Recent Posts

From the Blog

anxiety

Declutter Me: Ambitioning a Quiet Life

‘That’s what we do. We make mess. We’re a messy family.’ Five year old E sums it up with characteristic bare-to-the bone directness as we stand side by side and watch our freshly washed floor endure a new littering of crumbs, toys, unknown sticky substances, and yes… yet more spilled-milk.

Read More
Amazing Grace

Returning to Basics

Autumn has come late to Sydney. An almost-winter purity sidles quietly in amongst the bustle and grit of the inner-city suburbs. And even as the air crispens to cold nights, the days continue to be lit by a wealth of golden sunlight I’m sure we rarely appreciate as we should.  We read about leaves —my newly minted homeschooling daughter and I —and how the reds and yellows that come out to dance at this time in the Southern hemisphere are the tree’s real heart colour hidden the rest of the year.

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
Faith

Stepping off Regret Road

‘There’s just no point in wasting time looking back’. He stood at the front of the school hall, staring down the barrel of an audience of nervous, eager parents hanging on his every word like support ropes. An ex-cop with so many stories under his well-weathered belt, stories of struggle and hardship, those of others, and his own, tangled together, etched into the lines on his face and tremor of his voice.

Read More
Amazing Grace

My Fear and I, Up in the Sky

If weeks had theme songs, and those theme songs had catchy choruses, this week’s song might be called something like ‘Looking Up’, the chorus, ‘Are we going on the plane today?! Today, today, up up away.’

Read More
anxiety

Courage in her pocket

It began as a secret. A small, quiet act of defiance to carry her through the day. As she walked (tarried, resisted) out the door to go to school she would feel for the little zip in the side of her school dress. She’d pull, frustrated, as it stuck, and then, just as it seemed we were all in for a hard morning, the zip would release, and our eldest daughter would calm as she set about her self-made act of survival: stowing away chosen items in her pocket that reminded her of home.

Read More
Faith

Slow Growth: A Parable in Basil

She lies awake in her bed by the window, sheets tossed away to fight against the heat of the night. Our restless firstborn. All the churning inner energy and  frustration of Dr M and I channelled into one small body. Next to her, less than a foot away lies her brother J. J the forever baby of the family. J the Jack-in-a-Box boy full of playful alertness.

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
family adventures

Going Deeper

December 31, 2016. It was an impossibly hot day. The sky a blaze of blue. New Years Eve sizzled off ashphalt and skin long before any fireworks sparked. We’d spent the morning —Dr M and I and the three kids—wandering Mudgee, the country town we were holidaying in, lunching in a lovely cafe that afforded a natural green canopy where pinpricks of light filtered magically through. It was all going very well. Until it wasn’t. One by one we started to deflate like tired party balloons, some noisily popping, exhaustion running off our faces along with perspiration. ‘Into the car,’ Dr M announced. ‘At least we’ll have the aircon.’

Read More
Amazing Grace

Angel Words for Earthly Fears

Our daughter has recently acquired a new fear. I say acquired as we tend to collect fears in our family, like some people collect stamps. Ever since a seagull swooped down and took a chip —not even her chip, mind you, but a chip in the hand of someone standing nearby her— E has convinced herself that every bird, at every time, in every environment, is a chip-stealing, beady-eyed vigilante.

Read More
anxiety

Declutter Me: Ambitioning a Quiet Life

‘That’s what we do. We make mess. We’re a messy family.’ Five year old E sums it up with characteristic bare-to-the bone directness as we stand side by side and watch our freshly washed floor endure a new littering of crumbs, toys, unknown sticky substances, and yes… yet more spilled-milk.

Read More
Amazing Grace

Returning to Basics

Autumn has come late to Sydney. An almost-winter purity sidles quietly in amongst the bustle and grit of the inner-city suburbs. And even as the air crispens to cold nights, the days continue to be lit by a wealth of golden sunlight I’m sure we rarely appreciate as we should.  We read about leaves —my newly minted homeschooling daughter and I —and how the reds and yellows that come out to dance at this time in the Southern hemisphere are the tree’s real heart colour hidden the rest of the year.

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
Faith

Stepping off Regret Road

‘There’s just no point in wasting time looking back’. He stood at the front of the school hall, staring down the barrel of an audience of nervous, eager parents hanging on his every word like support ropes. An ex-cop with so many stories under his well-weathered belt, stories of struggle and hardship, those of others, and his own, tangled together, etched into the lines on his face and tremor of his voice.

Read More
Amazing Grace

My Fear and I, Up in the Sky

If weeks had theme songs, and those theme songs had catchy choruses, this week’s song might be called something like ‘Looking Up’, the chorus, ‘Are we going on the plane today?! Today, today, up up away.’

Read More
anxiety

Courage in her pocket

It began as a secret. A small, quiet act of defiance to carry her through the day. As she walked (tarried, resisted) out the door to go to school she would feel for the little zip in the side of her school dress. She’d pull, frustrated, as it stuck, and then, just as it seemed we were all in for a hard morning, the zip would release, and our eldest daughter would calm as she set about her self-made act of survival: stowing away chosen items in her pocket that reminded her of home.

Read More
Faith

Slow Growth: A Parable in Basil

She lies awake in her bed by the window, sheets tossed away to fight against the heat of the night. Our restless firstborn. All the churning inner energy and  frustration of Dr M and I channelled into one small body. Next to her, less than a foot away lies her brother J. J the forever baby of the family. J the Jack-in-a-Box boy full of playful alertness.

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
family adventures

Going Deeper

December 31, 2016. It was an impossibly hot day. The sky a blaze of blue. New Years Eve sizzled off ashphalt and skin long before any fireworks sparked. We’d spent the morning —Dr M and I and the three kids—wandering Mudgee, the country town we were holidaying in, lunching in a lovely cafe that afforded a natural green canopy where pinpricks of light filtered magically through. It was all going very well. Until it wasn’t. One by one we started to deflate like tired party balloons, some noisily popping, exhaustion running off our faces along with perspiration. ‘Into the car,’ Dr M announced. ‘At least we’ll have the aircon.’

Read More
Amazing Grace

Angel Words for Earthly Fears

Our daughter has recently acquired a new fear. I say acquired as we tend to collect fears in our family, like some people collect stamps. Ever since a seagull swooped down and took a chip —not even her chip, mind you, but a chip in the hand of someone standing nearby her— E has convinced herself that every bird, at every time, in every environment, is a chip-stealing, beady-eyed vigilante.

Read More