these days

It has been almost a month since I've been at home on my own during the days with these gorgeous boys.* It is difficult because it is motherhood (duh), but is is also difficult because there is no cafe, no library, no playground, no pavement to pound, no neighbours' kids, no mid-week one-hour yoga escape, simply no one else around, except K when he gets home from work.

It has been a month of trying to find my groove. Of trying to rise above the 'haven'ts' (see above) and create a reality for us that is fun and memorable and celebrates our amazing location. Of realising that these are the days! And they are fleeting! It will take more than a month, all of this, of course. Some of it is a daily practice.

The best thing about this new world order has been reconnecting with the big boy. There has been much change for him in the past year, and it shows. There are shining moments where he is pure delight - kind, curious, helpful, funny, loving, playful. But much of the time, he has been moody and cantankerous, master of the epic meltdown. And he saves his very worst for me. So, after a tumultuous first week on our own together, I feel like we are re-establishing our little union. And it has been so lovely, and such a relief, to feel the love again with him. This portrait was his idea: he loves pressing the timer button on our cameras!

And the small boy, well, he just fits in. He needs to be fed often when he is awake, but is the most chilled out little being, who just laughs and gurgles and sleeps. And he sleeps! All the exclamation points in the world cannot emphasise this point enough. I would never have thought it possible after Ellery. I waited two plus years to get some me-time back in my evenings. And after just two months with the little feller, I have my evenings back again. Incredulous!! And well-earned, if I may say so.

Despite my hesitations about daytime flying solo, I'm actually enjoying it. Beyond the bonding stuff, I am quite liking the challenge of trying to get stuff done (and am now known around these parts as Wonder Woman), and reinvigorating our space and our routines.

I am writing this in the early heady days. It may be a different story by October when I'm due back at work. But it's surpassed my expectations. And fluffed out my heart a bit. I call that a win.

*We had an au pair until recently (necessary for my work from our island outpost), who stayed on for the first couple of months after our littlest feller was born.

And up

The last week and a half back on the island has been wholly good. Awesome even. And - halleluljah - I can't recall a low point.

Most afternoons we've been at the beach. And most days, I either do yoga or walk. Some days, both. That is, walk + yoga + beach. This is HUGE. And impossibly easy. I can't believe we didn't think of it sooner. After K gets home from work, I do a fast walk (with tunes) to the beach - and then maybe a walk on the beach, or maybe yoga. K drives to the beach and babywrangles whilst throwing a line in. (Fishing is his new thing - the beach is his always thing.) We mix it up different ways, some days I do yoga early while the boy sleeps. Whichever way it unfolds, it is brilliance, and we both get what we crave. We have been SO much happier since this little routine evolved. 

And. I have been getting way more stuff done during the day. The boy is sleeping better (read: normally, ie, when he isn't awoken by the need to vomit/me clanging a pot/stupendous heat/etc, etc), and is ever-so-gradually becoming more okay with not being permanently attached to me. Yesterday he was happy to be in his Fantastic Standing Up Machine (an activity station we borrowed which he loves because he can assume a standing up posture and look around) for long enough for me to wash bottles AND make formula. Un. Precedented.

I also 1) rolled my first ever ball of wool to start the long-awaited baby blanket AND almost finished a paper crane mobile I started a year ago, 2) applied for federal monies that go along with having a baby and sussed out a tax issue that had been bugging me, 3) started updating our address details with the gazillion outfits that need to know, 4) placed a bulk order for cloth nappies, 5) bought a new wok, and 6) blogged, edited recipes and wrote emails back and forth to the ABC who invited me to have some recipes featured on the new release of their Foodi iPad app!! Woot! (This news alone did wonders for my general vibe and reminded me I have 'stuff' outside the babyhood.)

[Note: I have been trying for six months to get to most of these jobs. Further note: I probably did even more stuff which escapes me now. Final note: the feeling of momentum with getting stuff done makes me so happy I could pop (or at least stay up way too late to get more stuff done)].

As further illustration of how amazing this is, my days usually go something like this. Wake stupidly early, feed the boy. Put him in his chair while he's happy so I can make coffee/breakfast. Play with him, feed him, get him to sleep. The forty-minute 'stealth ninja' sprint begins and includes as much as possible from the following: get dressed and roughly cleaned up, wash and make bottles, do last night's dishes, keep the perpetual motherlode of laundry churning, try to keep a very large, open-to-the-elements house cleanish tidy liveable, eat lunch, make lists of things I must do but never seem to get to. If he's not sleeping well, the forty-minute sprint becomes a twenty-minute sprint with interruptions to get him back TF to sleep. He has anywhere between two and four sleeps a day. And sometimes I accidentally clang a pot and *bugger shit fuck* wake him.**

Our night time routines have also improved markedly in the past month or so. We are mostly eating dinner together now, which makes a lovely change from the tag-team affair that reigned for a long time after E came home from hospital.

I'm loathe to call it too early, but hey, I'm on a roll. This feels like considerable improvement. 


...

**This is why I haven't called/written to anyone/blogged and have struggled to do any yoga/walking for six months :)

The only way is up - or life in the land of vomit and depression

My aspiration to write here more regularly (dare I declare, weekly) has wafted into the babyland ether. Then there was an app without a 'save' function (wtf?) which wafted away my draft, leading to large clumps of hair being pulled*. At least I am holding on to my other new year aspirations - yoga and walking - thus far. I even did a solo walk to the beach, followed by yoga on the shore as the sun set and a rainbow fell upon our house! Has to be some sort of omen! (Bigtime thanks to K for the suggestion, and for baby wrangling.) Anyway, all those blog posts I quasi write in my head... poof, gone. So here's a list of sorts. Just a warning, what follows is not exactly bathed in positivity. Hint: look away now if this is likely to upset. The next one will be positive, I promise.

1. Sometimes I just long to put the boy in the pram and go for a long fast walk. Or even a short fast walk. Alas, we have one 'sealed' (and I'm being VERY generous) road, and that's our driveway. We do a bumpity cross-country meander down to the heli-pad most days, but oh, to burn off some energy with a proper walk. (The kind of walk I'm talking about is not the kind that can be accomplished with an almost-10-kilogram baby in the Ergo, though I do need to figure out how to put him on my back in it so he can look around.)

2. When I lament like this, I make myself look out the window. It's easy to become blase about where we live. Especially when some days it's hard to leave the house. For explanation, refer to roads issue (see point one), add vomity, heavy baby, stupendous heat and non-stop rain. 

3. Still frustrated by milk issues. And time issues, while we're at it. And just getting-to-grips-with-babyland issues generally. I badly need - and want - to get over it. I am booked in to see a postnatal counsellor.

4. Mothers' groups. After much fruitless trawling, I've concluded that being more active in the blogosphere is the only way I'll get to share with other mums of similar ilk. Unless I want to haul myself off to the city for this purpose, which is such an exercise in stress and anxiety that I would much rather put up with my existing stress and anxiety in the comfort of my own home. See point five. Also on this theme, wondering how to reconcile my two online selves, as I feel the pull back to this blog...

5. Trips to the mainland do my head in and deplete my already-thin reserves of calm. With all the appointments and extensive provisioning for The Life Remote, these trips usually result in a non-sleeping baby, stress and anxiety for us and a generally unpleasant vibe. I would much rather stay at home. See point four.

6. Our first date in six months, which I'd teed up a week in advance, evaporated due to a non-sleeping baby - and therefore, non-sleeping us - and general feelings of crankiness. Also see point five. 

7. Somehow, despite knowing all this, and having just returned from Brisbane, I'm going again tomorrow. Just me and the boy. For a flurry of appointments. I have no idea how I am going to carry all our stuff, drive the car and juggle a vomity baby. It will either harden me up for future solo-travels-with-a-baby, or turn me into a blathering hermit.

8. Maybe this should have been point one. Poor E still suffers quite badly from reflux and on a hot day, will vomit after each feed, in between feeds and just randomly - so pretty much all day. It is SO frustrating and depressing seeing him in distress. And spending vast lumps of time endless days forever feeding. We took him to see a craniosacral therapist who instantly helped his neck stiffness - he'd been almost unable to look left. Hoping this will also fix his now-very flat-on-one-side head. And of course the reflux, which we were told is exacerbated or possibly even caused by his spine being slightly twisted from his birth. Which impinges on the vagus nerve which has something to do with digestion. Anyway. It feels good to be doing something about it.

9. eBay! Oh joyous rapture! See - a positive! I'm sure the rangers all think I'm holed up here at the Cape whiling away the man's hard-earned. (Our mail comes via the ranger station - and luckily I have my own hard-earned for another six months.) Latest purchases: a happy hangup for the boy (I live in denial naive desperation of prolonging the daytime catnaps), three wooden Manhattan Toy things, some books and a fancy sleep-bag.

10. I'm not sure this list even makes sense. It's late, my thoughts are mud but I'm pressing publish anyway.

*Sorry if you got an email with a blank post... I'll spare you the tribulations of useless Blogger apps.

fillings and gaps

Poor neglected blog. Thank goodness for Firefox's password memory thingie, as I doubt my own would have got me any editorial privilege here. If you've stumbled here from somewhere else, you might like to keep stumbling to my other blog where my online energies go (as opposed to this one where they clearly don't).

I guess a small bit of updating is in order. *Applies time-lapse technique.* So. December, we visited Uluru. Pictorial evidence here. Christmas, Binginwarri, shamefully scant pictorial evidence here. (Oh and finally upgraded my Flickr account - way less commitment than setting up a new photo blog... refer first point.) Stayed dry through the floods and gagged on my overuse of the word 'surreal'. Baked a little, and found myself inadvertently on a small bandwagon. Got totally addicted to Twitter, various blogs and my mate R's little bub (not in any particular order of course). Went swagging in the rain at Brunswick Heads. Despaired the lack of sunshine. Saw Sufjan Stevens, most awesome Christmas present ever. Whistlestop visit to Melbourne to see Mum in hospital. Started yoga classes after the longest absence. Discovered a genius recipe for steamed chicken.

On the work front, I moved back to the old policy job, after the person who's seat I warmed for a year in manager-land returned. The old-new job has proved thusfar better than expected. Enjoying being back in the policy head space, and actually doing something quite different to what I'd previously done (win). In other work news, the Uluru job didn't eventuate :( ... which is not to say it mightn't yet. We're staying put in Brisvegas for now and K is continuing to build the web empire. Anyone need a WordPress site built or hosted?

There was probably some other stuff in there too. Oh yeah, I finally twisted someone's arm to play Scrabble with me!

Well, there is some other news, but that deserves its own post. ;)

a complete day

Life has been speeding along. Nothing new there. A year since the bushfires, and there are downpours here and floods in New South Wales. Work is plenty busy, and there's news on that front just round the corner. I've also been idling away sunny days at the keyboard trying (seemingly fruitlessly) to bend and shape a couple of web projects into being. Lamenting the feeling of another weekend slipping through my fingers, I wondered if maybe I would feel like I'd achieved more if I could finish the sentence, 'a day would not be complete without...'. So. In an effort to check that I'm spending my time where it matters, a day would not be complete without...

cuddles and aimless lovely time with K
yoga, or at least a very quick stretch
a solid walk
making a little bit of art, whether through photography, words, craft-ivity or meddling in the dirt
reading, be it the papers, policy stuff for work, a cookbook or ... lo and behold, that long neglected beast, the book!
and of course, food dreaming, cooking and eating yummy food - accomplished this morning via pancakes with figs, yoghurt and honey... yum!

Feel free to join in...

paper & wood bits and bobs

Have been wanting for a while now to post some photos of recent domestic~crafty activity ... including my wonderful new kitchen shelves (a Christmas gift from K) which go a long way to solving the problems of an impossibly small pantry, and the ex science-lab drawers that QUT (fortuitously for our craft room) piffed out. Late last year I saw some floor-to-ceiling driftwood hanging things in Biome which inspired a small driftwood, paua-shell and stone mobile which now adorns our front door. And then there's the world's most ridiculously-labour-intensive paper crane mobile, which I made as a xmas gift (but ended up giving to myself, given the time frittered away making it) ...

hand-washing

nine months

Mind-boggling, but that’s how long I’ve been back in Bris-vegas. And back at desk. The novelty of home and routine and staying put has dulled. I am so reintegrated (re-educated?) I talk about my former cultural alienation like it belonged to someone else. Winter has stolen daylight from my home. It’s too dark and cold to nurture plantlife mid-week and weekends always disappear under the weight of bare necessities… laundry, coffee, papers, food and a lazy snatch of sunshine. Despite a little busy spell – a couple of writing assignments, theatre engagements, kayaking jaunts and dinners out – the past month has yet managed to dissolve in a blur of yoga-guilt, neglected plants and half-started library books. And I’ve been a carefree squirrel, merrily piffing acorns up the wall. So have been feeling grudgingly distracted from goal. But trying still to take it all in and enjoy the ride. The lazy susan of life has been spinning at a breakneck pace. And it has launched a small parcel of spectacular my way. But given recent efforts at Speaking Too Soon, I'm gonna wait a few more spins before spilling the goods.

material girl and the wealth of nations

Lately I’ve been single-handedly reversing the penny-pinching global trend. My dormant discretionary spending capacity has been unleashed and the industrious squirreling of acorns into a handsome mound has been suspended in the name of cultural participation. It started as a few dinners out, some music, books, wine. A movie here. A haircut there. New jeans. A festival ticket. A 1960s Danish leather chair!

When I moved into the Highgate Hill abode, I found it really difficult to unpack things. The psychological transition from impermanence/mobility to a more predictable, fixed life (with objets de stuff) is unfolding still. I'm still living out of a toiletries bag (old habits) and my pantry which still seems mildly gargantuan is in fact little more than a large shoe box. Now the end of my six-month lease is nigh. I have a new job and am enjoying the company of men-folk (one in particular). I've been coming round to the idea that maybe my view of this moment (the job, the city, the 100-metre dash for cash) being ultra temporary was kind of illusory. That doesn’t mean I have cast aside my self-sufficiency goals. It means that severe shortcuts which demand a reduced/fleeting experience are out. I will unpack the other four glasses in the set! I will get that print framed and I will invest in stereophonics!

Longevity is my new mantra. Temporary is out!

So in aid of making my current stations more comfortable, I spent Saturday trawling the net and visiting Video Pro to talk stereo. iPod speaker docks, in fact. I was completely ready to pounce on the B&W Zeppelin, supreme and lovely beast of speaker docks. Which would have been an immediate fix to my lack-of-decent-sound problem. But at the point of sale that longevity thing reared its persistent little mug. I took a walk and pondered the iPod lifecycle and the scalability of the Zeppelin for future stations in life. It has no tuner. It sounded difficult to hook up to dvd. It has kick-ass speakers, but whose ability to kick ass would probably diminish in larger environs. I pondered the final commitment to adulthood: the purchase of a grown-up stereo. The kind you keep forever.

I stood there on the brink of ideological redefinition, with the sales chump batting his free warranties at me. I hemmed. I hawed. I hedged. And drove away sans Zeppelin, resigning myself to the inevitable protracted trauma of researching amps, tuners and speakers.

When I got home I took out the sales chump's card.

Adam Smith. Indeed. The material girl is back.

the black russians

Got to love a tomato that sounds like the Soviet mob. I remember growing tomatoes in plastic garbage bins when I was a long-haired, bare-footed little person. Actually I should say I remember making dirt tunnels in plastic garbage bins while one of the not-then-relics planted tomatoes in the not-yet-tunneled garbage bin. Anyway, my black russians, which I have nurtured from seedlings (thanks Dad), through a three-state, three-day road trip and three Brisbane addresses, are about to deliver their lycopene goodliness!

YEEEEAAH!

I have looked after these little grommets like a mother-in-training, hauling myself out every night during a swampy Brisbane summer, shagged from work, to water them by bucket. I've hauled them round in my car from house-stay to house-sit to housebound-bliss. Frankly I've never invested so much grunt into a plant before. Well actually that's a lie... but I am not going to flaunt my criminal past here. Anyway, today I made three loaves of sourdough and am thinking the russians will go nicely with that, a little olive oil and some of the purple basil that I have unbelievably managed to sprout from seed and which is now growing like medusa on speed in my little potted garden. A perfect, if hard-won, home made lunch.

mysterious case of the honey pot

A couple of Friday nights ago, I arrived home after a dangerous mix of beer and mojitos and sat on my deck with a friend, courting pain and suffering (slurping down gin and tonics).

I spied something sitting by the back door, which in the semi-dark sozzled-ness, I could neither identify nor get up to investigate.

When I opened the back door on Saturday morning, there it was: a mysterious pot of honey. A rather large mysterious pot of honey. A rather large mysterious kick-ass pot of honey.

I am in awe of these bees, for this is The Most Amazing Honey, with a subtle, round-mouthed sweetness that makes me want to give up coffee and convert to chai, it is THAT good.

So with super sleuthing prowess, I asked my landlord, who lives next door, about the honey. Ha! It was him! He keeps bees (not here, though that would be excellent for my potted garden).

I have been a bit wary of my landlord, as in not wanting to be TOO friendly, if you get my drift. Someone told me the gifting of honey is a Greek courting tradition. I googled it but couldn’t find anything compelling. But I shall throw caution to the wind and return the favour with some freshly baked sourdough. I on-gifted half the pot and am now extra conscious of keeping my supply lines open!

very yin and yang

What a weekend. Feel incredibly saddened by the bushfires and the scale of devastation. The relics escaped unscathed after being on high alert through the weekend, with spot fires a matter of kilometres away. There are still fires close by in Yarram, caused by a bloody arsonist – plus fires to the south of them at the Prom. A cousin and uncle still in the thick of it and fighting fires respectively in St Andrews and Kinglake/Acheron. Hope they are all ok.

Makes you wonder about the ongoing safety of living not just ‘in the bush’ but ‘in the regions’ in Victoria. Seeing the floods in North Queensland at the same time is a pretty in-your-face illustration of which areas of the country are being affected by climate change. First. Even though the relics have so far been incredibly lucky, their entire garden has been demolished to the point of 'give up/start again' by the heatwave and they are looking at having to buy water.

It’s all so close to home that I feel sort of guilty about life going on and positive things happening. Though I guess that's what happens.

Despite a few nervy waits through periods of uncontactability with family, I had one of the BEST weekends in a long time. One of those ones that stretches on and bathes you in the sunny light of renewal. Started with mojitos and dinner with an old/new friend D on Friday night, ambled through Sat with pilates and walking to the markets and Reverse Garbage, where I scored some industrial-calibre cardboard boxes and cylinders which I am re-purposing as deck furniture.

Gently morphed into Sunday with brekky with a friend K, followed by more nest feathering (think retro tupperware) and opportunistic jam-making (fig and hibiscus), and finished with impromptu champagne in S's garden with her and N who was up for the weekend. And then had dinner cooked for me. Oh and I just discovered that my black russian tomatoes are bearing fruit. Hooray for life ;)

Like I said, very yin, very yang.

ramble without a point

Indulge me. I have now spent two and a half months on a drip-feed of housing-related information. Housing policy and service delivery is my daylight LIFE between weekends. My mind has been overtaken and my 'pen' co-opted. As far as topical issues go, it’s pretty newsy. But not exactly Jay Griffiths, writer de force and subject of my current and ongoing infatuation… (ongoing because I don’t have time to read anymore and when I do my eyes are gluey/fried from the screen and page).

So this post is just a shameful attempt to register a blip while I am mired in uninspiration, with scribblings limited to the paid kind (wistful hmmm goes here). Specially wistful since the feather sent a lovely postcard at xmas but has not since called :(

I’m hoping energy and inspiration will improve now I'm housed (irony noted, in spades) and have, as of today, finished a two-month warming of my manager's seat, during which I discovered how rare and special is the trifecta of maturity, critical thinking and work ethic. Suffice to say I am very glad to slip back to my minion chains where I am responsible only for myself ;)

In defence of life, there has been a lurid yet brief smatter of inspired moments beyond the desk ...

• seeing my best friend from primary school who possibly knows more about me than anyone and who I hadn’t seen in about 15 years! (Never thought I would say this, but Facebook rocks.)


• meeting an interesting someone who is coordinating Brisbane’s Choir of Hard Knocks


• seeing the Namatjira exhibition


• invitation to be a hair model... have been a cheese model (evidence below with the disclaimer that I was made to wear the purple frilly shirt and it certainly isn't mine!)... but this could be fun, too!
  



• inspired muffin-dreaming... in particular: pear, pecan and ginger (first attempt not pear-y or ginger-y enough but addition of dark chocolate a piece of muffiny genius!) AND Fig, pistachio and rosewater muffins (which may also wear a native hibiscus syrup decoration after I inquisitively picked up some rosella flowers at the markets - v yum in champagne).


• the markets, the markets, the markets. My weekend SALVE.

So there. Cultural reintegration almost complete. I almost have pre-approval on a m-m-m-mortgage (ha! you thought I was going to say muffin!! oh god it's late, and my brain is wrecked), though am embarrassed to report the need to re-learn how to use major appliances (both the oven and TV work, it's my domesticity that's rusted).

Am clinging to my toiletries bag like a backpacker in denial.

unpacked

From the deck you can see the city hiding over the hill.


Old school kitchen with frog-garden lampshade


First loaves and crafty storage


bedroom window and the gabba through the louvres
(the lights are a bit lost in the clouds)

stuck in punxsutawney

As I grumblingly accept my lot in the big wheel of the wage economy and bemoan the loss of free time, I’ve noticed a dangerous little feeling brewing. The feeling that this existence – for all its family-sized upside-down fridges and missed lunch breaks – is somehow comforting. Like the progression of a clock: the tick-tock repetition, while illustrating your dwindling years/weeks/hours, is also oddly soothing. Call it a whacked biological need for regime, but this knowing-what-you’re-doing-tomorrow bizzo has definite - albeit mysterious - appeal. Maybe it’s because I’ve been seriously deprived of structure/trivia and the ego-entrapment of office life. Whatever. About the same time I began musing over this little irony, my ping-pong relationship with Bligh’s Army was formally and publicly acknowledged. Last week I took out the Groundhog Day title in our unit’s frivolous awards bestowal. I am so Bill Murray with a microphone in the snow waiting for a furry animal to forecast the weather. Luckily, I've moved through re-integration wobbles and a protracted bout of cultural alienation. Now I'm going to have some fun with the Punxsutawney locals.

--

Savouring domestic novelties:

DVD watching – the whole first season of Love My Way. That’s ten episodes in one week... a couch-sitting personal best. I blame it on the cult of Claudia, who I have loved since she celebrated all the good bits about share-housing in St Kilda.

Small talk with the cat.

A proper bed. A big bed. Soft sheets. Totally underrated. I would give it all up for just this… if only the birds and sunshine didn't start at 5am.

i love it when a plan comes together

Last week I moved house - again! - and moved in with Mr T, a cat pushing the ‘aloof’ edge of the feline sociability scale. He is also rather accident prone. The night before his mum departed the country, he had an investigative encounter with a long piece of wire and got horribly tangled, and then horribly anxious to get free, cutting his lip and back leg in the process. Thankfully mum (who is probably at this moment drinking gluwein for breakfast in Prague) whipped him off to the emergency vet before leaving.

Mr T's general post-traumatic narkiness has not helped us to bond as house-mates. He has generally avoided my company, and despite offers of fresh meat, has preferred instead to spent large amounts of time amidst the fabric mounds in the linen cupboard.

Yesterday afternoon was round two at the vets. Off we trundled for a check up, after several attempts at going in the box and a close encounter between claws and a long necklace. I should have made like Hannibal and drugged him in preparedness for travel. But I didn't. (Pity the fool.) He growled about going in the box. He growled about going in the car. He growled about the dogs in the waiting room. And then silently complied as the vet ripped off his scabs ("to check for abcesses"), doused the open wounds with Betadine and jerried a thermometer up him.

What the...?

From Wrestlemania-style defence to complete and total submission? And all I did was show him the door to a small box, purportedly one of his most favourite places! Oh to bottle the magical powers invested in the vet's table...

When we got home, things got even more bizarre. I opened the box. He sauntered out, rubbed at my heels and purred deeply. He even let me scratch his neck for FIVE seconds. I know better than to question feline behaviour. But I think I can venture that we have begun to bond...