Bringing up baby

I sit on the couch and watch it, alone, with Al in Hobart for work. I am frozen with horror at the 1950s approach. It doesn't ring true, this pitting of baby against parents in a battle for control, and it seems very cruel to me.

But more distressing is the mother of twins, weeping at putting her newborns out in the cold for hours, to 'blow the cobwebs off them', weeping because it seems so wrong and being told by partner and nurse to do as she's told. When both my kids were born, my self was disassembled, my confidence gone. But there was no-one standing by to tell me I was foolish, that I needed to back off, shut up, and let go of any last shreds of belief in myself and my knowledge. I was surrounded by people who trusted me.

It was painful to watch that woman so firmly put in her place.

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.

The perfect hostess

Top four things to do for kids who visit my house for a play date:

* squash slugs;
* feed snails to chooks;
* be chased, screaming, by the Kris-witch until someone cries in fear;
* pick up the ever-present piles of dog poo on the back 'lawn'.

We also have one little guest who likes to vaccuum and wash walls when she's around.

I'm learning not to over-think the entertaining of children.

Sew sew

8am and it's a bad morning already. A bad night's sleep thanks to the new possum in the roof, gamboling in the space above our bed. (Or maybe it's a giant rat up there - oh, so much worse.) Girls up before sunrise, which in summer is awfully early. A plod with the dogs - no joy in the birds and the light, today. Al's in Hobart until tomorrow, so there's no-one to step in at 5.30 pm to take over the Inspector Gadget role play that is eating up my days and my soul. Bubbling anxiety over work. The girls at me, at me, atmeatmeatme from the moment I wake up, jostling over who stands next to me while I do a poo, eat a muffin, stare into space. All this culminating in my shrieking, shrieking at them as they fight over who gets to crawl under a particular but in no way distinguished dining chair. Shrieking 'Oh my god, would you just STOP, the two of you. Fighting before 7.30 in the morning: it's a disgrace. Stop'. Storming out (with my coffee - I wasn't so angry I forgot my coffee).

And then my rehabilitation, in the eyes of the girls and myself, as I mend a Barbie dress (Barbies, yes, another story for another day). I've never valued my sewing skills, which are limited and always end in shoddy bits and pieces. But oh, the magic in the eyes of the girls. Statistical analysis impresses them not all; my working knowledge of half a dozen computer programs is irrelevant, save that it lets me find cool stuff for them to watch on youtube. Domestically, I leave them cold: I vacuum while they watch T.V. and I only ever cook food that is disgusting, stinky and yukky. But sewing up a a shiny yellow dress with blue thread - that is the work of a domestic goddess of the most glamorous kind.

A bad morning takes a turn for the better.

On the less than stellar service at the pharmacy

I am pissed off, incandescent with rage, speechless ...

I went to the pharmacy to get a prescription filled. As I handed the paper over to the chemist he said, "You keep an eye on those kids, would you". And not in a nice way. Weird, and I shrugged it off. The girls wandered about touching and looking but never opening, never breaking and never running, and I stood beside them, making sure they didn't oh, you know, drink poison or eat soap.

Then this guy came out from behind his counter grabbed Nell and speaking to girls, with his back to me said to them, 'You go sit over there [in a seat next to a pile of cardboard boxes, at the very back of the shop]. It's not place to wander about unsupervised". And not in a nice way.

Well, I was brought up all WASP-y and the cold shoulder, the dirty look are my weapons of choice in times of crisis. But I lost it. I whirled about (and how often do we get to whirl in a chemist?) and went at him: "hands off my kids; how dare you!; how rude!; never once were they unsupervised!; they have opened nothing, broken nothing!; just who on earth do you think you are?; never in all my life ... ". And then I demanded back my prescription and stormed out in such a blaze of righteous fury, I melted the organic honey and beeswax lip balm, with Lucy saying her clear and carrying voice, "He was such a very rude man, Mummy"; my but she does enunciate well when I want her to.

Am still furious.

Really, can I be the very first woman with kids in the shop? Surely women are the key market, what with our taking responsibility for our families' health and loving all that lavender scented crap that lies around these stores. Or has every other woman allowed their children to systematically strip the place down, so that he only now, with me, finally learned his lesson?

Here's another couple of lessons: if you don't want kids touching stuff, don't leave illustrated boxes of chocolate and mint (!!!) face masks lying in a basket on the floor, and don't leave shiny lipstick tubes at kid eye-height, and offer somewhere to chain up the children (preferably with a bowl of water nearby). Stop worrying so much about finger marks on your marked down $5 crap, and stop acting like my kids' fingers are somehow nastier than all those people who walk around using the testers and never buying a thing.

And don't piss off a woman who comes in for birth control pills. Because if I don't get them, I'll have more rugrats and I'll bring them back to your store and let them run amok. And I'll hiss at you as you cower amongst your pills and cheap perfume, "You brought this on yourself, you angry fuck".

And to anyone who reads this and even thinks, "But some children are poorly behaved", let me say this: well, who isn't, sometimes? And also, shove it up your arse.

So, have a nice day, everybody.

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.

I take all my parenting tips from the Hollywood stars

I never thought Angelina Jolie and I had much in common, save for us both being partnered up to hotties and looking awkward when we wear high heels. But turns out, we share the greatest bond of all: we're really crap mothers.

I think women's magazines are poisonous, what with their misogyny and those dodgy clairvoyants, so I never read them, save in doctors' surgeries (when it's like anaesthetic to dull the one hour wait for my four o'clock appointment) and the chip and fizzy drink aisle of Coles, where I wander forlornly, wondering who thought getting rid of Atomic Tomato flavoured crisps was a justifiable way forward for Samboy. And here I read that grave fears are held for Ange and Brad's kids. Grave fears are held because there'll be six under six (I only ever got to two under two), the kids fight, they're jealous of each other and they're given junk food (which according to a dietician is a 'ticking time bomb') to eat. Truly, these kids are doomed, damned and betrayed by such cruelty, as their clearly disturbed behaviour (Pushing! Fighting over toys!) shows.

I have no idea if any of the reports are true (though I tend to doubt the reliability of 'sources' and 'those close to the couple') or if people believe them, and can't think it actually affects A & B in anyway to have this written about them, but it really shits me that these kinds of messages are spewed into my world for the punters' weekly dose of moral indignation.

In the last day or so Nell, Lu or both have:

* eaten marshmallows and green cordial before bed and then fallen asleep without brushing their teeth;
* watched the whole series of Walking With Dinosaurs, twice;
* Eaten paint;
* Eaten chook food (in my defense, it was organic);
* Head butted and body slammed each other; in one memorable instance, Lucy kicked Nell in the face and Nell bit her toe (just like those python crushing the elephant/ elephant falls to the ground and crushes the python scenarios);
* Competed constantly for my attention;
* Screamed loudly and annoyingly in public places;
* Always wanted what the other one had;;
* Tantrumed because there'd be no playing in the dog park mud today.

And while I don't think these reflect the very best parenting practices and kiddie attitudes, I'm okay with all this (perhaps a little worried about the paint). Because I'm a good parent and my kids are good kids.

That magazine had a lot in common with the brouhaha over the 'I hate kids' posts a month or so ago, over at feministing. The posts annoyed me but I was really pissed off by the comments, here and at other sites, that often took a 'tolerant' stand of 'I don't blame the kids, I blame the parent'. People's whining about kids behaving badly reflects a belief that a) kids spring fully formed from the head of Zeus, all clued up on social rules and self-discipline; b) have no claim to freedom of movement or freedom of association; and c) that adults conform to social, legal and moral rules (cf. any early Saturday morning outside of the Saloon on Charles Street/ any other pub anywhere).

And I'm kind of sick of people holding parents to a standard of behaviour, a clarity of judgement, a commitment to purpose, that we don't expect of the childless. I'm not talking about systematic cruelty or on-going abuse but the daily stumblings as we try our best. People are fine about their 'addiction' to chocolate, their lazy Friday take-out noodles, their bludging in front of the telly, their spending money on expensive shoes instead of rent, their failed attempts to start exercising or whatever other quirky vices we all lay claim to. And that's fine, because we are all lazy and tired and forgetful and all the other things that stop us being The Very Best We Can Possibly Be. Yes, I do have a duty to my kids' welfare that is different to the duty we as adults have to our own selves, but my kids eat a lot less junk food and watch a lot less telly than the average Australian who frowns when the girls eat a brownie and whine annoyingly amongst a self-satisfied cafe crowd.

And I think there's a kind of irony in that magazine, with that article, sitting right next to the Salt and Vinegar chips and the Fanta in Coles.

Future perfect

Back from Brisbane, I spent a few hours today in the garden. Spreading muck, sowing some broad beans, lettuce and broccoli, but mostly planting flowers: 60 mixed iris, sweet peas and Queen Anne's Lace, to keep company with the multitude of freesias, the 100 ranunculas, last year's daffodils and the 140 tulips still sitting in the vegetable crisper. If the plans unfurl in the way I hope, we will drift in colour for months.

Anyone who writes about gardening can't help but state that the planting of seeds is an act of faith; no matter how simple the science, there's something quite surprising in the green from the brown, the pink (or red, or yellow, or white) from the green. Today, the planting of flowers seemed even more a statement of hope than usual. When I think of that loveliness, it sits in a vase in our house - flowers in the garden are too far away for me. And in that image, the vase sits in a house that is serene, sharing space with a family that is happy and calm. A family, indeed, with a rather different emotional tenor to the one we shared today.

Today, Lucy behaved horribly, so horribly I can't quite remember a time when she did not (though I am almost sure that time was only about 48 hours ago). So horribly that is was all I - all we - could do not to scream at her, to hit out hard. Al and I don't physically punish the girls, and days like today strengthen that resolve despite - and because - we want so badly to smack her. On days like today that smack could only be vindictive. On days like today we come to the brink of something very harsh and I'm not sure what stops me - self-discipline perhaps, sometimes drifting into my happy place, a deep breath, screaming in my head, or the intervention of Al (who only fifteen minutes ago was in the same position). We're good and kind people, our own parents were great role models, we have a whole set of financial, social and emotional resources and still we come so close.

As a childless person I was blithely judgmental of any parent who hit their child in anger or laziness or frustration or resentment or any of the 100 other emotional states we are not meant to experience as parents, and to be honest I still often am. But my goodness, the only difference between me and those I judge is that my hand stops barely short.

I love my kids, it goes without saying. But sometimes I need to say it, to remind myself that it's true, and to hold on to that image of a vase of flowers in a happy home.

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.

Memory

The road from the east coast of Tasmania to the central north where I live winds past Piccininny Point, skirts Irishtown and Germantown, goes straight through St Mary's and on past Cornwall. At one point, lying alongside it, is a crooked graveyard attached to a solid Anglican church. Lucy, my parents and I stopped here on our way back from our holiday before Christmas, and spent some family time wandering amongst the dead.





This is perhaps not the most obviously family friendly fun but we love these places. They are quiet and beautiful and each piece of stone holds a story. They never end well but then none of our lives are attached to a happily ever after. Some though, are a little harder to read than others. This one made my heart stop and then start again a little more slowly than it had before.



Lu asked me about it when I was taking photos and I told her what it said, without thinking. I told her the little baby was sleeping under the ground, cosy with his dead friends. Then she asked if he was fixed with bandaids and cream (ointment). I said no, that he would always be under the ground. Then she asked if he was fixed with bandaids and cream (ointment). And I said 'yes' because she wanted it to be true and so did I. I am a mother and I want to think that no-one ever has to face this horror, this one of a thousand worst things, things that cannot be named, things we fear when we think of our children and wonder at our fragile luck in having them still.

It's a month and a half since we walked in the graveyard but I think about that memorial every day. No lily following the curve of the headstone, no 'sadly missed', no 'dearly loved'. But those words don't change what happened or what was felt. Everyday I think about that memorial and I remember that I am blessed.



And I would like to acknowledge those mothers who have faced the worst things.

Down time

My dad is down to help with childcare while Al works for the union up to the election. We've been all having our butts kicked by the kids who have reached new levels of challenging behaviour. Dad said something the other day that made me almost cry with relief. He said the girls are difficult kids (and without going in to my own family history, Dad knows a thing or two about difficult kids). I used to think it was a dreadful thing to call kids difficult, to label them with our own perceptions of 'appropriate' behaviour. I thought any troubles with interactions, discipline, etc were the result of family dynamics. I say 'Ha! Get down off your high horse' to that previous, pious self. Golly she was an annoying twit and she's getting her come-uppance now.

It was so good to hear that it's not just me and Al, that it's not just that we're not cut out for this parenthood gig and found out a little too late. We've been able to stop self-flagellating quite so much, knowing it's not just that we somehow don't make the grade. My kids are difficult. My kids are difficult. It doesn't solve any of the problems we're facing, but some days it's enough to keep me going until the blessed 7pm bedtime.

I'm taking a break from writing because I realise that if I continue all there'll be is 'my kids are difficult' written with varying degrees of relief and resentment, and without any resolution. And one day I hope to show the girls this blog, and I don't think my kids need to know how desperate we often feel in the face of their behaviour. Plus, blogs help us notice and make sense of things but I need words to express that noticing, and the words are fast drying up under the 4.50 am wake ups, the constant screams and anger and violence and whinging and disobedience and dangerous behaviour both girls direct against each other and against us. There comes a time when there's not much more to say, when there's just a primal scream of 'make it stop', whirling in my belly and barely blocked from escaping out my throat wwith a violent and ugly force. There's only so many ways I can write my girls are difficult without becoming boring and repetitive and whiney.

So I'm going to stop finding well wrought ways of saying "what the f*** is going on in my life?" and I'll try to figure it in other ways instead. I'm going to post up photos of my garden, of the girls, of the things that make me happy in the interim, and when there are some more interesting words I'll start typing them in again.

Mutalabis

Rosa mutabalis

Just recently there have been days when I almost recognise myself. I'm starting to travel a little for work, I'm wearing smart trousers and nice shoes, flicking through powerpoint slides and looking over at people listen to what I say, as if I might know what I'm talking about (crazy!). I've started to stay in hotels in different cities. I've started to talk to important people on teleconferences. These are echoes of an older me who had drive and ambition and a fair(-ish) idea of what I wanted in life. But it's a shell, I'm only passing - all the constituent bits are there, but not the heart, not the soul.

****

Today I was fitted for new bras - my breast are not, it seems, returning to what they once were - and I looked in the mirror and was shocked at the body I saw. I've had more than my fair share of body issues back in the day but I don't hate my body anymore. But ... I'm not quite sure this is my body. It doesn't look familiar. I am wearing the clothes from my sprog free days but they don't fit the way they once did. The jeans look okay, the shirts cover the relevant bits without straining too hard but there's something slightly off.

****

I used to practice yoga a lot. A lot. An hour and half of Ashtanga seven days a week. It was utterly part of who I was. I've started back again, just twice a week, and it's amazing what my body remembers, even after such a long break. Sometimes my body, and my self, feel the way they used to. And then we move into shoulder stand and I look up and see my belly and I'm pretty sure someone is playing tricks on me with a crazy mirror.


This motherhood gig is a tricky thing. I can't got back, don't want to go back, but how on earth do I find a way forward?

I used to think maybe motherhood was like a piece of clothing, something I pulled on at the relevant time (great jeans and a funky little shirt, perhaps, casual and fabulous) and shrugged off at other times (business attire for the day; something sexy and elegant for when I became an adult after the girls had gone to bed). But it's not that easy. So then I thought, maybe motherhood is like a jumper that I knit from an old pattern someone passed on to me, using bits of wool from my grandmother's scrapbag in the hallway cupboard. Except it turns out the pattern is kind of old fashioned, and some of it is missing and anyway, I can't knit. And I don't think the answer lies in pulling something on, something exernal to me. I'm trying to recover that core of me, the part that remains the truth even as roles and bodies and ambitions change, but it's hard to remember what that was, hard to figure out where to look for it, hard to believe I ever had that core in the first place.

Tricky, tricky, tricky.

****

Rosa mutabalis is free flowering, with flowers changing from deep pink to pale yellow and apricot. It grows tall and it's tough, surviving through drought and neglect, but the flowers look like silk. I'm not sure what all this means for me, because I'm tired and sad and my thinking is fuzzy, but there's something about that rose that I cling to on bad days, something that makes me know things will change again and again and again, and that things will be easier one day soon.

Get out of the kitchen

Four years ago I went to a conference where the keynote address focussed on the corporeal effects of neo-liberalism, which is just a fancy way of saying our work patterns impact on our wellbeing. The gist of the talk was this: we are working harder under conditions of uncertainty and our bodies are paying the price. The topic was a hit and over the coffee break many people - most of them women - talked passionately about their experiences. But the message didn't resonate with me. I thought, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen".

Last week while in Brisbane I caught up with an old colleague. We were discussing the ways in which our institutions require us to work longer hours in increasingly diverse roles. I'm not so pleased with these expectations but my colleague felt differently. She said - you guessed it - "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen". I murmured something non-committal but I've been stewing over this exchange, wishing I had said what I thought: "Bullshit". How times do change.

What worried me about the comment last week was the tone. There was no attack, just a clear suggestion about the best way to deal with a tricky situation. But why is it self-evident that we need to bend our families and ourselves to the demands of our paid work? I'm trying to think through, and not just feel, why I find this expectation is more than a little bit wrong.

A couple of days ago we were very busy, bumbling and bustling in the autumn mists. Lu and I planted some broad bean seeds (probably too late for anything to happen to them) and she learned the difference between broadcasting and placing seeds in furrows. Then we searched for walnuts and cracked them open with a brick before hunting strawberries and discussing the merits of cleaning out the chicken coop. After this exchange (we came down in favour of not cleaning the coop today), we read Hooper Humperdink eight times in succession ("and Olivetta Oppenbeem. I'll have to order more ice cream" – I love that line, it’s very fine poetry). I fed Nell and to her delight, played "heads and shoulders, knees and toes" with her body, many times over. While Nell slept I walked the dog down to the deli to buy some thank you gifts and then dropped them by at a friend's house. Then Al and the girls went to the park while I went for a swim. Home to cook dinner, bathe the girls and dose them with cold medicine, and put them to bed with more stories. Not a dramatic day, and a good day.

In six days' time I won't be doing any of this. I'll be sitting at my desk, passing as a professional in a smart jacket and my nice shoes. Al will be looking after the girls and he won't be doing half these things; my day only happened with two parents on the ground. Next week, the intimacy and frustrations of all day contact will begin to dissolve. This isn't an epic tragedy but my small domestic losses have a cumulative effect on my world and our shared society.

It probably doesn’t really matter that Lu is learning self-sufficiency in the garden, or that she can forage for protein. But our day could be described as more than a series of tasks: I socialised my children; opted out of – and back into – consumerism; I invested in social networks; ensured my family enjoyed a balanced diet; and looked after my – and my family’s – physical and mental health. These actions are all social goods and many also have indirect positive economic benefits for society. But I suspect I would have to explain this to most people, whereas the goods of paid work seem self-evident.

It’s not a new issue, I know, but it’s new in my life. I’ve never really felt the need to justify my work and family choices in a way a lot of stay-at-home mothers experience, probably because I’ve always been heading back to work – thus fulfilling my duty as an economic being – and Al looks after the girls at home – thus avoiding the fraught debates over childcare (Al’s choices, on the other hand, confuse and confront almost everyone we come across). But I get the feeling I’m going to have to start explaining why I’m not working weekends and evenings, why I’m saying ‘no’, why I won’t be travelling; in short, why I won’t be giving my all to the organization that pays my wage. Even putting boundaries around my time I will feel I will be sacrificing a lot, and I will be, because my family is my core, my centre, my axis, and I feel most comfortable expressing this through my domestic activities. For other women, going back to work is a blessed and invigorating choice, and they may show their love for their kids in other ways. But my colleague – who’s a smart and critical thinker, and who openly struggles with the work-family balance herself – talks about the role of work as a given. It’s neither a choice nor a sacrifice but the natural order of things: work first.

I’ve spent seven months away from work and, while there’ve been some very hard time, it’s been on balance quite wonderful. I keep saying to people, “It’s such a luxury”, mindful of the economic pressures and truncated leave entitlements most people work under. But as I get ready to start up my work self I’m increasingly sorry that what we’ve had is a luxury – it should be something available to everyone. As I write this I think, ‘Well that’s not economically feasible’; even in my wish life the taken for granted-ness of the centrality of work asserts itself. But I’d like to think that I won’t forget what I’ve learned about the value of time and family in these months away, and that I’ll protect those lessons and values from the encroaching demands of work. I’m planning to stay in the kitchen – the metaphorical one, and my very own as well.

Eating from the garden: surprising strawberries, big as Lucy’s fist; rocket in sandwiches but not much else.

Purple shoes

I've been wearing Chuck Taylors (and now their Oxfam substitutes) for well over a decade (and using the word decade is making me feel just a tiny bit old). My first pair were a lush, emerald green, bought in Melbourne with my dear friend Ttina, and through the years I've bought them bright. I wear a lot of black and grey as a thin - well, largely transparent - veneer of sophistication and taste, but I let my garish preferences explode on my feet. My favourite shoes were a happy purple. Their time in their limelight was truncated when one night they fell victim to my then puppy Jasper and, chewed at the heel, they became gardening shoes. Chucks aren't made for such harsh treatment and they soon faded and flopped and were relegated to the garage, where they slept unloved until Al found them as he cleaned the garage in yet another of our attempts to control our life through controlling our stuff.

Looking at those shoes made me happy. They were the last pair I bought before the kids reshaped the ways I saw myself, and our mortgage and one income status put limits on my spending. Today, getting ready for a walk after another morning of a screaming baby, I pulled them in an attempt to feel girlish again. And, despite their sad state, they almost almost worked.


As my friend and I walked our dogs by the river we talked over the same issues we discuss every week: the limits of motherhood and its possibilities; the erosion of a sense of self and the development of a new identity; how great sleep is; why is it so hard to live on one wage? The talk was no big deal - these are my topics of conversation with all my close friends - but it was just kind of weird to be saying these things wearing these shoes from my very different past. I had no idea, when I bought these purple shoes, that not too many years later, this is where I'd be: down by the river, on an autumn day, missing my girls after just an hour of their absence.


Plus, Jasper, he's not so fat!

Eating from the garden: eggs, parsley and chives, just like yesterday; and tonight, more Chinese greens in a tofu and lychee stir fry.

Beetlejuice

Last week, struggling under the first of the unit's simultaneous colds of the season, I stepped into the garden to cheer myself. And there among the sad, brown beans sat a colony of brand new bugs. I'm not sure what they are but they're garish, spotty, and they've got fluoro blood when they're squashed under my Thumb of Wrath - anything that tacky has got to be bad. But instead of doing something about them I stalked backed to the house in sniffling and snotty disgust.

The uninspiring site of the planned invasion

I garden organically and these aren't the first set of bugs that have tried to colonise the back. I'm getting kind of sick of their company and, as the thrill of the moral high ground starts to fade, I'm getting kind of sick of the whole organic thing as well. On bad days I feel the there's an awful lot of romanticism scattered like stardust about the literature. It might be desirable to 'share' with nature, knowing there's enough for all, but in my sad experience the birds, bugs, slugs and snails will eat everything, and without a single word of apology. I've had trees laden with apricots and taken about three, all green, because that's all the fruit that's been left to me. Slugs are best disposed by a gory tramp around a garden in the dark, and apparently gardeners can break the codling moth breeding cycle if they check the cycle of the moon and hunt at night. Call me old fashioned, but in my world night's for sleeping (and feeding, and settling babies, and feeding again). Apparently the proliferation of bugs is a matter of garden hygiene; am I to be called a slattern because my mulching leads to the unforeseen consequence of bug eggs and hidey holes? And has planting dill among the cabbages ever confused the moths? So I ask myself as I feed the worm farm, turn the compost, dig in organic matter, collect the snails for the chooks, and a hundred other do-it-the-right way tasks, "why do I bother?"

It's been a challenge to come up with an answer that satisfied me. I guess partly I'm a sucker for a pretty face and some curly hair - each time I watch that earthy Josh on Gardening Australia I renew my commitment to organics. Plus, Pete Cundell does it this way and he's 80, so maybe it's worth it in the long run and I’ll be a spry national treasure as a reward for my efforts. There’s the immediate dangers of poisons: the only time I've used snail bait my dog Jasper, then just a puppy, jumped the fence, ate it and almost died; growing up Lutheran I couldn't shake the feeling that this was a judgement for my sinning ways. And I do like a challenge - gardening organically is an intellectual as well as a physical task, and both dimensions are important to me. Sometimes something good happens: the lady birds I so casually mentioned a few posts back were a long time coming but such a thrill to see their dotty selves in my garden after three years of trying to put things to rights.

There's something else going on as well. Previous owners mistreated this lot and when we bought it, it was a wasteland, irrespective of the big trees and a stunted looking peach. Our garden archaeology turns up broken stubbies and cans of Bundy and Coke. Any part of the soil not intensively nursed by me has no body, no structure and nothing at all living in it. I've never lived in a place where the sight of a worm is an occasion for comment but here it's taken us four years to lure them back into our boundaries. I feel sad that such a beautiful house on such a generous plot - so much larger than anything sub-divided today - could be held in such disdain. I feel we have been blessed to have found this home, particularly when I think of so many people struggling with high house prices and tight rental markets, and my thanks is partly expressed by my stewardship of the little bit of land on which my family lives. I feel - and in this I'm romanticising, I know, I know - that organic methods are designed to develop a partnership with my environment (even though more often than not I'm a junior partner), they are not aimed at domination and getting things only my way. This seems the least I can do given my garden’s sad past.

Stewardship is important to me as a mother. 'Think globally, act locally' may be kind of naff in times when mortgage rates and Aussie values dominate political debate but I try to do the best I can with what I can. I live in a State where my concern for my children's wellbeing, and the health and aesthetics of my world, is marginalised and subjugated to the forestry industry; where some small communities quite often need to boil their water before drinking it; and where regulatory processes can be quite publicly and shamelessly opted out of - with government facilitation - when enough money and influence is at stake. I protest in all the polite ways but last weekend I sat under a tree, listening to anger and hope at a public rally against a pulp mill to be sited up river, and I felt powerless and despairing. It may be that my garden can't really be organic in the time and place where I live but in trying, I'm holding on to my belief that I can make a difference. And even if I can't I'm showing my girls that we are lucky enough to have the choice to leave our place a nicer than when we came to it, and that sometimes what matters is that you try, not that you succeed. Then again, maybe I’m just pissing into the wind.

Either way, I’m back out tomorrow, squishing bugs between my finger and thumb. I hope they appreciate their right-on deaths.

Good organics, inside


and out


On a separate matter: an innocent victim of our lack of sleep. We took our labradoodle Jasper to the vet for his annual check up, only to have him officially designated “fat”. We’re sitting on the couch instead of walking the dog, and the poor fellow is bearing the public shame. No more bacon treats and many more hikes in the forest, that’s his lot.

Eating from the garden: beautifully scrambled eggs with chives for breakfast; apples for snacks; the last of the corn with crab and noodles in a Chinese-esque soup, with steamed bok choy and choy sum (the high point of the eating week).

Once upon a time

I am the household's teller of tales, and I can spin a yarn from the flimsiest topic (peppered with laboured metaphors if needs be). Lu has her favourites: how Jasper the dog came to us on an aeroplane and slept his first night on my hair; how we bought a lithograph in Germany; the purchasing of the little green house on Howick Street and our subsequent move to our current home. I'll tell these stories seven, eight, nine times in a row, hitting a rhythm that allows my thoughts to drift elsewhere. I think Lu uses these stories to feel secure in her world and I'm happy to help with that.

We've tried to be very matter of fact about bodies, naming the bits appropriately (and feeling incredibly uncomfortable as we do so: who wants to say 'vuvla' to a two year old when one's own childhood was peppered with "pee pee" and "down there"?). Because of course our bodies are to be owned, they are nothing to be ashamed of. This smug claim has been sorely tested in practice. As I was dressing Lu asked me to tell a story about pubic hair. Well, I'm not that kind of story teller. So where does a mother go from here? For the sake of posterity, here's where:

Once there were some pubic hairs. They went to the supermarket and bought some lollies and chocolate. And then they took them home to Mummy. Mummy was very happy. And that's the end.

I think the story lacks any real emotional resonance and the characterisation is sketchy. Lu, on the other hand, is more than satisfied with it.

Eating from the garden: oven roasted tomatoes on toast and pate for breakfast (posh!); beans in a Dad type stir fry; corn (from the second harvest), beans and tomatoes with snags for dinner, with a chutney made from part of the tomato pyramid; raspberries, apples and cherry tomatoes for snacks.