Like any good parent, I’m concerned about what I feed my kid. I’m not a zealot, I give the boy an occasional piece of chocolate or one of Dr. O’C’s oatmeal raisin cookies when she deigns to make them. But if there is one thing that I hate it is being screwed over by big [...]
Archive for the ‘parenting’ Category
Would you hold it near as it were your own?
It starts out as an exploratory, “Bubba?”, soft and hesitant.
And then a more demanding, “Bubba?!?”
Finally, bellowed, with all his little lungs behind it, “BUBBA!!!”
And that shout snaps me out of my daydream. I turn my eyes to Boy Z who is pointing at a magpie recently taken to flight, no doubt due to an unexpected [...]
I’m just pulling on a line and sometimes it pulls on me
Boy Z has been swimming since he was about four months old. By swimming I don’t mean the 200m butterfly, of course, but various water baby classes both in Oxford and here in Adelaide. They allow the kids to get comfortable in the water and teach basic safety, something that we felt was important for [...]
Let’s make a new project, better than objects.
She never had an overwhelming desire to be a mother – I was the one that pushed kids – but she’s turned out to be a great one. Patient where I fly off the handle, vigilant where I’m distracted, quietly confident where I’m shrilly anxious.
In short, longed for or not, she is everything Boy Z [...]
An open letter to a stay-at-home-Mum
This one may not go down well, considering the demographics of my readership.
As a general rule, I try to avoid getting sucked into comment stream dramas – mostly because I have better things to do with life. In most cases, I don’t even go back to a post after I’ve left a comment, just in [...]
They holler out, “Beat me Daddy, eight to the bar”
There are lots of things about being a father that hurt my heart. Not the least is watching Boy Z try to navigate the Scylla and Charybdis that are human social interactions. I know he’s only 19 months old and at this age, he isn’t really going to establish meaningful relationships with his peers.
In fact, [...]
Mercy’s eyes are blue when she places them in front of you
I can’t really do a travelogue post about our just ended week away on Kangaroo Island. My brain doesn’t work in that linear, Monday we did this, Tuesday we did that. Added to that, our particular holiday was one of isolation from the information world and one of the advantages of unplugging is that the [...]
It’s power man, power man, driving me insane
A few years ago I became well acquainted with the concept of powerlessness. I’m fully aware and have come to terms with the fact that I have no control over other people, places or things. It’s liberating in some ways, I’m responsible for my own behavior and that’s about it. As long as I don’t [...]
Tales of Girls and Boys and Marsupials
At some point in the last few months, my baby son crossed an invisible line to to become a little boy. It may have been when he took to two legs and began, literally, toddling. It may have been when he began to exhibit some degree of understanding – when “Where are the fish, Boy [...]
What You’re Saying