It's behind you!

Had a full on week recently. Scarlett and Rob had a close encounter with a tiger - it's behind you - thankfully only at the zoo. We had a great Vietnamese dinner out for a friend's birthday on Thursday. The next night, Melissa, Larry and Carolyne came for dinner. Paul was a no show. Bad, bad Paul. The evening was spectacular. Here is Paul's empty place setting. On the weekend we headed south to Bundeena, a lovely village on the northern edge of the Royal National Park to stay with our friends Nick and Meg and their girls Molly and Lucy. Tomorrow is officially the start of winter so we packed boots and jackets. We would have been better off throwing swimsuits and flip flops in the bag as it was baking hot. People were swimming in the sea. I have never felt so inappropriately dressed on a beach. We went for a lovely walk down through rainforest to get to the beach. Here, Scarlett and Lucy climbed a tree so we could take pictures. It was scary how easily they slipped into this innocent pose. Note my arm and hand entering stage left which Lucy is gripping tightly. Her other arm is around Scarlett to stop her falling from the tree. It's all about the smoke and mirrors.

The Graduate

All very exciting today as Scarlett has 'transitioned' from the Beetles room at Nursery to the Caterpillars room. She is quite the grown up little girl now. She can almost count to 10 and can say her alphabet if prompted. Her new thing is that whatever you say you are going to do, she says she wants to do. For example I'll say 'Mummy is going to hang out the washing" and she'll say "No, Larti will hang out the washing." Mummy is going to have a shower", "No Larti is going to have a shower" etc, so I said " Mummy cure cancer" and she said "No, Larti cure cancer". This is good to know. So when she is accepting her Nobel Prize for Medicine in about 30 years, I'll be able to say, we always knew she'd do it. She said she would when she was 2. Meanwhile, though Scarlett might be advancing the health of the planet, I seem to be accelerating towards old age. I fell out of the lift this morning at work and landed on the floor on my hands. On my hands! Like an old person. I'll be getting my hips replaced next. We have our lovely mates Melissa and Larry, Paul and Carolyne for dinner tonight. I got up at 6.30 this morning and, while everyone else was asleep, I made Jamie's Oliver's fish pie. How old person is that? I've turned into my Gran. Will be serving it tonight alongwith Maria's bread and butter pudding. Am using raisin bread and orange and lime marmalade. Yum.

My Blissful Guilty Secret

Below is the piece I wrote for Spectrum, the Saturday arts section of the paper, on the subject of Motherhood for the Mother's Day weekend edition last weekend. Some of you had asked me to see it so here it is.

"When women are pregnant they become public property. Bumps are touched, size is commented on and gender guessing games take place. This I knew, but what I wasn't expecting when I was expecting was other mothers tending to focus only on the negative aspects of motherhood. At six months' pregnant, I had the following exchange with a colleague I barely know. `How are you feeling?' she asked. `Fantastic,' I replied. `I'm really enjoying it.' `You are now,' she countered. `But you wait. The birth's awful and the first six months are just a fog.'She wasn't alone in wanting to spread the dread. Others almost salivated as they told me to forget lie ins and nights out, not to expect my husband to help out and to look forward to when my baby was in daycare. Even darker were those who shared stories of late miscarriages, of horrific labours and death in child birth. I was staggered that most mothers only seemed to be on message if they were sharing the bad bits. It's hardly a secret that labour can be painful and long or that babies cry in the night and need their nappies changing, so why focus on those bits? Why were the stories of the first cuddle, smile and hiccup only shared by the fathers?As it happened I had a wonderful pregnancy, felt fantastic and had bags of energy. I had a fairly swift, though strenuous, labour of six hours, and fell instantly in love with my baby girl when she slid onto my tummy. I took to motherhood with an enthusiasm I hadn't felt before. Rather unfashionably I followed a book advocating feed and sleep routines. They resulted in our baby sleeping from 7pm to 7am from 9 weeks old. We took her to the pool at 4 days old, used a babysitter at 4 weeks and took her to Rome and London at 4 months. Maybe we were lucky, but to me these were landmarks and yet I felt I had to keep them to myself to fit in. I discovered it was uncool to be a mum having fun. At my first mothers' group, the midwife asked us to share our experiences of pregnancy, birth and the first few weeks. We delivered very different accounts. When I mentioned I was having some success getting my daughter into a routine, one bleary-eyed new mum, grabbed at my arm and said `how does this routine thing work?'. Before I could explain that as my husband and I didn't have family in the country we had followed a book, the midwife cut in and dismissed me with a curt `You don't need to bother with any of that'. She didn't want me to share the good bits either.Now don't get me wrong, I know many women have a hard time becoming mothers and don't want to hear about those who haven't. I have friends who loathed pregnancy, hated the way their bodies changed; those who had long, long labours that ended in casaereans, those who delivered disabled babies, those whose babies died. Some cried their way through months of painful breastfeeding, had babies who wouldn't sleep and others battled through undiagnosed post-natal depression. And I know there is a place for these stories. A friend told me she liked hearing the gloomy stories because it helped her to know she wasn't the only one struggling with motherhood.But like anything, isn't it all about balance? For every bad story shared, shouldn't there be an encouraging one, too? Until I had my daughter I hadn't been on a slide or swing for 26 years. It's a hoot. I love that my daughter plays with my old whoopee cushion and that its noise makes her point to her bottom and roll about laughing. I can be immature with her and it's just fantastic. My daughter is only 2 so I know I haven't even hit the really hard stuff yet like homework and puberty and boyfriends with car horns that play the theme from The Godfather. And, of course, our time together isn't all raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. There are tears and tantrums. She has them, too. It drives me crazy when she won't wear the clothes I've laid out, when she refuses the food I've cooked and when she fights me EVERY SINGLE TIME I put her in the car seat. But for all of these things she does 500 other things that I love. And she has such a lovely bottom. I love being a mother. I've never done anything so important or that fulfills me and tests me so much. I think she's amazing. My husband (who helps out all the time) and I still look at her and exchange a glance that only we understand. Life has never been the same since she arrived and that's the way we like it. So, sure, if you have to, tell your friend who is a new mum that she'll be up five times a night and to get used to the smell of regurgitated milk. But also tell her about the soft bit at the back of a baby's neck and how great it is when the only person in the world your child wants a hug from is you.Incidentally, that colleague that stopped me in my joyous tracks went on to have another baby, so it can't have been all bad, can it? I just think it's a shame that she didn't bother to share with me the thoughts and feelings that made her want to do it again. Me? I can't wait to have another one. "

Happy Birthday to me

Just had the most wonderful birthday weekend. I decided this year I couldn't be bothered with the usual drinks party and I wanted Scarlett to be part of it for a change. I booked a house in Kangaroo Valley (about 2 hours' south of Sydney) and invited 4 lovely friends to join us. The house was set deep in the bush down a long track off a country road and had stunning views down the valley over a lake. We arrive on Friday afternoon to find Kangaroos grazing on the lawn and to watch the sun set behind the sand stone escarpment in the distance. Lara and Adam arrived soon after and set about preparing a memorable Madhur Jaffrey chicken curry while we started relieving wine bottles of their corks. Rob lit the fire and by the time Kendall and Brett arrived, quite exhilarated by their hairpin bend drive along the track in the dark, the house was perfectly lit with lamplight and filled with the smell of Lara's cooking. With Scarlett in bed we made light work of dinner and enjoyed a rowdy board game before falling into bed ourselves too late and quite worse for wear. I awoke on my birthday with quite a shocking hangover not aided by Scarlett waking at 6am - something she never does at home. Rob gave me my presents and cards. My main present from Rob was a fantastic Union Jack toilet seat. I have been complaining for some time that there is little in our house to indicate someone British lives there. No more. After a huge cooked breakfast outside overlooking the lake, we wondered down to the water for a stone skimming contest, then into Kangaroo Valley village for lunch in the Friendly Inn pub garden. The weather was spectacular. Short afternoon naps followed before more wine was uncorked and Kendall and Brett set about preparing another amazing dinner. Maria's bread and butter pudding made another appearance along with a chocolate birthday cake made by Rob. Sunday morning was all about lazing about eating breakfast before we all headed off to a detox facility for the week. Brilliant birthday and just what we needed to remind us how great it is to live here. We drove back to Sydney with Scarlett dozing in the back.
Back in Sydney, the next morning we met our lovely friends from NZ Glenys and Gerald for breakfast at bills cafe, followed by a walk around the Botanic Gardens. Hooray.

We have just had the best foodie weekend. On Saturday morning I prepped my five hour roast lamb and Maria's recipe for bread and butter pudding for a late lunch we were having that afternoon with our neighbours Rob and Freya and Deb and Ewan. With the lamb in the oven we headed off on a 30 minute drive to Banksmeadow, an obscure southern Sydney suburb to go to Brasserie Bread, an amazing bakery well worth the drive. We ate sourdough pancakes with berries and honeycomb cream and a plate of sour cherry toast. Then we ordered it all again and swapped. Scarlett drank her first babycino. We left carrying a huge sourdough loaf for mopping up the lamb juices later. Before heading home we continued on south to La Perouse on the northern tip of Botany Bay to run around on a beautiful empty beach. At 3pm our guests arrived, the wine was opened, the lamb and B&B pudding consumed. On Sunday we went to the Kings Cross food and wine festival and then met our mates Chris and Stef and their two toddlers for dinner at Bar Italia, a Leichhardt pasta place that is a Sydney institution. You queue up and order and pay for your food at a counter where they also open your BYO wine and distribute cutlery and jugs of water and then moments later your plates are delivered to your table without you telling anyone where you were sitting. It is a mystery how they get it right every time. Tummies now all full.

We're going to the zoo, zoo,zoo...

..how about you?
Another AMAZING Autumnal Sydney day today, so as Rob was at work (again), Larti and I took ourselves off to Taronga Zoo. We bought an annual Zoo Friends Pass that lets us go as many times a year as we want for $75. An absolute bargain considering it's normally $30 each. We saw several animals accompanied by commentary by Larti - the koalas "very small", the giraffes "very tall", the tiger "roooaar", the chimps "cheese please", the gorillas "like mummy". Then we went to the brilliant bird show in an outdoor auditorium with Sydney harbour as its backdrop. Quite a view. And this one of the reasons why we live in Sydney.

We must have had a good time last night because....

....when I saw Lauren our babysitter when I dropped Larti off at nursery this morning, she eyed me in that way that she does when Rob and I have arrived home a little worse for wear. Also I normally wake up before 7am thanks to my small toddler-shaped alarm clock, but instead came to at 7.45am wondering where I was. I raced into Larti's room to find her sitting waiting patiently in her cot, tapping her watch . 'I wonder what time you woke up?' I asked in a sing songy voice. Rob was already up and out by 6am so after some charging about I somehow had myself and Larti breakfasted, dressed and ready for work and nursery by 8.30am. The reason for slightly dishevelled start to day was the splendid dinner we had last night at Sojourn, a new place in the neighbouring suburb of Balmain. It is a fantastic area - all windy lanes, old workers and fisherman's cottages and Victorian terraces. It's surrounded by the harbour on 3 sides with amazing views of the bridge and city skyline so now the only kinds of workers that can afford to live there are merchant bankers and stockbrokers. The restaurant was in a gorgeous old sandstone house opposite an old boozer that still has 1930s Guinness posters on the walls. I had the roasted Scallop and Yabbie with Ballottine of Oxtail and carrot puree to start and the crisp skinned Kingfish with baby clams, squid and curry emulsion and a magnificient chocolate dessert. Can't remember what Rob had. I couldn't see his plate for the blur of his hands and elbows working together to deliver the food to his stomach in the fastest time. We washed it all down with a lovely Pinot Gris. Hic. It is deadline day at work today so need to pay attention. Thank God it's Friday. Think we will have a quiet one tonight. We have a load of stuff we have taped to watch and Rob will be up at 5.30am again tomorrow.
Oh and the Spectrum editor loved my piece on motherhood. I am thrilled.

Sydney calling

Hello
Before you start jumping up and down, waving your arms and legs and yelling - that pregnant woman at the top is not me. More on her later. This is the first day of our family blog which we hope to use to keep family and friends up to date with our life in Australia.
We just had a wonderful Easter, despite having to spend it in Sydney as Rob had to work nights all weekend (again). We spent the morning of Good Friday at our favourite beach, Balmoral. It is where we will live when we win the lottery. A large lottery win forms the foundation of our long-term financial plans. Every time we buy a lottery ticket we are convinced, convinced I tell you, that we will win. Rob and I enjoy giving a great deal of thought to how we will spend our millions. The houses we would buy around the world (this is a big win you understand), the friends we would install in said houses as rotating housekeepers until we needed to use the house, where we would holiday etc etc. Sigh. Anyway, as I say we spent Good Friday at Balmoral Beach, rock pooling with Scarlett (now known as Larti - her name for herself), swimming and reading the paper. Glorious. Later in the day our friends Melissa and Larry came for lunch. We made salmon wrapped in proscuitto, roasted potatoes with fennel seeds and a big crunchy mixed salad. Here's a photo of Melissa who six months pregnant. The rest of Easter was spent waiting for Rob to wake up from his night shift sleep so we could hit the pool and visit our friends Zoe and Paul and their new baby Bronte and Sam and Christy and their new baby Jemima. Everybody's at it. Coming back to work on Wednesday after 5 days at home with my family was hard. Have just written my first column for the paper's Spectrum section which has a parenting column. It is the first time I have been asked to write about something serious, as I am usually called upon to contribute more amusing pieces. It is for the Mother's Day issue and I am waiting to hear what the Spectrum editor thinks. We watched Little Fish on DVD this week. A fantastic film set in Sydney's druggy western suburb of Cabramatta and starring Cate Blanchett as a recovering junkie. Very good. Lauren the babysitter from Larti's nursery is coming over tonight and Rob and I are going out for dinner tonight and work are paying. Hooray. More on this later.


Summer Poo - Summer Metropolitan December 2005
It is summer, holiday time - the season of lunchtime naps, late afternoon swims and early evening barbecues. And toilet training. Yes, toilet training, for it is said that summer is the best time of year to tempt toddlers from their nappies and onto the loo. The idea is that in the warmer temps one can remove nappies and let the young run about the place commando style, free from the constraints and dependence on their Huggies. The theory that is without the (quite literal) safety net of the nappy, the child will not want to do their business in their nice new grown up pants and will instead raise their hand to announce the imminent arrival of numbers one and two in plenty of time for you to plonk them on the loo and thar she blows. My small child began showing an interest in the lav in spring. With few months to go before she turns two she was declared as `advanced' `a genius' and `very smart for her age' and that was just by my husband and I. She may indeed be early to show an interest in the loo, but apparently girls always are. Boys, it seems are more than happy to sit in their own mess until well into their teens. She would point at the loo whenever we passed by, saying alternately `wee wee', `poo poo' and `yeeeuuurrgghhh', the latter accompanied by a violent flapping of her hand across her nose in the action of wafting away a bad smell. Whenever she caught my husband or I upon the throne she roughly forced our knees apart and jammed her head betwix them in order to get a better look at what was going on in the loo. After a few days of this we decided to sit her up on the loo to see if she was interested in joining in. Amidst much beetroot-faced straining and tiny grunts, a small trickle of wee wee appeared, to huge smiles from her, and a standing ovation, loud cheering and clapping from us. This is what you're supposed to do, they say. They also say that if they keep this up, it bodes well for a swift and efficient toilet trainee and you are to gets things ready in the house for the rapid progression from nappies to the loo. So it was off to K-Mart for a child-sized loo seat that fits in under a regular one, perfectly shaped for tiny peach-like cheeks, and to Coles for a five-pack of pink fairy-emblazoned knickers. And then we began with the nappy off, grown up girl pants on system. The instructions are simple. `When you need to go, let Mummy know.' It even rhymes. Then she was off, playing in the back yard, climbing in and out of a large container of water to keep cool during the hot weather, watering the plants, kicking the ball, all with a new gusto for life - a life without nappies. Every few minutes I'd ask encouragingly, `do you need to poo poo or wee wee?'. `No' she'd reply in that little golden voice. Some time later while I attended to the washing line she slipped inside the house, to grab a toy or doll. She returned momentarily looking very happy and grabbing at my hand, Lassie-style, urging me to follow. `Mumma, poo poo,' she said. `Hello,' thinks I, `this is working. Time to pop her on the loo and gets things moving. This toilet training lark is easier than I thought. I don't know what all the fuss is all about. Wait till I tell your Father when he gets home. It's only been a week.' But she did not lead me to the bathroom, but straight down the stairs into the kitchen to show me the not inconsiderable cable she had lately laid under one of the kitchen island bar stools. At least it was neat and out of the way. I wiped it up and popped it down the loo, sitting her upon the seat once more to show her the other way of getting it there and we smiled and cheered some more. If this is summer, pass the wipes and the nappies, it's going to be a long one.