On Movement and Monsters and Music

April 10, 2025 / annamurray / Leave a comment

There have been a few things happening lately that do not seem at all newsworthy. By that I mean, they are not newsworthy. They are not the kind of thing to do a Facebook post about or shout from the balconies or make a note in the diary. The sort of thing, though, that I will tell my mum about. The sort of thing that I will chat about with Glenn in the microseconds of conversation we get these days. The sort of thing that makes up the stuff of our life, that we will look back on in a few months and a few years and many years and reminisce.

Recently, my girls stopped walking. Not entirely, of course, but if they are not keen on something, their feet stop and all their core muscles fail and they are suddenly slumped on my sofa like a Dali painting. This would occur for getting dressed, or being told to go to the toilet for a tactical wee before we head out to do something fun, or having a bath. Fortunately, I also discovered at this time the power of the piggyback and horsey rides and cuddle walks.

Cuddle walks had been around for a while – since C was a toddler, I guess – but she had started to request to be carried like she was a kitten or like she was a baby or like she was a baby bird or like she was a baby unicorn cuddling a mermaid and it was getting wild. And she expected me to remember what every one of these holding positions was. I would have a blank in the heat of the moment. She would get upset with me for doing the bird hold instead of the kitten hold. Bedtime would be ruined.

I can remember how to do a piggyback each time, though. Once the younger two saw me doing piggybacks for C, they wanted in too. It is much easier doing piggybacks for them. They are more like koalas on my back, warm and compact and solid, and they are not as daredevil so they hang on for dear life as I “go faster” by doing lots of little steps down our rather short hallway to the toilet. S loves having a piggyback to the bath after dinner, which means climbing onto my sofa then climbing onto my back so I can transport her down the hallway to the toilet. Pre-bath wee, bath, get dried and dressed and teeth done, then she will announce in my face “I WANT A PIGGYBACK” and screamlaugh running back down the hallway to the Piggyback Station (formerly known as my sofa arm but here we are) to climb up and onto my back so I can do little steps back along the hallway to her bedroom which is just opposite the bathroom.

I think C has realised that she is more like a leggy giraffe than a koala and so she likes to do horsey rides on my back instead. Although I much prefer her sitting on my back, often wrapping her lower legs around my midsection and also not hanging on (work that core!), to having her do a piggyback where she doesn’t really hold on with her legs but wraps her arms around my neck. That said, my knees are copping it. I have a much closer view of the carpets. Even though we vacuum daily, it’s not enough.

Speaking of C and of movement, C was given roller-skates for her birthday. I think they might be her most favourite thing ever in the history of the world. After several afternoons clomp-gliding down the hallway while I was working, punctuated by crashes that were always followed by “I’M OKAY”, on Friday afternoon she had a go outside for the first time. There have been a few more outside skating sessions since then, too, where I hold her hand for the most part and apparently twist her wrists when she is about to fall over and she is skating over my toes. She has a long way to go, but I am so, so impressed by her resilience and persistence. This is something that she is finding difficult to get going and it is not at all coming naturally to her, but her only pouts have been at me for walking too fast or too slow or (inadvertently) twisting an arm.

Moving on to monsters. I mentioned recently that S had had a scary episode one night. The next night, as well as me reading Ruby Red Shoes to her, Glenn gave S an LED tea light and showed her how to brandish it against any monsters. Very sweet voices were soon calling out, “Go away, monster!” These tea lights are perfect. S still uses a dummy – and by using the singular, I really mean she usually has only one in her mouth (sometimes two just to be funny), and preferably 1 or, better yet, 2 in each hand. The tea light is the same kind of size as a dummy and has an interesting feel thanks to the fake flame, so now S prefers one hand to be holding a tea light while she goes to sleep. C likes to have one in her new lantern. E likes to have one next to her on the floor or on the desk. We use a salt lamp in the girls’ bedroom but now we have little spots of extra warmth thanks to monster-repelling tea lights.

Moving on to music. Glenn and I are both violinists. He still plays and has gigs here and there. I do not. There are so many of my former colleagues who have managed to have kids and still teach and perform and do gigs but it was just not possible for us. I mean, after C was born I went back to teaching and that was fine – “fine” as in, acceptable – but two big things shifted. One was that I just didn’t have the zest for teaching anymore. I am very firmly of the belief that teachers have to really want to be a teacher. If they don’t, they don’t teach as well and students don’t learn as well and then students don’t want to learn at all and teachers might as well drink tea and crochet. I lost the zest and I knew I should stop. The other big shift, when my just-7-year-old was about to be turning 2 – so five years ago – yup. Pandemic. Parenting in a pandemic was hard. Trying to teach in a pandemic was hard. Trying to teach while having a young child at daycare during a pandemic was super ultra hard. So when E was born, I didn’t go back to teaching. Even though I absolutely loved it when I was doing it, this was clearly the right choice as I do not miss it at all.

Buuuuuut I had C start violin lessons last year, learning with my lovely sister-in-law, Alys. E soon started mini lessons, too. We went for a Saturday morning lesson time. Glenn was either working or getting ready for work or needing to cocoon himself from being at work, so violin lessons were always a mummy and three girl event. This meant that if one was sick (or two or three or three plus me), then no lessons. This was a frequent situation. Sporadic lessons meant little progress, which meant little enthusiasm, which meant no practice and a frustrated mummy. When Alys and my brother moved to the other side of town, I decided not to keep our spot and just move on.

When we did have good practice weeks though towards the end of last year, I had switched gears. I stopped being a stand-off mum, letting C do the practice as if I knew nothing about violin. I did what I had said to myself at the start that I would not do and I got back into teacher mode. Violin practices turned into lessons. When I’m in violin teacher mode, I am a different person, and I had C laughing and doing what was needed and making progress until one of her sisters dared to come in.

This year had been quite light on in terms of practice. I just wasn’t going to force it. Then, out of the blue, E said that she wanted to play her violin again after dinner. We didn’t do after dinner but after lunch on Saturday. Then S wanted a go, clearly not wanting to miss out on this thing that she could tell that she would definitely be able to have a go at, and then C was really keen to get back into it, too. Violin happened on Saturday and Sunday, with the usual mayhem of three girls and two violins and one xylophone (surprise!). I’m still not sure how to get violin in during the week, but weekends seem to be a good start.

Old Me/New Me

April 4, 2025 / annamurray / Leave a comment

When C was a baby – not a little tiny baby but rather, hurtling toward her first birthday – I was chatting with one of my best friends, Michelle. Michelle has 3 kids – a boy, and twin girls – who were (doing some mental calculations here) um 7 and 5 at this time. I think. They were all in early primary school, anyway. The point is, Michelle asked me, “Do you feel like you’re not a real person anymore? You’re no longer Anna. You’re a mum. You’re C’s Mum, and that’s who you are and how you’re seen now?” And even now I remember this gasping realisation of oh my goodness me that’s it! That’s a perfect encapsulation of how I feel I am now.

I mean, there are a few things to explain here. The early weeks of motherhood were a wild ride but I didn’t experience that exhaustion that I was told to expect (ha – like sooooo many other things) because I was so happy doing these things for this little bub. But then as the newborn phase waned and it became clear that I had a baby who didn’t sleep, things changed. And then she turned out to be an enthusiastic but small eater. But because she was such a poor sleeper and my advice from everywhere was that if she has more solids then she will sleep better – well. I felt like I spent most of her baby time trying to get her to sleep and trying to get her to eat.

And I know it is perfectly natural for other children – and parents (me included here; I’m not judging this AT ALL) – to refer to other parents by reference to a child’s name. I am C’s mum, or E’s mum, or S’s mum, or sometimes the mum with the three girls, depending on who I’m talking to. And there is all of the mental work that goes into caring for children. Like thinking ahead for the basics like clean clothes, and change of season clothing, and next size up shoes, and swimming lessons and daycare and school and homework and play dates and lunches and snacks and how to go grocery shopping with young children.

But eventually there is the realisation that all that is not enough. “You can’t pour from an empty cup” is a phrase that is thrown around a lot in parenting forums, but I don’t feel it’s apt for what I am trying to describe. It doesn’t describe the feeling of being scraped out with just the shell remaining. I need to do all that, be all that, and more. I needed to be Anna again. Still Anna with the three girls, but also Anna who does… things to be Anna.

Before kids, when I was still a violin teacher, a mother of three girls asked me what I DO with my time? I remember wondering, How do YOU fit everything in? She had three girls. They all did violin, with lessons and practice and ensembles. They each did either ballet or gymnastics. They all went to a private school. The mum worked a full-time job but also managed to ferry the girls to violin and ballet and gymnastics. Like, was there some secret pocket of bonus time that opened up for some people? I’m still wondering that, actually, but in the meantime I have started to work it out.

If something is important enough, work out how to make it happen.

My health is important to me. Admittedly, partly for vanity. I don’t want to cringe when I look at photos of myself, and I don’t want to avoid being in photos. I know they are important. So I worked out actually when I could exercise, committed to it, and now it happens every morning. Writing this blog is important to me. I know if I abandon it and don’t make any record other than photos of our family life, then in five years I will be very sad with Now Me. Writing happens when I can get up earlier than exercise. Yes, it feels like I hardly sleep. In fact, my watch confirms that I hardly sleep, but I’m working on going to bed earlier. Promise.

There are other things that I used to do that I didn’t even think about as being Anna Things. Wearing jewellery. Making jewellery. Well, that was very much an Anna Thing but I didn’t anticipate how hard that would be with kids. Beading is therapeutic and so relaxing until a small child accidentally tips your box of beads or findings and then you don’t quite know how many small swallowing hazards you are suddenly looking for on the ground in amongst all the other detritus that comes with Living With Small Children.

Having a food box delivered. This had started with an organic fruit and veg box, then extended to milk and meat and dairy, but when I moved in with Glenn that felt a little redundant. We live right next to a shopping centre, and Glenn likes to shop to cook, and one of the delivery companies went bust, and we just stopped. Fast forward more than 7 years, and I saw a picture of a funny strawberry on Facebook. As it turns out, there are a few companies that deliver supermarket rejects. We picked one company, and now have a medium box of wonky fruit and veg delivered every fortnight. Not surprisingly, this is very much looked forward to by everyone in the family. Glenn loves seeing what is delivered and then planning meals around that. The girls love inspecting our funky food and marvelling at the bananas as long as their arms or the 4.5 kg watermelon or the tiny pears the size of S’s fists. I love not having to shop with children, not having to plan, and working within the parameters of the delivery. Right up my alley.

One thing that is not an Old Me thing but if it had been around, it would have been. Recycling. I’m not talking your standard paper/cardboard/glass type of thing. I’m talking containers. It used to be that containers would taunt those of us not in South Australia with the label along the lines of “10c refund at participating depots in South Australia”. I legit was super excited to go to South Australia for the container refunds, but it turned out they weren’t lauding it over the rest of the country and this wasn’t obvious at all. Fast forward to that week between Christmas and New Year, and I saw a Containers for Change ad offering to come and collect if you had 100 containers. Challenge accepted. Now we have a special tub for containers, and I have a page of container labels to print. My process is getting better. The tub has a bin bag in it. Every eligible container that goes in gets a tally mark on a piece of paper on the fridge. When the bag is full (about 35 containers), it gets tied up and a label stuck on it, then taken to the garage. New bin bag in. Heavier glass bottles go in paper shopping bags, and once they have 8 bottles, same deal. Container label stuck on and then to the garage. Every few weeks, we organise collection and it’s just… easy. I love it.

There are still some Old Anna things that I am really missing and yearning to bring back into my life. Some things I feel are the frugal Scottish side of me coming through, or maybe it’s a very strong sense of independence or getting back to making it yourself so you know what’s inside. Making yoghurt. I tried recently, and you know what stopped me? Not the lack of time or available bench space or available milk. No. I couldn’t find one of the containers and any of the lids. How could you lose them, Anna? Old Anna asks me. Pre-kids Anna asks me. If I explain to you that the containers (originally with their lids) live/d in the cupboard next to the fridge and so girls have loved to play with things in that cupboard – sanctioned, thankfully – but occasionally have major imaginative play scenarios requiring removal of said things to other play areas, does that explain it? I have since found a lid in a toy hamper and another in the craft department so there is hope.

Baking bread is another thing I am getting the urge to do again. As my preferred bread is a spelt bread that used to take 2 hours for me to make I really should just remember to buy spelt flour, shouldn’t I. Hm.

Photography is a big part of who I used to be. Art photography, that is, not just of my girls. I have little flurries of photographic activity but I really haven’t been as inspired most of the time lately. Having scenery dotted with cranes is really not helping. Having children who are either impatient to be where they want to be or willing to be distracted and not get going when I need them to after the photo is really not helping. Only wanting to take photos of my children sleeping in funny or endearing poses doesn’t help the artier side, either.

I am also very keen to get back into playing violin. I said this last year, but when daylight savings ends and my work hours go back to starting at 10am instead of 9am, I am hoping hoping hoping that even a little bit of music making can come back into my life. These last two things – aspects of me that I haven’t gone back to after having kids – are two big things that drew Glenn and me together. I need them back. Not from anything that he has said, mind you, but I don’t want to lose ME and the person he met and married. I don’t want to look back on this time and regret things that actually are doable and regret this being the time of life when something stopped.

If something is important enough, work out how to make it happen.

School’s Back!

January 30, 2025 / annamurray / Leave a comment

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 (Things are Changing)

February 26, 2023January 30, 2025 / annamurray / Leave a comment

I changed things up this week. Story time remains at bedtime for C, but E and S now have stories after S has a morning feed and before breakfast. And, without any pushing from me, E has started doing stories at bedtime too. Win!

Tonight after the big girls had finished their bath, E went to the bookshelf and pulled out her current favourite book, a board version of The Gruffalo’s Child, and started reading it. I haven’t read it to her very much. In fact, I don’t think I’ve managed to read it entirely yet as she keeps turning pages for me and getting to the same page and saying the same phrase, over and over, looking very worried, and I don’t know what she is saying but this is clearly very important. I didn’t read it to her tonight though, because C found the Frozen book after months (MONTHS!), months of searching and all was well with the world. She sat on my lap and I started reading it, then E came over and snuggled in and I had my two big girls cuddled around me as I read to them and my heart melted.

Stories in bed in the mornings have been a mix of sensory books and paper story books. Tickle Tickle Peter (a very sweet Peter Rabbit book for S) and That’s Not My Reindeer which always starts in front of S and mysteriously ends up in E’s hands, just like any Bluey book (Bob Bilby is pictured). A new one for E is Cuddles and Snuggles (aww), and both girls are enjoying one of my dearest books, Zin Zin Zin! A Violin! There is a long backstory of how it came to be in our family (I won’t go into that here), and it was the first book that made C smile when she was a baby. All of my girls love it and are really engaged when it is read.

I realise I should document what C borrows from the school library, too. She gets such a kick out of being able to borrow every single week. This week she brought home two princess books. Of course. Princess Beatrice and the Rotten Robber (Elizabeth Honey), and Barbie Princess Charm School. One I love and the other … I don’t love it. Unfortunately, C feels the opposite. That said, she has picked plot holes throughout the Barbie book so I’m not too disappointed.

She’s Only One

February 4, 2023January 30, 2025 / annamurray / Leave a comment

Is it possible? Surely not. E turns two in less than two weeks. This small person, who takes up so much space in our lives and our hearts, who is showing so much development and growth on new levels every day, who is so capable of so so much – she’s only one.

This small person, who loves drawing and painting but not so much on paper, who will maybe draw a little bit on a scrap of paper before scrunching it up and, preferably, dipping it in any nearby spilled water before sliding it to the floor then dropping all the pencils to the floor while saying ‘uh-oh’ as she watches each one hit the floor. Who will tell me each colour as she chooses it, or asks for it, or hands me the pot or the tube saying ‘blue, lid, o? Peeeeese’ with fists up and out and elbows in. Who consistently goes straight to mixing blue and red then tells me, when I ask, that her favourite colour is pur-pur.

This small person, who is turning babble and nonsense syllables into understandable sentences. Who has evolved from the very sincere, very dramatic, totally unintelligible streams of sound. Who will now say ‘nigh nigh, wub youuuuu’ or ‘she you layer, love you’ and totally and utterly melt my heart. Who will go to the step ladder and hold its side and say, with a Please Face to rival Bluey, ‘mih?’ (mix), hoping that I will consent to some baking. Who will be dancing at the kitchen entrance, be asked to take C’s water bottle to her, have it handed to her from the freezer, and toddle – that particular toddler movement that is faster than a walk but not quite a run – look down at the bottle in her hands and exclaim ‘ooh, fweezy col!’ Who will spend a good 10 minutes of a post-school-drop-off walk singing out ‘daddyyyyy…. Where are youuuu?’ Or tell me, pointing at daddy’s sofa, ‘daddy were’ (daddy work). Or go to where she thinks I am, exclaim ‘huh!’ when I’m not there and then call ‘mummy…. Where ARE you???’

This small person, who will see that daddy has snacks in the kitchen and she will run away down the hallway to the bedroom while saying, almost to herself, ‘co’ (cot’), coming back to a slightly mystified daddy to put on that Please Face again for some chippies please as she has just put her dummy in the cot, where it belongs. A pant of excitement, ‘dadyou’ (thank you), and toddling off with her cracker or chip or blueberry to sit on one of the child-sized chairs to eat her prize. Who will hand you her finished yoghurt pouch saying ‘hinny’ (finished’) or just go to the kitchen and put it in the bin herself. Who will amaze her daycare teachers by clearing her plate and cup after eating. Who will ask, repeatedly, day after day after day, for ‘ah, ah, oooh?’ Which is, of course, an ice cube? And she will often make sure she has her bowl (‘bo’) for us to fill with ice cubes.

This small person, who will climb onto our bed, or remove a lid, or reach something we thought was out of reach, and exclaim ‘I did it!’ Who will be in the bath and lean out and point to toys and when I get it wrong will say ‘no-no’ and keep pointing to what she wants without getting frustrated until I get it right and she nods excitedly and takes it saying thank you. Who will be holding something and say ‘ready, deddy, gooooo’ and you just have to be aware that she is about to throw and she can really throw and although she often throws down the hallway she sometimes just throws a plastic play picnic plate across the living room to clock you on the nose.

This small person, who loves loves loves singing and dancing. Who will hear the start of the Encanto! soundtrack and seize up in excitement, shake her hands in front, and sing and dance along to the music. Who will scream GOOOOOOOOOOO!! like a banshee at the same point, every time, in Let It Go. Who will sing, in tune, the last word or two in most of the songs from a handful of Disney movies. Who will sing the last word or two or three of every phrase in her favourite tv show tunes.

This small person, who knows her way around an iPad. Who will say, with that killer Please Face, Bluey? to ask if she can watch shows. Who will ask to get out of the cot when it is still too early for anything, give me a cuddle, ask to get down, pick up the iPad from the chair, try to pull my charging cord from my phone but allow me to do that so I can plug it in to the iPad then unlock it and launch ABC Kids. Who is only allowed to use an iPad for ABC Kids and can pause an episode and press the X to exit that episode and press the arrow to go back to a different selection of shows. Who apparently has favourite episodes of certain shows, and regularly picks (saying the correct name) ‘Dark’ for Bing, ‘Rain’ for Bluey, ‘The Dentist’ for Peppa Pig. Who is actually only allowed to use it for ABC Kids but has been known to leave that app and launch all sorts of other apps including, her favourite, the Music app when she sees the Bluey icon up there but will get upset because she actually really wants to keep watching Bluey and not just listen to the music. Who has been known to get the split screen happening. Who will quite confidently get onto the YouTube app and start scrolling through Cocomelon and Wiggles and Laurie Berkner and Super Simple Songs and Frozen and Frozen II and Moana and Encanto!

This small person, who mostly likes to just wear a nappy because the weather is hot, but can take off that nappy and say ‘toi, lee?’ and then goes through all the steps of going to the toilet before running away from any fresh nappy, squeak-laughing with mischief all the way. Who can half get her own clothes off and on. Who gets herself in and out of the bath with ease, whether or not it’s what she actually wants. (I know. Toddlers.) Who replies with utter mischief and cheekiness. Hm? Whaaaat?! Lear-lee! (Really!)

This small person. She’s only one.

The Stuff of Our 2021

December 31, 2021 / annamurray / Leave a comment

This year has had it all. Some was expected, some not. And some aspects (yes, I’m talking about the pandemic here) that we hoped would be over just kept coming back in different forms.

Here is our 2021 in numbers, result compared to expectation.

Most exciting: new baby (1/1). The best.

Most horrible: accident with new baby. Never expected. One horrible accident, and one that turned out to be not so bad but was still nerve-wracking when it happened. (2/0).

Concerts: (3/? Thanks to COVID we never knew what to expect). 3, that is, that I was brave enough to attend with the girls (Glenn has performed more than that). Each has been a learning experience and I feel tonight’s NYE Pops concert I did the best. Naps, food, sleep, all worked out fairly well. Anxiety level for me was very very high but I’m so glad we went. And both girls behaved beautifully.

New appliances: ooh there were so many. It was really the year of the new. We knew we would be buying a new mattress – the old one had deep troughs on either side from years of use (and, let’s face it, pregnancy). We were not expecting to replace the toaster, kettle, microwave, vacuum cleaner battery, printer, laptop, or fridge. (So, numbers… how many is that, 8? 8/1.) It has been an expensive year. I would like it to stop now.

Sickness: there has been some, of course – hello daycare. There was the Gastro Experience of September. There has been the No It’s Not Covid Cough of December. There have been other sniffles that have gone away after a week of resting at home, just like doctors and mothers say they will. Amazing.

And then there are the things of life that cannot be numbered. The joy in seeing each girl grow to be more themselves every day. The frustration of adult-young child communication. The immense delight seeing the love between our girls, and between all of us. The worry – oh the worry. Worries. When C is ‘just a bit nervous’ going to daycare. When E doesn’t reach a milestone as early as C did. When there’s a lockdown due to a cluster of Covid cases in our area. When I can’t give either girl the attention she needs. When C doesn’t pick up small objects or sharp objects and doesn’t understand the danger they pose to E.

This year has certainly held surprises. Some delightful, some not. Some scary, some not. I feel we’ve handled it the best we could and have definitely grown through all these experiences. Like everyone, I am hoping for more of the good stuff next year, and less of the not-so-nice surprises. Please and thank you.

Another Concert

December 5, 2021 / annamurray / Leave a comment

Last week, it came to our attention that my brother (a cellist) was giving a joint cello-violin recital this afternoon. At a location easy for us to get to. At a time that was perfect for us. We decided we would try to go, barring any illness. And we went!

I’m not sure if it’s more the pandemic, or we are really introverted, or having two young children is hard, really hard, but getting out as a family is rare for us. It feels like such a major achievement.

E still has a reaction along the lines of whaaaaaat are we doing who are these people why are they all coming up close and smiling and tickling my toes…..? But when she was settled in daddy’s arms, she was very much into it all. She kept straining to see the music, and ate her afternoon tea like a little bird while turning to the people behind us and giving them little looks that told me that they thought she was adorable.

C was very excited about the whole thing, especially excited to be seeing Uncle Alex and Auntie Alys, and to be wearing a special twirly dress with ruffles, and to be catching a train and going to a concert. However… when we arrived, we saw Uncle Alex (this was fine), and then Sue who I’ve known for years and knows C from when she was a baby but hasn’t seen since, and then Allana who we’ve known for years and met C a couple of times when she was a baby but hasn’t seen since, then Auntie Alys (this was also fine). By the time we sat down, she was a bit overwhelmed.

I was expecting our screeching baby to screech and need to be taken outside, so I told C she could go outside with me any time. She wanted to go outside straight away. I made her stay in for a little bit and then – after a Bach prelude and an Ysaÿe sonata – took both girls outside.

It turned out that C was ‘a bit nervous’ around all those people. I did reassure her that, even though they were all delighted to see her, they were now all sitting down watching the concert. Even so, she thought outside was a better option.

And who could blame her? Chairs can be so restrictive. Outside was lovely grass and a flowering poinciana tree and a chicken and a ramp and we could still hear the concert. She ran around and investigated the chicken hutch and looked up through the tree at the sky and looked under the hall and went up and down the ramp. E had a wonderful time playing with the grass then ‘walking’ over the grass and, yes, trying to eat the grass.

And although we couldn’t stay for the whole concert, I feel like we had a wonderful afternoon. It was the perfect outing.

The Magic of Twinkle

November 10, 2021 / annamurray / Leave a comment

One of my great joys this year has been seeing my two girls interacting. The way E’s face lights up when C finally makes it to the breakfast table. The way C will sit down with E and ‘read’ (recite) stories. The way E builds up then lets loose a squeak laugh when C does something, anything, that she finds funny.

And the way C will sing to E to calm her down. This has been one of the most beautiful (and unexpected) parts of my year. It began a few months ago, when E was crying because I was doing something outrageous like washing my hands and therefore not holding her. C sang, very gently and beautifully, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. E calmed down right away while my heart melted just a little bit.

We have seen many subsequent renditions of this. Usually Twinkle, sometimes Baa Baa Black Sheep. Sometimes gently, sometimes very loudly to override the screaming. Sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, and sometimes slowly until the last line or two and then a quick dash to the finish line. Sometimes with a caring voice and sometimes with a funny ‘granny’ voice.

And every time, E will stop the crying when she hears the singing. I suspect much of it is the surprise factor, just like babies will stop and stare when grandparents and nurses start up with the duck noises or when someone claps nearby. But there is also that knowledge in her that C cares for her and looks after her and loves her and is trying to help.

I only occasionally have success singing Twinkle to her. The song that I can sing to calm her down is Hickory Dickory Dock – although if I sing it near C she tells me I’m doing it wrong even though I sing the version we did in music classes when she was a baby. Glenn has success with Baa Baa Black Sheep but, more often, Incy Wincy Spider. He does a long pause at the start of the last line aaaaannnnnnd no matter what E is doing, she’ll lift her head and wait for it and break out into a wholeofherface smile and then maybe also a squeak laugh and then big laughs when the song continues.

Music is magic.

A Concert: Queensland Pops Orchestra Celtic Spectacular

November 6, 2021 / annamurray / 2 Comments

Today was huge. Glenn was playing in the Queensland Pops Orchestra Celtic Spectacular concerts, and I took the girls. Huge.

The last concert we went to was the New Year’s Eve concert. I was pregnant (so, huge and tired). C was hugely excited but then screamed and screamed for most of the whole entire concert because she couldn’t be on stage with daddy. It was not really how I wanted to see out the year but, then again, maybe it was rather fitting for the year that was 2020.

I was both keen and anxious for today’s concert experience. Oodles of planning and mental preparation happened on my end. Naps to be tweaked, outfits, nappies, snacks, meals, water bottles, cardigans, and (most important) a helper.

And, all in all, I think it was a success.

C was, again, hugely excited. On the way to daycare during the week she told me all about the last concert and how she was upset she couldn’t be on stage with daddy and she promised, she really promised in the earnestness of a 3yo, that she wouldn’t scream this time. She leapt around all morning and was too excited to eat anything except a handful of grape tomatoes for lunch and got ready without any fussing. She held hands all the way to the ferry and sat on her seat without any reminders and, when we met up with my helper (my amazing future sister-in-law, Auntie A), held hands with her. She was, unsurprisingly, ravenously hungry when we got to the viewing room, and ate the leftover cheese from her lunch as well as all three of the yoghurt pouches I had packed for us. She danced whenever she felt like it and told me the Irish dancers in the second half were ‘doing it wrong’. She twirled her way through the evening and built a concert out of her blocks before dinner.

E – well, this was her first ever concert experience. The ferry ride was in the zone of ‘ummmm what? This is… new…’ and this held until we were safely seated in the viewing room. She was transfixed by the tuning and the bagpipes and drums. She began jumping on my lap and, wow, this child has amazing rhythm. The Scottish dancers had her cooing. And then the singer came on stage. The grizzling began and that escalated to screaming and expressions of actually mummy we are only just ok here and I’m not really sure about what on earth this is and whoa so many people and they all seem to want to look at me and ok you’re here and what’s that thing on your face I’m going to pull it off oh that’s funny your face makes funny sounds but ohhhhh I’m hungry but there’s too much going on for me to feed and I’m tired too did I mention I’m tired so so tired and hungry and over-stimulated and when can this be over?

So we left shortly after interval.

Yes, I wish we could have seen more of Glenn playing, especially his solos. Yes, I wish we could have seen more of the dancing. Yes, I wish we could have seen Glenn (and so many others) afterwards at the Stage Door. But, baby steps. Seeing my girls experiencing it all in their own ways is a joy nobody told me about before I had children but it is right up there as one of my favourite things.