amor mexico

This Sunday, my oldest friend Rachael came down to stay, the first time she’s slept over at my house since sometime in high school. She lives two hours away now and we don’t see each other often, but whenever we do it’s like it was when she lived around the corner from me when we were four years old, and we ate candy and watched tv and didn’t talk about boys because Teach was in the room, but we would have, believe me. Anyway, so we’re vegetarian and she is most definitely not, and one of the easiest places to deal with such situations is a good Tex-Mex joint. Not too far away from us in Forest Hill is Amor Mexico, a cheerful bright place with stellar service and good food, and they note on the menu that they’re happy to adapt food for allergies, and they mean it. This is only the second time we’ve been there, and they already remembered the Rocket and didn’t bat an eyelid when I ordered the vegetarian La Combinacion without any cheese.

There’s a little dedicated corner with some Duplo, books and toys, and they brought the Rocket a jar of pencils and a page to colour while she was waiting. (In that picture above, she’s not bored, just concentrating real hard.) She had rice and part of an enchilada for dinner, then sat quietly on the floor letting us completely ignore her while the rest of us finished our food. And it’s good, hearty fare, lotsa frijoles and hard-shell tacos and rice and, well, you know the drill. Like last time, I ordered the strawberry virgin margarita and made everyone jealous because it is DELICIOUS.

It’s made it swiftly onto my list of Nearby Restaurants To Take Friends (along with Vegie Hut and basically nowhere else in the eastern suburbs), because I love hanging out with friendly people and they are the friendliest, and they give out free corn chips with salsa when you arrive. Not even my favourite friends do that. NOT YET, ANYWAY, RIGHT GUYS? *pointed glare*

 

Amor Mexico

13 Mahoneys Rd

Forest Hill

ph: 9878 9508

website

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marie wallace reserve

Pre-Rocket, I don’t think I would have given any thought to parks. If anything, I was probably a bit annoyed at them for taking up precious space that could be used to build a block of units that then I could buy for, say, $200,000. Instead, here were these ridiculous places with swings, and they weren’t vital to my pre-Rocket state so why don’t we just knock them all down? Anyway, this is why I am not in politics, and boy am I now grateful for parks. All the parks. Parks everywhere, yet still not enough. Could there be more parks? I mean, I have to walk like four houses down before I get to my nearest park. Couldn’t there be one next door?

I’ve mentioned Playground Finder before, a ridiculously useful resource for finding parks near you or near where you’re going. But still I miss them, until someone points them out. Finding a new place to go is a delight, and I don’t mind driving a bit to get to a really good one. The other day my dear friend S, who has very selfishly moved all the way to Upwey and who I did not make the most out of during the brief time we lived within walking distance of each other, suggested we catch up at a park between both of us. Usually we just meet at Knox City, because there is an abundance of coffee and the park has a fence so the kids cannot escape, but it was going to be a nice day so she suggested Marie Wallace Reserve in Bayswater, or The Train Park as it is also known because there is an actual life-size steam train in it. Sorry Marie, I’m sure you were super ace, but kids will only remember this train, as will I probably too because I can barely remember the names of other parents I meet even as I accurately remember their children. (Sorry other parents too, while I’m already apologising.)

S and her kids, newborn Z and the Rocket’s beloved best friend W, caught the train (which we could have done too, but I had the car and am lazy) and the two two-year-olds threw themselves at each other in delight upon meeting and then explored the park. And it’s ace! The train can be climbed on, there is a pretend platform, a smaller wooden train with levers to get into arguments over, and the rest of the park is an adventure playground type setup with ramps and things and slides and climbing walls and all sorts of things. There are swings that spin and there’s a giant sandpit and really, I was very impressed and would return, even if I felt slightly disoriented because I grew up in that end of town and had actually been to that park before, for netball training in 1995. Which then made me feel a bit old, but also a bit young again.

Before I get too involved in waffling on about my Lost Youth and other insufferable things, I will just cut that off there and say this was an excellent park, A+ would visit again, especially when we work out which place nearby has decent coffee. While trying unsuccessfully to find a website for this park, I discovered that there are hopeful plans in the works to put a cafe on site, in which case I will be back ALL THE TIME.

Marie Wallace Park

cnr Mountain Hwy and King St (parking for the playground is off King St)

Bayswater

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rocket goes to the dentist

Not actually from our dentist day, but a sufficiently toothy smile captured on camera by my friend Sarah.

A few months ago we got a letter in the mail from some part of the government (Centrelink? Department of Health? Ministry of Magic?) that offered free dentist visits for your two-year-old. I can’t remember if it was a particular amount of visits or if it was a particular amount of money, because we are children whose filing system is “throw it on the kitchen bench”, but either way we thought it about time to ship the Rocket off to get her fangs checked out, especially as everywhere we take her people are desperate to give her free candy.

Looking up toddler dentist visits online brought up some interesting info. Notes that seemed quite helpful suggested you play dentist with your kid, counting each others’ teeth, so we embarked on that immediately and it was quite fun. The internet also suggested things not to say to your child, like “It probably won’t hurt,” or “They shouldn’t have to use a needle” and the like. As it pointed out, those are your fears; your kid has no concept of them. The Rocket’s such a little ball of health we haven’t even had to take her to the doctor her whole life for anything but checkups, so she’s never been prodded by a doctor (though she has tantrumed at a Maternal Health Nurse who tried to measure how long she was.) She doesn’t know the dentist is a place for anything but a box full of toys we play with when picking Teach up from getting wisdom teeth out. So we just said the nice dentist would count her teeth and check they were healthy and that hopefully they wouldn’t notice we gave her a sip of Coke at the movies the other day like the A+ parents we are.

So she turned up cheerfully at the dentist and everyone greeted her with enthusiasm and in she went into the consult room. She sat on Teach’s knee as we waited, and we pointed out all the things in the room – cups of blue liquid, sinks, a moving rocket chair, lots of gadgets for looking at teeth, gloves and things. She was interested and fearless, but desperate to consume some mouthwash.

In came her dentist, Dr Waple, who is a bit handsome and rockstaresque as far as dentists go (though, in case you are wondering, he is Teach’s dentist – I pick mine based on names now after having childhood success with Dr Blase, aka Dr Whatever; my newest, I kid you not, I picked out of the phone book because his name was Dr Blood). He complimented her on her dress and was very relaxed and jokey; she smiled at him immediately. He showed her the little tooth-counting mirror, counted her teeth up to twenty, then told her she did a great job and gave her a pink balloon with a tooth superhero on it. And that was it. We didn’t even have to pay anything. The dentist explained that they like to start their dental experiences like that so kids have immediate good associations with them. And hell, it left us happy with them too; now we go back in another few months for a more thorough checkup. And I suppose, to demonstrate good dental care, we should book ourselves in too. Dammit.

 

This probably happens at every dentist, but ours is lovely, so here: Balwyn Dental Group

375 Whitehorse Rd, Balwyn

9836 3247

website

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the dummy fairy comes to town

So, the Rocket’s birth was not a fun experience for anyone involved, really. I still remember squatting in the small hospital pool that I was hoping to have a water birth in, almost chewing the side of it in pain and panic and wailing, “This is never going to end!” It did (obviously), with the help of a friendly doctor and a glinting pair of forceps, and there she was: my little Rocket, bright pink and wrinkly and, thankfully, not particularly fussed about all the work put into getting her out into the world. But then she didn’t sleep. Not at all, not for three days. Little bits here and there in someone’s arms. A couple of minutes when she was swaddled in blankets and put in a crib. I lay there on my hospital bed, worried and bone-achingly tired from the birth and the feeding and then this little baby not sleeping like those other quiet little babies in the ward, and I didn’t know what to do. Everyone tried holding her. I fed her almost constantly and expressed tiny drops of colostrum into a syringe for her. A pediatrician was called on the second day and gave her some baby Panadol, or something, in case the forceps had given her a headache. Nothing worked. Teach asked a doctor, “Should we try a dummy?” and the doctor shrugged and said, “Maybe?” So off Teach went and bought some. And the Rocket did not sleep, but she stopped crying. And so did I.

What’s ridiculous about this, of course, is that I am trying to justify my use of the dummy. As if I am waiting for you to pat me on the head and say, “It’s fine! You had to use it. It was basically a medical necessity. The world would have literally ended without you using it.” Because I hadn’t wanted to give the Rocket a dummy; we didn’t have any back at home. We were unprepared. God, we were unprepared for everything about that first week. Month. Year. Anyway.

Yet I never had any judgement on anyone else using them, before or after I had a kid of my own. They always seemed like a pretty handy idea, right? Then what’s the big deal? The big deal as per fucking usual is my own stupid head, making me insecure about using it, giving me unhelpful thoughts like: Are people going to judge me for using it? Will they criticise me behind my back? Will she have enormous dental problems from two months old? Will I realise one day that no one actually cares about what I’m doing except for me? (Apparently not.)

I remember that first time the dummy came out in my mothers group meeting, at the health centre. It might have been the second meeting, maybe the third. There was about nineteen mothers, twenty babies, and a handful of grandmothers, and we were all dressed up to impress each other, our kids were all freshly laundered, some asleep, some yelling, some feeding. Then one mother finally caved and gave their kid the dummy they were yelling about, and then about another six of us immediately, gratefully, reached into our nappy bags and brought ours out too. I wish I could remember who that first mother was, but I don’t; I just remember being so happy that it wasn’t only us who used them.

I’m not here to produce articles on whether they are bad or good for you. I am here to say, like I always want to say: you are a good parent. You’re doing fine. Gosh, your kid loves you. Dummies, no dummies, a kid who refuses dummies even though you desperately wish they wouldn’t; it’s fine. You’re fine. High five the computer screen right now just like I am. Go team caregivers! WHOO!

Anyway, one day this dummy business did all have to end, and we decided it would be last week for some unfathomable reason (yet again, past Fiona is just the worst.) There are a few good ideas out there for getting rid of dummies. Santa accepts them for extra presents, I’ve heard. One friend suggested your kid can take it to Build-a-Bear and shove the dummy in with the stuffing, creating a new, cuddly comforter to have in bed with you. We went for what I recall was my friend Sally’s idea: you give your dummies to the Dummy Fairy, who takes your (disgusting, chewed, fluff-covered) dummies to the little helpless babies that need them, and rewards you with gifts. Bribery! It’s one of my favourite things as a parent. As per Sally’s suggestion, we invested in a ‘Lil Fairy Door. You can pick these up at markets and online; if you are a Last Minute Lisa like me, you can also get them at Adairs Kids, though fair warning, they are EXPENSIVE. Because we’d already hyped it up and needed to buy it to continue with the enthusiasm, I shelled out the fifty (!) dollars for it, but if you are a Prepared Penelope then by all means look around. (And no criticism to Adairs, who need to make profits and stuff, but I could have just bought six years worth of dummies instead.)

We had been talking about said fairy for a while now. When she started to tell other people we knew it had sunk in a little, so we kicked it up a notch. “Rocket, what does the fairy take?” “Dummies!” “And what would you like her to leave for you as a present?” “MORE DUMMIES!” (Little smarty pants.) We eventually sold her on the idea when she realised her parents were good for just about anything to get this done and that she wanted a Sylvanian Families house to go with her figurines – other people have bought fairy wings, which also seems lovely. So we get home from the shops last Thursday and Teach snuck off into her room and then was heard exclaiming, “Oh my gosh! Rocket! Something’s in your ROOM!” So we went to investigate and YOU GUYS, there was a DOOR, right there on the wall, all covered in glitter. We knew right away what was up so we collected the dummies and put them on a plate, adding a few pieces of Pocky (her father thought this was a generous idea), sprinkling everything with fairy dust to let the fairy know to come out, and adding pictures we all drew of what the fairy looked like. (Despite my best efforts against it as my least favourite colour, apparently she is pink from dress to eyes, though has blue hair.) We put her to sleep with much excitement at eight o’clock, waited until she actually fell asleep without her dummy at twenty past ten (bleurgh), and then assisted the fairy by removing the dummies, pictures and snacks (sadly the Pocky had been excitedly covered in too much glitter for consumption) and quietly swapping them for this house.

Happily, she slept solidly all night woke up around 6:30 – her usual wake up time is probably around 7, when we get up – and without further ado we got her up and exclaimed “Whoa, look what happened!”, whereupon the Rocket promptly saw her dummies gone, threw herself on the ground and wailed. Once we’d talked her down and pointed out the house, she sniffled her way over to it and then suddenly realised it was really real and really hers, and she has played with it obsessively ever since.

Sleeping has not been easy these past five days. Her day sleeps used to be super easy – throw her down, say “See ya!” and she was out – now it takes at least half an hour, if at all. Last night, again, it was after ten o’clock before she went to sleep; on Sunday, when she didn’t have a daytime sleep at all, we put her down at eight and BAM she was asleep. Still I will fight for these day naps; I need them to remain human. Part of me wonders why I made it so hard for myself by doing it now, and not later when she might have been easier to convince; part of me guesses it’ll be hard no matter when it happens. All I know is that the fairy’s door left us on Sunday, but the very kind fairy (who had a gift voucher) left her a book about dinosaurs going to sleep with a ribbon tied around it, and one day, instead of never sleeping, she will be a moody teenager who sleeps all the time, and I will look back at this post and sigh.

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sydney with the rocket: day 3

Oh yes, that’s right, I was in Sydney a while ago, wasn’t I? I guess I should probably finish writing that up, huh? Good idea, self.

We left our luggage at the hotel in the morning and went off to finally explore some of the more touristy parts of town. First stop, predictably, was Circular Quay; we’d been given some sage advice to take a commuter ferry for a trip instead of a tourist one. We caught one to Darling Harbour and the prices were pretty reasonable at about six dollars each for us grown-ups. The Rocket was unimpressed by the wind but thrilled by the fact that we were actually on a boat – her first non-rowboat experience – so she managed to sit at the back* of the boat with us for a decent amount of our half-hour-ish trip. And let’s face it, the reason everyone bangs on so much about ferries and Sydney Harbour is because is is BEAUTIFUL. It really is. That lapping blue water, the majestic bridge, that tingle when you see the Opera House (just like in the movies, right?), realising properly that you are in another place, and one that slaps Melbourne’s water experience right on the cheek. If you are in Sydney, take a ferry. I wish we’d gone on one every day.

So off we went to Darling Harbour. There’s a maritime museum over the other side of the harbour that looks really interesting – ships and submarines and all types of things that you can climb on – and it went on my list of “what to do here next time, and make sure there’s a next time, punk”. We ambled along the wharf, looking at the restaurants indecisively, passing Madame Tussaud’s and a zoo and an aquarium, wishing the Rocket was older and we had an endless stretch of days ahead of us to do all these things. (There’s even a “9D” movie experience, yup.) As it was, off we went along the bridge and around Sydney’s streets until we got to Westfield Centrepoint, where we came over desperately hungry for lunch, completely unable to find a food court, and so ate at Caffe Contessa, a little European-type bistro located at the end of an escalator. There wasn’t much on offer for me, but it was a very cute little cafe and I could just have toast; the service turned out to be super-friendly and helpful and I ended up with another vegan staple, the bruschetta, while Teach ordered some cheese melty thing and the Rocket got toast with jam. Turns out, it was delicious. I mean, it was bread and tomatoes and olive oil – but they got it right, and I am always having bruschetta at crap restaurants with nothing else to offer. Having said that, after we were full and happy and paid up, we took another escalator up and lo and behold there was the motherflipping food court and it was HUGE and it had EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD to eat, including an Iku which I had been desperate to try. Anyway, we laughed, we sulked, and carried on to the Sydney Tower, Sydney’s tallest building and Australia’s third-tallest building. We paid our exorbitant fee to go up the Tower, attempted the 4D movie about Sydney with flying and flames and a vibrating floor (the Rocket noped her way out of that almost immediately, but I stayed because awww yeah 4D movies), then went up a lift and bam, tall building.

I don’t know what she was shushing up here. Probably me saying, “Smile, kiddo! Smile! Smile! Pose! No, this way!”

Melbourne wins this round. Sydney Tower is fine, but maybe needs a little updating; Eureka Tower is much more glossy, and sells coffee. It was nice to look out imperially over the little people down there on the ground, and to try and get my bearings, which I couldn’t because I am hopeless at directions (chicks, amirite? Haha etc) and I always love a tower, but it wasn’t very high and I was a little underwhelmed. I mean, it wasn’t a boat, that’s for sure.

We considered taking the train back to the hotel, but really, we just wanted to walk some more, slowly down those streets one last time, poking around the stores and just enjoying being elsewhere, you know?

The Rocket didn’t manage to get in a nap, and maintained excitement levels all day long and all through our train trip to the airport and the long wait for our flight, and after a little impatience at boarding (argh! boarding) she was thrilled and happy again to be on a plane, even in the darkness that fell as we flew interstate. Then finding our car, and driving home, tired, happy, with a toddler that was, mostly, a total peach for our trip, and a city that was absolutely perfect. Thanks, Sydney – you’re ace. x

 

* Teach and I spent a minute or so trying to figure out what the back of a boat is called. “The stern? Or the bow. No, the bow’s the front. Wait. Is it the aft?” So let’s assume you don’t know either, and let’s stick with “back”.

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bendigo without the rocket

Having a kid changes your life in many ways (for example, today I am Sick, but instead of calling off work and lazing around drinking water and watching daytime soap operas, I am still fielding questions and insistent requests for playing and having to fend off the Rocket from kissing me so she doesn’t get sick too, which makes her cry) but one of the ways I didn’t expect was that sudden urge to make the most of my spare time made me – and this sounds vain – actually a little bit more interesting. As dithering late-twentysomethings, Teach and I had our jobs and each other and our insular creative pursuits, then we had a baby and, I guess, to remind ourselves that we were things other than parents and job-holders, we started to find other outlets. Teach joined a band, was shortlisted for an award for a comic he drew, and has just sent off the final file for his full-length graphic novel to the printers to publish. I have my podcast, I joined a book club full of pretty cool folks, and found myself part of ACWA, which handles the Ned Kelly Awards for Australian crime writing. After months of emails and demands and panic-flailing, this weekend saw the announcement of the shortlist the committee and the judges had worked hard to put together, two hours away at the Bendigo Writers Festival. Teach suggested I take myself off on the train to attend the shortlist announcement on the Saturday night and get a visit in with my very oldest friend, Rachael, who lives up there. I said no at first, because it’s what I do, and the idea of spending my first night away from my daughter was pretty overwhelming. Then I thought more about being there to see the finished product of the shortlist, and spending time with the first friend I’d ever made on my own, and then the Rocket spent a whole day annoying me and I was all: I’M IN, LET’S GO.

The train ride took around an hour and fifty minutes; in that time, I played with my phone, read a book, looked at scenery, ate chips, ate an apple after feeling bad about eating chips, and was just completely and utterly on my own. It was quite blissful, really – I’d brought a book of short stories along (this one), so I could feel like I’d finished something before taking in the passing tiny towns, enormous homesteads, and green landscapes dotted with trees, cows, hay bales, all the kinds of stickers you’d get in a book about the country. It was quite marvellous. Even better was the squeezy hug I got from Rachael at Kangaroo Flat, where she met me with a big beautiful smile and, like always, even when we hadn’t spoken by anything apart from SMS for months, it was like we had never been apart. Back at her place, with her partner and their youngest son at home merrily working on some banging and crashing that tradesfolk and their four-year-olds are wont to do, we hoovered down some lunch and then she spirited me away for a little tour.

She drove me past her work, past a vast and entrancing amount of lovely ye olde buildings, around the fountain that one colleague told me to say hello to, and then up to the Capital Theatre for a pre-event scope-out (because when you’ve known someone for twenty-eight years, you know when they are getting anxious about something, especially when she tells you, “I am feeling quite anxious about this”), then to the accompanying gallery for a brief and impressive look-see, then for a coffee at the Basement on View. It’s tucked underneath the theatre and I realised immediately upon entering that this was the type of place I wished was my local cafe. They were flat-out catering for festival-going literary types, but we found ourselves a cosy little nook in a building almost completely made up of cosy little nooks, and sat together with warm drinks and company and well, you know. It was really just the best.

Back at her place after a scenic way back, I faffed about in front of a mirror and then headed out to the event itself, which I’ve detailed better here; suffice it to say that it all went smoothly, the company was delectable and you should read all those books. A tableful of us headed tipsily out for dinner as well, attempting at first to go to Bunja Thai (lookit that glorious heritage interior in the link!) but they were too full to accommodate us, so we tripped a couple of shops up the road to Curry Garden, which, excitedly, had a little sign right there on the menu saying that there were vegan options available. (I was super pleased about that, as I’d been intending on flying under the radar on this particular culinary expedition, maybe having a spoonful of rice and saying I wasn’t hungry, just so I didn’t have to tell my new friends I was vegan, as I’d been frantically Googling “vegan Bendigo” for a while before and found virtually nothing vegan, so I couldn’t even make suggestions.) They had a special list of all the items that were vegan or could be made vegan, and we ordered three appetisers, two mains, rice and some roti I could have, along with a couple of non-veg mains too. The onion bhaji were almost worth losing friends over, and the chickpea masala and aloo palak perfectly serviceable. The service was friendly, but a bit slow; I’d still happily return.

The next morning, I deigned to leave my snuggly cocoon of a sleeping bag and declared that I would take my three hosts out for breakfast. Turns out nothing in Bendigo is open before ten o’clock on a Sunday morning – “We’re on country time, remember?” Rachael said at one point as I stared sadly in a closed cafe’s window at their warm-looking fire – so we ended up at the Pall Mall Cafe, a small but friendly cafe that does a trade in your standard big breakfasts. I just ordered toast and coffee, and the service was ridiculously fast (handy when you have a friendly but bored four-year-old crawling all over the place), and the coffee was HUGE – I didn’t even finish it, I was so overwhelmed. Nothing flash, but nothing to sneer at by any means. Across the road was a park, a playground, a lovely old bridge (seriously, I’m just saying, and this is very unlike me because I am Very Modern and Stuff, but Bendigo’s 82,000+ population gets to see much nicer architecture just everywhere than we do down in upstart young Melbourne), and a giant, gorgeous and historic-looking old school, and so we ran around in the cold for a while before heading over to the Showgrounds Market, a fairly large and sprawling market that seems to survive almost entirely on plants and counterfeit Peppa Pig merchandise. I bought stickers for the kids to be the Favourite Aunt, and I made the surprising discovery in one of the halls of Wings Japanese Homemade Bakery. Wings has cakes, mousse, doughnuts, egg tarts and the like – and about six different vegan options. I was full from breakfast but picked up a little sample of a savoury curry doughnut, which was super yum – afterwards I moaned about not buying some for the train ride ahead. It started raining just as we got out of the hall, Rachael’s son covered in icing from his Japanese cupcake, so we drove back home and retired to the couch for one last companionable snuggle before I went off to the train station again to get home.

Selections at Wings Japanese Homemade Bakery

The trip was, again, delicious in its solitude; Melbourne was wet and freezing; but when I plodded all damp and whimpering up the driveway after walking from the station I was given the loveliest, happiest smile from my Rocket through the front window, and everything was warm after all.

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sydney with the rocket: day 2

There are few things more satisfying than opening up your heavy hotel curtains to find the sky as blue as a 90s teen heartthrob’s eyes. It means your day is going to go well, your party hair isn’t going to become soggy, and your kid won’t have to lug around an umbrella and poke other people in the shins with it. So up we all got, ate some cereal, then spent far too long making ourselves all very beautiful for the party we were to attend in the afternoon. The Rocket and her dad had gone out two days before while I was at work and picked her a very froufrou frock, all tulle and sparkles, which she wore with skull and crossbones sneakers; I’d hit up Dangerfield a couple of nights before for my own Melbourne-black frock with a pair of cityscape tights; Teach wore a white shirt with bicycles on it and looked very handsome. We layered up with coats and caught the train to Newtown for our to-do.

Nicked from the Wedpics site (pretty handy tool for those getting hitched or not hitched) and taken by the superlative C, party-thrower extraordinaire

Firstly, Sydney public transport requires you to know which station you’re going to and touch-screen your way to a ticket; some other machines have this totally hilarious system with some fifty or however many actual pushable buttons to pick your destination. Melbourne has Myki so I can hardly criticise, but it was pretty fun for us all to jab at the buttons while laughing in a mocking fashion. Anyway, once we were beyond that we moseyed onto our destination, via the quite lovely Hollis Park, which had an elaborate, split-level playground. It’s seriously beautiful around there, all sloping hills and gorgeous close-knit houses looking over parks. Newtown, or at least the small part we went to, was full of giant second-hand bookshops (the Rocket led me to the economics aisle and made me read her the titles), cutesy little shops full of stuff I would’ve spent all my money on if I’d gone through those doors, and vegan restaurants. Our destination was Rubyos, a lovely fresh-looking restaurant where we had our own room walled off and I walked through the door to be greeted by a bunch of people so friendly and just gloriously, colourfully stylish, that I was immediately happy. The Rocket looked shy for a while until complimented on her dress, then foofed around twirling for a while. The non-bride and non-groom were beautiful, polished, and beaming; there was talk, and merriment, and readings, declarations of love for this moment if not an unknown future, and singing and such emotion that I almost couldn’t even. It was sweet and funny and original and I loved everyone by the end, including everyone who was very kind to the Rocket even though she was the youngest by some twenty years. To her credit, she was pretty great: she talked during the ceremony, but only because she wanted to narrate out loud the Maisy book I brought along to shut her up. She had puppy stickers and a book to put them in, but most of the stickers ended up on the guests as she happily shared them with everyone and eventually had people coming over for requests. And the food, guys, OH the food – it was GLORIOUS and there was MOUNTAINS of it. Grazing plates of glory: beginning, I think, with an antipasto that had the most absolutely genuinely best crackers and baba ganoush I have ever, ever had, and a tasty little salad and olives (blech) and other things; there were rice burgers that fell apart but tasted heavenly; steamed green beans with ginger, lime, and cashew nuts (I think), which weren’t my thing but Teach adored; ancient grain and vegetable patties; the best fucking potatoes I may have ever ever had; so much more, I don’t know. It ended with cupcakes that stained people’s mouths blue as everyone kissed goodbye. It was, of course, totally worth the trip, and I’m so glad we went.

Totally stolen from C’s sister. Sorry H! It was just such a loverly picture. x

We went home in the cooling afternoon and tucked the Rocket in for a nap. Teach sent me out to get a coffee and explore the city on my own, and I wandered the streets, excited to be somewhere new, somewhere so familiar – all the stores, of course, are essentially the same as home – yet the streets were too big, or too small, and the buildings were wrong, and so beautiful. I couldn’t find anywhere for coffee but ended up at a now-forgotten chocolate shop where I did some sketching (I remain genuinely terrible but I like drawing pictures of the Rocket doing ridiculous things) and had a fairly average coffee that made me quietly smug about Melbourne’s coffee scene. Just as I finished, Teach let me know that the Rocket had rejoined the waking world, so back I went, we regrouped, and went out for a walk.

Our aim was Bodhi, upon the advice of many friends who said it was great but we had to be okay with spending big. We are very talented at wasting money on food, and seeing as we’d already blown a stack of cash just getting to Sydney there was no point in holding back on a tasty night’s dinner, so off we went. Hyde Park was on our way, and I really can’t tell you how happy I always am to encounter mid-city parks. The juxtaposition of city buildings and grass to run around on – it’s great. So we ran around, then unexpectedly bumped into a street gang of possums who, unlike our local skittish brand, happily came right up, sniffed your sneakers and begged for food. The Rocket was very pleased if not slightly alarmed about the whole scenario; I’m sure our local possum hunts are forever ruined by this version. After getting confused and not figuring out the multilayers of the park, we found our way sideways and underneath to Bodhi, a sprawling, glittery place with outdoor heaters, friendly staff and trees knotted with fairy lights. They could have fed me torn paper bags and I wouldn’t have cared, it was just so lovely. We sat outside so we could get rice on the ground and ordered.

Overwhelmed by choice, we ordered plain rice for the Rocket, who jabs at all menus and yells “RICE!” at waiters even if we are at a pizza joint; edamame (as always); English spinach gow dumplings; Australian mushroom gow dumplings; smoked soy, coconut, chili and coriander betel leaves; chickpea battered winter vegetables with sour cream and sweet chili sauce; san choy bao and sweet yam tempura spring rolls. Edamame: excellent as per usual (and much better than the night before, slathered in salt); spinach dumplings A++; mushroom dumplings awful as mushrooms are awful (Teach adored them though); betel leaves miniature but absolutely incredible; battered winter vegetables hit and miss (I was also full once I got to them); san choy bao super tasty even though the Rocket, devastatingly, threw half the lettuce on the ground; the sweet yam was nice but way way too sweet. Share with four people, or maybe eight so you can have half each. One made me a little queasy. Still, it was a beautiful, satisfying meal, the service was lightspeed-fast, and it did cost a lot but hey, worth it. I pondered a few times during ordering about getting the peking duck, but kept talking myself out of the $23, and since regretted it entirely after my colleague Alison said, “You went to Bodhi, right, and got the peking duck? I have literally flown to Sydney just to eat that dish.” DAMMIT PAST FIONA, YOU NEVER LEARN. It cost us around eighty bucks and was worth it.
Then back home via the lit-up streets around Sydney Tower (which was closed, pah), and back to the hotel for the Rocket to sleep soundly in her metal prison while her jailers sat on the couch with Nickelodeon and popcorn.

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sydney with the rocket: day 1

We arrived in Sydney around one o’clock on Saturday. It was windy but bright, a wholesome twenty degrees, and someplace different. For one, the airport has a train. Sydney 1, Melbourne 0.

It costs about $16.40 to get an adult onto the airport line into the city proper – it’s only about three stops to Central, so I’m not sure if it’s cheaper to get a taxi if there’s a few of you. The Rocket was free, so we sucked up the thirty-plus dollars and delighted in being on a double-decker train. Our hotel was a short walk from Central, so we wheeled ourselves over and checked in. I was in charge of booking as Teach was armpit-deep in reports at the time, so I spent a few days getting increasingly agitated about how expensive it is to stay places, and not having any visual of where in Sydney is good or safe or close or fun, and panicking about the date getting closer and everything selling out and us sleeping in an internet cafe. Eventually I chose the Campbell Street Meriton Apartments, because they had an immediately available online chat and could answer all of my questions about cots and babies and stuff, and their prices seemed relatively competitive, especially for the size of the rooms. (Not that I would know. I am just awful at booking things. If it’s on sale, I’ll find out, the day after I’ve paid upfront and signed a no-refund disclaimer. It’s just not one of my skills, sadly.) Anyway, it turns out that the reason it was a bit expensive was because it’s right in the middle of the city, and quite nice; armed with a bit more knowledge I would probably stay a few suburbs further out next time and just catch a train in. Still, as Past Fiona had already paid for it and Present Fiona got to stay there, it was a nice place: a one-bedroom serviced apartment, which meant we could get the Rocket to sleep in a separate room and then go watch free Foxtel in the lounge/kitchen. For another $35 we had a cot put in the room; it was pretty small, and with metal prison bars instead of gentle white wood like the one at home we inherited from my sister. As we settled in, we tried to get her to sleep, but she wasn’t really on board with that idea. Instead we got her up and took her for a wander around.

This door to our hotel: most fun thing in New South Wales

It’s hard not to compare Sydney to Melbourne the whole time. In my mind where we stayed was the equivalent to the Spring Street end of Little Bourke, with theatres and people but narrow streets and not quite the level of excitement of the bigger streets. Sydney is cleaner, but maybe less friendly – unless it’s just that it’s unfamiliar – and has almost no street art in the places we were. There weren’t many cute little shops to go into, though there were lots of tasty-looking eateries. We strolled up Pitt St just as gale-force winds hit; hats flew off people’s heads and one person was attacked bodily by an errant newspaper. The Rocket has stopped enjoying wind and instead chose to wail, so we went into a Coles for a bit to buy some milk and cereal, then went up to Kings Comics and talked ourselves out of piles of collectible toys we didn’t need. It was nearing dinnertime, so, having previously consulted my friends online about where to go, we had dinner at Mother Chu’s Vegetarian Kitchen.

It was a patchy start; we got there at about five past five but weren’t given our mains until about a quarter to six, though we’d had some (sadly unsalted) edamame to start. The service was very friendly, however, and the Rocket just happy to be indoors. The menu mostly calls things “soy” or “gluten” instead of the usual “duck” or “chicken”, and doesn’t elaborate on the flavours. I chose crispy bean curd with mushrooms and broccoli; Teach picked a crispy gluten dish. Once they turned up, we were much more positive; the food is pretty delicious, and maybe we’d just been a bit tired and cranky. My bean curd wasn’t crispy, but it was warm and good and there was tons of it and I ate it all up, only managing to get a little of Teach’s crispy gluten before he scoffed all his too. The Rocket was happy with her bowl of rice, a bunch of edamame and some of my tofu. If I’m in Sydney again, I’d give it another shot for sure, maybe this time calling a day in advance so I could have some of their vegetarian Peking Duck, or some steamed BBQ buns, or satay sticks.

We decided to call it a night after that, and took the Rocket back to the hotel, tucked her in, consoled her, tucked her in, gave her toys, went back and picked up her toys from the floor, tucked her in, etc etc for all eternity until she finally slept. Then we ate candy and watched terrible television until we were sick, because if there’s one thing we do well, it’s knowing how to waste being in a different city.

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babies on a plane

Last Saturday, some dear friends of mine threw themselves a celebration of their love, in Sydney. They’d kindly flown down to celebrate the similar shindig Teach and I had for our tenth anniversary a few years ago, and we’d been wanting to take the Rocket on a plane for a while, so when we received the invite we threw caution to Sydney’s gale-force winds and booked ourselves some flights. Then I set to becoming anxious.

Kids on planes can send opinion columns completely bananas. They should be quiet – no, they should have their own section – no, they should NEVER FLY. Just whatever you do, don’t ever make anyone around you aware of the fact that sometimes the people we share this planet with aren’t attuned to their needs. Don’t get me wrong, I sure as hell didn’t want to spend any of my international flights next to a kid who screams for nine hours straight, but what do you do? If a kid’s gotta get overseas then they gotta get overseas; it’s not like flying is anything but cramped and annoying anyway, and yet it is a complete and beautiful miracle that we can do it at all. What I’m trying to say is: get over it.

Anyway despite all the above I still made extensive and panicked plans about How To Stop The Rocket From Having Any Negative Emotion during the flight. Luckily, she adores planes – we live under a flight path so every time we go outside we can usually see them, and we point and shriek excitedly at them – so she was already super keen on the whole thing. For about a month beforehand, she would wake up every morning and I’d say, “What are we doing today?” and though the answer was generally “swimming”, “Gymbaroo”, “park” or “three coffees” she would always give me this tiny smile and say, “Plaaaaaane?” So, excitement about flight, check.

I booked the flights for her awake-times, 12pm on the way out and 5:30pm for the return, so she would be rested and happy. The return was a stupid idea of course, because I thought smugly to myself, she will have had her afternoon nap and will be so very happy, and didn’t think until we were already in Sydney that of course you have to check out of your hotel in the morning and thus she had nowhere to nap. The upshot is she didn’t sleep, but was so thrilled about going on a plane again that it didn’t really matter.

Then I packed our bags. She has a rocket backpack (you name it, she has it with a rocket on it) and I nicked it from her and filled it with super excellent things to keep her occupied. Here is what it contained:

Side pocket 1:

– water bottle (FYI, those sippy-straw ones will spill over during the flight due to air pressure in the cabin making water come up the straw, but it’s pretty funny)

Side pocket 2:

– Matchbox dragon car

– Hot Wheels digger

– Little People Batgirl car

Front pocket (aka snack central)

– jelly babies to chew on during takeoff (on the return flight this was a free lollipop she got given at a candy store)

– little apple-flavoured rice cakes (bizarrely popular for something pretty dull)

– animal-shaped biscuits (“Do you want an animal biscuit?” “DOGGY!” “You ate all the doggies.” “BAAAAA!” “You ate all the sheep. Have a butterfly.”)

– Sweet William chocolate (neglected)

– muesli bar

– different type of muesli bar (the first option is always wrong)

– no fruit because I wasn’t sure if you could take fruit interstate. I still don’t know. If you can I would’ve packed an apple to make me look like I am Very Healthy At All Times, then she would’ve thrown peel all over the floor.

Main pocket

– new books:

a) Sam’s Sandwich, which has food fold-outs and a rhyming story and gross bugs in sandwiches, and was totes perfect

b) Where’s Maisy?, Oh god, who knows, what if she is missing FOREVER??

c) Some book about catching a plane that did not hold her interest in the least despite being, you know, quite topical

(I also bought Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs including an actual bucket full of dinosaurs and secreted it in my carry-on luggage in case of a giant screaming crisis which never eventuated; I have since hidden it and will bring it out at some future desperate moment.)

– favourite teddy of the moment (she’s not really attached to any of her 87,000 stuffed toys – sometimes she NEEDS to take one to the park but it is usually abandoned on the slide after three minutes. Luckily her most recent semi-favourite was bag-sized.)

– small, blank notebook

– two sheets of stickers

– new crayons (they broke immediately. Don’t buy crayons from the Reject Shop.)

– *cough* a Nintendo DS (so, yes, she is only two, but I upgraded to a 3DS because I am a small child who LOVES things in 3D, and the trade-in on my old DS Lite was only $20, so we thought we’d keep it for the kiddo. Then a few weeks ago we were at EB Games and she found a copy of Cookie’s Counting Carnival for less than ten bucks, and I was all, “What’s the worst that can happen?” and it turns out the worst that can happen is a kid screaming, “COOKIE MONSTER!” all day because she is now a gamer at 2 1/4 years old. The games we have are pretty simple – counting, moving things around the screen, pointing at shapes, etc. Most of them are probably available in similar form for your smartphone/tablet but it’s nice not to worry about her deleting everything important like your Two Dots scores.)

a) Cookie’s Counting Carnival (Has actually improved her pattern recognition. Is short. Don’t pay more than $10 for it.)

b) Ready, Set, Grover (Better graphics than above, and only $6. Teaches “healthy habits”, apparently but not really. Not quite as good or easy.)

c) Dora Saves the Mermaids (Ugh I hate all Dora things, she is the worst. Sadly, this game is absolutely perfect: easy games, doesn’t care if you get everything wrong, teaches her three Spanish words. Pretty short but I don’t really feel bad about panic-spending $19 on it the day before we flew out.)

So that was quite a lot of things, but if I hadn’t just been given a book voucher it would’ve been a handful of half-chewed opshop books, and my iPhone, and stickers and snacks. We didn’t actually get through everything: I hid the bag after we landed and re-presented it to her on the way back with the rest of the things. That held me in good stead.

ONTO THE FLIGHT. She was happy and excited for the drive in, and the bus trip from our long-term parking. She didn’t mind the short-ish queue to check in our one bag. We were early (rare for us) and went to get some chips and watch the planes take off for a bit. Then through the scanners, to the gate. The departure lounge was probably the most tedious part for her because I hadn’t planned for it and she was getting excited because the plane was RIGHT THERE, so we walked to the end of the gates and watched the planes meander around and take off and be loud.

We’d prepared her for things to be very loud and noisy, and that it was supposed to happen and was pretty funny, really. Watching the planes was probably helpful, and she didn’t seem scared.

Once kids hit 2, they have to get their own seat; I’m not sure how fares usually work, but we flew Virgin and they charged a full fare for her seat. Apparently on long haul flights it’s about 50-75%. Before that age, they sit on your lap. For the very first time, I let someone else have the window seat and put her in it. Actually, I took the aisle seat, because the last time I flew, at 7.5 months pregnant, I freaked the hell out and started crying, thinking we were going to die and I had endangered her. (It was a calm and fine flight; I blame hormones.) I thought her much calmer father was a better seating partner. She was thrilled when the plane taxied around the tarmac, saying, “Plane moving!” and beaming. It found its runway, revved up, then sped up: this was when she panicked a little, leaning into the brace position we’d just taught her and looking a bit scared, but ten seconds later as the plane took off, we said, “Your tummy is going to feel pretty funny!” and she laughed, then settled in her seat with her book and didn’t fret for the entire flight. I didn’t panic either, seeing her brave little happy face. If a two-year-old can deal with a plane, a thirty-two-year-old probably can too, right?

I asked some friends before the flight for advice and stories. The resounding piece of advice from my mothers group was “Food and iPad”; one friend told me a story of his son on a plane running up and down the aisles before tripping, hitting his head and bleeding everywhere, then sitting in his chair and kicking the seat in front of him the whole flight. Luckily the Rocket’s feet don’t reach the seat in front, but she was just divine, happily playing and reading and eating and looking out at the clouds and sky. When we prepared to land, we prepped her for the hilarious upcoming bouncing, and as the people in the aisle across from us held onto their armrests and gasped at the bumping, the Rocket just laughed and bounced herself around yelling, “Wibble wobble!” Then we landed and she clapped the plane and I can’t even tell you my utter relief.

I don’t like offering advice because, as a general rule, I don’t know what I am talking about. But I think telling her all the plane things were going to be funny and hilarious worked out well for us. It’s easy, natural and fine to fall into the way of saying, “I know, it’s scary, isn’t it? I’m here, it’s fine, I love you, hold my hand,” and we did say she might be scared but it was all supposed to happen and was a fun type of scary, and there she was, happy, surely with popping ears but not a peep about it.

The return flight went much the same way; I hadn’t learned my lesson and she was a bit, er, rambunctious at the departure lounge, so next time I’d give her something new for that little wait, I think, though it prepared all the other people around us for a scene that never actually eventuated, so that was nice.

So there you go. That was our first time with a kid on a plane; it will probably have ruined us for every subsequent time, when she is a complete jerk. The flight was only for an hour, and I don’t know how people keep kids happy for an international flight (my sources tell me phenergan, but see your doctor for such things, and the Rocket’s Gran says she gave it to her son on a flight once and instead of sleeping he stayed awake having panicked hallucinations, so, you know, that could happen.)

But don’t let other passengers cramp your style. Take your kid on holiday, or to visit your family, or just for funsies. Your kid has just as much of a right to fly as anyone. Vive le avions*, punks.

 

*Google translate tells me I got this wrong but it can sod off. Avions vive, indeed.

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the night hunt

I must have thought, at some point, that the hours between 6-8pm would be easy. That when Teach got home, he would be thrilled to see his family, and would have boundless energy to play; that with my parenting workload halved, I would immediately become twice as fun. Of course, this is not true. Though Teach is, of course, thrilled to see us every night, he is also tired from a day of being shouted at by children and shouting maths back at them. By 6pm I have completely run out of all of my excellent play ideas, I’m tired of telling her she can’t have eighty-six crackers, and if she mashes play dough into my carpet one more time I may just replace her with a play dough baby that is much quieter and just as squishy to hug. So 6-8pm is often spent not at our best: dinner, then sitting on the couch watching Seinfeld reruns, sometimes sliding from couch to floor to interact with the Rocket, who is probably breaking crayons or putting her Sylvanian Families rabbits to sleep in various mysterious places we won’t find for years.

But sometimes, we are excellent parents. Sometimes we have good ideas. After the Rocket became fearful of the dark – “Too dark!” she would wail, even on the journey from car to front door – Teach made the dark into a game, and that game is possum hunting. Melbourne is rife with possums, as long as you have three trees in your street. In my childhood home, there was a possum box in the tree outside my bedroom window, where occasionally I would hear their alarming mating sounds and have terrible nightmares. When I moved out with Teach, our place had possums running along the fence almost daily, and they would eat the fruit we left out for them. In our most recent home, they don’t really come to our house, but in the leafy park near the station, they are often rustling branches around the place. So, armed with a torch, a bike light, jackets and excitement, we started going on possum hunts.

It’s worked amazingly. The Rocket isn’t the least scared of the dark any more. Now she just says, “Quiet, poshum hiding,” if we’re out in the dark. As she runs down the street in her giant parka, she yells, “Poshum! Where are you poshum? Hiding poshum! Come out poshum!” Sometimes she will stop and say, “Shhh, find poshum,” and point up a tree, which will be so still that it’s almost like the wind has stopped just to laugh at her. We go as quietly as we can, listening for shaking branches up ahead. Don’t do this when it’s windy; you can’t find anything then. One of us will hear something, the scratch of leaves, or the fall of a seed on the ground. We’ll pause, shine the torch around, even the Rocket quiet in anticipation. There, maybe, a flash of white belly, or the reflection of their eyes in the light. Sometimes too far away for the Rocket to discern. Sometimes perfectly silhouetted against the stark white limbs of gum trees. Some days, like today, the shaking branch is so close we thought it was a cat, but instead it was a small, beautiful, unafraid ringtail possum, looking out at us, happily eating a leaf, close enough to touch. Instead I took a picture of it on my iPhone, illuminated by Teach’s torch. The Rocket was frozen, clinging to her father’s side like a marsupial baby, staring at it with a smile as wide as could be. We left, not wanting to panic the little creature too much more (and, well, we were also flashing our torches into somebody’s front yard), and went to the petrol station around the corner for snacks and a new Matchbox car for the Rocket. On the way back, we stopped, and it was still there, still eating, still watching us. Teach, after all that, couldn’t resist brushing his hand against its fur. “One of the softest things I’ve ever felt,” he reported in a wistful voice, “Like a baby’s breath.” We went on, wondering if there was any point in going on another possum hunt in the future when they could surely never live up to this. Just around the corner from our house, we stopped by our lucky possum tree, and sitting where the trunk branched into two, was a brushtail possum – the kind you don’t pat if you enjoy having fingers – which watched us from about ten feet up. The Rocket put her arms out and said, “Poshum hug. I come to you poshum! Hug!” Even after we explained that it wasn’t a great idea, she just said agreeably, “Okay. Poshum come here. Poshum hug,” because she does not listen.

Back at home we looked over the pictures and she smiled again. “Poshum ate flower,” she said knowledgeably. “No poshum hug,” she concluded.

No, you shouldn’t hug them. But they can stop you from being scared of the dark.

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