Tellingly ...

Lucy and I are playing with her dollhouse, with Lucy scripting as usual:

Well, now that we've finished the biscuits, let's have a conversation.
[pause]
So, what shall we buy next week?

I fear we have not opted out of the consumerist society quite as much as we think we have.

Strangely distracting, and beautiful

This is how Lucy described a painting she had finished.

Not 'a tree' or 'an ocean' but 'strangely distracting, and beautiful'.

Not 'strangely distracting, and oddly beautiful. Not 'strangely distracting, but beautiful'. I think she got it just right.

I love the elegance of my daughter's phrase.

***

Three days ago Nell told me a story of swimming in the ocean, fighting off a shark which had bitten her hand, and traveling to the doctor on the bus (we don't let the girls watch the news - they're both crazy for sharks and drama).

I love that two months ago Nell had only a very few words and now she uses them to invite me into a world that I will only ever see through a glass darkly.

***

I love that Al and I have offered the girls words and now those words are all their own.

Orange rocks

This island is littered with the things ...





We spent Sunday up in a far away corner of the state. Mt William is deep in the backwoods: roadkill territory, spotted with old mining towns slowly, slowly emptying out. We had lunch under the trees by the beach, sheltered from the waves and the horizon, which terrify Lucy. She is afraid her parents will be swept out to sea, and afraid of that point where the two blues meet and people drop off the world.



It's a long drive from our place, and the journey was punctuated with the 'are we there yet?'s our own parents suffered. We did some mammoth drives when I was a kid: bundled into the Nissan Urvan before dawn, and driven from rural Victoria to Brisbane in one long, straight line, Dad driving through the night as we slept in the folded down seats in the back. The trips were in summer and I remember the blazing light and the heat in outback New South Wales, my parents stopping at small towns to buy us a can of fizzy drink. Oh, the delicious anticipation and the quandary: Passiona or green lime? The drinks came in a size that's long been phased out, much smaller than the standard 375 mls, and the cans were uncrushable.

I remember too, the car lulling me into my inner world, the place where kids fantasize when there's nothing else to do. Bored, bored, boring: Lucy uses these words all the time, now, to get my goat. I used to worry about my kids being bored - am I not enriching their lives enough?; am I cheating them of necessary experiences? But after some fidgeting Nell picked up her Barbie and told stories to herself (a two year old with a Barbie and a feminist mother - yes, there's something to be written on that) and Lu pulled over some books and then drifted off in an un-focused stare. Both were heading places where I can't, I don't want to, follow.

We take our girls to some beautiful places. They won't remember the heart stopping blue of the water on this particular Sunday, but when we strap them in their car seats, I think we are giving them a chance to explore something more than this particular island.

I am walking through life and not really thinking about it - I'm not in my head at the moment. So I don't blog, which is fine, but there are things that will slip by, forgotten, when they shouldn't be.

Yesterday we went to the playgroup attached to Lucy's probable school. For the visit, Lucy chose to wear trousers, a long dress, a baby's bonnet in the shape of those old-style pilot helmets, and a white cape. And black patent Mary Janes. Not because she was dressing up, but because she thought this was a look that worked. And it did, because of course, it's not what you wear, it's how you wear it, and Lu brings such a taken for granted confidence and insouciance to her wardrobe choices. Spots, stripes, fluro, a mass of 70's paisley ribbons in her hair - it all looks good.

And now that Nell can open drawers and deal with armholes, she's strolling the same sartorial backroads as her sister: Tuesday's ensemble was a shirt printed with angry fruit from the Mission store ("Buy, buy, buy" - Nell) and a pair of Dora undies worn over tights, like some cracked super-hero.

When I see my girls stroll down the street looking, well, odd, I am so proud. Proud of their confidence, and proud that I can wear the eyebrow raises and smirks of strangers. Doubly, triply proud now that the cool mean girls have started to emerge at Lucy's kinder: all in pink, with curls and those super-cute mini-converse shoes, hanging out down the back near the swings, and missing only a ciggie and detention to complete the look of disaffected youth. Four years old - not even four - and they tell other kids they are disgusting, they don't like their clothes, they won't play with them. I love, love that my kids don't think to judge on the basis of what people are wearing (even as I am horrified that this is even an issue - four years old, for heaven's sake), that they don't judge at all, indeed, and don't care what people think about them. I love they have a confidence I have only recently achieved - tenuously - in my mid-thirties. Of the myriad of things I want for kids, this confidence and delight in themselves is perhaps the one thing I want most.

Last night I told someone I was a little disappointed that my girls refuse point blank to wear the pretty things I see around me, but that's not quite true, because really, I can't imagine having kids who matched their shirts and shorts, who didn't wear togas to Coles, and who pulled on what I chose for them.

And tomorrow, when we go to a fairy fair and I have to explain to the organisers that a lime green cape from a late 1960s bridesmaid ensemble and netting tied around the eyes in the manner of Themis is, in fact, very fairy like, so that my kids get the free ice cream that's promised to all comers who dress like fairies, well, I'll be proud then, too.

Sky high

I live with this reality almost every day:



Lu is a climber. She will climb trees, rocks, indoor climbing walls, chain link boundary fences, the top shelf in the linen cupboard, ladders and anything else that offers itself. We are often discussing at just what age she will be allowed on the roof (fourteen and that is final, even if Daddy is up there with her). And Nell, being the younger sister and a big fan of Ucy, climbs too, pulling herself up the same trees, rocks and fences - not as high as Lulu but with just as much skill and determination. They are proud, rightfully so, of their climbing. And so am I.

But I am not a climber. I've never been brave and since my second pregnancy I suffer severe vertigo. The thought of being on a ladder makes me want to topple over backwards. When the girls want to run amok in the library, they pitter patter to the second floor in the gleeful knowledge that I can't follow and will be reduced to standing five steps up from the ground floor, calling at them to Come. Down. Now. (I find this to be not at all effective.) So I stand and watch with a tremor in my heart and oftentimes, my body.

It's not the climbing, it's the falling. And it's not that I won't catch them, it's trying to stand by, not hover with my hands just behind their backs and under their bottoms. It's the letting go.

Talk about a metaphor for motherhood ...

I leave the op-shop with a tantruming kid under each arm: Nell screams for a baby and Lucy screams for a wedding dress.

Feminist mothering : 0
Patriarchy: 2

Alternate realities

Things I thought I would never say #20067:

"Keep you toes out of the biscuit mix, please" [requested while the mixmaster was beating]

****

Lucy constantly demands I play Speed Racer with her. She is Speed, I am a baddie and I do things like throw her out of her bed, beat her up and put her in jail so that she won't be able to compete in the trans-desert/ trans-jungle/ trans-arctic race. Three weeks ago she demanded constant Cinderella role playing; as wicked step-mother I would yell at her and make her do the housework.

Generally speaking I hate role plays but I find these to be cathartic.

Now, a return to an old favourite: Skippy. But whereas in the past I was Skippy to Lu's Sonny (very relaxing - I just clicked my tongue every now and then), now I am Ranger Matt Hammond. This is proving to have great possibilities for psychic space. I am currently graphing wombat migration patterns as Sonny and Flight Ranger Jerry (Nell) save a possum in the backyard.

Al is Mark, the awkward and ineffectual older brother, played by a young man who over-acts and is never quite sure how to hold his body in moments of dramatic tension. This makes me smirk - even when casting decisions are made by a three year old, it's nice to win the lead.

Yesterday it was raining, and cold. I remember a Sunday like that some years ago, spent sitting in front of the fire and drinking tea; now I have two kids who are mad for splashing in puddles and twirling their umbrellas. We kit up and set off, walking the block in the rain.



Once the thrill of the wet starts to fade, the adventures begin. Yesterday it was Snow White but Cinderella is also in vogue at our house. I once wrote that living with a real princess is as testing as sharing space with the Disney kind. Now I have some experience in both and I'm starting to reconsider. And I wonder, where does this come from, and what to do to chase the wenches away?

We live in a sea of pink but we've never actually invited a pop culture princess into our home. That is, until recently when allowing Lucy to chose her yoghurt for kindergarten lead to a six pack of princess themed Nestle vanilla and strawberry milk-based product. We could have - should have? - said no but like parents everywhere we were keen to avoid a meltdown in the dairy aisle and so we forked out for some indoctrination. But I think it must have started earlier - why did she chose that particular option? - possibly around the communal kinder table, or outside in the playground when the pirate boys said girls can only be mermaids. I always assumed that I could through vigilance and firmness protect my kid from inappropriate gendered messages; turns out - yet again - I can't.

I'm tinkering around the edges of some of those messages. Snow White is a girl who is hated for her kindness, not her attractiveness and blah, blah, blah, she lives with the dwarves and plants a garden and manages their financial interests, acting as an agent and selling on the mined jewels and gold. Her post-poisoning salvation comes in the form of a prince but one who is also a doctor, so that at least some motivation comes from medical expertise rather than general heroic maleness. In the end, the doctor-prince, S.W. and the dwarves all live together, with S.W. continuing her role as financial administrator for the guys.

This is okay as far as it goes but the things about kids is, they act as a mirror to our own cracks and inconsistencies. In my story the guy still saves the girl and the day - why not a witch with traditional knowledge, for example? - the girl is still poisoned by a crone (thereby perpetuating all those nasty constructions of older women; and S.W. doesn't just politely say thanks and walk away at the end - she ends up working as an employee in the men's businesses. I bet she does the housework too. And then there's the whole issue of abusive female family members who are demonised and absent and neglectful fathers who don't get judged for failing their kids.

I am caught up in the structures and practices I critique; they shape my thinking about what's possible even as I so carefully try to create new narratives for my girls, in the stories I tell "in [my] head and [my] hands" (Lucy's words) and in their lives. I can de-construct a fairy tale, but as soon after Al moved down to live with me I stopped remembering to pay bills, lost my pin number on any number of occasions and - shamefully - I can't name our bank or our insurers; nor do I know when the rates are due. I make the money in this house but I focus a lot more on the muffins. I pretend this isn't true but of course I have my own fairy tales, and they have nothing to do with poisoned apples and tiaras.

I don't hate myself for this - I've never met a feminist whose walk always matches her talk; try as we do, our possibilities and improbabilities are shaped - sometimes obviously, sometimes secretly - by our gender. My feminist motherhood, probably like all kinds of motherhood, leads me to think carefully about myself as a person and a role model, and this can be confronting and sometimes liberating. And as part of my motherhood, I try to show my kids some of the many different ways they can be women; perhaps these examples come as much in my own failures and oddities as in my strengths.

In the meantime, I have kids who chase after the evil queen and throw a giant apple at her. They beat at monsters with 'ferocious sticks'; they describe themselves as strong and brave; they can't wait to grow up to go to work, have babies, drink beer and chop firewood with a BIG axe. Lucy told me today, "I protect little kids and herbivores. I am a really good girl." And Nell agreed in her flat Aussie drawl: "Yeah."

I have faith that those bloody Disney princesses will never have much resonance beyond the yoghurt lids. I don't really have a strong view on what women should be but if my kids turn out the way they plan, I'll be a very happy mother and a very happy feminist indeed.

Picnic

We ate alfresco in the area yesterday. I can take or leave pink milk (banana and raspberry smoothie) and left over pannacotta consumed on a damp log in a thicket but I can't get enough of the seeing my girls turn into sisters, with a world and a love all their own.

Sunday morning

This morning was smoggy and grey outside and we spent it sitting by the fire. Nell bumbled and Lu and Al, and then I, began Narnia. After three years of spot, dot, rot, with a little bit of Lynley Dodd and some Seuss to keep us sane, the strong, wry, elegant words of C.S. Lewis are a joy to bat around. And Lu loved it, too: we're already almost through The Magician's Nephew, and the promise of a Lucy, snow and animals that talk in the next book keep her turning the pages.

We can rarely be sure where and when our kids pick up their words but one day of Lewis and 'vanish', 'tea', 'witch' are part of the lexicon. Which is just fine, but I can't wait until 'by gum' and 'I say' enters our our world.

****

And on language, Nell, who has around about twenty or thirty words to her credit can spit out 'yuk' with a clarity and conviction that makes me quail. Combining Nell's 'yuk' and Lucy's drawled and withering 'disgusting', mealtimes are somewhat of a trial at the moment.

Driving the point home

One of Lucy's favourite stories:

Once upon a time, there was a naughty little girl, who smoked and also liked to light fires; she was a FIRE BUG. One day, she lit a fire at the beach, and all the grasses burned and all the shrubs in the back dunes, and all the trees as well. And the animals had no where to go, they ran away from the fire which burned and burned and burned. And the poor animals had to run to the city because their homes burned, poor things, and they were very sad. And the beach was ruined and people couldn't swim there and people were sad too. But the police caught that naughty firebug and sent her in front of a judge in a COURT OF LAW. The judge said she was very naughty and sent her to jail where there was no telly and no nice food. And serve her right, that naughty firebug.

Our kids pick up all sorts of cues that we are not even aware of. But I feel it is useful to really hammer home important life lessons. Subtlety is for the weak.

This story also makes me realise that even after decades working as a sociologist, I am clearly seduced by a punishment rather than rehabilitation paradigm.

****

Lucy has just been introduced to Struwwelpeter and she loves it. It's falling apart and so she's not allowed to touch - which adds to its mystery and desirability - and in the morning over cornflakes we read about kids getting burned while playing with matches and starving because they won't eat the soup. I've not yet introduced her to the kid who sucks his thumbs and has them cut off by a ruthless scissor-hand creature; as an erstwhile thumbsucker I still find that a little too close to home.

Wordy

Lu: I think there will be dolls at the Mission store.
Kris: There might be, darling, we'll see.
Lu: There will be.
Kris: Well, soon we will see.
Lu: Please Mum, don't make my sure unsure.


My kid, she's got the knack of words.

***

Things here are changing, we think for the good. Thanks to all for kind words and thoughts.

In my time, I have thrown the odd, gorgeous party. Once, outside under the mango tree, with my own basil-cured salmon and enough champagne to swim in. Outside, under another mango tree, on picnic rugs, with candles all around (a guest, Paul, who knows a thing or two about hosting, told me I was a woman who knew how to use candles), ending with a pear and brie tart. Another time, in winter, serving seared kangaroo fillet and a mushroom risotto to good friends who brought good wine. At the time, and in hindsight, all really rather lovely.

I've also been a guest at the odd gorgeous party: farewell do's in pink mansions by the river, lights from the city sparkling on the pool; tipsy dinners on the verandahs of old Queenslanders, conversation sharpening as the wine flowed; a catch up lunch of corn from the garden and butterflied lamb, barbecued on Paul's deck and eaten under a grape vine, followed by sundaes with raspberries from his garden. My friend Tambo has made me peach bellinis for one birthday and Maggie Beer's quails in a fig bath for another (don't believe the book - removing those backbones and ribs is much trickier than you are lead to believe).

Today, I hosted my first proper kid's birthday party, a few weeks after Lu's actual birthday. Honey joys, chocolate crackles, and not quite enough Cheezels, red and green cordial, a cake with sky blue icing and a Tyrannosaurus marked out in sprinkles and smarties; carrot sticks that the kids didn't even sniff. Plus, lots of space in the park and ducks to feed. And balloons. I was hailed by the younger set as the hostess with the mostest.

Whereas I once measured the success of a gathering by the volume of the laughter and the lateness of the leave taking, today I was pleased that no-one got stung by a wasp or run down by the Little Athletics cross country carnival that was racing past the picnic table.

Now it's back to Brisbane to work for a week, taking Lucy to play with the grandparents. Grandad, Meema, be warned - there are plans to scare you at the airport tonight with much roaring like a dinosaur.

Saturday

Desperate to get out of the house, we went Clarendon today. It was glorious. The grounds were filled with sunshine. The only sound was the humming of the bees amongst the last of the roses.



Lucy whined the whole time.

Like Good Parents we tried to capture her imagination and help her relate to these surrounds, so filled with interest and mystery. She whined.
Like Bad Parents we tried to buy her silence with ice cream. She whined.
Like Defeated Parents we packed the girls in the car and drove off back home. She whined.

You'd never guess it from this:



There are lies, damned lies and statistics. And then there are family photographs.

***

On the way home we stopped at the Glover Exhibition, a Tasmanian landscape art prize, always glorious. I look closely - the paintings are so beautiful and after three days they are sucked into private collections; most I will never see again.

Today I turned a corner and my heart stood still. Because there it was: the painting I've always wanted to see even without knowing what it would look like. A hazy Bruny Island pastoral, nothing identifiable but recognised by my mind's eye. I bought that painting. I'll have no new clothes for around about three years but it's worth it. You can't wear a canvas, it's true, but in a world stuffed with Things To Buy it's not often I get that sudden rush of blood to the heart.

I climbed back into the car on a high.

And Lucy whined and whinged and waa'd all the way home.

Just when I thought I'd won the war

A & M are coming over with their baby daughter, H, and their boy, B, who's Lucy's age and someone she plays comfortably with.

Me: We have visitors coming over. You need to put on some clothes. No nude-ness when we have guests.
Lu: No. Pants off is fine.
Me: No. You can wear trousers or you can wear a dress. What's it to be?
Lu: Hmm, a dress. B likes to see me in a dress.

How? What? Where? WTF? I'm not sure B can even say dress. I've never said anything like that; I don't know a woman who would. I don't know a man who'd hold a preference (or at least speak it in those terms). It sounds like bad dialogue from a soap - 'girl talk' to establish 'character'. But we don't watch that kind of thing.

I thought the enemy was at the gates but it turns out we've been infiltrated.

I am quietly freaking out and switched into remedial feminist indoctrination mode. And casting suspicious looks at everyone.

I think today was the final blackberry session of the season. Last week, there was more than enough for all, even with a greedy labradoodle. Today, there were more pink and ungiving fruits than luscious black ones. Many looked delicious on the side that faced the sun but on the shadow side they were unripe. And the best picks have retreated beyond arms' reach, deep in the copses, available only to the birds.

I picked madly, but couldn't keep up with Nell's demands for more as she waddled behind me, mouth open and chirping like an insatiable baby bird. In the end she was most content on my hip, pointing out the particular berries she wanted. (I had a vision of the future and she was standing in an Italian market telling the stall holder 'Not that one, that one, that one at the back'.) Last year Lu was crazy for the fruit but this year she'll only accept the most perfect 'blackberry dazzlers' - the rest are licked, rejected as too furry/ spiky/ pink/ yuk and passed on to her sister. For Lu, the cemetary is now more delightful for the possibility of adventure to be found underneath the oak trees or through the head high grass.

The last blackberries and now a long wait over the year. But not so long as I thought - how is it that February has already passed and autumn visits us in th mornings now?

Better days

At the end of a bad day, reminding myself it's more often good than bad. And when it's good, it's very, very good.

Whaaaa?

Once upon a time I was Ms. Since becoming sadly over-educated I go by Dr (the proper kind, not the medical type). So why is my daughter calling me 'Mrs Mum'?.

Lu also calls me "Mother Fox", which I don't mind so much, as it sounds a little sexy, somehow.

Gender bending

Today was Grammy's funeral. I walked into the room wearing my black dress - the go-anywhere black dress that we all read was a wardrobe basic in Cosmo , back in the late 80s - and Lucy looked at me and asked "Why are you being a girl today?". I thought that going out to work each morning dressed in trousers would be somewhat counter-balanced by my breasts and vagina (or at least my uterus might give me away) but no - despite our best intentions to to de-emphasise gender, girls wear dresses.

Oddly, Lu and Nell almost never wear dresses but Lu's very clear that they are girls (because they are brave, and apparently boys are 'often not so brave', poor possums). Kids' gender rules are more confusing than those in men's mags (and women's mags and just about everywhere else in society), that's for sure.

***

The girls slept through the funeral. On the way to the wake we explained Lu wouldn't be able to say good-bye to Grammy:

"But I wanted to kiss her".
"I know but now she is in heaven and so you can't".
"I want to go to heaven and kiss her".
"Well, we're going to the bowls club to eat cake instead".
"That's good too".

No use pining for things you can't have, I guess.

***

Thanks to all those who left such caring comments. It's been hard and sad but some peace is beginning to grow in my heart.

Going out with a whimper

In the face of the overwhelming productivity of our zucchinis (and I'll hear no 'I told you so's, thank you very much) I've started making zucchini loaf. It is delicious. But it's a somewhat prosaic end for something called costa romanseque. It's such a sophisticated name, so glamorous but authentic, the name of a swarthy heart-throb. Those fruits were surely expecting to end their days on a grill, next to sardines, eaten with a spritz of lemon under a pergola overlooking the blue, blue Mediterranean. Instead, they're grated and stirred into one of the most 80s suburban of all baked treats.

****

Lucy has discovered the newspaper. She sits at the breakfast table, baby latte to hand, and asks us to tell her the stories about the police and car crashes and drownings and landslides and the arrival of a scrub python at the local wildlife park. She's got a well defined appreciation of the dramatic and we all find it a relief from telling Rapunzel and the Pied Piper of Hamelin ad nauseuam.

Lu also has a strong aesthetic, it turns out. She looked at me today, pushed her toast away and whined, "I don't like blueberry jam, it's too blue". Feminist mothers can complain about Disney princesses all we like - they're not as annoying as a real one in the house.