Halloween

The streets around our house are swarming with halloweeners - or hallo-teensters as perhaps they should be referred to. The average age of the kids seems to be at least over 10, and I find I object to the concept of giving out lollies to kids that whose ages are in double figures. It seems a little mercenary of them somehow.

And can I just say how inappropriate some of their costumes are? Particularly the girls. I haven't seen many spooky outfits - more vampy if anything. Angels, fairies and demons seem to be the go this year - and pretty racy looking ones too! Seriously - I wouldn't go knocking on strangers' doors dressed like some of these kids.

Luckily for us, we have left Ruby out the front on border patrol, so we haven't had any knocks on the door. I'm all for handing out treats to younger kids - in fact one of my favourite halloween moments was in Leichhardt a few years back, when a dad from up the road came over with some lollies, and asked us to give them to his little girls when he came around with them later that day! It was very sweet.

Baby

As most of you would already know, Adam and I are expecting our second child. And not only our second child, but our second boy! We are really looking forward to having two little men in the house, and I just feel so blessed.

Bub is due to arrive in late March, so I've got around 5 months to get ready...and to enjoy full nights sleeps!

Hamish will be 21 months old when his brother is born, and I'm basically expecting life to be quite tough for the first six months or so, if not longer - but having been through the newborn stage with Hamish I know that the hard work does pay off in the end - and that spending that time building a relationship with your child is so precious.

Movember!

Adam will be growing a mo for Movember, an event that helps raise awareness and funds for men’s health. You can view his progress, and sponsor him, at http://au.movember.com/mospace/70967/

As an incentive, here's how he could be looking at the end of the month!

Water, water everywhere...

Hamish is obsessed with water at the moment. More specifically, with drinking it. Not out of a cup (although he does do that regularly) - he's more interested in water coming out of a tap, a watering can or in a puddle on the ground!

We had a puddle on the path out the front this week and he spent quite a long time sitting in the water, putting his head down trying to suck some up. It was really funny to watch - and I think he managed to get some in the end! He also walked away with a mark on his forehead from where it kept hitting the ground, not that it seemed to worry him.

This afternoon I caught him standing under a tap in the garden, his mouth wide open trying to catch the drips. Sadly for him it wasn't turned on so it was a bit futile.

I guess it's a good obsession to have, going into summer...

No TV?

As if mothers needed something else to feel guilty about - new guidelines recommend that kids under 2 don't watch any television.

I can see that it might not be optimal for their development to spend hours in front of the screen, but we don't live in a perfect world, and I reckon TV is a Godsend some days. It has a place when used wisely.

Online vs Real Time

I've realise that, when it comes to having decent contact with adults, I've been looking in the wrong places. I've been looking to the online world of facebook and parenting forums for connection and a sense of involvement in the wider world. I've also been missing old friends, who I find it hard to keep in touch with now we don't live anywhere near each other. A phone call every couple of months isn't the same as a regular coffee together, and reading someone's facebook status is a pale shadow of the same.

I read an article the other week by someone who had given up facebook - he had 200 facebook friends, and when he cancelled his account, only 3 got in touch with him. He described the way people use facebook as 'broadcasting' which struck a nerve with me and went some way to explaining why I had been finding it so unsatisfying. It's generally a very shallow and self centred approach to keeping up with people.

Although it has its uses - I've found out via facebook over the past few weeks that four people I know have had babies, and it is good for emailing and photos. It's just if I depend on it for real connections with people, it will more often that not let me down. I usually end up feeling more lonely after spending time on it, not less.

So - I haven't really worked out yet how to move on and develop more rewarding friendships, but at least I've identified the problem! I guess I need to get to know local friends more, and get off the computer and actually ring people up. There's no substitute for actually talking with people is there!

Rewards

There are of course many rewards to spending all day with your child, and I wouldn't swap it for anything. Hamish and I have lots of fun together - he makes me laugh every day and it is a joy to see him growing, mentally and physically.

His latest discovery is that he can walk backwards, and he is taking great delight in pacing forwards, then slowly stepping back until he hits something. He does it on the ground too - crawls forward then shuffles back with a look of wonderment on his face.

He's starting to say recognisable words - up, Minnie, quack, miao, baaaaa, shoe - and our favourite - 'nummies?' Which means he wants food. I suppose it means 'yummy', and he always says it like it's a question.

Company

During a break in the wet weather this afternoon, Hamish and I went to the local park. There was a large group of people there with their kids, and after a while I got chatting to a couple of the mums.

It was great - to get out of the house, see blue sky, and to have a conversation. It made me realise how lonely it can be at home, especially when the weather is bad, I'm sick, Hamish is sick, or for any other reason we're housebound. I spend so much time these days without any adult company, and while I absolutely love being at home with Hamish, it can get challenging when I don't get much contact with other people.

I think mums are one of the more isolated groups in our culture. Our lifestyles often position us away from family (they are rarely living in the same town, let alone the same house!), we don't know our neighbours anymore, and even when you have local social circles, illness often makes them difficult to access, and there's a difference between having the occasional playdate, and sharing the real grit of daily life with someone close.

Dads are working longer hours, and up here, commuting means that for many families, they're lucky to have dad home before the kids are in bed, and so mum handles the family load largely on her own.

Having said that, being a mum provides plenty of opportunities to get out and meet people - it's just that sometimes it's a poor substitute for the community living that I think we were designed for, and that best supports a mum at home.

There's a well known saying - it takes a village to raise a child. As my friend Jane pointed out, there's a lot of villages of one out there.

*&^%#* Pantry Moths

The stupid pantry moths are back. I successfully got rid of them all about 6 months ago (I think) but they've crept back in, despite my vigilance in keeping them out.

They are in the laundry and in the kitchen, and it's really annoying. The sight of them annoys me, it bugs me to have to squash them - I apologise as I do it but really - if I don't, they'll ruin all the food!

And most of all, it annoys me because I've been doing all sorts of things to prevent their return - all foods they like are in plastic containers, I freeze things like rice and pasta when I get them to kill off any eggs, and I have moth traps in key locations. But somehow, the moths have made it back. Must start my campaign again with renewed vigour. Oh, the trials of life at home...

Daylight Savings

I love daylight savings this year, because it means that Hamish wakes up at 7.30am instead of 6.30am - so much easier to cope with, even though I know technically it's the same as before, I'm just getting to bed earlier, but psychologically it feels more manageable.

However I failed to anticipate the knock-on effect for the other end of the day - time to change our evening routine! I tried to put him to bed at 6.30pm tonight, which he was not impressed with - which is fair enough given it's an hour earlier than what he's used to. So I got him up for a bit longer. Tomorrow night I'll just aim for 7.15pm.