Archive | Family

RSS feed for this section

Big family

I’ve never found the words to write about my siblings but perhaps the closest sense of what a big family gave me was expressed in Frank Bruni’s The Gift of Siblings (apologies if you’ve seen this on social media x 100 already). There are immeasurable riches in multiple siblings. I have an abundance of love [...]

interesting cactus

The other side of the fence

Surrounding Melbourne’s Botanical Gardens is a dusty dirt track affectionately known as ‘The Tan’. On any given day you’ll find a mixed bag of fit types, prams, footballers and bemused tourists eyeing red-faced middle-aged bankers (okay so maybe some work in insurance). Before kids, I ran The Tan on a regular basis. I once read [...]

autumn leaves

A most peculiar lunch

We headed to the hills this morning. In usual fashion, we were entirely unprepared for hungry children and spent a good third of the day deciding which tranquil looking tearoom to inflict ourselves on. Then I spotted her, tucked neatly in the foothills, a kitschy little cafe promising hot soup and homemade scones. “Will there [...]

Work, babies, anything

I always intended to return to work following my first child. It took fifteen months to get my act together. Child care centres were visited and waiting lists paid for. By the time my hiatus was up, I was left with two options – the unaccredited child care centre with the kid eating paper under [...]

The Circus

Sometimes my house resembles a circus. There are no bearded ladies, strong men or unicyclists. Instead there is juggling and the attempted taming of beasts. There is walking a tight rope while talking to a spouse because the beasts have sucked you dry and you’re not even sure if you still like each other. Well [...]

Around the traps

I don’t usually take my kids to blogging events, they’ve been gifted with my husband’s hyperactivity and I’d quite like to be invited back to places. There was the time things got a little ‘Thunderdome’ in the ball pit at a bloggers event – thankfully one of the other kids belonged to a former work [...]

Bwok!

I recently started a part-time role in social media. Working from home – I don’t have to wear shoes, makeup or pants and my brain is feeling satisfyingly fortified yet fried. Like anything new, there are learning curves, but I think I’m taking it all in – I’ve even had the opportunity to miss my [...]

5 things I wish my husband would stop asking

1. What did you do while I was gone? I probably sat on my proverbial backside and stared into space for what felt like two minutes but ended up being twenty. I’m tired. Something to do with part-time uni, part-time work, a blog, two kids, two Twitter accounts, three Facebook accounts, six email addresses, etc, [...]

Festivals with kids

Having scored a few tickets to a Melbourne Food and Wine Festival event, I made the dubious decision to attend with my kids. Despite the event offering activities that catered to children, you just never know quite what you’re going to get with these things. Will there be toilets? Enough room for my kids to [...]

Kids are people too

Cafes. Aeroplanes. Galleries. Restaurants. Shopping centres. Pubs. What these places all have in common is they are part of a growing mass of public spaces where people are becoming increasingly intolerant towards children. I’m concerned about a society that expects children to know how to behave in public (with the exact prescription of discipline) when [...]