I won the lottery

Harry has been crying. "What's up little man?" I ask, bending over his cot, and tears instantly transform into an enormous, gummy, open-mouthed smile. "Hoo!" he laughs, "Ahoo!" and I turn my head aside so he can't see me smiling, because it is night-time and all the books say not to engage babies in play during the night, so that they can learn when to sleep.

A frantic scuffling is heard and I turn back around to see Harry now grinning fit to burst, head wiggling from side to side and both legs kicking around like socks in a washing machine. Cotton blankets and muslin wraps are flailing everywhere.

"Now look here, it's 4am," I tell him, though I can't help smiling too. "Ahoo!" Harry responds, never taking his eyes off mine. It is a laugh exactly like his sister's at the same age. I ditch the books and pick him up and cover his dimples with kisses. There is nothing, nothing in this world, like the smell of a baby. They should find a way to bottle it and distribute it and there would be no more war.

"Oh my god," breathes Mr B drowsily from beside me in the bed. We look from Harry to each other and back again, both overcome with wonder. Neither of us can quite believe that we made this chubby, cheeky, loving little boy. It just doesn't seem real that he is ours. That of all the parents in all the world, we and only we get to be his Mummy and Daddy. That the universe has trusted us with the task of loving Harry and protecting Harry and teaching Harry for the rest of our lives.

:  :  :

I am making Madeleine's lunch when she interrupts me and asks to be picked up, little hands reaching, beseeching. I take her into my arms and she rests her head on my shoulder, the way she has done since she was one week old. Then she tilts back until she can look me in the eye. Places a sticky hand on either side of my face and pulls me in for a big, hard, sloppy, on-the-mouth kiss. Then another, and another. Madeleine is kissing me almost fiercely, gripping my ears to make sure I don't get away. As if I would ever want to.

I can't. I can't even. There are no words. What did I do in this life or 100 others that was so good as to earn this reward? To be loved by Madeleine? To be her Mummy? How is that even possible?

:  :  :

Harry is crying again. This time the sun is up and he is wiggling in his rocker in the playroom. He is hungry. But before I get a chance to pick him up and feed him, Madeleine takes control. "Harry!" she cries with glee. She wobbles over and rests her head beside his in the rocker. He stops crying. She stands up and faces him and when their eyes meet, both of them smile at each other. I feel a blast of pure happiness that is almost painful. "Harry! Harry!" Madeleine cries again, and then she twirls and tap-dances around his rocker and around the room, to entertain him. His eyes never leave her.

:  :  :

The house is steeped in rare quiet. Both of my children are asleep upstairs, and so is Mr B. I am alone in the lounge room, reading, and it is surreal and precious and quite beautiful because I am almost never, ever alone these days.

There is a baby monitor in Madeleine's room and it is not emitting a peep. There is another monitor in our room, where Harry sleeps in his cot beside our bed. Through it, I can hear two soft snores in tandem: both Harry and Mr B are dreaming.

A lump forms in my throat and I am so filled with love for these three that it takes me quite by surprise.

I think of all the little things I've been complaining about and dwelling on lately. The kids have both been sick. Mr B has been working a lot of nights, leaving me to handle the dreaded bed-and-bath hour alone. Money is tight, until I can get back to a bit more work. I am tired all the time. Bone tired. An aching, dragging, brain-fog weariness that never lifts. I am approximately three hundred and eighty-four years old. And I look it, too. My body feels like I am pushing through mud just to walk from room to room. I forget almost everything, and confuse the things I do remember. I'm snippy and impatient with Mr B, though he doesn't deserve it.

But on this night, all I can think of is how insanely lucky I am. How those three sleeping upstairs are my FAMILY. I can't quite comprehend how that came to be. This much love. I didn't even think this much love existed.

Absent-mindedly I rub my aching feet, curled under me on the couch. This perfect family, it's like I'm looking in at someone else's life. The realisation that this is MY life and MY family doesn't come easy. I don't feel deserving. Surely someone else would do all this much better than me? I feel like I won the lottery.

What makes you happy?

Take a look at this fabulous street art project about spreading gratitude. It's called "The little things." How it works is that you and I will be able to submit photographs we've taken that represent something we're grateful for. Rain over thirsty grass. A kiss from a baby. Freshly-picked strawberries, still warm from the sun. Then Hailey Bartholomew (of 365 Grateful) will select her favourite photographs, print them out as giant polariods, and post them up all over town to inspire everyone else to stop and think about the little things that make them happy. Lovely, oui?

Hailey has launched a Pozible campaign to fund this project, and she could sure do with your support to help make it happen. Plus, there are some rather nice rewards on offer for everyone that makes a donation (even a little one). You can learn all about The Little Things (and help out if you have the motivation and means) here.

{Photo is from Hailey's Pozible page. First seen via Meet Me At Mikes}

Frozen, melted

Here is how we avoided the heat on the weekend. While Harry and Mr B had nanna-naps together in the bedroom under the air conditioner, Madeleine and I headed out on a mama-daughter date to see Frozen at the movies. This was Madeleine's first movie. She is not even 20 months old and I wasn't sure how well she would cope, so I chose seats next to the aisle just in case. But from the opening credits she was mesmerised. Beautiful snowflakes, twinkling over the oh-so-familiar (to me) Disney palace, had her breathing "Wowww." She laughed, she held her breath, she cried "Weeeeee!" as the characters slid down mountains of snow and ice and sailed through the air. When Princess Anna puckered up to receive a kiss from Prince Hans Madeleine made loud kissing noises herself, to hurry them along.

We didn't need our two seats. Madeleine spent the entire movie on my lap, and it was a perfect cuddle. While never taking her eyes off the screen, she would reach back from time to time to stroke my face or hair, or find my hand in the dark and hold it. When the scary snow-monster began roaring, she turned her body around to face me so I could cuddle her tightly, but the draw of the movie was too much. Little hands wrapped tightly around my neck, she insisted on twisting her head back around to continue watching.

As we walked out of the theatre, hand in hand, I asked Madeleine if she had enjoyed the movie. "More?" she asked. "More? More? More?"

It is simple, silly things like this that make my heart swell and make me so happy to be a mother. I absolutely loved my afternoon with my daughter, introducing her to something that for most of us is so ordinary - a movie - yet to her was nothing short of pure magic. I felt a crazy sort of pride walking out of that theatre with Madeleine, a kind of "I'm with her" Entourage moment that had no grounding in logic and was all heart.

When we arrived home, Harry and Mr B were still asleep. We sneaked upstairs and Madeleine jumped on her father and covered him with kisses to wake him up. I picked up Harry, who had woken with a jolt from all the noise, and he gave me his sweet, soft, old-soul grin that never fails to put a lump in my throat. He smelled amazing. I kissed him and kissed him. I could kiss those chubby cheeks forever.

(Oh and the best part? Nobody had told Madeleine about popcorn or choc-tops, so she was content to sit through an entire movie munching on an apple.)

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!

Love multiplied

I have been writing this post for a long time, in my head. In the shower, mostly, because there just hasn't been time to sit down at the computer before now, and sometimes during the small, dark hours of the night while I nurse the hungry miracle in my arms and try to keep my head from nodding forward onto my chest. I have been struggling to come to terms with the great, weighty bundle of hormone-laden emotions that settled like wet cement over my head and shoulders the night Harry was born.

They are not all bad emotions. Not even close. There is wonder, all over again, despite the chaos. The second child misses out on all those months of pregnancy during which you stop and think "Oh my goodness, there is something alive in me!" because most of the time you are too busy running around after the first child to even remember you are pregnant. (Seriously, more than once I stopped in the street and thought "Gee my stomach is upset" before I remembered I was pregnant and that was the baby kicking.) But when you push and sweat and strain and sob and laugh that child into Planet Earth and life itself, and you hold him on your chest and he looks you smack bang in the eyes with his own big blue eyes that are so much like his father's, well, there is no emotion other than WOW. Wow, which is shorthand for love and pride and wonder.

But strange to say there is grief as well, and guilt over the grief.

Let's visit Day Two of Harry's little life. The perfume of hothouse lilies is heavy in the air of our hospital room and as my perfect boy sleeps blissfully, peacefully, arms above his head and tiny fingers curled into tiny little fists, I hold my still-swollen belly and sob. I am grieving the loss of my other baby, my baby girl who, it seemed, got big the instant Harry was born. I mourn the loss of our special little twosome, that exclusive team we built and nurtured between ourselves during the past 18 months. We will never be this tight little unit again, me and Madeleine, and already I miss her.

The next morning when Madeleine comes to visit us in the hospital, she positively bounces through the door, gloriously resilient. All my fears of her being jealous of her little brother, or anxious and confused at the absence of her mother, dissipate. Madeleine's internal world is healthy and well, while mine spirals into sadness and guilt.

Guilt because of course the emotion of grief is phenomenally unfair on Harry. Harry was wanted, longed for, dreamed of, and is and will be joyously celebrated. He is so quiet, sleeping beside me in that lonely hospital room. Unaware, thankfully, that his mother is quietly weeping into her pillow.

About a month before Harry was born my friend Ingrid sent me a cartoon of a mother with a hoard of little children around her legs. Another woman asked, "How do you divide your love among so many?" And the mother replied "I don't divide my love, it multiplies." I held on to that concept. How beautiful it was! Love, multiplied! And it did a lot to allay the fears I had secretly nurtured: "How will it ever be possible to love anyone as much as I love Madeleine?"

The night Harry was born I learned the truth of that cartoon. MY CHILD. MY OWN LITTLE MAN. Instantly, my love doubled. Just like that. It was so easy to love him, with his little old man Grandpa Smurf face and his snub nose and the way he loved nothing more to snuggle right under my chin.

Back to me in the hospital the next day. I'm physically depleted. I'm drenched in hormones. I'm in love with my new son. I'm grieving the loss of one-on-one time with Madeleine. I'm feeling guilty about the grief I have over Madeleine, on behalf of Harry, who deserves not only my love but my joy. So there is grief causing guilt and guilt feeding grief. There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza. It's exhausting! The nurses call it Day Three Blues. In my case, it lasted about three weeks.

A few days after we get home from hospital, Mr B minds Harry for an hour while Madeleine and I go up to a cafe by ourselves for a drink and a little bit of cake. It's a bit of a big deal. We brush our hair and I put on lip gloss. She cuddles on my lap and we share a vanilla slice, and I simply cannot stop smelling the top of her head and kissing her. We laugh, take selfies, sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. That hour is a tonic. When we return home I am in tears again, but they are happy tears, and I gather my boy into my arms and smell the too-delicious top of his head and kiss him, too.

The December days steamroll into Christmas and New Year and guests in our home every day and nights of nursing and hiccups and back-patting and floor-pacing, and somewhere, amid the yawns and tears and presents and feasts, Madeleine and I inch our way back to our very special us while Harry and I begin to build our own unique and beautiful us.

Then one summer's afternoon, Madeleine toddles over to a sleeping Harry and rests her cheek on his, smiling. And just like that, we are the family I had always wanted to be. We are the "love multiplied" family. Turns out we always had been.

The hormones remain. The sleep deprivation continues. I still have no idea how to keep both of my children happy in practical terms, especially at meal and bath times. But that will come, with time. And in that moment as Madeleine holds her little brother gently in her arms, my grief and guilt melt away.

Harry

Our sweet little boy Harry was born last Friday, and already my heart has doubled. He has a duck-down fuzz of hair covering his little head, and a scrunched-up, little-old-man expression that just melts me. (Everyone who knows Mr B says, "Now we know what you will look like when you're 90). Harry came into the world so quickly, and in such calm, that we barely had time to adjust. I went from five centimetres dilated to 10 in half an hour, and there was only another half-hour from the time they said "start pushing" to the time he was in my arms. In between pushing, I was laughing! Mostly from delirium: we'd been so busy this year that I'd hardly had a moment in my pregnancy to come to terms with what that meant. Maybe I'd been sub-consciously relying on a drawn-out delivery to get my head around what was happening to our lives.

It almost felt unfair to Harry. As if something as momentous as his birth should be accompanied by more build-up, more drama, more fanfare, than slightly hysterical giggles and a few big pushes. But before I knew it there he was, head and shoulders, and the midwives were saying, "You pull him out." And I thought "You must be joking" but it wasn't the moment to split hairs so I did as I was told, and the next moment he was snuggled onto my chest, pink and perfect with barely a whimper.

Madeleine, by contrast, had entered the world like a tempest. She cost me every last ounce of energy I had inside me to bring her to us, and months of pain in the aftermath (though I know others have had it far worse), and she was NOT happy about this birth gig. Eyes wide open, bottom lip protruding, she bawled her dissatisfaction at everyone in the room. And she has been stormy ever since, frequently swinging from delight to despair and back again in the space of a minute.

I've barely heard Harry cry yet, though only time will tell if that's his temperament or just an adjustment period. The most he has given me so far is a squeaky kind of grizzle, one that's easily fixed by milk or a cuddle (or both).

And that is where both my children are the same: they love to snuggle. Don't all babies? But it is just the BEST THING for a mother to feel her babies go calm as soon as they are in her arms, to smell their perfect little heads, to breathe in and fill her soul with love.

To anticipate life with Madeleine AND Harry in it... well, I know it's a cliche but I'm pretty sure that makes me just about the luckiest person in the whole world.

These precious days

This little girl. She is a champion. We have put her through so much change lately, and she has tackled it all with grace and cuddles and laughter and trust. Every morning, she and I sit side by side on the little step outside her room that leads into the bathroom, and brush our teeth in tandem.

When we go for walks, she cannot pass a particular daisy bush a block or so from our house without picking a flower, which she then gives to me.

Little hands reach up for me and big, blue eyes beseech. When I lift her into my arms, she lovingly pats and strokes my shoulder, just as if I am the one needing comfort and reassurance, and she is the old soul. Which is frequently true.

She can push her baby doll in her toy pram for six blocks, even with hills. She likes to paint with a brush in each hand. She drinks unsweetened herbal tea. Balloons and bubbles are pronounced the same way: “Baloobaloobaloo!” Not to be confused with flower, which is pronounced “Faloolooloo!”

When you ask her what sound a dog makes, she sticks her tongue out and pants. Cats make a sound kind of like a siren (which, if you’d met our cat, you’d know is annoyingly accurate). Ducks say “quack” with gusto but, then, apparently all birds say “quack.”

After breakfast this morning Madeleine figured out how to climb onto the old chair where the dog likes to sleep, and rested her head on his belly with glee. The poor puppy will never know peace again.

When her dad and I kiss, she grins and pushes our faces into each other to make us kiss again. (At other times she tries to make me kiss other people, which can be socially awkward, like that time she tried to make me pash the owner of a local café. I’m not kidding. He was disconcerted to say the least.)

Madeleine is learning to sleep in her own cot instead of our bed, and she is doing incredibly well. She is getting so much more sleep and is so much happier during the day, it warms my heart to know I’ve been brave enough and tough enough to give her this gift. Because it is HARD, and I really miss her snuggles at night.

When she wakes up in the morning we tell her we are so proud that she slept in her cot, and she gets to pick one (colourful, puffy, glitter) sticker and put it on the “Hooray for Madeleine” poster that I made for her door. She loves this, carefully choosing a sticker each day and placing it on the poster all by herself.

First thing in the morning and last thing in the evening she likes to sit on my lap in an arm chair and just relax. She reaches her arm up behind her and gently strokes my hair. Then she turns around and wraps both arms tightly around my neck, planting big sloppy kisses on my face with an open mouth.

I love her so intensely. I am really looking forward to seeing her become a big sister, and to knowing this love all over again with little Baby B2. But these precious days of just me and Madeleine. Oh, I am the luckiest mama in the world.

Bare feet

I had planned to bring you a Father's Day post today. I am truly blessed to have not only an amazing dad who (with my equally-amazing mum) gave me a wonderful childhood, but also a husband who is such an incredible father that he inspired I-don't-want-kids me to enter parenthood! That post is still to come. But today, I just couldn't resist bringing you this little barefoot angel. Sometimes (about two or three times a week), Mr B asks me, "Can you believe this is your life?"

He asks it when my baby throws herself backwards and upside-down into my lap and dissolves into giggles. He asks it when I slump in a chair, exhausted, wearing daggy maternity jeans from Target, stains on my shirt, and with hair looking like I've been dragged through a hedge backward. He asks it when my little girl throws a tantrum because I won't let her put her hand in the orange juice.

Then Mr B says, "When I met you in New York, you conned me!" He says this because when we met in New York I was single and fancy-free and had nice clothes and nice shoes and we had one of those first-date conversations during which you quiz one another about everything. Mr B quizzed me about children and I said "I love children but I don't want to be a mum."

I meant it. Really I did.

Last year I wrote about what changed my mind. If you're curious, you can read about it here. A week after I wrote that post, Madeleine was born.

Oh, Madeleine!

She is light and shadow.

She is willful, affectionate, funny, passionate, clever and loving.

When I carry Madeleine into the bedroom at night, she wraps her arms around my head and kisses me all over my face. When I tell her not to let the dog lick her food, she lets out a screech and tries to bang her head on the floor in fury. When I call "Bath time!" she bursts into giggles and runs away as fast as her chubby little legs will carry her. In the darkest hours of the night she wakes up and nothing - nothing - will calm her but to snuggle down in between us. If she finds one of her dad's dirty socks, nothing pleases her more than to place the sock on my knee and hear me say "Disgusting! Get it away!"

Today was the first day of spring, and the weather celebrated. There was a wind, but it was soft, balmy and floral. And for the first day in more months than I can remember, Madeleine went barefoot in the park. And for the first time in her life, she ran barefoot in the park.

Joy in my life, these days, is  bare feet. Chubby baby toes in cool green grass. It's watching Madeleine's dress billow behind her in the wind as she races, arms akimbo, toward the playground. It's shadows lengthening and sunlight, golden on my baby's eyelashes.

It's funny how life never ceases to tumble you into the unexpected, isn't it. I never would have expected motherhood to be part of my world. Yet as I type, Madeleine is sleeping beautifully in her cot after her energetic day in the wind and grass. Baby B2 is growing, waiting, dreaming, inside me.

Beside me on the couch, Mr B just pulled out his passport to make a visa application for a trip to China later this year. He is looking over all the old stamps, awash in nostalgia. Santiago. Heathrow. Addis Ababa. Rio. Seoul. Los Angeles. And so it goes. Once upon a time (for 10 years or so), Mr B travelled overseas for more than nine months of each year. Even after we met and he had left that job, he was off somewhere new in the world every few months, and travelling interstate every other week. I've talked before about how, when I came home from New York, we moved and moved and moved again, six interstate moves in just 18 months. I don't think Mr B could ever have imagined being as settled as we are now. Buying a house, renovating it, looking at schools for our children. Watching the Masterchef finale on TV (yay Emma!).

Life, you funny old trickster. I wonder what is in store next.

Long distance love

This little "Roshambo" mini-series from Free People reminds me of Mr B and me when we first met, and it has me feeling all nostalgic. Of course we were neither so good-looking nor glamorous nor well dressed as these two, but I know what it feels like to be living a Grand Adventure while your heart is elsewhere. Mr B and I met in New York. I had just moved there, he was visiting on a conference. It was a beautiful, brief romance, and that scene at the end of the first Roshambo video where the guy hops into a taxi... oh so heartbreaking and familiar!

Two days after our own 'taxi scene', I had an email from Mr B saying he wasn't going to let a little thing like thousands of kilometres get in the way of what could be something good. And so started a year-and-a-half of long-distance love.

I went to Peru, but I thought about him. He went to Dubai, but he thought about me. We met up for holidays together in Fiji, in London, in Australia, in New York.

And in between the travel and the longing we just had to get on with our own lives, his in Queensland and mine in New York. There comes a point, when you're in a long distance relationship, when you just have to let go and let yourself be in the moment wherever you are. If you constantly pine for the other person, you never open your eyes to the world in front of you. That's something in the second video that I really related to.

Anyway, this is a fun, romantic little mini-series if you're in the mood for some light entertainment. Plus, I have to give props to Free People for such a creative way to showcase their latest collection. And it's working, too. I want to wear ALL THE CLOTHES.

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).