Perth Hidden Places for Kids | Lesmurdie Falls

Today you can read my guest post at Maxabella Loves about all things water and wildflower.

A surplus of strawberries (and what to do with them)

Like lots of other families in Perth we went strawberry picking in October. There are a bunch of different farms to choose from (this website lists a range of Perth fruit-picking options) but we went to one at Lot 424 Badgerup Road, Gnangara. I don't think it has a name, but it is easy to find as it is behind Duva Continental Deli.*

A friend commented that the farm we went to looked preferable to the one she visited as it had straw between the rows, thus reducing the dust and dirt factor. Even with the straw we still got pretty filthy! The combination of dirt and sticky red juice meant I was glad we had a large stack of baby wipes and wished we had spare water. There are no toilets and nowhere to wash hands, although you can buy drinks and food at the deli.

The farm charged $5 a tray and a tray held about 3kg. With two adults and two "helpers" we picked three trays. We then had 9kg of strawberries to dispose of - quickly! They were extremely ripe, and even being careful to pick them with the stalks on (which apparently extends their durability) it was clear they weren't going to last more than a few days in the fridge.

Here is what I did to use them all up:

• Strawberry sauce for stirring through yoghurt, topping icecream or adding to smoothies: hull, wash and halve any biggies. Either blitz in the microwave for about two minutes or cook on low heat in a saucepan with a lid until they are very soft. You can add sugar if you want - these were so sweet I added about a teaspoon per cup. Then whizz with a handheld blender. Freeze the resulting sauce in baby food trays (or ice cube trays) and then store in a ziplock bag in the freezer.
• Strawberry sorbet: I used this recipe from Epicurious but reduced the sugar given how ripe the fruit was. I used an icecream maker to freeze it but it still came out very soft - it was better after a couple of hours in the freezer.
• Strawberry fruit leather: following this recipe from the Organised Housewife. I made some with sugar and some without. I strained the seeds from one batch but couldn't be bothered for the rest. It was a bit of a pain as it took so long to cook, and it edges of mine cooked before the middle, making it difficult to judge when to take it out. However it was extremely tasty - it had that lovely sweet-sour tang, and both E and C gobbled it up.
• Froze some whole for when strawberries are out of season: I washed, hulled and halved them, then laid them in a single layer on a tray in the freezer until sufficiently frozen that they wouldn't stick together. I then moved them into ziplock bags. They won't be good on their own but they will be fine for smoothies, in yoghurt, or for baking.
• We ate plenty fresh and gave some away. Amazingly, given the ridiculous pile we had to start with that got rid of all of them bar a cereal bowl which sat in the fridge mocking me for several days until I gave up and fed it to the worms.

We really enjoyed the outing and the luxury of more fruit than I initially thought it possible to use up. We will gladly return next year.

* some but not all of the strawberry farms are advertised as being open in November. Check before you go.

E is five and a half and C is one and a half

And just like that my babies are five and a half and one and a half. There is the greatest difference in C over the last few months - E is a slightly taller, slightly grumpier version of the self she has been all year. But C - running! Talking! Insisting on being involved in everything! The talking is a source of great pleasure and amusement to us all. For quite a while she has been able to point to almost any item in a book that we might ask her to identify. But now she is able to independently name most of them too. I don't think she is quite as verbose as E was at the same age, but she is using two words together more often ("more 'ee?" [more cheese?] or "Mama's 'oo" [Mama's shoe]) and managed, quite coincidentally, to repeat one of E's early two word combinations - "big duck!" - upon seeing the cassowary at the zoo. (See here for E's version at almost exactly the same age).

She will still eat most things offered to her, and in fact sometimes puts E to shame in her willingness to try new options. She is very happy with "'oup" (soup) which E still refuses to touch, and loves "bean-bean" of all varieties, whether green, baked, black or lentils. Her one surprising dislike is icy-poles or ice-cream, I think because they are too cold. She far prefers a baked treat, having told me very coyly last week that her favourite on the Very-Hungry-Caterpillar-deserves-that-tummy-ache page is "cakey."

We are down to just a pre-bed milk feed each day and recently reached the milestone of C being willing to go to bed without it if I am not around. There has even been once or twice when I have been here but have wanted to skip milk for various reasons and she has gone to bed without fuss. I don't want to cut it out all together as it still seems to be important to her - when I walk in the door from work on Wednesdays and Fridays she runs straight to me and then straight to the couch saying "mulk? mulk?"

Not surprisingly, anything that E does, C wants to do to. In her mind I am sure she is one going on five. E drags her up into her bunk bed and they sit there giggling and conspiring and fighting over the "Goooo" doll (a horrible Elsa that endlessly wails a verse of Let It Go). She would like to be able to ride a scooter, stopped only by her lack of size and coordination. E insists on giving C "drawing lessons" and C scribbles earnestly with a pencil for surprisingly long times whilst E creates various sticky-tape and texta laden works of "art." She flails around on the trampoline with E, and E is able to read her various simple books. They are good little mates these days, enjoying a period where C is able to play at a level interesting enough for E even if their games do usually involve E bossing C mercilessly.

What to say about E? She is challenging most of the time but good company when she wants to be. She is able to read a whole early-reader chapter book to herself - I had a heart catching moment the other day when I looked up from the computer to see she and D snuggled on the couch after D had finished reading aloud, each of them engrossed silently in their own book. Whilst she is able to read to herself she would still rather be read to most of the time, but it is nice to know she can do it. She adores her "art" and is convinced she is going to be famous for it one day. We had a funny conversation recently about why her pictures could not be sold or displayed in an art gallery, which ended in the compromise of her creating a "gallery" on her bedroom wall with blu-tack. A pin-up board might be on the Christmas list! 

Our mornings and bedtimes are still a battle a lot of the time, although we have stumbled upon various tricks that seem to improve the mornings such as a list of all her morning jobs on the fridge, and giving up on the expectation that she will put on her own shoes and school dress (she is able but not willing and I have concluded it just isn't worth the fight). The evenings, whilst far from perfect, are much improved from a while ago in that she is finally capable/willing of putting herself to sleep without one of us staying in her room, even if it does generally involve numerous trips out to complain about it being, variously, too light, too dark, too hot, too cold, too boring, too lonely etc. Nothing like an articulate five year old to try and turn on the guilt: "Mummy, I am going to sleep at the other end of my bed because it is closer to the door and I want to be closer to you when I sleep" (!) She also has other moments of complete brat-dom but I try to be hopeful that the tradeoff for a wilful child who accepts nothing at face value and will argue every point to exhaustion is a an independent and thoughtful adult (please? maybe?!)

She mostly enjoys school, although there is one little girl there who she really doesn't get along with and who there are lots of complaints about. She is quite change resistant; for the first week after the recent holidays, every morning was a litany of woes about going back to school, and then the walk to school the other day involved her unloading a wealth of fears and concerns about starting Year 1 next year (which involves moving from the separate ELC part of the school into the "big school").

On the whole things are much easier than a year ago when we had a 4.5 year old and a 6 month old. It is lovely to have a bit of space and capacity to focus on enjoying our girls rather than getting through the day to day slog of merely satisfying everyone's needs.

Yesterday

Yesterday we got up at our usual time but E got herself dressed and ate breakfast without being asked 17 times and so no one yelled and getting ready felt easy instead of an ordeal.

Yesterday C and I walked to the library and borrowed books and CDs and I started singing nursery rhymes at low volume at one point to stop the grizzling and every time I paused she yelled "more! more!"

Yesterday C slept for an hour and a half.

Yesterday  C produced four dirty nappies and had three baths because her poor little bottom is so red and sore that she sobs and says "nooooo!" when I put her on the change table.

Yesterday C got up from her nap and we ate watermelon and then a slice of chocolate brownie and then she said "more? Moooore!" And I said "no, eat your watermelon" and she said "wh-yyyy?" and I said "because it's good for you" and she said "wh-yyyy?" and I said "because it's red and sweet and juicy" and she said "wh-yyyy? More? More?" And so I gave her another slice.

Yesterday it was 27C and I put C in a dress because she is finally walking enough that a dress doesn't annoy her and when she wears a dress I can see her fat brown knees.

Yesterday when we picked E up from school she ran straight out of the classroom and hurtled against me and wiped her nose on my tshirt and stepped on my foot and I hoped that she is never too big to want to run straight out of the classroom and into a hug.

Yesterday it was 27C and I took washing off the line warm and it smelt of sunshine and grass.

Yesterday I noticed blossoms on the apricot tree for the first time this year.

Yesterday after dinner C lay on the trampoline and E bounced her and they rolled around together and laughed and laughed.

Yesterday nothing much happened.

When Flora told a fig about a ball

On the days I go to work E goes to after school care. The first month was a big success, with her whinging and wailing about having to go home with the grandparents when they arrived at 5pm. 

Then last Wednesday, when D's Dad arrived to collect E, one of the carers said to him "I have to tell you there was a bit of an incident today, E threw a ball rather violently." She didn't give any further detail, like if she threw the ball at another child or at a window, just that she threw a ball. E overheard this and immediately started denying having thrown a ball and rapidly worked herself into hysterics over it and so they left without any resolution. We repeated the same conversation when we arrived home, with a similar result; she was hysterically adamant she had not thrown a ball, nothing had happened with a ball and "Flora is telling figs."  However, she also insisted that we were not to talk to Flora about it (usually a sign she is not being truthful) and that she did not want to back there (because of Flora's "figs"). 

We were somewhat bemused as to what to do - it didn't seem likely that Flora would have completely invented the incident, or that she would have mistaken another child for E as there were only a handful of kids there. D's parents also said that they did not mind if E did not go to after school care on Wednesdays (on Wednesdays they look after C at our house. We initially booked E into after school thinking that they might wish to have C at their house rather than ours, and also that E would enjoy spending more time with kids her own age). We didn't come to any decision but hoped, somewhat optimistically/ridiculously that E might have forgotten about it by the next morning.

No mention was made of it before school and when I arrived to collect E that afternoon I managed to arrive a few minutes early and asked Flora what had happened. She said that E had thrown a bowl. Courtesy of Flora's rather bogan Aussie accent, D's Dad must have misheard her and thought she said ball. Apparently it was a china bowl and E hurled it to the ground, whereupon it shattered. Flora seemed more worried that I would be angry about the safety issues of a child care facility proving china bowls than about E having broken the bowl. I was planning on talking to E about it once we got home but she immediately asked "did you tell after school care I'm not going back" so we had the conversation then. She initially denied anything had happened with a bowl but then burst into tears and said "I didn't know it was china, Mummy." 

More tears, more anxiety about being in trouble if she went back - despite being stubborn and mischievous and challenging at home, E is usually very well behaved at school and has never been seriously told off by anyone outside the family before. She still didn't want to go back. We had a big discussion about how, just because you have one bad day or experience, that doesn't mean you should give something up. I promised to telephone Flora the next day and explain that E didn't know the bowl was china. I also tried to impress upon her that she should have told us that nothing happened with a ball, but there was a problem with a bowl and that we would have helped her resolve it, and paid for the bowl if necessary, and that she should always always tell us her problems. She very reluctantly agreed to try after school care again the next day.

I was so relieved, and somewhat overwhelmed myself. It felt like we had learnt significant lessons about perseverance, and telling the truth. I felt a bit ashamed I had been skeptical of E's claims that nothing happened with a ball (strictly true - although D reckons I am being ridiculous and that she was being evasive to try and avoid getting in trouble for something she knew was wrong). It also feels a bit like the thin edge of the wedge and what people say about "bigger kids, bigger problems." This wasn't such a huge problem in the end, but it makes me worry about the even bigger issues of future years and makes me reallyreallyreally hope that E will tell us about them before they escalate, and that if she didn't believe it before, she now knows we will always support her.

Bunker Bay holiday

In the second week of the July school holidays we spent three nights at Bunker Bay resort, near Dunsborough.

On the way down we stopped at Big Swamp Wildlife Park in Bunbury. It is next door to a huge, fantastic playground and had I not promised E birds and kangaroos I think both girls would have been perfectly happy with just the playground. Some of the birds are in walk-through aviaries and are very enthusiastic about their visitors. This one decided it wanted to take up permanent residence on my head and shoulders and given my nervousness about its rather large beak I had quite a time persuading it to leave. Needless to say my darling family thought this was hilarious!

C was enthusiastic about the kangaroos, which she had not seen before, but they were very slow and disinterested in the bags of feed. At the other extreme was the enormous emu which gave E a good fright and swipe on the head in its attempt to snitch the entire bag of food from her hand.

We stayed at Bunker Bay once before when E was a few months older than C is now. The resort lived up to our fond memories - car free beyond the top carpark, teenage boys in golf buggies to transport bags to the rooms and the villas surrounded by lots of native plants with a central trail leading down to the beach. The rooms are scrupulously clean with comfortable beds, a kitchen equipped with enough to make cooking simple meals easy and a huge bathtub.

The beach really is beautiful and although it was too cold to let the girls in the water we did enjoy the sand and salt and wind.

Despite the weather E was crazy enough to get in the (heated but still chilly) pool each day. Unlike our last stay she is a good enough swimmer to get in our her own so D and I sat on deck chairs wearing jumpers and coats, drinking red wine and gin and tonics ordered from the pool-side telephone and conveyed to us by the restaurant staff!

One morning we drove to Cape Naturaliste and did a 2km walk circling the lighthouse. C obligingly went to sleep in the Ergo on D's front, and bribed with the promise of "something special from Mummy's bag" at the end (lolly snakes) E managed the whole circuit with minimal complaints.

We were sorry to have to leave and E is already asking how many more sleeps until our next holiday (for the record, about 180!)

C turns one

Our littlest darling turned one last week. Hovering on the cusp of babyhood and toddlerdom - one! Or twelve months, or 365 days, or 52 weeks, as we have been discussing with E, who was somewhat perplexed as to why I was still saying C was 11 months old when it was her birthday in a few days.

At one, C, you cannot yet walk, but you can crawl as though turbo-charged, and take steps with the furniture, and reach all sorts of things we would rather you could not. (Want the volume on the stereo cranked to maximum? C will sort it for you). I think the biggest change in the last few months has been in your language - you are never quiet! You can say mum-mum and da-da discriminately, and ca-ca (cat) and occasionally "up" and "more." A week or so ago you started saying "sa? sa?" which  we eventually figured out is "what's that?" You now say "sa? sa?" accompanied by an imperiously pointing finger, all day long. Whoever knew there was such interest to be found in household objects? What's that? The fridge. What's that? A photo of Mummy and Daddy on holidays. What's that? A light switch. All day long you - and we - are talking.

You celebrated your birthday week with a cold and so we have delayed your birthday lunch for the extended family until next weekend. But on your actual birthday Daddy stayed home, and we drove to South Perth, intending to go to the zoo. When we got there the line out the front must have been 100 people long. We had forgotten it was school holidays. So we went down to the river foreshore instead, and you crawled all over the grass, and E played on the playground, and we caught the ferry to the city and back, just for fun. 

We had cupcakes for morning tea and you had great fun pulling one to pieces (eating some) and smearing strawberry icing all over yourself. 

You're wearing tshirts and pants more than onesies these days, and looking a lot like a toddler rather than a baby. But you're still very sweet and cuddly, and still determinedly clinging to three (and sometimes four) milk feeds a day. 

Darling C, we all adore you. We look forward to  so many more birthdays with you.

E and her very Frozen fifth birthday

E turned five with a bang on Good Friday. After counting down for more than 100 sleeps we were finally there. We spent several months negotiating the list of invitees, from a starting point of every child in the class ("absolutely not!"), to all the pre-primary girls (it is a mixed kindy/pre-primary class), to two girls from school plus an assortment of playgroup friends and family friends (a total of nine plus E. Once they each brought one or two parents it was still quite a crowd!)

E is (...still...) Frozen obsessed and, accordingly, wanted the least original party theme around. At least when this is the case you don't have to waste time thinking up any ideas yourself, the internet is full of stuff just begging to be plagiarised. Her party food and activities involved a bit of time and effort on my part but minimal cost. Seeing as I was not keen to spend $500 so a lady dressed up as Elsa would sing Frozen songs in my living room, this suited me fine.

So we played musical statues (to the Frozen soundtrack, of course), hunted for blue and silver chocolate hearts (from the bulk food shop), decorated cardboard crowns, and pinned the nose on Olaf.

For food we handed out sandwiches (because "we finish each other's sandwiches"), carrot sticks ("reindeer food"), "snow cups" (popcorn in blue and white paper cups), "Queen Elsa's magic bread" (fairy bread), "snowballs" (marshmallows) and "melted snowman" (bottles of water with printed labels stolen from the internet). Also , seeing as Granny and Grandma kindly offered to bring them, "Arendelle's finest sausage rolls" and "samosas to warm your frozen heart." 

The cake was also a lesson in the art of negotiation, as I refused to use blue food colouring. I convinced E that snow was suitably themed, made two round butter cakes, sandwiched them together with jam and a thin layer of buttercream, slapped a whole lot more buttercream on top and marshmallows around the base. With some blue and white candles, and some printed characters on toothpicks, she was a happy little Elsa.

For party bags we handed out the ingredients to make your own snowman, plus Frozen sticker sheets courtesy of ebay, plus bead hearts made by E.

It was all pretty manic, but E was very happy and has said several times how much fun she had. Which seems like enough to set against a house that may never be glitter-free again.

In case it is of use to anyone, here are where all the internet-stolen goodies came from:

• Elsa crown templates;
• "Do you want to build a snowman" party bag toppers;
• Water bottle labels and cupcake labels (used to make food tags); and
• Happy birthday banner.

Baby C - 10 months

10 months, baby C, where has that gone? I had been meaning to write you a 9 month post and then I realised that today you are 10 months old.

You can crawl all over the whole house. Nothing is safe from your fat hands or your sweet mouth. You will eat anything - a foam penguin's foot, a dried up leaf, cotton thread. We need to do some serious baby proofing, because you can open drawers and jam your fingers in them, chew on the bin bag, tangle yourself in an iPhone cord, pull up on the tv cabinet. Your big sister is extremely excited that you can stand and desperately wants you to be able to walk - she insists that by hefting you about she is "helping" you to learn faster. Just like your big sister you have discovered that the bath is a great height for pull-up practice and bath times have become even more heart stopping than previously.

Although you're happy to eat whatever you find on the floor you're also doing pretty well with the real food. Yoghurt and avocado are good enough that you're willing to eat them from a spoon, everything else you want to cram in yourself. Homemade hot chips, fruit, cheese on toast, pasta, bits of chicken - you want it all. The four new teeth that have appeared rather suddenly over the past two months have helped - now there's four at the top and two at the bottom. You're still having milk four times a day and we somehow need to get that down to just morning and night over the next few months in time for me to go back to work two days a week at the end of April.

Full time school for E has meant we've forced you onto two sleeps a day. Fortunately going to school each morning is a good distraction for being tired, because you would rather go to sleep at about 8.30 but that is just when we need to arrive at school and so you have to wait until 9.00 when we get home. Exhausted by your admiration of the four and five year olds you've been coming home and doing some great morning sleeps. You're still perfect at night time - either feed to sleep or almost, you're then out for 11-12 hours.

E is also desperate for you to talk. You can babble what sound like real words (da-da-da, mum-mum-mum) but I'm not convinced you know they mean anything. D insists you said "ca-ca-ca" when pointing at the cat the other day but it hasn't been repeated.

I am very conscious of only having two more months of you full-time. You are still a daily delight to us, precious girl.

23 February: proud mama footnote: Daddy wins, the "ca-ca" is now distinct, spontaneous when you see the cat walk by, or upon seeing a picture of a cat in a book, or if we ask "who says meow"? So sweet and smart.

Quokka money

E has several money boxes and at various points (birthdays, Christmas etc) has been given money to put in them. She hasn't yet learnt the names/value of the different coins and notes, doesn't have any understanding of how much different things cost, and to date her only shopping has been with the toy cash register, plastic/paper money and pretend food. However, prior to our recent trip to Rottnest she begged to be allowed to take some the money from her money box "in case I see something I want to buy." I thought "why not" and so we stuck all the coins from her various money boxes (about $13) into a little hand bag and packed it amongst her clothes.

When we got over there she was desperate to spend up! Fortunately the general store had a range of souvenirs, toys and magazines as well as food and groceries. After deliberating at length (and lots of mental arithmetic on my part - "if you want the magazine and the magnet, you can't afford the pencil") she chose a quokka snow dome and a fridge magnet with a quokka on it. Surprisingly, she also elected to keep about $3 to spend another time. She was very pleased with herself and since returning home has insisted that anyone who enters the house admires her purchases, and took them to school for news.

D and I have been wondering for some time when we should start giving E pocket money and when we got home decided to take advantage of her sudden interest. We decided that pocket money is a reward earned in exchange for chores, and that the chores should be things that help the whole family, not just things she needs to do to get through a day such as getting dressed, brushing teeth, putting on shoes. We dithered over how much is an appropriate amount, and settled on $2 (maximum) per week. So we now have a chart on the fridge where we record the following:

• Putting dirty dishes in the sink
• Putting dirty clothes in the laundry basket
• Sweeping under her and C's chairs after meals
• Putting toys away
• Dusting

The first four are worth 5 cents each time, dusting 15 cents (partly because if she dusts the whole house it takes longer, partly because we wanted to make the weekly maximum $2). We're nearing the end of the second week and so far the chart has been an extremely good motivator. In the first week she earned $1.65 and is on track to earn something similar this week. I detest sweeping under the table after meals and am very happy about only having to do that once or twice a day whilst E is at school! We haven't been to a shop since we started the new system, and I am not sure if finding out how much stuff costs will be a motivator or discouraging, seeing as she isn't going to be able to afford much for a while.

As to why it's "quokka money"? We're not sure if E misheard us, or if it's because she spent her money on quokka related items, but we think it's very funny and so haven't corrected her.

Rottnest holiday

We spent five nights on Rottnest Island over the Australia Day long weekend. 

Packing up was a bit of a hassle, and we went from Hillarys rather than Fremantle which I had not done before, but as soon as we handed our bags over at the edge of the carpark it was all easy. There was much excitement about the ferry ride, and once we arrived, much excitement about everything.

Our house was a "premium view" cottage in Bathurst, near the lighthouse. It was far enough outside the main part of town but still close enough to the shops and eateries to be convenient. We walked and/or scooted everywhere, and it was a lovely break from folding the pram, managing seatbelts and listening to complaints.

View from the front gate

The amount of walking we did was really pretty amazing, given E is not yet five. On our second last day she managed the trek from our place all the way to Geordie Bay via the salt lakes, and back via the Basin, with minimal complaining.

In between all the walking was plenty of beach time, playgrounds, ice creams, beers and barbeques. Good thing we were doing all that exercise!

So many beautiful beaches

E's favourite playground, conveniently situated right next to the bakery and coffee shop.
 Fearless, senseless and straight to the top!

The Rottnest version of child supervision: taken from the wall of the Rottnest Hotel.
The water is about 50m away and is knee deep. E is the pink dot on the far left!

Whilst we were there C conquered crawling and began trying to pull herself up on furniture. We returned home to pull out the baby gates!

Christmas and beyond

After all the effort of coming up with and then acquiring useful, thoughtful gifts for everyone and planning and executing special food, Christmas comes and goes in a couple of days. Makes me wish I was a little person again, whose only job is to write some thank you notes before school goes back! Nonetheless, we did have an enjoyable few days - a big picnic by the river with D's extended family on the 21st, lunch on the 24th with D's immediate family and then lunch with my immediate family on the 25th.

Our small folk were suitably impressed by their loot - or at least E was, C was still mainly oblivious and more interested in eating wrapping paper than gifts. Santa delivered on E's request of "a Frozen movie, a Frozen necklace with a gem showing Elsa and Anna, and a Frozen bracelet." I consequently went from not having seen Frozen at all, to having seen it four times in the four days following Christmas. I still don't quite know what its secret is -  it's practically cocaine for the preschool set - but am willing to concede it's not a bad effort on Disney's part - at least the princess gets rescued by her sister and not a prince, and it makes a mockery of the concept of marrying someone you've just met.

After Christmas we enjoyed having my sister S and husband B around. They shared their time very equitably between the various family members, and the mornings of the two nights they spent with us we enjoyed early morning beach swims at Swanbourne. Both days turned into scorchers, but at 7am the beach was beautiful.

On New Year's Eve we had two of E's friends and their families here for early BBQ dinner. They arrived around 4.30pm, we had finished our sausages, rolls, salad, and chocolate by 6.00pm, everyone went home by 7.30pm and we were in bed by 9.30pm. It may not have been very rock'n'roll of us, but it was perfect - we're finally at the stage where more big kids is less trouble than only one. The three big girls disappeared into E's bedroom immediately upon arrival, with the three year old brother trailing hopefully around after them (alas, he was not wanted and was forced to play with the grownups). They reappeared not long before home time to "put on a performance" of Little Red Riding Hood. All very earnest, except for O's Dad, who had to play the wolf, as there was a last minute panic when they realised they had forgotten to cast a main character (?!) He was not at all earnest, and was comedy gold.

Since then, D is back at work and the girls and I have been treated to a week of gastro. It started with E having a stupendously big spew, all over me, C and the playgroup rug. It was quite dramatic - one minute she was fine, having just finished her lunch, next minute - not fine. The other playgroup mums were lovely about it, offering to help me clean, and holding and changing C (who let me just say was in no state to be held by anyone but me). After the world's biggest cleaning effort we made it home without further incident and E enjoyed a couple of days of convalescence  - icy poles, jelly, unprecedented amounts of tv and iPad.

I am now counting down the remaining two weeks until we spend five nights on Rottnest.

Scribbled on the back of an envelope at the Ben Folds concert

The world is changing. We are ageing. Friends' parents are dying. I recently discovered that Ben Folds - who writes about romance and grief and ordinary people in ways that I feel with resonate with me forever - has been married four times. Lance Armstrong is a drug cheat. In between epitomising family life, Bill Cosby allegedly spent the 1980s molesting 13 young women. My darling husband's signature black hair is thinning.

Life continues. My naughty four year old is singing in a Christmas concert, reading sentences, sobbing on the floor because she wants a coloured ribbon. In her darkened bedroom my baby feeds herself to sleep with such contentment - bliss - etched on her sweet face that I hope never to forget. My husband and I are listening to Ben Folds play with the symphony orchestra and - if I try - I can separate art and personality and he still makes my heart churn and soar and I still know all the words.

When I get home I will sneak in and kiss my babies. My four year old's room will smell slightly funny and she'll be sweaty and oblivious and I'll risk waking up the littlest one, but I'll do it anyway. Because life is happening, moving, passing, here - now.

December excitements

We're waiting for Christmas. We've put up the tree, visited Santa at Myer, each chosen our new decoration for the tree. Very impressed by the Myer Santaland set up incidentally - you line up in a single queue, then go through a door, behind which are multiple little rooms each (presumably) housing their own Santa. When you emerge, having put in your order with the man in red, there is a train to ride. Elves hand out free bags of popcorn and balloons. I know it's all with the aim of encouraging us to buy overpriced photographs and other bits and pieces, but if it's a scam it's a well organised one.

E is super excited by it all. She spent the morning removing most of the decorations from the tree to hang in other places so the rest of the house would "look pretty." Grrrrr. On a slightly different note, she has just departed for her last day of kindy. Where did the year go? How is it that I now have a four year old who can, with only minimal help, read a bedtime story to her sister?

Speaking of the sister, she is well and happy and still rates the 4 year old as the biggest excitement in the house. She has two horrid little teeth, can sit like a champion, babbles "ahhhhhh, mummummum" most endearingly and is working on the crawling.

I am super excited that I have finally finished all our shopping. It starts out being a pleasure and just feels like a chore by the end of it.

I am also excited by the arrival of various friends and family in the next few weeks. All coming home for Christmas/New Year, it fills me with anticipation and pleasure. Hiiiiiiiiii, SuseBrettAnnabelDomSallyNicZacCillianandHelen!

We're staying home for Christmas but looking forward to five nights on Rottnest over the Australia Day weekend. E is full of questions and anticipation - how long will it take to get there on the ferry, is ferry the same as fairy (?!), can we "play Rottnest?" Um yes, ok, how do we do that? We get these beanbags and these cushions and we pile them up like this, Mum! Then we have an island and we can jump on it! I haven't been to Rottnest since I was 18 and am really hanging out for what I hope will be a pretty simple, kinda old fashioned holiday - am I being naive? I'm hoping for sunshine, lots of beach time, afternoon naps, beers at sunset and nothing more complex for dinner than sausages and fish and chips. Any tips from anyone who has been recently welcome!

In the garden - October/November

I realised, belatedly, that the titling of my garden posts was a bit stupid - when I'm writing "in the garden - November" what I actually mean is "it is November now and I'm writing about what happened in the garden in October." And theoretically I was going to be publishing them early in the month, whereas today is the 25th. Oh well. Here is what happened in the garden in October, and for good measure, the bulk of November.

An artichoke happened! "Artichoke", singular so far, but there is another one on there. We had it steamed with some olive oil and vinegar for dipping.

I have far more food memories of my maternal grandmother, Grandma, than my paternal grandmother, Granny, but one thing I associate with Granny is artichokes, as I ate them for the first time with her on holiday one Christmas. I also recall her giving us vanilla icecream sprinkled with Milo, or occasionally a spoonful of jam.

The blueberries have continued to do well - yesterday E took to kindy for morning tea a box of them picked entirely from our own plants. But the main fruit event of the month has been apricots. 24 of them to date! The combination of mesh and paper bags has been a real success this year - I obviously got them on at the right time. They have had a bit of ant/other insect damage and definitely look home grown, but not one so far has been fruit fly ridden.

They look particularly home-grown in this photo - the lighting is a bit funny  -
 they are actually much orange-r than they appear here.

We are saving the stones in the hope that Papa may be able to add a few trees to their collection, although I have read that growing apricots from stones is a bit of a production, requiring a nut cracker to extract the bit you actually plant, and them time in the fridge for them to germinate. We all love them so much it is worth the effort - although 24 is definitely our best haul yet (and there are still more to come on the other half of the graft) it is still few enough that I ration them out for dessert after dinner, one each and no more! C especially loves them and sits chomping away with her one tooth, beautiful orange juice running down her chin.

A sleeping baby

Last week I gave in and called a sleep consultant recommended by a friend. C's day sleeps were varying between intermittent to non-existent, and to get her to sleep was requiring more and more effort. With a recurrence of the lower back/pelvis pain I lived with for most of my pregnancy, patting her to sleep on my shoulder was simply becoming unsustainable.

Stacey came and spent last Sunday with us, from 11am until 7pm. Her method did involve a bit of crying, but also listening to the type of cry to make sure it was angry/frustrated rather than distressed. She also helped us figure out two different schedules, one based on a 5.30am wakeup, one based on a 7.00am wakeup. As C's wakeup time was so variable, and some days have to incorporate kindy pick-ups/drop-offs, I had not been able to figure out a schedule that could incorporate all these things.  My wishlist was for C to wake around 7:00, take at least two day naps, self-settle during the day, and maybe space out her day feeds a little.

All I can say is that Stacey's method works.

For comparison, here is C's day last Friday (pre-Stacey):

4:15am - woke, yelled, had milk
6:30am - up for the day
7:30am - more milk
8:30am - spent 15 minutes in bed before waking, after 20 minutes of patting
9:15am - breakfast (solids)
9:40am - 20 minutes of patting and crying, did not go to sleep
10:40am - milk
12:00pm - lunch (solids)
12:30pm - another 30 minutes of patting and crying, did not go to sleep
2:40pm-  milk
3:15pm - finally had a 45 minute sleep!
5:00pm - dinner (solids)
5:20pm  - bath
5:40pm - milk and bed
6:45pm - awake again grizzling
7:00pm - more milk
7:15pm - asleep

And here her day a couple of days ago (post-Stacey):
7:00am - awake, milk
8:00am - breakfast (solids)
8:30am - 15 minutes settling in cot (talking, grizzling - no crying)
8:45am  - 2 HOUR NAP! (including re-settling herself partway through!)
11:00am - milk
1.30pm - 40 minute nap (in car - also something that never used to happen)
2.30pm - milk
4.00 - 4.25 - unsuccessful attempt to settle (grizzling in cot)
5.45pm - dinner
6.10pm - bath
6.40pm - milk
7.00pm - asleep

Actual day naps! Self-settling! Sleeping 12 hours overnight!

It's not perfect - I haven't yet persuaded C to take a late afternoon nap and she really needs to, as every day since Stacey came she has been up from about 2:00pm until bedtime, but we will work on that. A lot of the time she also seems to want milk more frequently than the every four hours that the schedule calls for, but that is ok.

Crossing all fingers, toes and other random body parts that this continues...

Happy half birthday

Our littlest love, you turned 6 months old 12 days ago. You have learned so much in the past month or so. Whilst we were on holiday in Dunsborough (on Daddy's birthday in fact) you figured out the back-to-front roll and almost instantly could do several in a row. Now, a couple of weeks later, and you are well beyond staying where you are put, and can expertly traverse from one side of the rug to another, stopping only when you get half stuck under the couch, at which point you let us know all about the problem in no uncertain terms. Yesterday I took a photo of you sitting on the picnic rug outside - the first time you have done a steady unsupported sit for longer than a second or two.

We first gave you some solid food at 22 weeks but then paused because I was convinced it was disrupting your sleep. I can now discern no pattern whatsoever - a few nights ago you managed to cram most of a chickpea and vegie fritter from your fat fist into your lovely little mouth, following which you slept from 6.30pm to 4.30am. Well, you can be sure I hoped it was as easy as serving up the same dinner the next night, but alas - the miracle was not to be repeated. Incidentally, I had primarily made the fritters for your big sister, not considering that a baby barely six months old could manage them, but as soon as you saw what she was having, you wanted some too. You just want to join in what everyone else is doing - whilst on holiday you begged pizza crust from us in the same fashion and have also scored strips of fillet steak and asparagus spears, food I would never dreamed of giving E at this age. You seem to like anything you can stuff in your mouth on your own and are distinctly less impressed by things that come off a spoon. Your clear favourites so far are the pizza crust, chunks of stewed pear, and honeydew melon.

Speaking of your big sister, she is as enraptured with you as we are. Since you have been eating more real food you have needed more regular baths and this week I have mainly put the two of you in the tub together. E thinks this is fantastic and I suspect you agree - there is lots of fist waving and leg kicking and splashing. You are a brave girl and unperturbed by E yanking on your legs, dumping water on your head and splashing in your face. Her biggest treat is to be allowed to hold you, something she thinks needs to happen at least once a day and if I say no when she begs "Mummy, can I have a hold of C" she will whinge right back "but I haven't he-eld her yet today!" - obviously as her big sister it is her right to man-handle you as she pleases. You seem not to need most of my attempts to protect you from her four-year-old enthusiasm - I have a lovely image stored away of her leaning right over you on the rug, rocking you from side to side, and the two of you laughing gleefully in each other's faces.

You are generally a very happy little soul - I love to sing silly little songs to you and you will give me big, nose wrinkling, shining eyed grins right back. There will probably come a day when you will refuse to be held by anyone but me, but right now anyone who talks to you will get a moment of contemplation and then a sweet, happy smile. You will also chat away to anyone who will listen - right now your favourite sound is "brugh! brugh!" The last two days you have been somewhat grumpy but that is only because of the emergence of a horrid little tooth at the bottom of your mouth.

Sleep is still a bit of a variable issue - dear little second baby, if I had the leisure to give you some real consistency I think you would find it easier, but even sticking to the minimum routine for E involves you being dragged around a fair bit and your schedule depends on the of the week. I would love for you to figure out how to fall asleep in bed, but as things are you sing yourself to sleep on our shoulders before we try to sneak you into your cot. Your going to sleep song is so funny, it is an "ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah" that is somewhere between an angry cat and a struggling car battery. The tireder you are the louder you get. We have nights where you are only up once, but other nights I'm up with you two and sometimes three times. It would also be very nice if you would figure out how to take day naps longer than 45 minutes - your refusal to do so means you are still sleeping three and sometimes four times during the day.

Given the emergence of the nasty tooth I am going to take myself to bed as I suspect tonight may not be one of your better nights. Even though I would love some uninterrupted hours, I know that when you get me up I will be unable to resent it, I will hug you to my chest and smell your soft, floaty hair and know that I would not trade the last six months for all the sleep in the world.

Letters to asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru

When I was a young lawyer with more time on my hands than I have presently I started volunteering on the weekends for an organisation called CASE for Refugees. At the time, it was possible for asylum seekers who arrived by boat who were granted refugee status to receive a temporary protection visa (TPV) which enabled them to live in the community. Prior to the expiry of their TPV they could apply for a permanent protection visa (PPV) which would allow them to stay here permanently.  CASE helped TPV holders prepare the forms and accompanying statements and documents necessary to apply for a PPV. Later, CASE helped PPV holders apply for visas for family members who had been left behind (often in refugee camps in countries like Pakistan) to come to Australia too. Whilst helping TPV and PPV holders write statements about the reasons they left their homes and families I heard the most horrific stories of beatings, torture, murder, rape and forced conscription. I felt (and feel) that Australia is a large, rich country and that our refugee policy could be much more generous than it currently is.

Anyway, I stopped volunteering at CASE when I was pregnant with E because I was too sick and tired to devote my weekends to anything much but sleeping. I was pleased to read recently that Victorian lawyer, Julian Burnside QC, has initiated a way for ordinary Australians to support asylum seekers in detention on Manus Island and Nauru. It's not time consuming, won't cost an individual much, and can be done from your own home. The idea is that you write a letter (initially to a non-specific asylum seeker) and send it to Julian, and a self-addressed envelope. He will arrange for it to be sent to Nauru or Mauns Island and given to a particular asylum seeker, who can write back to you if they want to. There are specific instructions on what to do on Julian Burnside's website - click here.

According to recent posts on Julian Burnside's Facebook page, thousands of people have sent him letters which he has forwarded, and they have been received and greatly appreciated by asylum seekers. It is not clear whether the asylum seekers have been prevented from writing replies, or whether the replies have been blocked by detention centre staff or the Immigration Department. However, that's not a reason to stop writing. He also recently said that whilst it is difficult for asylum seekers to access post offices they do get one hour of email access a week, so it might be an idea to include your email address if you want them to write back.

A letter to a stranger who has escaped things most of us can't imagine is not an easy thing to write. Julian's website suggests:

"Write a letter, but not directed to a specific person.  Say who you are, so the recipient will not wonder whether you are acting for the government. Tell them something about yourself.  Let them know that not all Australians are hostile to them.  Be sensitive to their circumstances.  Encourage them to write back to you."

Here is my letter in case anyone else would like an idea of what you might say:

"Dear Friend

My name is M and I am 33 years old. I live in {suburb} which is a suburb of Perth. I have two young daughters named E and C - E is 4 years old and C is 6 months old. Right now I do not do paid work because I stay at home with the girls. My husband's name is D.

I am writing to let you know that I am very sorry our government has locked you up. Australia is a big country and I wish you could live here too. Not all Australians agree with the way our government treats refugees.

If you would like to write back to me I would love to hear from you. Please tell me anything you would like about yourself - where you come from, what it is like in your country, whether your family is with you, how you are managing in detention. I will keep writing to you if you would like that. If it is easier for you to email me than post a letter my email address is: {email address}. I have also included an envelope with my address and some paper and an International Reply Coupon that you can exchange for stamps.

With best wishes from..."

Who else will join me in writing a letter to give a little hope and distraction to someone in a horrible situation?

.

Tough love parenting

It's been a tough week of parenting 'round these parts. We spent the second week of the school holidays in Dunsborough with my parents, and the girls (and we) were spoilt by the ease that two more pairs of hands and sets of attention bring to the taking-care-of-small-folk gig. We came home last Sunday and the next day was staff development day so E was at home with C and I instead of at kindy. We had a really lovely day - E seemed happy with the return to normality and was pleased to be pottering around the house playing with stuff she hadn't seen for a week and there was minimal ignoring and grumpiness on her part and consequently minimal shoutiness on mine. 

The next day E went happily back to kindy and afterwards I agreed to her request for her friend A to come over and play for an hour afterwards. I sat in an armchair in the playroom where I could hold a sleeping C and watch the two big girls on the trampoline. I spent some of the time googling child proof gate latches on my phone and emailing my Dad asking his view on which one would be suitable for our gate. When A's mum arrived I didn't get up to see them out and say goodbye as C was still asleep on my lap. I did get up a few minutes later when I heard E messing about by the front gate where she had lingered to wave goodbye and asked her to bring inside the toys she had dragged out to the trampoline. She brought inside one lot of toys and I sent her back out for another. A few minutes passed, she didn't come back in, but I thought she had just wandered off in the garden. I was cross because she had promised (promised! because from a four year old promises mean so much!) she would pack up if I let them take toys outside. 

I plopped C on the rug and started wandering around looking and calling for E. She wasn't inside. I did a lap of the garden. She wasn't outside. Starting to panic I thought "I bet she's followed A out the gate." E has only been able to reach the gate latch for a little while, and knows she is never supposed to go out it by herself (and less than an hour earlier I had been researching what to replace the latch with!) but I had one of those strong, sense of doom feelings that she had done so this time. We live on a busy road. A really really busy main road. I raced out the gate, gambled that she had turned right rather than left as that is the direction of A's house and hooned about 20 metres down the street. And, thank goodness, saw A, A's Mum and E walking back towards our house. Their neighbour had found E in her front garden. She had made it all the way down our street to the traffic lights, turned the corner, walked another hundred metres or so and turned another corner onto A's street and got as far as the next door house.

E's explanation was "I was going on an adventure." What do you say to that?? I said all the obvious things about it being dangerous and naughty and that she was never to do it again. I took all of the good behaviour stones she had earned out of her jar in one go. I put her in her bedroom and told her she could stay there until dinner time. She started carrying on about being hungry and I told her that being hungry until dinner might help her remember not to do it again. A few minutes later she snuck out of her room, filched an apple from the fridge and tried to sneak back into her room. Like a crazy lady I wrestled the apple away from her, screeching, and shoved her back in her room. This was apparently more upsetting than the original punishment and she stayed in her room, sobbing. I stood at the bench, trying to make dinner, with C grizzling on the rug, wondering if I got to cry too or if my job was just to make dinner. I left E in her room until dinner was ready, which was about half an hour, and by far the longest we have ever made her stay in her room as punishment. Later we also decided she is on a three week play-date ban as we wanted there to be a more lasting reminder of the lesson.

Since then we decided that we have been overlooking too many instances of E ignoring us. Either she just pretends not to hear and carries on with what she is doing, or laughs whilst deliberately doing things she knows are naughty. She will sometimes appear sorry later and promise not to do it again, but really doesn't understand the significance of promises. So, since the great escape, every time she ignores us or doesn't do what she is told, we have been putting her in her room. Suffice to say, she has been spending quite a lot of time there. On Saturday we went to my parents' place after lunch, following a particularly gruesome morning behaviour wise. The performance continued once we  got there. I can't even remember what I had asked her to do, but given it was on top of a morning full of not listening, I sent E for time out in the laundry. She wouldn't stay put, and ran out about five or six times, culminating in D threatening to take her home if she didn't stay put for the five minutes we had originally told her. She did it again, and D said "that's it, Mummy and C will stay here and have a nice time with Granny and Grandad but you and I are going home." She immediately shrieked "no, I'll be good, don't take me home!" but D was resolute and wrestled her out to the car. I say "wrestled" because she fought it every step of the way, howling and shrieking at the top of her lungs all the way down the path and across the street. Once in the car it was another wrestling match to get her to sit still long enough to get her seatbelt on. But we managed it and they left, whilst C and I stayed for our "nice time" which mainly involved me feeling shaky and guilty about how physical we had had to be, but nervously determined that it was the right thing to do.

Since then things have been perhaps marginally better (although when D was putting her to bed that night and told E that we hadn't had a very good day but we would all try to have a better day tomorrow, E apparently looked astounded and said "but why didn't we have a good day?!") At least we have been resting slightly easier about the gate as we now have a new child proof gate latch, complete with lock.

Does anyone have experience parenting the small and wilful sort? I do want to raise strong and independent girls, but at the same time well mannered ones who listen to adults and who can at least follow instructions enough to ensure their own safety!

In the garden - October

In the garden, in September, there were tomatoes, broad beans and rainbow chard! Lots of each! E has been eating cherry tomatoes like they are lollies and we are picking a full handful every day or two. We haven't done anything more adventurous with the broad beans this year than eat them straight from the bush, or in salad, but there are plenty for both.

The blueberries are still laden but with only a few ripe ones so far.

I thought about building some sort of fruit-fly preventing structure out of poly piping and big sheets of netting to protect the apricot tree but time got away from me so I went with what we had and dragged out the mesh sleeves and paper bags from the shed. I also couldn't quite figure out how I would deal with the fact that the tree is grafted and one half always flowers/fruits well before the other - so far one half has big enough fruit that it needed bagging, and the other half is still mainly flowering with only a few tiny fruit.

And the roses are back, and glorious.