monday (great)

yep i might forget this in years to come but right now Mondays are ace.
Why is that? Today i'm sitting in our house after lunch - two electricians are climbing around the roof with a view to a bit of renovation work happening here. Two sisters are playing happily by themselves. K is creating a the life of magnet doll in her bunk room. S is separating her dress-up clothes - classifying them as dirty, clean, hang-up, bags, etc in my room.
Mondays I stay home with the kids. Wednesdays, too. It's been a couple of years now.
This year, our routine has taken us to the pool on a Monday morning - withdrew S from formal classes last week & instead the 3 of us splash around and do a bit of copy-the-nearby-lesson.
Wednesdays the kids each have a morning at kinder - so I get a morning TO MYSELF.

why was that blogged, again?

Up til now I have sent emails to a large group of contacts, advising them of the latest entry in this worldsafari space. I thought of it as like sending a postcard. Like an update. This began in late 2004 when we moved to Darwin.

So, nearly six years later, what’s changed? Well we’ve settled in East Brunswick, CJ & I have worked at a few different jobs, we have two kids and made new friends over that time. That’s the obvious stuff.
The world had changed too, of course, and I’m thinking of cyber-world for a moment, like identify theft and remotely accessing your machine etc etc. It makes the idea of public blog kind of odd. Why would you do it? Why do millions of people continue to post personal information about themselves online? Facebook is a good example of this. Why, oh why, do many of us spend our lives doing this?
There must be a need, unmet through our regular day-to-day lives, to contact people. But instead of sharing, it’s more like a kind of platform, or podium from which we can launch an “identity”. A brand. A way that we would LIKE the world to see us. It’s dressed us as being about people sharing, but from what I can see, there’s a helluva lot of talking/ typing/ posting going on, but I doubt how much listening/ reading/ thinking is taking place.

Yes, everyone seems to have a story to tell. Mini autobiographies in 140 words or less. They have a sore knee. They are thinking of going to Tibet. They are eating a steak sandwich. They heard their child say a word. They were awarded a pig on Farmville (huh?) . Here’s a photo of them in front of Westminster. And another at the leaning tower of Pisa. Golly.

Online social networking would have us believe that we are becoming closer together as we share this stuff with friends. But I think it’s less about “sharing”, which is clearly best done in person, and more about people creating their image and fanning their little fires.

Which leads me to the blog space. Why would I keep posting on a public forum personal information? Do I pretend that other people care? No. Do I try to create an image of myself that I hope others buy into? Maybe.

I’m grappling with the idea of letting it go. When our computer & back ups were stolen last year, without the blog being online, I would have lost the whole record. Because it’s online, it will always be there.
I plan to keep posting online, but to stop sending notifications so regularly. Maybe that’s a compromise for now…

end of a decade

g'day,
so the naughties are ending.
Haven't seen many "best of the decade" retrospectives yet.
But I'm interested -
what are your top 5 albums? books? movies?
what do you reckon?

i'll have a crack:
books:
1 the secret scripture - sebastian barry
2 the road- cormac mccarthy
3 true history of the kelly gang - peter carey
4 life of pi - yann martel
5 oxford big ideas science 2 (especially the engineering chapter) - yes, heavily biased

albums:
1 in rainbows - radiohead
2 up all night - the waifs
3 gurrumul - gurrumul
4 a rush of blood to the head - coldplay
5 tea & sympathy - bernard fanning

movies
pass (I haven't seen 5 movies in the decade)

anyone? click on comment to post...

and what of Our Common Future, eh, science?

On inspirational readings - on a different level, but the transcript of the Chief Executive of CSIRO, Megan Clark's speech to the National Press Club, 30 September.
Inspiring for anyone pondering our human struggle, I think. Sets out some challenges for us all & how to use scientific ideas to have a crack. Full of interesting posers, too.
One of my favourites is the realisation that in the next 50 years, we (humans on earth) will need to produce as much food as has been consumed over our entire human history to date.
As she says; "That means in the working life of my children, more grain than ever produced since the Egyptians, more fish than eaten to date, more milk than from all the cows that have ever been milked on every frosty morning humankind has ever known."
jeepers.
http://www.csiro.au/science/Megan-Clark-Press-Club-Address.html

That book it has me - The Secret Scripture

by Sebastian Barry. It's dynamite.
sharing a good story. can i do this? sharing. borrow it. buy it.
cheerio.

"My father's happiness. It was a precious gift in itself, as perhaps
my mother's anxiety was a perpetual spanner thrown
into her works. For my mother never made miniature legends
of her life, and was singularly without stories, though I am sure
there were things there to tell as good as my father's.

It is funny, but it strikes me that a person without anecdotes
that they nurse while they live, and that survive them, are more
likely to be utterly lost not only to history but the family following
them. Of course this is the fate of most souls, reducing
entire lives, no matter how vivid and wonderful, to those sad
black names on withering family trees, with half a date dangling
after and a question mark.

My father's happiness not only redeemed him, but drove
him to stories, and keeps him even now alive in me, like a second
more patient and more pleasing soul within my poor soul.

Perhaps his happiness was curiously unfounded. But cannot
a man make himself as happy as he can in the strange long
reaches of a life? I think it is legitimate. After all the world is
indeed beautiful and if we were any other creature than man
we might be continuously happy in it."

And I'm walking round bumping into things you said...

And the daylight stretches again beyond 7pm and with it stretches my wonder that of course the world continues apace at this hour, when all is regularly drawn & blinded & darkened in the house of two little uns.
Getting out & about from time-to-time has brought the realization anew. Spilling out with mates into Errol Street for a Fringe Festival comedy show on a Tuesday night. Riding in the daylight to a north Carlton pub for some scheduled & much sought after conviviality on a Wednesday night. We made it. Another winter down.

Riding to the G in the dark & the rain, racing the clock. Floodlights looming over Fitzroy all the way. Arriving. Chaining up the bike. Finding Gate 3, scanning the ticket & running up the escalator in footy shorts & gore-tex coat. Could the Woods do it? Heart pounding with effort & expectation, rounding the bend and onto Level 2 as the crowd all shuffle up out of their seats for the anthem. Hide away up the back, swap the wet shorts for dry jeans & take a seat just as the siren sounds. A rollicking first half of missed opportunities. We will get them again? Jimmy Bartel teaching me about the setting of screens and only then becoming aware of a whole new game within a game to an extent I’d never seen before to set up Ablett on his own. And the dancing, prancing second half, soured by cocky Geelong supporters around me to the point that I even left early (to beat the (bike) traffic).

But this spring has a special fizz, don’t you think? Can you feel it? There’s a spark of something floating on the wind. Or maybe it’s a loose willy-willy that flicks up the dust and makes anything seem possible? The skies are brighter. Bigger. All is fresh and new and again.

Here we’re debating house plans & looking forward to a 4th birthday and also to a little family getaway. CJ will be running 10km leg of the Melbourne Marathon on Sunday & will then pop up to the Gold Coast for a work conference. Nice! SJ is coming up to 4 now & has been seen ringing imaginary friends (on an old disconnected phone handset) quite a bit lately. KT is 2½ and took it upon herself to cast aside the Age of Nappies last week. These kids are growing and growing and revealing more of themselves seemingly every day.

And me? I’ve been in the business of watching & observing & relishing my Slow Talker status around these parts.
My (fractured) coccyx gives me less pain than previously, though it still aches to sit. Sometimes a sharp pain, rather than an ache. This experience has taught me new lessons about Australia’s health system, overturning some idealistic naïve ideas. It turns out that without private health insurance, a public patient cannot simply offer to pay for a consultation with a private specialist. This had been my understanding. But no. The private specialist in his/her private rooms opts instead to not even allow an appointment. No private health insurance = very limited access to private system.
This situation has meant I will not be seen by my first-choice specialist in Melbourne, though thankfully my referring doctor was able to find a private specialist prepared to consult with me.

But I’m back on the bike at least once/week now, taking in Edinburgh Gardens, the MCG and the Yarra on the trip to work. And still working a 3 day-week. Clocked up 1 year at the Bureau of Meteorology this week. I’ve found it very supportive and interesting and challenging and fun.

Books? I enjoyed the many characters & life stages of those characters in The Good Parents (Joan London), found The Boat (Nam Le) interesting rather than riveting & had trouble with The Spare Room (Helen Garner). Yesterday I stopped reading The Time We Have Taken (Steven Carroll) as I couldn’t get past the continually sighing internal debates of every character but today have found a cracker in The Secret Scripture (Sebastian Barry). All hail the Brunswick library.

And it seems just now that I’m finding inspirational people everywhere I look. Really helping my perspective & meanderings & wanderings around this world. So what are the ethics of finishing off the last 50 pieces of someone else’s 500-piece jigsaw puzzle project? Can routine and the presence of order help to rekindle the feeling of independence and of lost self? Life is scary, but courage is knowing your own role and your own values. How do you measure the success of your life? What’s the best way to make a difference to this world? Where can we do the most good? What is happiness?
Conversations over lunch, at the pub, over email to Darwin. Conversations with the people with whom we share this life.
Happy spring.
It’s happening.

there is room for make believe out in the jungle

There’s a man with an overly long trenchcoat who gets on the tram and when he does so he pushes past the assembled commuters towards a bright yellow pole. His eyes take in no one and nothing. He greets not a soul. He is in his own world. Alone, perhaps, save for his iPod. Around him, as the tram eases again towards town, are his kin. Ironic. The kin of the alone. There’s the woman with the constant suspicious look, eyes darting over the top of her newspaper, folded crisply to the crossword page. The school girl reading over some hand-scrawled notes, iPod working away. There’s the Swanston Street crowd, work-a-day uniforms of corporate worlds on bodies matched with resignation on faces. There’s the William Street crowd, similarly fitted out, but with more tailored corporate uniforms (sometimes even a waistcoat!)
At Spencer Street the mass of humanity spilling from the train station each morning pushes against me and my travels. I, the rainbow trout, jostle against the current of scores of trenchcoats, pleated skirts (and matching runners), wet hair and rush. Everyone rushing. Must be important. So very important. Fighting at the pedestrian crossing to weave a path against the tide. I must have made face-contact with hundreds by now. And not a single smile amongst them.

Most mornings, at this point, I sing. Singing my way across the pedestrian crossing has advantages. My repertoire is limited, but the song that most aptly comes to mind, observing these great shoals of business–fish is “across the universe,” and in particular its opening line of: “words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup, they slither wildly as they make their way across the universe…”

The city in morning rush hour (no kidding!) is no place for emotional sustenance. Or for children. Where are the children? My school teaching days wash fondly forward as I traipse up the concrete & steel hill; yet more windswept grimaces surrounding me, cigarettes lighting en masse. (“Hi Mr Wilson – hey did you see the show last night? Mr Wilson – nice tie. Hi Mr Wilson – why are you wearing footy shorts?”)

Thinking of this now, I am reminded of a message shared recently with a great friend. I’m sure they won’t mind.
----
Think of the mundane & the trivial & the challenges & the exhaustion & the last time you were furious with your lot.
I thought of this and then i thought of a patient and watchful gatekeeper.
Like an elder.
Someone of gravitas and of unspoken wisdom.
Someone who doesn't shirk anything.
Who doesn't flinch.
Someone who bears all before them and who listens and who accepts.
And who is sought.

I was thinking about this person & how I reckon that's a valuable person and then I thought of that daily load again.
I'm picturing that person. it's a woman & now she is lying on the ground.
She lies down to rest.
It's not as easy as it looks - this wisdom that she carries.
She lies down on a big flat rock that sits in the late evening sun.
The floodplain is below her.
She sighs and she breathes.
She breathes deeply through her nose.

She knows that this clutter of emotion and of noise in life is constant.
But she breathes again and is rested.
A light breeze shuffles branches & leaves overhead.
She hums and she smiles.
----
Who are we? Who are you?
I shared a week in Cairns with work mates. Truly shared. exhausting. wonderful. Meanwhile, at home, we were burgled - back door smashed in, computers & jewellery & video camera & hard drive (with photos, stories, etc) stolen. No one was home, so family are all fine.

Breathe.
Breathe.
That photo there was taken off the coast of Cairns. Snorkled with a turtle! Yes siree.
Breathe.
adios.

australia 2 - 1 japan

Ah yes, rolling down rathdowne street, past stationary cars, on the way to the pub, ignorant of the possibility of bike seat thieves being AT LARGE and weaving among the Imperial throng, empty-handed blind turn at the (severely understaffed) bar, laying eyes on a posse of blokes i recognised well and getting amongst it.
"and g;day to you, too." from simon, some minutes after my arrival. Champagne email banter going un-replied-all to.
The Great Seat Heist. The rueful prospect of a quad-tearing marathon to footscray later in the evening. The even-more-rueful prospect of telling Claudia about it. The rise and fall of Gary Neiwand.
Picking up the meandering pace through the Treasury gardens and moving at a fair clip by the time ground announcers could be heard. "Kick off in 10 minutes; we want you all to be seated..."
Navigating well the famililar flood of the MCG pre-game, but navigating with less poise the unexpected jog/ light run up flight after flight sucking in air of diminishing oxygen content. The dizziness of first arrival on 4th deck. The craned neck to see if, yes, there are more seats behind me. And yes, ours are among 'em.
A strangely subdued first half, wondering about tactics and individual versus team contributions, and strategy and imagined complexity versus real complexity and how much of this game comes down to chance, anyway?
The Tim Cahill double.
Rocky's "It's just like world war 2 all over again! At half time they (japan) were in Darwin!"
The roar.
The roar.
The drums, the flares, the songs.
Threading among the stationary cars through East Melbourne and thinking, yep, that was the go.

hope suburban life swallows us all tonight.
Life in the Big League is hard to take.

He hears nothing but the water, and the sound of it has been in his ears all his life.

Do you twitter? A teacher mate of mine asked me that the other day. Twitter? No idea, I said. So I signed up (yet another alias assumed) to check it out. Just the same as the facebook status updates, but without the photos. You get 140 characters to say what you're up to/ thinking/ doing. And it all works on the premise that other people will want to to know exactly what you're up to/ thinking/ doing several times a day. Crikey. Not unlike blogging, I guess. But a drawcard in this Age of Celebrity, is that you can search for anyone and start “following” their updates. So to test this idea, I'm now following Hugh Jackman. Would you believe it? He's just been sitting in Miami airport and is looking forward to going to Disneyland with the kids. Noise, anyone?

Noise? I popped along to the Shrine of Remembrance this year for a bit of dawn service. Not really my idea, nor something I'd ever done. We caught the tram there in the darkness, people emerging from the gloom at each stop. Strangely packed tram by the time we reached central Melbourne.
-so you're down from Canberra are you?
-yeah i'm here for the long weekend. We get the public holiday Monday in Canberra.
-gee that's alright. How's yer work?
-oh I was in Papua New Guinea last week and before that I was organising the Chinese delegation to Perth but we were only there for 3 days so it wasn't really enough time to catch up with anyone, you know?
Happy to be off the tram and walking in darkened silence with the pilgrims. Past some seedy gents just emerged from an all-night bar. Strangely sheepish in the face of the silent, solemn looks of the sober. Walking up the grassy slope, among the darkened trees, branches in the face, when the Last Post rang out.
I wondered about the whole “glorifying war” angle of the day, but I reckon it's a totally personal issue. What someone gets out of the day, recognises of the day, attributes to the day, is their own business and for me it was a remembering. I think the workaday soldiers of the lines are people to be remembered. Not so the politicians or decision-makers of the era. Nevertheless the occasion intrigues me still. Why do so many get out of bed to be there? So many kids. So many people so far from home.

Lately we've had mates & kids staying with us in our house. Playing & eating & sleeping & living. Holidays to the beach, cavorting with a dolphin. We've had an Easter at home, painting & washing & sandpapering. And we've felt the cold snap and realised the heater stopped working sometime over the summer. We've enjoyed many many birthday parties of little people; including a 2nd birthday party held at our place. So for the first time since October 2005 there is no one at our house under the age of 2.

And I learned last Friday that my coccyx is in fact fractured. Tail bone. Cracked it back in the first week of Feb, throwing myself backwards onto a low low couch. Expecting to be enveloped in the loving embrace of several cushions. Instead crashing CRASHING my tail hard onto a sturdy, non-cushioned armrest. Crack. Yeah, it hurt at the time. Since then it has stopped me running. Stopped me riding a bike. Stopped me sitting down on the tram. Stopped me sitting down at work. Fairly inconvenient. So I finally had an x-ray taken, and yep, crack-o-rama.
Fingers crossed for a decent recovery.

Tram-riding much more frequently now, me and my broken tail, and this means book-reading nirvana. Talk about a silver lining. Have you read any of Roald Dahl's short stories? Or Cloudstreet? These stories and story-tellers are worth a look. He says. Seriously.

So two days each week I'm home with the girls, so no book reading of my own then; rather plenty of Possum Magic and The Very Hungry Catepillar and Tikki Tikki Tembo. And lazy walks to the market and maybe a tram ride to the museum this week. Ahh yes, it's cold and slow at our place these days. Putting another jumper on and easing along. Hope you're fit & firing wherever you are.

sometimes when this place gets kind of empty

Looking back, it's been coming for a while but tonight, with New Order bobbing up on the shuffle, a view of our kitchen in front of me (dishes washed, Steph's painting on the bench) I realise that I've got life worked out. Ba bing.

And do you know, with that, everything has slotted into its place.

It's as if, by understanding my own vantage point, all worries, all concerns, have hoisted their own little white flags.

It feels a bit weird right now, but as I said, I think it's been coming for a while.

The top of my head has flipped open like on that old ad for a toothbrush.

Going. Going.

I'm left with the core.

That's all I need. I'm ready now. I feel ready. More ready that ever, to be truthful.

Crikey.

I feel clean and confident and natural and if I was to liken this feeling to an image that image would be of the (southern) night sky. Not so much an image, but the feeling of being underneath it it in the bush or in the desert country. Open. Without limit. Forever.

Noise is something I've just learned to actively avoid. This is helping. Noise as in extraneous, irrelevant, meaningless facts, information, statistics, etc. By golly this type of noise is pervasive. This very writing is now part of the Earth's noise. Time taken reading and writing is time we are not thinking. Unless we are, I guess.

Is there a struggle taking place? It would appear so. I buy the Saturday paper here and read it over the rest of the week. News of the city is mostly grim. News of the world is mostly grim. Is this what “sells papers”? Do journos and editors set the agenda or do they follow the lead of their marketing department?

But everywhere noise. Junk mail. Junk telephone calls. Junk email. Stereo aural assualt even while sitting at the Test cricket. Advertising bombardments. Absence of time to ponder. Time to think. Do we think?

The Noise and the struggle are linked, I think. Noise, a useless clamour for our attention. Buy 2 get one free. 100 free SMS. New facebook layout. Amex membership rewards. Peter Costello. Credit card payments now by SMS. Now online. Recharge using this card get 75 hamburger vouchers. Sale This Week Only. Inside 50s. Online friends. Clangers. Germ free. Write something about yourself. Make $50-$100/ hour. Easy currency trading. Jacko's brother asked out that girl from video easy. Free trip competition. Wash the bathroom floor. 6 months interest free. The clamour. The clamour. Our attention. Our limited and very sacred attention.

I'm turning the Noise off.

Off.

Footy is a case in point. The overwheling media fixation and (consequent?) population fixation on an imperfect, physically arduous, tedious brand of provincial football growing each year. Now players of that sport are treated by media and betting agencies alike with a significance rivalling and in some cases even outstripping their own (employer!) clubs. Made a bet on the Brownlow voting yet? Filled in your Super Coach team? How many points is he worth per match? Sum the points, watch the rookie, loose ball gets? Someone turn off the Noise.

But hey, I like the game. Love the game. Just take me away from the 7-day-a-week media circus & the audio visual assault at each match. Leave it as a game. (must be local footy, I reckon).

Noise. The Dalai Lama has been in exile for 50 years from his home in Tibet. Global village -style noise. Keeping up with the shared experience of the global Joneses. Posh & becks -style. Liverpool, manchester Utd -style. Do we need it? Do we need it?

Could drop into conversation with anyone on earth – howabout that Obama? Howabout that Fritzl? Howabout that Pakistan?

So i'm learning that a noiseless life is a thinking life and a reflecting life.

Quiet.

Struggle.

Quite a struggle.

You say you want a revolution.

Doorways to the past have opened in the past week. A message from a former Year 8 student that had me laughing out loud. A dear friend not heard from in five years appearing at the door, partner, daughter, staying & playing & eating & bathing together. It's a wonder.

Life is beautiful.

Opening some books.

Talking.

Listening.

Thinking.

That's it.

That's me for now.

I've had a birthday just now yet i feeling younger than before. The sky is open.

put me in a cage full of lions, i'll learn to speak lion

G'day from our rattletrap house,

Have you read any good books lately?Any books at all? Books and reading have made a triumphant & appreciated return to my life in the past few months. Roddy Doyle's "The Van", his "The Woman who Walked into Doors," Christos Tsiolkas' "The Slap," Robert Drewe's "Our Sunshine," and this morning I'm into Richard Ford's "Independence Day."

I've been alongside a couple of Dubiner's setting up a chipper van outside a pub. I've been witness to horrible physical abuse. I've pondered life from the perspectives of a teenage girl, a septuagenarian Greek man and egotistical men suffering mid-life crises. I've ridden with a widow's son outlawed whose requests Must Be Obeyed.

And it's been grand.

The pace of life has slowed here in the past months. Maybe this is due to my new job – I'm certainly not bringing any work home any more. We all feel that like a cold change across the bay on a day of stifling heat. And I'm attending a workplace only 3 days each week; giving me the rare gift of being at work more than I'm not (3 outta 5 days) while also being at home more than I'm not (4 outta 7 days). Presto! What a trick!

Breathing space is noticeable around our place. Unexpected contacts & visits! from long-ago friends have burnt a warm & welcome dizziness. Special to think & to remember & to share. To clap eyes on & embrace & embrace the history & the shared experiences worth more than you can say.

Breathing space.

Running. Running for the sake of running has always perplexed me. Laps of the oval? Something for the greyhounds, mate. But this week I've gone 25km (total) in four runs & am feeling really good for it – if a bit tight around the calves. It's a kind of tiredness that I'd forgotten about. That tiredness that says "yep, you've done a physically tough thing today."

Breathing space.

Stephanie turned 3 in October. Family lunch at our place. She is full of questions and full of opinions. She reasons and rationalises and explains. She remembers. Her standard position is the contrary one. "Steph, would you like the blue or the red bowl?" "No, the yellow bowl." She reads (memorises) her books with an uncannily accurate and fast ability. And she will then sit with Kyla and read them to her. Stephanie loves jig-saw puzzles. And she will help Kyla with puzzles, too. On Wednesday Stephanie drew a picture and wrote the letter M at the top, saying "This is M for Mummy and I'm going to give this picture to her." She takes herself to the toilet now – calling for help when a bum wipe is required. She has started riding her bike (birthday present – with training wheels). She regularly rides to the park now ("Dad, you and Kyla can walk behind me.")

Stephanie knows and remembers. She places people and events better than anyone I know. Meeting up with friends last week she stood in the centre of the gathering & gave a rollcall of attendees, matching couples together as "best friends" ("There's Jack. And over there is Amy. Jack and Amy are best friends.") She can recall events and places of a similar gathering months ago. I find it extraordinary.

Stephanie runs and jumps and slides and does it all with a fair bit of caution. When meeting someone new or going to a new place, Stephanie's retreat for comfort manifests in a kind of baby language – she mimics Kyla's language. For a while that confused us, even annoyed us a bit, but we realised it's just her security net and that she soon warms out of it. She relates to other people well, I think, after the initial feeling-out period. We are fortunate to have close contact with friends and their kids. Fortunate to watch skills learnt from 4-year-olds put straight into practice (You mean I can walk up a slide backwards? Why didn't anybody say so?)

Kyla is about 20 months old now. She is a funny girl who has a sneaky and crafty way of giving you a side-ways glance before making a joke. She is energetic and bold. She is a cuddly huggy girl who loves contact. Kyla slides and runs and screams and pushes trolleys and trains and prams around and around our rattletrap house. Her language is incredible ("Dad, Stephanie has enormous cup, doesn't she Dad? E-nor-mous!") I'm certain that she enjoys the benefit of an older sibling to play with & learn from. Though they have their disagreements (Me: "Steph, Kyla can use those bells in two minutes when you have finished." Steph: "No, she certainly can NOT"), the constant policing of a few months ago has ceased. Squabbles occur less frequently now. Maybe Kyla's language has developed enough to enable clearer communication. Who knows?

Kyla tries things. Climbs. Picks herself straight up when she invariably falls. Stands on top of the tricycle seat and throws her head back, arms out wide. Grins. Trying to placate her writhing wriggling squirminess is like trying to harness a fiery young filly.

Days at home are wonderful. There was a time when the prospect of spending a day at home caused anxiety to rise like a water spout. Nowadays anxiety has dropped to virtually nil.

Other happenings?

With Justine's help (thanks Juz!) CJ has introduced a Sunday night Muppets night at our place. After a bath we all catch an episode of the Muppets on DVD. What a treat.

And CJ & I got away for 2 nights recently – without the kids. Shock! They had a holiday (and a terrific time) at Grandma & Grandpa's house. We had a holiday (and a terrific time) at Airey's Inlet with mates. Extremely restful in a way we haven't really known in years. Talking about it, we reckon that rest came with the complete absence of decisions to be made. Instead we could just BE. We've got a family holiday lined up soon. Looking forward to it very much.

All is well at our place. Hectic activity & uncontrollable screaming spins out-of-control a couple of times a day but this is the natural order of things & something to be cherished. The kids begin their first experience of childcare (1 day/week) in a fortnight from now. No doubt there will be tremors. And so life continues to be entirely about our relationships with other people. Go well.

don't call me baby; don't talk in maybes

It's grand final week and it's school holidays and it's spring and the clematis is roaring up the sideway treliss and every single one of the many callistemon plants around these parts is thriving and is there a more beautiful sound than the magpie in song? I've taught my last class for the forseeable future. Goodbyes at my workplace difficult; more difficult than I'd really gathered. Difficult for the same reason that anything is difficult and that is due to navigating the whirlpool of interpersonal relationships. Some astounding gifts from students, and no doubt some gleeful thanks given by others. The more I see and the more I hear the more emphatic is my view that we are each no more and no less than the sum of our relationships with other people.

In the last weeks of teaching I saw “An Inconvenient Truth” two more times. Confounding signals have again struck me. For (20?) years now I have been aware of this as perhaps the dominant issue of our times. In Year 10 Science last week we handed around a copy of The Age “Good Weekend” magazine that I had saved from February 1989. On the back cover: a full page colour ad, featuring sunset, for cigarettes. On the front cover: a stylised globe of the earth, in the shape of an egg, being heated to the point of severe cracking. The feature article was about something called “Climate Change”. The central points of this 1989 article read almost identically to those of many 2008 articles. It seems that any sense of urgency has been lost in (scientific-popular) translation.

So I'm taking it on as an ACF campaigner on climate. We'll see. I hope not to bombard email addresses or to preach. But i'm not really sure where to start.
midnight oil's “blue sky mining” album is as good a place as any.
The river runs red, black rain falls, dust in my hand.

I expect to teach again. A rich and rewarding and challenging task, pitifully rewarded in our currency of money but abundantly rewarded in terms of the personal. And did I say time-consuming?
But enough – next will come the challenge of water and of spreadsheets and of a new workplace and new expectations and new colleagues and all that goes with them.

But that's next. This is now. This is a Tuesday night having played & cared for my girls this day and having them both sleeping contentedly in this very house while my lady is out with mates. This is an empty lindt wrapper and a half-full coffee mug (alright 2 wrappers). This is feeling is a cleansing feeling & like a healing feeling & like a Top End monsoon in its intensity and in its bringing of joy & of relief.
Breathe.
Music anyone? EP launch in Northcote in October*. Check it out: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=318922283
*yes this is a mate. Yes, check out the site. Songs there. & the details.

A family wedding recently. Stephanie & Kyla taken under the wings of older cousins happy to be playing the role of Big Kids; shepherding, fetching, cajoling. Perspective gained from seeing them running, jumping, laughing, sparkles in their eyes, with neither CJ nor I involved.
Pride.
It seems a great many people in my circles are suffering right now. Relationship breakdowns, illness, combinations of both. Hard to make sense of it all. No point trying, really, as I've learned.
Instead I am here. I am now.
Last week, considering this, it was put to me that it must only be a matter of time before illness/ tragedy knocks on our door here. I guess that's true. But when it does arrive, I aim to have been well rested & well nourished & well musiced & well loving in its absence. Who's waiting?
Love to all.

taaa-kew

A prod here; a poke there. Melbourne Writer's Festival. Growth of language & of arms & of sunlight & it's time for another edition. The sun is heading north again. Galileo would disagree and as a science teacher I shouldn't say it. But hey. Sunlight in the north windows here. The house on our northern boundary was demolished a month or two back. Winter sun fills our northern bedrooms now.

I'm sitting at the kitchen table and it's 9am. CJ at work. Steph sitting opposite me: “there are lots of these textas aren't there, Dad?” Kyla in the highchair: “texta! There-you-go! Ta-kew! Lid on!” Words. So many words. “Ta! Packet!”

What are you drawing there, Stephanie? “I'm drawing lots of pictures.”

Time marches on. Days are blurring together. It feels like we're treading water here. Nothing really happening. But then you look around and Steph is sitting on the potty. Or Kyla is sitting down thumbing through a stack of books.

Stephanie reading (memorising the words) to Meg & Mog; reading it to her little sister. Kyla memorising the sound effects throughout the story & chiming in at the appropriate page: “Whoo Whoo Whoo! Clip-clop clip-clop! Boom!”

The markers of time for me (aside from my work life, broken into 48 minute periods, week1 and week2 tiumetables, 10-week terms) is our girls. Kyla now with a sheet of paper on her head declaring “hat!” SJ laughing: “that's not a hat, Kyla.”

Yet I'm feeling stagnant. All my energy is gone. Family life leaves nothing for interests. No story-writing. No sport (even watching – what Olympics?). No tree-planting. No live music.

A late-night bike ride to catch Tim Rogers on a Saturday night rekindled thoughts of a life now passed. But a recognition that is won't always be thus.

Walking the Merri Creek. The creek has been up lately. Surging eddies and a drowned weir at the Northcote bridge. The CERES sandpit. Fleming Park. Cooking up Italian lamb casserole (again) on a weekend (again) to be thankfully plucked from the freezer on a Wednesday evening (again); Wednesdays being the one day when both CJ & I work, and amid the mad hour of screaming & tiredness the pre-cooked meal that everyone enjoys is worth its weight in prepared gold.

Cooking up lime butter fish in our kitchen in E Brunswick & feeling waves of Top End barramundi memories flood over me.

Flicking on some tunes after tea & the dancing of Stephanie & the copying of Kyla. Somehow, somtime, Jet's “Are you gonna be my girl?” became the default dance track here. Maybe it's the first track on the iPod. Whatever, when those first few bars of guitar ring out, girls run from anywhere into the dining dance floor & get down. It's great.

And I've taken a new job. Teaching is fun & rewarding & structured & family friendly & I think I'll teach again, but I've now taken an opportunity to reenter the water world. Three-days-a-week at the Bureau of Meteorology's new Water Division. A(nother) new challenge awaits.

Next? I'm aiming to experience a professional massage one day soon. Why not? I've heard good things. Also yoga. And to play more guitar.

Right now I feel a shepherd to these two girls before me as they make their way in this world. And that's taking about all I've got.

hand, it's time for bed

It’s mid March and it’s a stinker. 40 degrees today. 39 yesterday. Forecast for more 35+ days into next week. The whirl of time has sucked up January and February and the first school term is almost over.

We cleaned up our house through January. Late afternoon trips to the Northcote pool, girls splashing. Stephanie excited and nervous and jumping in the water. Kyla grinning and clapping and trying to wriggle free and swim on her own.

We enjoyed a week at the beach towards the end of January. Sharing a house with mates & feeling the dominance of children’s sleeping schedules over all else. Lounging around on trampoline, cockatoos screeching, koalas dozing overhead, echidnas rambling along the tracks. Getting down to the beach each day for a late afternoon splash.

Stephanie talking and enunciating each thought and each happening; watchful at the beach. Happiest with spade in hand , filling bucket after bucket with sand. Very wary of the ocean. Small, indecisive steps toward the water and then a sprint back up the beach as the next wash comes through.

Kyla wakeful through the night. A wriggly, squirmy, restless and beautiful little girl. Eating fistsful of beach sand and throwing herself headlong into any hole/ sandcastle/ splash of ocean she can find. No hesitation in her crawls – she seems willing to tackle long-distance ocean swimming.

Night times a struggle as no amount of consistency, teach-to-sleep, control crying, control comforting, blah blah is making a scrap of difference. And we’re rooted.

February and school is back and work is back for me and CJ is working 2 days/week this year. I’m on 4 days/ week. We share the child care – CJ 3 days, me 1 day and mum 1 day. We are both very lucky and very happy to have arranged our lives in this way.

Ky still struggling through the night and CJ & I struggling a lot by now too. Anger? Frustration? Chronic tiredness. No explanations. Flicking from helplessness to unconditional love and support and back again. Over and over each night.

Kyla’s first trip to the doctor. To rule out any medical ailments. She’s OK. When she inevitably wakes, sometime between 1am and 4am, I’m bunking down on the floor of her room, positioned for a good “shhhhhhh”, as she wakes. It’s been a week and it’s working. We’re all sleeping more but the next step is obviously to stop doing it.

Steph calling us by our given names. “Hey Dave, whatchya doing Dave?” “Caf, caf, I’m reading books with Fluffy, Caf.” She has an array of alter-egos these days. When she’s eating porridge, she is to be addressed as “Goldilocks.” (Me: “Have you finished your porridge there Stephi girl?” Steph: “No, no, I’m Goldilocks.”) When unthreading shoelaces, as “the shoelace fairy”. Periodically whenever giants or beanstalks are mentioned, as “Jack”. Sometimes when the mood takes her as “Captain Feathersword”.

Stephanie talks all day, every day. She gives voice to other characters, including her favourite Fluffy and other teddy bears. Each night her right hand joins in a conversation with her left, saying (through Steph) “I want to go to the park,” just as we’re putting pyjamas on. Steph will then admonish her own hand (“Hand, you can’t go to the park. It’s time for bed, funny hand”). Laughs all round. Imagination is beautiful.

Kyla recognizes things as spoken now. “Kyla, where is Paddy bear?” will see her scan the surroundings, locate Paddy bear and then scramble across the floor at light speed towards the white bear. She is pointing. Sometimes I think she says “toot toot”, but maybe I’m imagining that. She is just starting to stand up independently and sway back and forth a bit before falling down again.

The girls are playing well together, though if anything Kyla is the dominant individual. Not responding to verbal instructions puts her out of Stephanie’s control. And her tendency to grab and yank fistfuls of Steph’s hair whenever she can has made her a redoubtable play-companion.

Holidays soon. My birthday soon. Grew a beard over the past 6 weeks or so; shaved it and also most of my hair off last night. Times are a changing here. The nights and days of relentless tiredness and exasperation are ceding to a better life. I have begun to think a little period of Big Challenges might be behind us. Hope so. The last few months have been tricky. Holidays on the horizon now & the prospects are good.

see the ducks?

G’day & all the best for the season.

I’m falling asleep in my chair here at 1:48 on a Monday afternoon.

This year we sent no Christmas cards. Not a policy decision. Not a sign of things to come. So g’day and all the best for the season.

Yesterday I took the girls for a walk along the Merri Creek. We walk out the front door here & less than 5 minutes later we’re on the creek track. The creek was up. It’s been raining. Swirling eddies and fallen branches backed up behind a rushing chute and bubbling little rapids. All this in East Brunswick.

I reckon walks along the creek will be a feature of our life here. I’m imagining a future of late summer evenings with orange & purple sunsets & cicadas chirping and I’m imagining bleak winter afternoons wrapped in a decent coat to hold out the slanting rain & Antarctic southerlies. And all with the creek burbling alongside.

Catching up with mates and hearing stories of theirs. Adding them to my Year of Stories. My first year as a teacher could be called a Year of Stories. Merging into the life stories of 125 early teenagers. Catching snippets of their lives. And the second-hand stories about the friend of a friend. Really it has been a year of forging relationships.

The woman who has just now been left by her husband and the fact that she is right now facing her life at eight months pregnancy and the fact that he’s now living with another woman and the singles (‘specially the ladies) beginning to fret about their domestic futures and the rapid rise in the frequency with which the term “biological clock” enters conversations and the widowed woman who has just moved out of her family home of 47 years and into a self-contained unit and her feelings of loss and emptiness and loneliness and the teacher who spent the last three months facing imminent unemployment trying his hardest to teach a full load of classes and on top of that having to apply and apply and apply and apply again for his next contract position at any school he could find because of the contract system used for employing teachers and the old woman whose son lives in Queensland and who is excited beyond words about his trip down to see her next weekend and the crackerjack student who was deported to Turkey along with her mother in mid-year by our Immigration Department. For example.

The Year of Stories has been wearing. There’s a lot to listen to.

Our new house lies in a quiet street but more than that, it lies within a community of like-minded people. Cakes and visits and fresh rosemary and fresh lemons and 6-year-olds and bottles of wine and handshakes between the drivers of two separate cars through open windows have all taken place within our street community in the past few weeks. We’re home.

Babies dominating my life and the lives of so many people I used to know. Is there a right way and a wrong way? To do anything? What happens if you choose the wrong way? What are the consequences? Will any of it matter? What is best for you right now?

So many decisions.

I feel drained and exhausted. Welcoming an extended break from work and the chance to recharge. Lots of walks & lying around & tinkering with our new house & playing with the girls.

<>

<>Next year I will work 4 days/week. Every Monday off. To be at home with the girls. It feels another step in the right direction. Eventually, I aim to not work at all & instead write & draw & go on long walks & ride my bike very languidly along no fixed path. And I feel about a hundred years older than I did last year.

It’s time to sleep and dream now.
Goodnight to you & yours.
-dave.

om mani padme hum

Funny the things we congratulate each other for. Some mates just told us they were pregnant ("they" are pregnant - not her, note). Congratulations! Do we normally congratulate each other on news of sexual acts? But pregnancy is different, isn't it? We are really saying congratulations for your decisions & the ideas & the hopes & the dreams & all that has gone through your heads up til now. So I guess it's not at all strange to offer congratulations.

Pregnancy is a tricky topic for the early/mid-30s. Who knows someone who is "having trouble"? I reckon most of us. In Year 10 Science this year we found that 1 couple in 6 would find it near-impossible for genetic reasons. So do you talk about it? Avoid the topic? Offer support? Tricky topic. Not for the first time, I feel lucky.

Here, I'm talking less as "me" and "I" and more as "we". It's logical & perhaps to be expected. Bit I'm finding myself fighting it. Would like to preserve my identity, maybe. It's Saturday night here & I've just downloaded paul kelly's latest (stolen apples) and that of radiohead (in rainbows) (and no, we didn't pay).

we had a family gathering here today for the occasion of Stephanie's 2nd birthday. She'll be 2 on the 26th. All is well. Little Kyla (Kyla-koala, Kyla the smiler, etc) is forging a reputation as potentially the next Dalai Lama, such is her apparent ocean-like reserve of calm & tranquility. I've started calling her my little Lama.

We’re trying to live local & live with minimum stress & maximum time for ourselves. It’s tricky. But I find it a comforting ideal. For example, I’m proud that we don’t own more than one car. e have each made choices that mean we work within a 10 minute bike-ride of home. I’m proud of the time that we have chosen to spend with Stephanie & Kyla. I hear a lot of regret from parents whose kids have grown about missing the early years. A Sunday morning with Cath at work & Steph standing amid every single item of Kyla’s clothing that she has just pulled from the cupboard & Kyla writhing in my arms & crying with tiredness, I happily have no such regret.

Catherine & I have noticed a huge majority of people struggling with Kyla’s name. Kayla, Kaylee, Kylie, and they’re just the closest three. I suspected that a non-standard name would cause a few people trouble, but I’ve been disappointed to find such an entrenched trend. I guess she will need to make a name for herself now.

<>Kyla is a beautiful baby. Heard that before from a dad? Well I’m not joking. She is a beautiful baby. As the 6-month date ticked over we were going through a difficult period of sleeplessness in this household. Stephanie was ill, I was ill, Catherine was ill, and Kyla was ill. Two little ones and no sleep – the situation was fraught for many days. It was hard going and there were some dark moments. We decided to teach Kyla how to sleep & it has worked well enough (for now). She has started eating solids & sings da-da-da-da & laughs a lot.

I hope we are still eating solids & singing da-da-da-da & laughing a lot in the days & weeks & years ahead. We're packing up house here - moving on Cup Eve. Our new house & new adventures await. Hope all is well for you & yours.

blanket; on; legs

g'day amigos,

School holidays. No sleeps-in, but many slow days. Days and days of humans being. Planning with Catherine, playing with Stephanie, knowing Kyla. CJ has seen Kyla through the “fourth trimester”; that first 3 month period of life during which Kyla adjusts to our Earth and we all adjust to her needs. Catherine achieved this while also parenting, supporting, loving, and enjoying 17-month-old Stephanie. Daily, I nicked off to work.

So here we are in July and Steph is 20 months old and she is talking. She speaks more each day and learns new words each day. Today her new words included: milk crate, tricky and elephant. Hearing her construct a sentence is constantly exciting. It seems that she speaks using colons; e.g. “Kyla: awake!” or “Hair: caught: bib” or “Steph: slippers: on.” Stephanie is a loving and supportive big sister of Kyla and a handy helper around the house, too. When Kyla spewed over my shoulder yesterday, Steph cried: “uh-oh,” ran to retrieve a tea-towel and used it to mop the floor.

Kyla is now 3 months old. Her emergence from the fourth-trimester twilight zone has been palpable this week. Her eyes blink in the light and head cranes around slowly, mannerisms similar to a Top End sea-turtle. Curled up on someone’s shoulder like a koala. She has settled right in to a great routine and is fit & well.

Life is quite regimented now. At work I live by the clock. Live in the shadow of an imminently sounding bell. At home I live by the timing of routines and needs of the girls. It’s reached the stage where I could nominate with extreme accuracy where I’ll be, what I’ll be doing, and what time I’ll be doing it on any day for the next 3 months. So very different to the sprawling timescales of uni research life & the unpredictability of the single man.

It’s a complete mental shift.

Fitting additional or non-routine happenings into the well-oiled machine of daily life? My first reaction is to resist. Keep it easy. Keep it simple. But recently I’ve taken up some opportunities and they have been a reminder – a reminder that life goes on outside our house. Riding to the MCG for some footy, out for a dinner date with my beautiful bride, several pints on a Thursday night. Music is playing and the vibe is grand.

Teaching has been relentless and it has been immediate. By relentless I mean that the workload and the pressures and the needs and responsibilities seem never to end. Time in the classroom is a minor part of the job, but that is where the true work is done and where the rewards are found. By immediate I mean that every issue/ concern/ catastrophe/ moment of great need that occurs seems to require an immediate response and needs one in a face-to-face context. Human interaction and the human condition engulf me all day every day – a huge shift from the social isolation of a partitioned office on the first floor of C Block with email as the sole umbilical link.

I am loving the humanity in my daily existence these days. Life right now is exhausting and is brilliantly coloured. It’s like a Papua New Guinean bird of paradise in full flight.

Go well. dave

life, a new life begins

Since I last wrote here I have met someone new. There is a new presence in my life and she is breathtaking. Kyla Therese Wilson was born inside the first 30 minutes of 2 April, 2007.
She may never comprehend the drama of the preceding 24 hours; I hope she never does. Yet at the end of it all, here she is.
She came home along Lygon Street after spending her first 3 nights at the Royal Women’s Hospital. She nestled into her capsule as we crawled among the evening peak hour. Single occupant cars everywhere. Darkness but for headlights and street lights and the brightness of shopping strips. Returning home from work. Cigarette smoke out the window. Cutting us off to enter our lane, only to see traffic in their original lane take off. Without them. Trams on the tracks full to the brim. I felt both tired and serene. There was nothing to be anxious about on this journey. Mum had taken Stephanie home, where we would all soon meet again, the four of us. Four of us.

We have all been home for two nights now. This morning Stephanie checked out Kyla in more detail than ever before; pointing out her toes, her knees and her hair. This morning Stephanie said her sister’s name for the first time (Ka-ka). It is a wonderful time of discovery and introduction for us all.

(it’s the next day now. Saturday. Last night Kyla screamed herself hoarse and didn’t sleep in any meaningful way between about 10.30pm and 5.30am. Since 7.30am, she has slept like a trench digger, pinned to my chest in a baby carrier, for over three hours now – it appears she is operating on the London time zone.)

Walking the boards at 4.30 this morning, piercing howl reverberating through the bones of my skull, happily my love for this little one only grew. Carrying her this morning has been a privilege. Meanwhile, Steph has devoured (yet another) hot cross bun, walked laps around her little tree in the back yard and gestured with a finger to her lips that I need to be quiet as Kyla is sleeping. And so the idea of Stephanie as a big sister grows.

The birth process was interesting; we often say that no two birth stories are alike. Kyla’s story was an epic 18 hour labour, the prospect of hormone injection, the facilitation of an epidural to allow that to occur, and then the news that the hormone would not be supplied after all. By this stage, following the epidural, contractions had dropped off and labour had stalled. Our choices? Wait until a different consultant surgeon began their shift (a further 10 hours away) and hope they would allow the hormone; or go for caesarean operation. Having been awake for 48 hours and in labour for 18, the choice was an easy one.

She won’t like me writing this, but I saw determination in Catherine that day that runs very deep. Deeper than any valley I know. I already knew of this characteristic, yet on this day, all my previous understandings of her strength were re-written. If Stephanie and Kyla inherent or learn this from their mother, they will know the value of perseverance and courage. Catherine is the one I choose to have by my side, let me say.

Other things to have happened this year have paled a touch with the events of this week. Suffice to say that teaching is challenging & fun & enjoyable & that life is beautiful.

adios amigos, dave-of-the-south

summer; ahhhhh

Happy new year there,
You know I found an explanation for why I much prefer to read printed words than to read anything on a computer screen. The writer of this article I read (printed, I might say), mentioned that reading printed words relaxes your eyes because they are concentrating on the contrast between passive black letters and a passive white background. Reading anything on a computer screen, however, and your eyes are being exposed to radiation; it’s the same idea as staring at a light bulb (though obviously not as intense). Have you ever had a computer terminal on at night in a dark room? Lots of radiation comin’ outta there.
I guess we’d all better print this onto recycled paper. Paperless office? Maybe we’re heading towards a prematurely blinded generation of office (&home office) workers.

This summer has been a wonderful time, making little trips from our base camp in Coburg. Rather than write about these adventures in too much detail, however, I’m going to take a different tack. Hopefully this will appease the restless thoughts I’ve had regarding people’s privacy & the propensity of internet nasties stalking the e-world.
No, I don’t think this is giving in to fear; though I’ve wondered that, too. I prefer to think of it as an excuse for creativity & the shedding of other people’s concerns.

You know I was once reprimanded by an acquaintance for posting e-photos that included images of her, without seeking her permission. I was taken aback. Was there now some international diplomatic crisis imminent? Was she facing mortal danger as a result? No, it was more to do with “respecting personal privacy.” If everyone’s personal privacy extended to this point, the world and our interactions in it would be very different. No group photos unless authority is signed across to the photographer. No attending major speeches/ concerts/ sporting events as your image may be shown by a broadcaster. Et cetera.

So with that, let me say that, personally, this summer holiday period lived up to stratospheric expectations. Christmas gatherings, a New Year’s gathering, two weddings and a week of walks, food, mimicking bird calls, “take two,” music, bushwalks, more food, conversation, toddler/crawler-watching, chocolate scones and splashing in the surf have left me feeling both wonderfully reflectively happy & completely at ease.

It seems, in writing that, that we’ve been busy. In reality, we have pottered about & taken each day as it has come. The summer has been a hot one and a dry one as we in Victoria know. Yet it has seen our little girl call us: “Mum-mum-ma” and “Dad-dad-da.” And yes, Juz, it makes my heart swell to bursting. When she sees me & points & calls Dad-dad-da, I could simply not be any happier at all. She is walking around. She is waking up earlier than ever. She is singing. She will learn/memorise anything you teach her in about 2 minutes flat. Even to mimic the call of a warbling magpie.

Catherine is back at work part time & is 30 weeks pregnant now. All going well and tiredness taking a firm grip. Not only is there a little one to grow, but there’s a 15-month-old to teach & supervise as well. I’ve been at home full time since the start of November. But next week I’m back at work. New job. New career, really. Teaching. If all the portents and harbingers of advice are correct, you may not hear from me until the Term 1 holidays. I understand I am about to become seriously busy. If that turns out to be true, and I do not post anything further at this site until early April, keep an eye out for message around that time; childbirth is forecast for 30 March.

Hope all is well in your patch for you & yours & for all of ours.
love dave.

chrissy 06

merry christmas from Coburg.
Been living here for over a year now & routines are becoming set.
I feel like I've dropped out of contact with far too many people lately. Whether or not this leads anywhere depends on me, i guess. New demands & new priorities have developed, anyway. Isn't that what life is all about?
We've managed to keep everything pretty simple here. Operating on one car has been fine. We missed one birthday dinner when the car was at the mechanic, otherwise it's been easy. Cath rides to work mostly, except when the extreme weather policy is enacted & the Sydney Road tram is called upon. She's 26 weeks pregnant now. 14 to go (or thereabouts).
I've been stay-at-home dad for the past 6 weeks or so. It's been mostly brilliant, with some tough bits & some (surprisingly) lonely bits thrown in. Stephanie is coming up to 14 months & is walking more confidently each day. She still chooses to crawl (rapidly) when there's a firm destination in mind - she puts her head down & races forwards, knees & hands slapping the floor, eyes fixed on the ground in front, only looking up to see if she's on the right bearing. Sounds of slapping palms and panting breaths fill the house when Steph is about these days. And singing and the musical grunt she produces to direct your attention to something she has/ wants/ would like to show you.
Never did get around to writing Christmas cards this year.
Something I typically like to do.
Particularly with my lack of general correpondence this year... Hope all is well & that you enjoy a break. Adios amigos.