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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Happy 5th Birthday, DorkySon

red birthday balloon

My dear, sweet DorkySon turns five today.

Where do I even begin writing about how he has grown and changed in the last year? It is beyond anything I could ever have imagined. He has always been fun. He has always been smart, and kind, and made me laugh, but in the last twelve months he has become a person I genuinely enjoy spending time with. Not because he’s my son, or because there is any obligation, but because he rocks. Continue reading

Nearly Five

peekaboo

DorkySon is absolute magic just now. He is a real joy to be around. I can’t remember ever seeing him so calm and settled, and that is really reflected in how he’s behaving.

A large part of that is testament to the kindness of our family and friends who, even from afar, have worked so hard to let him know that he is loved. Barely a day passes without another postcard, book, or CBeebies DVD being popped into our mailbox.

The wardrobe in DorkySon’s room is plastered with many of those postcards, and also with photos of all the important people in his life – friends, grandparents, cousins and the like. There are so many happy memories recorded there, and DorkySon likes to chat about them often. He talks very openly sometimes about who he is missing, but he also talks with absolute confidence about when he will visit those people, or when they will come and see us. He knows already, because of the regular travelling we have done to the States, that not all your friends can live in one place and sometimes you have to make a big effort to see them. He says that the sadness you feel when you miss people is a good sadness because it means you have people you care about.

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