‘That’s what we do. We make mess. We’re a messy family.’ Five year old E sums it up with characteristic bare-to-the bone directness as we stand side by side and watch our freshly washed floor endure a new littering of crumbs, toys, unknown sticky substances, and yes…yet more spilled-milk. Four year-old W, king of the witty one-liner, intrepid word-explorer, encapsulates it even
Autumn has come late to Sydney. An almost-winter purity sidles quietly in amongst the bustle and grit of the inner-city suburbs. And even as the air crispens to cold nights, the days continue to be lit by a wealth of golden sunlight I’m sure we rarely appreciate as we should. We read about leaves —my newly minted
We made a decision this week. Parents have to do that. Make decisions. From the moment your child breaks forth into the world, with wails and flails and celebration, you are looking up information, filling out forms, viewing everything through over-alert, keen-to-do-right, protective parent eyes. Even before your little person or people arrive you begin the process. I know
‘There’s just no point in wasting time looking back’. He stood at the front of the school hall, staring down the barrel of an audience of nervous, eager parents hanging on his every word like support ropes. An ex-cop with so many stories under his well-weathered belt, stories of struggle and hardship, those of others, and
If weeks had theme songs, and those theme songs had catchy choruses, this week’s song might be called something like ‘Looking Up’, the chorus, ‘Are we going on the plane today?! Today, today, up up away.’ Okay, so clearly I’m no lyric writer, ask my brother-in-law about that. But the point is, we’ve spent the week