reflection

Meal Prep Monday (30/06/2025)

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

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

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

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

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

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

What We Read This Week (01/06/2025)

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This week was a bit of magic. 

S’s choice to look at in her cot before sleep was (drumroll)… the dictionary. Yup. My First Dictionary that we gave to C for Christmas sits on the bookshelf next to S’s cot. One night S was clearly done with Pig Out (although, this was wasn’t Monday night so let’s add that one to the list again) and she pulled off the shelves and into her cot a bunch of C’s chapter books. They were all leafed through with the attitude of someone who has actually read these all before and they’re just looking for a favourite part or something, then she pulled down the dictionary. She was set. It has more pictures than a grownup dictionary, of course, but also no narrative contained within those pictures. Maybe she liked feeling like a big girl. Maybe seeing lots of words was soothing for her. Maybe the different feel of the pages and the sound they made when she turned them gave her a bit of a sensory hit. Whatever it was, that was her preferred nighttime reading. 

E’s top choice for the week was The Magic Beach by Alison Lester. Given to C a few years ago, it’s never made it to the favourite-story-please-read-it-every-night-for-two-months stage. I love it, though, and am delighted that E chose it one evening. And totally quizzed me over one of the imagination pictures and where are the mum and dad are they the king and queen where are they are they down there what are they doing down there are they drowning? These questions, of course, are asked for this particular page every single time now.

I also got it into my head yesterday that my three girls who all love mermaids hadn’t read Three Little Mermaids for a while. As Glenn had been using AI and technology to make the girls into mermaids and then messaged me the videos of each of them turning into a mermaid, my morning had a large chunk of it taken up by me playing said videos to girls. I started to look for the book, which meant a teensy bit of reorganisation of the kids’ bookshelf in the living area, which meant other books were rediscovered and read as I was searching. S had a bit of time looking and flinging books in my pile. E had a couple of moments of “Here it is!” So I also read her Good Night, Sleep Tight by Mem Fox and Judy Horacek – which was one of those above favourite category books for a while, and for good reason, and yesterday I read the horse riding part multiple times for E and an insistent S – as well as (groan) Peppa Pig Meets the Queen. Yes. We have a Peppa Pig book. Yes. I admit (cringe) that I even bought it for the family. Yes. The books are just as annoying as the show. No. I “forgot” to read it to her again at bedtime.

Then Three Little Mermaids was found and read and gathered around and oohed and ahhhhed over and “wait mummy go back” and “which mermaid is me” declared. Three Little Mermaids is in that special category of book. There’s rhyme – not forced rhyme, but lovely rhyme – and there’s repetition. There’s adventure. There’s a little bit of sea creature education. There’s the chance for grownups in the book to get frustrated at misbehaving children. There are – maybe I should have led with this – beautiful illustrations, that happen to be by someone Glenn knows. Whenever I come across a Lisa Stewart illustrated book, it’s an instant Yes for buying it. This one, however, Lisa sent to our girls specially with a beautiful inscription for them.

Further to the magic has been C reading Disney Princess Stories to E at bedtime tonight. So much magic in Disney! And Disney stories don’t skimp. If you are asked to read a Disney story, you are in for a lot of words. Which is great. And if the listener is familiar with the movie version, then don’t even think about skipping a few pages. It. Won’t. Work. Thankfully, C was happy reading stories to E tonight so I could do things like … type this. 

C and I are about halfway through The Secret Garden now, and C is in the stage of getting so excited about what happens in the story, and what is suggested might be coming soon, that she will kick her legs or jump like a frog or an excited kitten. We’ve also had a look at pictures of some fancy estates in England to give her an idea of the sort of neat and ordered garden is in this setting. As she is telling me how she is imagining some of the characters, I will be holding off on showing her any Pride and Prejudice until we have finished the book. I don’t want to ruin any magic.

Busy

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I have been busy. Things I have wanted to maintain have slipped a little. I have five or six posts begun but not continued. Sometimes they are begun and then I don’t get to the checking it stage before it really is too late to post it. Sometimes they are begun and I just don’t get to continue.

There has been a lot more work. This is good. This is also maybe slightly less good. Good because it reduces the financial stress considerably. Pay for me is dependent on how many words I type, so this work is not necessarily necessary but it definitely helps a lot. Pay rate for me is also assessed and reevaluated every four months, and word count is a part of that. As I only work four days, the extra work I’m getting kind of equates to an almost extra day and so bumps up my ranking. 

Extra work is maybe slightly less good, though, because I am now working a lot. C taking foorrrreeevvvvvveerrrrr to go to bed at night makes it harder, and I don’t want to keep saying “I have work to do” for her to be convinced to go to bed. Not that what I want or need makes any difference to her willingness to go to bed, of course, but language is important, and I don’t want the soundtrack of her childhood to be “I have to work”. I’m not keen for “We can’t afford that”, either, but I’ll work on phrases. More work also means less time to think and to write for this blog and to sew and to crochet. Right now the balance is in favour of work in order to relieve the financial stress but it is on the cusp.

Another big factor in reduction of my writing is children. Yes. Children. I wake at 5 for this (or work). S has been waking often just after 4 and insisting I sleep on the floor in their room which is fine but then I wake just before 5 and want to be in my bed for a bit and then I sleep right through the 5am alarm and then there’s the 5.30 alarm and E is then wanting me to hold her hand and then we’re kind of at 6am and I might have made my cup of tea by then but now E is up and wanting to either be on me and help or wanting to watch something which is lovely but distracting and often S is needing something around this time too so I am left with a full cold cup of tea and needing to go on a walk but it now has to be a short walk and should I even bother or should I try for a kettlebell workout later on. If work is due or if I have a lot of it to do, then that will win over any writing or exercise. 

Still, there is always hope. The last two weeks I have not really done any work Thursday night or Friday or Saturday and then Sunday night has been the first for some extra work and then I have slogged it out until Thursday morning. This week will be different. Small portions creates more balance. I plan on having some time not working – Thursday night was free, and Friday morning and most likely Friday night. The weekend, though, will have just a little bit in the mornings and evenings in order to keep this as a bit instead of taking over my life for four days. That’s the hope. 

Right. Where’s that kettlebell.

Mother’s Day 2025

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We’ve just had How Was Your Easter. How was your Mother’s Day is really the next event that has a question posed that expects a positive and glowing rundown.  And while Easter has an expectation that the whole family or friendship group has worked together to make it an amazing four days, Mother’s Day … well, it’s different. How was your Mother’s Day expects pampering; expects sweet cards and pictures; expects the whole family to make mum feel special; chocolates and flowers and fluffy slippers and breakfast in bed.

I think it must be that way only in magazines and dysfunctional families. Not the classic dysfunctional family of split parents or addiction abuse. No, the dysfunctional family of a parent being overwhelmingly controlling to the point that everyone does what they say no matter what.

What a start to a post about Mother’s Day. Sorry. What I mean is, there’s what society puts forward as what should happen, and social media presents as amazing, and then there’s the reality of Family Life. One of my new favourite Instagram accounts shared a video to this effect. Paraphrasing a small part: Breakfast in bed, made by the kids, is meant to make me relax? Thanks, but I will be on high alert as you carry hot liquids up the stairs as I have not known you to go anywhere without spilling anything.

A lot of media brings out the old trope of mums can’t relax because they have to still clean everything because the kids and husband are useless and incapable. That’s getting so old and, quite frankly, offensive. I grew up surrounded by males – a dad, two older brothers and a younger brother. Various levels of weight was pulled at different times for all sorts of reasons, but we all are capable of cooking, cleaning and washing. Modelling is important, and this is not just thanks, mum but also thanks, dad. And I married someone later in life who was so used to doing his own cooking, cleaning and washing that both of us were a bit surprised when I moved in that someone else had done the washing or the cooking or the cleaning. We soon settled into our preferred roles within that, but I knew that when I went into hospital to have babies or because of Covid or because of an explosive postpartum infection that he would be able to keep the place and the children together.

But on a deeper level, that old mum can’t relax because the dad is useless thing just – well, yes. I accept that for some or even many relationships it’s like that. Expectations are important, and mental load for each party is important and not talked about enough. I am getting so sidetracked here. The point is, good relationships are built on love. If I love someone, I will do what I can to help them. If someone loves me, they will do what they can to help me. So yes. On Mother’s Day, I may have the option of putting my feet up a bit more, but I’m not going to be happy lounging around all day while everyone else serves me. 

Also in the real world, more and more people can’t have the whole day as a big family unit. Glenn works in retail. The retail world rarely pauses, and Glenn was working on Sunday. A relaxed breakfast would have had to have started at (doing some quick mental calculations here) um maybe 6am or so, and would not have been at all relaxing for him and therefore me if he had had girls helping him. They’re each becoming quite capable and definitely enthusiastic kitchen helpers but all at once – I know from chaotic experience that that is not going to be a relaxing start to anyone’s day. And Glenn doesn’t need any extra stress in his life, and definitely not when he’s trying to make my day a nice day and definitely definitely not before he has to go to work. Instead, he bought my favourite celebration breakfast (croissants) the day before and I organised the heating up and the cups of tea and the hot chocolates while Glenn and E organised the bandanna-wrapping of my presents.

I’m not sure if everyone is aware of just how sweet young kids can be when giving a present to someone. They are bursting out of their skin with excitement, especially if they are unaware of what’s inside, and also very much so if they DO know what’s inside. Little hands holding a gift up to your nose and saying “Happy Mother’s Day”, or in the case of S, “Happy birthday, mummy” is one of life’s sweet pleasures that I know won’t be forever. Glenn had taken the girls shopping on Saturday afternoon and apparently they were not only beautifully behaved, but also very thoughtful when choosing gifts for me. The big joke was that they would give me a hairdryer. S is in a very black and white phase right now. (“Are you a cheeky chops?” “NO! I’M S!”) After they had shopped, Glenn asked her, “Did we buy mummy a hairdryer?” And she looked at him, utterly bewildered, and shook her head. What planet was he on?! “Is it a nice pink hairdryer for Mother’s Day?” Vigorous shaking of the head. No hairdryer for me, but a number of pampering items as well as crafty things and soft slippers. This is one happy mummy.

We are finally in an era where C is old enough and capable enough and thoughtful enough to pamper me. She was rather fixated in her mind about what was going to happen, and I had to steer/direct her away from having all of us doing day spas with our feet in water in the (carpeted) living room, but we could come around to agreement. She and I stuck our fingers in little dipping pots and our feet in bowls of water on towels in the girls’ room and scrubbed and brushed to our heart’s content while having mummy-daughter chats. This is going to happen more. E came in and did a bit of wild 4yo joining in, and S came in for a cuddle. Later on, S did her own personal day spa in the bedroom and was not quite so careful with the water.

C and E helped me make the red velvet mug cake which we then had for morning tea. Girls watched movies and shows and did jigsaw puzzles and water painting and craft and the day travelled along nicely. We had a FaceTime with my mum (and dad) in which girls were lovely, and didn’t get into mischief in the background, and didn’t bicker in the background, and didn’t go crazy, but engaged in conversation with my parents and were their actual delightful selves and no-one jumped on anyone else’s head this time. 

Glenn didn’t have a whole day at work, and after prepping dinner for me, he had a rest while girls played together (I know!) and, it turns out, independently, as S turned on the water filter with no cup underneath the spout and just watched the water and listened to the sound of the water hitting the tiles until the kitchen floor was mostly covered in water before E went in and I heard “S! What are you DOING!” So yay for responsible big sisters and just enough towels in the cupboard to soak up the flood. This is why you can’t go to the toilet or do ANYTHING with a toddler around. Still, once that was dealt with, I could do some quick sewing (I know!). I was going to gush about the sewing project but it is honestly enough for its own post so suffice it to say that I made a set of placemats and we are back to using a cloth tablecloth. I brought out my special chair so we could all eat together at the table for dinner. My special chair was made by my grandfather, who was a carpenter, and it is beautiful. I explained to the girls (who hadn’t really seen or noticed it before) that it was special for me, and that my grandfather made it. At least three times a day since then, S has relayed to me that my grandpa made it for me. This brings happy tears to my eyes every time, especially as she looks most like his wife, my grandma.

So. Was I brought breakfast in bed and pampered and showered in flowers and able to relax on the sofa all day with beautifully behaved children and surrounded by beautiful extended family all celebrating motherhood? No. Would I ever want that? No. My life is not a magazine photo shoot, or a cartoon, or so self-centred that I want everyone to serve me and coddle me while I have no thought to anyone else’s comfort or wellbeing or mental state or their life at all. That’s not what motherhood is about, so a day where that is what it is made to be is simply hypocrisy. I know that next year or the year after, C will most likely have formed the idea that she must make me breakfast in bed and she must have her sisters help her, but it will be a far less stressful experience for everyone then and the idea of working together will be more important than making the day like a magazine shoot. In the long run, what do we want to remember? The stress of hearing everyone fighting over making your life perfect, or running around after you while they get stressed? No. A kitchen flood brought on by a 2yo experiencing something sensory? Yes, please. A gift that “wasn’t good enough”? Absolutely not, not ever. Cards made with love, unprompted, by children for you that you can keep forever? Oh my goodness me all of the yes. 

As a side note, I am about five days late in posting this. Not that I have a deadline or a real schedule, but there is a limit on how much after Mother’s Day one can post about Mother’s Day. The last few weeks have been wild, with at least three sick people in the family on any given day. I had hardly any voice on Saturday and absolutely none on Sunday. Nights have been unsettled, and dealing with sick children at 2am, 3.40am, 4.08am, 4.26am and 4.58am usually means I don’t wake up in time to do anything before exercising, or that I don’t even wake up to exercise before girls need breakfast. I feel a little bit smashed but here’s to getting back on track, at least for a few days.

What We Read This Week (04/05/2025)

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

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

S: Two! Mummy, I two!

Me: You sure are.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Was Your Easter?

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

Variations on “It was amazing!” 

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

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

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

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

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

If you feel ignored and disobeyed all weekend.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How was my Easter? Kind of amazing, really.

What We Read This Week (20/04/2025)

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You may recall that the last two weeks have featured Each Peach Pear Plum. A book I remember from my childhood. A book I loved in my childhood. A book the Christmas Eve Book Fairy gave to S, much to my delight (ahem). Last Sunday, I had been asked to recite it on the way home from church. Monday, I was asked again on the way to daycare drop-off… and C learnt it herself on the way home.

Having not really heard it all that much (she is allowed to do Mathletics or Procreate or Patterned, or read in our bedroom away from tired and trying-to-sleep younger girls), I was quite impressed that just a few hearings embedded it in her brain. She then suddenly had a new favourite thing to do, and this was recited – let’s just say, a number of times – over the next few days. And evenings. I had to limit it a bit, and ask her not to say it at certain times when S might start to think she was being put to sleep, which would result at the time in either major tantrums because “IT’S NOT NIGHTTIME”, or S actually falling asleep during the day which would be an absolute disaster in the evening. 

But do you know how I know it was really embedded in her brain? Wednesday night. S was having an overnight wake. Needing me in their room, sleeping on the floor. Wanting a bottle (“with milk. Warm milk”, like she’s maybe had it other ways and like she’s a feisty little Jane Bond). Then C started talking in her sleep. “Each peach pear plum, Tom Thumb – no he’s not there!” Giggles. S, thankfully, was in the almost asleep again phase and just let the words wash over her. About five minutes later, “Robin Hood over the – no. Wicked Witch over the wood. LEAVE ME ALONE. [giggles]”. And that was that. I was amused, and very glad I had been asked to sleep on the floor. When I told her in the morning, C found it hilarious.

Meanwhile, S has been in a bit of a phase – well it’s been like this for a while, really, where she picks a book off the shelf and has it in her cot as she goes to sleep. Sometimes it’s just in the cot, as in, within the bars of the cot but nowhere near her. Sometimes it’s propped up against the bars like she’s been reading it. Sometimes it is wedged what looks like rather uncomfortably poking into a part of her, usually a leg or her tummy. This week, the book of choice has been Timeless (by Kate Canby), and I have been asked to read it before she goes to sleep with it under her head like a pillow. 

E picked another book from childhood this week, but by this one being “from my childhood”, I mean, the actual physical book that I remember from my childhood that my parents brought over at some point in the last year. “Bible Stories For Children” is a large book with several of the Old and New Testament stories in it, with usually just a double page for each story. This is perfect for bedtime. Before she asked me to read any to her, though, E had clearly had a look through herself because I was asked to read the “one with a man falling out of the ship”. So what followed was me turning over every single page to find the RIGHT story involving a ship. That one has been requested a few times (it’s the one of Jesus calming the Sea of Galilee and nobody actually falls off a ship but the picture is misleading thanks very much illustrator). 

Her other favourite is the rainbow story. I absolutely loved the experience of reading this one to her for the first time. It involves her name. There is a rainbow (she loves loves loves rainbows). And I could tell her about the morning that she was born, when my parents were looking after C and they went onto the balcony and saw a rainbow. And I can remind her what her name means and how she embodies that every single day. 

True to their style, no actual Easter books were read this week. They will probably be in high demand around October, I’m guessing. Sigh.

Tradition!

/ annamurray / Leave a comment

In the last few months, we have started doing “Favourite Thing” at the start of dinner. This started because of about 70% wanting to delay the “Can we watch something?”, and 30% wanting to hear more about their days and what they remembered about good things. Well, those are very vague percentages because while writing this I also remembered that part of it was to get them to start going back over their days and pick out positive things. A bit like practising gratitude. Note to self:  introduce a gratitude element.

Sunday night, before Favourite Thing, I reminded them of what had happened that day. It had been huge. It was Glenn’s first day back at work after some leave, and I had already decided train to church for us because of potential traffic delays and sitting practically still on a bus when you can literally see your destination but can’t get out of the bus at all and you have three girls who just want to be off the bus and seeing their friends or doing anything other than just sitting moderately quietly on a bus is not an experience I would like to revisit thank you very much. So we all caught the train in to the city. Then church itself was very different because it was Palm Sunday, which meant very much out of the ordinary and I’ll get to it later. Once home, the girls had edamame (“enamummy”, “emadahmah”, “enadummy”) for lunch which is their second favourite food, plus I let them watch Despicable Me 2 while eating. Outside later in the afternoon, C did roller skating all by herself for the first time outside while the other two played this and that and climbed on the wall and played ice cream shop at the letter boxes. So. Much. Happened.

C’s favourite thing was catching the train with daddy in the morning. E’s favourite thing was seeing her favourite person at church. S’s favourite thing was catching the train holding on the stroller. Glenn’s favourite thing was catching the train with all of his girls. 

My favourite thing was being part of, and having my girls be part of, the Palm Sunday traditions and experience. Religious ceremony that is centuries old. Religious traditions that happen every year, all around the world, in some way or another, that people have been doing, repeating, for hundreds of years, and my girls are now able to live that and be part of something much, much bigger than themselves. All of those elements are, I think, very important. They are important to me – for my soul, for my being, for my mental health – and as someone tasked with raising children, I see it as an important element to have as part of their lives. 

The words that keep coming to me are words like “duty” and “due diligence” and “responsibility”. These words are close but wrong. Those are the words that I hear in court cases and hearings and so forth. Those are the words that come when love isn’t enough. 

I love my girls. I want, and need, them growing up in as many circles of love and care as possible. I want them to have places to turn that are safe, places and people who are safe and comfort and love, who love them because they exist and not for what they can do or what they look like or what they say. Extracurricular activities help with that, as well as practising those resilience muscles and persistence and practice and determination skills. School is also providing an extra circle of care and a wide variety of backgrounds and culture and language. All those are good to have, and I am conscious that we are so, so fortunate to have great (such an understatement there) daycare and an excellent school, as well as the funds to have the girls do swimming for now and for C to do Irish dancing. Church, which often feels like an added extra and sometimes just too much, is just as vital to their wellbeing. And honestly, when E asks “Where are we going when we wake up?” – as she does every single day, sometimes as early as morning tea – if the answer is “Church, so long as everyone is well”, it gets the biggest cheer.

There is a whole mountain of reasons why church – the building, the people, the ceremony – is important. Why I was determined to get the girls to church when we could from when S was three months old. Trying to organise the reasons in my head and new reasons keep emerging. I will try, and I will try to keep it organised so this isn’t a flood. (Posting this later than I wanted because clearly that was harder than I anticipated!)

At the very surface, it is an outing. A Thing to Do. Something that gets us out, family energy out, and stops (or at the very least, reduces) bickering that happens from staying home. When public transport fares were at the past rates, sometimes this was just too expensive but 50c fares, with free travel for kids on weekends, make this much more available. Kids have a children’s area with space and toys and craft. Kids are part of the service, while not having to be too quiet or sit still or kneel or anything, or even be part of anything if they don’t want to. Kids are given a snack during the service because at some point, someone realised that the service really went through morning tea time for kids and 20 hangry kids is not something anybody wants in their life. 

Kids who are there because they have a parent or sibling or both or more involved in the service are just as welcome and included as kids who are there because their parents are there under slight duress to make a good appearance at the baptism of their niece or nephew when really their part of the family is atheist. Kids are welcome to listen to anything the person in charge talks about (this is the bit closest to the Sunday School of my childhood) and to participate in the relevant activity, but also if they just want to keep going building the most amazing train track they’ve ever built, that’s fine too. It is such a safe space for children.

A safe space for children, which means a space I can take them and then sit or stand by myself. I can watch them, with some space between us. I can watch them interacting with others. I can watch how and what and who they choose to play with. I can even now get a cup of coffee at morning tea and have a conversation with an adult – like, a real other grownup! – and not have children hanging off me to do so. Church is for me, too.

Church also provides that extra circle. Not that they are needing it now, but if we don’t do this now then when they do need it it will be much less strong. And this circle has so much variety. A big factor for me was to have them know as wide a variety of people as possible. They play with kids aged 1-11 and coo over any babies that are brought around to the children’s area. They play with kids of a variety of ethnicities, a range of neurotypes, a range of wealth, a range of family types. This is both normal for them, as well as developing their inclusion muscles and their flexibility muscles. It’s also, if I’m honest, developing my parenting skills. If one of my girls is rejected or slighted at the park, I can just whisk my girl away and have a few words about the situation, whatever it was. At church I am more inclined to see what the kids do to work it out themselves, and find out the why of the other kid’s behaviour. I won’t go into any of the “why’s” here, but it’s enough to stop any assumptions in their tracks and to practice kindness first.

Tradition. My tradition, of growing up with church. Remembering that often there was a feeling of “but why???” Knowing now that that questioning is healthy (as it was treated when I was young, too). Knowing now that sometimes the answer is too huge to explain but sometimes it is as small as being the tradition. Tradition is important. It gives a sense of security. It grounds us. The comfort and familiarity get me every time. Tradition!

Old Me/New Me

/ 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.

A Teaser Letter

/ annamurray / Leave a comment

Dear New Mum of 7 Years Ago,

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.

And your child is amazing.

With love,

You in 7 years