Practicing.

This feels familiar. Mothers of young children have been practicing for COVID for years. Days blending into weeks, punctured by food and naps and tantrums. The mundane busyness. Clenched jaws and sweaty sheets. Every conversation turning back to the same subject.

‘How are you coping?’
‘Okay, I think. Tired.’

We pad around in slippers and pyjama pants. Filling the day in 20-minute increments. Waiting as long as possible to go to the shops, or going everyday, just to have a reason to leave the house.

My sons are older now, mostly. They wear watches and have electric toothbrushes. They sometimes set the table without being asked. But they still curl into my lap, folded up like giant insects. All big hands and downy shins.

The baby is a delight, a panacea for all of us. She has learned to clap, and gives a round of applause when I present her with a pile of blueberries. She claps herself when she pulls off her sock, or manages to wobble from the couch to the coffee table. She waves goodbye when I duck into the next room, blows kisses as I bring the washing in.

The boys wash her hair in the shower. One presses a hand to her forehead to stop the shampoo running into her eyes, while the other rubs small circles on her skull.  She claps happily, and they move the stream of water to rush the bubbles away.

Afterwards, they pat her dry and sit her on the carpet in front of the fireplace, and she immediately turns and clambers into their laps, her damp hands grabbing their cheeks.

The preppie has almost finished 100 days of school. For about a month he wore his uniform, put on his brave face and sat in a classroom. The rest of his school days have been at home, at the kitchen table. Learning to use a mouse and a keyboard, to concentrate amongst the chaos.

He reads board books to his sister, carefully sounding out each word. She reaches her arms up for him.  

Schlucking.

This is a thing I wrote ages ago. It is fiction, but familiar. Three kids later and not much has changed.

————————————

I feel the dampness first, rising florid and dank where my skin meets the bedsheets. The smell of sour milk and earth comes next; the crusted puddle is beneath my torso and my chest is throbbing. The light rimming the curtains deepens; the room is the colour of a plum. 

His cries send a spasm skittering through my womb but my head sticks to the pillow, heavy with sleep. I don’t want to leave the humid warmth of the bed, but his cries escalate into one shrill wail, grinding into my skull. 

A damp wind moans through the open window; the air is a wolfish breath in my ear. 

Bile rises sourly and my mouth is gluey as the waves of warmth peel off my body. The bloated heat between my legs is a reminder, and soon it will dry the milky puddle in cracking blotches.

The blankets are clammy. I heave upright and pull my nursing singlet up above my midriff, cooling the sweat on my lower back. I need space around my body now, room to spread and grow and move.

Occasionally, the cries start with one harsh scream, like he is being poked with pins, and I am up and in his room before my eyes have adjusted, and when I wake properly I am hovering over the wrong cot, grasping at the smooth sheet, before I locate the source of the sound and fling him to my breast, shaking. 

We had bought the monitor at one of those baby chain stores up near the ring road, the size of a barn. The blue screen shows a tiny screaming face, lips grimacing black. A gargoyle rendered in greyscale. 

The nursery smells of paint and birth, fecundity and vomit. The nightlight casts shadows up from the floor, turning the nursery furniture into gargantuan caricatures with the hooked noses and long hands of Disney villains. My body moves bovine-like through the dark room, shins bumping against the hard corner of the chest of drawers. 

He latches on and I wince; the afterpains contracting my vacant uterus. I picture it folding like a tent, collapsing a cardboard box bound for the recycling bin. I hold a tissue to the other breast as the milk pours out. It soaks my top and the pillow. He is drinking loudly, slurping and schlucking. His head smells of meat and copper. 

Hiatus.

God, does anyone even read blogs anymore? Blogs became businesses, everyone moved to Instagram and all our attention spans halved in the process. Instagram is good and all but as someone who thinks and feels in words, not pictures, I kind of miss reading the 1000 words that a picture supposedly tells.

I can also see that the last time I wrote anything was over a year ago, so a quick summary for anyone I don’t know in real life: I had another daughter in November last year. Her name is Beatrix, she is alive and well and happy, and she is perfect. The pregnancy and birth was very difficult, and despite expecting it to be hard, it was HARD. Sustaining a pregnancy after a stillbirth took a big emotional toll, and the birth was a whole other thang. My brain broke (temporarily, although I’m still a bit blurry around the edges) and I don’t remember much of it. But she is four months old, and she is the best thing that has ever happened to our little family. A delight.

One day I’ll write more about it and the pregnancy and how it all went down - God knows I wrote every detail of Archie, Jed and Edie’s births here, so I owe it to Bea that she suffer the same indignity of having the gory details of her birth plastered on the internet for eternity.

I’m going to start writing here more. Probably still about random stuff I make and like, the slow renovation of our house, attempting to gently parent my three sweet children, the ridiculous amount of books I read and of course, All My Feelings.

On life lately, knitting and spreading myself thick.

Making : So I have taught myself to knit recently, which has been a lesson in patience and frustration but I've had help from lots of lovely ladies, especially the uber talented Hatsumi Knits. I'm attempting to knit a hat for a soon-to-be-born boy baby and a few little toys for a recently born girl baby.

Drinking : Elderflower cordial by Natasha Morgan, which I picked up at a Wool Lover's picnic last weekend. Super yum with ice and a dash of gin.

Reading: Fat is a Feminist Issue, a classic by Susie Orbach. II just learned that she is married to the author Jeanette Winterson. Hello, power couple!

Trawling: Ebay looking for rugs for our new big playroom area.

Wanting: A piece of cake but it's almost lunchtime so I should probably just eat lunch, yeah?

Looking: Out our window and trying to see the beautiful view of the river and trees and birds, instead of just the garden that needs attention, the messy sandpit and the weeds.

Deciding: That taking a break from writing my book is probably a good idea. I need to spread myself thick for a while before I can get back into that headspace.

Wishing: That this 25-30 degree weather would hang around for longer. It's such the perfect temperature!

Enjoying: My bus trips to work where I listen to music and watch knitting tutorials on YouTube while getting in a big wooly tangle.

Waiting: for the world to change. 

Liking: These new earring that I made from some old hoops and embroidery twine. I don't have a picture but they are a bit like these.

Wondering: What Kellyann Conway thinks about as she's falling asleep at night.

Loving: This guy, always.

Pondering: I am surrounded by babies and pregnant ladies at the moment, and I wonder whether these things come in cycles?

Listening: To this ace interview with Susie Orbach at the Sydney Writer's Festival a few years ago.

Buying: A huge amount of seeds, plant and bulbs from the Diggers Club ready for autumn planting! I've using heaps of flowering perennials and pastel coloured cut flowers. I basically want flowers all year round.

Watching: Imposters. SO GOOD. Although it is released week by week so I have to wait for each new episode, just like the olden days.

Hoping: That Barron Trump is okay.

Cringing: Lee and I love watching New Girl in bed while eating magnums, because we are classy, and that whole show makes me do a full body cringe at the awkwardness. Such a good show, Schmidt is literally the funniest character on TV.

Needing: to pee. TMI? Am I the only person who regularly holds on until the last possible second?

Questioning: the benefits of having really long nails. They look so annoying. And whether there will ever come a time when I can look at a baby without feeling insanely clucky.

Noticing: How Jed literally picks up like ten new words a day. He has started saying things like 'Actually' and 'Occasionally' and 'Often'. Cracks me up.

Thinking: WHO EVEN AM I

Getting: emotional about all the things. I feel like my rage-o-meter is all over the place at the moment and I keep getting yelly and cross. Take a chill pill, clark.

Disliking: The damp smell of the air con at work.

Opening: Exciting letterbox deliveries of this book and this book and this book!

Embracing: My little guys. I just want to hug and kiss and sniff them all the time, but luckily (for them) they are too wiggly. 

Writing: This thing about the kid's gallery at Melbourne Museum. (it will go behind a paywall after one week!)

On ER trips, quitting and babies that aren't mine.

Phew, what a week. We had a trip to emergency with Lee due to a freak gastro attack that left him severely dehydrated and feverish, so we dropped the boys at Nan's and had a romantic date night in the ER. I worked my way through the vending machine (hello, Cheezels and weird muesli bar things) while mopping the proverbial brow of my poor husbo. He's all fine now and thankfully my obsessive sanitizing and quarantine methods have prevented the rest of the tribe from contracting it. Touch wood.

Also, the image above is from NASA's Instagram account. Archie and I are obsessed with it. Seriously, how bloody amazing is space?!

Reading...

I have just finished After Birth by Elisa Albert. I originally found it while doing research for my book, and god, it is everything I want my writing to be. It's all about motherhood and giving birth and post natal depression, but in a really raw way that isn't often spoken about. I've also just started Fat is a feminist issue, which I've been meaning to read for about a billion years. I'm only up to the prologue but did a deep Google dive into Susie Orbach and holy moly, what a woman.

Watching... 

The first two episodes of the last season of Girls. I have conflicting feelings about that show, all the characters shit me so much, but they are also vaguely familiar. There have been plenty of parallels between my career and Lena/Hannah's flailing writing career (that time she takes a corporate job writing sponsored content, OH GOD YES) so I just want to see where they all end up.

Listening...

I have discovered quite a few new podcasts in the last coupla weeks. Kinderling radio is constantly on in our house (sometimes when the kids aren't even there, hmm) and their Kinderling Conversations podcast is ace. I LOVED the one about the Melbourne Museum's new Children's Gallery and all the research (ie watching babies play) that went into the design. 

Also, Head Ovary Heels interviews awesome ladies doing awesome things, and they have some ace interviewees. 

Thinking about...

How to balance being a good person for the world with being a good person for myself, you know? Like how do I get done all the things I want to get done, while also being a kind and decent mother, wife, friend, human.

Also, there are lots of babies about to be born in my immediate circle and I am more excited than when I was the one about to give birth. Probably because I don't have to birth these babies, just cuddle them afterwards!

Doing...

I have quit Facebook for the final time. I know I've said this before, but I really would like to choose the social media that I interact with, rather than feel like I HAVE to be connected. I was definitely feeling obligated with Facey. I also felt that my newsfeed was just a stream of people trying to sell me things, get my attention, or make me feel slightly crappy and left out. I'm still all over Instagram and will keep on writing on this here blog, so if you miss me (ha) then there are plenty of other places to find me. Or send me a goddamn email. I still love emails.

Writing...

I wrote some fun stuff recently... about vinyl records, mindfulness in the arts, and volunteering. (NB: Some of these articles might be behind a paywall!)

On bad hair, cooking and knitting.

So here we are.

I'm going to try a new thing where I post every Friday, with a bit of a weekly round up and a few thoughts. I like consistency for a short time, so we'll see how long this lasts.

This week has been a weird one. Work is hectic, we have builders doing some work at home (but it's not us! Yay!) and there are four family birthdays within a week. Head down, bum up etc. I have had toast for dinner twice this week, and am maintaining an every-second-day shower routine. Don't get too close. 

Plus, a series of small, annoying appearance-related (and thusly things that I feel vaguely guilty for caring so much about) things happened: I spent a lot of time and dollars on a new hair colour which turned out to be basically exactly the same as my previous hair colour, my favourite jeans don't fit anymore but I don't know how to lose weight without turning into a legit cray cray person; my skin has gone weirldy acneic for no known reason. So, generally I'm feeling blergh. 

But some good things happened too!

- I got a new tattoo by the very talented Brittany Kilsby. It hurt like hell but I can't stop looking at it. So pretty.

- The builders are putting in a new bathroom, WALK IN WARDROBE (!!), and laundry area for us, plus expanding the playroom area for the kids. All very exciting. I'll show photos of the bathroom once it's done. I think bathrooms are my favourite rooms to design because I basically love tiles and sinks and vanities and mirrors and the different combos and options available. Also, storage!

- I am so sick of cooking and preparing and thinking about food for other people. It feels like as soon as I cook something, they all eat it! So bloody annoying. 

- God, my kids are bloody funny. So many gems at the moment.

Archie: Mum, when I grow taller you will be even lower and I will be as tall as Daddy and you will be the lowest. The LOWEST, MUM.

Jed: I used to live in your tummy, mum! With Arch! And Daddy! And then we were borned! You borned all of us!

- I am learning to knit! I taught myself continental knitting which is a bit more like crochet because you hold the yarn in your left hand, and now that I'm getting the hang of it, TWO people have said that I won't be able to use it with standard knitting patterns. Gahh. Back to the drawing board.

This weekend will feature some supermarketing, child-chasing, gardening, cooking, birthday picnicking and knitting on the deck with a glass of something ginny. 

On witnessing a murder and #womensmarch

It’s been a big weekend around here. Trump became the president of the United States, #womensmarch happened around the world and I witnessed five people being murdered.

God, that sounds so trite. Especially the word ‘witness’. Which, at its most simple, means watched, observed, did nothing. Which is what I did. It was loud, and confusing, and people were screaming. There were police and helicopters. I heard someone say that it was a terrorist attack, and I froze. And then I saw him drive up Bourke St, the red car already dented. By the time the police shot him, the car would be covered with dents, created by the impact of slamming into bodies. I saw police in military uniforms with big guns and blank eyes, and I froze.

I saw a mentally unwell person accelerate his vehicle into a group of pedestrians. I saw him hit a mother and a pram, the infant momentarily hovering in the air before hitting the footpath, the mother bloodied and hysterical. The baby later died in hospital.

This is only my story. I was not the policeman who rushed the baby to hospital in his car. I was not someone administering first aid. I was not attacked, not am I a relative of a victim. I didn’t know any of the people who died, but I will never forget them.

Since Friday afternoon. I have swayed between wanting to read the news and wanting to avoid it. On Saturday, sitting in my car outside a beekeeping workshop, I read every news report on the attack. It filled in a lot of the holes of what I had seen, but left me shaking and sobbing.

And then came the Women’s March. All around the world, on all seven continents, people marched against intolerance, sexism, homophobia, undisclosed conflicts of interest, fear mongering, excusing rape and assault with ‘boys will be boys’, systemic racism,  fake news, the rise of fundamentalist bigotry and greed.

The Women’s March was a panacea after the events of Friday. Friday taught me that you can be killed simply walking down a street, in a city you love, pushing your new baby in a pram. And then the Women’s March showed me that despite the attack and despite there being a bigoted misogynist in the White House, we can still say FUCK THIS SHIT and rise above it.

Because, like my favourite sign from the Washington march said, we are the granddaughters (and sons and grandsons and nieces and allies) of the witches that you weren’t able to burn.

For new mothers

It’s 2am. The kennels across the other side of the river are at full capacity over the Christmas break, and the howls and barks set off every dog along the valley.  It feels like when we lived in Brunswick and a roaring late night motorbike would wake up the dachshund two doors down, who would bark his annoyance and set off a chain of tiny, terrace-housed barking dogs up and down Merri Creek.

The cicadas are at full blast, and the cockatoos screech through the manna gums lining the river. It feels as if we are living in the deep bush, instead of perched on the side of a granite hill, overlooking the vale separating Melbourne’s suburban sprawl and the wineries of the Yarra Valley.

A whimper. “Mum, I did a wee.”

I sigh. I could ignore it, let him fall back asleep. But a fear of having the stinky kid at kinder, the judgment of childcare workers and an exacerbated eczema issue makes me lumber out of bed, stumble into his room and strip the bed. I peel off wet underwear and throw them into the tangle of sheets in the corner.

I wipe him down with a damp cloth, fumble with the nappy that he should have had on in the first place.  I lay him into my bed and he curls up like a poked beetle, all sweaty hair and rosebud lips.

I sigh, again, and lay down on the bare mattress in his room. The mattress is new, and soft, with a foamy pillowtop. A few short years ago, a nighttime interruption was a personal affront, an attack on my right to sleep. I blamed the babies. I’m not proud of it, but the heady early days of motherhood make for crazed midnight thoughts, jacked up on four nights of waking up at 20 minute intervals. I remember when his brother was small and I was hovering on the tightrope between chronic exhaustion and the muddy sinkhole of post natal depression, and the baby fell asleep on his front. The SIDS pamphlet I had been sent home from the birth centre with was shoved on the bedside table, part of the detritus of a major life change.

A thought flashed. If he had SIDS, at least I would get some sleep. And then the guilt hit me. What kind of mother welcomes the idea of cot death? What kind of mother feels relief at the thought of her baby suffocating in the night? What kind of mother?

I know now, that thoughts are not actions, and that it is what you do that matters.  I love my babies. But I still feel sick at the thought of them facing harm. The older boy will go to school next year, and the idea of it kills me a bit inside.

The dogs across the river are quiet again. I breathe in the smell of my baby and listen to the twin snores of father and son through the thin walls of our creaky house on the side of a hill.

Religion for atheists

(Yes, I stole the title for this post from the very excellent book by my other husband, Alain de Botton.)

I have a bit of a mixed relationship with religion. On one hand, I am skeptical by nature and firmly believe in science, in empirical, peer-reviewed evidence, and common sense. Once I find out that someone is religious, I can’t help but think slightly worse of them. Like if a grown adult told me that they still believed in Santa, or in vampires. I want to shout “HOLD UP!” and then interrogate them about angels, creationism and the big boat that took all the animals two by two.

I don’t believe that prayer can heal, or in the whole baby Jesus in a manger thing. Organised religion is, frankly, bloody terrifying. The fact that churches don’t pay tax, don’t allow basic civil rights, and require weird shit like eating wafers and regular atonement, gives me the shits. I absolutely call myself an atheist. Hashtag blessed, hashtag grateful.

However, despite this, I still get that there are some really excellent parts of religion.

The idea that people come together on a regular basis to be grateful, hopeful (because at its most essential, that’s what prayer is, right?) and send some loving vibes out (I am well aware how non-scientific ‘loving vibes’ are.) can only be a good thing. And the community that springs up around churches: the weekly groups, youth activities, systems for looking after the elderly and vulnerable – all that stuff in necessary.

I have a brother-in-law who is a Tibetan Buddhist monk, and he is ace. And I get that we need people to be monks, and nuns, in order to go deep into the meaning of life. A society needs deep thinkers in order to flourish, and if we need to call those people monks or nuns and dress them in crazy robes and put them in a room to think in silence, then so be it.

But I also believe that we can untangle all the crap of organised religion – and yes, even Buddhism is an organised religion – and get back the good bits, the bits that strengthened communities and brought people together and gave a purpose. I’m going to try, anyway.

Some things you can do to get a bit of non-religious religion in your life:

Join something that meets regularly

There is something heartwarming about catching up with the same people regularly. Because you see each other often, you quickly move past the whole work-life-kids update that happens with people you don’t see much, and get onto the deeper stuff. Plus, it gives you something to look forward to even when you have had a shitty week. Some people might get this from a yoga class, a mother’s group, or in my case, a book club.

Find your own sacred text/s

Sometimes you just read a book and think “HOLY SHIT the author literally went in my head oh my god oh my god.” Make that your sacred text. Buy two copies, one to sit proudly on your bookshelf, and another to scribble on, underline and generally ruin with love. It can even be a few books: mine are How to talk so kids listen and listen so kids talk by Faber and Maslich (for parenting and relationships), Bird by bird by Anne Lamott (for writing and general life) and Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed (for being a human in this world).

Use The Golden Rule.

Every religion has some version of what’s been called the Golden Rule, which is: treat people like you want to be treated. In Christianity it’s ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you.’ In Hinduism it’s ‘Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you’. Islam says ‘None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself’. You could say that it’s kind of a foundation for everything, right? And it can apply to almost every situation. Don’t be an asshole, be kind, try your best and put some good out into the world.

Amen to that.

Recommendations for November

This last fortnight has been... interesting. I got trolled by Men's Rights Activists about an article I wrote, then a week later Donald Trump got elected. I took it completely personally and fell into a slump for a few days, then realised I am a white woman on the side of the world, and my outrage is possibly offensive to those who are actually fearing for their lives now.

Like any significant shift in power, the Trump era will be filled with an outpouring of art and passion, like during the Bush years, the Thatcher years, the Reagan years. Art thrives under pressure. I'm taking solace in that.

A book...

I'm reading the Magda Szubanski book, FINALLY, called The Reckoning. Loving it so far. Damn, she can write.

A product...

CHOOKS! So Archie's kinder had a chook incubator for a while, and the kids all watched the baby chicks hatch. We asked to keep some of them, and now we have five little chicks called Nellie Frittado, Obama, Michelle, Nugget and Gregory Peck. I'm hoping at least two of them are hens.

They were living in a box in the living room until they grew their feathers, and now they are in a little pen outside. When the weather gets a bit warmer we will move them into their big chook palace adjoining the vegie garden. I'm so excited about having fresh eggs everyday, and the whole experience of collecting them and having chookens running around the yard.

A show...

The Crown (on Netflix). This has gotten a heap of attention, and it is WAY better than I thought it would be. It is all about Queen Elizabeth and how she came to be Queen. It never occurred to me that her dad had to die in order for her to become Queen. I also love the bits about how Price Phillip, played by Dr Who, struggles with having a wife who is about a gazillion times more important and powerful than he is.

Streets of Our Town (on iView). A two part series hosted and written by Tim Ross, all about Modernist architecture and the way that our houses and lifestyle has changed over time. It talked at length about Robin Boyd and his ethos, and was really interesting to watch while sitting in a Boyd home that totally encapsulated all the things Ross was talking about.

An article...

God, I have been binging on US election stuff this past week.  There is plenty of really heavy stuff out there, but in the interest of keeping things light I will share my new obsession: memes of Joe Biden and Obama. SO GOOD.

A thing I wrote...

This is the article that got me the hate mail: Why feminists need to see The Red Pill

I wasn't too upset as it never really got too personal (the worst was one guy who emailed to let me know that he felt sorry for my children as they were growing up emotionally castrated due to having a feminist mother. Thanks, mate.) and the messages and emails were all so crazy and incorrect. It was mostly just exhausting.

A forget-me-not...

Archie: I want you to have a baby, mum. Then I can put it in my bed and cuddle it like a teddy, and dress it up like a puppy dog.

Me: ...

Archie: Or maybe we can just put it outside with the chooks.

Consumptions

Tess and I have taken a podcast hiatus for the indefinite future, but I realised that I miss blathering on about the things I've been reading, listening to and watching lately. So instead, I'm going to periodically bore you all to death with the random things I've been consuming.

A book...

Or two, or three. I just finished Caroline Overington's The One Who Got Away. Her books are much-hyped, and she is an excellent journalistic writer, but I was underwhelmed. Also on the finished pile: Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey (excellent, like an Aussie To Kill a Mockingbird), Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng (okay, not groundbreaking but suitable captivating) and Modern Lovers by Emma Straub (fun easy read about maintaining adult friendships). Up next is Clem Ford's Fight Like a Girl and the new Man Booker winner The Sellout, both of which look excellent.

A product recommendation...

MAC lipstick in Mangrove. It's a good orange-red for ladies who look weird with pinky-red lippie (me, I'm talking about me) and literally lasts all bloody day.

A show...

Catastrophe. Several people have recommended it to me lately, and it is SO GOOD. Like literally so funny I have to pause it until I stop laughing. Also, the fashion is excellent, if you are into that.

An article...

How To Invest In Yourself. I'm planning on bringing back the birthday list and this article has some good tips on actually getting things done.

A thing I've written...

Dealing with negative feedback

A podcast...

The Real Thing, an Aussie podcast by the ABC featuring stories from the 'real' Australia

A forget-me-not...

Archie was talking to Mum about my uncle, who passed away about 13 years ago.

A: Is he a skeleton?

M: Well, maybe.

A: Because skeletons are really good drummers.

M: Oh.

and

Archie walks past Jed and brushes his shoulder.

Jed: *dramatically throws himself on the floor.* ARCHIE HURT ME! You a BUM, Archie!

Archie: *looks at me, rolls his eyes* Sometimes brothers are crazy, mum.

Monday.

Jed is stuck in the doona cover. He and Archie are both laughing hysterically as Jed flails around, a tiny body stuck in a huge polka dot bag. “No help me! Jed okay!” as he clearly is not okay.

--

Archie turns four tomorrow. He wants me to sing him to sleep, so we snuggle under the (aforementioned) doona and curl our fingers together. I start with It’s a Small World, which I sang for hours and hours when he was a tiny baby, slowly sure that I was destroying both of us. He never slept well. Even now, he bends into me with sleepy eyes, but still wriggling and jiggling his legs. “I am very very tired but my body won’t sleep.” I understand that feeling, of exhaustion tipping into jittery wakefulness. We do some deep breathing as I rub his back, calling sleep in.

--

I eat baked chicken by the glow of the computer, shoveling and not tasting, but filling my hunger for words and news and stories and people.

--

There is a black wallaby in our front yard. It stays stock still as the boys yell out to it. “Wobbily! Do you have a baby in your pocket!” It turns and flees back down the hill to the river, bouncing comically through the scrub.

--

Someone has plastered the bridge and the roundabout with election campaign posters, or rather, anti-campaign posters. I feel a bubble of annoyance: surely this place, of all places, is above all that. I like to filter my news and thus my outrage.

--

We are going to Bali on Saturday. I sit in front of the heater wearing three layers as I pack the boy’s gear: three shorts, three t-shirts, a huge bottle of sunscreen, thongs, hats. I only have one decent bikini; it might be time to accept that I am 30 and have birthed two children and get a one piece. But my rising feminist streak wants to wear a goddamn bikini until I am 80 and a wrinkling, sagging old broad.

The one where I got pneumonia

I am having a one woman pity party today. I have pneumonia in my left lung. (which sounds much more dramatic than it actually is - the reality is just heaps of coughing and an achey chest), I have an extremely messy house/car/life at the moment, caught conjunctivitis in my right eye and have run out of tea. Drama.

But! The kids are at kinder and I have just got back from the doctors and am now drinking some god-awful ginger and turmeric concoction which literally tastes like dirt but is supposed to make me better, am loaded up on antibiotics and staying in bed for the next three hours until it's kinder pickup time. And I am going to HEAL this stupid lung with the sheer power of my mind, and modern science.

I'm also working on healing a whole heap of other shit: perfectionism, this food crap (always), the cult of busy, the need to have a Design Files-worthy house at all times. We are going to Bali in three weeks and my Bali body will look much like my current body: a pale size 12 sack of breath and blood. That sounds gross, right? But bodies are literally just a big ol' sack of bones and organs and mucous, which we drag around and abuse and prod and ignore. Our bodies create life and people and dreams and then cop flack for not looking like they did when we were 16. I'm never going to be all 'my stretch marks are empowering!' because I'm slathering the vitamin E cream like the next thirty-year-old mother of two, but jeez, I wish I appreciated this bag of bones more when I was 22 and jumping off a boat into the ocean in southern Turkey, or spending three weeks on a beach towel in Zanzibar, or meeting my future husband when I was 20 and wearing my mum's engagement dress. I had a huge blister on my toe which was bleeding profusely and preeeetty gross. He didn't care. Because when you are falling for someone, you accept their blood and gore, right? Maybe part of accepting yourself is accepting your own blood and gore, the phlegmy lungs and start enjoying the forced recuperation from the busyness.

Anyway, I'm back to watching Broad City and coughing like a 75-year-old smoker. And washing down Big Pharma with some ayurvedic turmeric juice. Whatever works, right?

A realistic bucket list

I have lots of lists of things that I want to do, or that I will do one day. Outlines for books that I haven't written, sketches of houses I'll never build, patterns for clothes I'll never make. I used to make a list of things on my birthday every year that I wanted to achieve by my next birthday, and it was an awesome way to make sure I stayed intentional and focussed. I never want to wake up one day and be 85, and think holy shit, what have I even done, you know?! I like the idea of making goals or plans, and just freaking making them happen. So life doesn't just drift on by... Anyway, I have made a rough list of things that I want to do in the next ten-ish years. Some of these are big, some are little, but I'm going to make an effort to get them all done.

In no particular order...

Write a really good book.

Obviously, as someone who has been in some form of paid writing gig since I was 18 but has only just begun calling herself a writer, I have always wanted to write a book. I know I can do it if I make it actually happen, it's just a matter of prioritising and focus.

Grow heaps of our own veggies and fruit.

I have gotten VERY into gardening lately (living on a couple of barren acres with heaps of water and potential will do that) and look forward to the day when my veggie garden is killing it and I can make a whole meal that I grew myself.

Go on a bike riding holiday with the kids.

We really want to take them riding along the Danube, or the Mekong, or the Mississippi, or basically any cool river. I reckon they will need to be at least 10 and 12 to fully enjoy it, so I'll start saving now for the trip in 2025.

Get really strong.

I don't mean fit, I mean strong. I want to get strong enough to kick down a door if necessary. Twice-weekly pilates probably won't cut it, so one day I want to concentrate on getting really freaking buff.

Buy art.

I own heaps and heaps of art. Prints, original works, reproductions. But I really want to buy an original piece of Aboriginal art. I always scout galleries whenever I get the opportunity and am just waiting to find a piece that makes me weak at the knees.

Get to zero debt. 

Including mortgages, credit cards, and cars. Totally doable if we go gangbusters. We don't actually have any real debt except the house, so will focus on hammering the repayments over the next few years.

Musings

6am. Archie bolts out of his bedroom, scratching the sleep out of his eyes. He slams his bedroom door with such ferocity that the picture frames rattle. “I’m so hungry, mum. I was just thinking about having weet bix with yoghurt instead of milk. Is that funny? Or not?” 9am. Jed is refusing shoes. He is full of rage, tears and snot and fury smearing his cherubic face into a snarl. I throw three pairs into the car and tell him a complicated story about Grandpa and motorbikes as I wrestle him into the carseat. He looks sadly out the window as we cross the bridge, still sobbing. “No ducks, mum.”

10am. The goat in our front yard nibbles the patch of Christmas lilies. We eyeball each other as I scull lukewarm tea on the deck. She uses her horn to scratch her matted fur, then turns her back and saunters down the hill.

12pm. I remember a conversation with the old owners of our house as I clamber up the hill to the washing line. “Snakes everywhere, ‘specially when it starts warming up. We found them in the compost bin, under the car. I stepped outside one day and a big tiger snake wrapped himself around my leg.” We laugh together but I feel cold as I scan the ground.

1pm. The program I use to do our business accounts is frozen. I slyly open up trashy websites and scroll through endless beauty advice. I contemplate dyeing my hair again, or eyelash extensions. Instead, I find a tube of hand cream in my bag and slather it on my dry, garden-worn knuckles.

3pm. I hear Jed calling me from the carpark as I walk up to kinder. “MUM’S CAR. Hi Mum. MUM!” He points frantically at all his friends, his teachers. His favourite ball. Showing me his day.

4.30pm. Archie is following me through the garden, holding the end of a hose. He is obsessed with rescue vehicles, outer space and knights. He pores over the birthday cake book. “I want the swimming pool for my party day, and the castle for my actual birthday, mum, okay?”

6pm. I clean the kitchen while the boys and their dad empty the bath of water, one splash at a time. Weetbix from this morning is cemented to the floor. I scratch my nails into it, then have a go with the Chux. “You could render a house with fucking Weetbix!”, I yell to Lee, not for the first time.

7.15pm. Archie and I lay in his bed, telling stories of knights who fly space rockets to rescue aliens. He smells of sweat and dinner. I pretend to tickle him but take a deep inhale behind his ear, my hand on his round belly.

8.30pm. I lay on my bed, idly scrolling through instagram. Other people’s kids. Impossibly clean rooms. Green smoothies. I wander into the kitchen and make sultana toast smeared thick with butter.

10pm. I shove my earplugs in and mutter “goodnight, honey. Love ya.” to Lee. His response is muffled but he pats me on the bum and we hook our feet together, facing away from each other as the twin glow from our Kindles joins the moonlight, and the world retreats into inertia.

Lately...

So, we have had a huge month. We moved house on Good Friday, immediately all got gastro, then a week later I hosted a huge party for my 30th birthday. What a start to the year, amiright? It has been beyond hectic and I feel like things will hopefully start slowing down soon. Or not. My mind is chockers so consider this post a brain dump (I actually hate that term because DUMP is never a good choice of word).

• Jed is sort of toilet training and is determined to do wees standing up. He is one year old and about three feet tall so it's not really working for him. Cute though.

• I got my nails done for my birthday and they are this gel stuff, very fancy. I love looking down at them and feeling like a glam grown up.

• We are all going to Bali in June and I literally own zero hot weather gear, so checked out the Myer sale today and found a pair of cute denim shorts on sale for $19 down from $80. And they were size six. I am not a size six by any means, so thanks Country Road for the positive boost.

• My car is so insanely messy right now. It is filthy and I am horrified, but clearly not enough to do anything about it.

• I am loving living here. We have seen rock wallabies and kangaroos in the front yard, a brown snake and heaps of cool little birds.

• Speaking of snakes, Jed is pretty into snakes and whenever he sees a millipede he's like 'Mum! Snake! Sssssss!' That's all very cute, but yesterday he was up near our washing line (ie literally in the bush with a stunning view of the Dandenongs) and came down and says nonchalantly, "Snake up dere mum." Is is a millipede? Or a freaking tiger snake? We will never know.

• I am doing quite a bit of writing over at the Creative Women's Circle blog. I love chatting to interesting dames about their creative practices.

• I have been getting really into meditating using the Headspace program. It's really practical and simple, and doesn't have any of the woo woo shite that some other meditation apps love.

• I want to do a bit of a reno update post, with pics of our new house, but we all know that it will be a crappy iPhone photoshoot so I'm putting it off. That said, the house is looking mighty fine and I am loving myself sick in this new space.

• Archie and I spent the day together yesterday and it was ace. We don't get much one on one time so a whole day of library visits, cafe hangs and Legoing was perfect. He is turning out to be such a cool little person.

I think that's all. Now I'm going to watch Broad City and crochet in my dressing gown, like the 30 year old nanna that I am.

xx

On power and violence

I've been following the wretched story of George Pell and Tim Minchin and the child sexual abuse by clergy in Ballarat. And Melbourne. And Sydney and small and large towns all across Australia and the world. And pondering how this ties in with bigger ideas of power and religion and abuse. Of masculinity and feminism, sexual violence, rape culture and again, power.

We seem to be at a precipice of change:  victims and survivors of long-buried abuse are taking the lead of a the generation of people who didn't grow up under the stifling social norms of the mid-century, and won't accept the what-will-people-think excuse.

But.

The US justice system told Kesha that she must continue working with her abuser.

George Pell won't come home and face the music, and (surprise surprise) a Catholic right-wing columnist defended him.

Bill Cosby. Rolf Harris. Jimmy Savile.

One in three women globally are survivors of sexual violence. This number does not count the women who have been felt up in a taxi, had their hands unwillingly shoved down a man's pants, been leered at on a tram, had their bra strap flicked or their shirt pulled down or or or...  I am yet to meet a women who hasn't experienced any of the above.

I have two boys, who will one day become men and enjoy all the privilege that comes with their gender. The best I can do is mother those boys and teach them about consent, and power, and respect.

Here is a brilliant, wrenching post by Bec Woolf about how sexual violence begins with teaching men not to rape. 

And this article from the Good Men Project on how to do that, starting from when boys are toddlers. 

Go and give your kids a cuddle.

How to handle open for inspections when you have kids

 

The auction for our Coburg house is tomorrow. Fingers crossed, y'all, that some megazillionaire comes up and decides to pay a mint for it. Chances are not likely, but I'm staying positive. This is the second house we've sold at auction (we auctioned the Northcote house  and NO ONE BID. Stressful much.), so we have pretty limited experience. We've bought three at auction but they were total dumps - with the exception of Yarra Yarra - so it was a whole other ball game as there were no pretensions about the value of the properties.

That said, I have quite a bit of experience with setting up a house for rental inspections, open for inspections, photoshoots and whatnot. Adding kids to the mix adds a new level of angst to the new process because no potential buyer wants to see a dirty nappy under the couch or unknown smears on the kitchen walls. Also kids = STUFF. There is plenty of other info online about adding value and prepping your house (here, here and here), but here's my top advice cobbled together from the last six weeks of OFIs + watching the Block.

Do one huge clean, then maintain.

We have found it easier to do a humungous deep clean before the first opening, then attempt to maintain that level for the whole campaign. Lee and I both set aside a Saturday morning and did stuff we don't usually do, like clean the skirtings and lights, wipe down walls, wash the windows and sweep the random piles of leaves out from behind the bins. Once that's done, it's much easier to give everything a quick wipe or sweep before each opening.

Get outta the house early.

If you can, try to get out of the house well before the opening. We gave our agent a key so we never have to meet him here before the openings. The main reason is that getting two kids out of the house can be a mission, and you don't want to hold up the opening because someone has lost a shoe or put a cheese stick in the toilet.

Pay attention to the garden and front door.

This a real estate mantra: first impressions count, curb appeal, etc etc. I think it totally makes a difference if you make the entrance and front path area look extra decent, though. Shake out your doormat, yank out the weeds and put a plant next to the front door. Easy.

Don't have a stinky house.

I listened to something the other day about the inventors of Febreze, the cleaning spray that dissolves bad smells. Apparently they thought it would be super-popular but the sales were really low and they didn't know why. They did some more research and realized that people get so used to gross smells that they don't think they have a problem. I have this secret fear that my house smells bad and I am so used to it that I can't tell, so I make sure to take out the bins, clean the toilets and light a magnificent candle before the opening. I sometimes spray lavender oil around, especially if Jed has had a blueberry nappy explosion recently.

Get rid of stuff.

Do a humungous declutter. Pack away anything that is too personal, too weird or too ugly. Make sure your indoor plants don't look too dead, try and hide any annoying cables and leave plenty of open space and clear surfaces. This might mean that your cupboards are bulging, but most people won't open the cupboards. And if they do, they will be punished by the avalanche of random clutter that falls upon them.

Be prepared for random questions.

Things that people have asked our real estate agent about include questions about nearby building developments, the wall colour, whether the deck and pergola have council permits and if the pizza oven is a fixture (because an oven made from 300+ bricks is pretty portable, right?). You will get weird questions. Be prepared for them.

By the time you get to the opening for inspections, it's usually too late to do any big painting or landscaping stuff. The most important thing is that your house looks clean, tidy and appealing. And doesn't smell weird. Good luck!

On bravery

I make new year's resolutions every year. And every year I fail. I actually recently found a list of goals for 2015 and guess how many actually happened? Zero. They were things like 'Give up carbs' and 'Run 3 x week and Pilates 2 x week' and 'Blog 3 x weekly'. Ain't nobody got time for that, especially not a mum of two little boys with a business, a renovation and a Netflix addiction. Clearly, something is really wrong with my goals. This year, after completing the workbook for The Resolution Project (and ending up in happy-ish tears) I have decided on two guiding affirmations, rather than strict but totally unachievable goals. They are...

Be brave,

and

I can do hard things.

A lot of the stuff that I don't do but want to (write more, take bigger risks, finally get more into roller derby, tackle my weird food shit) is based on a fear of failure, rejection and pain. By telling myself to be brave and that I can do hard things, it will help shift the day-to-day decisions I make about facing the hard stuff.

In light of this, I am planning on implementing a few strategies. This year is the Year of Hard But Rewarding Things - writing more, both here and elsewhere; weekly roller derby training; and the hardest one - no dieting. Wish me luck.

To being brave and doing hard shit!

xx

2015 in review

This is technically my last day in the office for the year (which is not to say that I don't have stacks of work still to do) but from next week, it is all about cooking, wrapping, shopping and eating. Merry Christmas, baby!

The highlights:

Renting out our Brunswick house to my best friend.

Jethro turned one, started walking and developed his ridiculously feisty ratbag personality.

I did more freelance writing on all sorts of interesting topics.

I started running, then stopped, then started again, then gave up on being a 'good' runner and just embraced my sweaty, beetroot-faced style.

I got back into reading books and smashed through some epic reads.

Our Brunswick house was photographed for the Herald Sun.

I met some fantastic ladies through the podcast I co-host, The New Normal.

I dyed my hair pastel pink!

The lowlights:

We encountered some serious bedtime dramas with Archie for a few months, until I just let it go and enjoyed the snuggles.

My mum and grandma have been besieged with scary health dramas.

We moved house. Again.

We had no bathroom for a week thanks to our previous tenants and had a messy court situation to get recompensed.

Most embarrassing:

Archie dacked me (pants and undies to my ankles) in a busy cafe. #cry

Most spontaneous:

We bought another house!

Most improved:

Lee has been home a lot more and working less, thanks to our excellent awesome workshop manager.

It seems that 2015 was a hard one for lots of people, but when I look back over the past 12 months heaps of awesome stuff has happened. Here's to a happy, renovation-filled 2016.