Outside the lines

A few years ago my friend Sarah and I took a life-drawing night course. We'd sit in an old high-school room for a couple of hours, chatting and sipping wine and painstakingly sketching versions of our hands that looked like octopus amputees, and sneakers that resembled a child's play-dough experiment. It was a fantastic course. I can't say I picked up much in the way of skills, and stick figures are still my preferred style, but there was something so calming and therapeutic about those two hours a week. I was writing Airmail around this time, and I always found my creative writing came so much easier after I had given my brain this break. For me, art (and I use that term in the loosest, most generic manner because you'd be hard pressed to call anything I make with pencil or paint "art") is just a wonderful way to switch off and take a "brain holiday." I need to do more of it. Do you know what I mean?

When I saw this book Outside the Lines, my first thought was that I should buy it for Madeleine. She is very into crayons right now. But to be truthful, I think I might need to buy it for me. It's a collection of illustrations from more than 100 artists (in genres from fine art to street art to video games and photography) all ready to be coloured in by "anyone who loves creativity and contemporary art, or who simply loves the joy of coloring." And hey, that's me!

Mother

I came across this post by Alyssa of Kitch Bitsch last week and thought it was just lovely. Following a survey of 40,000 people from 102 non-English speaking countries, "mother" was voted the most beautiful word in the English language*. Isn't that wonderful? Here is a taste of what Alyssa had to say about "mother": The first word we speak. The first person to comfort us. Mother is love. Mother is home.

If mother has intrinsic beauty then why don’t I feel beautiful? I am mother to a son and two daughters. To them I am beautiful; they see what I can’t see. To them I am tickles and cupcakes and morning cuddles, my squishy belly a pillow. My daughters brush my hair and choose a vintage dress for me to wear each morning. They aspire to be like their mother.

It is not hard to see their beauty. They giggle and dance and sing. I stare at their cherubic faces as they lay sleeping. I kiss their velvety skin and breathe them deep into my lungs. They marvel at what their bodies can do, how their legs can run and jump.

They remind me of a time when legs were just legs. Before they were dimpled legs or hairy legs or jiggly legs. Before the lens of judgement. Before the term post baby body was even invented.

::          ::          ::

Every night while I feed Harry, he glances up at me and smiles. I rest him on my knees and he smiles some more. He follows me with his eyes as I move about the room, grinning when I am near and crying when I move out of sight. I calm his sobs by softly stroking his cheek with my finger. I kiss his feet to make him laugh. When I snuggle him to my chest he falls beautifully, adorably asleep, arms akimbo and mouth wide open in a totally trusting snore.

Does Harry think I am beautiful? Without a doubt he does.

When I wear a dress Madeleine wants to wear a dress. When she runs barefoot she wants me to do the same. Madeleine won't wear those cute little hair-clips you can buy for little girls, but she will insist on having bobby-pins in her hair, if I am wearing them too. We brush our hair at the same time, brush our teeth at the same time, and when I put on make-up Madeleine wants some too, so I pretend to make her over. If I make myself a cup of tea, Madeleine runs to get her tea-set and pours me a second cup from her little floral teapot.

Does Madeleine think I am beautiful? Absolutely. And she wants to be just like me.

But if this is the case, why am I so hard on myself? Why do I narrow my eyes and frown at the post-baby-squish I see in the mirror when I take a shower? Or the lines I see around my eyes when I lean in close? Looking down at my hands as I type these words, my skin appears tired and old from constant washing and cleaning and scrubbing and pushing-prams-in-the-sun(ing). And to be honest, "tired and old" is how I feel all over. My hair these days is best described as "bleh." Most of my clothes have holes in them, and spit-up all over them, and they were never stylish to begin with.

Why do these things bother me so much? Madeleine and Harry don't simply not-care about these things, they don't even know that they exist! To Madeleine and Harry I am beautiful, and I am beautiful because of one irrefutable word: mother.

I loved that Alyssa reminded me of this. You can read her whole post here. If you love your mother or if you are a mother (or both), it will warm your heart.

* Other popular words were "passion," "smile" and "eternity," as well as "lollipop," "hiccup" and "banana"

Stuff and nonsense

↑↑ Evidence #657 that we live in a small world: Madeleine went to daycare dressed in this ridiculously cute hotdog-pretzel t-shirt the other day, a gift from one of my best friends in the world. As we were entering, one of the dads also doing the drop-off admired her shirt and said "that's my favourite city," and of course I said "me too." We got talking and it turned out we'd lived in New York at the same time and were practically neighbours (he was in the Lower East Side and I was in SoHo), and he used to manage one of my favourite restaurants, where my friends and I would go all the time. And here we were, half a world and an ENTIRE different lifestyle away, dropping our little girls off to play. ↑↑ I took this photograph on the way back from a coffee run because I saw the leaves on this little tree and thought "WHAAAT? IS IT AUTUMN ALREADY?" And then I realised the leaves weren't turning brown for the season, they had actually burned up during the recent heatwave. Poor tree.

I have been indulging in a little bit of we-can't-catch-a-break feeling sorry for myself dumps lately. On Friday night I had sudden and extreme pains in the chest and stomach, and thought I had some kind of food poisoning. After a sleepless and very painful night I went to the hospital first thing the next morning, and had emergency surgery the same day. Seemed I had an inflamed gall bladder which was also causing problems for my liver, so they whipped the gall bladder out and "oh by the way I stitched up a small hernia behind your belly button on the way out." Thank you, two pregnancies in quick succession, which apparently caused all of the above (not the heatwave). Now I've been told "don't walk, don't drive, don't lift anything," instructions that are almost IMPOSSIBLE to follow when you have kids (which explains the hernia - I had no choice but to ignore the "don't lift after giving birth" instructions in order to care for Madeleine). Last night I was a bit teary. Madeleine cried for ages after going to bed because I had to have the babysitter lift her in there but she wanted her mummy. Then Harry cried and cried because he had wind but I couldn't hold him the way he needed to be held due to the wounds in my chest and belly. Of course Madeleine did eventually get to sleep, and Mr B cuddled Harry until he fell asleep, but I just felt useless as a mother and like I'd let them down by being sick. Again. I think my body has had enough. I have been pregnant and/or breastfeeding (with a little thing called "giving birth" in between) constantly since 2011. During my pregnancy with Harry, I was sick for nearly the whole time. Nothing serious, mostly viruses carried from daycare to Madeleine to me, but it wasn't fun. I'm a bit over it. And now we have the medical bills to pay on top of all our other bills (thank you, multiple unanticipated problems during home renovation), right when I'm working my lowest hours ever.

BUT... I live in a beautiful house in an amazing city - the first time I've felt "at home" since leaving New York - I have an incredibly hard-working, loving and supportive husband who is also very good for a laugh, and the two most adorable children I could ever wish for. So when I'm not feeling sorry for myself, I feel incredibly thankful. It's all worth it. It really is.

↑↑ This guy and his funny faces! Last week I wrote what I guess you'd call a sponsored post (in that I was given a gift voucher to go shopping and wrote a bit about what I bought). I so rarely do these kinds of posts because they sit uncomfortably with me, and I wonder how you feel about them - I don't want you to feel like I'm trying to sell to you or use you! A while ago I made up my mind to only accept gifts etc with posts if I would a) actually happily spend the money myself anyway, and b) think what I'm writing about might interest or benefit you (or both). And I've followed that rule in every one of the (very few) sponsored posts I've ever written. Last week after I wrote about my little boy and his beautiful Very Hungry Caterpillar stash, Mr B read the post and said it was "delightfully snobbish." It got me thinking. Because I hadn't intended to be snobbish at all, delightfully so or otherwise. I thought I was being truthful. And I wondered if I was being too apologetic in the post because I was worrying too much about your reaction. I don't know. What do you think? Am I being unfair on the sponsor? On you? On myself?

(And here I am, worrying about your reaction again. But you matter to me! I can't tell you how amazed I constantly am that you take the time to read this blog, and how much that means to me.)

I'll leave you with this little video because it is pure joy. If you ever get chocolate gelato all over your face and front on a 42 degree day, this is how you should clean it off.

My very hungry caterpillar

Summer afternoons with this little caterpillar are spent lying on the floor, face to face, smiling at each other. They are spent wandering around the back courtyard, looking at the plants and bees that cling to life in the edges and cracks alongside the tiles (we are yet to build a real garden). Summer afternoons are hiccups and spit-ups and tight little fists. Fat-folds and curly toes and dimples in the elbows. A big sister, one shoe gone, racing like a whirlwind around our little baby-mat of calm. Summer afternoons... and mornings, evenings and nights... are the slow minutes ticking through the nursing, just me and Harry and the sound of him greedily sucking. My hungry little caterpillar LOVES to nurse. All. The. Time. But that's ok with me. Those adorable, kissable fat-folds and dimples don't come cheap: they are hard won, out of pain and exhaustion and love, and they are my prize. You could say, if you wanted to, that all those long hours of feeding my hungry little caterpillar are turning him into a beautiful (chubby) little butterfly.

Wait for it...

In case you're wondering, Harry's Very Hungry Caterpillar tummy-time mat in these photographs came from Target, part of an Eric Carle range that makes me want to buy All The Things. Harry has this lovely caterpillar jersey wrap, too, and I confess I also have my eyes on this play-mat, a box of socks, and the world's sweetest caterpillar-in-a-box toy. We are not merchandising-averse in this house (just ask Madeleine and her Peppa Pig collection).

Target was never somewhere I thought of shopping before having a family. But while I still love to buy local, hand-made and unique things for my children, finances and our specific needs don't always make that practical or affordable. Target has become my go-to place for a broad range of cute, hard-wearing clothes and nursery and kitchen items that I use for Madeleine and Harry every day.

So when Target Australia approached me to work with them on this post to help promote their upcoming Everything for Baby Sale, I jumped at the opportunity. They gave me a voucher to go shopping for Harry, and I put my Sensible Hat on, purchasing this video monitor so that we could keep both ears and eyes on our precious littles when they were sleeping upstairs and out of earshot (because it's not at all creepy to watch your children sleep. Erm). But then I saw the Very Hungry Caterpillar range and Sensible made way for Spontaneous. So anyhow...

Here are some more of my favourites from Target's baby range:

* Such a stylish, modernist crib (and the matching change table). Love! * Gorgeous knitted blanket in triangles * If I had another baby girl I would dress her in this and about 100 other rompers from the Catriona Rowntree collection * Adorable knitted rattle * This sweet little fox reversible quilt / play-mat

The Everything for Baby Sale starts on 30 January, and there are some big savings so if you need to stock up for little ones in your life OR find gifts for friends with babies, now is the time!

Favourite things - unexpected art

Each of these art projects celebrate the unexpected. Enjoy! 1. Leafy dress-ups

Azuma Makoto frequently dreams about a mysterious, loitering, human-plant creature. So he created the "Leaf Man" art project, to "elevate the value of flowers and plants."

Seen via

2. Flip-book art

Remember making little flip-books in school? We would draw stick figures in the corners of our notebooks that, when you flipped through the pages, would walk and run and jump and cartwheel. Kinetic artists Mark Rosen and Wendy Marvel motorised this century-old animation technique in little boxes for gallery exhibitions. But now, they have created a FlipBooKit that you can build yourself, and populate with your own animation! My mind is literally boggling with the possibilities. This one is on my birthday wish-list.

Seen via

3. Subway signs

Have you seen this lovely little happiness-spreading video? Apparently, subway conductors in New York City are required to point at a black and white sign at every stop, to confirm that the train has fully arrived on the platform. So these people stood in front of the signs and held up messages of their own, just to brighten the conductors' days.

4. Deep south photography

Every time photographer Irene Suchocki releases a new collection, I experience "I want to go there" envy. This group of black-and-whites, called Southern Gothic, beautifully captures the humid and sultry mystery that permeates parts of Southern USA. I want to go (back) there.

5. Lacy newspapers

Canadian artist Myriam Dion cuts incredibly intricate patterns into old copies of newspapers, creating beautiful, lace-like artworks. I can't even fathom the combination of vision, patience and talent this must require.

Seen via

Kindness craft project - 124 birds

There are only 124 Kakapo birds left in the world. Native to New Zealand, the Kakapo is the world's heaviest, flightless parrot, and it is critically endangered. There are so few birds that every Kakapo has a name. To me, 124 sounds like an almost impossibly-small number. But it is actually a wonderful improvement: in the 1970s, there were only 18 birds.

To celebrate the recovery of the Kakapos from near-extinction, as well as the resilience and unity of the people of Christchurch, New Zealand, after the devastating earthquakes they have suffered, Melbourne-based "guerilla kindness" artist Sayraphim Lothian is planning a unique public art project in March.

"I will travel to Christchurch to install a number of soft sculpture Kakapos around the city. These birds are then left for the people to find and move, hide, remove, adopt or throw away," she says.

The project, called Journey - The Kakapo of Christchurch, is about "recovering communities, helping hands, and of being surprised by joy."

Sayraphim contacted Kakapo Recovery, a conservation group organisation dedicated to saving the Kakapos from extinction, to tell them about her project. "Wouldn't it be great," they said, "if you made 124 of them, one for each Kakapo alive today?"

So that's what she is going to do. Sayraphim will spend the next two months making 124 Kakapos, then leave them for the people of Christchurch to find. "Part participatory art project, part game, part scavenger hunt and part social media check in, Journey invites people to get involved with an art project on a very personal level," she explains.

The two-week art installation will also be supported by free craft workshops on two weekends.

Sayraphim has launched a Pozible project to raise the funds she needs for bird-making materials, flights, accommodation, publicity, and materials for the free craft workshops. If you'd like to take a look or help her out, go here (there are some pretty special rewards for people who donate, too).

ps. If Sayraphim's name sounds familiar, that's because I featured another of her "guerilla kindness" projects in Melbourne here.

Twirl

Every time I see gifs done well, I think of the moving photographs in Harry Potter, and how maybe we're a little bit closer to magic now. I love this spinning, twirling Japanese tumblr site. Actually I'm feeling a little bit motion-sick, but I still love it. (First found via Happiness Is).

Cabin fever

(Alt. title: Five Toddler-Friendly Activities for Surviving a Heatwave) Because taking about the weather is where it's at, right? It was hot in Melbourne last week. Really, really hot. Like, 40+ every day (except Monday, which was a measly 34 degrees. Pshaw, I laugh in the face of 34 degrees).

We are lucky that our new house has AC in some rooms, so we shut the doors and pulled the curtains and stayed indoors for the week. And, hey, we didn't die of heat exhaustion, but after a few days locked in a house with a not-really-one-to-stay-home grown-up, a toddler, and a newborn, the cabin fever very nearly finished us off. At one point, Madeleine was reduced to amusing herself and letting out energy by running up and down the house at top speed (which admittedly isn't that fast), yelling. She'd start at the front door, calling out "AAAAAAAAAAAAH!" punctuated by the thump-thump-thump of her chubby little legs, until she reached the back door. "More?" she'd eagerly question me for permission, and then when I said OK she'd race off again to the front door: "AAAAAAAAAAAAH!" At that point I realised I'd better get creative with the indoor activities.

So, shamelessly ripping off the idea from this post on the lovely blog Rockstar Diaries, here are five things we did indoors to make it through the heatwave with our sanity intact.

Day 1. Baking banana muffins

The bananas in our fruit bowl were no match for 40+ degrees, and became overripe overnight. I'm not normally a banana bread or banana muffins kind of person, but needs must. I adapted a banana bread recipe from Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion, and Madeleine and I got down to business while Emily cuddled Harry for us. It must be a super-forgiving recipe because what with the distractions of cooking with an 18-month-old, I made all kinds of mistakes, like forgetting to add key ingredients until much later, not softening the butter, and getting my measurements wrong. Admittedly the muffins didn't rise the way you'd normally want muffins to rise so they weren't all that pretty, but they were absolutely delicious: super moist, very bananary (you are allowed to make up words during heatwaves), and not too sweet. Let me know if you want the recipe and I'll be happy to send it to you.

Day 2. Busting out the new toys

Madeleine got so many toys for Christmas that I kept some of them hidden for "rotation purposes" to make room in our playroom and keep her entertained. As we started to run out of distractions, I busted out some of those new toys. A simple but effective winner was an alphabet of magnets given to her by her little friend Alice.

Day 3. Finger painting

This activity was a BIG winner for about half an hour, until Harry decided (in no uncertain terms) that it was time for a breast-feed. But that would have left me unable to actively supervise Madeleine. The thought of my little girl, covered in paint from head to toe, choosing to leave her little table and roaming the house with paint-covered finger-tips at the ready, was more than I wanted to imagine. So we had to abort this activity earlier than she would have liked, and let's just say peace did not reign in our house that morning.

Day 4. Pretending to be pets

One of Madeleine's favourite indoor games is to chase the dog, get the dog to chase her, and mimic the dog's behaviour. She pants, she sits, she rolls over, she begs. It's not classy, I know, and I probably won't be winning any World's Best Mother awards for letting her do this. But it makes my daughter SO HAPPY to play Being a Dog. She loves that puppy so, so much.

Day 5. Bed-sheet forts

Madeleine REALLY LOVED this fort. We played a lot of hide-and-seek, we had a tea party with Peppa Pig and Baby Suzy, we tickled baby Harry, chased the dog in and out, and lay on cushions just kissing and cuddling each other. I painted a sign that said "Fort Madeleine" for the front and was quite proud of my efforts, but Madeleine absolutely hated it, crying "No! No!" until I took it down and put it away.

Then the cool change came through on Saturday and we all took a grateful walk to the zoo. How do you guys cope when you're trapped indoors?

ps. Gratuitous cute baby Harry shot. Oh, those dimples! Those fat-folds!

Personalised books for toddlers

Madeleine is at an age when she loves seeing pictures of herself. She flips through the photos in my iPhone like a pro, looking for more pictures of herself and demanding "more! more!" (thankfully there are plenty). So for Christmas I made her a set of seven board books, all starring Madeleine and the people and activities she loves the most. The books are: My parents; My grandparents; My sisters; My cousins; My playtime; My pets; My dress-ups. These are not fancy, beautiful "record of my first year" books (although I'm still planning to make one of those for both of my children - one day!). They are simple, 12-page, hard-wearing board books, designed for a toddler to read and re-read (and drag around a room and throw away in a tantrum and smear with yoghurt).

I chose photographs with content that was meaningful to Madeleine, rather than beautiful and poetic (necessarily). There are blurry iPhone pictures in here, badly composed pictures, and pictures with bad lighting. The point was not aesthetics, but familiarity for her. It was interesting that by the time we gave these to her, three weeks after Harry had been born, she didn't respond as positively as I'd expected to the photos in which she was a baby. It took me a little while to realise she thought she was looking at Harry instead of herself.

Madeleine loves them all, but her favourite books are "My parents" and "My pets." It never gets old, having her open "My parents" in front of me and point to my face on every second page saying, ecstatically, "Mummy!"

I ordered these books from Pinhole Press, the only place I'd seen that made books in cardboard rather than paper (it would take Madeleine about two minutes to utterly destroy a paper book). The website is simple and easy to use, you just drop and drag photographs and type a very simple message / description in the facing page. Don't plan anything too sophisticated and you will love it.

The only real challenge I faced was that after going to all the trouble of making all seven of these books, I got to the end of the order process and found they only delivered to the US or Canada. Even when I emailed to ask if they'd post to me, the answer was "no." Don't you find that strange, in this day and age, that a web-based company won't do international shipping (even if the customer is willing to pay for it)? I'd still recommend them, but if you live elsewhere you'll need to have a friend somewhere in North America who's willing to take delivery and then forward anything you order on to you. (A big thanks to my friend Jacqs who did this for me, and carried Madeleine's books all the way from LA to Melbourne on her holiday!)

What do you think? Have you ever made anything like this?

Snippets

Yesterday morning while I was feeding Harry, Madeleine walked up to me with a smile. She took my face in both her hands and gently kissed me on the lips, twice. Then she crouched down and rested her cheek on the still-nursing Harry. That was a pretty perfect moment.

Here are some other snippets from our lives lately.

~ Blooming beauties in the conservatory in Fitzroy Gardens.

~ Lazy picnic on a summer's afternoon.

~ Captain Cook's house.

~ Little smiles.

~ A girl and her dog.