Leave me be

I parent a five year old.

Her birth was documented by her father, her uncle and his wife.  The abundant photos show tears of happiness, tiredness and newborn limbs, all  from a July afternoon on a wintery Friday five years ago.

The miracle of who this baby is astounds me.  She has her own preferences; she experiences her own significant traumas as well as soaring highs; she nurtures her own relationships with family, carers and friends; and she conjures amazing worlds and theories tested by constant inquiring and observing and testing.

This July bunny rabbit was thrown a party that I agonised over.  There were lists rewritten many times over and party food tested many nights over.  Ridiculous I know.

The party was held in a wonderful old railway station house with a park nearby and shared with the bunny rabbit’s close five year old comrade.  The scene was set for Creatures Under the Sea which dutifully called up mermaids, stingrays, octpuses, coral, sharks, dolphins,pirates and fishy friends.  The bunny rabbit transformed into a shark (although there was a wilful reluctance to fully enage her shark self on the day) and her party partner transformed into an enchanting mermaid.

The sea creatures gobbled up fish biscuits and choclate crackles biscuits, sushi sandwiches, seaweed jellies, fish fingers and starfish fairy bread.  Seashells and swaying blue waves set the tone too.

I know Ginger loved her party.  There were games and clown fish accessories to be won.  Sausage rolls were consumed en masse.  The Under the Sea cake was to be admired. Her father MC’d a superb round of “Freeze”.  So why is it that when I watch her little face in the rearview mirror of the car, she spots me staring and pipes up:  “Stop staring.  Leave me be.  Concentrate on driving!”

From a sleepy breast feeding ball of breath and curled fingers to a put-me-in-my-place pre-schooler. The way she grows with words and changing limbs marks time and shapes our little family. She makes me realise anything is possible.

The one gimmick cake idea: Blue icing

Note to parents who slave over party food: photograph ALL party food in detail to validate all that effort

Loud girls

Ginger and Peta attended their first punk gig today at an anarchist collective.  They lasted two songs.

The girls were jacked up on vanilla and chocolate milkshakes, padded with earplugs and brimming with nervous excitement (in Peta’s case) and noise-induced anxiety (in Ginger’s case).

Mostly, we went to see Adele in a frontline role as singer for the band The Hatchets along with Kelly and Tara (I think, forgive me if I have the name wrong).  Three raucous women singing, one woman playing drums, blokes on guitars at the rear.

It was too hot inside this Thornbury shopfront.  So we left.  Gingerpops and Petapops are still taking about it.

They were two fine songs.

The omelette machines

These things……

just made these things….

We’ve been complaining for weeks about the lack of eggs and wanted those feathery chooks to work for their supper.  J found four teeny eggs nestled into the straw potato patch this afternoon where the chickens have free rein.  In fact, today Nellie and Ivy were encroaching Peta and Ginger’s porch space which created a lot of angst in Peta especially.  There was a lot of shooing and shouting.  I realise now the two girls (of the poultry variety) were just trying to tell the other two girls (of the pig-tailed variety) about their  eggs.

We’ve also  started to complain about the low yield from our garden.  We want maximum harvest, thank you very much, out of this plot.  Two tomatoes today. I’m still waiting on beans, pumpkins, cucumbers, capsicums.  The kale and celery have come through and the lettuce has now gone to seed.  Beetroot and carrots are getting vibrant.  Watermelon looks ill. The blood orange and lemon tree look so-so but there are small unripened green fruit.

Midwinter celebration

Picture damp grass, fire jugglers, drummers, lantern parade, didgeridoo players, a wandering minstrel, excitable children and an enormous bonfire tickling everyone’s noses. I love winter.