jennings girls

Merry in March

2009-03-28T09:06:00.004+11:00

The best part about creating a blog with its main purpose being a record for yourself – moments, anecdotes, memories that might otherwise be forgotten – is that when you sadly neglect the blog, you can totally justify posting embarrassingly belated photos and olds (what you get when news is no longer new). I will not care in a year or decade that I posted Christmas snaps in March, I will simply be glad that I bothered at all. That’s my spin and I’m sticking with it!

We enjoyed a lovely family Christmas, nicely spread out over about 5 days – my extended family the weekend before Christmas, our own personal present opening on Christmas Eve morning – this kept it just between us AND meant we didn’t have to cart so many presents to Swan Hill with us ;) and then both a Christmas Eve and Christmas Dad celebration “up the hill” with Andrew’s family where it happily wasn’t 47 degrees for a week like last year.

Andrew managed around 3 weeks off for the first time that I can remember (just look how relaxed and happy he looks) and we swanned around Victoria, staying at one relative’s house after another – after Swan Hill came Ocean Grove, followed by a quick trip back to Melbourne for the fabulous 20/20 cricket match we gave Andrew for Christmas and then back down the beach to Point Lonsdale. We are very lucky.

One of the highlights of Christmas was giving the girls one of the most exciting and best-kept secret presents of all time (and I managed to not accidentally drop the secret too!). We gave them a travel bag with eye mask, travel pillow and travel journal which perplexed all three girls. Kate was on to it quickest, leafing through the journal to find a mocked up Qantas boarding pass to LA and a “certificate” entitling them to visit Disneyland. She just SCREAMED! J But of course Amy and Sophie didn’t know why yet, so they each had to find their own passes – Amy didn’t make a sound but was in Andrew’s arms in a flash and Sophie did a fabulous happy dance.

So yes, we are off, leaving on a jet plane in just 5 sleeps for a family holiday of a lifetime (well, it’s true, we will not be taking the girls to Disneyland again in this lifetime) – Disneyland, followed by a short road trip through the desert to Las Vegas to do the Grand Canyon, Cirque de Soleil at a casino, Universal Studios, Legoland in San Diego and we’re spending a few days in Santa Monica, walking distance from Venice Beach which should be fascinating. Incredibly exciting, although I am a walking list of things to do atm as Andrew will pack for himself, the girls will probably manage to charge their nintendos and ipods (IF I remind them) and I organise everything else of course.

Next term, it looks like I will be lucky enough to have a day off which is like the greatest gift from the universe landing in my lap – TIME :) Trying hard not to immediately fill it up and just breathe….. So hopefully the next update won’t be 3 months after the fact…..

Happy holidaze everyone

xxxxx

busyness as usual

2008-12-08T21:37:00.008+11:00

Port Douglas - a great place for a birthday...

my brown-eyed girl

the pool maketh the holiday

travelling in style

Gorgeous (Mossman) Gorge

We could fit him in our backyard, couldn't we Mum?

"OMG Emily, you won't believe it, I just saw that guy off Neighbours...."

Enjoying the marquee

they scrub up pretty well...

Where to start? It’s certainly not for a lack of news to report that this blog is so sadly neglected, rather a surfeit. It’s a busy Jennings life, but fortunately almost entirely good busyness, so no complaints here.

So how about a dot pointed executive summary? The pictures tell most of the story anyway, don't they?

· a gorgeous balmy September holiday in Port Douglas, filled with pools, beach, visits to lush Mossman Gorge, the amazing reef, an entertaining crocodile farm, a stunning skyrail ride through the mountains, not to mention some scrumptious buffet breakfasts where the girls had to laugh at the huge pleasure their mother derived from made-to-order-in-front-of-my-eyes omlettes – what’s not to get excited about – just what I wanted and I didn’t have to make it/clean up after it! Happy happy days with my very favourite people, so relaxed and fun.

· A new part-time job for me, writing creative training materials (and from home – yay!) Earlier this year, the very creation of this blog was partially an attempt to get writing back into my life, after too-long a hiatus. I could never have picked that life would lead me back to paid writing again, I love it. It has also created a beautiful life balance for me – teaching in the morning (sociable, fun, rewarding), writing in the afternoons (thankfully sedentary, creative) and Mum/taxi after school (fun, being involved, present and enabling a full life for the girls). Andrew had a laugh at my first project – writing a Personal Financial Management training program for VFL footballers! Loads of fun coming up with non-boring sessions like investment competitions and games, rather than arid slabs of financial jargon.

· Amy’s unlucky break when a thoughtless child threw a plank of wood in her path as she scootered down our street. She swerved sharply, lost control and badly fractured her wrist. Stoic as they came, not a tear was shed, from the spill through 9 hours of multiple hospital/emergency/radiology/ct scans/consultants/local anaesthetics/crunching it back into place/remanipulation and replastering a week later – whew. She amazed even the hospital staff with her pain tolerance and calm (yes, calmer than her mother). Much discussion about plates and pins, but she has avoided that for now. She will need xrays of her wrist every 6 months until she stops growing as the break went through the growth plate in her wrist. It’s been a huge frustration for my active girl who has badly missed school cricket, netball, horse-riding, piano etc and most of the (water-based) fun at school camp. We’ll keep our fingers crossed everything grows in the right direction in the future.

· Sophie starting Aikido classes (Amy is in a holding pattern and will join her next year). She cannot wait to earn her uniform and first belt and loves to come home and try our her moves on her pretty unwilling family members!

· Kate joining the school jazz band playing the trombone and enjoying playing Tequila and Tuxedo Junction just like her mother did a generation ago (some things, like good ole jazz standards and school bands, never change).

· Excuse one little maternal boast (sorry!) Kate and Amy both won netball awards this season – Kate for magically turning herself from a defender into a goaler in one season - height works at both ends of the court ;) - and Amy’s 2nd award of the year, this one for the extra commitment of continuing to go to practice plaster and all, working as the coach’s assistant and umpiring while she couldn’t play.

· Well, that’s the highlights, rounded out nicely with a mélange of spring races (see pics - can you believe that leggy young woman chatting on her mobile is my 13yo?? - oh, and look at my poor wounded equine-mad Amy looking wistfully at all those horses, she'll be back in the saddle herself next year and really what can I say about that cowboy hat except well, it's very Sophie and her sisters nearly killed Andrew and I for letting her wear it LOL), weddings, birthdays, school fetes, concerts, presentations and of course, now Christmas gatherings of all shapes and sizes. If I don’t get back here before Christmas (I'm well-meaning but realistic) – I hope everyone I’ve enjoyed chatting with in blogland has a warm, happy time enjoying their lucky lives and loves. xxxxx

Celebearating with Amy

2008-09-05T20:18:00.003+10:00

So busy belatedly waxing lyrical about my pintsized birthday girl, that I completely neglected to mention her birthday festivities. Lover of all things furry, she was so excited about her Build-a-Bear party. Build-a-Bear workshops let kids select their own bear, stuff it (including its heart), brush it, name it, dress it etc - it's a whole business and don't little girls just love it. Love Amy's funky dude dog. Oh, and there was even bell ringing for the birthday girl - and see the friend standing on Amy's left when she's ringing the bell? she is YOUNGER than Amy!

Being a mid-afternoon affair, catering was oh-so-easy. Amy requested her favourite trampoline icecream scooped on top of Krispy Kreme donuts - turning them into yummy donut sundaes, so apart from her castle cake, all I had to do was hunt and gather the aforementioned delicacies and present them to the appreciative horde of hungry girls.
Happy birthday my sweet
love Mum
xxxxx

Heroes come in small packages

2008-08-30T23:23:00.005+10:00

How did we get to here so quickly?

Just minutes ago.....

It would be cliché indeed to make a fuss of my baby’s birthday; write a glowing tribute to the tumultuous teen and then struggle to find time to celebrate my darling in between girl. Way to help nurture a case of middle child syndrome ;)

Belated happy birthday greetings to Miss Amy - our dog-whisperer and rescuer; my darling Queen of Spots; the anti-girly-girl; sports junkie; fussy-little-sh…; "most determined on the netball court 2008"; horse-canterer; - my small-statured but big spirited hero and the one who conjures up my very fiercest mother-tiger instinct. Flanked by her boisterous sisters of Amazonian proportions on either side, Amy has always had an instinct for choosing not to compete, but instead carving out her own niche, her own path.

By the tender age of 2 1/2 , she was able to take a good look at her older sister (who was stereotypically pink personified at the time) and set her sights at the opposite end of the spectrum. She simply WAS Woody the Cowboy from Toy Story for about 18 months after that. It all started when she rejected Kate’s fairy costume for a party coming up with a “but I want to be a cowboy Mummy”. When I replied “ok, I can find a cowgirl costume for you”, I was gobsmacked at her utter disgust – how is a toddler capable of such derision?! “NOT a cowgirl Mum – a cowboy, Woody the Cowboy” and that costume was in one of 3 places from them on – on her back, in the washing machine or on the drying rack with my little blonde cowboy checking on it hopefully every 20 minutes or so…

Her passions turned to superheroes by the time she reached 4/5 – batman, spiderman etc with a concurrent fondness for dinosaurs on the side. I remember making her a castle birthday cake with superheroes perched all over and dinosaurs in the moat. I will never forget her rapt expression when she saw it, she was in heaven! I had always done the preparatory party chat with her – “if someone gives you a Barbie or a girly present, it’s important to be polite and say thank you because they did their best. Not everyone knows you and what you like”. She opened a present from a friend and came hurtling excitedly towards me across the room, yelling at the top of her voice “LOOK MUM – Imogen REALLY knows me, she REALLY knows me!” with a beloved pair of spiderman pjs in her hand.

Kate has been carving out a nice line in Daddy’s girl for the last few years, specialising in attending AFL matches (go Tiges!) and cricket games and cuddling up on the couch to watch everything from NBA basketball to soccer and rugby – gorgeous to see. Amy is so instinctively clever – true to her nature, she doesn’t compete or try to crash that party for two. Instead she has laid claim to the title of Playstation 2 buddy, carefully selecting games for Daddy’s birthday for the two of them to share and master together. And instead of spectating football and cricket, she chooses to head on down to the local park at the weekend with Andrew and hit the nets or have a kick themselves. It’s like an unconscious custody arrangement that works very well.

One of the best things we ever did for Amy (and she waited patiently for years for me to be well enough to do so) was to adopt her darling, her beloved, her childhood soulmate Lucky from the RSPCA. If Sophie is Amy’s occasional, easygoing whipping girl and outlet for venting anger, then Lucky is certainly her outlet for love, passion and affection. We all love Lucky, but he has always been and will always be, hers. And to underscore the relationship, she almost immediately married him – very seriously - and even now, at the much more grown up age of 11, she publicly speaks about him as her husband to her friends. She has patience beyond her years to teach him to beg, walk on his hind legs, jump through hoops etc. Another entrepreneur like her older sister, she has already started working on her dog-walking business, recruiting neighbours with savvy marketing strategies and a genuine love for all things canine.

Amy’s a perfectionist, is way too hard on herself, despite being very deliberately parented in an easy-going style. She is shy outside her comfort zone, is a deep thinker (and worrier), yet has a madcap sense of humour too. She is a true snuggle-bunny and incredibly, at the age of 11, I can still comfortably sit her on my hip while chatting. She loves having secret things in common with me that her sisters don’t share – from both being left-handed to having the same chameleon eye colour. She’s good at many things, but socialising does not come naturally to her. She has always been one to appear out of her bedroom at 10.30pm at night to ask me in a trembling voice “where will I live when I’m a grownup?” or “what will happen to Daddy if he can’t stop smoking?” and break my heart just a little. I’m teaching her to challenge her catastrophising negative thoughts and she knows she will always be heard and understood. We work hard together to take the steps that can be so effortless for siblings and peers and so big for her little feet. She is buried so deeply in my heart, it’s the fiercest bond I can imagine and I have to make myself fight the instinct to protect her from the world. She is my angel bear and my hero because as I remind her, it’s easy to do things if you’re not scared, but if you’re scared and you do things anyway, you are the bravest, biggest person I know.

And she is.

Love to Mrs Lucky on her 11th birthday

xxxxx

Feeding time at the zoo

2008-06-30T21:13:00.005+10:00

And no, I’m not talking literally about our house for a change…

The school holiday program at the Melbourne Zoo “totally rocks”, according to some very happy Zoo Detectives of mine. Despite a wild, cold day, the Jennings girls and gorgeous, but camera shy Tom Fewster headed off bright and early to detect their way around the zoo. Please excuse the amateur photos, with some trepidation I gave custody of my camera to the girls for the day and remember, they’re just kids, not gifted photographers ;) If they had their way, this blog would have 50+ slightly unfocused and honestly, rather boring shots of sedentary animals and plants LOL

The undoubted highlight of the day was a spectacular behind-the-scenes experience - getting to handfeed the giraffes, from inside the back of the enclosure – seriously! Now, there’s something different to write in your first day back “what I did in the holidays” essay. And just to show what a fabulously educational blog this is, did you know that giraffe’s tongues are 40 cm long? “More than a ruler Mum!” And they have 7 bones in their necks – “the same as humans, but longer of course Mum”. Amy got a little lion toy for being a good helper for - get this - sorting stick insect eggs – as you do. Apparently they are often deliberately laid in ant nests as they look like ant eggs, so the ants get fooled and look after them, clever little things. The things your kids learn, every day …..

It’s been a week of critters for us. As well as the event-filled afternoon rescuing Tiger the puppy (see previous post), I also had the experience of arriving at the school gate to pick up Amy and Sophie on the last day of term, to be greeted with a joyous “SUR-PRI-ISE”. A surprise that comprised custody of several class yabbies in a large fish tank for the school holidays – a surprise that was met with an ever-so-slightly forced smile on my part. In addition to a bit of an “ick” factor (they’re not exactly cute and cuddly pets and I’m a more traditional dogs and cats lover rather than a rodents and reptiles kind of gal), I had an immediate flashback to when I was a kid and we killed the kinder budgie on our weekend visit. Actually that really should read – the kinder budgie died while at our house – we didn’t actually torture it or anything, but oh the shame, it has clearly stayed with me in a post-traumatic syndrome kind of way. Do you think it didn’t like us and committed suicide???

I did manage to bail on looking after last year’s class mice (by the way, whatever happened to a nice simple class fish??) after having to put up with the smell each day in the classroom and being completely grossed out by the tale of what happened when one of the mice happened to have a litter of babies one weekend and then proceeded to eat the lot of ‘em! UGH just doesn’t do that justice at all…..

Anyway, please send good yabbie vibes our way for the next two weeks as I’m sure I could never face Amy’s teacher again if we didn’t keep her beloved crustaceans healthy. And I, for one, am sticking to dogs – nothing exotic or slimy around here!

And a quick link especially for Tom's Mum - the lovely and erudite Kate Fewster (who I'm sure wears the "bad grammar makes me [sic]" badge I gave her with pride):

http://www.apostrophe.fsnet.co.uk/

http://www.apostrophepolice.org/mission

Its vital that you enlist, Constable Fewster and keep all of blogland safe from those apostrophe criminal's .....

Overheard.....

2008-06-30T02:41:00.002+10:00

sex education: 10-year-old-big-sis-to-9-year-old-lil-sis style

9yo: "So can you go for a swim when you have a period?"

10yo: "No way - of course not! "

9yo "Why not?"

10yo "Because a shark would get you, wouldn't it?"

9yo: "Ohhh, ok" (files that little gem away)

well, der...

FOUND

2008-06-27T17:09:00.004+10:00

We are the Jenningsgirls dog rescue team with a great reputation for protecting the canine lost and helpless and reuniting them with their loved ones. Amy can sniff out a lost puppy a mile away and won’t rest til we’ve saved it.

A few months ago I walked our dog Lucky to school on a sunny afternoon to pick the girls up. We wandered around the outskirts of the local park on our way home, throwing sticks for our obsessive-retriever until Amy spotted an unsupervised little terrier. “He has no owner Mum” – “I’m sure his owner is around here somewhere sweetheart” – “no, he doesn’t belong to anyone, we can’t just leave him here” – “sigh”.

So after sending Amy to ask any likely suspects about ownership with no success, I did have to reluctantly admit that this dog looked like he’d gone AWOL. Fortunately he had a mobile phone number on his tag and I had my phone in my pocket and moments later I was speaking to his surprised owner who was 20 minutes drive away at work – he was an escapee! I offered to drop him off on our walk home only to find that she lived further up the street from us, so in the end Kubrick came home with us to have a playdate with Lucky until our neighbour came home from work.

Amy has stopped another neighbour’s dog Luigi from being accidentally run when he got out (there are clearly armies of North Fitzroy dogs tunneling away merrily each day) and today we saved the adorable Tiger. She is just the sweetest puppy, scampering down the middle of the road all on her lonesome this afternoon - thank goodness she hadn't been hit by a car. I called out "puppy, puppy, puppy" to her and she just leapt into my arms and snuggled in, trembling, poor little thing.

So we scooped her up and tried to find her owner, but to no avail. Went to the local vet to find that she had no microchip, they wanted to take her to the animal shelter, but the look on the girls’ faces - oh no! We couldn’t give her up without trying for a reunion and said we planned to doorknock first – she brought out the protective instinct in all of us. LOL

We doorknocked a little, then decided to try again after 5.30pm as I figured her owner was probably at work (no convenient phone number on the tag this time). The girls just cooed over her happily while I worked on a FOUND poster (with the photos above) until a knock at the door revealed her frantic owner who had been directed to our house by someone we'd spoken to – she was wildly grateful and relieved as it was her sister’s dog who had dug its way out while she’d been at work. We were all sad to see her go – she had burrowed straight into all our hearts, but she’s another dog we can proudly add to our SAVED list! (Oh and just to show what equal animal opportunity rescuers we are, we also saved our neighbour's cat Oomi from what Amy called "the bully cat" who was beating it up thoroughly.)

Thanks for the great suggestions for a holiday song to send out into the universe with hope, but this is my fave oldie-but-goodie on the topic. Love vintage Madonna - her style, her choreography (kind of a groovy aerobics routine) and maybe that she looks like she's really enjoying herself - long before she was British Madge with the wincingly cut biceps, leotards, botox etc. Or maybe I just feel so affectionate because this was from when I was just a teenager, taping my favourite songs off local radio 3BA in the days when the dinosaurs roamed the earth... ;) Imeem is down for maintenance at the moment, so here's the youtube video clip in the meantime. And it is the last day of term today (YAY), so v. appropriate...

it's a whine-win situation

2008-06-21T17:19:00.004+10:00

As a number of friends can testify, I have a kind of space-cadet, looney-tunes, new-age-esque hodge podge of a belief system. I don’t believe the number of fateful coincidences, precursors, apparent messages and kismet that life serves up is entirely random. I believe we send energy, karma, messages out into the universe and it invariably responds if we’re listening. I believe messages and opportunities are placed under our noses and it’s up to us whether we’re ready to receive. I guess I simply believe in method in the madness. But I’m probably just talking madness LOL

Ahem, the point of all that Sue? Well, I am trying to remember to change my blog music on an at least monthly basis in the hope that this doesn’t become of those annoying blogs where you have to remember to turn the volume off before you visit ;) So after a blog desert and a fertile little big life in the month of May, Emmy Rossum’s “Slow me down" seemed an appropriate accompaniment to this mad juggling act of mine. Out into the universe I sent the sentiment:

Rushing and racing
and running in circles
Moving so fast, I'm forgetting my purpose
Blur of the traffic is sending me spinning
Getting nowhere

My head and my heart are colliding, chaotic
Pace of the world
I just wish I could stop it
Try to appear like I've got it together
I'm falling apart

Save me
Somebody take my hand, and lead me
Slow me down
Don't let love pass me by
Just show me how
'Cause I'm ready to fall
Slow me down
Don't let me live a lie
Before my life flies by
I need you to slow me down

Less than 48 hours later, the universe answered, in digital forum naturally – an email:

Subject: SUSSAN - Congratulations you have won!

Dear Sue,

You have won a relaxation package from Sussan.

You have won:
1 x Sussan Organic Lounge Outfit consisting of pants, jacket & top
valued at $124.95
1 x Massage Voucher valued $100
1 x 3 month Fernwood Gym membership

:-O I never win anything! And thanks Emmy. Now I have just two questions – is the universe telling me to get fit? And does anyone know a song about a holiday in Tahiti I can put on my blog?

Thirteen years ago

2008-06-16T17:13:00.003+10:00

Now...

Then ...

The day the universe expanded, exploded - in direct proportion with my heart. The day my life changed – a quantum leap, paradigm shift, transforming the very landscape of my path, the person I would be – changed so completely, so quickly, so utterly, so unrecognisably. From high-flying, ambitious corporate workhorse to stunningly contented SAHM, it was a reincarnation that surprised pretty much everyone, including myself.

The day Kate blazed into this world. I had no idea how hard I would fall for this divine, squalling creature we created. What a gift she is.

So let me introduce my darling big little girl Kate. Please understand that this post is going to be completely self-indulgent and dripping with sentiment. If this is likely to have a nauseating effect, please feel free to pass on by and return on a day when I’m feeling more acerbic or silly ;) I would just like to record all of this before it evaporates into the ether/falls out of the sieve that is my head….

Katie kitten is the quintessential big sister to the world. She even big sisters me on occasion, especially since she started towering over me. If Andrew and I are not around, Amy and Sophie will turn to her to make everything better – and she does. She has a gorgeous, generous soul with just the faintest streak of hormonal tween bitch LOL In fact, the occasional flashes of hormonal attitude in such an easygoing daughter put the fear of her sisters reaching adolescence into my heart! There is part of me that secretly respects the way she challenges me, that somehow she is metamorphosising from a compliant child into a woman with her own mind – that suddenly I have this wonderful, complicated, fiery, opinionated other woman in our house.

So yes she does have legs that go forever and come in handy on the netball court – I’m proud that she doesn’t stoop, she walks tall, owning her space in the world. Life is about people – friends, family are what make her world go round. She wants to try everything, is impossibly self-possessed and takes such enjoyment out of life. She has hit the ground running (actually she was so impatient she tried to head on out of the womb 8 weeks early, giving us all a scare, but I put up a fight to keep her a little longer and held on til 38 weeks when she insisted on greeting the world). Not much has changed, she has always taken every single step further into the world at full-tilt, at a run, eagerly embracing each new friend, each new experience. I am always so glad that she does everything first, scales every new mountain, starts every new chapter – she makes it so stressfree. She has effortlessly moved this year from a primary school that she could walk to in less than 5 minutes to a secondary school which she needs to take a train and then a tram to get to. She loves it – both the independence and of course, the inevitable mobile phone LOL I love her school uniform after 7 years of none at her primary school!

She came home from her very first day at high school talking animatedly about a term-long alpine residential camp which nearly made her mother’s head explode. It’s not til year nine, but she was ready to go on the first day. Next it was the school trip to France which she’d love to do this year but which has been vetoed til she a) speaks more than half a dozen words of French and b) gets a part-time job to contribute ;) Which really won’t be a problem as she’s lined up at least 3 jobs at the tender age of 12, the little A-type that she is. We are trying to stall friends with babies and toddlers and wanting her to babysit to “wait til she at least turns 14”! Lil ones just adore her, it’s no wonder she’s in demand already. Not to mention how oh-so-comfortable she is already behind the register or pricing gun at her beloved Kate Fewster’s shop, Little Smarties (see link on the left).

She told me she wanted a bank account at the age of 9 and started saving. What for, I asked and she airily explained she was saving for her apartment (a beloved babysitter was moving out of home into an apartment at the time). When I asked when she was moving out, she declared “12,” and when I explained that most 12 year olds didn’t have their own apartments, she decided she could wait til she was 15 LOL I will never have to worry about this child/woman. She is going to make magic happen in her own life, the sky is the limit and I’m pretty sure that’s where she’s aimed herself.

She loves a sleep-in, has only two speeds, full steam ahead or sloth. She can argue til she’s blue in the face and even in the face of complete wrongedness, can achieve an impressive level of articulate denial. She already ties up the bathroom for half an hour at a time. Bald for more than 18 months, I despaired as friends played with ribbons and pigtails – of course she grew an impressive mane of blond curls that were certainly worth waiting for, christened “Kate with the Bubble Hair” at kinder. She looks so very much like her Dad if you can get past that cloud of curls and even my mother said so the day she was born. She loves clothes (what a huge surprise!), wants to be a children’s fashion designer and stylist who coaches netball on the side when she grows up.

I truly don’t know what I’d do without her, I rely on her so much with Andrew away regularly and with a few physical challenges myself. I’d say we are so very alike, except it’s like she’s really a new, improved version with extra features, new technology, stronger, better, louder, faster, taller LOL She is a kindred spirit, I am already starting to enjoy books, music, cooking, girlie shopping trips and chick flicks with her.

So this is thirteen. Happiest of happy days my big little girl

Love love love
Mum
xxxxx

and the festival of Kate continues…..

2008-06-13T22:29:00.003+10:00

She’s in sleepover heaven at this very moment, with her BFFs, a couple of chick flicks, tv and dvd player IN HER BEDROOM no less! (don’t get used to it Kate, it’s going back to the playroom tomorrow).

They had dinner out at the roolly noice local pizza restaurant on their own (no younger sisters allowed), called the Mum taxi (which handily also pays for dinner), then back home for the homemade mutant chocolate covered icecream creation (ice cream and melted chocolate are natural enemies – the hot chocolate melts the ice cream, the ice cream warms the chocolate back to solid too quickly – hard to work with, but hilarious and most importantly, YUM). They are still giggling away happily, all is well in tween world.

And no, she’s not actually 13 yet – roll on Monday LOL

Appliance failure is the mother of innovation…

2008-06-11T20:31:00.004+10:00

… not to mention the easy peasy cheese(y)cake

This recipe (dedicated to the very patient Stompergirl) has been roadtested by not only my personal team of three little taste-testers (who love to check that my cooking isn’t “poisonous” LOL), but also by the staff at the school where I work and by a number of bloggers and friends who hit town recently and caught up at Little Smarties (FAB children’s clothing shop in Kew, see link on the left). Gotta love a combo of shopping, friends, champagne and cheesecake :)

It is just ridiculously easy and doesn’t even require the use of an oven. This is because just before I needed to provide the aforementioned morning tea, my oven died and my dreams of making a sampler of bitesized cheesecake portions shattered. A quick google search for “recipe cheesecake no bake” later, I threw together a couple of different results (using the added melted chocolate from one, the shortbread base from another etc) and created this now treasured addition to my repertoire. Of course, the oven was resurrected in time for morning tea, so I added some baked cheesecakes to the platter as well – variations on a theme kind of thing. But really, from now on, will I bother to bake?

So, take a packet of shortbread biscuits, put in a freezer bag, crush with rolling pin and add about 50g of melted butter and mix together. Press into tin (baking paper/sprayed/buttered/greased) - or if you’re into all things mini like me, put into individual patty pans - and refrigerate. Take a 250g pkt of cream cheese, leave it out of the fridge for a while til it’s soft, add a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice and mix. Add a couple of teaspoons of vanilla essence, a can of sweetened condensed milk and 100g of melted white chocolate and beat for about a minute, seriously, that's about all it needs. Pour on top of shortbread base. Refrigerate for a couple of hours. Tada! Yes, truly, that’s it.

You can fiddle around with it too – I’ve done these with strawberry puree (squishing fresh strawberries through a sieve and adding a little icing sugar), then pouring a little on top of the cheesecake and swishing around with a toothpick to make pretty patterns. I also did them with melted Lindt dark chocolate with orange filling – yum! Of course you can put a raspberry or strawberry or grated flake on top etc, etc etc – it’s all good or, as Sophie would say, “scrumalicious”. Oh, and when you have too much cheesecake filling, you can just grab some good ole Marie biscuits and create cheesecake sandwiches for the kids’ playlunches which is a v. popular move, I must say.....

Drawing the line with the Queen of Teen

2008-05-31T20:23:00.002+10:00

Mmm, after writing that post title, I can think of a whole ‘nuther way this post could go, as any Mum of a 12-going-on-16-yo could understand. But no, this is about drawing a party line in the sand. I have survived the birthday party circuit for all my girls each year and there needs to be an end in sight because how else will Sophie ever catch up to Kate? And I don’t ever want to be organising one of those late-teenage parties you hear about with security guards or necessitating calls to the police, so I think that the start of secondary school is the perfect line drawing year.

Of course, the blow has been softened with a small sleepover and control freak that I am, I even managed to hand over invitation making duties to my near-teen (17 days she tells me – do you remember being that excited about your next birthday that you knew exactly how many days???). And this is what she came up with – aren’t they simply gorgeous and oh-so-grown-up?

I put them on our sideboard to photograph right next to a pile of photos, including Princess Kate, circa 2000, so I added her to the pic because it is near impossible for me to get an acquiescent photo of her these days, she’s worse than a toddler LOL I have been attempting to capture her winter school uniform (complete with tie no less) and the pics above show just how co-operative she is feeling atm. It’s the same thing with her hair – she has this great mane of dark blond curls and ringlets that is truly spectacular out and she knows I love it that way , so she hides it away in drab braids, buns and ponytails simply to annoy me, I’m sure! I need to start using reverse psychology I think.

How can I possibly be grown-up enough to have a teenager daughter…..

Mayday, mayday.....

2008-05-26T19:01:00.004+10:00

Pic of my darling Sophie’s Mother’s Day card, bless her.

Inspired by my Mothers' Day present (see below)

Can’t believe this whole month is passing me by with a whirlwind/explosion/rollercoaster of life that is big enough that I apparently don’t have time to sit back and reflect on it… Just a mad exhausting happy flurry of champagne, work, kids, taxi-ing, socialising, writing for money (woohoo!), seminars, dinners, family, cooking, parties...

So a very belated Happy Mothers' Day to all the fabulous mothers out there that I am so happy to call my friends, don’t know what I’d do without you – one of the happier surprises of becoming a mother is discovering the sisterhood of generosity and empathy that we share. In that spirit, want to share a couple of thoughts from a sweet little book I was given for Mother’s Day by Susannah Mac. It’s called

“You’re a Fabulous Mum
(despite the stale bread, unmade beds and guilty thoughts in your head)”

– yes, definitely my kind of parenting ;)

Firstly a couple of helpful definitions:

Guilt
Consciousness of wrongdoing

Guilt, maternal
ILLUSION of wrongdoing. Irrational, nagging conviction that you are failing your children and would be doing so much better if you were almost anyone else. Seemingly no male equivalent

Some timely reassurance:

It is not selfish to want ten minutes to read the paper without child, partner or pet lying on you.
It does not mean you do not love to distraction the above child, partner or pet.

And some real wisdom:

The joys of motherhood are never fully experienced until the children are in bed.
Author unknown

I was also spoilt with a surprise gift that I’ve been pining for/lusting after for ages - a mix master just like my Mum used to have. I remember fighting over who was going to lick the beaters with my brother and sisters. Yes, it does fall into that insidious and much maligned category of a present that makes you work, but oh, it hardly feels like work, it feels like play and delicious play at that and given that I had been handbeating things since the bamix died, it actually makes less work! Have been making lots of bits of yum ever since - have a fab easy cheesecake recipe to share when I get a moment.

Promise to be back soon with news, pics and recipes
xxxxx

dance of the non sense

2008-04-29T03:04:00.006+10:00

Invisible cloud
Wraps you like
Cotton wool
Words drop slowly
Like soft rain
Elusive

Brain stumbling over
Unknown dance steps
Whispers of unfamilar music

A kaleidoscope of harsh colour
A crashing wall of impenetrable noise
A blur of too-fast motion
An assault of tactile overload
Knocking you off balance
You're tipping, slipping
Words really are weapons
In this war of your senses

Focus
Go back to the core
Hit ctrl+alt+del

Tessellated shapes
Constructing walls around you
Composure built brick by brick
No deadline here, no rush

Flapping, chewing, sucking, rocking
Your own dance of comfort

soothed

Quirky-go-round

2008-04-27T18:54:00.002+10:00

I have been tagged by the lovely, quirky Kristen http://kristens-memories-dreams.blogspot.com/

These are the rules:

Link the person who tagged you
Mention the rules on your blog
Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours
Tag 6 fellow bloggers by linking them
Leave a comment on each of the tagged bloggers blogs letting them know they have been tagged.

This is my first try at tagging here and while I love the idea of a big blogland game of chasey, hope I don’t trip over my virtual shoelaces trying to make this work….. I do want to say thanks to Tanya who posted a comment to help Kristen work out how to link, I just followed your instructions :)

Just 6 of my quirks? Well, it’s a start ;)

1.

I take a paper route to happiness every Sunday and become slightly unhinged if I can’t get my “fix”. I take the Sunday newspapers (including those lovely glossy colour mag inserts) and leave the house – I don’t think it really matters where I go (usually a local café) as long as I leave all family members/noise/responsibilities behind – reading on the couch in the midst of aforementioned chaos does NOT cut it! If I miss out, I can be heard to mutter darkly on a Sunday evening that “I haven’t read my papers” and if someone is silly enough to reply that I can always read them tomorrow, I’ll likely bite their head off as it’s NOT THE POINT!

2.

While I can appear appropriately grown-up, moderately dressed and able to be relied on to make sensible decisions, there is a large part of me which is still 8 years old. I never wanted to turn nine, so part of me clearly stayed there and it only comes out to play with the girls, when I’m really over-tired, rather like a child who’s consumed a jug of red cordial. I have been known to initiate body-slamming and wrestling competitions, silly dances, songs and even break out the “psycho bum”, but only to an audience of three hysterically giggly girls who have to be sworn to secrecy afterwards ;)

3.

I am a woman of mass distraction. My poor husband despairs at the half-completed jobs, projects and great ideas that lie around our house, awaiting my attention. I have the attention span of a gnat or a goldfish these days and things fall out of my head like a sieve (yes, I am Sophie’s mother, more and more so, it appears). Andrew will walk into the kitchen to find the dishwasher open, either half-packed or half-unpacked; lunches half prepared; a sponge on the bench, half-wiped; half a load of washing hung out with the rest still languishing in the basket while I sit doing a jigsaw puzzle with the girls which most likely, we leave half-completed LOL

4.

I have a bookcase full, literally sagging under the weight of the worthy literature I want to read, but my junk-brain-food of choice for the last decade has been appalling trashy magazines. Perfectly suitable for a sleep deprived mother’s barely functioning brain, they are pickupable and equally putdownable when interrupted without the rancour involved in interrupting me in the midst of a good book – they are the equivalent of a fast food happy meal or a bitesized chocolate portion…..

5.

I am compelled to go shopping every time my husband leaves the country. I don’t know why, my only theory is that it’s some kind of unconscious reward/filling the void mechanism, but I do know from extensive mother research that I’m not the only one (you know who you are)! All I can do is attempt to channel it into legitimate and necessary purchases ;)

6.

Since a burglar walked into my bedroom and woke me up in the middle of the night 18 months ago while Andrew was working in Sydney, I am a psychotic, anxious-beyond-all-rational-thought lunatic at night when he’s away. So a night without him now involves a sophisticated alarm system activated, all doors checked at least twice before I go to bed, more glasses of red wine than is strictly necessary or advisable, several rounds of check-the-girls, the dog allowed to sleep inside, lights either on or motion activated all around the outside of the house, TWO phones beside the bed, the tv left on low in the bedroom all night (for company and a little light) and still I am likely to jump up out of bed at some point with a huge adrenalin rush, thanks to a partying possum or carousing neighbour. I am such an irrational, phobic baby.

Ok, here goes, I hope these work – I am tagging:

Carrie http://carrieyoung.typepad.com/love_laugh_live

Georgie http://itsaporterslife.blogspot.com/

Stomper Girl http://stompergirl.blogspot.com/

Trudi http://trudiswords.blogspot.com/

Kaz http://itsonlymekaz.blogspot.com/

Ali J http://aussiepatches.typepad.com/aussiepatches

Thought Full

2008-04-24T18:40:00.002+10:00

I love blogs that are Beauty Full, but also those that are Thought Full - not considerate-thoughtful, but full-of-thought. I have been full of thought about Soozadoo’s recent post about being Frank http://soozadoo.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/frank/

I was not Frank as a child, in fact probably the opposite. I was brought up under a authoritarian parenting regime to be a nice girl, compliant, well behaved with my purpose in life being to keep everyone happy. No opinions to be voiced, no authority to be challenged – you get the picture. It takes years to undo that training – years to develop the confidence and belief that you are actually entitled to an opinion, to be difficult, to disagree without some kind of cataclysmic disaster ensuing. To really understand that in a good relationship, you can be angry without being abandoned. To take a chance on saying what you really think, instead of being appalling passive aggressive – what a relief!

I look back on my early 20s and realise that while I looked like a cute little Barbie, I had about the same amount of depth – just a walking talking doll who reflected whatever was acceptable and decorous. I had no self-esteem for if self-esteem stems from keeping everyone happy, from the sum total of your actions for that day, then it is never really safe, you can never relax. It has taken years of life experience to develop not only physical wrinkles, scars and bulges, but also a new person, Sue who has opinions, who doesn’t care so much about other people’s thoughts, who has permission to disagree with you, ever so gently and diplomatically ;) And to bring up three daughters to be as Frank as they want – even if those daughters are more challenging to parent LOL

While I respect Susannah and her forthright warrior truthfulness, I will never be that Frank. However I am working towards being authentically Sue and the satisfaction is immense, palpable.

So thanks Susannah, for making me Thought Full/an introspective, navel gazing wanker ;)
xxxxx

Holding her horses

2008-04-23T20:29:00.004+10:00

excited but a l'il bit nervous...

up up and away :)

45 mins later - an old hand

Due to time and energy constraints, I’ve generally tried to do a 3 for 1 deal with the girls’ activities where possible – they all learn piano from the same teacher on the same afternoon and all play netball for the same club – it was either that or clone myself… But every now and then one falls hard, passionately and individually as is the case with Amy and horses.

She recently worked a couple of mornings at the Collingwood Children’s Farm http://www.farm.org.au/ through their school holiday program which entitled her to riding lessons in the afternoons. She came home bursting with enthusiasm and horsey love and sat down to write her Dad - in Paris buying fugly caps ;) - a 22 line email saying “it was the very best experience of my entire life”. Head over heels, she would be smuggling a horse home if we had more than the obligatory inner suburban postage stamp sized court yard. Just seems to me that if you feel that strongly about something, it should probably be something you get to do more than once.

A little investigation, a friend's recommendation and off we went to Peppercorn Equestrian Centre for her first lesson this afternoon and such perfect, quitessentially Melbourne autumn weather for it too. Amy learned how to brush Robbie the pony, put on the saddle etc, weave around cones, halt, gee-up and all those other technical terms – of course she’s now completely hooked and apparently we need to go visit “Horseland” (which sounds like we should be climbing the Magic Faraway Tree to get to) for boots, jodpurs and helmet. And yes, I am aware that I'm getting ridiculous amounts of vicarious pleasure out of this? Just luvving it all – the horsey childhood I always pined for myself ;) I’m still in shock that she could make the horse go in the direction she wanted him to!

Check out the junk on the trunk**

2008-04-21T17:26:00.008+10:00

Zoo birthday party a roaring success…

Sorry, couldn’t resist the pun (what a huge surprise). Additional apologies for the self-indulgent number of pics, so many great moments and images.

Sophie had a glorious party at the Melbourne Zoo yesterday – generous autumnal weather and gorgeously well behaved little friends (can you tell why she gets along so well with her friend with the rainbow wig? LOL – if not, just go back to the parisien chapeau post and all will become clear).

Plus a special surprise from her very favourite animals of all time – the elephants sent her their very own birthday card and she is the proud “adoptor” of an elephant for the year. We got to have lunch in the old elephant stables and go behind the scenes to have a hands-on experience with some creepy and other cute creatures (NOT the elephants, much to her disappointment LOL), followed by a carousel ride where Sophie rode on - you guessed it - an elephant!

With the help of her older sisters, we managed to secretly concoct a reasonable cake facsimile of an elephant’s head (although one of her friends did innocently ask “what’s that supposed to be?” - you mean you can't tell???). Fortunately, Sophie herself is a more forgiving audience – looking at her face, you can’t help but know she loves it, as mutant as it is.

Could that little birthday face be any more shiny happy? She glowed all day. Just love her to bits…..

Happy birthday Sophie Sunshine
xxxxx

** Junk on the trunk of the cake of course ;)

PS Fabulous new song is courtesy of my darling Kate who loves Sara Bareilles, thanks for the introduction Katie, I love her too xxxxx

Kicking gender stereotypes right out of the park

2008-04-16T19:07:00.004+10:00

As mothers of children of the same gender will know, everyone thinks you keep having children to attempt to get the gender you don’t have yet – ie, the only possible reason for having a 3rd baby after two girls is to “get” a boy. (wishing for a eye rolling emoticon here)

Well, much as I have a soft spot for any cute cheeky boy who comes my way, who needs one in our family when you have girls like this? Anything boys can do, I am determined to do just as well/hard/tough etc kind of girls, ours. Kate started at a girls only secondary school this year and joined both the school’s cricket and AFL footy teams, much to her sisters’ respect and delight. And now Amy has come home tonight to announce excitedly that she is featured on the Auskick posters and website for this year http://www.aflauskick.com.au/, sinking the boot in mightily - have a look on the website front page and see if you can spot her. They love nothing better than heading down to the local park for a casual kick or a game of cricket or basketball with their Dad on the weekend. Or to go and cheer on their beloved Tigers at the MCG. Go sporty girls!

Je n’aime pas le chapeau parisien

2008-04-15T15:20:00.006+10:00

Of all the hats in all the shops in all of Paris and he comes home with this.

It offends my eye, it’s so wickedly fluouro that my camera can’t even do justice, it literally glows in the dark for goodness sake! Where is the appropriately chic little beret???

Worst of all, she LOVES it. (sigh) I had to prise it off her head in bed the other night LOL And with no school uniform, it even comes to school with us in the morning, there is truly no escape (til I manage to lose it under the couch when she’s not looking).

I am woman enough to admit that the rest of us fared well – I have a gorgeous black scarf, Kate is thrilled with her own copy of a French Vogue and cool sunnies while Amy loves her absolutely inoffensive little beret-wearing French plush dog. But what was he thinking when he picked out this (in his words) “French urban” hat???

Well, that settles it. Next time, I will just HAVE to come to Paris too. ;)

pachyderm party girl

2008-04-11T18:32:00.004+10:00

Sophie has a passion for all things elephant, hence our plans for a birthday party at the Melbourne Zoo next weekend. Chatting with Carrie, the most accomplished "Martha"* I know, http://carrieyoung.typepad.com/love_laugh_live/ about our children's parties, themes, invitations etc a while back, she generously donated a fabulous idea right off the top of her head for Sophie's invitations - a paper elephant chain, trunk to tail. So now I had the inspiration, just needed the execution (always the problematic bit for me LOL)

Sophie loves craft and wanted full involvement in the invitation process - from design elements right through to colour choices and "calligraphy" (8 yo style). This invitation had so many different and disparate activities involved, it took us an entire weekend which of course pleased her no end. We found a zillion cute elephant images on the internet that we individually printed, cut and pasted them into a collage to scan. Then we made a template for our cute rainbow family chain of elephant dolls with different party information detailed on each one. These sprang out from the inside of the invitation, making it 3D. But that wasn't nearly enough for Sophie (not a less is more kinda gal) who then needed to let loose with her elephant stamps as well.

Ah, in the old days, I might have been too precious, too perfectionistic to let her mess with my originally minimalistic and roolly classy concept LOL, but after lessons learned from wiser friends, 8 yo creativity and choices reign in this household. And just look at the fabulous result - no, not the invites - the proud as punch, beaming child who totally owns and adores that creation. Little does she know how many gifts she (we) continue to receive from Ava and Sheye http://www.sheyerosemeyer.blogspot.com/

* "Martha" - noun (mar-thuh)

a creative individual, usually female, who possesses the ability to make everyday items/food/craft/homewares/moments look effortlessly chic and gorgeous: origin - American, from the infamous homemaker/felon

Thanks Carrie MWAH
xxxxx

For Georgie...

2008-04-09T16:28:00.002+10:00

... who needs a good laugh

Found the talented Jen on http://madeit.com.au/ - (her seller id is maxifunbutton). Madeit is a fun etsy-esque treasure trove of hand made goodies. As you can see by her badges, she has a wicked sense of humour that has me PMSL. Jen, I wore my “bad grammar makes me [sic]” badge to school today and cracked up the teachers no end, thanks sweetie.

And Georgie? Eat your damn lemons girl LOL And if you want one of the “keep your shitty music to yourself” ones for that friend of yours from the badlands), just let me know ;)

coast is clear

2008-04-07T15:25:00.005+10:00

We got down to the beach over Easter, catching up with family and friends and basically living at the dog beach between Point Lonsdale and Queenscliff. Lucky lived up to his name, getting to chase approx infinity + 1 balls down the beach, bunny-hopping through the waves and wearing all other canine competitors into the ground with his singular obsession. Sophie hit the water immediately and turned into a sea monster (most tanned bum crack in Victoria, that girl LOL), while Kate and Amy climbed some rocks and sat and watched the Sophie and Lucky show from afar together. Just look at that second pic of them on the rocks together – can you believe that they are only 2 years apart? Kate is 12 and Amy is 10 – it looks more like 16 and 7 or something LOL They eventually braved the water too and took part in our very own Easter miracle – look - Jennings girls can walk on water!!!

Had to share this - they breed ‘em smart down the coast, check this story out about the Cats supporter whose tattoo went terribly wrong, nearly made me spit out my easter eggs LOL:

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22751214-5006301,00.html

Have had self-indulgent homesick songs lately, this feels much more joyous. Back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth and boys gave girls tapes like bouquets or love letters, mine gave me this one. I adored it and him, sent it back to him recently (well, the link, not a tape LOL). It stands the test of time better than most 80s tunes and so has he…..

Would you let this woman work with YOUR children?

2008-04-06T15:20:00.003+10:00

I just discovered something new about myself. After taking on Susannah’s photo challenge http://soozadoo.wordpress.com/2008/04/01/dare-you/, she commented that my pic was disappointingly normal after my talk of a scary serial killer worthy photo on my working with children id. Inspired by contagious hardcore efforts like Stomper girl http://stompergirl.blogspot.com/ and caught up in a rare fit of bravado I emailed Susannah the offending pic which made her laugh. With that laugh I realised that I would rather be funny than beautiful and resolved to post it here. Yay - humour outranks vanity :)

This was taken a few weeks ago and as I stood mug-like against the wall and presented my most pleasant smile, I was told sternly I was not allowed to smile, not even a little bit. And that if my fringe had been any longer, I would have had to pin it back off my face on the spot “for identification purposes”. WTF? I am starting to think that all these rules were put in place purely to give passport checkers a good laugh at our expense – are they just trying to make us all as ugly as we could be? Anyway, in return for baring my worst/oldest-looking/harshest face EVER, I demand that in Soozadoo all passport/id photographs be taken by photographers of the caliber of Sheye and Carrie, generously, softly lit and that everyone can smile.

between a rock and a marred face

2008-04-03T16:30:00.000+11:00

For Susannah http://soozadoo.wordpress.com/2008/04/01/dare-you/ because you're right.

No kid buffers/distractors/cover-upperers (always my first instinct).

Why is it that I cannot see past teeth that should have had braces, shiny face, crows feet, glasses askew, hair a mess? Trying to just see the happy...

missing you already

2008-03-27T20:35:00.000+11:00

been doing this awhile now, my weary traveller
best part of business trips is the home-coming
xxxxx

Watching you disappear into clouds
To once again dance with (corporate) wolves
Protecting your flock
Providence no accident of fate
But hard-earned with your Eiffel-esque towering diligence

I imagine you hurtling into a faraway parallel universe
The land of topsy turvy
Decompressing in plastic, bland
Mini-barred cells
Where homework does not exist
Nor netball runs
Nor goodnight kisses
As you go undercovers
Not our own

It is easy to let you fly
Hard to let you go
A colour lost from our rainbow
The bass missing from our now-too-shrill
familial chorus
I have a hankering for
The rumble of your freight train snore
That keeps the night on track
There is no solace in the tiresome silence
(be careful what you wish for)
Detesting the absence of your throaty reassurance

There is so much air and space between us
Yet you never get a page ahead in the story
Absence never makes your heart go wander
So fly high
(But not too close to the sun)
Fly safe, fly home
Knowing you are always
in sight, in mind

Bunnies in the oven

2008-03-26T02:07:00.000+11:00

I often idly think about writing a parenting book based soley on warnings. Eg- to all young, enthusiastic, naive parents – do not start family traditions, especially those tied up with mythical holiday figures, that you are not prepared to continue with for years and years, long past the point of novelty wearing off. Do NOT, I repeat do NOT come up with cute, creative and complicated easter egg hunts if you don’t want to be forced to continue to be cute, creative and complicated forever or risk ruining the myth for those fresh-faced innocents. It’s a hard thing to justify trying to convince kids that the Easter Bunny was just really tired this year or couldn’t be bothered LOL There are so many wellmeaning, misguided rods in/on ?? this back of mine, that it's really a wonder I can even sit down anymore. The girls do a great chorus of “but it’s a family TRAD-I-SHUN, Mum” LOL

Anyway, I was gonna bail this year, I really was, the kids could just get a pile of chocolate on the table and then all my slack intentions were railroaded by childish excitement and memories – I swear children can smell potential maternal slothfulness and rev their manipulative joy up a gear quickly to get me guilt-stricken and beholden again. We spent Easter at my parents’ house in Ocean Grove, it’s been some time since we were there at Easter and Amy was raving about the wonderful Easter Bunny treasure hunt they had there “remember, he left us a real letter and we all had bags and all the eggs had Hi-5 stickers on them and I had Tim and Sophie had Nathan and Kate had Charlie and we had to search all over the house and it was the bestest Easter ever! I hope we can do that again”. Dammit! And she would have been only about 4 at the time and I can’t believe she can remember the whole thing so vividly. So the Easter Bunny was up at midnight with a couple of drinks under her belt (Mr Bunny fast asleep and snoring like a steam train), whacking eggs and plush toys in all sorts of really quite amusing places. Fortunately the kids are macabre enough to love the sight of plush rabbits hidden in the oven in a baking tray and it gave EB a few giggles at midnight too LOL Hey, whatever gets you through the hunt… ;)

And can’t pass up the opportunity to have a rant about Easter excess while I’m here. Back when I was a kid (start rolling your eyes here, I’m used to it) and dinosaurs roamed the earth, the only person we got Easter eggs from was the Easter Bunny. These days, my girls get a couple of kilos of chocolate from each set of indulgent grandparents, more from doting aunts and now they’re even bringing truckloads home from school courtesy of friends and teachers. The Easter Bunny is completely redundant, but unfortunately unable to sit back and retire with a nice big payout, but instead ends up having to sneakily bring very small amounts of chocolate that still look exciting (hence the chocolate Cluedo game – how cool is that? And plush animals because lord knows we don’t have enough of them around here…)

Anyway, getting off track mid-rant, the amount of chocolate the girls get is blardy ridiculous and has turned me into the Easter Nazi - probably closely related to the Christmas Grinch - (turn away from the horror now Susannah, I am your worst nightmare) who insists on monitoring and rationing out every morsel of chocolate the girls are allowed to eat. It’s not the calories, the health ramifications, not even the potential dentist bills, it’s the crazy sugar high/inevitable post sugar high plummet that I can’t, I really just can’t deal with. And it’s school holidays - I have nowhere to hide for weeks LOL At the paltry rate I dole out and the sky-high pile of confectionery here, we’ll still be eating eggs at Christmas, maybe we can leave them out for Santa ;)

Still gotta love pics of happy kids in flan pjs holding up their score. :-)

Oh the pain and humiliation…..

2008-03-25T02:51:00.000+11:00

..... of having your mother work at your school LOL

'Twas a long hard road to these happy snaps, I assure you. I try not to have my oh-so-convenient job at the girls' primary school impact negatively on them, especially as they get older and more self-conscious (and I simultaneously become ever greater a potential source of mortification). Hasn't really been a problem until our recent Carnevale day (Italian celebration) held at school on the last day of term one. Teachers, aides, principal, even the office staff dress up along with the kids and as you can see there's a big parade. The teachers in the grade 3/4 area where I work decided to go as ballroom dancers (WTF?) and the look on Amy's face when she heard me complaining to Kate about it was just priceless. There was a whole double-take, I-can't-possibly-be-hearing-what-I'm-hearing-pick-my-jaw-up-off-the-floor routine going on accompanied by a wailing soundtrack of "Muuuuuuuum, you can't do it, you can't do it to me!" LOL In her defence, how many 10 yos do you know who'd want their daggy Mum turning up at school in spangles and lycra? It is a scary thought indeed, I could feel her pain and was really quite happy to abandon the group participation idea anyway ;)

Amy is shy dressing up outside our house, especially parading in front of the school anyway - she tends to prefer claytons costumes, the ones where if you didn't know she was dressing up, well you wouldn't know she was dressing up IYKWIM. So it's always a challenge to find come up with something that doesn't cause too much discomfiture and apparently now that extends to me too... My next costume brainwave was simple - dress up in Kate's school uniform (yes, just virtually slap me, showing off that I CAN fit into my Amazonian daughter's uniform, but let me reassure you, those long white knee high socks are a far better look on a leggy 12yo than a meatier-calved, short-arsed 40yo with childbearing hips LOL). Anyway, Kate loved styling me, braiding my hair with ribbons, piling on blazer and hat etc, it was hilarious, we were hysterical with laughter and Amy took one look and said without even a single giggle "you just can't, I won't even go to school that day". So if I was in any doubt, I now have conclusive confirmation that I've fully entered the embarrassment to my children phase of life. Kate was disappointed that her Frankenstein-worthy creation was not to be unveiled in public, but I promised I'd be a school girl in a couple of years once Amy has gone on to secondary school as Sophie couldn't give a hoot what I wear ;)

So finally, I look to what the girls are planning for their costumes for inspiration - Amy is Little Red Riding Hood which only involves her wearing some of her favourite clothes LOL (shout out to K8 who will recognise Red's hood which comes from the very cool Shoppe of Bronte) and a basket of goodies to share with her class (shout out to Kate F for my gorgy spotty Christmas pressie teatowel which covered her goodies). Sophie jumped on that fairytale bandwagon immediately as a convincing Big Bad Wolf, but when I tried to board the wagon as Grandma, the wheels came off, it went off the rails, Lil Red abandoned ship and any other cliche you can think of. Something like this:

"No, no, no - you can't wear your pyjamas to school in front of my friends. Why can't you just be Little Red Riding Hood's mother?"
"And what would I wear?"
"Mother clothes."
"So basically as you're Little Red Riding Hood, I would be dressing up as your mother, Which is - me."
"Exactly."
"You do realise that isn't a costume?"

Anyway, as the pics testify, we finally talked her found (one condition - no grandma wig LOL) and I had the comfiest costume of all on the day, pretty much just had to roll out of bed. But the big question is:

What do you think I should wear for Book Week??? LOL

PS Everyone else seems to have their act together and yummy Easter pics and posts up already, while I sit here surrounded by piles of washing and unpacked luggage from our beach Easter weekend, no food in the house (except chocolate of course), three kids underfoot on school holidays and a husband about to leave for Paris (yes Paris) without me, sob. So bear with me, will get there in the end. We had a fab time with perfect servings of friends, family, chocolate, champagne, beach and sleep - photos to follow

Cute and yummy

2008-03-19T08:17:00.000+11:00

This is especially for Kaz and her pair of budding cooks, Lauren and Kayley. Look at this sweet little pair – how cute and yummy.

Sophie went to a cooking party at a gorgeous local shop that does children’s cooking clasess a couple of weekends ago. When I arrived to pick her up, I found these two pancake moulds and knowing what addicts my trio are, we simply had to adopt them and bring them home with us (along with colourful individual jelly moulds with sealable tops perfect for school lunchboxes and a pair of oh-so-cute pastel green tipped mini tongs for no reason at all).

I had seen a recipe for choc chip pikelets in the latest issue of Delcious and thought I’d steal the idea and throw some choc bits in our human pancakes – to a chorus of appreciative When-Harry-Met-Sally-esque moans and groans of pleasure. Melting chocolate in a warm pancake is a sheer delight, highly recommend it for a treat. :-)

Hi ho, hi ho – it’s off to hell I go…..

2008-03-14T07:41:00.000+11:00

Firstly need to say that as the lovely Ms Porter has noted, there is probably a limit to how many perfect Carrie Young portraits I can justify borrowing to make my blog look gorgeous LOL (although you know I do have a gallery of about 80 pics there Georgie :P ) . So we're back in civilian snapshot territory again ....

And yes, it's the Jennings family in church on a Sunday!

So I'm the Christening hypocrite here – agnostic as they come (well I’m Libran, what do you expect? sitting with a fence post up my bum is practically obligatory LOL), standing up in a church renouncing evil, professing a faith of a denomination I know next to nothing about – it’s so WRONG! My darling husband doesn’t quite understand why I feel that telling a lie in church is worse than saying it anywhere else, but he’s an atheist (or in my mother’s eye, a heathen LOL).

So why does a middle-aged woman put herself in this position? Well take a look at that gorgeous child’s face for a start ;) And because my beloved baby sister wants me to be godmother to her beautiful boys and how could I ever say no to that? While we've been through the motions of a conversation about the ethics/hyocrisy of me vowing something that isn’t true, it is very simple to her. She wants me to be a positive influence, provide her boys with unconditional love, be there to help them throughout their lives, always be there to care deeply. Easy peasy, I’m so there, I am committed to fulfilling the role my sister and brother-in-law want in the real world.

So I find myself silently “re-interpreting” archaic religious vows into a shadow of their former selves to appease my conscience. I won’t deny myself this role, this special place in their lives. But… it doesn’t sit easy. Maybe I’m kidding myself – perhaps I should just get over myself LOL, but when you’re standing in a hallowed place and feeling a bit like a little kid again and looking a priest straight in the eye while you say something you know to be untrue, well yikes! On the other hand, I found it charming that my girls got to light the christening candles, symbols of the light baby Noah shines on the world – that was uncomplicatedly lovely. And truly, is there anything that puts a bigger more contented smile on my face than holding a baby? (sigh)

Synchronicity, destiny and all things mundane

2008-03-11T01:53:00.000+11:00

This is another gorgeous Carrie Young shot from our Christmas shoot – it’s my very favourite, yes even more so than all those divine images of the girls. I guess it’s just a matter of scarcity increasing value as always. You see I have so few pics of Andrew and certainly not many of us together (as a typical Mum, I spend most of my time behind the camera of course).

It is going in my album with a Goethe quote “When a wife has a good husband, it is easily seen in her face”. Because that is what I see, despite the cold and rain, how tired and disorganised I was that day, apparently all it takes is for this good man to embrace me and I am lit from within.

When I think of how our lives met, I am always struck by how very ordinary the choices are that lead to destiny, synchronicity, connections, paths, life. I came to Melbourne to go to university and was to live in a university residential college. As I would be attending a campus some distance from the college, my parents decided that I should live at the only college that offered sandwiches as a lunchtime option in addition to a cooked lunch on the college grounds. I met my husband-to-be, father-of-my-children, love of my life (little did I know this when I met him of course, he was seeing my volleyball team-mate at the time LOL) because of sandwiches… Our paths almost certainly wouldn’t have crossed otherwise. That’s all, sandwiches.

A slice of synchronicity,
a counterpoint of chance
turn a stale repast into
a feast of circumstance.

So go ahead & order a timely snack
At the universe-ity
Bring us here to this very day, this life
Of our own accord or conspiracy…

A good teacher is a gift that keeps on giving

2008-03-06T21:08:00.000+11:00

It is amazing to witness and enjoy the gift of a good teacher. Sometimes it’s a delayed gift – one which you only recognize the value of after the teaching has finished. I was so happy to write this letter to our school principal last week.

I am compelled to write and let you know about an example of just what a positive impact a single year with an individual teacher can have on a student and the way they perceive themselves, their strengths and their weaknesses.

To set the scene, my daughter Kate has always been a confident reader and writer, but to my alarm, came home during her grade five year with “I’m crap at maths” written on her hand. And so began a mother’s campaign to turn around a negative mindset which had no basis in fact whatsoever. I only had limited success in convincing her that she did not have “a crap maths brain”, despite showing Kate her AIM tests, reports and other evidence to the contrary. It was of great concern to me that my daughter would fall prey to that old stereotypical attitude that girls can’t do maths.

When Kate and I attended our first parent/teacher interview with D, around this time last year, he suggested Kate do an “EYT” program in maths – I turned to her and commented that someone with a “crap maths brain” would not be considered for this (insert a tween eye roll here!). D was surprised to hear of Kate’s negative self-perception and let her know that it was his opinion that she had a fine maths brain. By the end of last year, Kate had earned her highest mark ever in Maths. David had obviously provided her with the opportunity and the encouragement to extend herself and she ran with it. Her teacher’s opinion and support reached her in a way that a mother simply could not.

However, the story doesn’t end with just a good report card - D’s gift goes beyond the Primary School gate. Kate had to fill in a questionnaire on starting at Melbourne Girls College and one of the questions asked was “what are you most proud of during primary school?” and her answer was simply “how much I improved in maths”. It is clearly a source of great pride to Kate that she has overcome her negative mindset and flourished as a young mathematician. She came home from school just yesterday and told me that maths is her favourite subject this year and that she is considered a “maths girl” in her class.

I am appreciative of the education and development Kate has experienced at NFPS which has contributed much to a happy and settled transition to secondary school life. However, the gift of helping change a child’s self-perception/self-assessment/self-confidence for the better goes way beyond mere preparation. I would like to acknowledge D’s valuable contribution here –and sincerely thank him for helping my daughter blossom even further.

It is as if he helped Kate let go of a negative belief and in doing so, released all this energy and passion. As if she just didn’t have the confidence to get behind herself and the self-belief to invest her energy in this direction. I spoke with D the day I sent the letter and he was glowing. As a second year teacher the note really meant a lot to him – he said he felt completely inspired and was so glad to be a teacher that day.

So if a teacher has made a difference in your child’s life – let her/him know. Oh, and let the principal know too ;)

So what would YOU do with half a dozen party hats?

2008-03-05T08:07:00.000+11:00

The joy of living with Sophie..... it started off with a penguin beak and off she went LOL

Not my own work (well except the genes...)

2008-03-02T20:34:00.000+11:00

Ha, no prizes for guessing I’m not responsible for these divine pics LOL

I am exceptionally lucky to have genius friends who create things of beauty – jewellery, clothes, hair accessories (with 3 long-haired girls, just LOVE hair accessories) and of course, photography. My darling friend Carrie came over for a Victorian family Christmas and managed to squeeze in a photo shoot for us. Ole Murphy was obviously feeling a bit grinchy because it was the coldest, wildest, wettest, stormiest, floodiest day of the year (HATE ridiculous, unpredictable Melbourne sometimes), my troops were in disarray, I do believe I was still in my nightie when she walked in! LOL

Fortunately for me, Carrie has the patience of a saint managing with aplomb the cold and wet; a whinging tween (I believe Andrew’s response was “suck it up Princess” – a phrase that I’ve helped myself to ever since); and an 8yo who really just wanted to stick her tongue out. I had low expectations of what anyone could produce out of a morning like that…

… until Carrie worked her magic and somehow turned an ordinary shoot into something quite extraordinary. Moments of connection, the fun spirit my girls share together, how happy I am in my husband’s arms (who hasn’t had his photo taken this many times since our wedding day LOL) and what a natural Dad he is.

So, if you’d like to share, Carrie has generously let me show off her stunning works of art - http://carrieyoung.com/index2.php , click on clients and type in 221207 as the password to see the slideshow.

Fairies and angels grow up …..

2008-02-29T17:31:00.000+11:00

... much, much too quickly. Fortunately, rather like Madonna or Kylie, they can reincarnate/reinvent themselves :)

If I’d had any idea just how shortlived my girls’ fairy days were going to be, they would have been fairies every day of the week LOL Kate was a fully fledged member of the girly girl club, besotted with fairies and all things pink right through to the inevitable Barbie and Disney princess fetish. However, Amy and Sophie only tolerated the hand-me-down fairy costumes until they had enough language to complain! Amy knocked ‘em back at the tender but determined age of 2 and by the look of it, I put it straight on baby Sophie LOL Just didn’t take though, look at that expression in the tragic studio shot – we ended up with female cowboys, pirates, superheroes – life has never been stereotypical around here since.

But fairies, angels and other winged creatures can come back to the flock, with a whole new tween twist of course. This photo is for my generous friend K8 whose daughter’s wardrobe is one of fussy Amy’s very favourite places to shop ;) – she treasures them and wears them until they literally fall apart. These latest angel wing acquisitions made me sigh with sentimentality and reach for old (pre-digital) photos to scan. Apparently if Amy dresses like a fairy or angel in our garden (whether 2 or 10 years old), gorgeous shafts of light will fall on her and make her really look the part ;)

Amy's risotto

2008-02-28T16:36:00.000+11:00

AKA would you like some rice with your parmesan cheese?

My girls love love love this risotto with a passion and it is wonderfully simple and a great springboard for any number of variations. It can work as a main or a side dish. They love it simply as is, or with pieces of bacon or chorizo or mushroom mixed through and especially when I can be bothered to take small spoonfuls and cover in egg and breadcrumbs and fry it into delicious arancini (rice balls). Warning, I am making this up as I go and I’m pretty sure it’s not going to read like a professional recipe or anything, ok? LOL

Get your favourite big cooking pot, a good heavy based one that browns well is always nice. Give it a good splash of olive oil (don’t skimp here or use a spray, live a little) and throw in some finely diced onion (you could substitute spring onions or shallots or even leeks, whatever takes your fancy) and minced garlic to taste (you know how garlicky you want it). Brown them a little, then add 400 grams of uncooked Arborio rice and push it around for a couple of minutes so you slightly toast it.

I’m pretty sure that the original, very worthy recipe on which this is based called for warmed stock, but that has long fallen by the wayside in this kitchen without terrible consequences – can you be bothered? Anyway, I just add 1.25 litres of room temperature :P chicken stock (hey if you want to be Martha, you can make your own or just buy a carton or two and pour it in like I do), about 150 ml at a time, stirring regularly (but not constantly if you’re me and easily distracted/listening to an 8yo read her home reader/chatting on the phone etc). Then as each lot of stock is absorbed, add some more and stir etc etc ad nauseum or til your arm falls off. I love watching it transform from individual pearly beads to a full, heavy, fragrant mass. Oh, nearly forgot, I wildly shake pepper and Italian herbs (not from a home-grown herb garden unfortunately, just a jar from the supermarket) over the top of it at some point during the process. Don’t usually salt it because of the parmesan added at the end, but if you’re a salt lover, go for it…

Towards the end, it really is a taste and see process for me, if it’s not done, I just add a little more stock. Once it feels al dente (yes, I know that’s pasta, but you know what I mean), turn off the heat and add a couple of tablespoons of butter and stir it in. Then, you need between 75 grams (if you want a subtle parmesan flavour) and 150 grams (if you’re serious about your spew cheese) of grated real parmesan. Do yourself a favour and go and buy a wedge of the real stuff and grate it fresh yourself, none of the plastic crap – it really will make a difference. Pour it in, work it through and inhale and sigh happily. Ignore children round your ankles demanding a taste LOL

As I’m a multi-tasker extraordinaire, I often do two pots of this simultaneously – if I’m going to stand at the stove for 20-30 minutes stirring, may as well do a big pile of it and freeze for a future manic week. Or I put it on the back burner and do pancakes on the front (another stand-in-front-of-the-stove dish) – and yes, I mean the shaker pancake mix ;) – and flip and stir, flip and stir.

So thought I’d take a pic of the latest batch, but it’s so sad – it looks so awful, hardly likely to inspire anyone, is it?! It looks like a highly unappetizing blob of oatmeal or something – what a pity you can’t scratch and sniff the screen because it smells heavenly… ;) Going to have to start sending my meals cross-country to Carrie to photograph for me and get those glorious salivatingly saturated colours she does so well LOL So you’ll just have to take my word for it, sigh, at least the bowl looks pretty LOL

Today is a joy

2008-02-26T19:15:00.001+11:00

Today is a joy
Because this is
just one third of the beauty
I live with

Every day
This is the face
that looks into my face
and falls into my heart
Every day
This is the connection
that makes everything make sense
And these days I see it
Every day
Love is not blind
eyes open wide as the heart
Every day

Today is a joy

How to create a culinary rod for your own back

2008-02-25T23:59:00.000+11:00

Step 1

Decide that being inner city dwellers in the good food capital (Melbourne of course), we are absolutely obligated to bring our kids up appreciative of all the wonderful cuisines on offer literally at our doorstep. Take aforementioned children to Italian, Greek, Chinese, Turkish, Mexican, Vietnamese, Indian etc restaurants and introduce them to everything from noodles and curries to wraps and tortillas of every shape and texture. (please just note that I am not cooking any of this, merely purchasing LOL)

Step 2

Pretty much sprain my wrist back-patting myself smugly at what cosmopolitan citizens of the world we’re cultivating.

Step 3

Listen to aforementioned cultured, cosmopolitan citizens of the world bemoan what boring, uninspired, bland sandwiches fill their school lunchboxes. “Why can’t we have chicken and noodles in a thermos Mu-um?” “Could you make fried rice/lasagna/thai beef salad for lunch tomorrow?” Aargh! “Annabel’s* Mum makes her marinated chicken wraps” (bless Annabel’s Mum, clearly a domestic goddess and someone we all need to either aspire to or slap).

Step 4

Curse my short-sightedness under my breath LOL

Our school lunches start off ok as I make a couple of days worth of sandwiches on a Sunday afternoon with a little more time, energy and varied ingredients than later on in the week. By Friday, we are reduced to the vegemite or jam or cheese on slightly stale bread sandwich or I just give up altogether and reach for the school canteen menu. ;)

My girls are the victims of mixed messages and a mother who is very occasionally utterly inspired and aspirational in the kitchen, but for the most part, pedestrian and going through the motions. So one minute, it’s vanilla bean cupcakes with Persian fairy floss or freshly made churros or truffles followed by 6 months of only arnotts marie biscuits and sakatas crackers in the cupboard. LOL One brilliantly planned and co-ordinated dinner a month amidst a sea of those embarrassingly awful, but sinfully convenient sauce jar creations.

Oh, and I have to confess that while my children have wandered happily around the culinary world, we did have a wonderful disaster a couple of months ago. My birthday, no babysitter and I refused to relinquish my dream of a French meal – after all, the French invented the French Fry, so how could it go wrong?

Have you ever noticed that French restaurants are really very quiet and filled with romantically inclined couples? I guess that was the attraction in the first place ;)

Maybe I just imagined the restrained dismay on the maitre d’s face as he greeted us. But I couldn’t fail to notice that the seating arrangements had our family of five in one corner and every other customer in the opposite corner with an ocean of space in between. Not that it was enough to protect them from the verbal assault of my 8 year old with the booming voice and laugh. Then my fussy little sh.. – sweetheart ;) decided that she “couldn’t like” French chicken, calamari, lettuce, carrots - you name it, she couldn’t like it and ended up with a plate of solely white food – fries, bread and cheese! Thank goodness for the 12 year old who was happily nicking smoked salmon from her Dad’s plate and béarnaise sauce from mine. We cut our losses and had dessert at home LOL

*All names have been changed to protect myself from the schoolyard mafia Mums

Perspective

2008-02-25T08:04:00.000+11:00

Thanks to Carrie for passing this sweet idea along http://carrieyoung.typepad.com/love_laugh_live/2008/02/perspective.html and to Sarah Jane for the inspiration http://sarahandken.blogspot.com/2008/02/perspective.html

Perspective

My dining table is covered with blankets and sheets and we’re eating dinner on our knees

My younger two play for hours happily in their tent/cubby wonderland

I am getting up a full half hour earlier than I need to/did last year each weekday morning

Before anyone else gets up I share a sleepy, but lovely and quiet window of time with my capable 12yo and she lets me braid her hair before she leaves for high school

There are soft toy animals all over the playroom floor – it is a sea of plush

Sophie comes to ask me seriously “is $86,000 a good price to pay Amy for 6 snow leopards Mum?” LOL

There are days when I feel like someone has questioned or argued with every single word I’ve said

I have three confident, articulate, stand up for themselves, ready-to-argue-in-the-Supreme-Court opinionated daughters

It always takes twice as long to fold all the sheets with my youngest

We whoosh every sheet up in the air, run underneath them and let them float over us, giggling madly, she wraps herself up like a mummy and I forget that it is a job

I have cooked and prepared food til my legs are tired

I have three dinners cooked and 2 days of lunches all ready and packed this week for when life gets manic and I’m a weekday single parent and that makes me feel so relaxed and ahead of the game

The bathroom is afloat – water, discarded clothes, toys, bottles of soapy concoctions, limp towels waiting to be rescued from the floor

Aforementioned younger two are happy, shiny, fresh, brand new, sweet-smelling naked angels, the bathroom is a small price to pay

My three girls are still awake too

Sisters are having a much-loved sleepover together, giggling and whispering as sisters have since the dawn of time

My husband is snoring

My husband is here

It all makes me sigh,
it all makes me smile

What's it all about...

2008-02-22T20:48:00.000+11:00

I’ve been pondering this sudden creation of mine since its hasty, almost accidental birth – what do I have to say? To offer? A good friend has started hers explaining that it is essentially for herself (v. glad she’s sharing though) and maybe if I look at it that way, it’ll reduce the intimidation and cringe factor. It’s like starting the very first page of a beautiful, pristine journal – what thoughts could possibly be worthy?

Anyway, what will there be? Photos aplenty – note these are family snapshots with an appalling paucity of light, focus, composition, ummm (I guess if you can’t even name the elements missing from your photos, you know you’re in trouble). I am strictly an enthustiastic, snap-happy Mum – I won’t be pressing my point and shoot camera up close against a flower and calling it art anytime soon – promise LOL I am blessed with friends of stunning photographic skill and creativity to admire and enjoy. Fortunately they are also the kind of friends who will smile indulgently but absolutely genuinely at my woeful snaps because they love me and especially my darling 3 subjects of choice ;)

What else – the obligatory family news of course; maybe some recipes when I’m in my pretend-I’m-Martha-or-Nigella mode :) ; books (or trashy mags depending on the current brain function level); movies (ha – that implies I actually GET to grown-up movies more than once a year LOL I think the last movie I saw in a cinema was Enchanted and I was thrilled and relieved that at least it wasn’t Alvin and the Chipmunks!); links to lovely things to covet and make me say mmmmm…; maybe if I’m brave enough you might see some odds and sods that I’ve written – whether it’s stories for children, non-fiction or poetry (might have to work up to that!) and last , but not least thoughts. Without sounding wanky, I love to be thoughtful, love to take things apart in my head and my words and try and find reason, meaning, some way of trying to make sense of this strange journey and the ways that connections and patterns emerge if you look around. I know that the way that my brain processes is to discuss, talk, write and then I’m able to work out what I think. Communicate first and understand what is true. Which is the opposite to my darling logical husband who would always work out what he thinks BEFORE he opens his mouth – but he’s learned to live with me :)

Spreading my wings and trying a pic...

2008-02-19T17:24:00.000+11:00

..... or three

Sophie, my very cheeky monkey

Amy, my big on the inside angel

Kate, my gorgeous big little girl

Not too late to join the party...

2008-02-19T11:58:00.000+11:00

It's really oh-so-easy, isn't it? Just click on create blog and suddenly I have one. Not at all sure what I'm going to do with it, not even thrilled with the title, but I've always been a sucker for a little alliteration. Maybe I should have just called it work in progress - that's me. :)

So many things have been pointing to me needing to write, but I have no discipline and any "nice to do's" just fall off the precipice of my mountainous lists. Maybe a blog will shame me into contributing thoughts, memories, (atrocious) photos, news - I need a ball to start rolling, gather me up in its momentum and hurtle me towards inspiration!

Really can't even begin to imagine strangers wanting to read extraneous ramblings of a middle-aged mother, but I feel it would be rude not to introduce myself. I am Sue, an Australian mother of 3 gorgeous, fun, spirited girls, blessed to have married a good man who turned out to be so much more and who is the steadying hand on my roller-coaster life. I work with children with special needs which fills my heart on a daily basis and practically speaking it's as convenient as it could be, working at the same primary school as my two younger daughters, less than 500 m from our home. There is more to this story, isn't there always? Grazing the surface, but don't want to frighten anyone away already LOL

I undertake to find out how on earth to make this work - as half the world as I know it already blogs, I should have plenty of help and advice on hand. Look forward to sharing some pics and idle thoughts and family news.

talk soon
Sue
xxx