How many questions can a 4-year-old ask? Is there any end to them? How many times will the same question (or statement, for that matter) be repeated in the space of five minutes? By how much time will this extend the length of time it takes to read one (1) bedtime story to said 4-year-old? I know, I know. These are questions upon which philosophers have pondered for all eternity – well, at least since there were 4-year-olds.
I do love all the questions from E. I especially love discovering what she has discovered and thought to question. I admit, I do get a bit frustrated when I have seen her eyes get droopy and her breathing is slowing and I make the stupid thought that she is nearly asleep so therefore I might have an earlier rather than later night myself with some time to do Anna Things and then the next thing I know I’m hearing “Can I have a story?” Sigh. Then of course the wide selection by her bed (Superworm, Easter Egg Hunt, Beauty and the Beast, countless others) are all met with “No, not that one” so she is now fully awake and out of bed to look on the bookshelf for The (Right) Bedtime Story.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is her most recent favourite choice, which is one of our First Reader books. The First Reader publications just have slightly simplified language, so some of the beautiful language of stories for younger readers is lost. This particular one bugs me with what the mirror replies to the queen, but anyway. Some of the questions I have fielded have been: why doesn’t the queen like Snow White; why is Snow White tired; why are the dwarfs all so small; which one is your favourite dwarf; why does the prince kiss Snow White; why does the prince want to marry Snow White; why does Snow White want to marry the prince; why don’t they invite the queen to the wedding. All great questions. Whenever a story gets to a chance encounter followed by an immediate proposal, I always make a great drama out of what a silly thing that is to do. This one is going to have a discussion about consent arising from it soon, too. Kissing Snow White while she is unconscious?! Such a big no-no.
Each Peach Pear Plum has continued to be THE Bedtime Story, so much so that E made a chance reference to a page while we were out today. C looked at me and repeated it with the biggest question mark of a face, so I explained E had just quoted some of the book. And then I managed to recite the entire book, so that’s another one in the repertoire. C was delighted by it when she realised it was ALL nursery rhyme characters all in the same story.
C and I have continued with What Katy Did, but C now gets to snuggle in MY bed for French and Katy. C loves being in our bed and the snuggle factor far outweighs that of the sofa so, with these slightly chilly (as in, no longer summer hot) evenings, that’s our new normal. All of Katy’s goings on still make us both chortle, and C is expanding her vocabulary even more. Wonderful.
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.
Would you like to guess how many times I have read a particular book to S this week? We’re talking, since last Sunday evening until this Sunday evening. Guesses? Admittedly, I haven’t actually tallied it myself but let’s see. Every evening x1. Sometimes a bonus reading if “Read me a story” didn’t get her to sleep and a second reading was required. Overnight wakes needing 2 or 3 readings. Thankfully these don’t happen every night but this week there would have been (thinking back) um 3 or 4. To be conservative in our estimations, let’s say that bonus evening readings number 3 and overnight wakes also number 3. By my calculations, this means that I have read Each Peach Pear Plum to S 16 times this week. Yes, I have read it sometimes while sitting on the floor and falling asleep over it but S always wakes me with a “Keep reading! Keep reading the story, mumma!”, or “Muuuuuum keep reading the stoooooooryyyyy”.
E has heard it a few times, too, on account of going to bed at the same time as S on nights after daycare. I have discovered that if I show S the pictures and then E the pictures, E gets really upset that I’m not reading HER the story. If I just hold the book so E can see the pictures, then S doesn’t hear the words. So I have learnt this week to just hold the book on my lap as I sit on the floor in between the bunk and the cot, and read it as if I am reading it to myself. I am so looking forward to the girls reading this during the day and actually spying the things to be spied.
E has also asked for a story a few times at bedtime this week, then had a look through the bookshelf in the bedroom and made a selection. I have started reading her choice to her and after a few pages she has said, “No, not that one” and pulled out the Easter Egg Hunt pull the tab book which I gave her at her first Easter and is now missing nearly all of its flaps. This week she has absolutely loved it.
Meanwhile, after a little break as she went all independent reader on me (which I love), C is back to needing me to read to her. Evening routine is now that she has a bath or shower straight after the younger two, then does her own reading or can be on the iPad with selected approved activities. Mathletics, Procreate, Patterned and Flood-It are all allowed. Hello Kitty Island Adventures is only for special occasions. Once I have two sleeping girls, I shower if I haven’t already then C and I do French on Duolingo (more than 100 days in a row so far!). This is followed by me reading to her.
Currently we are reading What Katy Did. I read this when I was young – like, upper primary sort of young – and I just remember the result of the accident, really, and some of the vibe of the setting. Most of it, I am discovering, has blown out of my brain so it is like we are both reading it for the first time. We have both laughed and laughed at some parts, such as when the children are trying to give the impression of being already asleep after getting up to shenanigans while Aunt Izzie was out, or the reading of a story written by one of the children and then the critique that followed. I am cherishing having this snuggle time with C again. Even though she seems to be all elbows and knees right now, spending this quiet time with her as we read together all curled up on the sofa under my elephant blanket is one of my favourite parts of the day.
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.
Do you believe in ghosts? If you had asked me 10 years ago, my answer would have been a firm “No”. Absolutely not. Except, of course, for the Holy Ghost if we’re using the 1662 prayer book. Or that time when one of my older brother’s friends died suddenly in a car crash and he says she came to visit him that night. But no.
And then Glenn’s mum passed away, and even though C was not yet one, I am quite sure that all 3 of us saw Sioban that next night. C wasn’t talking yet, so this isn’t confirmed, of course. But what I saw – Sioban in her near-death skeletal body, but calmer because that battle was over, and dressed in a long swishy skirt with a colourful top – matched what Glenn described he saw.
Fast forward to a few months later, and C was now in the second bedroom to sleep. She woke up terrified one night, pointing with a look of horror at the wall next to the door. I couldn’t see anything other than what was always there, but she could clearly see something.
Fast forward even more to Monday night, and S woke up terrified. I got her out of the cot for a cuddle and she did exactly what C did about 6 years ago, but she could articulate “Scary” and “I not going in the cot”. A total of 2 hours sleep for me that night, with S falling asleep on me on the sofa while singing Skidamarink at nearly 4am.
Tuesday night, and I was really apprehensive that I may have S refusing to sleep at all. I brought out the big guns. The secret weapon. I read her Ruby Red Shoes, and then Ruby Red Shoes Goes To Paris. She fell asleep early in Paris (but I kept reading it to E who is now absolutely loving them). The other thing that helped was a little fake tea light that Glenn showed her how to hold up and say, “Go away, Monsters!” So, you know, we’re all set. This evening, though, she did say to me that she isn’t going in her cot because of the ghost so a few mysteries have some sort of – explanation? That doesn’t seem right. I’ll think on it.
So Ruby books are very much back in the favourite pile. Middle of the night wakes, and S wants me to read her “The bunny books”. Sometimes she will tell me to lie down! You need to sleep! And she takes the books from me and sits up with her soft bunny on her lap and reads them to the bunny while I dutifully and exhaustedly lie down. I am so, so glad that C would ask for these books everysinglenight for months on end, because it’s hard reading a book in the dark when all your body wants to do is lie down in your own bed and curl up with closed eyes and sleep, but when your brain gets the cue from the picture and you can just recite the words for that picture, it is easier. I confess, there are often long pauses and sometimes I
might miss a phrase
but thankfully S is not so familiar with these stories just yet so just gives me, I’m sure, a little eyebrow raise, like a teacher who is going to talk with me later about my work.
Would you like a little teaser? See what this beautiful baby of yours is like at 7 years of age? Yeah, I know. It’s wild. 7! So those times coming up when you will just randomly wake up and check that she is breathing – I mean, still do that, but she makes it to 7.
What’s she like? Amazing. Mind blowing. Ohhhh there’s so much but she also pushes your buttons like it’s her super power. Let’s see.
You are soon to discover sleep (the absence of). She will be a feed-to-sleep baby and, just like the professionals say, this is linked to making it tricky for her to go to sleep. Don’t change anything, of course. That’s not the point of this letter. More like, heads up. Sleep and naps will be a battle until she is almost 2, when she drops her lunchtime nap entirely and you will have a couple of glorious months before she adapts and then you are back to sleep struggles. The light at the end of the tunnel is that she does eventually sleep through. After the age of 3. But by then you will have another bub waking you up and then another so when she turns 7 you still don’t sleep through the night most nights. Also, one of the few things she inherits from you is the inability to fall asleep. Oops. Once she can read chapter books, she MIGHT be asleep before 9… or it might be approaching 11. Yes. 11pm for a newly-7-year-old to go to sleep on a school night after she has been at school and Irish dancing.
Sadly, Glenn’s mum is not much longer for this world. She will have nearly a year with C, and see her personality developing and watch her being a cheeky monkey around her bed and see enough of C that you know that she knows her. Sioban’s presence will still be felt and she will not be at all forgotten. In fact, after C stops looking quite so much like Glenn, she starts to look like Sioban before starting – at about 2 weeks before she turns 7 – to show glimmers of you.
At 7, C is tall (about the 80th percentile) and skinny (about 25th… 20th percentile). She is strong, and keen on healthy food – especially after your GP wanted to check her iron levels which involved a blood test and the screams oh my but it showed she was on the lower end of iron levels – but if she is sick, whether by actual gastro or by anxiety, then she gets to that gaunt stage. She is just losing the chin that you will come to adore soon, that little baby element you notice when her head is tilted back and apparently unrelated to her jaw or neck. Her nose is like yours, at least for now, and her eyes are light green like Nana Sioban and your Grandma Ruth. Her hair has gone from dark to light with reddish cradle cap, making you think she would be a redhead. It darkens as she ages and there is no more hint of red in C. Unlike many blondes, she loves that her hair is darkening and she would much rather you say she had brown – dark brown – hair that is nearly black, even though it is a long way from being black. There are curly phases, and it is on the sparse side when she is a toddler, but normalises by the start of school. At 7, she has a pixie cut that you did yourself and is growing but maybe will get a trim in the next holidays.
She is usually wanting friends to play with. If other kids rock up at the park, she is overjoyed and usually approaching them within a minute to see if they want to play. Some of your best mum friends have come from C wanting to play with a new-to-her kid at the park. At home, she will sometimes play with her sisters. Although there are games they play together, like cubbies that take over the entire living room, and families where all the roles are reversed, and kittens and mermaids and fairies and the list goes on, usually she wants to be on her own at home. You still live in the same space – a 2-bedroom apartment – with the now-5 of you. As C is very much against throwing away ANYTHING, it is starting to feel a bit crowded, to say the least, and you are trying to find ways to ditch things that won’t devastate her. We’re talking, you know, not just toys that she hasn’t played with in about 5 years, but also the rolled-up flyer from a birthday party that she says is a magic wand and an empty tissue box that you must not touch because THAT is the one that actually is a fairy house even though it … just looks like a tissue box.
C loves art, and will spend hours mixing paint to get just the right shade of peach skin tone. She also loves crafts – which you must NEVER throw away – and is an enthusiastic recycler of packaging and scraps and whatever she can imagine a use for. She spends hours reading, mostly at night when she is trying to go to sleep. She wasn’t so keen on maths at the start of prep, but by the second half of that year was starting to excel. That has continued, and she even asked for a plus sign for her birthday cake this year. Skip counting is one of her favourite things, and it will come in handy for calming her in stressful situations.
Free time is spent on the iPad when you let her. She might sing along to the theme tune – although she doesn’t always sing so well in tune, this still warms your heart – and sometimes E will sing along, too. Sometimes they have a blast singing theme songs together, and sometimes C will growl – yes, she growls – at E to stop. Fairies have overtaken unicorns and mermaids as the magical creatures of choice. Dragons are a thing from a series of chapter books about dragon girls, so you have made a set of cardboard dragon wings for her, too. Go, you crafty mum.
She is a fiddler. A fidgeter. Fidget toys soon become something you are aware of and then … they’re everywhere. She gets distracted by anything very easily. And if you take away all distractions so, for example, she can eat a meal, then she will manage to fiddle with whatever is left, like the tablecloth or the curtain. It is infuriating. But fidgets also help her brain to calm down. She is excellent at describing things, too, and seems to be unusually perceptive about emotions. C does NOT like being tickled and will usually do the St Vitus Dance if anything just brushes her and sets her off. She also does not like loud sounds and can get very overwhelmed with too much volume.
In fact, especially just writing it all out here which makes it seem really obvious, just before Christmas when she is 6, you have a ping of realisation that she is neurodivergent. By 7, she is seeing a psychologist who is helping enormously. You still feel like a terrible mum most of the time, but now there is a little glimmer of maybe it’s not all you being a terrible mum and partly it’s that you have an exceptional child with needs outside of the standard operating procedure. Fortunately, some of those quirks – like not being able to eat anything else in her lunchbox until she has finished her sandwich – you recognise very clearly from yourself, and that makes it much, much easier to understand and love.
As I said at the start, she is excellent at pushing your buttons. Try to remember that a lot of this, as one of her prep teachers reminded you (they are the most excellent prep teachers, by the way – absolute gems and the best start for school that you could hope for) – this button pushing and doing the meltdowns for you while being an angel for everyone else – is because YOU are her safe person. This is often hard to take, but try to remember that. You are her safe person.
That time of year. This time of year. Is this time of year my favourite? It may well be.
This time of year, when the sun is rising that little bit later so that a morning walk comes with less being blinded by the sun and more “Ooh, look at that bootiful sunrise” if E or S is with me. That later rising of the sun reminding us that summer in Brisbane does pass for a time.
This time of year, when the weather starts tipping to autumn with shorter days and dryer days and nights below 20C and a slight crispness at the beginnings and ends of the days. This tipping to autumn that reminds me of when C was born and all that went on with the much-awaited birth of a firstborn.
This time of year, when there is even a slight chill some mornings and the weather forecast shows highs in the upper 20s instead of relentlessly in the 30s. This slight and occasional chill that has children suddenly chilly. This chill that reminds me that they can’t live in short sleeves all year, and winter clothes should be organised soon, preferably the soon that comes before the cold weather.
This time of year, when a trip to the garage for the winter clothing happens.
I love this changeover of the seasons. Going through the old clothes. Smiling with each memory that emerges with them. Noticing all the holes. Noticing all the holes that I used to think would be frustrating, that something needs mending or is unusable, but actually noticing the holes and seeing how well-loved it was, or how much time playing kittens this pair of leggings saw, or remembering the stack that needed bandaids on that knee for a week, or just how much it was worn and therefore value for money.
Noticing the sizes available and realising what is missing due to growth spurts and school starting and physical clothing preferences. Thinking about what sizes will be required this year by which child. Reminiscing to C’s babyhood, when she was fairly easily in the size for the age but always outgrew them about a month early, and the sadness felt every time I realised there was no way she was fitting into that size again and therefore maybe I wouldn’t even see a baby in these clothes again because who knew if we would have any more babies? Then – ha! – we sure did have more babies, but some of those clothes could hardly be worn anyway as E and S grew faster than imaginable.
Grew? Grow. E, at just 4, is needing size 5 separates but dresses are size 6, but clearly not for much longer. S, 2 and a half, is a comfy size 3 in separates but can work with size 4s and needing size 4 dresses and snuck a pair of C’s size 6 leggings the other day and wore them without issues the whole afternoon. C is also a bit ahead in sizing, being almost – practically – 7 and needing size 7s and 8s. With a weight percentile much, much lower than her height percentile she can get away with wearing smaller sizes in warmer months but really needs the length back for the cooler weather.
Noticing the deficits in our supply and planning a trip for winter clothes shopping with the girls. Planning how to make it fair while still getting the start, at least, of what they actually need and attempting to find out what suits their particular wants and needs. “Let’s go shopping for winter clothes!” starts in my mind as a fun thing to do with the girls on the weekend but turns into a balancing act harder than Christmas presents.
We did this on Saturday. It was the worst shopping trip of my life, I think.
Everyone will want a dress. Every girl gets a winter dress. E quickly found an Elsa dress. It was available in sizes 2 – far too small for S – and 8. Foreseeing 2 winters of wear from E, I let her choose the size 8. There was no similar dress for S. S had a tantrum. C consented to a pink dress with frilly hems. S refused the green dress and as she was too far gone, really, in her Elsa dress tantrum, I picked a navy floral number for her.
Everyone will need at least one pair of leggings. C will need a pair that is vaguely navy so she can wear them at school. C goes for every other option and goes all sad sack on me when I say no. Every. Time. S is still tantrumming about the Elsa dress. I pick out a pair for her then realise she doesn’t know anything that is happening and figure she will actually be fine in size 4s and we have enough in size 3 and 4 to get us going. E is still on a high with her Elsa dress so I pick out 2 pairs of size 6 leggings for her. She is 4. She goes to preschool. Those knees aren’t going to last.
Everyone will need at least one long sleeved top. The long sleeved tops are on the same table as the short sleeved tops, distinguished by writing on the front sticker. Every top C picks is short sleeved. I point out where to find short or long, and she finds 2 options. One of these is a leopard print on a pale coffee colour. She looks ill when she holds it up but is determined to have it. I refuse. I suggest an alternative (we use a plain white tee from home and do an iron-on transfer) which is only just barely considered. I still refuse to buy her something that makes her look like she is about to vomit. She puts it back, slowly and sadly. E is still on a high with her Elsa dress but has enough presence of mind to shout “NO” at me when I show her a few options that I thought she would love. Unsurprisingly, back at the first option again gets a resounding “YES”. A very sweet top is found for S which pulls her out of a tantrum for about 80 seconds.
C will need pyjamas. I veto the flannel pair as I am hoping hoping hoping that her size 6 flannel pair will fit for at least the first really cold night. She accepts the lighter weight, heart print with ruffle sleeve pair as acceptable. E doesn’t wear pyjamas so I’m not buying any for her. Except, having made that decision on Saturday, guess who has worn pjs every night since. Of course. Thankfully, C’s size 5 Frozen pyjamas will work out until I can gauge if this wearing pyjamas thing is going to last. S has one and a half pairs of pyjamas that should fit so fingers crossed I find the other bit and then maybe have another rummage in the garage – that’s right, I am no longer organised in the garage department – for size 3 clothing. And my jeans. I am really really really hoping they will be too big but I’m not going to buy another pair if they do actually still fit.
So that was our winter shopping trip. The hardest thing I have done in a long time, which is really saying something considering the NEAR CYCLONE we just had with 3 SICK GIRLS so that gives you an indication of how horrible it was and how poorly I cope with grumpy and tantrums and stubborn. All that aside, they all love their new clothes. I can’t wait for cooler cooler weather.
It didn’t feel like we read a lot this week. Superworm and Tiddler are still way, way up the top of the list. But then I noticed the pile of books at the end of my sofa. Just like years ago, long before S was born, and when E but really C would pick books for bedtime and a pile would develop on sofa arms and tables. I noticed the pile. I thought, you should really put those books back on the bookshelf, Anna.
So I started to gather the books, and what had started off looking like maybe 3 or 4 books just kept getting bigger. It was like Mary Poppins’ bag. Because I am who I am, of course then I started taking photographs so I could make notes of which books they were. This isn’t strictly speaking what we read just this week, but definitely in the last 9-10 days.
Tabby McTat. Zog and the Flying Doctors. Tiddler. (Side note: Superworm and Zog are in the girls’ bedroom, along with the Boy Who Ate Everything, two copies of Little Red Riding Hood and Pop Up Punctuation). Matilda. What Katy Did. Little Ash: Party Problem! Bears in a Band. The Story About Ping. Don’t Call Me Bear! Pig the Fibber. There’s No Such Thing As Monsters! A Sleepy Snorey Dino Story! (Lots of exclamation marks, I’m just noticing now). The Other Ark. Ten Minutes to Bed; Where’s Father Christmas? That’s Not My Lion… That’s Not My Reindeer… Never Touch a Grumpy Unicorn! Hammerbarn. Bluey: 12 Days of Christmas.
My goodness.
Clearly, C abhors a vacuum and has added a Dragon Girls book to my sofa arm, as well as reintroducing Matilda, What Katy Did, and bringing Black Beauty and Heidi to the sofa. Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé is still being read by me and currently resides on my current sewing project and underneath What Katy Did.
Yes. I am trying to be better at putting things away. In my defence, this book stack lasted for less than a fortnight, so there’s that.
There’s been a lot of drama lately. A lot of angst, anxiety, fear, worry. A lot of preparation.
In the end, for us it turned out to be for a whole lot of rain and a bit of wind. E would call Alfred a Drama Prince.
We got lucky. Super duper ultra lucky, and there are hundreds of thousands of people who suffered and are still suffering. We did not lose power. We did not have any disruption to our water supply. We didn’t flood. We didn’t have a tree come down anywhere near us, certainly not crushing a car or roof or whole entire house.
What we did have felt like a mini lockdown, akin to what it would have been five years ago but with an end in sight. I take my hat off to families that had to do COVID lockdowns with multiple children and no clear end.
We made it through. Life is returning to normal. Monday, daycare was still closed and school was open only for supervision of children of essential workers. By Monday lunchtime, I was turning myself into a pretzel crossing fingers and toes and whatever possible that they would be able to be back to normal on Tuesday. We were outside on Monday afternoon with girls splashing in the backyard pool and blowing bubbles when two emails came through – bam, bam – within a minute of each other. School would be open for all students. Daycare would be reopening, but please pack food as their food service is out of action this week. Can. Do.
Having made it through this Alfred Experience, I feel I have some people to thank. The usual, of course. Glenn – a rock. Unphased in the areas that matter, like shopping in a panic-ridden shopping centre and finding all that we needed and being able to plan meals and make meals and be around to give girls cuddles and have Siri play Kiss and have mini rock concerts with whoever (E, mostly) needed them.
Auntie J, who shopped for us when I had planned to pick up essentials for our emergency kit but then had 3 girls home sick so we weren’t going anywhere. She offered. I sent her a list. She delivered. I transferred her money. I breathed a little easier.
Prime Video. The girls watched about 39 hours a day… okay, that’s a slight exaggeration. But really, doing some quick calculations here, 8-9 hours a day. Up to 9 hours a day of watching mostly Prime Video. I’ll move on. It was a lot.
Bubbles. Bubbles are the best, aren’t they? Thank goodness I had restocked our big bubble mix the Friday before this all started. Thank goodness I had splurged and gone for the big 2 litre bottle. Bubbles for years. Well, months. That said, with twice-daily usage for 7 days, we used about a fifth of the bottle. A couple of Christmases ago, E was given a bubble set which has a little dish and 4 different blowers. This was the best thing ever during this time. I didn’t have to keep a hold on the massive store of bubble mix to prevent the inevitable major spill. Each girl could blow and chase and spin and pop and come back for more. On the very windy days, we could just hold the blower out and let the wind take the bubbles. And one of my favourite videos is of all girls doing “cyclone bubbles”, holding a blower out and twirling in a midst of circling bubbles. Beautiful.
Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. Thank you. What a duo. Not a day went by that I didn’t read a Donaldson/Scheffler book. That’s such an understatement. Multiple times a day. And having S and E reciting parts of a book while turning the pages… well. That makes my heart sing. And having such interesting illustrations that girls can get lost in them, spotting connections and little details, was enormously important. There were some other books read, too, but this duo was at the forefront.
AirPods. Oh my. I only cottoned on to this in the last little while but they help so much. Anyone else tried it? Sensory overwhelm in the form of too much noise is starting to take place. AirPods in on noise cancelling, and it takes the edge off. I was hoping for the screaming children level to be reduced but no. It doesn’t really make a difference to that. But if you are having to listen to an annoying children’s show and don’t have the mental energy to switch, or are in the middle of a rock and roll party or Wicked playlist and just have too much doomscrolling to do, then this really helps.
Shelley Husband. Don’t know who she is? Spincushions? Australian Crochet Designer of the Year? Well, anyway, she is my crochet guru idol person. Her granny square patterns are *beautiful* and elevate crochet squares to art. Last year, I realised a shawl would be a good addition to my winter workwear, and I planned it out and bought the yarn. I don’t usually have the urge to crochet in summer, but I couldn’t wait to get started on it in January. It has accompanied me to swimming lessons and psychologist appointments and been my general go-to Me Time when it’s too late to start sewing. Even one side of a round helps my calm. And wowsers, did I ever need it during this time. Admittedly, there were a couple of rounds that were frogged and then frogged again and for one round, frogged a third time before I had it right, but it was the calmness of repetition with the satisfaction of seeing a growing square of beauty take shape in my hands that was essential for my mental health. (Today, with a server issue at work so no work, I finished this square. Two more to go, and then some border squares I think. This is, fittingly, the Hope square from Granny Square Patchwork in 4-ply Luxury in Amazon Green from Bendigo Woollen Mills.)
Emergency services. Not for us in particular, thank goodness, but their social media presence, keeping us informed. Emergency services and weather pages and news channels. I realise it’s a bit in the doomscrolling category but it’s also in the reassurance realm and the awareness and information department. I’d much rather “Well, thank goodness that wasn’t as bad as we feared” over “Why is it so windy today?!”
Parenting accounts on social media. Nurtured First has been a favourite lately, but any account – I’m not talking the ones that make me laugh with their representations of what parenting is like in the real world (although a little levity is always a good thing), but the ones that are there to help – accounts that remind me of things that stop me losing it in the face of things that make me lose it. I doubt my neighbourhood appreciates it, but I have noticed a difference in my frustration levels, and a definite rise this week in intentional calmness. I mean, I have a looooooooooooong way to go there, but there were times when I COULD have exploded but I didn’t.
The best of the parenting accounts for me – and “parenting account” is nowhere near the complete picture, but it has been my saviour and well I could go on and on and on and on – is The Occuplaytional Therapist (OPT). Without her and her posts over the years, this whole Alfred thing would have been a markedly different experience for us. Through her, I became more aware of the why of children’s behaviour. Another viewpoint. A better understanding of child development. All of the things. All of the things that meant I could grasp that C needing to have quiet and routine and an active role in preparation was the way she was coping, and that E was letting out big emotions with loud sounds, and to tell her to stop that and be quiet would help C but then stifle E and then we would likely have different problems to deal with. S needing cuddles for hours and hours was her comfort and what a relief that I kind of needed S cuddles too and wasn’t touched out. C apparently bossing E around was not really about being in charge or being in control or better than her, but needing to establish some control when things were feeling out of control. E needing loud – to be loud herself, and to have loud rock music on – was so not helping me, but coming from the understanding that it was her out, combined with those lovely AirPods, made it easier to bear, especially when followed by the amazing handsies we do at bedtime. So the OPT has opened up my sight to the why, which has helped me, you know, not lose my cool at every single thing every single time. Baby steps.
This list is not complete, of course, but these are the people and things I thanked in my head at the time and thought I should really put it out there as part of the stuff of our lives. Thank you.
What to read with young girls in the event of an impending cyclone.
What young girls will ask to be read in the event of an impending cyclone.
What to read to escape from the anxiety of an impending cyclone.
What girls want to be read after the threat of the cyclone has passed and we are stuck with rain and rain and rain and rain.
There have been new favourites. There have been old favourites. There have been books unearthed by curious hands. Comfort books. Books that have things for fingers to do, like touching textures or moving a bee around a maze (which has turned out to be surprisingly comforting for all of my girls, rather like a finger labyrinth). New-enough books that they are still “not boring” to a nearly-7-year-old.
In our emergency kit – which ended up being a chair in the main bedroom with a pile of leaf blankets, filled water bottles and a soft bunny toy and a pile of books – I put Matilda, a Dragon Girls special edition, Never Touch a Grumpy Unicorn, Tiddler, Superworm, Tabby McTat, Hammerbarn, Busy Bee, and Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé.
We did not need our emergency kit. It was quite windy on Friday night, and I started to worry about the window nearest my bed. Girls slept right through, solidly, like they were exhausted from all the waiting and then just wanted to wake up to no more cyclone. Sleep was tricky for Glenn and me. I was worrying about trees and windows. Glenn had E next to him (she comes in most nights) and it was not one of those nights where she is asleep and still but rather one of those nights where she is asleep and you cannot wake her but she is flapping around like a gasping fish. Still, it was rather comforting to have this Just In Case emergency kit an arm’s reach away.
I woke up the morning after the cyclone that wasn’t a cyclone anymore to quiet. Such quiet that I thought maybe we were, bizarrely, in the eye of the cyclone. We were not. It was still sitting over the islands and we were calm because the cyclone threat had passed. And E asked me to read her The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which she wanted so many times when she was a baby that her 1st birthday cake was inspired by it. She wanted it repeatedly Saturday morning, and often since then, and now puts her hand over my mouth for a couple of the pages so that she can say the words herself. This afternoon was also a Very Hungry Caterpillar jigsaw puzzle festival, with Sage doing one of our set of four puzzles over and over and over for at least an hour, and then the other girls joining in with the other puzzles. Milo Goes Bananas has also been a popular choice this week, as well as Goodnight Baby Moon, and Slinky Malinki.
E has started “Just going to the red bookshelf for another book. I be right back” when she can’t fall asleep, and this evening I could see she was in the indecisive muddle that comes with too many choices poorly displayed. Tomorrow daycare is closed and school is supervision only so we are all staying home again, and although the girls probably think they will spend the day jumping up and down in muddy puddles, or at least the growing swimming pool in the garden, some of tomorrow will be spent reorganising the books.
The Stuff of Our Life 