The honest Mother of a post

"Mum, I was looking at photos in my book last night and I decided.... I like you now."

The first words out of the LGBB's mouth on Friday morning as I stood in our ensuite, straightener in hand, attempting to hide my gaping mouthed surprise. I heard Steve stifle I gasp in the next room.

"Why, thank you, Miss Lolly," I said as warmly as I could. "I think."

"That's okay," she said charitably, turned on her heel and walked off to start her day.

I can only deduce that she saw the smiling photos of me looking back at her that I had subliminally placed into her album about 4 years ago. They are photos of her as a less-than-2-year-old and various members of her family, including the dogs she already loved so much.

And before I analysed too much and asked, "Where did I go wrong?! Does that mean she has not liked me for the past 5 and a half years?", I took stock of all the things I have done with and for her. Within my means and with, at times, my limited patience and energy to give her as much as I wanted (which was always more than what she needed but felt so minimal compared to what I felt she deserved).

To be completely honest here, I only felt the veil of my depression lift last year. About 5 months after the LGBB was born, it descended on me like a stifling blanket and it didn't budge. For over four years. It was a long hard trawl. And I was often almost consumed by the weight of the guilt of not "feeling satisfied" or "happy" now that we had a child.

Add to that her kinder year (last year) was only 11 hours a week with no other child care arrangement, save for sporadic day-long visits to her grandparents, and it made for very limited opportunities for me to get work done when she was not here. So I had to break my own rule sometimes and work while she was home.

Herein lies the issue that has just come to my awareness: Despite doing EVERYTHING for her still, her perception is that I worked all the time "but you don't now so I like you" (as she said in her own words, elaborating after I casually asked why she liked me "now"). It didn't matter that the previous years were all about creating nurturing and learning activities for her to ensure the best start to her life and finding out about the world around her. All she remembers is that she had a mother who worked.

Now, while I know that what has been ingrained in her has been well worth all the effort and has helped to shape who she is, she doesn't know that. I have to fight hard here to keep my own feelings of insecurity at bay and not offload them on a five year-old. I want to rave at her "After all I've done for y...." But I won't. I can't! It's what was done to me. And it conditioned me to stop expressing myself.

Heck, haven't you ever wondered why I am SO wordy now? So expressive? You can thank my mother :)

The fact is, we live in a society where you are guaranteed to not be doing the right thing at any given time. Who can keep up with all those things we are judged on? Ludicrous! Exhausting. Nobody can keep up with every single piece of advice and instruction, and nobody is that "perfect". I decided a long time ago that I was not going to bow to the pressure of what "they" say is best for her. I was going to list here in this post the sorts of things we do and also point out all the other things we don't do, but you know what? It's not necessary. This is our life. This is our groove. I busted my gut trying to do things I thought would enrich her life, not what I thought would win me any accolades.

So why am I slightly gutted (can one even be "slightly" gutted?) that this is her perception of me? That in her mind I have only ever worked and, therefore, not been someone she could like until she has started school? She thinks I don't work now. But the reality is, I just have more time to get the work done during the day so I don't have to do it when she's home from school. I can see how she has worked it out in her head. I'm so relieved that she is satisfied, for now I can be more deeply satisfied too in my work and my hours alone. I love that she is at school. For this reason alone, I have not shed one tear that my daughter is no longer home with me.

The bigger, gnawing pain for me centres around the fact that her Dad - who goes outside the home to work and has always done, it's just a given to her because it's how she has always known him - gets off pretty lightly. He is "so funny. I like Dad. And it's okay, Mum, because I like you now too. Because you don't work." I'm still the one who gets interrupted to attend to every request, demand, plea for help. I'm the Go-To parent. Not a problem, I have no issue with this.....

Until the day I discover I'm the least "liked" parent too.

Anyone got any worms I can eat?

Worlds within worlds: A pictorial of a bushwalk in East Gippsland

During our recent holiday up Australia's east coast (only as far as Sydney, this is a bloody big country!), we had the great pleasure of enjoying a bushwalk as a family. It was the LGBB who insisted on the 5km bush and beach trek. I'm so glad we did it. There were some really amazing treats on the well worn, overgrown track. Tiny birds, big rosellas, little lizards, crazy fungus formations, whole copses of fallen beach shrubs that were stunning in themselves despite being long dead and flattened.

It was a humbling experience, coming from the beachside holiday spot in Lakes Entrance and walking just a short distance to get to the point of the actual Entrance itself. So untouched yet so close to all the modern conveniences. I'm quite impressed, actually, that they have conserved this area. It's only a great pity there are not more of these pockets of nature. It really contrasts with the paved roads, the industry, the devastation of tracts of land to make way for more "progress".

Along the way, there were many stops by me and the trusty Canon DSLR. Too many photos to share here but some of my best captures of what we saw are below.

First though... Any guesses what this is?

I'll show you the whole photo in a post later in the week, give you a chance to have a good guess.

Apologies for the pesky copyright watermarks. I'm just a tad protective.

On the boardwalk

Perfect natural borders!

Mushy

Gnarly, dude

Perfect flowers

The reward at the end - 2.8km in.

The beach was an entirely different kind of photo shoot, altogether.

......And if you're not all saying "it was an entirely different kind of photo shoot" in unison right now, I will be most disappointed.

More later in the week. 

I hope your weekend has been kind and restful and given you the chance to stop and notice the significant little things around you.

I'm not a Complaints desk!

I don't know what it is, but this morning I have woken up with a very sore head. Family Beware kind of sore head. Figure-of-speech kind of sore head. You don't need pain in your head to have a foul mood like the one I have stepped into today.

Seems as fitting a time as any to tell you all the things I DON'T like about my job. They're not unknown to many of you, but I think sometimes I just want to gag on the sweetness-and-light of it all and it helps me (don't know about you) to let off steam every now and then. Usually this is done in the privacy of my own head, certainly my own house, or to a trusted girlfriend who's finding herself at a similar point of despair. But rarely do I see it spoken or written about publicly beyond a mild gnashing of teeth. As if we're all fooling ourselves. Perhaps it's better that way, kind of like the conspiracy theory that the oxygen masks that drop down from planes in a state of emergency are not pumping oxygen into passengers at all but mind-calming gas that stops anyone from panicking. Maybe it's better for all of us if one of us doesn't stand up and start muttering over and over (like the hysterical woman in Flying High), "I've gotta get out of here, I've gotta get out of here!"

Kids: Don't hit. It's not nice.

SO! At risk of making any of you want to line up to smack me out of it, my list of gripes, in no particular order and by no means exhaustive, is as follows:

• I am (apparently) a Help Desk - with the amount of questions I get asked, you would think I am sitting in a shopping centre at one of those Information booths. But no. I am mother of one, wife of one, although I'd surely be forgiven for thinking I had 29 children and 14 husbands, the amount of questions and help I get dragged into. Sun up to sun down, the weekends are strewn with opportunities for them to ask me. It must be just easier than coming up with a solution themselves. From the five year-old, I can kind of understand the need for most of them. But the 39 year-old? Hmmmmmm... a little more dubious.

• I am (apparently) the Pied bloody Piper - come one, come all, to any room or outdoor area of the garden! Wherever I be, including the toilet, I will have at least one (if not all) set of feet or paws follow me. Wherever I go, guaranteed. So much so that I have been long since accustomed to turning a slow circle and checking behind me before I change direction. Jazz (the dog) considers my toileting her special one-on-one alone time with me. She is your typical middle child (and I say that as a self-confessed middle child), quite capable of attracting more than enough attention but still angling for more. The LGBB assumes and asserts much as she moves about the house behind me. As I live and breathe, the cat is trying to walk ACROSS me. Why?! I ask you. The last to come into the family, the cat gets by largely on Cuteness Factor and is always under someone's feet but gets away with being a pest by doing a few cutesy paw-moves.

• What I say (apparently) goes - with the Help Desk position comes a great deal of (unwanted) power. Not only am I asked all the questions and checked with on ev-er-y-thinnnnng, but I have to come up with the answers! And if I try and cop out by saying I don't know, I'm asked again, in a different way.

• I'm the Chore Divvy-er - it's long since been held in this house that, as I am apparently the only one who sees anything that needs doing, if I want something done all I need to do is ask.... That works fine until days like today when I explode in a fit of fury and "THAT THING HAS BEEN LYING THERE ALL WEEK! How is it that we can all step over/around/through it but I'm the mug who has to either remove/clean/pick it up or ask one of you to do it?" As long as I live, I shall never ever accept any logic levelled at me for that one. That is just bone idle laziness that causes that phenomenon.

• I'm the meal planning, lunch making, clothes washing, hair brushing, house cleaning master of the house. I can deal with all that. It does come with the territory and it must be accepted... if not liked, 100% of the time.

But what I cannot abide by is that I am also the Complaints handling desk! Now, some of you out there will have a Complaints desk queued a mile long, depending on number of siblings in the house. But one or twenty.... there is one thing that just irks me no end and that is whiney complaining. From the husband as well.


Do you have a list - like a ready-reckoner - up on the inside of the pantry door or somewhere else where nobody ever goes (like the broom cupboard or the ironing board... no wait, it wouldn't work being taped up on that because I don't go there either) that can give me some cheat's answers so that I don't have to think for my family? I'm asking for mercy here.

And if you do.... can I use it?

Sincerely,

Over It Today Already.

Every year the same

"We're pregnant! Due in September, she's six weeks along already," my brother saw fit to tell me and Steve when Ella was about a week old.

It was lovely news. Just wonderful for my brother and dear sister in-law. I felt a familiar pang but brushed it off - I didn't have to feel that envy now! We finally had a baby of our very own after four failed attempts.

Of course, little did we all know but three weeks later there would be tragedy beyond any measure in our family when our own daughter, Ellanor, died suddenly before ever making it home.

Now, of course, each year on this day in September our focus is on our beautiful, sweet niece as she celebrates her birthday. She is a classic of a kid, sharp as a tack, quick-witted, cheeky, all those things that make her deliciously unique. She will also forever remind me of the age our daughter would have been turning - seven this year - and it is this connection that both tugs at my heart and brings a wide smile to my face at the same time. The cousin she would have loved who lived and died before she herself drew breath.

How do we possibly instill in these boisterous, life-full children the bittersweetness of their very existence? We don't. Of course, we don't. But I, Ella's mother, can hold that thought. Perhaps when my nieces are adults, with or without babes of their own, they might want to learn more. For now, the presence of Ellanor's name in our family, her pictures on our walls, her name on our lips occasionally, are enough sign-posts for them to be used to the very tricky concept of the death of a cousin. So young, before they met. One day, if it's ordained, I will be so happy and proud (of my nieces and of my daughter) to have that chat with them.

We are reminded in ever more subtle ways of our lost baby daughter, Steve and I, on days like these where it would be considered unnecessary or impolite or otherwise self-focused of us to mention what the day means to us.

Instead, I mention it here, where my family may look but is not likely to. Where it might strike a cord of familiarity in those who are my peers - other bereaved parents, at varying points (weeks, months, years) in their own journey of life without one of their precious children. Where it is more useful a moment shared, both for me and perhaps just one reader going through something similar.

So, whomever you are, I tip my cap at you in solidarity and just want to say, I get it. Get me?

Cousins

Getting to know my great-grandfather

I have been given a great swag of files and documents from one of my older cousins recently. This morning, while Steve and the LGBB are out at a movie for Fathers Day, I am sitting in my new den soaking up a brief half hour on my own. And, y'know, just doing nothing out of the ordinary.

I'm reading through the private letters from my great-grandfather Edward Leslie to his wife, Alice Leonora, while he was stationed in France during WWI.

I am riveted. This is the man who was the baptist minister, preaching about things ahead of his time to fundamental religious types whom he had shifting uneasily in their pews. The more I read about him the more I really dig the guy! And to "hear" his voice, in his own words (he even used the term "slacker" to describe himself in wartime France, 1917, because he was writing to his wife instead of whatever it was he was supposed to be doing in his hut!) after all these years and all the family stories is just priceless to me.

Question:

Who would be interested in me doing a series of posts on my family history? On my private blog, a long while back now, I began the story of my father's mother and how it intertwined with my life (my conception journey, to be accurate). This is different. This journey through my mother's side is enabling a softness and a fondness to come over me, towards her, the further I get to know my forebears down her family line.

I want to weave a bit of my learning in there... But I'm not sure if it'd get boring for anyone outside of my family.

So... Hands up here who's a genealogy/family history nut and, if you are, would hearing about another's family history be in any way helpful to you? Do you think?

Good weekends look like this

Our gorgeous Liquid Ambar tree

I chose a colour for my external office wall and hung
the wall plates Steve gave me for my birthday last year.
THANK YOU for your input, dear readers!

I'm very proud of these doors - my $70 French door Ebay win! Cha-ching!

Work break: home made meringues for afternoon tea,
looking out from my new office/workspace to the family on the (messy) deck

A spot of painting: Beautiful sepia colour for the internal walls.
I feel calm already! Looks like a good window to sit
in front of to finish writing a book....

Finished off by a stunning sunset (which I only thought to try
and photograph at the last minute.... Darnit! It was gorgeous)

And to top it off, the safe arrival of our newest family member. What's better in life than that?

So how was your weekend? Do anything productive?

The Circle Game

This song is for The Bubba we are now waiting with bated breath to hear from word on. The suspense is now palpable. I have been brought to cascading tears tonight by good ol' Joni while his/her mama performs the marathon of her life and I hold her in my caring concern as well.

Damn, but this song is surely one of the loveliest ever written. Just sublime.

Godspeed, little one. In good time. In safe time. In Sepia light with the energy of the Universal midwives' right behind you.

Oh, and Internets? Hold me? So I don't squeeze-hug the LGBB into the size of a matchstick while I wait to hear word? *kitten mews*

If you click the vid, please just listen - don't watch the pictures....

The Circle Game
by Joni Mitchell

Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game   

Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like when you're older must appease him
And promises of someday make his dreams 

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game  

Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels thru the town
And they tell him take your time it won't be long now
Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down 

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game 

So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
There'll be new dreams maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through 

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

© Siquomb Publishing Company 

Update: Mind you, have discovered in the past however long since posting that one extremely good remedy (aside from bloggy hugs, which I NEVER ask for unless under extenuating circumstances) is watching a backlog of Modern Family ep's. Love it. Laughter through tears. Best medicine.

Help me win $5000 and a New Ford Territory for a year

The official competition entry post as Round 1 of the Top 50 Bloggers sponsored by the New Ford Territory and Kidspot.com.au. If you like my blog, make it count and vote for me! 
Vote and share and Like and Tweet the crap out of it! There. I shan't ask again on here. Promise.

Otherwise titled..... Travel All Over The Countryside

I apologise in advance..... This is long. It's by me. You KNOW it's going to be long. But I have had an absolute BLAST reminiscing.

Not actual vehicle - ours was sky blue. With complementing dark blue curtains
made by Mum. And this one looks to have at least 2 more opening windows than we got.
Photo credit

When I was born, I arrived into a family with a Kombi van. To be exact, it was a Volkswagen Type 2b microbus - the model that was being built from 1971 to the late '70s. This was the model that had a fancy "face lifted" front which included a bull bar.... that was a menace to everything and everyone if they connected with it at speed. Ah! the good old days.

New Ford Territory Titanium RWD

Now, I met this new slick Ford Territory up close and personal. I can safely say, it honestly caught my breath. I was expecting it to look like the first generation style of the car which I've seen everywhere for a few years now. But it didn't. This one was sleeker. Pretty, even. Less petrol-hungry looking. And I admit to feeling a pang of envy that someone is going to get to drive it.

"Push the button, pull the choke,
Off we go in a cloud of smoke"
Photo credit

But after I came home and my post-Sydney high wore off, I thought about it. Do we reeeeeally need two handbag storage compartments? Ten cup holders? Wine bottle hol.... well, okay, we could do with those. But as to the rest, can this new Territory really take us places that we couldn't get in our old car? Hence, my tour of the only car I grew up with - the Volkswagen 8-seater Kombi - and an inadvertent trip down memory lane I took with my old Dad that ended with him coming over all nostalgic for the gas-guzzler and wanting to go and buy one.

Once I had furnished my mind with long-forgotten memories of our beloved Kombi, I have to admit... the Territory looked even better. But that's not much of a compliment, frankly. Here, let's browse through the list of top features and take a comparative look at why that might be:

Oozes comfort, no?
Photo credit

Ford says:

• Driver's knee airbag, lockable security drawer under driver's seat - Well, I don't know about you but the interior shot here says it all. Who needs a security drawer and airbags when surely, first and foremost, some suspension might be nice? Let's not get all fancy ahead of the basics.

Priorities, people.

The seats are sitting directly on top of the wheel arches. No fancy-shmancy padded upholstery. Plush is for wimps!

Ford says:

Fancy: Individual cigarette
ashtrays. The height of luxury...
Photo credit

• Removable rear rubbish bin - What's wrong with what our mother fitted the car with? Little plastic bags we had to all ensure we had in front of us for any long trips, tucked in to the cigarette ash trays (yes, there was one in the back of each seat... those meticulous, comfort-seeking, chain-smoking Germans, they thought of everything).

Ford says:

• The New Ford Territory is able to expand to a 7-seater if needed" - Oh, come on, guys. You're not even trying to compete with our old Kombi now. It was an 8-seater ALL the time. Without even trying. 

Granted, the middle seat of the centre bench seat had no seatbelt which meant - if we had to use it  - the kid in the middle had to be ready with their feet if they wanted to resist the inertia created during any sudden braking. Because if they didn't, they'd end up garotted by the automatic transmission T-bar (there was a galley between the two front seats, like a proper bus, which was great in wet weather but not good if you were supposed to be in the back and you suddenly found yourself in the front during a braking 'incident'). The trajectory of the sudden stop happened to me more than once and no doubt to my siblings as well. But we learned to brace the emergency crash landing position. And my thigh muscles ended up like a Russian gymnast, let me tell you. 

Not only was it an 8-seater (in your face, Ford Territory), the bus was a mobile motel. Oh yeah. Totally. Dad told me he and Mum rigged up a bed by way of a severed table tennis table with space for all four of us to sleep while they hurtled across the Plains of outback South Australia. No corners, therefore no pesky rolling. No worries! 

Bed On Wheels!
Photo credit

But I also have vague memories of being put into the boot of the car to sleep while they partied in later years. I'd wake on the drive home from the motion, where there were corners - I'll bet my parents probably assumed would lull me and my kid brother into a deeper sleep but did the opposite, because they'd put us to rest on top of the motor. See, there was none of this too-clever engine in the front close to where it's most needed business.  Pah! Noooh, much better to have it tucked away in the back of the car and run all the workings from the back along the undercarriage to the front of the vehicle. Genius engineering. They really thought their way out of anything, didn't they?

Ford says:

• 8" colour touch screen, rear DVD player, iPod, USB and Bluetooth mobile integration - I have to admit, this was hard to look past. 

Volkswagen was all over the 8" screen decades ago.
Photo credit

When Kevin Rose, co-host of one of my favourite web shows - Diggnation - was given a Ford Focus to drive around for a few weeks and the spots they filmed showing the car's connectivity, he managed to make me very jealous. I made a mental note at the time to go and see what Ford were doing when next we had the need for a new car.

So, the best I can come up with to pit the Kombi against such feats of modern technology is..... the story of when my family drove across the Nullarbor to Perth. And back again. 

Six people, five days of straight driving. Well, er, not so straight all the time - my Road Safety Expert, doctorate-qualified father has told me stories of nodding off and taking out a roadside guide post or several.... hmmm, a cautionary tale, I'm sure. 

Now, the technology part is this: the mono AM radio wasn't going to cut it for a long 7,000km+ round trip across the Nullabor-ing desert, was it?*  So what did my older brother do? Why, convince Dad to help him rig up a power source by way of a cable from the cigarette lighter to his tape deck (in itself a very basic 1970's-standard, single speaker outfit). And then he subjected us, his siblings, to a repetitive play list worthy of any 10 year-old in 1979. It included such memorable hits as Money (Flying Lizards version), Escape (the Pina Colada song), I Don't Like Mondays and I also remember - too much - Driver's Seat (Sniff 'N' The Tears) and Dream Police (Cheap Trick).

And Ford are really just rubbing it in by stating "Cars are just mobile play centres." Okay, answer me this then: Who needed a rear DVD player when we had such fine compilations to keep us occupied hour after endless, tear-inducing, mind-numbing, sibling-fighting, fart-smelling hour? I ask you. And just once more: *

We all survived. But we heard Girls Talk by Dave Edmunds several dozen times too many. By the time we got back to Melbourne, I loved the song. And I was only four. I still remember most of the words and I haven't heard since... 1979.

Ford says:

• 8.2L/100km on diesel, emergency brake assist... - blah blah blah. Listen, I'm all for a bit of adventure in car transport, actually. I clearly remember willing the car up any slightly inclined hill around town because, guaranteed, we'd start going backwards before we reached the top if Mum hadn't judged the external temperature:incline, distance:velocity ratio's. What excitement in a kid's day! Will the car make it up the Brysons Road hill or won't it? Not only that, the sliding door of our bus never actually closed properly - they bought it that way - and if it wasn't closed properly, the thing would slide open alarmingly while we were driving along. How none of us ever fell out, I don't know. Perish the thought....

Regardless, what's with all the safety features in cars these days? In my day, Mum and Dad had to adapt to the needs of the vehicle to keep it on the road, not the other way around. Dad proudly told me, when I was picking his brains for this trip down memory lane post, that once he had been given the tip by a mechanic to bash a particular spot of the undercarriage of the bus with a heavy spanner, its intermittent stalling became a thing of the past - unless someone was willing to get under the car and give it a bang.

I still recall sitting under the shade of the only stick that used to be a tree as far as the eye could see on the Nullabor - in unrelenting midday sun - waiting for the car to play fair. And it was one memorable stop. Dad had done what any father worth his Clarke Griswold Award would do and had taken us miles out of nowhere to see the world's largest ball of mud (Wave Rock, to be exact) and on the way back, the car carked it. So Mum did what any good mother of young children would do: she made "fairy-dells" with us and we gathered stones and rocks and made little circles in the desert dirt for the fairies in case any were going to happen past anytime soon. They would've been poor, shrivelled up, barbecued fairies if they did, I tell you. Still, it was fun.

And all this isn't even to mention the height of Summer days when the breath would literally get knocked out of us from the heat of the seats and the metal belt buckles, if they touched our skin, would actually scald. The patterning in the seats was terrifyingly painful - I fast learned to peel myself slowwwwwwly from a hot vinyl seat. The massive steering wheel that seemed like so much effort. My brother running the car through our fence when he mistook the accelerator for the brake (hey, easy to do...) when he was practicing pre-Learner plates. In fact, I remember more than once Mum stopping the car at the end of our drive and letting us drive the car up to the house. Problem: tight curved driveway, hill, kid barely able to reach pedals... Result: more than one near miss. 

Enough from me. Plenty, more than enough. I've said TOO much. My god, I think that's the first time ever that I've said that on this blog! My point is, that car served us extremely well. For a large family and the amount of trips it made each year, it was a bloody good (if not reliable) car that features prominently - and fondly - in my the memories of my childhood, not that it necessarily went to any great lengths to help me survive it.

********* chirping lone cricket **********

I want to hear from you now:

What great memories do you have of your family's first car? 

Did you take it on big adventures across country? Was it a death trap like ours?

* (Aside: What the HELL were my parents thinking, going all that way with four kids aged ten to two?? It's kinda no wonder they divorced, huh?)

Up yours, Dad!

Here's what happens when you let a toddler choose a card for her father on his birthday.

I have had this card for almost a year, waiting for the day I could let the LGBB proudly hand it to Steve. See, she thinks this is him. Some artist's impression of her dear Dad. The hair colour, the manly hand and the work shirt collar has convinced her it is him.

In the shop last year, choosing a card for someone else, she grabbed this and would not put it away. Quite unlike her (and most unlike me, too, giving in to an impulse-buy demand of my child's) she insisted until she cried that it was Daddy's birthday card, despite the fact that his birthday was still nearly twelve months away. I had to buy it.

Steve was suitably tickled that Lolly thought him so suave, debonaire. And downright arrogant. Ah, the joy of birthdays.

Happy 39th Birthday, Lenny*!

* Lenny is Steve. Long story. Boring story. He's just Lenny, 'kay?

Thank God I Blog

When you pat my dog, Jazz, it's a really satisfying pat. You know like when you pat a horse? A really smacky-good pat? Well. There's something very comforting about giving Jazz a honking great pat. And she loves it. So that's a bonus. She is such a solid dog. If I patted Pepper like that now, she'd wince. She is far too frail for anything more than very gentle movement.

As Pepper slips further into senility (there is surely no further she can go, she is quite past it now), I am coming to really appreciate that little purchase Steve and I made during our first Christmas without Ellanor, in 2004.

Everything is speeding up, not slowing down. Do you feel it?

Jazz was a pup! I must have blinked, for now she is a middle aged dog.

Jazz and Pepper in 2005

And today, wisened old Pep and chunky Jazz the clydesdale

Jazzy was supposed to be an "only child" - Steve's cat, the beloved ginger and white boy we named Rusty - died in early 2005 from skin cancer, when Jazz was about six months old. He was 14. We still miss him very much and talk of him from time to time. Fact: He was 1m long from tip to tail, tall and lanky like his "Dad". He was our original "furbaby". He and Pepper were all we had, during all those years of trying to bring home a baby, and even before that - when we didn't even know what troubles lay ahead.

When we brought Jazzy home, Pepper was already ailing like she was at death's door. Now, she seems to be in a race to outlive the young brown Labrador who's been brushing things off tables around our home with her ridiculous novelty-sized tail since 2004. Pep should be dead. She really should. But something is keeping her here. She gave me the most intense, gracious, unconditional love and connection I could ever imagine an animal was capable of giving. And I am her palliative care nurse now. I owe her.

So here I was this morning, completing the enrolment forms for the LGBB. We've picked a school for next year! I am relieved it's sorted. Once Steve and I took the tour last week, it was a pretty clear winner for us.

As I signed the final page, I suddenly came over very emotional. And as usual, tears followed.

Not happy tears, not sad. Just tears. This is something we missed doing for Ellanor. With Ellanor. Here is our family, all around us, and I don't know what my little girl would look like now. I don't know whether she'd prefer to wear the school uniform dress or the track pants and polo shirt. Would she be chocolate ice cream or strawberry? Would she mercilessly tease Lolly? Would Lolly even exist??

So. The end of another era. I thought, somehow, the outings with the LGBB to local coffee shops (with Scraps, of course - he is such a coffee fiend) were never going to end. That we would be able to share these times with each other whenever we wanted. But I am about to lose her to school. Soon, these moments will be just that: moments in time. A thing of the past. And the thought leaves me quite bereft, for the time being.

"Thmile, Thcrapthy!"

It snuck up on me, this one. This little emotional release that was simmering under the surface.

I reached for the phone to call a dear friend who is forever going to be in the same situation as us with all these milestones. She lost her firstborn, a daughter, mere months after we lost ours. We lost babies in between, around the same time as each other, uncanny as it sounds. She called me after she got pregnant again (with the son who is now about to turn five) and told me she'd had a dream where she was riding a white horse and came to find me in the middle of a beautiful forest. She lifted me up on the horse and we rode it together. Less than four months later, the LGBB found her way to my womb.

I left a blubbery message for my friend this morning, for I was not teary before I rang. But just hearing her voice unbolted the safety valve and I blurted. I won't need to apologise. We have an understanding, she and I. I asked her in the message if she had filled out enrolment forms yet for her son and how she had found the experience. Surely a reason to catch up over a coffee sometime soon.

My little baby has been replaced by a young girl rapidly growing in her independence. Not that I would expect or want anything different for her. I have taught her to be independent. It's how I survived my childhood. One day soon, she won't need me at all. I didn't realise how much I need her to need me, this tall leggy blonde who already at the age of four has a joyous glow and the kind of knock-em-dead natural poise I always wished I'd had. I have the glow... but I don't have any poise, not like her, that's for sure (must get that from her Dad, he is, after all, the one I call Daddy Long-Legs). If she can overcome her shyness, this kid will be more than comfortable on a stage, she is that theatrical it's almost embarrassing at times.

"Life is a Cabaret, old chum"

I guess I just have to stay open and grateful to the times I am sharing with my beautiful daughter. They have become so much more precious and poignant this year already as I realise I'm about to be on my own again.

So it will be back to me and whichever dogs are still alive this time next year. I told my brother last time they visited two years ago that, surely, it would be the last time Pep would be here. I've been telling him that since the year 2000 - no kidding there - so who knows?!

Please, please let there be something solid for me to pat and hug. If Pepper does outlive Jazz, as she is threatening to do, I'm screwed.

The thought quite overwhelms me at times.

Thank God I Blog, that's all I can say. I think I might get that made up on a sticker for my car...



This post is part of FYBF, currently being hosted by Where's My Glow. Thanks Glowless!

Oh, Japan

My brother is making his way home on foot from Tokyo city. He can't get in touch with his wife and daughters (age 6 and 8). I've been trying to get through to him since 5pm our time. He phoned via Skype - love modern technology - not half an hour after the quake hit - and he rattled me almost clean out of my tree.

It was not a cool-cucumber moment from me, I must say. Having just witnessed Christchurch images and living that, live, I just couldn't shake the worry (thinly veiled hysteria for a while there up until about an hour ago) as I watched the horror unfolding from the effects of this massive natural earth reaction.

I have attempted this evening to walk up to the bottle shop for a settling tipple. Walked Jazz up to the shops, realised I forgot wallet and went back home again. Headed out, Jazz in tow again.... got almost to shops again. Forgot wallet again. Dammit! Took car, came back just now. Pinot Gris in hand.

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Poor Mother Earth. I am so weepy for the world right now. What are we doing to Her?

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In the midst of all this, I had sporadic contact with my brother mostly via Skype, but he managed to get onto Facebook to tell me not to panic. "They're still shopping here (in Prada, dahling)" he updated. It made me laugh, despite myself. I requested he buy me a handbag if he would be ever so kind.

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Still can't get through to my sister in-law. Latest advice on Twitter is not to phone Japan. Well.... try waiting to find out if your family is safe and then see how that sits with you! I can only hope now that my brother makes it home tonight, the only way he can right now (on foot). The traffic must be horrific now, right? We're talking Japan here. Hundreds of thousands work in that city.

To give a rough idea, he is walking a distance on foot (and hoping when he gets there that they are safe, if not shaken, and just incommunicado) of Melbourne to roughly Blackburn, or Sydney to Homebush. Nothing left for it but to walk and avoid the aftershocks.

My heart is in my mouth. Praying and thinking of all those caught in Japan and in the tsunamis.

And so we wait. My family here are on hold. My father has thrown up, apparently - he says he thinks it's not related to this, which is a moot point, given that he's obviously so internally upset that he considered the possible connection. But it is stressful, the waiting. Not knowing. They could be fine, they're surely fine. The girls are probably at home being kept distracted by their mother. I hope and pray with everything that they are okay. The girls would have been at school.

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9:44pm Friday
I'm thinking of my sister in-law, she doesn't know if my brother is okay. He's on his way home and is fine for the time being, but I just did a quick Google Earth calculation from the city to his suburb. It's telling me it is over 4.5 hours on foot. I sure hope he catches a ride some way out of the city. What a torturous time for him, for her. For us back here! He's able to contact Australia, but he can't call his wife. Aaaargh.

Breathe.

More later. I'm on Twitter.

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10:46pm Friday
A little bleary-eyed, a couple of glasses in...

Just heard from my brother, he has managed to make the trek to his mate's place somewhere outside of Tokyo to the west. They are now trying to drive him home but he still cant' get through traffic. We still can't get through on the phone to our sister in-law. But he is closer now. Man, this is testing my calm resolve. I hugged the LGBB SO fucking tight tonight when she got home with her Dad. And then I hugged her Dad like I never wanted to let go.

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11:35pm

Just heard from my brother. He turned back the friend who was driving him towards home, the roads are too congested. He is on foot again. BUT.... he has been in email contact with my sister in-law! She is very sad but the girls and her are safe. And they know he is okay. My heart can get out of my throat now and I think I am about to crash into a stupor.

Thank you for your care, Twitter/Blogger-verse. You have been awesome. Big shout out to @CateP36 and @kirrilyfred especially.

Playing favourites

I know you're not supposed to. I've read people's confessions saying they do, sometimes. And last night was our turn.

I asked Steve, "Who's your favourite? Out of our animals, I mean?" We looked at each other resignedly, sighed and said simultaneously, "It has to be Jazz." And then we laughed uncontrollably over what we'd just done before patting Jazz and congratulating her for beating her two unworthy opponents.

We had weighed up instantly in our minds the pro's and con's of each of our beloved pets and then chosen the least annoying one - "the most independent", Jazz was voted. And we laughed because we had actually had to hesitate even to choose her.

Let's look at their stats a moment, shall we:

• Pepper has on average 1-2 elderly incontinent puddle accidents a day. She must be chaperoned around the house due to this, and also the fact that you must ensure she doesn't slip anywhere as she has terribly unstable legs not made easier by her claws that can't grasp the floorboards. She's had a bit of a larynx problem for years now which, in her old slow age, has meant that we now have to watch the tv at least 10 levels above what we used to (this is no exaggeration). She farts constantly - not one long, continuous one, I mean just pops every few minutes. She barks to salute the morning on first rising when she gets up to relieve herself, usually just before 6am daily - a dog that uses her bark as a sonar wave, I'm sure of it, so that she can gauge whether she's going to slowly stagger into that big mass (the house) in front of her and barks to judge the distance between herself and the house. She has dementia, is totally deaf and is completely in her own, retired world.

• Tabitha is .... I have no words. She's a nice natured cat and all but she's a lunatic. And a killer. The recently purchase cat bib that's supposed to stop her killing birds, if not hunting them, apparently still allows her to catch rodents - not an altogether bad thing ("and let that be a lesson to the rest of you residing under our house") until she brings the dead things home and plays hacky sack with them on the front porch, flinging them in the air and not caring that they are landing in our shoes. One day, I shudder to think what I will find if she doesn't cart all her kill away after maiming it on the front verandah balustrades. Ugh. And she pesters. This cat nags and nags and nags and bloody nags some more, even if you fed her five minutes ago. She's constantly darting ahead of you and across your path if you look to be walking up or down the hall anytime soon, which is where the laundry (her bedroom) is. And that's another thing: the cat litter tray. Can't stand them. Will never get used to them.

And that leaves Jazz. The crazy six year-old 30kg puppy with a tail the strength of a kangaroo and at just the right height to sweep all the pieces off the Junior Monopoly board game you'd left paused to grab a bite of lunch. Just the right height to swipe glasses and cups, plates and papers off any coffee, side, end or kiddy table she walks past. And if she doesn't knock them off with sheer force, the wind her tail creates makes sure they find the floor with the updraft created. She's boundy, expectant, pushes herself ahead of everyone in the family just to "win" and causes us exorbitant amounts of money on vet bills when she eats stupid things she shouldn't or causes damage to property that has to be replaced..... But she's our pick.

Do you have a favourite in the family? G'arn, you can tell me! It'll be our little secret.

OK, don't bust your boiler, Toots

We went for a big 4.5km walk earlier today. A round trip past Lolly's new 4 year-old kinder to see how long it would take me to walk it. The answer is: about 25 minutes and 2km's. Oh, the hills. How they are a-killin' my glutes right about now (the sweet, sweet burn, ahhhhh). I was already kind of puffed and feeling really out of shape by the time we were over half way there, but I knew the last part would be the hardest, having driven it and doing this one particular long hill in second gear in the car.

We made it to the foot of the hill. Steve took Jazz and started virtually skipping up the steep path. And that's when Lolly started with the questions, expecting me to answer. I couldn't even manage a sound. What a disgracefully unfit performance!

I would like to formally apologise now for any residents who may be reading this and were alarmed by the wheezing sound as I chugged up that hill (and the next one.... and the next) pushing 30-something kilo's of offspring, stroller and supplies in front of me. And while I'm at it, I'd better also apologise for my child who, at every peak and downhill run, put her arms out Leonardo-on-the-Titanic fashion and yelled, "WINNER, WINNER, CHICKEN DINNER! WOOOOO-HOO!" as if she was riding a rollercoaster.  Come on, kid. It wasn't that fast a ride down compared to going up. Or was it?

Anyway, then the LGBB started doing that thing I always warn her against:  grabbing and pulling at random vegetation that's hanging over fences and bordering the footpaths. 

Well. Today, what I had warned her about finally happened. She got that grass-cut. Ooooooooh *wince* I have done that so many times in my misspent youth, probably in spite of my mother's warnings. And so we had Lolly going into shuddering convulsions and hyperventilating overkill about the slicing of her pinky. "THERE'S BLOOOOOD!" came the shrieks, in that hysterical tone that you're sure is going to bring people out of their homes, dialling Emergency-000 as they come to save the little girl from the beastly parents. That was a fun walk home.

Then we had the trilogy of knocks. You know, when your kid bumps an elbow then miscalculates clearance under a metal rod and whacks themselves in the head and then manages to collect a foot with a coffee table leg that has always been there in that position of the room (let alone hasn't moved in the last 2 minutes of play)? Yeah. That all happened. In the space of less than half an hour. Dutiful rocking-hugs on the couch ensued after each incident.

To top it off, as if I wasn't already tipped off about a certain little somebody who may or may not have arisen from the wrong side of the bed this morning, I got challenged angrily just before by the LGBB after I moved around some dollhouse furniture. In my remodelling, I suggested, "The toilet might be a bit more useful off the front lawn", to which the snappy retort was, "We don't have toilets in bathrooms in this world".

Ok, Miss Four. Don't explode your noggin. I'm going to make a cup of tea.

iPhoto Year In Review

In January, to escape the ongoing catastrophic money pit home extensions, we spend two very slow-paced nights down by the beach in Gippsland. That's about all we do in January. Ahhh.

January:  On seeing Daddy in the ocean on his own, a blue-lipped and alarmed Lolly (the wind off the Southern Ocean was fuh-reeeezing) sat quoting her swimming classes' water safety motto to herself out loud - "Swordy says.... never.... swim.... alone." Daddy got a full reprimand on exiting the waves and rejoining us at the towels.

In February, I take the best macro photo I've ever snapped: a single dandelion seed for my sister inlaw's website. I try to burn the kitchen down by way of a pot of oil left on high flame on the stove (I don't think I ever even admitted to that one on the blog..... so ashamed... ruined a bloody good pot - and set of lungs - as well, damnit). Steve and I finish the back-breaking laying of the bitching bastard fiddly fuckers bamboo hardwood flooring and it looks spectacular. In fact, all the rooms - including the family and bath rooms - are finally coming together nicely, after works that began in August 2009. The dog gets in so many photos that I pander to her neediness for inclusion and take her very own special photo (smiling dork cutie that she is) so that she leaves me alone and stops getting her arse, waggily tail or head in all my shots. I ponder what else I could be doing with my time instead of hanging out black sock after pissing annoying black sock so much that I take a photo of them when I'm only half way through pegging duties.... The offending culprit black sock wearer poses alongside his Magna-doodled likeness (as drawn by the LGBB). Lolly starts writing her 'signature' and is very proud of herself. I rest easier at night, having finally found the right green for her bedroom walls ("Willow Tree" by Bristol, if you're wondering).

In March,  on the 6th at around 3pm, a once-in-a-lifetime storm event hits Melbourne ... right over our house. After 20 minutes on the ground, the hail stones are still about 20cm in diameter even after melting on the previously warm day. The damage sustained to our home, and more to others in the neighbouring areas, reaches well into double figures in insurance. We have to replace our annihilated roof - a bucket placed on our kitchen bench yields 5 litres of water through a ceiling light in the space of less than 2 hours. It's scary and a big clean-up but not as much as many others in the area. The hail bounces off the ground to around 10ft in the air (watch the video - the sound of running water half way through is actually a leaking window that was literally pouring water in onto our floors), the hail strips paint off our fences and goes clean through Lolly's trampoline and outdoor play equipment. Steve's car is totalled (a boon, which nets him a nice brand new car... small bonus, really) and we have to replace all our outdoor furniture and toys: thank you, RACV, what a blessing to be insured. The storm puts significant halt to our garage/home office plans (final stage of extensions), so we run away to the beach again, this time to Wilsons Prom with some dear friends for a memorable short vacation.

In April, the last surviving great-Aunt on my mother's side passes away. I visit their rural property in South Australia with my brother on a hastily arranged trip for the funeral. On reaching their homestead, I am overcome and overwhelmed with the feeling of home-coming for me, the house turns out to be a stately, welcoming old family friend, with many ancestral heirlooms - including the bed our great-grandfather spent the final seven years of his life sleeping in - and I feel a deep sense of belonging to this land which I have not visited since I was barely three. I cannot quite comprehend that in every direction I look, on waking to capture the sunrise the first morning, the family owns the farming land. I am choked and humbled and feel very small as I think of the original owners who have long since been driven out by white settlers. The colours are different here. And although it is razed almost completely and there is hardly a landmark in sight, the place is captivating, haunting and stunning. When I arrive home, the new tin roof is up and it looks marvellous.

In May, we go to Phillip Island for the day and have a blast together. This is despite the LGBB's very best hand-on-hips-ish pre-four year-old behaviour throughout the day, which is tedious and confusing and full of contradictions to say the least. Still, forging on, we visit a farm and Steve milks a cow, we go to the koala conservatory and make the obligatory Penguin Parade stop to watch the fairy penguins come ashore at the end of a long, cold trek for their food. Phillip Island: A highly recommended place to spend some time, if you're ever visiting Victoria. By the end of this month, we have dismantled the wall that surrounded our outdoor deck and the garage/office wall is up and ready for frame stage.

In June, I am lovingly made a chocolate birthday cake and the cake topper is chosen by Lolly herself - something to perfectly capture the love between a mother and daughter, a timeless gift that says "I was thinking of you when I chose this"... See it there in the photo? It's a rubber dinosaur. I take a photo this month of our old dog, Pepper, thinking for sure her days of warming herself in the winter sun by the window must surely this time be numbered (six months on, I'm still taking "this may be the last photo" photos of the old battle-ax). The LGBB has her mid-year toddler dance concert (her last in this class before she moves up with the 5-7 year-olds) - her motto seems to be "better to be over-dressed than under-prepared for any occasion, dahhlinks", as the other littlies turned up in sweats and hoodies, a floral dress at best. I blink and apparently miss my leggy little blondie-girl getting suddenly all child-looking... this is the month Lolly appears to drop the remainder of her 'baby fat'. She also discovers the joys of stay-on lippy and I catch her literally painting her face with it - after this photo, she covers herself from forehead to chin, colouring in all the bits she'd missed, and it will take me almost an hour to patiently scrub it off.

In July, our little girl turns four. I almost commit hara kiri with her birthday cake on the way to the party, Scraps discovers his hot chocolate addiction is serious and Lolly perfects her portraits of her Dad, adding features such as the all-over-face stubble and toussled-hair. I walk in one lazy Sunday morning expecting to find father and daughter sharing some quality time together and they are.... on their respective Apple gadgets, happily sharing high-score results and occasionally grunting to each other. They're happy. I shudder slightly and snap a photo, assuming this is just a taste of things to come.

In August, we take the LGBB to see the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for the first time. Steve gets arty with his iPhone4 and a bunch of My Little Ponies, I get arty with bento (Japanese take-away/snack-box lunches) and Lolly gets arty with posing dogs. On heads of other dogs. It's a slow month.

In September, Lolly inexplicably begins breastfeeding Scraps out of nowhere and it is absolutely gorgeous - she even stops play to attend to her doggy every morning and asks to see photos of herself being breastfed as a baby to ensure she's doing it realistically. I take yet another last photo of Pepper (who is still wheezing alongside me while she sleeps as I type this post), and I capture the most delightful set of images on the way home in the long afternoon Spring sunshine. Pity about the dog's piss.

In October, Steve brings home his new baby - the iPad - and we're all immediately besotted with the dear little thing, Lolly takes to using the painting app on there and is chuffed with her hard work and even more excited that she can take a screen shot of her paintings and then print them out. Our beautiful old tree begins to get its leaves back. I'm treated to a Party In The USA impromptu tutu-clad dance routine (about 19 times in a row.... GET OUT OF MY HEAD, MILEY CYRUS!). Steve gets dressed up by Lolly. And we plant ourselves a little vegie patch.

In November, surprise-surprise, yet another 'last photo' photo of Pep, standing (barely) this time. Lolly gets quite taken with the sun shade being put up for her and Pepper to have picnics in the front yard. We're so proud of our girl who has her first end of year concert in amongst the older kids - she's tall for her age at four but is towered over by them - as she holds her own and keeps up with all the moves (wearing her Best, once again). We have a guest visitor on the first warm day - a possum who falls asleep for several hours on the clothes line under our deck. And speaking of decks... it's getting there! The office and garage are finished (shells only, still plastering and painting to finish), the outdoor room is looking good. Just need to decide what colour to put on the blue-board.

In December, there are cupcakes, carols and Christmas trees! Grandpa's tickles and Mummy's kisses. Fun under the Christmas tree. Kindy graduation and baked cookies. What more to life can there be?

So 2011 begins tomorrow. I have plans. Big plans. A few things already in the works. But for now, I'm so darn tired of 2010 that I just don't wanna talk anymore.

Have a good one, please have a safe one. Happy New Year!