Another day, another dollar...

...And, although it really is only a few dollars, I'm loving the work thing! I'm loving using my brain to sort out detailed and complex problems. I'm loving using my rusty MS Word skills to clean up this set of documents. I'm loving that the people around me appreciate what I do, and put their appreciation into words (that can't always be said for toddlers!). I'm loving working with my mum, because it makes it easy for me to do a good job. I'm also loving having a small amount of time away from Asher because it makes coming home to him in the evening so sweet. Last night it seemed as though he'd grown taller and begun to put more complex sentances together in the space of the day.

So, I think I can safely say that I want to keep working and I'll have to start thinking about what I'll do when this 10 week thing finishes. I have started looking into getting a childcare placement for Asher for two days a week because it seems like my mother-in-law might not be keen to look after him, and the rediculously small amount I'm paying Megan (half what I earn) isn't sustainable for her (even if she insists otherwise!).

It's interesting that most of the mummies I know with kids around Asher's age are putting them in daycare, even for half a day a week (if they can afford it!). It's as though these little people, who have so intensly needed their mums are becoming herd animals and prefer the company of their own kind. I'd really like to find a great centre, not too big and nice and close that has a Montessori-influenced, child focussed philosophy. I'd like them to have Wednesdays and Thursdays free and not charge us anything either, but that's probably starting to push my luck a bit.

Anyhow, because I'm so cheerful today let me share the joy with this pic of Asher and his best mate M sitting on his little couch after their bath in their matching PJs. They were drumming their feet on the ground and laughing their cute little heads off:

Picture Perfect

I know two posts in one day is unheard of here, but I keep meaning to post more pictures. It shouldn't be hard but for some reason it seems to be, so I'm breaking the picture drought with this one. This is my favourite photo of Asher in ages - we went to see "The Drum" which was one of the Sydney Opera House Babies Proms and afterwards we had a coffee and the kids (Audrey, Miles, Sophie and Asher) ran around having fun. Clearly the whole outing was a tremendous success and I'm looking forward to seeing Jazz with them in October!

The Work Thing

For me, things tend to go straight from being stalled to full speed ahead. That's what happened this time with the paid work thing. I had been telling everyone I wanted to do a day or two a week in paid employment but hadn't really been applying for jobs or even looking online for jobs really then Franni rang me up with a completely flexible solution. I'm working for the organization she works for, directly for her, doing one of my favourite things. They call it 'data entry' but what I'm doing is cleaning up a huge mess that Franni made with a bunch of documents, then I'll be interpreting her cryptic scribbles and writing documentation for her. They aren't paying me enough!

Leaving Asher for the day was far easier than I expected - he was with his 'aunty' Megan and her lovely little boy and she is always be my absolute number one choice to care for Asher when Sanj and I aren't about. They all know each other very well and I feel like Asher is in safe hands.

I must rush to take Asher out to playgroup now, but I can't describe how good it felt to go and get a coffee on my way to work yesterday without having to amuse anyone, and then to file onto the train with the other commuters and then go and sit downstairs where no prams or strollers go. I felt, for the first time in ages, like an adult, and like myself as I used to know myself.

This post is brought to you by Another Rainy Day

Before I had a child of my own I though people with kids were nuts when they complained about the extra laundry that kids generated. Back then, in my previous child-free existence, I did one or maybe two loads of washing a week, it was awkward doing separate loads for whites and colours because I just didn't have that much to do. The colours were OK because I wore lots of jeans and black things but inevitably I'd be scrounging around trying to find more white things to wash.

So, the big question, how much extra laundry do kids really generate? Their clothes aren't very big so even though they might go through more than one outfit every day it should really add much bulk? Should it? Unfortunately the answer is that even one small, relatively clean, kid will generate more loads of laundry than I ever thought possible. And the cloth nappies we used on him when he was little barely added anything (although we were only part-time in cloth). It's amazing. I think the core of the issue isn't washing their clothes though, it's washing everything that they throw up on (when they are tiny), smear food on (when they get a bit bigger) or wee/poo on (hoping this stops after potty training!). I now average one load of laundry a day and I keep thinking that it'll get easier after our current stage, but I suspect that it will get back to a manageable level when Asher leaves home. Can anyone out there give me some idea of what to expect?

That's enough blethering-on about washing clothes - it's time to take action, despite the rainy weather this week, and put another load in the washing machine and throw things in the dryer that have been sitting on line for a day. Ho hum - perhaps I'll post about my burgeoning eBay addiction next....

Family Meals

Before Asher came into our lives I would happily talk to anyone who would stand still long enough about the wonders of family meals. I firmly believed that families who ate together were more likely to communicate more and therefore be more functional and happy. I believed the dark hints I made about poor family communication being one of the causes so many societal ills. The only exception in my mind was the great Friday night in - key components of which are loved ones, a glass of wine, the couch and something funny on TV.

After all this talk Sanjay and I figured we should put our money where our mouth is and try and teach Asher good eating habits by modelling them ourselves. Although we almost always eat breakfast together we rarely eat other meals together at home. Lunch is a kind of snack-y nibble on sandwiches, fruit and crackers between 10 and 12:30 and there is often an afternoon snack of some kind but then we feed Asher his dinner at 5:30 or 6pm and then the adults eat after Asher is in bed. So yesterday Sanjay and I planned to have dinner all together as a family. We chose to cook something we though he might eat and Sanjay arranged to be home by 5:45 so no one would be too tired or grouchy.

Unfortunately all my rose-tinted smugness crashed into the cold hard reality of eating with a toddler last night. Before we even got to the table I was just fed up with the whole thing. I was sore and tired and had no conversation for poor Sanjay. Asher had been cranky all day and wanted to bang his bowl on the table more than eat. In an effort to increase the togetherness quotient of the meal we were eating out of the same melamine bowls as Asher, and although they are rather nice and completely adult (white with a fun aqua stripe and a groovy pattern) it still felt a bit like a picnic. I'm not sure whether it was the fact that I ate my entire bowl of creamy, bacon-y pasta in about two minutes, or whether it was having to eat my sanctimonious pre-baby words, but I felt decidedly queasy by the time we had all finished.

I'm not sure where we go from here. I really enjoy the glass of wine and the quiet and calm of our meals after Asher's bedtime but I really do want to make a tradition of family meals. Do we just keep trying? What can we do to make it more pleasant for me? Do we really have to do it every week? Can I have two quick beers before we start so I'm tipsy enough to not care about the noise and the mess? I'm not sure alcohol-as-a-coping-strategy is really what I want to model for our impressionable youngster...

Easter Update

Well, there's no doubt about it, 4 hour car trips, without much sleep really are beneficial when it comes to teaching toddlers to recite numbers. After singing Twinkle Twinkle, How Much is that Doggie in the Window, Baa Baa, Mary had a Little Lamb, I'm a Little Teapot, Open, Shut Them, If you're Happy and You Know It, etc we were really sick of singing and sick of listening to each other so we started with counting. Asher can now pretty reliably say the numbers, in order, from one to 5, in both English and Hindi. I was going to call it 'counting' but although I'm pretty sure he understands the concept of one-object-for-one-number he doesn't really have the hang of it yet. Which I guess isn't that surprising since we really only started with the idea last Saturday on the long drive north to my mum's place (and the kid is only 21 months).


The holiday itself was just fabulous. More and more Asher is happy to be entertained by his Aunties, Uncles and Grandparents, making it more and more of a holiday for Sanjay and I each time we go up there. It helps tremendously that the weather is still really warm so everyday we went to the beach to play in the sand and swim so the little dude gets tuckered out and is keen to get to sleep.


As well as spending a few days at Mum's we went to Port Macquarie where Sanjay's parents were holidaying with friends. I didn't have a great day part of that was an upset tummy which I will whinge about in another post if it continues but what really added to my grouchiness was having to hide in the hotel bathroom so as not to disrupt my child while he was going to sleep. Asher just giggled and shrieked and rolled around his travel cot while the other adults had lunch in a pub overlooking the water and I sat and read the crappy Sunday paper on the bathroom floor. I was grouchy and bitter for an hour or two but I managed to build a little bridge and get the hell over it soon enough.


Anyhow, I think this picture sums up the Easter break for me:




...and there's more where that came from on Flickr.

Earth Hour

I'm all for events that raise the public consciousness about environmental issues and I'm all for being more frugal with electricity generally, particularly with turning off brightly lit advertising, however there's something about Earth Hour that doesn't quite sit right with me. Earth Hour was apparently dreamt up with the idea that turning off the lights for one hour will deliver a powerful message about the need for action on global warming.

I think the questions on Lee's Blog (which I recently discovered) are very pertinent - are the power companies on board with this, understanding that there will be a dramatic decrease, then a surge, in demand? The Earth Hour FAQ says that coal fired (and gas and hydro) power stations respond to the power demand and therefore "it is very likely Earth Hour will cause a reduction in fossil energy power generation" which doesn't really sound that promising in terms of actually decreasing fossil fuel consumption to me.

What do people do while they have their lights off? Apart from spending some quality time together in their bedrooms (!) almost every activity needs some light. I don't think you are really in the spirit of the thing if you watch TV or surf on the 'net (no live blogging!) and since Asher will be asleep we can't take a stroll around the neighborhood. So what to do for light? Candles? The battery powered lantern that Eithne took camping that we now have? Ah, candles....

The Earth Hour FAQ gives all the usual safety warnings about candles and says:

If you plan on burning candles during Earth Hour, make sure you use 100% beeswax
candles which are gentler on our planet – smoke free, non-toxic and
non-allergenic. They are also made of natural products, not petroleum-based
materials, so they are effectively carbon neutral (the CO2 they emit has already
been taken from the atmosphere to produce the wax).

Now, apart from the fact that people should use whatever candles they already have at home so as not to increase candle production I tend to agree that they should use beeswax candles. However, I have a major problem with the idea that because they were produced with CO2 from the atmosphere and will release their CO2 back into the atmosphere, they are carbon neutral. Coal was once a plant material that got it's CO2 from the atmosphere so burning it is 'carbon neutral'? I don't think so. Light bulbs, particularly the modern long-life low-wattage bulbs are pretty efficient at creating light, much more efficient than candles. How much CO2 does an average candle emit when burnt? Letters to the SMH claim between 15g and 220g (although I suspect that the last estimate requires all the wax to be burnt, which it wouldn't be with a beeswax candle).

So, despite my cynicism, I will turn the lights off for Earth Hour, in fact I'll turn pretty much everything off. Just like last year, Sanjay and I will play Scrabble by candle-light and hope that as we all unplug we think of ways to keep things turned off for longer - read, talk, make music or play games instead of using computers and the TV and leave things turned off at the wall so they don't consume power while on standby, drive less, consume less, recycle their aluminium foil as well as their cans, lobby to have advertising signs turned off late at night, take our own bags and, as we do these things, I hope we feel productive and content.

Artwork Archive

Sanjay has been looking for more and more places around the house for us to put up Asher's growing body of artistic work. There really aren't that many paintings yet but I'm already forgetting which ones he did when and Sanjay can't bear to throw any of Asher's paintings away (yet). So on Friday I decided to put into practice a tip I read in a parent hacks post some time ago. We don't have a scanner to "digitize" his artwork, but I took photos of all the work I could lay my hands on. I'm planning on uploading the pictures too (particularly until we get around to doing back-ups of the photos on our hard-drive!). I think I might use my lesser-used Picasa rather than Flickr because I'm uploading for archiving/backup purposes rather than to show off to the overseas relatives!

As for the paintings themselves, I'll keep a current one that I like up and put the others away to use for wrapping gifts. I hope my family are all prepared to get their gift-vouchers or other little presents wrapped in giant toddler artwork!

In other news, Asher and I finally found one of the tiny caterpillars that was eating our basil:

He was fascinated, for a very short while, and we've had to read The Very Hungry Caterpillar quite a lot recently.

Daily Routine

Why do I want to blog when I'm pushing the buggy and heading off to the park? I think of things that Asher does that are funny or that I want to record for posterity, or stuff that's happening in the world that I really want to comment on. By the time I get home from wherever I've been I just want to get Asher to bed and eat some lunch and tidy up and I've forgotten whatever it was that I wanted to say. In lieu of a thought-out and thoughtful post I'm going to post about our daily routine.

7-7:30am - we wake up, Sanjay gets Asher his breakfast I eat breakfast, shower, get clothes for myself and Asher, make a Vegemite sandwich for Asher, put a load of washing on and Sanj gets ready for work.
8:30-9am - Sanj leaves for work and Asher and I usually head out to playgroup, the park or on Tuesdays, music class.
11:30-12 - Asher and I arrive home and at around 12 I put Asher in his cot for his sleep. Then I put out the washing, check email and make any necessary phone calls and eat my lunch. Before Asher wakes up I also try to get a bit tidied up, perhaps take the rubbish out, clean the kitchen or sweep. I also try and lie down for a few minutes while he's asleep.
2-3pm - Asher wakes up and we sometimes hang around home or go out for a walk. If he's grouchy I put him straight in the buggy and we head out. We either go up to the shops to pick up something for dinner or we head to the park or over to Megan's place. Sometimes we'll get a lift to the beach or have some other adventure with friends.
5-6pm - we usually get home and Asher eats, usually before 6:15. Sanjay gets home around this time too and between us we feed and play with Asher and start prepping our dinner and tidy up the devastation.
7pm - Sanjay bathes for Asher while I usually clean up after Asher's dinner. When he is in his PJs we have some books and songs and it's time for bed around 7:30.
8pm - Sanj and eat dinner and have a glass of wine. Often we sit in stunned silence and stare at the TV or we sit at the table outside. We clean up, maybe get something else done around the house or spend some time Internetting, watching TV or reading and then I am usually in bed around 11pm waiting for it all to start again in the morning.

So, not an interesting post, but perhaps useful in the future when I'm trying to remember what life was like when Asher was 20 months old.....

Art Jam Roundup

  Well, as I think you can see by the photos art day was a success! We didn't need the carpet cleaner that Sanjay insisted I find, there isn't paint all over our fence and I think everyone had fun. We don't own kiddie easels (or adult ones for that matter) so we moved all the pot plants into a corner and made our small back courtyard into a little arts and crafts area. We tied large pieces of cardboard to the brush-box fence, one for each child and pegged or clipped pieces of paper for them to paint on. Megan and I made finger-paint and Karen brought palettes; Sanjay made a 'table' from a milk crate (with a bag of potting mix for stability) and a piece of chipboard he found in the garbage room which Audrey seemed to enjoy painting. My wonderful mother brought a roll of paper from Reverse Garbage and each kid did two or three paintings.

Asher had a bit of a go at painting but found the texture of the paint on his hands quite difficult, so when the brushes were a bit painty he had to keep washing his hands. Then he was wandering around with wet hands saying 'wash' with a worried look on his face until I worked out that he actually wanted them dried as well. I'll hook up a towel next to the hand washing tub next time we do it.

Now that we have set it up and know how easy it is I'm going to be painting a bit more at home. I think getting Asher more comfortable with different textures would be really good for him, and I'd love a bit more of his art on our walls. A big shout out to Megan, Karen, Clare and Franni for helping out and making the day so much fun.

Inspiration afternoon

I don't really do anything traditionally crafty at home with Asher yet, but he's been pretty interested in paining and glue-ing and such at playgroup recently, so we decided to have an painting afternoon (or 'art jam' as a particularly hip friend calls such events) over here tomorrow. After buying some Tempera powder paint on Friday I have been busily looking for finger-paint recipes today and came across some really good kids crafty resources that I thought I might share. There are lot's of finger-paint and playdough recipes about (I've used the playdough recipe and it works a treat. Dissolve the salt first so you don't get a grainy texture) and there are lots of different lists of ideas out there, but good ones are not always that easy to find. One of my old favourites is the very lovely Kids Craft Weekly which sends ideas direct to my inbox and is geared toward little kids. the photos on the site are great and the ideas are often really simple and good - I recommend anyone who has little kids around subscribes for ideas. There is another site that I came across whose approach I really like. . It's called 'A Magical Childhood' and so far I've only been looking at the craft ideas (there is a link in the navbar that says 'poetry' which terrifies me so much I can't click on it yet) and as the author says, there are heaps of guides for projects that achieve cute results, but little kids would prefer to focus on the process rather than the result and they get bored easily. Her ideas seem to be geared toward what she calls 'laziness' and what I prefer to think of as letting your kid give his or her creativity free reign. She talks about lying in the bath and letting your kid use watercolour paint on pieces of paper you have taped up around the bathtub. It sounds awkward to me personally, but it sounds like fun for fans of the bathtub. You will see what I mean if you look at any of her craft ideas with the word 'lazy' in the title.

The other web resource I rediscovered was the Raising Children website which reminded me that despite my recent frustration with Asher's tantrums and general toddlerness I'm doing ok at managing it. It also reminded me of the reasons these little people have hissy fits and some of the more positive ways of dealing with the difficult behaviour.

I couldn't have found/rediscovered any of this stuff without Sanjay spending a LOT of time with Asher today (and all weekend actually!). I think it's really good for the whole family for them to spend big chunks of time one-on-one - it improves their relationship, Sanj has more of an idea of how I spend my days and I get a bit of mental space. Thanks Sanjay!

I'll try and blog about tomorrow's Art Jam, perhaps I'll even include pictures!

New photos

 
It used to be so easy to get photos of Asher, but at the moment he usually wants to play with the camera as soon as he sees it. That's why most photos I take of him at the moment are of him doing something - eating, playing with someone etc. Anyhow, it's not that I don't want to capture his extreme cuteness, just that it's a bit difficult to do it without a tantrum.

Speaking of tantrums, the other thing I do for tantrum avoidance is make sure he spends some time each day running around. I find that with a run around in the morning he sleeps better (we get 1.5 - 3 hours of nap time most days. He usually gets put in his cot awake, but sometimes he'll fall asleep in the buggy or the carseat and I'll transfer him. I'm going to DIE when he gives up his daytime sleep) and he is calmer in the afternoon. Usually we accomplish the run-around at the park, although with all the wet weather we've been having lately it's a bit more difficult. This morning we went up to St Thomas Rest Park playground (our usual hangout) and as Asher was climbing the steps on the play equipment he slipped on the wet metal and hit the ground. I didn't see it happen (embarrasingly I was just telling a friend that it was a bit wet for the park and she shouldn't bother coming along) but I saw him land on his side. It was pretty scary - he's fallen from adult chest or shoulder height - but fortunately he didn't hit anything on the way down and doesn't seem to be hurt at all. I was pretty freaked out, and after that and then having to brush a spider off him (it was in a curled leaf, but I HATE spiders) we left the park for the safety of a cafe and a large cup of coffee for me and a banana milkshake for him.

Oh the cuteness!

This morning, as I was washing up Asher put his 'baby' in the highchair and said "Dinner! Rice!" to it a few times. Then he took the dolly out of the highchair and took it's clothes off and said "Nappy" and proceeded to take it in and put it on his change table (and then he slammed his fingers in the drawer and called out 'STUCK! STUCK!' until I came and saved him - he's not THAT smart!).

Actually, there is so much cute stuff happening at the moment that almost every day I try to remind myself to blog the lovely things that come out of that kids mouth. Unfortunately by the time I get computer time I'm so frazzled by the intensity of the day that I'm not able to string a sentance together. Perhaps I should start blogging in dot points?

18 month check

Just so I don't forget, I wanted to note down the stats from Asher's 18 month check. He's 11.1kg and 81cms, which is roughly the 25th percentile for both weight and height. He's been on that percentile band since he was quite little (born below the 5th percentile for weight, but made it up pretty quickly). He's doing all the things he's meant to be doing - they say that kids of this age should have a few words and be able to point to at least one body part when you prompt them (Asher can identify more than 12 body parts and can say the word for at least 10. Very irritating early in the morning on the rare occasions he gets into bed with us and he lies next to me saying 'nose' or 'ear' and probing his tiny finger deep into the appropriate orifice). He is running and climbing like a little monkey, and his tantrums are getting more persistent by the week.

Baby love?

 

When Sanjay and I fist talked about having kids it was always in the plural. Neither of us liked the idea of having a one child family and I always thought two relatively close together would be good - either eighteen months apart or two and a bit years. Then, minutes after Asher was born the obstetrician told me 'that was easy' and asked if I was going to have another one soon. I looked at him in disbelief and said to the as-yet-unnamed baby Asher 'Baby, tell daddy you want an adopted sibling' and that was that for a while. When Asher was getting close to 9 months old Sanjay and I agreed that we didn't want two babies really close together and at that time we decided to wait until Asher was 18 months old and then revisit the question - probably starting to try for number two at that time.

Now Asher is 18 months and I'm more reluctant than ever to start trying for a second child. Asher is a good kid. and a comparatively easy toddler I suspect, but he's still a young toddler and all toddlers are hard going. I can't imagine my life with a baby and a toddler, and when I try to picture it it looks like the stuff of my worst nightmares. This is even more true because I've never learned to drive and I don't have a license. Newborn and reluctant toddler to the supermarket and then walking home with the groceries? I think not. Outing to the beach and then home on the bus with a tired fractious toddler and a newborn? No way! Even the most car dependant of my parent-friends say getting two kids organised and into the car is hard work and I reckon that without a car I'd be stuck at home a lot of the time, and my mental health suffers if I'm not out and about a fair bit.

So, despite Sanjay's enthusiasm and the fact Asher just ADORES babies I have used my power of veto and we aren't planning on expanding our family anytime soon. In lieu of am actual baby I got a doll for Asher, which he loves like the little brother he may never have. He's never shown any interest in having a particular toy in his cot, but now he insists on going to bed with his 'baby' (which I've dressed in an outfit that was to big for the newborn Asher) and he won't let any of the other little kids touch the doll. I'm thinking that a doll is the ideal quiet and indestructible baby replacement but Sanjay watches how Asher loves the doll and thinks how much cuter the pictures would be with a real live sibling.

I've taken the first step in learning to drive (I have my learner license and have shortlisted driving schools) and when I'm some way towards being a driver we'll revisit the whole question. Again.

18 month update

King of the Castle
Originally uploaded by surroundsound5000

I love this picture Michael took of Asher on Crowdy Beach! It was taken while we were up staying at Crowdy over Christmas, which is when Asher turned 18 months old. It's a convenient thing for my memory to have is birthday right in the middle of the year. It was from the 26th of December, his 18 month 'birthday' that we really noticed an amazing improvement in his language. From being a kid who knew a bunch of words - enough so that, if I concentrated for a day or two, I would have been able to count them - he became a kid who knew more words than I could easily count. It seems exponential and if he continues learning at this rate he'll know more words than me by the time he's Three. Luckily, I don't think that'll happen, but the change is really sudden.

The behavioural changes are a little more subtle. He throws more tantrums when he doesn't get what he wants, and the tantrums are more fierce. On the flip side he's a bit less clingy to Sanjay and I and is happier spending time with his grandparents and uncles and aunties. Sanjay's parents in particular seem to be getting so much joy out of the fact that he is now keen to play with them.

The eating thing is getting a bit easier for us too - we are getting more comfortable letting him choose not to eat - he still seems to sleep fine and he would eat if he was hungry. I realise that this is us getting our heads around it better, not really a change in him, but I've always known Asher's fussy eating is a problem for us rather than for him. Hopefully it will get even easier as the three of us work out exactly what is going to work for our little family.

Anyhow, happy new year to everyone, and I hope it brings peace and contentment.

The Generous Toddler

Over the last week or two Asher has developed the idea that it's good to share. This means that now he will smear his cheesy crackers over the face of any doll, stuffed animal or small plastic farm animal in his vicinity in an attempt to share his snack. Yesterday at a kid-friendly Christmas party we went to he tipped his cup of water over an unsuspecting baby-doll in an attempt to share and last week at the park when I offered him a sandwich he clearly wanted one for his little mate Miles as well. He had to chase Miles across the park but finally he handed over the sandwich and Miles, bless his 17 month old heart, clearly said 'ta' and they sat down in the grass together and ate the grotty little handfuls of sandwich. It's really, really cute but I also feel like it's a new developmental stage. To be honest I'm not really sure if he's starting to understand that other people have feelings or whether that kind of behaviour just gets him plenty of positive attention but either way it's incredibly endearing. I wonder if it's enough to make up for his panchant for grabbing handfuls of soil out of our pot plants and dumping it on the terrace so he can get the broom and attempt to sweep it up?

Surrealism for beginners?

"Galumph went the little green Frog"
Originally uploaded by karmakeda

Galumph went the little green frog one day.
Galumph went the little green frog.
Galumph went the little green frog one day
and his eyes went glumph glumph glumph
But we all know frogs go la di da di da
La di da di da la did da di da
We all know frogs go, la di da di da.
They don't go glumph glumph glumph.

ZAP explores the park one blade of grass at a time

Zara explores the grass
Originally uploaded by karmakeda

We had a lovely brekky with Bindy, Daniel and Zara this morning at a cafe in Coogee that specializes in crumpets (I'll go find a link just so you can revel in smutty joy of the names of the breakfast dishes). We haven't caught up for a while and it was great to see them - we have all been a bit busy with kids and recently the journey over to the eastern suburbs has seemed longer. Zara is growing into a delightful little person, very cheerful and sociable over breakfast and when we went for a walk to let Asher have a run around on she was pulling herself along on the grass and interested in all the little bits of nature (grass, sticks etc) she could grab. All in all a lovely morning. I don't think a photo would have done justice to Asher's little face as he stared intently at Zara and everything she was doing - he was just fascinated but this one of Zara is really cute and will have to do. Perhaps we can all try to channel Asher by staring at it with a very concentrated, serious expression?

The photo was taken with the new camera - I got the Canon PowerShot A 720 IS in the end and I'm happy with it so far. I still have to work out how to use the software that is bundled with it because at the moment I can download photos and nothing else. In fact, Imight have a play around with it now while Sanjay and Asher are at the supermarket.....

The worst part of parenting?

Nope, although the sleep deprivation was bad when Asher was still a baby it wasn't the worst bit for us. The lack of spontaneity in our lives now doesn't bother me at all and although we rarely go out to nice restaurants not having the money or opportunity isn't a real problem for us. Before Asher arrived I thought the gross bits of parenting would be just awful but I now just laugh when I realise I'm wiping snot off a little nose with my own clothing and even today's cheerful game of peek-a-boo around the toilet door whilst stuck on the loo with diarrhoea wasn't that bad. For me, the worst bits of parenting are the relentlessness and the not knowing whether you are doing the right thing.

The relentlessness is realising that this demanding 24x7 job is never going to end. Even when you aren't 'on duty' you are on call in case of emergency and even when your kids are adults you will still worry about them. I'm getting more and more used to this part, but it really hits home occasionally. Especially when people tell me they are going to be off work for a month, holidaying on an island for a week and then driving down the coast for a few weeks, stopping where and when they feel like it (er, have a great honeymoon Niki and Ryan!)

The not knowing is different. At this stage I'm not sure I'm ever going to come to grips with it. Apart from the physical evidence of Asher growing, learning and obviously thriving there are times, many of them, when I'm just so conflicted about what I should be doing. I remember my own parents always seeming to know exactly what was and wasn't allowed (and why), what the right thing to do in any circumstance was and also why (when that reason was 'because I said so' I still believed them). I now realise that a lot of it was bluff - it must have been!

The part of our lives that I'm most unsure about centres around food and eating. Sanjay, not normally one for stern pronouncements, stated that our child would not be a fussy eater. He started saying this well before I got pregnant with Asher and continued to proclaim it until about the time Asher started wanting to make his own choices around food, sometime before he was a year old. It turns out we have somewhat of a fussy eater, even considering the normally capricious nature of toddlers. Now, the unsure-ness plays into all this when I try to work out what I *should* be doing about it. Will he get scurvy if he has absolutely no fruit or vegetables besides sultanas for a month? Is the protein in cheese, yoghurt, Weetbix, butter and bread enough? Will he turn into a spoilt brat if I keep offering him things each dinnertime until he deigns to eat something? Will the impulse to give him a good shake be too strong if he screams like I'm forcing him to eat dishwasher powder when I put some in front of him for dinner that was a favourite yesterday? Should I let him go to bed with no dinner if he doesn't eat the first two or three things I put in front of him? Even if we gave in and decided he could live happily on nothing but Weetbix for breakfast, vegemite sandwiches for lunch and brie for dinner would he survive? Why is something that he can't get enough of one day imperiously rejected with no hope of him even tasting it the next? It's driving me crazy and I don't really know what to do about it.

At the moment he does eat Weetbix with milk and yoghurt for breakfast. He nibbles on vegemite sandwiches, sultanas and sometimes some crackers or a biscuit from about 10am until midday. He might have a cracker when he wakes up from his sleep but then from 3pm until dinnertime I don't let him have anything so he has some chance of being hungry for dinner (between 5pm and 6pm). For dinner, which is the problem meal, I usually offer him leftovers from our meal the night before or something from the freezer that he has liked in the past. Occasionally I am able to get a few kernels of sweetcorn into him and he'll often eat something involving rice (a month ago it was risotto, now that is considered poison and he'll eat dhal and rice). He generally won't eat finger food for dinner (er, unless it's toast) and anything green, such as a speck of parsley, will be either spat out if it's not rejected outright. We can't eat with him (we don't want to and it doesn't fit in with Sanjay getting home from work) and I do everything I can think of to make meals pleasant and stress free. I suspect that he'll continue to be healthy (perhaps he extracts nutrients from the air?) but the real problem is that it's driving me absolutely batshit crazy. I'm going to get my ever-patient and enthusiastic mother to feed Asher when we head up to Crowdy Head for Christmas. Until then I'll just try to rustle up some inner reserves of peace and zen-like calm in the face of the dinner-time tantrums - and getting a gin and tonic for me will have to be just part of getting Asher's meal ready.