one year

It's really hard to write something on your baby's first birthday that isn't a cliche. But all those phrases about time and change and strangeness are true. No matter how expected they are when other people express them, they're still stunning and weighty when you experience them yourself.

Measurements of time are powerful symbols, and today I'm thinking of the hot February day (it was so hot, my darling! And I was so huge) walking up and down the halls of the hospital, around the grounds, waddling into the little op shop there and buying a Hawaiian shirt you still don't fit into, trying to inspire you to start moving out.

On this day a year ago you weren't in the world. You were in another universe, inside me. You weren't in the world and then suddenly you were, and you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

back to work

Image courtesy Southern Methodist University, 

Central University Libraries, DeGolyer Library via Flickr Commons 

I've gone back to work for three days a week. I had an entire year of maternity leave, and even though it was the shortest year of my life, it feels like forever since I've sat at a desk. The first week it felt like I was doing some strange new exercise, sitting and typing instead of the usual laying on the floor/crawling on hands and knees/carrying a ten-kilo baby on my hip while I try to fill a kettle. Also I can wear jewellery, as temptingly shiny and dangly as I like, and there is no-one to try to pull it off or eat it! Three days is an excellent number of days to work. It's enough for me to feel grateful that I get the rest of the week with Peanut, and the four days with him is juuust enough to make me feel grateful to go to work.

Peanut is 11 months old and is developing so fast it's daunting.

 

He loves buses and blueberries and balls and books and probably also things that don't start with B but I can't think of them right now. If you say "Cheeky grin!" he gurns manically and shows you all six teeth. If he enters a room with a fan, he will spot it immediately and let you know it is off and probably needs to be turned on. He is affectionate and he loves seeing photos of himself and when his father or I walk into the room he smiles like he hasn't seen us for days. Looking at this photo and thinking about him is making me miss him and want to scoop him up and kiss him. I keep thinking, I don't want him to get any older! But then he does and he's even more beautiful and interesting and fun. It's tiring feeling so many different things at once.

a poem about my day

Pushing the pram against the wind,

the wind pushes back

and presses an insect against my chest

like a tiny brooch.

spring

The mulberry tree in our front garden is fruiting and the birds and I are racing to get the ripe fruit first. If you've never tasted mulberries, they have a subtle sweet flavour that makes me think of greenness and  growing. The taste is evocative for me; my great-aunt and -uncle had a mulberry tree in their huge (in my memory, at least) back yard. I have a clear memory of standing in the bathroom in front of the mirror, crushing mulberries in my mouth so that the juice ran down my chin, so I could see what I'd look like as a vampire. Clearly Peanut would be a very messy vampire.

i love sleep. why don't you?

Disclaimer: I am writing about my baby's sleep, and there is no reason to suggest that what worked for us will work for you. All of this is my own opinion. I am not a doctor and I cannot give advice on safe sleeping. Also I am about to go on and on about something that is probably very boring for most people, so feel free to skip this. 

Peanut started out as a good sleeper. Apart from growth spurts, Wonder Weeks and the occasional baffling 3am-is-party-time incident, we were really lucky. He didn't sleep 12 hours in a row and get up and make us pancakes, but he knew the difference between night and day and usually only woke two or three times a night for feeds.

When he was a newborn I nursed him to sleep. In fact, it's impossible not to nurse a newborn to sleep; the milk just knocks them out. It's brilliant. But I kept reading that putting a baby down already asleep was going to lead to problems, when they started waking and needed the same conditions (nursing, rocking etc) to get back to sleep. Luckily, we had The Swing. Have I mentioned The Swing? Oh my god the swing. If there was one appliance we needed during the first five months of his life, it was the electric swing. I would have given away the microwave, electric kettle and possibly also the fridge if it meant keeping the swing. I learned about baby swings from one of my favourite sleep sites, Troublesome Tots. Like most new babies, Peanut loved movement and quickly took to the swing. We could put him down in his Amby hammock if he was already asleep, but if he was awake he wasn't having it. But the swing was like a drug. It was hilarious to watch him try to fight it, like he'd been slipped a Mickey Finn, his eyes fluttering and his little fists slowly lowering. So once he was no longer a sleepy little newborn, we had a bedtime routine: shower with Dad, lotion, jammies, feed in the glider, then a little rock to wake him up, and down awake but drowsy in the swing and turn it on. Whoever was on duty would sing for a while and he would look at us and then turn his head and close his eyes. Amazing! Magic! The books were right!

Then came the day when I forgot to touch wood or throw salt over my shoulder or make a blood sacrifice to Cthulu or something and he just. stopped. sleeping.

His naps had never been brilliant but he'd always taken at least one big one (around 90 minutes) in the morning. Now the only way I could make him nap at all was to lie down in bed with him. He stopped falling asleep in the swing at night and needed to be fed to sleep and put down asleep. This was all happening at the same time as a big developmental leap (Wonder Week) which also meant that he was much more alert than he'd ever been... including alert to sneaky parents trying to put him down. Pretty soon I was feeding him to sleep in our bed so he'd be totally knocked out, then transferring him to the swing or hammock. Then I was doing this multiple times in a row until he was so exhausted he couldn't rouse himself. If he was really tired, I could sneak a dummy in and he would decide he couldn't be bothered holding out for the real thing and let me put him down.

Looking back, I can't say I regret it because I don't know how else I would have made him sleep. Before I had a baby I thought that they would get to a certain level of tiredness and just fall asleep. HA. What happens is that they get to a certain level of tiredness and will fall asleep under the right circumstances (ie you are putting them to bed right then, or they are in a moving car, etc.). If they go over that level you are FUCKED. 'Overtired' is not the same as 'very tired.' It means that the baby has passed the stage of going to sleep and has entered a hyper-awake state where he is exhausted and feels horrible but is too upset about it to calm down and go to sleep. We discovered the limits of Peanut's overtired energy when we missed his window and tried to put him to sleep from 6 to midnight. That's right, SIX HOURS. (Knowing better now, we would stop trying to put him to sleep, let him zone out with us in front of the TV, then try again. We were so young and foolish then [two months ago].)

And then the Wonder Week was over and he had learned to roll over (shit, better start babyproofing this death trap) and we breathed a sigh of relief. But... his sleep didn't improve. THE BOOKS WERE RIGHT AGAIN. He was waking every 15-25 minutes, noticing that instead of being held and rocked with a boob in his mouth, he was in a swing alone, and he was not impressed.


I read a lot of different advice during this period. (I had a lot of time in bed with my iPad, while Peanut slept fitfully beside me.) Nothing seemed particularly helpful. A lot of attachment parenting websites told me that I was the problem, not Peanut. I should continue to feed him to sleep, bring him into my bed to cosleep at night, and accept that this was his natural way to seek comfort and love. I found this unhelpful for many reasons. First of all, looking after a baby is rewarding and lovely but also bloody hard work and, frankly, often boring. He is not the kind of baby who lies happily playing with a rattle for an hour while mummy does the dishes and has lunch; he needs to be constantly interacted with and entertained. Even in the carrier strapped to my chest, I have to dance around or take him on a tour of the house like a little prince being shown around his domain. His naps and night sleep are important to me; they're the times when I can be alone, read an article, write an email or just have a coffee without singing nursery rhymes between swallows. I would also like to have some kind of relationship with my husband, which wasn't really going to be possible if I had to go to bed at 6pm. Bedsharing works well for many families, but it wasn't going to work for ours.

A lot of books and websites suggest or even state that these are not good enough reasons, and that mothers who feel this way are selfish, lazy and poor parents. Well, fuck that. I will always put my baby's health and safety first, and I do an enormous amount to make him happy, but I am a human being and I deserve to be sane and happy.

Anyway, Peanut wasn't happy and healthy. He was waking up even when I slept with him, because he would fall asleep and the breast would fall out and he would startle and cry. So he was sleeping in 20 minute bursts, and he was tired and unhappy. Babies need a lot of sleep. A huge amount of their development and growth depends on it. I knew that Peanut needed to learn to sleep on his own if he was going to be happy.

What a cliffhanger! Stay tuned for the next thrilling installment!

If he’s still crying, for goodness sake pick the poor little bugger up before he is overcome with stress hormones that will fry his tiny brain and screw him up for life! - See more at: http://www.pinkymckay.com/blog/pinky-mckays-most-frequently-asked-stupid-questions/#sthash.yi17jujp.dpuf

If he’s still crying, for goodness sake pick the poor little bugger up before he is overcome with stress hormones that will fry his tiny brain and screw him up for life! - See more at: http://www.pinkymckay.com/blog/pinky-mckays-most-frequently-asked-stupid-questions/#sthash.yi17jujp.dpuf

If he’s still crying, for goodness sake pick the poor little bugger up before he is overcome with stress hormones that will fry his tiny brain and screw him up for life! - See more at: http://www.pinkymckay.com/blog/pinky-mckays-most-frequently-asked-stupid-questions/#sthash.yi17jujp.dpuf

If he’s still crying, for goodness sake pick the poor little bugger up before he is overcome with stress hormones that will fry his tiny brain and screw him up for life! - See more at: http://www.pinkymckay.com/blog/pinky-mckays-most-frequently-asked-stupid-questions/#sthash.yi17jujp.dpuf

If he’s still crying, for goodness sake pick the poor little bugger up before he is overcome with stress hormones that will fry his tiny brain and screw him up for life! - See more at: http://www.pinkymckay.com/blog/pinky-mckays-most-frequently-asked-stupid-questions/#sthash.yi17jujp.dpuf

If he’s still crying, for goodness sake pick the poor little bugger up before he is overcome with stress hormones that will fry his tiny brain and screw him up for life! - See more at: http://www.pinkymckay.com/blog/pinky-mckays-most-frequently-asked-stupid-questions/#sthash.yi17jujp.dpuf

happier

It's amazing how quickly you move on and forget what things were like before. Reading my last post brought back the despair and worry and made me realise how much happier we are. When I posted a link to my blog on Facebook, a friend suggested that Peanut might have silent reflux. When we read the symptoms, they really stood out as some of his weird behaviour: the fact that he never really threw up, his little cough, the way his breathing sometimes sounded rattley, and most of all the way he cried and arched away when I tried to nurse him. After being told it was "just colic" and perfectly normal by several health professionals, we presented the doctor with our suspicions and got a prescription. About a week later, we had a much happier baby. He started rapidly putting on weight (he had slowed down because of his dislike of nursing) and his poop stopped being green (from his nursing behaviour - he was only getting the foremilk and not enough of the hind milk). Best of all, we stopped having the days where he would just scream inconsolably for hours.

Having a baby, and in particular being the primary carer, is incredibly hard. I love Peanut so, so much and I can't imagine life without him, but I know that as time passes I'll remember this period fondly and forget the terrible stuff. Being alone in the house with a baby who can't stop screaming or let you know what's wrong is a dark experience.

But he's four and a half months old and he smiles at me when he wakes up and sees my face and he rolls over and looks confused about how it happened and he reaches out to touch the things that interest him and it's all so mundane and it's the most amazing and exciting thing.

colic

Colic is weird. When you have a baby you hear a lot about colic. "Does he have colic?" other parents will ask you in the same hushed tones you would ask, "Is it malignant?"

I have photos of him crying, but I find them kind of upsetting so here's a grumpy one. His dad is keeping the dummy in his mouth because when he gets upset he spits it out and then cries because it's not in his mouth any more.

In adults (footnote: I often accidentally say 'humans' when I mean adults, I think that is very telling [second footnote: I hate having footnotes at the end of an article because then you have to keep scrolling up and down, I saw a website the other day that had footnotes on the side and I thought it was rad]) colic is a Real Thing; it means 'severe abdominal pain caused by spasm, obstruction, or distention of any of the hollow viscera, such as the intestines.'

In babies, it means 'your baby sure does cry a lot and it seems to be related to his farts but we can't really find anything wrong and also maybe he stops crying when you drive around in the car which is weird if it's because of pain but have this medical-sounding term anyway.'

Babies are said to have colic if they cry for more than three hours, three days a week, for three weeks. This seems awfully pat to me, but that's OK because it's a made-up disease.

Colic is the worst. There is pretty much nothing you can do about it (although you can find endless suggestions on forums) and the only advice you will get is "He'll grow out of it."

I don't know if Peanut's screaming fits into the definition of colic because I haven't timed his screams and I don't really care, but he seems to be getting more screamy rather than less over time. Babies are supposed to peak in their crying around 6 weeks and then gradually improve until they are perfect angels at 12 weeks. I think Peanut is just screaming more because he's awake more; he's gaining weight and is perfectly healthy. But I do think his guts give him trouble; sometimes he screams like he's being tortured while he lets out a string of farts.

(Another sidenote: when you read about 'crying' babies, you get an image of weeping, mewling infants. This is very misleading.)

Anyway, there has been a very interesting study done in Italy (double blind, control group etc) on the use of probiotics given to colicky babies. I have asked my doctor and child health nurse about probiotics but was told that as I am breastfeeding, this was unnecessary. However, the study at the University of Turin looked at breastfeeding mothers and showed a marked improvement in crying in the babies given probiotics. (The mothers also gave up cow's milk, but since the control group also did this, it's not necessarily significant.) It was a very small group of subjects - 27 plus 21 in the control group - but it's interesting. The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne did a larger study last year but the results have not been published yet.

Lactobacillus acidophilus. You have these bugs in you oh noooooo

Anyway, I bought some baby probiotics for Peanut and I'm taking them grown-up probiotics as well (which I suspect are exactly the same as the baby ones except packaged in capsules and cheaper). I won't be able to report on their efficacy with any reliability, because crying is a thing that babies are supposed to just grow out of. But like every parent with a crying baby, I am willing to try pretty much anything. I'll let you know how it goes.

having a baby is hard

Before I had this baby--

OK, first of all, a digression. (Digression from the digression: I had to think for a while before I could remember that word. "Agression? Progression? I should go have a nap.") I don't want to use the baby's name on the internet. I grew up with the privilege of creating my own digital profile and I think he should be able to do the same, without potential employers or girlfriends/boyfriends reading about his farts and drooling and the hilarious face he makes when he's pooping. So I need a name for him. How does Peanut strike you? Too cutesy? We call him Peanut a lot at home, so it feels natural. Let me know.

 

Anyway, before I had Peanut, I thought I would be blogging about him all the time. Maybe too much! People would get sick of it and I would have to try to think of other things to blog about! And here I am, I have blogged twice since he was born (and only posted one photo!) and now he is 11 weeks old. Oh dear.

I don't think it's lack of time (although I don't have a lot of that) so much as lack of energy. When he naps I am doing things like showering, eating, and sitting on the couch watching Seinfeld pretending I'll get up and do some Pilates as soon as this episode finishes.

It's not like I haven't written blog posts. I have, I've just written them in my head while I'm lying in bed trying to get the baby to go to sleep. Once he's asleep, it all just seems too much effort and not a priority.

But I am going to make an effort to write more, because it's kind of like having a conversation with adults, and I need more than that. (I guess it's a conversation where I do all the talking, but that's no drawback.)

I'm going to try to write more short posts, instead of planning long ones that never get written. And I'm going to try not to worry about whether what I'm writing is clever or funny or even interesting. I'll just write to keep writing.

peanut

 

This tiny peanut was born on the 13th of February (his due date!) weighing 4.1 kg and measuring 53 cm. I will tell a bit of the birth story soon. The important part is that he is inexpressibly beautiful and I love him more than I can say. Sometimes I look at him and I feel like my heart is physically swelling in my chest.

blog-drunk thoughts

Egg in Tree by drteeth on Flickr

You know that feeling when you've read a blog's entire archive, become so caught up in the story that you've been not only thinking but dreaming about it, and then suddenly you've caught up and you feel bereft and unsatisfied? "What do you mean, I have to wait for more? Quick, live your life so I can read about it!"

Rebecca has been blogging at Fosterhood for three years and I just finished reading all 185 pages. She's a very unusual foster parent: young, single, highly educated, working full-time. (This is not based on my prejudices, I have no preconceived ideas about foster parents; I am comparing her to the statistics on FPs in New York.) I think what makes this blog so amazing is that it isn't full of posts about how blessed she feels and how she's responding to a Calling. She writes very honestly about her experiences, the good and the bad. She writes about feeling overwhelmed, she examines her motivations for foster parenting, and she is perceptive about the changes she undergoes.

Being 36 weeks pregnant, it's been making me think a lot about my situation and my baby. I don't know how coherent (or how interesting) these thoughts are but I wanted to get them down anyway...

First of all, it's increased my understanding of my own privilege (something I'd like to think I'm savvy about but I could always use reminding about). Many factors including my skin colour, education level and family structure mean that I have a level of support that many women could only dream of. Even when institutional/governmental support is available to people, the ability to a) find out about it, b) access it and c) advocate for one's self is not universal. I have literacy, unlimited internet access, an understanding of formal and institutional language. I have confidence in using government agencies because I don't have a history of being in trouble with them. My privilege allows me to see myself as a taxpayer and citizen who has a right to assistance.

It's also made me think about my baby's level of privilege. In fact, ever since I found out I was having a boy it's been in the back of my mind. This white, male child of a heterosexual, cisgendered married couple, both of whom have stable jobs and supportive families, will have chances and choices other children will never know. 

Finally, it's made me realise how easy it is as a new/prospective parent to get sucked into the rabbit hole of doing everything perfectly. You can spend days researching the best BPA-free, shatter-proof bottles (for your pumped breast milk, of course) and still feel inadequate. When I start to get crazy over this stuff, I need to remind myself, "My baby is warm, fed and loved. I am doing great." I also need to remember (again) that I am in a position of immense privilege that allows me to obsess over stupid shit instead of how I'm going to pay my bills, where my child and I will be sleeping tonight, how to avoid abusive family members, etc.

Like many people, I've said in the past words to the effect of "I could never foster a child! It would be way to hard emotionally." Rebecca's blog has made me re-examine this statement and realise that the truth is, I choose not to foster a child, even though I am capable of it, because it would be hard. It's hard for everyone. I don't think I'm a terrible person for that choice, but no matter how difficult raising a child is going to be (and I know it will be very, very hard at times), I hope I can keep some of this perspective and remember how fortunate we are.

2013

 

 Born on New Year's Day. From the Flickr Commons.

I love making New Year's resolutions. I've even managed to keep some. This year, though, I'm not going to try to achieve anything but this:

Stay sane and healthy.

No clean house, no weight loss, no artistic achievements. Just try not to lose my fucking mind with the insane life change coming my way in February.

The pregnancy is going well, by the way. I am 35 weeks in and the baby has turned head-down (turns out that when I thought I was gently cradling his head, I had his bum cupped instead). He has started grinding his head into my pelvis as though blindly searching for the way out. Please don't be impatient, baby. If you don't give me some more time, you're going to end up sleeping on a pile of laundry because that's what's taking up the space where your cot will be.

holiday: south-western australia

We wanted to have one last little holiday before the baby comes, so we went south to Bridgetown. We like old-people holidays: driving to a small town, staying in a little house, driving around to other small towns. We like to go into op-shops and look at old buildings and funny little museums and take photos of fallen logs. Then at night we like to read and go to bed early. We have very convenient tastes for people without much money and with a baby on the way.

Here are a few photos I took of spring in the south-west of Western Australia.

 Protea in a garden in Donnybrook.

panic

 Sugar cage available here.

I have always known I wanted to have babies. My husband and I have been ready (well, as ready as you can get) for a while but we wanted to pay off our debts and save a little money. When I saw the second pink line on the test I burst out crying and literally fell on the floor. I am very happy!

Is it okay if I'm also freaking out a tiny bit?

See, this is the first thing I've ever done that is truly irrevocable.

Everything else has an escape route, even if it's difficult. Jobs can be quit. Houses can be sold. Pets can be given away. Marriages can be ended. Countries can be fled. But this baby is FOR EVER.

I have been in bad situations, and I know the suffocating feeling of being trapped, and the giddy elation of escaping. One of the reasons I knew it was a good idea to marry my husband is that I never felt trapped with him. And now I've voluntarily put myself into a position where there is no escape.

And it's already started. I can't take drugs and stay up all night partying. To be honest, I don't really want to. I didn't before I got pregnant, either. BUT NOW I CAN'T. I have a human being inside me and I have to look after it!

This isn't something that's keeping me up at night. I think I'm just hormonal and predisposed to anxiety and I'm exercising one of my greatest skills: finding something to worry about. The truth is, choosing not to have a child would be just as irrevocable.

It's hard being a grown-up.

guess what?

 

 Givenchy, 1963. Image via Defunct Fashion.

It's been more tracksuit pants than Givenchy gowns, but I'm having a baby!

budgeting

Is there anything more sexy and exciting than budgeting? Oh, I wish I were joking, but I'M NOT. I love budgeting, I really do.

I never used to! I would make a half-hearted attempt at working out how much I needed for shampoo and electricity and shoes, try to smoosh it together with my income, and then... what? I have a budget, I guess? Well, that's done! Now to go put some stuff on my credit card.

Not surprisingly, I ended up with a bunch of debt. I had to ask my parents for a loan, because the credit card interest was killing me. My dad gently but firmly suggested that he sit down with me and work out a budget. I didn't see what use it would be, but I didn't feel like I was in a position to refuse.

Guess what? It turns out that there is a way to use a budget so that it actually works. And the purpose of a budget isn't to constrain you; it's to set you free. Your income already constrains you; you do not have infinite moneys. But if you face up to that fact, decide exactly where you want your money to go, and make a few simple changes, you will be free. Free from that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when a bill comes in; free from having to put off having your car serviced until you save up the money; free from throwing money in the pit of credit card interest.

This is how my husband and I manage our money. It's easy to adapt to one person: before we married, I did the same thing except with only one income coming in. (Or you can add more incoming money and adapt it to your commune, or your polyamorous household. This budget is inclusive!)

The trick is to segregate your money. This should be done as soon as it hits your bank account. The easiest way to do this is to do all your banking online (which is really easy and kind of fun, if you're a dork) and have lots of different accounts. Most banks now will offer free Net accounts (no charges, good interest, but you can only manage the accounts online-- you can't take money out at an ATM, for example). Think of them as envelopes, compartments you use to sort your money, and set up a bunch of them. Now you can set up automatic payments into these different accounts.

Expenses are the costs you can predict throughout the year. This is the lifesaver: when your car battery dies, when the gas bill comes in, when the rent is due, you don't even have to think about it, because the money's right there. Here are some things you might want to put under expenses:

• Rent/mortgage repayments
• Electricity
• Gas
• Water
• Insurance
• Repairs/replacements (ie washing machine, vacuum cleaner)
• Lawnmowing
• Landline
• Mobile phone (if you have a fixed plan or regular habits)
• Regular medication
• Physiotherapy
• Gym membership or regular exercise classes
• Dental
• Pet medical 
• Transport (bus/train)
• Regular charity payments
• Union dues
• Car, including:
• Licence
• Registration
• Insurance
• Servicing
• Repairs
• Tyres/battery
• Roadside assistance

Housekeeping represents the amount of money you will spend on consumables during the pay period (let's say a fortnight). This means groceries, petrol, pet food, and non-regular medication (aspirin, antibiotics etc). I use a debit account for this, so that I get unlimited withdrawals.

Savings is self-explanatory. You might have a specific goal in mind, or just want to put money aside. This money is not to be touched except a) when that goal needs to be paid for or b) in extreme emergency.

Travel & fun is useful for us, but it might not be for you. It's for fun stuff we do together. It pays for holidays, things we decide to buy together (such as a games console), fancy dinners, and whatever else we agree to use it on.

Pocket money is just that. We use this for buying things for ourselves (books, games, fun stuff) and presents for each other, as well as for incidental fun stuff that's not covered by housekeeping (a coffee with friends, for instance).

Debt money goes directly to the loan or credit card you are paying off. I am very happy and proud to say that the amount we now put into the debt fund is $0. To work out how much you should be paying, first work out your interest per pay period. You need to be paying that off as an absolute minimum, and then as much more as you can afford. Paying off your debt is the most important thing, because the more you pay off the less interest you will pay. Working out how much you're paying in interest is definitely a good motivator to pay off debt!

Does that make sense? Do you have any questions? How do you manage your money? Let's talk budgets!

happy easter

 

 All photos by Sky Croeser

Every two weeks a group of my friends gets together for Crafternoon. Recently several of us were complaining on missing out on fun ethnic traditions because of our boring backgrounds so this weekend Sky, who is of Greek heritage, hosted Greek Easternoon.

 We made tsourekia together and dyed and polished eggs. Making bread as a group felt like a ritual.

It must seem strange for people from the Northern Hemisphere to see traditional holidays taking place at the opposite end of the seasons. All the traditional symbolism of Easter is about its traditional roots as a spring festival: eggs, rabbits, birth and rebirth, fecundity and fertility.

But summer is so brutal in Perth that this time of year, when the weather starts to cool, feels like a rebirth to me. After being battered by the heat for so long, I feel revitalised by the cooler weather. I want to bake and potter around and nest again. Plants and lawns are recovering from the blistering sun and starting to grow again. We're all coming back to life.

on fear

Last night I had my first swimming lesson since I was a child. I was a timid kid and I absolutely hated swimming lessons. My sense of survival stopped me from putting my head under water. Why the fuck would I do that?! There's no air down there!

It took a long time for the smell of chlorine to inspire in me anything but dread. But my dad taught me how to tread water and float, and I learned how to doggy-paddle, and now I snorkel at the beach. But I still can't swim properly, with my face in the water, moving faster than six feet a minute.

stuff to read, stuff to do

 Here is some stuff for you to look at.

1. The amazing Sara Bauer (@yellowcardigan on Twitter, owner of the world's only comic-making cat Paisley) mdae her own spice rack and then put up a tutorial because I asked her to and she is sweet. This is exactly what I need in my new, smaller kitchen: easily accessible, taking up no counter or cupboard space.

2. This Tumblr is fantastic: Citation Needed, a collection of the worst Wikipedia writing. If you need convincing, read some of my favourites.

3. Please watch this:

"YOU OK YOU OK YOU OK." This is my favourite video of all time maybe? I have it bookmarked so I can watch it when things go wrong in my life. Via Videogum.

4. Yelping with Cormac is a collection of Yelp reviews "written by" Cormac McCarthy. This is hilarious and beautiful.

5. I want to make this, how is it even possible? Radmegan posted a great tutorial but I am pretty sure it is mostly magic. Via Craftzine.

6. This Raindrop music maker is so soothing and happy-making. Play with it for a while.

i'm back!

Looking at the date of my last post I see that I have been neglecting this blog for over two weeks! I am so sorry. I have been in HELL, also known as trying to move house in two weeks. I looked on Google image search for pictures to use for this post and tried 'despair,' 'pain' and 'tearing out hair,' but it was all pretty depressing so I decided to use pictures of the famousest cat on the Internet, Maru. For the last few weeks I have been as obsessed with boxes as Maru, so it seemed fitting.

The process was really overwhelming. I am a bit of a collector/packrat/hoarder, and in the end we gave away nearly a bookcase's worth of books to the Save the Children book sale, 2 carloads of various things to the op shop, a few more boxes to family and friends, and also rented a skip bin for the rubbish that had managed to accumulate in the house. Moving is good for making you brutal; when you look at something and think, can I be bothered packing, moving and unpacking this? you find it a lot easier to get rid of it.

Today I read a great comic about moving and things and attachment which really spoke to me. Stuff No-one Told Me is a really great comic by Alex Noriega (whose girlfriend Iris Yan has her own, equally awesome comic, Pigs in Maputo).

I want to try to hold on to this feeling and not keep blindly accumulating things I don't need.

pretty colours

Just some recent photos: books arranged according to colour in the window of the New Edition bookstore on William St; cables on the floor at work; a Sesame Street record; and a meat pie in pea soup. (It's an Australian thing, and no, I didn't eat it, I just made it for my husband.)