NYE 2011

Ever since BallFiend came on the scene, my night-time social life has been somewhat curtailed. (Actually, I can't really blame BallFiend... I'd stopped being a party animal soon after I finished uni and got a full time job). Anyway, I can't actually remember the last time I went to a New Year's Eve party. That might be because I had such a good time. But more likely it is because it was so long ago. 

So I was very exciting to receive an invitation from RedJo and CT:

Hi Everyone,

To save (us) finding a babysitter, We are going to have a NYE party at our place this year. We'll start with a kid-friendly BBQ and red cordial at say 5 or 6, then put progressively more exotic animals on the BBQ and less water in the cordial until we all fall over.

Hope you can come!

CT and RedJo 

The party was heaps of fun... just like those all-nighters we used to do when I was in my teens and 20s, except:
a) the grog was soooooo much better quality,
b) we had proper (and yummy!) food, not just packets of Twisties, and
c) we had to leave by 12.15 pm with our very over-tired children (but I was super-impressed that they managed to stay awake until midnight! By 10.30 pm, Thumper was walking like she was drunk.)

Once home, I became a whirlwind of activity and had the kids into PJs, teeth brushed and into bed within 10 minutes! I have never done this before, even when completely sober, so I have no idea how it happened this time.  Even more amazing: I achieved it all on my own, with no help from DeepSpice (who, he told me later, was simply looking on in amazement and trying to stay out of my way).

It was a fantastic way to usher in the new year, and 2012 could have only got better if Thumper hadn't decided to wake us up at 6.45 am.

--

Wine, women and books

I've heard it said that we all destined to become our mothers (or fathers, as the case may be if you are male), and it seems I am already following in my mother's footsteps. Not simply in the sense of spawning two human beings (at least one of which is destined to become like me by virtue of her sex). No, I have joined a book group... exactly as my own mother did when she was around my current age.

It all started some months ago (back in April) when, at the invitation of The Bibliophile, I agreed (with some trepidation), to join in a monthly meet-up of other women who also all happen to be mothers of pre-school children. The premise was to read books and then chat about them.

Our book list, so far... 

April: Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung 

May: Carpentaria by Alexis Wright

June: Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali 

July: Joe Cinque's Consolation by Helen Garner

August: The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas 

September: On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

October: The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery

However, The Bibliophile had a secret agenda to create an excuse a reason for us to get out to the pub for an evening of good company, good food and good wine; and as a way to continue the friendships we had formed through our childrens' playgroup as our children get older and move on to other things.

For the first few months, we met at the Edinburgh Castle Hotel. Then, when we had tired of that menu, we moved on to The Post Office Hotel (which has recently been renovated and has just opened it's kitchen...  fantastic menu!). However for our most recent meeting, ArizonaGal invited us all to her home for our book group evening because her hubbie BotanyBoy is a bit of a sustainability guru and was interested to join in the discussion on Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers.

The evening was notable because:
(a) The Adel-Lady was present for the first time (with previous absences to be fairly attributed PainterSam's ever-increasing notoriety since getting all famous and stuff);
(b) we welcomed a new member, K., bringing the number of our group to nine;
(c) the presence of BotanyBoy was the first time we have had a male in our midst; and
(d) we weren't at a pub.

Indeed, the highlight of the evening for me was the lovely atmosphere created by ArizonaGal and BotanyBoy. When we arrived, the scene was set for a garden-party, with lawn chairs set out ready for our discussion. With drinks in hands, we gathered under the hills hoist to commence proceedings. Discussion was robust, and we all seemed to find plenty to say (despite the fact that the majority of us had not finished -- or in some cases even started -- reading the book). As dusk fell, we paused to spray ourselves with insect repellent (drat those infernal mosquitoes) and to say goodnight to LittleMissL and MasterS who were off to bed after watching Mary Poppins.

As night fell, we adjourned to the outdoor dining table for dinner, surrounded by candle-lit lanterns scattered around the garden. BotanyBoy looked quite comfortable seated at the head of the table, surrounded all of us mums-on-a-night-off. Several empty bottles of wine were cleared away, making space to serve ArizonaGal's delicious vegetable lasagna (made with BotanyBoy's home-grown pumpkin). Dessert was a choice of yummy cakes (lemon or chocolate) brought by E. and L. (OK, OK, there was no choice involved, I had a piece of each!)

After a time, the discussion wandered away from the topic of climate change and onto more mundane things (including our children, which is a topic that is supposedly banned at book group) and the evening slowly drew to a close.

It was without doubt, a lovely evening, full of style and sophistication. And although we didn't manage to solve the problem of humanity-induced climate change, The Weather Makers made a strong impression on me. I am now inclined to read Here On Earth: a case for hope, Tim Flannery's new book.
--

How to make 5 o'clock rock

Arsenic hour. Crying hour. Witching hour.

Call it what you will, every mum knows that when the clock hits 5.00 pm, kids everywhere go mental.

I was warned when BallFiend was a baby: "newborns are known to cry more in the late afternoon and early evening... maybe they're overstimulated by the day's events or something... just feed 'em more and they will settle down eventually". I learned from a Breastfeeding Education Class run by the Australian Breastfeeding Association that this behaviour of frequent feeding is called 'cluster feeding'. I suspect it has very little to do with the Witching Hour that strikes kids as they get older.

And I used to think it I had it bad when BallFiend was a toddler - 5 o'clock brought out his inner-demon and he would try to simultaneously play with scissors, stick his head in the oven, stick the scissors in a powerpoint, have a cuddle, scream and/or bang his head on the floor when what he really needed to do was eat a quick dinner then go to bed. Trying to prepare dinner was challenging. Trying to get BallFiend to eat it (in less than an hour) was even more challenging. Getting him to bed after dinner was a little more straightforward, usually because DeepSpice arrived home from work in time to help out take over.

But I really learned what the Witching Hour is all about once Thumper came along. It is not just that there are two kids hitting the wall at the same time; it's worse because between them, they amplify things and play off each other. At first, Thumper just did the typical newborn cluster feeding, and BallFiend was relatively easy to deal with because DeepSpice took 7 weeks leave from work so one of us could prepare dinner uninterrupted. Piece of cake, I thought. Then Thumper grew up, got mobile and got attitude!

Usually DeepSpice doesn't get home from work until 6.00 - 6.15 pm, and my aim is to feed the kids 5.00 or 5.30 pm, so Thumper can have her final breastfeed at 6.30 pm and be in bed at 7.00 pm. So getting dinner prepared with two kids underfoot is horrible. No matter how early I start preparing dinner - even if it's 3.00 pm - they seem to know what I am doing, and they just start the Witching Hour early.

So when The Adel-lady invited BallFiend (along with Thumper and myself) and LittleMissL (along with MasterS and ArizonaGal) over for 3.00 pm playdate last Friday with LittleMissP and LittleMissA, I was expecting nothing more than an hour or two of play-time, a cup of tea, a chat, then home in time to rush through the dinner-then-prepare-for-bed routine.

But once there, I realised that The Adel-lady had much more bigger plans: forget the cup of tea - we had a bottle of sparkling wine instead. The kids had a riot, literally, but no one got (seriously) hurt. We didn't end up leaving until 6.00 pm, so when I got home DeepSpice was already there, ready to share the joys of the Witching Hour... which, I might add, hit with full force! But at least we only had to endure it for an hour-and-a-half as the kids were packed off to bed at the usual time. And a glass or two of wine really does help...

--

Iceberg ahead!

For no readily apparent reason, I woke up this morning at 6.18 am. For the first time in about 5 nights Thumper hadn't woken up crying at 3.30 am. (Might be something to do with her being warmer than previous nights after I boosted the layers of her night attire and bedclothes by swapping the singlet for a spencer and adding an extra blanket on her cot; this is in addition to the usual all-in-one suit, bed-socks, extra-warm all-in-one suit and a 'gro-bag' sleeping bag on top.) So despite an accumulated sleep debt, for some reason, my body seemed to think 6.18 am was enough sleep thank you very much. Bah!

I was up by 7.00 am after my cup of tea in bed (thank you DeepSpice!) and decided that I had enough energy and motivation to go out and do something. So made a snap decision to go to the Melbourne Museum and see the Titanic exhibition before it finishes in October. I knew BallFiend would enjoy the Museum and although Thumper's a bit young, I figured she will get more out of this visit compared to the last time we went to the museum back in June 2009, when she was a 6 month old foetus.

I sold the idea to BallFiend by showing him some photos of the Titanic, which then naturally led to discussions of icebergs, submarines and DEATH! (A current favourite topic, but not in a morbid way, just in a curious-about-life-because-I-am-four-years-old kind of way.)

Once he was fully briefed (what did parents do before there was Google Images?), I raced about the house like a mad-woman, packing sandwiches and snacks, refilling nappy bags and loading up the car. I also decided that the dishes needed to be washed before we left. As I was filling the sink, BallFiend impressed me when he came over and asked to help. He wanted to wash (because he wanted to play with the bubbles!) but I knew that would be asking for disaster so I convinced him to start his apprenticeship with drying and told him to pick a tea towel (he chose the green one of course). He had a good go at drying the dishes and I was reminded again that I really need to make more opportunities for him to be helping around the house, before he gets to that age where he won't!

We left at 9.50 am, in the car today as the weather forecast for hail storms didn't really make the train an appealing option. Once at the Museum, we made a bee-line for the Titanic exhibition and I gave the kids morning tea while we stood in the queue. After about 10 minutes we were admitted via a cut-out in the side of a (small!) replica Titantic hull where a photographer took our photo in front of a green screen... ready for the merchandising assault that would come at the end.

The queue continued to snake it's way all through the exhibition, but BallFiend wasn't having any of that, darting about from one display to the next, with me desperately trying to keep up whilst manoeuvring the pram between elderly women in twin-sets and pearls, ruddy-faced elderly gents who could have passed for officers on the Titantic crew and parents with older school aged kids who gave me disdainful looks that screamed 'we have well-behaved children, why can't you control your child?'.

I kept my cool and continued to very politely say 'excuse me please, I need to bring the pram through." and in response the next grumpy old sod would begrudgingly shift half a centimetre across, as if they thought I could magically shrink the pram to fit through whatever gap they would deign to grant me!

Still BallFiend and I managed to enjoy ourselves and BallFiend was fascinated with seeing all the relics which had "sunk to the bottom of the sea!" His highlights were touching the iceberg (a actual wall of ice about 2 metres high and 4 metres long) and seeing one full marble and the hemi-spherical remains of a second marble that had belonged to a child on the ship.

We made our escape past the merchandise and stopped for toilets and to change Thumper's nappy before wandering over to the [insert name of inappropriate sponsor for a kids' venue here] Children's Garden to eat our lunch. Once there, I spied some familiar faces who we hadn't seen in months: The Adel-lady and PainterSam with LittleMissP and LittleMissA (who is 2.5 years old already, and toilet trained!). We had a bit of a catch up whilst BallFiend and LittleMissP ran amok, and Thumper dragged herself around on the concrete and chewed on quoits and hula hoops. Then BallFiend threw one of the hoops over the fence and out of the Museum grounds, so I decided it was time to go.

The rest of the day consisted of:

• a play in the "1, 2, 3 Grow" display in the Children's Gallery;
• another Thumper nappy change;
• a whale 'touch trolley' (pieces of dead whale to hold including: teeth, baleen plate, rib bones, and some shrimps encased in a perspex block);
• dinosaur bones;
• explaining the concept of evolution to BallFiend when we went through the "Life" exhibition;
• looking at blood, bones, spew and poo in the "Human body" section;
• a walk through the rainforest or rather a run, as I chased BallFiend whilst he tried to see "where the stream goes next". BallFiend was fascinated with the waterfall which was generating enormous amounts of misty water vapour.
• a pit stop at the cafe where BallFiend had an enormous chocolate biscuit with chocolate chips and smarties on top, which he ate by picking the smarties off, then crumbling the biscuit apart to get to the chocolate chips.
• a short wander through the Aboriginal exhibition - BallFiend was interested in the eel trap, possum fur cloak and the digeridoos, but best of all he liked the squiggly-line pattern made on the carpet by a special lighting effect.

Last stop was the Museum shop where we found a (what will hopefully be a well-received) birthday present for MasterW for his forth-coming fourth birthday on September fourth. Then down to the car park to part with a ridiculous amount of money for the privilege of leaving the car in a mostly empty car park for a little over five hours.

My inclination to take the train next time, regardless of the weather forecast was reinforced by the drive home: a hair-raising journey due to the road-raging maniacs everywhere.

On arriving home, I had a quick (and hard-earned!) cup of tea then made dinner and got the kids into the bath at 6.10 pm, just as DeepSpice arrived home. Apparently the day's outing was a hit with BallFiend who spent most of the time while he was in the bath and getting ready for bed telling DeepSpice all about the marble and the broken half-a-marble, and the toothbrush with no bristles, and great big rusted metal tool (an 1 metre long wrench) and the iceberg and the poo and the bones and the many other things we saw at the Museum.

Once ready for bed -- after DeepSpice had got him into PJs and read some stories -- BallFiend decided that I should be the one to tell him his 'talking story in bed' tonight (this is usually DeepSpice's domain). The requested theme for tonight's talking story was about a boy who goes to a museum and sees a big ship that sank to the bottom of the sea, guest starring... a marble and a broken half-a-marble. Ah, BallFiend, ever-fixated on your one true passion!

--

Back in the routine

BallFiend and I went to playgroup this morning with The Adel-Lady, LittleMissP, LittleMissA and ArizonaGal, LittleMissL and MasterS. Fairly impromptu... everyone feeling tired and worn out after all the hot nights and lack of sleep. Still, the kids seemed to enjoy it. The playground was thick with ants - too many people leaving food scraps around.

Although none of our littles are school-aged yet, we felt a sense of relief that we are back into school term time and everything is getting back into a routine again.

--