a good month

It's the end of April.  Almost a whole month has passed without a post, and I couldn't let that happen. In April, we had Max's awesome bird-day party (it deserves its own post I think), my 37th birthday, complete with bunting and spectacular cake, my dad turned 60 and I couldn't let these things just slide, as if they hadn't happened, when really, they were almost all consuming as we did our best to celebrate the birthdays in the only way we know how (with food and cake).  We even did boring stuff, but big stuff, like filling out application forms for school enrolments, because Ollie will be starting prep next year, and we worked long hours, bringing emails and numbers home to write and crunch, feeling hard done by but  satisfied when it was all done.  But then we did lovely things too, like taking days off, with the boys and without, enjoying each other's company, deluxe lunches and simple ones too, made deluxe by the fact we were together.  Ollie drew more than ever, rediscovered his love of Lego, Max grew so attached to his new pet (toy) lorikeet that we have to say good morning to it, and Hugo, he crawls everywhere now (quickly too), stands, claps, waves, faces forwards in his car seat and laughs and laughs and still wants a cuddle in the middle of the night.

So you see, I couldn't let April pass without a mention.  It was too good for that.

three years

Max, three years around this sun, three years of those eyelashes, of being companion to your big brother, of being the laughing, joyous little soul in our lives, three years of fuzzy haired wonder, thank yoop!  Just when I think I know you, you come out with something I couldn't have predicted ('birdie party mum!') and just when I think I know you again, you remind me, you're not someone's brother, you're Max, you're you, a special, unique being, only more special because you get to be a big brother and a little brother, you get to learn and lead but most importantly you get to be Max.

Happy birthday darling, I adore you, every ticklish bit of you.

snippets

When we downloaded our last batch of 'real' photos, taken with our Nikon SLR, I realised how little we use it and how much our phones have become the main tool for capturing life's little moments.  The downloads went back months, and almost all of them are of Hugo.  How he's changed in the last couple of months.  No longer a baby, but a bouncing, chirpy, cuddly little pie.  He's boisterous, likes a good tickle and a chuck around, he likes twatting things with big sticks, kicking and splashing in the bath tub and chewing on pretty much anything.  He's crawling - all that started at 8 months.  Not so much crawling as slapping the floor with his hands and pulling himself around, commando style.  He's got speed as well as style.  He's pulling himself up to standing.  Sigh.  He also likes to keep me on my toes, some nights sleeping soundly for 12 hours straight, other nights waking twice or more.  It's ok.  He's been a bit under the weather lately and we all know what it feels like trying to rest when you have a rotten cold.  Not only that, but actually, I love to let him breastfeed quietly, letting me stroke his soft, fluffy hair, massage his chunky little feet, kiss his hands... it's such a contrast to his energetic, squawky self of the day time that's suddenly become so aware of exactly what he wants.

Ollie's writing skills are suddenly so impressive.  I spelled out the word 'security' (at his request) last night, and he managed almost every letter unaided (even if some of them were upside down and back to front), but the best thing about it was the awesome little house he'd drawn just next to his new word.  He loves to sit with his pens, paper and scissors, drawing little pictures, cutting them out, drawing more, cutting more, writing our names on his creations and presenting them to us with great pride.  We're in the process of working out where he'll go to school next year and realising what a big decision it is and how life is about to change for him, and for us.  In the mean time, he drew the most awesome carrot yesterday.

Max will be three this weekend.  Which of course means the 'terrible twos' will officially end.  No, that's not fair, it's not terrible.  He's a loving boy with a vivid imagination.  He likes to pretend he's a frog, a robot, a machine, a garbage truck and his latest alter ego is 'Night Man'... sure he has a fiery (Arian?) temper and knows how best to throw a tantrum, but apart from when I'm dealing with it, it's fine.  He's learning to manage his emotions and I get that putting sunscreen on to go kindy is totally not what he wants to do when the alternative is playing Lego City.  He's going through the same phase Ollie went through, scowling at the camera and preferring to run around maniacally rather than posing for a photo.  It's ok. He's magic with his little brother Hugo.  I can't wait to spoil him this weekend.  I want to see his kind, sweet and handsome face when he opens his presents, when he blows his candles out, when he eats the chocolate cake I'm planning to make for him.

I'm going to take lots of photos, too.  Photographs of chocolate eggs being eaten, of party preparations, of cake being smooshed and gifts being opened.  I will try to use our Nikon, but my first choice will surely be my iPhone.  I've found that taking photos with my iPhone is so much fun. Little images that would look and feel silly being taken with a giant SLR enable a creative view of the world, one in which I see colours, expressions, light in a way I can't with the SLR.  It's a good little game to play, looking for those snippets, seeing things in a hazy, filtered but (paradoxically) eye-opening way.  But every now and then I get fed up with my phone the constant checking of work emails, personal emails, facebook, instagram, and so I have no-phone days, when I choose not to look at that screen when there are real life children to look at and proper conversations to have.  Of course I never miss taking photos, I could do it all day, I never want to forget a single moment of life with these boys of mine, but those phoneless days, they are a reminder that always looking for a photo maybe makes me miss out on being in the moment instead.  And so, they are good days.  They are all good days.

going forward

Despite the flurry of the last few posts, it's been difficult to find the enthusiasm to keep the blog going lately.  The last couple of months in particular have been somewhat of an emotional roller coaster, my ever lingering anxiety elevated by amongst other things, changes in breastfeeding patterns, preparing for my return to work and coming to terms with Hugo being looked after by the nursery staff at kindy.  This last one is particularly tough, our happy little Hugo has never had a moment away from me or his pa, so it's been with considerable heartache that I've been spending as much time as possible with him in the nursery while his brothers play in the kindy, getting to know the nursery staff and the way things work there so that I could ease him (and me) into the idea of being looked after by someone new.

Such emotional upheavals from every direction seem to be taking their toll somewhat and to say that I am oft finding it difficult to cope would be an understatement.  It's been easy to write the odd post about this and that, the food, the funny things the kids say, but it feels my posts lack something of what I really think and feel, and that's not very easy for me to do right now.  So I think now, it's time to pare back a little.  While I still love this blog, the little history it already seems to have created and its ability to hold me accountable to get out there and enjoy life, I need to be realistic about how much I want to post and how often.  Some days I get anxious that even with a tiny number of readers, there's stuff here that feels so private.  Other days I can't help but embrace the internet and let it all hang out.  Mostly though, I do want to keep it going, marking little milestones and collecting images and feelings that I am trying to etch into my mind forever but over the next little while, while I deal with somewhat of a reset of my head and heart, posts will probably be few and far between, but still important enough that when my boys do read this blog in years to come, they'll understand and appreciate why I chose to document our lives in this way and will get to read more of what comes from my heart.  And like me, I hope they'll be grateful for it, too.

busy bees

Here are some instagrams, almost all of which are my husband's doing (thanks @wilbirdy) documenting some of what the kids are into at the moment, which includes:

 - Driving to the scrap yard a couple of suburbs away to see if the material handler is in action;
 - Painting (mainly in pink, it would seem);
 - Hosing rain water into the dirt pit where the grass won't grow and getting very very muddy;
 - Baking playdough pies and making playdough emergency vehicles;
 - Cutting paper into tiny little pieces and using it as garbage in their toy garbage trucks;
 - Drawing and drawing and drawing and drawing... I'm still in awe of this fantastic cross section of a mulching truck that Ollie drew a few days ago.  The detail!

And then, last weekend and for reasons unknown to me, Ollie and Max were very insistent that we should make bee suits for them to wear.

We obliged.

the last day of summer

The last day of summer (phew!).  And so it seemed fitting to make this mango and aubergine soba noodle salad by Ottolenghi.  Some tried and tested variations (and in my view improvements) to his original recipe:

 - Be generous with the aubergine.  He says to use two, I would say use two of the biggest bad boys you can find.  Or three normal ones.
 - Cube and toss the aubergine in olive oil and roast for 25 mins in a hot oven.  It's easier and less oily than pan frying in the 300ml of oil he suggests, though I don't for a second disagree that a well fried and daresay oily piece of aubergine is something delicious.
 - Use less sugar in the dressing.  He suggests 40g.  I used 20g and still thought it was too sweet.
 - Use more lime, the tanginess is deluxe and I think much nicer than the taste of the rice vinegar.
 - Thinly slice the red onion and steep it in the lime juice.  It's less oniony and goes a nice puce pink colour.
 - Don't bother weighing the herbs, just use what you think looks right.  Life is too short to weigh basil leaves.
 - Don't believe him when it says 'serves 4'.  The two of us ate the whole lot within minutes of me putting down the camera.  Incredibly, the recipe in the book (a bible of sorts in this house) says 'serves 6'.

The end.

tweet tweet

It seems we are always planning a birthday party.  That's what you get when your family's birthdays are as spread out as ours are.  October, December, March, April and now July are all birthday months, and then of course there are the anniversaries that some of us forget.

Next up, it's Max, dear little Max with his fiery temper but sweetest of natures and his love of all things wild (he has asked for a toy duck and a toy birdie to join his toy lambie, toy froggie and toy bear).  He wants a birdie party, and while I'm not entirely sure how we'll make it so, it is a sweet theme and one we should be able to do plenty with.  We've already tried our hand at a bird cake - not a cake for birds (there's an idea), but a bird shaped frosted cake - anything in the name of practice when it comes to cake.  And this weekend just gone, Will put up with my bossier than usual instructions on how I wanted the invitation to look and knocked the basic idea out in his usual casual style, while I then agonised over fonts and text size and whether I should round the corners or not, all of which seemed pointless when the colour printing woes started.

Cute?  I think so.  It's not going to be long before cute doesn't cut it with my kids, and everything will need to be boy flavoured, so I'm making the most of the sweetness of something as simple as a birdie party, even if it does have more than just a hint of putting a bird on it.  And this invitation indulges my love of that cute little birdie, the robin red breast, possibly my favourite of all the feathers.

In other news, this is my last week of maternity leave.  Next Monday I'm back to work (the kind that pays).  It's mixed feelings all round.  I'm going back to a new building, desk, outlook, probably a new set of clients, there will be many many faces I don't recognise, problems to solve, an inordinate amount of juggling and my age old inability to switch off from work... but then there'll be people I love there too, colleagues I'd call friends, a renewed appreciation for weekends and the opportunity to drink coffee (real coffee) and enjoy the odd lunch with my husband who'll be just a few minutes stroll away.  But the overarching reason I have this nagging feeling of anxiety that's been swelling over the last month or so is knowing I'll be away from my children.  Lord knows I am not the picture perfect mother I want to be, but every day I'm away from them is another day gone by that I miss out on trying my best again.  On the days when they are at kindy, I long to be with them again, even though I need the break so badly sometimes.  I pick them up early, let them play in the mud, spoil them a little with ice-cream for dessert or a new Matchbox car, knowing that before long, I won't be able to pick them up before the end of the day, take them for a drive to the scrap yard (it makes them so happy to see the material handler!) because I'll be rushing around trying to do a million more things all at once.  But me going back to work, it's happening and I need to deal with it and dwell on the positive change it will bring to my life and theirs too.

But I digress, as this post is about the party that is coming and I'm not talking about the one that involves me eating a lot of Easter chocolate.  In a month, Max of the fuzzy hair and inexplicably beautiful eyes and twig legs (not unlike a bird's) will be three.  Three.  THREE.  Now I'm no scientist, but surely this means the end of the terrible twos.  Right?

overheard

Ollie: (to Max) Now Max.  You get what you get and you don't get upset about it.

Me:  Ollie, don't be so rude!
Ollie:  But mum, you're rude sometimes too.
(it's true)

Me: (very frustrated) Oh Max, good LORD!
Max:  Mummy, no don't say good lord... say BAD lord!

Ollie:  (after he was back from looking at the neighbourhood Christmas lights with his dad) Mum, I had a lovely time light spotting around the neighbourhood
Me:  That's great, I wish I could have gone with you.
Ollie:  When we were walking around, quite a strange feeling came over me.
Me:  Really?  What sort of feeling?
Ollie:  (speaking very slowly and quietly) It happened when I saw a teeny tiny creature crawl out of a hole and land in the middle of the pavement!

Ollie: (after we gave him a peanut m&m) Can I have one of those little round things?  A P&M?

Ollie:  (as I was bringing Hugo out of his room after nap time) Mum!  Look who it is!
Me: It's Hugo!  Isn't he lovely?
Ollie: Yes
Me:  Do you love him more than anything in the world?
Ollie: er.... Yes
Me:  Really?  More than garbage trucks?
Ollie:  (thinking for a moment) I love them both.  I love garbage trucks AND babies.

Ollie:  It's the day before Christmas Day
Me: Yes, what does that mean?
Ollie:  We have to get a lot of things ready, like drinks and milk and carrots for Santa
Me:  What do you think Santa would like to drink?
Ollie:  Something like.... maybe something that only adults drink.

Ollie: (unwrapping his Christmas present and hopping from foot to foot) It's a side loading garbage truck! It's a side loading garbage truck! It's a side loading garbage truck! It's a side loading garbage truck! It's a side loading garbage truck! It's a side loading garbage truck!

must try harder

I'm not sure where to begin with this one.  It's not easy to write about, which means it can't be that easy to deal with.  It is something that I should have known a long time ago, before Ollie was born, before he was even an idea, but in truth, it's only in the last few months that I've realised it, and only in the last few weeks has the realisation been strong enough to leave me feeling very shaken.

So, this big realisation?  It's the realisation that parenting, at least parenting the way I want to parent, doesn't come naturally or easily to me.  A fine thing for a mother of three sons to admit, but here I am while they are sleeping, thinking about nothing else but my influence on their lives and how much better I know it could be.  I resort to snapping and yelling and time-outs way too often, forgetting to listen to the boys, to let them speak, to treat them the way I'd want to be treated.  It sounds so simple but the reality (for me) has been very different.  Getting them to listen is hard.  Then, getting them to do stuff they need to is hard (you know, eating, going to the bathroom, putting on sunscreen, bathing...).  By that stage, you've gone hoarse asking them time after time to put their shoes on because we are already running 30 minutes late for kindy, and then you yell.  And there's no turning back from that one, once you yell, it's hard to be calm again and then the affection you want to show your kids... well, it's there but it's hard to get out.  And after a tough day I'm not sure they want it either.  Never mind the impact of constant barking of orders on the kids, I have ended many an evening feeling very, very inadequate, exhausted and very unhappy, knowing I've not done all I can to bring out the best in them.  I don't want to be that mum.  I want to be the affectionate, happy, nurturing mother that enjoys her kids rather than endures them.  I want to be the mother they want to be with, not the one they want to avoid.  Above all else, I want them to be their happiest selves and to know I am doing everything I can to make that happen.  If I'm not going to try 100%, what's the point?

So, a few weeks ago I did what I have always done when I feel this way, and resorted to books.  Books on pregnancy, babies, toddlers are all part of our odd repertoire of architecture, cookery and history books, but it didn't feel like what I needed was there.  So, to the library, and we came across this book, the title of which pretty much hits the nail on the head when it comes to what I'm trying to achieve.  Correction, what we're trying to achieve. I've had it now for over a month, renewing it last week so that I could absorb as much as possible and so that my husband could do the same.  At first I was skeptical, it seemed a little simplistic and it wasn't telling me what I didn't already know, but really, it's helped enormously to be able to read, and read about something I care so much about, and to know my instinctive response isn't always going to be the right one.  By using case studies that I can completely relate to, I'm learning that there is always a way of dealing with things, of getting my point across, of communicating and getting the best out of my children.

The best part (after the fact that it seems to be working) is that we are doing this together.  Reading the book together has given us some clarity over how to do things, we talk a lot more about how to deal with situations we know are going to be tough, we are enjoying the kids a lot more and dare I say it, the kids seem to be happier too.  The consistency, the shift in gears, the change in attitude and the step back we've taken has had an impact almost immediately.

Anyway, it's not that they are bad kids, far from it, and there are so many marvellous moments we have with them that are completely devoid of frustration and angst, moments that are really quite wonderful and I wouldn't want this post to detract from any of that good stuff.  They are great kids, it's just that I'm not a great parent and probably never will be but just as I learned to read, to write, to cook, I can learn to be a better parent and be the mother that raises three kind, compassionate, open-minded and respectful men.  Books or not, I do know that for that to happen I need to be kind, compassionate and open minded first.

It's a long road this one, but there's no turning back and neither do I want to.  Those days of yearning for my independent self are long behind me, all I want now is to know I'm doing the absolute best I can as a mother and wife.  It's a slow journey but I'm hoping the track we're on is now the right one.

pearly white

There is a tooth inside this little pop of a mouth.  A pearly, white, little nubbin of tooth, just peeking through his petal pink gums.  I'm so excited to think about him eating proper food, chomping on fruit and veg, buttered toast, cheese sticks and of course, cupcakes (well, the icing anyway).  He seems to be enjoying being at the table with us all, sucking on a teething rusk after knocking back his pumpkin, yoghurt, icy cold watermelon...

Nearly time to say goodbye to that gummy little baby smile, and hello to that toothy, cheeky grin.