normal girl who marries a prince therefore becoming a princess – who lives her life true to herself and her values – tick. Princess who pines for her prince, wanting a man to come along and save her – babow. 

Let’s assess. Snow White. Victim of a psychopathic narcissist. Pines for a prince. Looks after the men. Kissed by a prince which breaks the spell and MARRIES HIM STRAIGHTAWAY. Not so keen on this one. 

The Little Mermaid. Controlling father. Always interested in humans. A bit of lovesick nonsense. She saves HIM. Victim of evil witch. Actually has different endings, depending on which version you read or see … it’s okay. 

Cinderella. Works hard. Finishes her work and still gets to go to the ball, where on her own merits she and the prince fall in love. Follows the rules and is home on time. Prince does some work to find her. Tick. 

Beauty and the Beast. Prince needs to get over himself. Belle loves reading and is firm on her morals. Sticks up for truth and justice. Prince and Belle spend time together and fall in love over time. Contrast with Gaston who doesn’t want Belle reading or doing things that make her who she is, just to be his wife. Beast does what’s right for Belle, not him. Belle sticks ups for the Beast in front of an angry village mob. Big tick. 

Sleeping Beauty. Arranged marriage. Set to be married as early as possible – I know times change and all that, but 16 is still super young, and when it’s arranged by the dads it just comes across as creepy. Keeping secrets from her about who she really is “for her own good”. Pines for a prince. A bit of teenage angst. Taken home to be married against her will. Goes off on her own anyway and nearly dies. Prince battles to get to her. Kisses her. She lives. They get married. Big no. (I’ve been thinking about this one a lot today. So many things could have changed to avoid this. Not impressed).

I still read them when requested, but I now add commentary – and just answer allllll the questions that are peppered throughout anyway – and the No’s score much, much more commentary. 

There have been other books this week, too. Yesterday, to be mischievous, C had them all taking every single book off the shelves in the living area and taking them to their bedroom. When I then couldn’t open the door, I told her to make sure all the books went back to the bookshelf. What she interpreted that as was to get all the clothes off E’s shelf in the wardrobe and throw them about the floor, too, then move the shelf to the hallway and put the books on that. I can see where she’s coming from aesthetically, despite the lack of practicality, but this turned into playing library, so as I was sorting washing I was hearing the quiet thud, thud, thud, of books being put on shelves, E reading quietly to herself and then saying, “Here you go. Next book please!”  – not at all quietly – and S reading picture books aloud before, “The end. Here you go. That one, please!” So for all that the room was diabolical and of course, no-one cleaned it up before bedtime so I had to do all of that before bathtime and then E got into bed later and wanted the elephant toy of all things and of course I didn’t know where it was… Hmph. Anyway – lots of books were “experienced”, as they say. 

S has also been having a few wake ups from the cold, and if she is having trouble getting back to sleep, I am asked to read her a story. The Magic Beach, The Tale of Mrs Tiggy Winkle, and Never Pop a Penguin have all been quietly read in the dark by a mum who is falling asleep after every three words or so.

C and I are reading little bits of Little Women every night. It actually made me cry the other night, with the note from Mr Laurence to Beth with the piano. But that was followed by the gales of laughter from both of us over the limes and the girls’ reactions to the limes.

Meanwhile, S turns 3 soon, in the same week as Book Week. Asking for character ideas is tricky because E keeps telling me what she wants to be at Halloween. I’ll work on it.

What We Read This Week 05/07/2025

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What a week of reading it has been! It’s been the first week of winter holidays for C and, unlike previous holidays where I have been working and she has done *some* craft/painting/colouring in, mostly while watching shows, this time I put my foot down a bit more. Admittedly, it really helped that Glenn had days off coinciding with some of those days so they did things together and she still had a fair bit of iPad time but really not so much as she used to. She has read quite a few books. I mean, chapter books like the Penny Draws series. One of those takes her a couple of days, but other books like the Ella at Eden series seem to be finished within a day.

E is really, really into reading right now, too. She’s at the level of interest of wanting me to point to each word as I read it, and of being picky about which Beauty and the Beast or Snow White story I read to her. C also read The Book With No Pictures to her, so there’s another bedtime battle for you. If that is a new one for you, another way to say that is it is far too hilarious to be read at bedtime. On account of all the scream laughing and sudden toilet requirements. That said, hearing C reading it to E was fantastic.

S has been found several times in front of the bookshelf, silently turning pages of books. Or insisting on taking The Ugly Duckling to read in the stroller on the way to the park. E and S are both insistent I tell them the name of the ugly duckling so any appropriate duckling/cygnet names welcome. One of my favourite things right now is hearing S reading a story. It is incredibly sweet and heartwarming, so much so that I have even had a braincell wake up and I’ve videoed it a couple of times.

Actually, today’s video of S “reading” Elepop out loud – yes, sure, describing the pictures but with the inflection of story and the occasional speech element – was taken just after I took a picture of all three girls. This is one of those photos that speaks volumes to me, and most people will be fairly meh about. My girls have loved watching iPad. I have let them watch way more iPad than is good for them. This is changing. I am changing. They are changing. So to catch a photo of all three of them in their room before lunch, before I had managed to put fresh sheets on beds, with E waiting on C to finish her book for the library game that suddenly sprang up, is special. 

Yesterday, we also had my brother and sister-in-law over for a play and dinner. They are big fans of reading, and while I gave S a bath and got her to sleep, books were read. I had to go out to them twice to calm it down because The Diary of a Wombat is hilarious, as is The Book With No Pictures. 

They were also delighted to hear about what C and I have been reading, and very impressed that we are reading Little Women. Every time C mentions this to someone, Beth toasting a shoe gets a mention because C thinks this is the funniest thing in the world. We now have a policy though, that when C doesn’t understand something, she puts up her hand and I explain it to her. Every few pages I will be needing to explain something, which isn’t too bad, I think, but does demonstrate that maybe we need to start maybe watching some of the good Pride and Prejudice. Just maybe.

Fish

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It’s been a long time coming, but we are finally a pet-owning family. Three little fishies now swim happily in a fish tank next to the dining table/craft area. I keep watching them now as I write this. Now that they have survived for two weeks with us, as well as meeting Auntie Jackie and (via Facetime) my parents, it’s time. Meet our fish. C’s is the black one, E has the golden one, and S’s is spotty.

How did we get here? I’m glad you asked. When C was 4, we started talking about maybe getting a fish for her. Responsibility. Staving off those Can I have a cat/dog/guinea pig/pony questions. It was always in the pile of Soon. Soon, we will email the real estate to see if we’re allowed. Soon, we will have some space in which to have a tank. Then C’s class had pets this term. Ducklings, and hermit crabs, and pinhead crickets. Asking for fish was a multiple-times-a-day occurrence. Eventually, one afternoon I handed her my phone and asked her to write what she would write to the real estate. It was … rather blunt, which is fair enough as she is 7 and has zero experience of this. I greased it up a bit, checked it with Glenn, and sent it off. A reply came within hours: “Of course you can have a fish!” C, as you might imagine, was over the moon.

An aquarium was purchased. Glenn did allllllll the heavy lifting on this. We followed instructions, had a family trip to buy fishies, and came home with 3 fish – Mei, Goldie, and Fish Tank which was renamed Flowy – and three off-the-walls-with-excitment girls. The next night, Mei (C’s) was…. You know. By midday the day after that, Goldie (E’s) and Flowy had also … you know. The girls were sad, but took it fairly well. We researched, and figured we had put fish in too soon, despite instructions. We had another family trip, this time with water for testing. Water testing showed that no way could we have fish survive in that. C had already by now picked out her next fish so that was a tough trip home. Thankfully, the pet store person put a sign up that her pick of fish was on hold.

For the next two – maybe three? – weeks, Glenn was diligent in putting the drops of stuff into the water. On the second visit after that, we were given the all clear. Phew. He came home with three lovely fishies.

C named hers Grace. S has a spotty fish so, in true literal S fashion, hers is Spotty. E started calling her golden fish Goldie but that apparently didn’t feel right, so suddenly she informed us that her fish is called – wait for it – Fish-A-Pond. For real life.

Turns are taken to feed the fish. Glenn cleans the tank once a week on a day off. The excitement of the changing lights in the aquarium has, thankfully, lessened now so we don’t have girls clamouring to touch buttons for a light show. The greatest part of Wednesday for C was helping Glenn clean the tank.

Nearly every feed, S will watch with utter delight as the fish swim as fast as they can to get some food, and then declare “Spotty’s going for it! Fish-A-Pond got one! Grace is going for it!” It’s like she’s commentating a sporting event. C will pull up a chair and watch them after her bath. E will walk by and chat with them. 

There you have it. Three happy fishies. Three happy girls. Two happy parents. Hopefully there won’t be a “then there were …” post anytime soon.

Meal Prep Monday (30/06/2025)

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Last weekend, I felt like a kitchen superstar. I baked SO much. In fact, the whole weekend was so exhausting I didn’t manage to post about it so I have photos just sitting in my phone, reminding me of the achievements if I scroll through looking for something. Sleeping girls, girls outside, random short videos of the tablecloth, work info, girls in pinafores for daycare photo day, row after row of a child’s forehead – pretty sure it’s E – closeup pics of the corner of the sofa, food, food, girls outside, food.

This weekend, I was not a superstar. At all. In any sense. For anything. If you set the bar low – really low – then yay! I did some things. I had all 3 girls dressed and respectable to go to a birthday party on Saturday morning at a not-very-close park. They were well-behaved. There was a present, wrapped in paper coloured in by my girls. We got there and back safely. Pause here while I think. Um. Nope. That was pretty much my achievement. 

But wait. I made pizza on Friday night, with dough made by me. (C asked for this a few weeks ago and it is how I used to always do it and now it is her new favourite way of pizza). This pizza – one (1) pizza – has fed us Friday night, and was added to Saturday dinner, and was lunch today for C because we had no bread and neither of us wanted to go to the shops on the holidays, and there’s still a bit more.

But wait. I made a lemony chicken and vegetable tray bake for dinner for Saturday night, which all the girls ate, and leftovers were my lunch today as well as incorporated into dinner tonight and I think there’s still a bit left for a half-lunch tomorrow. 

But wait. I made pancakes for Sunday breakfast, and because when they were mostly cooked, E came in and scrunched her face and told me she did NOT want pancakes, she wants an eggy – no, TWO eggies – she scored eggs for breakfast and not all the pancakes were eaten so C and I had morning tea pancakes today. They were my favourite recipe (using the Greek yoghurt waffle recipe here), and cooked in the love heart fry pan. A bit of a whim purchase, that pan, but my goodness me it saves mealtimes. S helped me make these, and C had a go at turning them which is rather tricky, I must say, but she did wonderfully. And because there are four hearts and four of us (Glenn had an early, early start), I could cater to all requests prior to the pancake-refusal-in-favour-of-eggs. Plain. Chocolate chip. Blueberry. Blueberry AND chocolate chip. And E ate some after she had demolished her eggs, too, actually. 

To be fair, this week and next are school holidays. We have Anzac biscuits in the jar from last weekend. Still some Everything Balls (I still don’t know what to call them), which are also stopping me delving into chocolate stores in the evening. I mean, not an actual store full of chocolate, like a chocolate shop, or a cellar of chocolate, but … mmm. Wait. Chocolate supply. That’s a better word. We still have carrot oatmeal slice. We still have carrot sultana muffins in the freezer. We still have cottage cheese brownies in the freezer. Our freezer could do with being slightly less full. Ooh, and pizza muffins in there too. So you see, for all my not at all a kitchen superstar thoughts, it was enough. I have to remember that. Enough. 

What We Read This Week (28/06/2025)

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Surprise! I suddenly had a braincell wake up last week and say, uh, the books post… you know it doesn’t have to be Sunday night…? Yeah. When I started this blog 4 years ago, C was 3 and E was a little tiny baby (S was “invisible”, or still a dream). There were piles of books that would form all over the place – sofa arms, coffee table, bedside tables – and I would aim to tidy them on Sunday evenings. A logical time to do a post about what books we had read that week was after I had tidied them all at the end of the week.

Fast forward to now, and for about a year now I have changed girls’ sheets and done a bedroom tidy and clean on Fridays. Fridays, because there had been too many occasions on Saturdays when I had gone in to change sheets and found a full-blown cubby in the making and if I needed to remove a quilt cover then that would mean full dismantling of the cubby and there would be tears so I wouldn’t change the sheets that day and so it became a Friday thing. E and S won’t build cubbies without C, who is at school on Fridays. So I have been cleaning and changing sheets and tidying away books and making notes of which books I am putting back on the bookshelf, but things can change. 

Yesterday, I did what I used to do. I took a photo of the books we had read, that were strewn across the floor, then put them on the bookshelf. Simple. Here they are.

Friends of the Unicorns, which came with the two main characters as toys. Ten Minutes to Bed: Where’s Father Christmas?, which is rather annoyingly missing its last flap with words. Goldilocks. Peppa Meets the Queen (groan – still). Where Did All The Dragons Go?, which is on an extended loan from neighbours who used to live in the house next door. I love this one. It definitely feels like an older book – think 80s or 90s, so “older” compared to this century – and has good rhyme and repetition that doesn’t go overboard or force the issue.

Then, Disney. The Misadventures of Heihei is one that was in an Advent calendar of books that the girls had a couple of years ago. Honestly, a wonderful buy. 24 books, all with substantial stories of what feels like outtakes of Disney movies. This one is a favourite of C, who will laugh so much she needs the toilet again. E chose it this week and her 4yo brain couldn’t follow and imagine quite so fully as C’s 7yo brain, so there were frequent fingers stopping the page turning and “Wait. Mummy. Go back”, followed by a question or 6. And the Ultimate Princess Treasury – see the benefits of a photo? Now I can tell the correct, actual title of “the big princess book” – has been a definite favourite this week. At least once a day – usually when I think she should be asleep but she has clearly missed a sleep train, but this has also happened at other times – I will find her on her bunk, leafing through the whole 250+ pages, intently checking illustrations. I have read each story to her at least once this week, too, and her questions are developing more into questions about character and reasons for doing things and personality.

C and I finished The Secret Garden on Monday night. This has been such a good book for us to read. Next book: Little Women. We are not far in, obviously, but already C has laughed and laughed and also been quite thoughtful as she takes in the situation. I am curious to see how she responds as the book develops. Not to mention, keen to reread this one as I think I was in early high school (or late primary school) when I read it. It’s been a while. Ahem.

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.

Meal Prep Monday (16/06/2025)

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Friday and Saturday were fairly light on in the food preparation department. Cornflake cookies were made, which are apparently for me now. C, it turns out, doesn’t like the flavour of cornflakes, and E bit into a crunchy bit and hurt her mouth so apparently is never eating cornflakes or cookies ever again. Sigh. S has eaten some for me, but unless she spies the cookie jar, it will be Milo cereal for her. (Seriously. How do toddlers and preschoolers do this? She seems to eat nothing but Milo cereal and occasionally yoghurt. E had about 2 months when she was nearly 2 when I swear she just ate peanut butter and blackberries. That was an expensive time). To make up for the apparent cookie fail, on Sunday I made nut butter cookies and added chocolate chips to the tops and, guess what, nobody wants to eat them either. Make them without the chocolate chips and half the batch is scoffed as soon as fingers have braved the hot-from-the-oven cookie trays. It looks like I will be living on cookies this week.

Friday I also made a very healthy chocolate mousse then made it less healthy to make it more dessert-y and edible for girls. Thankfully, they had filled up on pizza dinner so I have chocolate hits ready to go in the fridge. Score.

Saturday was yet another flop which I will chalk up as future snacks. E was really wanting doughnuts so I finally made the (ultra healthy) jammy blueberry doughnuts from Jamie’s superfoods book for breakfast. It was a frustrating experience because I had neglected to soak our ordinary, not-expensive-Medjool, dates overnight, and also because we have a mere chopper and not a glorious food processor. I am debating whether I cave and buy one now in the sales or if I wait until the chopper dies then replace it. Hm. Decisions. It is definitely becoming more necessary. Anyway, there were leftovers. I have snacks.

Sunday was spent making the fail nut butter cookies, as well as doing hard boiled eggs, sandwiches, carrot oat slice, and what I think of as “Everything Balls”, or “Use it up slice”. This started off as the Eat This My Friend muesli bars and then I went crazy a few weeks ago and added a bunch of things that were needing to be used. You know. The 1/4 cup of almond meal. Tablespoon of walnuts. Slightly less than 1/3 cup chia seeds. The dregs of 4 different nut butter jars. Some sneaky powders of super greens or berry immunity. I mean, I started with the basic recipe and just embellished a bit. Squashed some into the mini muffin holes. Rolled some into balls. I thought for sure this would be a mummy-only treat, but before I knew it, S had demolished 4 balls. I kept meaning to cover them in chocolate but after not very long there didn’t seem to be much point. This weekend, though, I made sure to get the chocolate hit happening, so the minis are covered in a blob of chocolate and the balls are mostly half-covered, with a few glorious pieces entirely covered.

Delay in posting due to the futility of taking photos after 10pm. I’m glad I did this post, though, as I had totally forgotten about the doughnut snack option. I see there is a slight delay in work starting soooo first snack for the day is going to be a purple doughnut. 

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.