I remember reading a slew of articles a few years ago about becoming possession free. The articles profiled hipsters who lived in tiny NYC apartments with minimalist furniture, a few sets of (hipster chic) clothes, and had uploaded everything onto their slimline mac airs and subsequently had no need for the shackles of books and vinyl (although the lack of the latter surely goes against another hipster code, right?). I remember reading repeatedly that people did not want to be ‘tied down’ by their possessions, to be able to be free to travel and ‘exist’. I thought this was ridiculous – I agree wholeheartedly that possessions are not the most important thing in life, but to actually be restricted by them seemed so foreign and frankly unrealistic.

Having said that, two nights ago I spent several hours in a cold 3am panic worrying about exactly that – our possessions. My partner is in the final stages of the recruitment process for a  potential new job, which would see us relocate halfway across the world. (Actually, it would be across the world. Wouldn’t halfway across be a quarter of the way? This has always been unclear to me.) Four interviews and one presentation ago I thought it was a great idea but now that he is flying over there for the final stages I am suddenly questioning whether this is something I really want to do.

And the way I questioned it? Panic about what to do with our BBQ. Why we spent money on a new, lovely couch only to have it sit in storage for potentially several years when I want to be sitting on it now. Thinking sadly about my lovely kitchen appliances, my kitchen aid, our knives. Fretting about our art (such that it is), festering away unloved and unlooked at in a crate somewhere in Western Sydney. For three hours.

Of course, it’s not really our couch or our BBQ that bother me about the move. It’s leaving behind networks both old and new, some of which I’d only just started to feel like I belong to. It’s leaving three lovely nephews with whom I want my girl to grow up, and watching them grow into wee men. It’s leaving my forever friendships, my girl’s Guidefather, people who I love and with whom awkward ‘get to know you’ conversation is an oblique, distant memory, now merely ‘how we met’ stories. It’s the initial months of loneliness and the fear that this may linger painfully for longer than months, or at least feel like it.

In the more positive light of day, my reason kicks in. We can return to all of this, our lovely life here, at any time we choose.  With modern technology and travel possibilities we won’t actually miss all that much. And the gains will be phenomenal – a chance to live again in Europe, to travel and experience life elsewhere. To fulfil a dream of Tim’s, who’s never been able to do this. To expose our girl from a young age to the wonderful wide world and with luck, languages unspoken by her (embarrassingly monolingual) folks. To be a little family doing this together, a great adventure on top of the already life changing adventure of parenthood. It’s exciting, but not a little daunting; hence the possession panics.

As much as we love craft beer and cold brew coffee, by no stretch of the imagination are we even remotely hipsters. However, I am trying to take a leaf from their e-books and not use our possessions as a crutch, an excuse to stay here. Trying not to think friendships can only be in the here and now, and trust that they – and I – will survive either a half or a quarter of the world’s distance, whichever it ends up being. Trying to be more brave, I guess. (And also not to worry about it prematurely, because he hasn’t even got the gig yet.)

One of my favourite conversations topics for some years now has been around food nostalgia – specifically, what people’s favourite and least favourite meals were when they were growing up. I think it’s fascinating – not only because of the types of food people ate years ago and the reasons they loved or hated things, but because of the distinct memories it brings back for people. I distinctly remember my mum making lasagne for the first time – it was a big deal for a meatandthreeveg family – and most people have a similar recollection in their own childhood. It either turned out well (such as my mum’s lasagne, although it was definitely nothing authentic) or disastrously (Hotel is still scarred by his mum’s curried mince), but either way people remember and there’s always a fondness of recollection when the topic is discussed.

For the record, my favourite was my mum’s tuna mornay. When we were small, before my youngest brother joined us, we lived for a while in Papua New Guinea. Food was delivered monthly so other than the fresh things found in the village, supplies had to last for some time. The mornay my mother made was, as a result, the exact opposite of fresh. It is made from long life products (tinned tuna and vegetables, fake cheese – known as kids’ cheese in our family as ‘all kids like it’ according to my mother) and yet all of us look on it with fondness (another fun feature of the game – most people’s best foods are in hindsight revolting by today’s standards). It was a dish that was made towards the end of that month long spell – it was cheap, fed a host of hungry children, and most importantly, it lasted. I make it from time to time and I am slightly ashamed to say I still love it – tinned goodness and all. You couldn’t pay Hotel to eat it; such is the power of the favourite childhood food.

I’m excited about the large traditions in my girl’s life – Christmas, her birthday, Easter nests (because everyone knows bunnies lay their eggs in nests), our annual holiday away with my sister and her boy. But I’m equally excited about the small ones, the ones she grows without any of us realising it. Maybe it’ll be eating raisin toast after winter swimming lessons, reading new books in bed by torchlight because she’s so excited to finish them, playing ‘kicks across the road’ with the football on hot summer days. Of course these are my memories; she’ll make her own. But one thing my favourite game has taught me over the years is that people’s memories are so closely associated with home, with food, with meals – either because they’re hilariously bad (mince, curry powder and sultanas in the microwave, apparently) or because the were new, highly anticipated and possibly mispronounced (that lasagne), or because they are present before you’re even aware of it, familiar and comforting. Like our revolting, apocalypse surviving, delicious tuna mornay.

I spent the afternoon today with her strapped to me as she was clingy and grumpy (which she wouldn’t be if she, say, slept), and did my weekly meal prep with her watching every move. We made the breakfast compote, mixed granola, prepped veggies for steaming or roasting at short notice, sloshed together a soup, and made a lime slice for my mothers’ group tomorrow. She was calm for the afternoon, but it also calmed me to think that we were starting to build food memories together. Simply, daily, non-eventful memories that will probably bring her mirth in the future, like our tacky mornay, but nonetheless be ties to us, to home.

Yes, that’s 15 bottles of wine. Sadly it wasn’t really my lunch but hoo boy I wish it was. And if the crying doesn’t die down, tomorrow it might be.

Back during my first time around at uni (I’m up to five times now – with mixed success rates – and still counting) I was enrolled in psychology. It was a requirement for my social work degree but also it was of huge interest to me and many other first time uni students, as evidenced by our 1500-man-strong lectures. I can’t speak for the 1499 others, but I certainly thought there would be fascinating insights into the weird and wonderful psyche of man; mysteries that would be explored and revealed and still more that I, in time, may be able to unravel.

I was the sort of student that was good at high school, but for whom the independent learning environment at university took a bit of getting used to (read: early on, I nearly failed several subjects and dropped out of several more). It didn’t help that for the first time I was living away from home, in the city, where there was  lots of fun to be had. And since lecturers didn’t care whether or not I turned up, I didn’t mind either. However I made an effort to go to psych; not because I’d done the readings, had any remote understanding of Freud, or a blossoming interest in statistics (I’m still not clear why there were so many stats lectures required for this subject) – but because of the massive crush I had on a fellow student.

He was everything a late 90s dude should be. He had long lank hair which covered his face. He smoked heavily; those clove cigarettes that a certain kind of uni guy favoured. He wore grungy old clothes that always smelled slightly of pot and Dirty Guy Smell. He only smiled cynically and was interested in intellectual things and capital-c-Causes. I loved him THE MOST. It was, of course, completely unreciprocated. However the crush helped me pass psych 101 and a year of philosophy (of course he took philosophy), and kept me out of Manning Bar while classes were on, so I guess overall it was a good thing.

By rocking up tokenistically to lectures, I was exposed to a range of psych theories, some of which sunk in and some of which did not. I vaguely remember attachment theory and thinking at the time that it seemed reasonably obvious but of course at the time of its development was revolutionary. Pioneered by Bowlby and Ainsworth, it focuses on the bond between a child and its parent, and particularly looks at the caregiver’s ability to respond appropriately to the child’s needs as they develop.  Predictability and consistency are important, as is the ability to support a child yet let them explore and grow themselves. My mother-in-law, an early childhood and family nurse, recently reminded me that to form a secure attachment, a caregiver needs to meet these requirements about 30% of the time. Of course, many caregivers can and usually do far more than this, but this is enough to develop the bonds needed for a secure and attached child.

Most of the time in this parenting gig I’m not sure what I’m doing, but this week has been a doozy. The girl is sick (nothing major but it’s her first time so that’s gotta suck), apparently going through a developmental leap, not really sleeping, and hoo boy it sucks. I’m not taking her to her activities, or other outings, to save other bubbas (well, their parents really) and as a result our days are long and hideous.  I get sick of holding her; she gets bored of playing. I’m not completely well myself so don’t really want to go outside walking in the cold; she struggles to sleep in the afternoons if we don’t. Frankly, this week is a bit of a fail and I think we’re both considering our refund options.

I’m simplifying a small part of the theory colossally, of course, but this week in particular that 30% statistic has been a mental life saver. Regardless of how crap our week has been, I’m confident I’ve got it right at least 30% of the time. She has been fed, soothed when she cries, helped to sleep (eventually, and maybe not for long periods, but it’s happened) and had gentle remedies for her wee cold. She may also be bored and stir crazy, but 30%! She may be sick of tummy time and not being able to roll properly, but 30%! She may be grizzly and grumpy and over everything, but 30%! It may only be the bare minimum, but its good enough to form that bond and that’s what I remind myself with when I’m feeling like I’m letting Team Mamalaide down.

That 30% is totally achievable, even on the worst of days. I mean, I totally passed psych, and that was doing the bare minimum and ogling some guy whose name I’ve now forgotten. I wouldn’t dream of only getting a pass nowadays, but I’m a seasoned study veteran now. These are the early days of my parenting career, and I can totally pass this too. Especially if we drop the passing grade to that magic 30%.

At the recommendation of someone I don’t know and will never meet, but who I follow on Instagram, I just finished reading You’re Just Too Good To Be True. It’s a novella by Sofija Stefanovic about internet money scams and focuses on one case in particular, an older man named Bill who lives in Queensland and has been completely fleeced by a person or group of people he met online. Bill fell in love with an American soldier who died in Afghanistan but left two packages for Bill in his will. These packages have always been slightly out of Bill’s reach and between death duties, funeral costs, customs, bribery of officials to get the packages and many other transactions Bill has lost all of his money, some hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The book outlined Bill’s history and the nature of his scam. It tried to present a range of perspectives – Bill’s own, the journalist who wrote the novella (who attempted to be impartial and non judgemental but who inevitably was the opposite), the police, and other scam victims. (One of the other scam victims had fallen prey to the ‘you’ve inherited a Nigerian fortune’ scam, otherwise known as the 419. Really? People fall for that one still?) It attempted to explain how the scam occurred, to reveal the loneliness of people, their capacity for self-delusion, and draw parallels to gambling addictions.

There was a simplicity, a surface skimming, that was perhaps related to it being a novella or maybe because not enough is known or divulged about the scam specifics. I felt that the complex scenario wasn’t explored sufficiently; while emotions and underlying motivations were hinted at, the book glossed over them, threw them away in passing.  Of course it wasn’t fiction – although the subject matter had all the potential ache of a Thea Astley or Tim Winton novel complete with lonely protagonist – but to me its presentation left something lacking.

As it happens, I know something about being hoodwinked. If not delusion exactly, I am certainly across blindness. Not in a financial sense, but a romantic one; as Bill’s story shows there is a thin line, mere stepping stones, between the two.

There’s a certain shock value to this story that I get a fair bit of pleasure from, although I certainly didn’t at the time: I was in a relationship with someone for several years and had no idea that he had a son. Or a heavy drinking problem, which sort of explains the former. It’s a longish story, and (somewhat ironically) best told over a few wines, but the upshot is that I know how easy it is to be lied to consistently, and to want to believe what you’re told. It can be easier to push away any niggling doubts you might have and believe something that’s slightly preposterous because you really, really want it to be true. Not because the actual truth is bad as such, but because it means that the other person, and your whole relationship, isn’t what you’ve thought it is. It’s not what you’ve built on and not what you’ve presented to the world. Facing up to the fact that something else might be going on is hard and unpleasant and sometimes it is simply easier to tell yourself that what you’re being told must be true.

In my experience effective liars not only grab and play off your emotions but they give you so many alternatives that it’s easier to settle on the one they subtly push the most, which of course isn’t true either. I couldn’t tell you, even in hindsight, what was true and what wasn’t – béarnaise sauce may not actually have been his favourite, he may never have gone on childhood holidays to the coast, the son I eventually found out existed could have had numerous different upbringings and maybe even a different name. Lying was simply such a part of his every day life – it had to be from his perspective – that it was simply easier to invent everything.

It’s the side of the liar, not the deceived, that I find more fascinating. Possibly because of my experience, but also because I think a certain level of trust and credulity is quite normal; to lie endlessly and intricately is not. (It must also be exhausting, but that’s another matter.)  To be fair to the author, she attempted to contact the scammers and understand their motivations (other than money), but they were quite understandably not interested in revealing their stories to a journalist. I mean, that’s got to be Master Liar Studies 101, right?

It’s also not a new phenomenon. People have been lied to, and believed those lies, since Mr Caveman pretended he was out all day hunting things when in reality he was at the neighbouring village pulling another woman along by her hair. The internet and globalism add a new perspective and possibly new targets, but it’s part of the vulnerability and complexity of humanity. These are extreme cases, and they’ve thrown greed into the mix (all the scammed were allegedly going to receive large amounts of money), but nonetheless not a new notion. It would have been interesting to explore this further, the unchanging fallibility of people over time despite changing environments and technologies which theoretically should assist us to have greater clarity and transparency.

It’s Fatty Friday and we’re having my favourite, and also the easiest, tomato sauce on pasta with garlic bread and wine for dinner to celebrate. You’re supposed to discard the onion though. Discard into my belly, thanks.

One of the most pleasantly surprising things about having a baby is reconnecting with old friends, people with whom I’ve not been in direct contact with for some time. Social media doesn’t count (although it helps maintain the connection) – I mean real life meeting up and talking. This distancing has been due to the natural erosion of time, the loose and large circles of friends you have when you’re a bit younger, but in some cases the simple fact of them having children has changed the circumstances of our friendships and the likelihood that we’ll meet up. In hindsight, I’ve been fairly inflexible – it was the pub or bust! So to be in contact with people again who are more experienced mums than me, but also friends of mine prior to either of us having children (as opposed to the mother’s group phenomenon), has been an unexpected and welcome support.

A few weeks ago, I strolled around Sydney Park (which has an awesome playground, and a bird attracting marshland project) with a woman I’d not seen in eighteen years. (!!) Our relative proximity (we both live in the Inner West) and stage of life (we both have a kid) was enough to trigger a catch up. Despite the passage of time it was a casual and easy afternoon. I’ve also been catching up almost fortnightly with a friend with whom I spent a fair amount of time during my uni days. If asked, I probably would have described her as a good mate although I’ve seen her very infrequently over the years, despite the fact she lives around the corner. We have utilised the park at the end of my road, local cafes, and a few days ago went into town and strolled around the Royal Botanic Gardens. My girl slept while her boy explored the herb garden complete with different smells, textures and tastes. We discuss things I’m fascinated in but loathe to expose my non-child-raising friends to: snot, sleep and solids.

Of course there’s the practical fact that we all have a lot of time on our hands, and little ones to expose to the world and other children. But I’d like to think that it’s more than this, that there’s a common understanding of what it’s like to be a mum, and a desire to support and share this together. I’ve certainly changed my approach to friends old and new; even six months ago it would be almost incomprehensible that I’d meet someone from so long ago, but I’m surprising myself with not only how willing, but how genuinely pleased I am to be doing it.

It’s made me realise that there’s a pay-it-forward aspect to motherhood. The next person I know who has a bub – particularly a first timer – I know I will make a huge effort to spend time with them. It won’t need to be an event; we can go to the local park and stroll. We won’t need to worry about time keeping, because we’ll both understand that our wee overlords will have their way regardless of how much we hope and plan. We won’t even need to worry too much about conversation, no matter how many years have gone by, because there’s always my reliable favourite – baby sleep. But most importantly, we’ll be able to recapture a bit of ourselves, the friends we were before we had babies, and be another step closer towards normalising our new worlds. With the added bonus of killing a few of those painful afternoon hours while doing it.

We’re slowly carving out something of a routine for ourselves, me and the girl. I don’t mean ‘up at 7, nap at 8.30, sleep for two hours’ type of routine – I wish! – but more of a gentle rhythm to our days and our weeks. Monday is slow and steady, a wind down at home after a busy weekend. (It also consists largely of laundry and the weekly meal preperation, a depressing state of affairs.) Tuesday we meet our mothers’ group, so there’s coffee and reassuring chatter about our bubs, and frequently cake. Wednesday we have Gymbaroo, Thursday lunch or a play date (let’s face it, usually the former), and by Friday I am completely and utterly stir crazy and counting down the hours to the weekend.

On these days I throw any attempt at a more solid routine (of the consistent nap variety) to the wind and we pack up and head into town. In the early days, I played bus roulette. I’d pop Adelaide in the bjorn (guaranteed snoozing by the end of the block, back then) and jump on the first bus that came our way once she’d conked out. I’d stay riding until she started to stir and then jump off to walk her back to sleep. This game took me to the Royal Botanic Gardens a few times, to Chinatown, to Campsie, and sometimes only a few stops up the road. It felt better than aimlessly pounding the streets, and it also catered for my irrational fear of an awake baby.

I’m more confident now and not as terrified of exposing fellow commuters to a grizzly or even screechy baby; if anything, I’ve found them to be supportive and compassionate rather than angry as I’d assumed (you may be able to guess at my attitude to children before I had my own baby, based on this assumption). As such I plan my outings a bit more, trying to snatch a treat every now and then to remind me of my life pre-baby, and hopefully give me something to converse about rather than baby sleep patterns (because seriously. I’m even boring myself now).

A few weeks ago we made tracks for the Brett Whiteley studio in Surry Hills. I’d been meaning to go for years, but after seeing one of his works in Pop to Popism at the Art Gallery of NSW recently I was keen to see more. The studio itself is nestled in the back streets of Surry Hills, made noticeable by the matches (a small Almost Once?) on the front door. The space made me covet the life of an artist (says the girl who can’t even do colour-by-numbers to any good effect). Although a windowless area, it felt open and airy, turned into a gallery with paintings and sculpture downstairs as well as some audio visual biography installations. His work was at times intricate and at times simplistic. I’m no art critic – and I don’t even know what I don’t like – but I enjoyed the vibrant, eclectic works against the hushed and cool surrounds (and the fact that it clearly bored my sleepy girl so I could observe and admire in peace).

Upstairs in his work space a wall was covered with newspaper clippings, pictures, album covers and scribbled quotes. I remember one quote that, to paraphrase, stated that death would be preferable to a 28 day program; one that was a riff on some Bob Dylan lyrics. The scribble that felt most pertinent to me, as I read with bleary eyes and a sweetly sleeping child: Life is Short. But my God Thursday afternoon seems incredibly long.

I think of that quote and his studio, sometimes, on rainy afternoons that have dragged for an eternity. When it feels like I’m caught in a three hour loop and have been all day every day for months. When I cannot possibly last another minute until bath time, until Tim gets home from work, until that post-bed glass of wine. But then I think of it when I realise that I’ve not worked in nearly six months (the longest period since I started work as a teenager), and that our girl is nearly five months old and already I’m feeling those unwanted hours slipping away, never to be recaptured because despite how incredibly long Thursday – and all the other – afternoons are, life with my beautiful baby is already painfully, fleetingly short.

I hadn’t realised prior to Adelaide rocking up how hard it is to fill one’s day with a baby. Don’t get me wrong – they’re adorable little time leeches, but generally my days are 3 hour cycles of feeding, playing and trying to convince my daughter to sleep. (Please note they rarely include actual, proper sleeping.)

In an effort to have at least one activity that wasn’t meeting friends at the pub out for coffee, I signed us up for Gymbaroo classes. We started last week – due to the afore mentioned sleep strike the class didn’t go terribly well. This week, however, we made it all the way through before the wailing started – success!

Classes are structured to have a session of tummy time at the start – the most hated time of all. I read recently that four month old babies are supposed to spend 80! minutes! minimum! every! day! on their tums and that there is a general regression in development because it’s rare that anyone makes this amount of time. I read this, of course, on The Internets so its debatable as to how accurate it is. I confess that Adelaide would never ever have done 80 minutes of tummy time on any one day…maybe even not across a whole week. But way I see it, you don’t see grown adults walking around not being able to hold up their necks so I figure she’ll come good. Having said that, anything that helps us increase the ol’ tummy time is of use, and there’s a huge focus on it at Gymbaroo.

Babies are given various stimulating aids to help them through the tummy time trauma. Last week we did a massage, then popped the bubs in front of mirrors and floated silk scarves over their faces, harem style. This week, we had those whirly-gig blowy things that I remember getting as kids at the Easter show (and that’s as specific as I can get) and we blew them in front of the bubs and helped them track the movement. We also do ‘exercises’, which are just moving the babies’ arms and legs around, but since this rarely happens independently I guess it’s a good thing. There’s also this weird group dance thing but the less said about that, the better.

The class then goes into a separate room where there’s essentially circuit training but better, because it’s cute as it’s for babies, and because I don’t have to do any physical exertion. There are about 30 different stations, each with activities that align with developmental milestones.

Adelaide can make it through about six or so activities before absolutely losing her cool. This week, she played footsies with bouncy balls, rolled on a trampoline with cat toys (not kidding. Plastic cat toys with bells in them from the $2 shop – the instructor was very proud of this. Hotel and I joke that we should have gotten a puppy due to how much our girl licks everything; she clearly likes pet toys too), sat in a giant spinny thing while I spun her around, and played with different textures on her face. We also did some rolling practice, threw beanbags at a mesh thing covered in bells and ribbons (unclear as to why, but there was a certain stress relief in it), and I tried to put her on a few slippery dips but NO DICE.

The class ends with playing under a large parachute – they get to feel it on their faces and see all the different colours. We all sing this lame ‘goodbye song’ as well – so much singing since becoming a parent! – but she giggled away happily so the embarrassment was worth it. I guess.

(Also, I am aware my girl is dressed in head-to-toe pink. This is because she looks exactly like her father – a total Daddy Doppelgänger – and pretty much daily I get comments on my cute son. Despite the pink.)

Like every single other person on the planet, I have fond memories of salty, unnaturally-hued, secretly delicious home made playdough. I remember using it primarily when I still lived in Sydney – prior to The Great Move To The Country – so I could not have been any more than 11 at the oldest (I celebrated my 12th birthday shortly after we arrived in said country town. It was memorable for being shimmeringly hot and brown, and because I was given a red walkman and a cassette of Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet). I don’t recall making anything much of note with the dough – I’ve never been particularly crafty – but I remember well the smell, the texture and the marbled purple brown it goes about ten minutes after the colours get mixed together. About another ten minutes after that come the tears because there’s no unscrambling the egg and you’re stuck with a mottled mess and a promise to next time, next time for reals, keep the colours separate.

I am fairly sure my mother made playdough for us in a saucepan on the stove on rainy days to keep her four kids relatively quiet. I seem to recall sitting around the table in anticipation while she stirred it, but that could also have been for cake. Other rainy day tactics included the ‘busy box’ (directly stolen from play school and in my memory filled with all manner of crafty delights, such as all our old toilet rolls…actually, that’s the only crafty delight I remember being there and may have been more to do with recycling than craft), dress ups, lego, baking, and sitting around an electric frying pan on the kitchen floor waiting for popcorn to pop and catching it to eat. Also doing the same and waiting for pikelets to cook – clearly my mother had a thing about making us cook and eat on the floor.

I’d not even thought about playdough in approximately 28 years until my sister-in-law requested a batch. I was (with ridiculous generosity) gifted a Thermomix prior to the baby arriving; my bestie organised a bunch of friends to pitch in for it for us. And word on the street is that Thermo playdough is the easiest and smoothest playdough out there (although I am presuming store bought actually pips it at the post. Technicalities.). So, unaware of the trip down memory lane that would ensue, I knocked a batch up this morning in time for my nephew’s third birthday party this weekend. I used this recipe, but I gotta tell you I don’t think it’s the ‘best’, as claimed. It was too wet for starters;  I added about a cup more flour to the overall mix. And also there has to be an easier way to incorporate the food colouring, because really:

What is the point of owning a German Super Mega Future Machine that can allegedly do my laundry if I have to schlep around with dye hand? Although I did wield it proudly on the bus today, almost like a badge of my current stay-at-home-mum status. (Or just evidence that I clearly don’t wash myself terribly thoroughly.)

At any rate, the end result was fine. I mean, it’s playdough, not a wedding cake. Although the beauty of playdough is that it can be both I guess. Pretty ugly wedding cake though based on the colours below. My colour distribution was a bit half assed (we were running late for swimming lessons, also THE HAND) but since it’s destined to become universal playdough sludge in the near future, I’m not losing sleep over it. I also confess I may have put the tiiiiiiniest bit in my gob – for old time’s sake. Yup. Salty playdough flavour still exactly the same.