How do you measure motherhood?

Mothers day card

How do you measure motherhood?

By the number of nights you are last to fall asleep, waiting until you hear gentle snores float along the hallway. Or by the number of mornings you are first to wake, tiptoeing down to turn on the heater and warm up the house before breakfast.

By the tears dried, or arnica applied, by kisses or bedtime stories. By the number of times you’ve towelled wet hair, or the number of tiny toenails snipped, holding your breath in case you nip. Do you count bath times and birthdays, or the number of little-boy boogers you’ve had wiped on your skirt?

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When is your favourite time of the week?

Norman and Dann Salamanca Hobart Tasmania

When is your favourite time of the week?

Mine is Monday, 9am. I get back from dropping DorkySon at school, turn on the radio, empty the dishwasher, start some laundry… Then ten minutes to sit down and plough through a bowl of muesli before I head to Pilates. It is the quietest time of the week. It is my chance to breathe, deep and slow.

Mine is Tuesday morning, round about ten. It’s blogging time. I take a look at the scraps of paper, scribbled-in notebooks, posts in draft, and work out which can be whittled into better shape. I sip tea from a favourite cup, snack on macadamia nuts, tippity-tap at the keyboard as I try and put the right words in the right order. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s always worth trying.

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Easter, and an Anniversary

Moo Brew vases

It is Easter Sunday. The bunny came by this morning, dropped off a chocolate egg for each of us. We lay in bed, read books, came down for a bacon and pancake breakfast. Now the log fire is burning, there is a bottle of something bubbly open, and DorkySon is sitting on the floor finger painting. Judging by the heavy scent in the air, the roast beef is about twenty minutes from done. Continue reading

The Heart of Our House

Dining Table

I am not a materialistic person. As a glance at the barely-there contents of my wardrobe would tell you, the accumulation of stuff holds no interest. But there a handful of objects in our house that I really, really love.

One of those is our dining table.

It is a beast of a thing. Seven feet by five. Six sturdy planks of unidentified tropical hardwood, some of which are starting to separate so far that I can fit a whole hand down the resulting gap. The top is covered in scars, scrapes and gashes – each one a story. It holds secrets, this table – layers and layers of history. Continue reading

Testing, testing

Red road sign STOP

Disclaimer: If you’re of a nervous disposition and/or related to me in any way, you should probably give this one a miss. Just saying.

It’s always a bit nerve-wracking seeing a new doctor, isn’t it? A good GP isn’t just someone who writes out your prescriptions, it’s someone you have to really trust. A good GP needs to be someone you’re comfortable to have see you at your weakest and most vulnerable – someone who, over time, gets to know all the foibles of your little family.

After we moved, finding a new family doctor was the one thing that I kept pushing to the bottom of the to-do list. But six months into Tasmanian life, when everything else on the list had been ticked off, I finally had to get on and do it.

To save time, I made a double appointment. We could zip through the list of things DorkySon needed – vaccinations, allergy testing, height and weight – and then zip through mine – a couple of prescriptions and a referral for some blood tests – and be out of there in a single trip.

It went really well. The doctor was very nice. A mother herself, she had a very sweet manner with DorkySon, and the fifteen minutes passed without tears or drama. Continue reading