For all the Amelie fans

I am one. Are you? Amelie is my happy place. The sweet gal behind the blog Happiness Is, Shannon Eileen, just got hitched. And while I'm not normally a fan of the "our love story" type movies or slide-shows that some couples like to play at their weddings, this one was cute and quirky and entertaining, and a tribute to one of my favourite movies of all time. Take a look:

Did you make a creative movie for your wedding? What was yours like? I'd love to see it! (Shannon has converted me).

I made a book

I wanted to call it All The Things I Wish People Had Told Me About Parenthood But They Were Too Busy Going On About Sleep Deprivation, but it's only a little book and there wasn't enough room on the cover. So I called it Welcome to Parenthood. It's a little handbook that I made for my brother and sister-in-law, who are expecting their first baby in October. There's nothing earth shattering inside, and nothing controversial. I don't go into breast versus bottle, or immunisation, or co-sleeping or any of the other components of so-called attachment parenting. Whether they ask for it or not, there will be plenty of people dishing out advice on those issues!

Instead, I focus on the things I either had to go hunting to discover, or only found out too late, about welcoming a little bub into your life. Like, what exactly do you need to have ready on the day you bring baby home, and what can wait until later? What criteria should I consider when it comes to choosing a pram or carrier (or to deciding between the two)? Did you know that newborn babies make freakishly loud zoo-noises when they sleep? This scared the bejezus out of me and Mr B on Madeleine's first night at home.

These are the chapter-ish sections:

↑↑↑ WHAT TO HAVE READY AT HOME (What you'll need from Day 1, and what you can get later) - Getting dressed - Sleepy time - Change time - Bath time - Feeding

↑↑↑ GETTING OUT AND ABOUT (Prams, carriers and cars) - Never leave home without... - Pram or carrier or both? - What to look for in a pram - What to look for in a sling or carrier - When wearing the baby - In the car

↑↑↑ GETTING HELP (What's available and where to find it) - At hospital - Friends - Community help

↑↑↑ OTHER RANDOM TIPS

The book went at the top of a little care package I put together for my brother. Just little baby things that don't necessarily occur to new parents (at least, they didn't occur to me), but that end up coming in really handy. If you're curious, this is what went into the care package:

I hope they like it!

ps. I used Artifact Uprising to lay out and print the book, and I absolutely love the result. The paper is recycled and just a wonderful texture, it feels like such great quality. I added a lot more text than I think Artifact Uprising is normally designed to take, but it was still pretty easy to use. There are layout templates and then you just drop and drag images in after uploading them to the site. You create a frame if you want to add text anywhere, and adjust the size according to what you want. The little book cost me $12.99 plus postage. So affordable!

The many hats of Madeleine

Well hello there. How was your weekend? Madeleine has a confession to make: she is going through a hat fixation.

It's a serious obsession. The second she wakes up, her hand flies to her head to check for a hat. Perhaps it helps her feel secure and warm, since she has made it to the ripe old age of one and still doesn't have all that much in the way of hair.

If she's not already wearing a hat, she'll crawl around until she finds one and then hold it up to the nearest adult for us to put it on her. In moments of particular personal urgency, Madeleine will wear two or even three hats, one on top of the other.

Recently I took some photographs to record this strange obsession, so that I can show her when she's older. This is just a selection of Madeleine's hat collection. There are more, left behind at friends' places, in shopping centres, on footpaths...

Favourite things - portraits

Smile folks, you're on camera (or on pencil). Happy Friday! Today it's all about portraits. 1. Custom family portraits

Thinking of getting one of these custom, hand-drawn portraits by Blanka Biernat Illustration done of our family for Christmas this year. Have you ever done anything similar? How did you like the result?

2. Portrait of a holiday

Love this stunning Sicilian holiday photo-shoot in Vogue Russia. Seen via Hannah Hayes (click to see more of these lovely photographs)

3. Self portrait

Want to know how to feel pretty when you look in the mirror? Smile, and greet yourself like a friend. Now you see what they see. From Cup of Jo

4. Portrait of a gardener

This inner monologue of a gardener, on Peonies and Polariods, made me laugh because it was so familiar. (Extremely nerdy photo is of me a few years ago, during a massive clean up of my Nanna's garden)

5. Mini portraits

How adorable is this idea to shrinky-dink your kids' into teeny, tiny presents? From Oh Happy Day

Do you see me?

Have you heard of the website See.Me? It's the old-fashioned artist/patron concept, reborn for the social media age so that creative folk can help each other. Artists and illustrators, photographers, fashion designers and stylists, musicians, furniture designers and any number of other creative types can profile their work to gain recognition and support. If you like what they do, you can support them with a donation!

{Seen via Swiss Miss}

Melbourne dispatch - the Travelling Samovar Teahouse

A new teahouse has opened up around the corner from my house. It happened very quietly, with little fanfare beyond a handful of "likes" on Facebook, but you can't sneak anything with "teahouse" in its name past me in coffee-dominated Melbourne. I have been peering through the window watching the fit-out develop and reading the "Coming Late June" signs on the door (that hearbreakingly changed to "Coming Mid July") with impatient interest. Then last week I was walking Madeleine home from the park when what ho! the doors were open! The owners were smiling, the samovar was steaming, so in we rolled.

Owned by three friends united in their love of tea and travel, the Travelling Samovar is like everyone's best version of an imagined stopover on the Spice Route. The menu boasts approximately one billion different teas* complete with tasting notes. But if you're lazy (like me), just ask the owners for their advice. Their passion for tea spills over throughout the conversation, and it's so contagious. I tried the "Calcutta" tea-tasting, a trio of Indian teas (Darjeeling, Assam and Chai), with tea-infused shortbread on the side as a palate cleanser.

There's a light lunch menu as well, and can you imagine anything better on a cold winter's day than cumin-spiced tomato and sweet potato soup? It was sublime. Madeleine preferred her toasty cheese fingers, the pleb. We followed our lunches up with a poached fruit salad and buffalo-milk yoghurt, that we shared.

On another day, I ordered a light rosebud tea sweetened with honey, alongside a moist, sticky Persian love cake and a generous dollop of rose-petal cream. On this Madeleine and I both agreed, so we actually had to order a second cake because she ate ALL of my first one!

We returned to the Travelling Samovar as a family on the weekend and tried the antipasto platter, the ratatouille tart, a generous slice of Russian Napoleyon slice, and some more teas. You've got to do this not only for the tasting but also to watch all the amazing, traditional preparation methods that they use, depending on the tea.

* May represent a slight exaggeration

ps. Yes, they do have an old samovar. And yes, they do use it.

ps2. That weird sticky-up bit of hair on top of my head? That's because I cut my own fringe AGAIN and it went horribly wrong AGAIN. Don't talk to me about it.

Classics for kids

What do you read to your children? Madeleine cleaned up in the book department on her birthday, and I thought I'd share with you some of my favourites. Aside from a fabulous assortment of Madeline books (including a cutie I'd never seen before, Madeline at the White House), she also received some quite lovely board-books. Like New York City. This is such a beautiful book. The pages are cut out so that layers of the city show through - glimpses of parks beyond buildings, sky beyond skyscrapers, and old buildings beyond the new - just as they do when you look at a city in real life.

Baby Lit books: have you seen them? They're literary classics, reworked in bold and beautiful graphics and colours, for little ones. So in this case, Jane Eyre becomes a counting primer...

Alice in Wonderland teaches colours...

And Sense and Sensibility teaches... what? Why, opposites, of course!

Wintergram

In between feeling sick ALL OF THE DAYS, Madeleine and I love nothing more than to rug up and get out and about and walk the streets of Melbourne. Sometimes she sleeps, sometimes she sits up in her pram and sings, which makes everyone else walking the same streets smile and I think it is a wonderful talent to make strangers smile, don't you? Here are some snippets of our wintery walks, brought to you by the letter I for Instagram (this is me if you want to say hi or follow).

Some mornings the fog is so thick the city seems to disappear, and it is as though Madeleine and I are alone in our little bubble of love and sore throats.

A couple of weeks ago it was so cold and the clouds had that funny look I remember from when I lived in New York and I indulged in a delicious fantasy that lasted the entire way along Lygon Street and down Rathdowne Street that went along the lines of imagine if it snowed in Melbourne! But it didn't.

We like to eat out, me and my little two-teeth girl. And now that she is finally growing a few new chompers, Madeleine loves to experiment with new lunches every day. It is so much fun to watch her face as she tastes something new.

Where and what do we like to eat? Top to bottom: pizza and fizzy water at Brunetti's in Carlton; jaffles and baby beets by the fish pond at Grub in Fitzroy; rosebud tea and Persian love cake at the brand new Travelling Samovar in Carlton North (this place is so lovely it deserves a whole blog post of its own, coming soon); and a take-away mini raspberry cupcake from Sweet Source, also in Carlton North.

And just like that, last week the weather went all mild on us. Suddenly sunny and 16 degrees after lunch, we couldn't believe how balmy it felt. I introduced Madeleine to the joys of the park: the swing, the seesaw, the slippery dip... But what she loved most of all was crawling around in the bark and getting gloriously muddy and filthy. As you do.

ps. Giggles and kisses with dad, over a teeny-tiny mug of hot chocolate which cannot be seen in this photograph because it had been spilled all over yours truly.

Stunning drawings on antique envelopes

A little while back my dear friend, author Ruby Blessing, alerted me to Mark Powell's stunning drawings on antique envelopes, maps and newspapers. Talk about putting my picture post attempts to shame! I wrote to Mark and he gave me permission to upload some of his pictures for you here. Which is your favourite? There's loads more on Mark's website, or you can like his Facebook page, if you want to see more.

Thankful

Earlier this week I had a bit of a minor meltdown. I dropped a glass of orange juice and it shattered all over the kitchen floor. The next minute I was in tears, Madeleine watching on in wide-eyed concern that only poured guilt on my inability to cope. I'm just. So. Tired.

Our family has been sick for months and months. Lately, Mr B has had a bad stomach bug and I have the 'flu, while Madeleine has a viral chest infection following closely on the back of septicaemia (admitted to hospital and on IV drugs for 10 days) on the back of a horrible gastro virus (rushed to hospital in an ambulance at the doctor's behest) on the back of another virus (taken to Emergency by us because we couldn't get her fever down), all mixed in with her heart condition which makes her at once more prone to picking up these illnesses, and in more danger when they occur. When Madeleine is sick she doesn't sleep which means we don't sleep, which makes it a lot harder to get healthy, let alone... cope.

Even the dog is sick, with a torn tendon, a heart murmur and bad teeth (with accompanying Biblical bad-breath); and each separate condition will cost us literally thousands of dollars to treat - thousands that we don't have - so we're working on pain management and comfort instead. The healthiest member of our family is Ruby the cat, who has been referred to a weight clinic for her obesity problem (I'm not even kidding and yes, we think that's as funny as you do).

I don't talk about this kind of family stuff all that often on here, because this blog is supposed to be my happy place. It is where I like to document and uncover beautiful things: things that make me smile and inspire me to create, and hopefully do the same for you. But, honestly, there's a reason why there have been long sessions of silence on here periodically since... March? Have we really been sick for that long? Yes, we have!

Anyhoo, on Meltdown Morning, I had only managed to get about two or three hours of sleep. My little baby had been so sick and congested that she could barely breathe, and was panting and sweating (one of the key warning signs we'd been told to watch out for with her heart). Eventually in the early hours of the morning when I'd had precisely NO sleep so far, Mr B took her out onto the couch so she could sleep in a more upright position. So he didn't get much sleep either. We were both subdued, tetchy, worried and generally unpleasant by morning.

[Warning: the next paragraph is a bit gross. Skip it if you have a weak stomach.]

Madeleine agreed to take some milk and a tiny bit of toast for breakfast, which felt like progress until an hour later when she projectile vomited it up all over the carpet in the direction of Playschool. (A critique on the fruit-salad dinosaurs they were making? Only Madeleine can answer that, and she doesn't say much other than "Gak" which means "Cat.") I cleaned up my poor baby while she sobbed. She's like her mother, she cries when she vomits. Then I tried to clean up the main event. Problem was there was so much phlegm in the mess that nothing would soak it up - it just moved around under the damp sponges I was using like ball-bearings. Particularly slimy, smelly, offensive ball-bearings, speckled with chunks of Vegemite toast.

I made the decision that the rug had to go: it was getting old and hard to clean anyway. But it was trapped under heavy furniture, so I would have to wait for Mr B to get home before I could remove it. So I covered the disgusting mess with a couple of cloths and a big towel to stop Madeleine from digging into it (which she was already trying to do), then dragged an armchair over on top of the towel and that's where the phlegmy vomit stayed, all day, until Mr B and I were able to remove the carpet that night.*

There wasn't much room for Madeleine to play in our tiny living room once a vomit-towel and armchair were dragged smack into the middle of it, so I opened things up for her to crawl around in the kitchen while I packed up for our day. Until I smashed the orange juice all over the kitchen floor, mercifully managing NOT to cut my baby with flying shards of glass.

I was already running late to get Madeleine to the hospital for a check-up following the septicaemia, and what with the broken glass and vomit debacle there was no floorspace left to put her down while I cleaned it up, so I cried instead. Then I gathered up my bags and my baby and walked out the door, leaving the glass where it was and the juice to grow sticky and the vomit still on the carpet and TOO BAD, I was over it.

In the car on the way to the hospital (which honestly feels like a second home because we have been there so often, I mean, the guys in the cafe know my coffee order and greet Madeleine by name!), I kept thinking, we can't catch a break. It's one thing after the next, after the next. Mr B wanted me to ask the specialist if there was anything wrong with her immune system, that she just couldn't seem to get healthy.

But somewhere around my second coffee ("The usual love? How's Maddy?"), and around-abouts the reassurances that Madeleine's heart was yet-again unaffected by this latest infection, and that her immune system was fine, reality began to seep in.

I have a beautiful, happy, affectionate and intelligent little girl. Yes, she has been plagued by illnesses lately, but we are so lucky that they are mostly minor illnesses, and even the serious ones have been quickly and effectively treated. Here I was feeling sorry for myself because my child had a virus and I broke a glass, when there were families next to me in the cafe who were genuinely suffering. Brave little children facing trials that no child - or parent - should ever have to face. Some of them, with very little hope.

That afternoon I went from victim to victor, in my head. I am so thankful for all I have, particularly for my loving, healthy family. So if things continue to go quiet on this blog from time to time, well, it just means I'm prioritising my little family to give us the best chance of staying victorious.

Right now, Madeleine's breath is rattling around like old bones in her young chest while she plays. But that's the point, isn't it? While she plays. Even during our recent stay in hospital, Madeleine took every opportunity when they allowed her off the drip to crawl around the ward and play chasings with the nurses, squealing with laughter.

I am truly lucky. And I am truly thankful.

*I will call Council Pick-up and put the rug out the front of our place as rubbish. However, I am hoping that the scabby neighbours who have stolen Mr B's Lite & Easy food delivery TWICE from our front porch will help themselves to the Vomit Rug. That's karma, friends.