Category: pregnancy and parenting

From the Blog

anxiety

How to Help your Anxious Child When you Yourself are Anxious

Had you walked past our house earlier last week, say sometime between the hours of around seven and eight a.m., you would have been forgiven for wondering if you were witnessing some sort of suburban crime scene. Beyond the gently tossing heads of flowers that the kids planted with their father, Dr M, only weeks earlier, through the friendly painted blue door, and down the stretch of newly carpeted stairs, came a sound so harrowing it was enough to startle the heavy fronds of the palm trees. Perhaps it was a reenactment of some sort, a rehearsal for a Shakespearean tragedy?

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pregnancy and parenting

To the Self-Critical Parent: You’ve come so Far

I was leaving the bathroom of a busy cafe, waving my watery hands in the air rather than pausing to insert them into the dryer, when I brushed past her. Actually, knocked into her, elbowed her, buffeted by her, are probably more accurate descriptions of what took place. She was standing to the side of the toilet doorway, the generic white plastic change table extended from the wall, wrestling a tiny, red, mid-air-bicycle-pumping footed newborn out of one nappy and into another. Basically she was trying to dress a young wild bear.

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anxiety

And he saw me

Late one Friday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, we went walking by the Brisbane river. Such a simple sentence, right? I have loved walking since I trailed alongside my dad as a kid on his morning suburban stretches, air infused with birdsong, drenched in fresh, untarnished light. But, in my younger years declaring ‘walking’ as my chosen sport seemed weak and non-declarative. In these later ‘mumming’  years, I’m an aspirational walker. Just leaving the house can require athletic commitment. Due to an interstate move, a new job for Dr M, a new school year, new virus’, new discoveries, not to mention the transplanting of old fragilities in new settings, and a pounding sun, well, I haven’t walked much at all so far in our time here.

Read More
anxiety

Choices

We made a decision this week. Parents have to do that. Make decisions. From the moment your child breaks forth into the world, with wails and flails and celebration, you are looking up information, filling out forms, viewing everything through over-alert, keen-to-do-right,  protective parent eyes. Even before your little person or people arrive you begin the process. I know I read whole slabs of literature on birth options, and I’m not even that zealous on this point. I have friends who probably could be awarded honorary doctorates for their commitment to making the ‘right choice’ in this area.

Read More
pregnancy and parenting

Letter to Fellow Parents with Stretched Hearts

Does every mother, every parent feel like this when their child faces new milestones? Nervous, excited, unexplainably fragile? Our path to parenthood was perhaps longer, more complicated than some. Does that make a difference? All I know is, being a parent is simultaneously amazing, and hard, buoyant-brilliant, and mountain-rugged climb. Today, our eldest took her first small black-sneaker-clad steps to her school career,beginning kindergarten. Some reflections on my complex feelings below, in a form of letter to other parents…

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Faith

Parenting Confessions: Sometimes I Feel Like an Imposter Mama

It came to my attention recently that our kids hardly know our names. Our original identities, that is. The ones we possessed before we became parents. The revelation took place in one of those back-and-forward chats you have with your offspring when you are attempting to pass traffic-time, to fill the narrow space of shared automobile air (in our case sliced into a tight five) with anything other than screams, drama or repeated requests for snacks…

Read More
Faith

A Note to all us Mirror-watchers and Scale-scalers

Our almost five year old, she stands in front of the mirror bold and studies herself with a child’s clear-calm and she sees it too, what we’ve all been seeing, in the new level of her dress, the inching of her toes over her shoes… ‘My legs are getting longer,’ she says with glee.

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Faith

The gong of mother guilt

We had this ‘situation’ the other day. While I don’t think I should share all the details, I imagine you’ll still be able to get the picture. Let’s just say one of our children was less than perfect. While it was no surprise to me that our curly blond-headed, dimpled, oh-so-blue-blue-eyed offspring could misbehave, there was a slight difference in the scenario this time: the misbehaviour happened while I wasn’t there. I was working, or resting, or one of those things I do when I’m not hanging with the three. I wasn’t there.

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endometriosis

The Waiting Room: Our unexpected path to parenthood (Part 1)

As I write this, Baby J has been taking his first hearty, wobbly steps towards walking. Any moment now he’ll work it out and then he’ll be off…leaving his well-scuffed knees for a more upright view on the world. Perhaps even in time for his first birthday. That’s right, in just a couple of days our third child, our uncanny surprise, our marvellous medical mystery, our God gives even more one, will be crossing over from the measured-in-months age bracket to solid figures.

Read More
anxiety

How to Help your Anxious Child When you Yourself are Anxious

Had you walked past our house earlier last week, say sometime between the hours of around seven and eight a.m., you would have been forgiven for wondering if you were witnessing some sort of suburban crime scene. Beyond the gently tossing heads of flowers that the kids planted with their father, Dr M, only weeks earlier, through the friendly painted blue door, and down the stretch of newly carpeted stairs, came a sound so harrowing it was enough to startle the heavy fronds of the palm trees. Perhaps it was a reenactment of some sort, a rehearsal for a Shakespearean tragedy?

Read More
pregnancy and parenting

So this is Parenthood

Ma-maa…Ma-maa, where are you Ma-maa? A little voice piped down the night-time corridor, like a small, fragile bell, incessantly ringing. The sweet, husky call of

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pregnancy and parenting

To the Self-Critical Parent: You’ve come so Far

I was leaving the bathroom of a busy cafe, waving my watery hands in the air rather than pausing to insert them into the dryer, when I brushed past her. Actually, knocked into her, elbowed her, buffeted by her, are probably more accurate descriptions of what took place. She was standing to the side of the toilet doorway, the generic white plastic change table extended from the wall, wrestling a tiny, red, mid-air-bicycle-pumping footed newborn out of one nappy and into another. Basically she was trying to dress a young wild bear.

Read More
anxiety

And he saw me

Late one Friday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, we went walking by the Brisbane river. Such a simple sentence, right? I have loved walking since I trailed alongside my dad as a kid on his morning suburban stretches, air infused with birdsong, drenched in fresh, untarnished light. But, in my younger years declaring ‘walking’ as my chosen sport seemed weak and non-declarative. In these later ‘mumming’  years, I’m an aspirational walker. Just leaving the house can require athletic commitment. Due to an interstate move, a new job for Dr M, a new school year, new virus’, new discoveries, not to mention the transplanting of old fragilities in new settings, and a pounding sun, well, I haven’t walked much at all so far in our time here.

Read More
anxiety

Choices

We made a decision this week. Parents have to do that. Make decisions. From the moment your child breaks forth into the world, with wails and flails and celebration, you are looking up information, filling out forms, viewing everything through over-alert, keen-to-do-right,  protective parent eyes. Even before your little person or people arrive you begin the process. I know I read whole slabs of literature on birth options, and I’m not even that zealous on this point. I have friends who probably could be awarded honorary doctorates for their commitment to making the ‘right choice’ in this area.

Read More
pregnancy and parenting

Letter to Fellow Parents with Stretched Hearts

Does every mother, every parent feel like this when their child faces new milestones? Nervous, excited, unexplainably fragile? Our path to parenthood was perhaps longer, more complicated than some. Does that make a difference? All I know is, being a parent is simultaneously amazing, and hard, buoyant-brilliant, and mountain-rugged climb. Today, our eldest took her first small black-sneaker-clad steps to her school career,beginning kindergarten. Some reflections on my complex feelings below, in a form of letter to other parents…

Read More
Faith

Parenting Confessions: Sometimes I Feel Like an Imposter Mama

It came to my attention recently that our kids hardly know our names. Our original identities, that is. The ones we possessed before we became parents. The revelation took place in one of those back-and-forward chats you have with your offspring when you are attempting to pass traffic-time, to fill the narrow space of shared automobile air (in our case sliced into a tight five) with anything other than screams, drama or repeated requests for snacks…

Read More
Faith

A Note to all us Mirror-watchers and Scale-scalers

Our almost five year old, she stands in front of the mirror bold and studies herself with a child’s clear-calm and she sees it too, what we’ve all been seeing, in the new level of her dress, the inching of her toes over her shoes… ‘My legs are getting longer,’ she says with glee.

Read More
Faith

The gong of mother guilt

We had this ‘situation’ the other day. While I don’t think I should share all the details, I imagine you’ll still be able to get the picture. Let’s just say one of our children was less than perfect. While it was no surprise to me that our curly blond-headed, dimpled, oh-so-blue-blue-eyed offspring could misbehave, there was a slight difference in the scenario this time: the misbehaviour happened while I wasn’t there. I was working, or resting, or one of those things I do when I’m not hanging with the three. I wasn’t there.

Read More
endometriosis

The Waiting Room: Our unexpected path to parenthood (Part 1)

As I write this, Baby J has been taking his first hearty, wobbly steps towards walking. Any moment now he’ll work it out and then he’ll be off…leaving his well-scuffed knees for a more upright view on the world. Perhaps even in time for his first birthday. That’s right, in just a couple of days our third child, our uncanny surprise, our marvellous medical mystery, our God gives even more one, will be crossing over from the measured-in-months age bracket to solid figures.

Read More