Photography

When my babies were born, people told me they were beautiful, but I knew they were being polite. My babies were born beautifully, but what birth did to them was no aesthetic. They were squished, swollen and bruised and not the least bit beautiful. Of course, now that I am a mother myself, it is this very grumpy, very ugliness that stirs the greatest emotions in me regarding babies, but they were not, for many weeks, beautiful.

I remember being given a voucher for newborn photography with the Elfling at one of those shopping centre places hawked by those that spring out between racks of tiny clothes and ask you to sign up for packages before you've even seen the shots. And while I baulked at the idea of the ubiquitous gerbera behind the ear, I allowed the photographer who was probably months older than myself to try and pose my newborn baby while she took photos.

And I remember recoiling from the hideous photos she took, displayed as they were on giant screens, at the thought of taking home photographs that looked like that. My babies were not Anne Geddes munchkins that look adorably smooth with little dimples in fat wrists. They were red and scrawny and smooshed. And they way she had posed her, it seemed to point to these things as flaws, as if to show how unbeautiful she really was. And so I bought none, and vowed never to do that again.

But as they grew, not just into their long scrawny limbs and their peculiar features, but in character and spirit that shone through their little faces and they became beautiful. First to me, and then to the greater world. And nothing gives me more pleasure than capturing that on film (or with many megapixels these days as I am up to my very last roll of black and white film). I love taking photos when they aren't looking and when they're not posing. I try not to line them up for photos aside from the standard sibling sets which are hilarious for how bad they inevitably are. I love catching a glance or a moment and being able to keep that memory in beautiful, delicate colour. I loe catching something that belongs to them, and not to a calendar baby, however cute they may be.

We were at a birthday party today for a little girl who has fought very hard to make it to the party which is never a fair thing for any one year old to have to fight. But hardest still, for this little tiny girl, is that the reason she has fought so hard is easily seen on her face. Her skin. Still delicate, but not baby soft. Not smooth. Taking her out is difficult because there is no normality, no hiding, no anonymity. It is there and it is visible.

And it doesn't matter that she has cheeky dark brown eyes and round chubby cheeks and a perfect cupid bow in her lips. Because most won't see any more than her skin, before they look away. Not sure how to react, or worse, reacting with distaste. I didn't shush the girls when they asked, because it was important to me that their curiousity not turn into something other than it should be. I just explained, simply, that her skin did not work like theirs, and she needed special medicine for that. And being children, they understood, and the Elfling jingled a toy for her, and played as she would play with any other baby.

But even at almost 9, the Elfling had questions on the way home, about how sad it was and how unfair it was that someone so little should have to deal with that. And she was very quiet for a little while, as she took it in.

I took my camera to the party, because I always try to, and the weather was hot and steamy and yellow. The end of Summer in a humid golden glow. And I took photos of the Possum as he raided the lolly table, and the Monkey as she swished in her pettiskirt, and of various partygoers too. But I also wanted to take photos of the birthday girl. So I did, photos of her playing with her grandparents, and when I was jiggling soft rattly toys with her to make her smile.

And when I opened my SD card tonight, I could have photoshopped them into oblivion, wiped away all traces of that which society finds hard to deal with and I wondered if I were her mother, if that's what I would like, and I knew it wasn't. So I fixed my light source and my white balance, and I flipped a few into monochrome because I'm a sucker for children's photos in monochrome. And I looked at the photos that came out, and I was truly happy with them. Photos of a happy little girl on her birthday, that looked like her. That had been tinkered with, sure, because a little bit of extra shadow and contrast can make a subject jump off a page, but I didn't up my saturation to where only her eyes were visible, or correct any of the shine from her creams. And I hope that her mother and her grandmother like them too.

As I went through the photos, I also found a few of my Elfling, looking ethereal and embracing her Rivendell heritage. And it was an awful day when I took them, where I cried for the first time in a long time and revisited things I thought were gone and buried. And I was bitter and devastated and miserable and crumbling into the cave inside my chest when I took them, trying desperately not to cry in front of her. When I saw her climb up onto a rock, her yellow sundress billowing lightly around her knees as the sun rays from above hit the golden lights in her hair. And none of it mattered any more. I may have plenty of things that are pushing my buttons and trying to pull me down, but I still have her. Embodiment of the Gleam.

Huit

For weeks after I had given birth I could tell you with total accuracy the exact events of those 6 hours; every tiny detail played over in a constant loop even when I was sleeping. It was so vivid, so striking, so completely outside of anything I had ever experienced before that I felt absolutely certain that it had imprinted on me indelibly, never to be washed off or dulled. It was one of those certainties that such a momentous day, such a monumental feat, the day that my Elfling entered the world and I became a mother should surely stay on in memory so clearly.

But I realised on Friday afternoon as I hurried to my car on the way home from work that I couldn't remember what sort of morning we had woken up to or even if I had slept. I don't remember if it was raining or sunny. I don't remember if it was hot or cold. I remember getting in the car in labour and the first burst of fear as Bingley closed the garage door and the wonder in knowing that there would always be three of us after that night. I remember the stars and I remember the lights on the bridge as we drove and my blue pyjama pants. I could draw you the exact pattern on them.

But I don't remember hearing her cry when she was pulled from me and I don't remember vast swathes of the labour. It's like it's on an old fashioned VCR and the tape is sped up so you get fuzzy glimpses, intangible and refusing to stay still long enough for me to appreciate them. I remember the exact colour of her cheek and the single golden hair on her forehead in amongst the newborn down. I remember the slight revulsion for the vernix and the smell. I remember letting my sweaty hair down and the way the super long tendrils uncurled on my damp, naked shoulders. I remember not wanting to let her go even when I was being stitched up and in tears from the pain and Bingley fumbling her tininess.

I remember her fuzzy ears and her long skinny legs and toes. I remember the eyelids without eyelashes and the horrible lump from the ventouse. I remember gently unwrapping her from her blankets to change her but I don't remember bathing her for the first time. I remember the smell of the room and of the baby wipes. I remember using the big soft paper napkins they have in hospitals to change her too. And feeling overconfident but petrified at the same time, not knowing how anyone could possibly entrust the care of something so precious to someone so woefully unqualified.

I don't remember coming home. I don't remember putting her in the car or the walk upstairs, though writing that I had a glimpse of it before it flashed away again. I don't know if we slept or what we did next. There is so much that I don't remember.

I tell myself that days like today, where she ran around in a pink and white confection of tulle and lace with her long honey hair bouncing and her friends all around her, thrilled to be eight years old and the centre of attention with her very own owl cake and helium balloons and streamers, showing off and dancing; I tell myself I'll remember. But I possibly won't. I won't remember that I stayed up til after midnight so that all of the layers of the jelly cups would be perfect for her and her friends. Or that I zhuzzed tissue paper until the house was decked with big bowery papery blossoms. I won't remember the hilarious but disturbing scrum as the children dived into the carcass of the pinata and emptied it of its spoils.

I feel like I should remember how we woke at dawn to the soft grey rain and dismayed at how that would work for a birthday party where the whole class had been invited. And then 15 minutes before the party the sun came out and all was green and gold. But I won't.

I may remember the shock as she leant over her birthday cake to blow out the candles and eagerly grabbed the knife and started cutting of how tall she is looking. How long her arms and legs. How her face is so in-between that of little girl and who she will someday be. Of her delight in winning a prize in the pass the parcel or her pride in showing off her new Nintendo DS.

But I hope I will remember that sometimes I did not feel like we were fighting a war between us of protracted battles about homework and brushing teeth and hair. That I did not spend her whole life picking at the edges and trying not to be frustrated because she is the first and I still don't know exactly what I'm doing with her. Not so much has changed there in eight years.

It all feels so vivid now, as if life will always be this stark, this bright, this painful, this beautiful; but I know better. Time will cover this with new layers and shades and obscure the fine detail. Things that seem so important now, so vital, will be masked in years to come even if I document it the contrast will be lost and only the mellow shades left.

I often wonder if perhaps my Elfling would have done better with another parent besides me. Someone less ambitious, more patient, less tired, more loving, more affectionate. More. On bad days I feel numb inside for her and the horrid luck she drew in the parent lottery, see the wistfulness in her eyes at friends whose mothers help in the classroom and stand at the school gate in the afternoons and chat to the other Mums. Someone who wasn't just fumbling her way through her life but already had read the text book and the accompanying study guide and knew exactly what they were doing. And I hope that like me she remembers just the highlights, and the excitement and the joy of being a little girl. And that one day she understands and forgives me for not being all that she deserved, because she does deserve it all. My ethereal baby girl who made me into a mother.

Big stars and little stars

First weekend of December now holds two beautiful traditions - the ballet concert and of course, the tree. This is our third year of rocking up to ballet, finding our seats in the darkened auditorium and waiting for the moment when I burst into tears over tiny ballerinas in pink tutus. I wish I could show you pictures, but our ballet school prohibits photography AT ALL during performances and this year didn't even do a curtain call. I am fairly miffed about that. 

The two ballerinas were ethereal, tiny and graceful, and completely worthy of my blubbering all the way through their performance. The older girls might technically be much more aesthetic, but watching the Monkey twirl and the Elfling flutter her gossamer wings was just beautiful. Proud mama. 

After ballet, I was allowed to finally unleash Christmas upon our house - or as Bingley described it, "vomit tinsel" while listening to Bing. Our new tree is lovely and lush (though I think part of me misses our old one) and we chatted about all the many special ornaments as they went on the tree. Each girl and boy helping to slide them on. Checking that we had all 12 days of Christmas, and that each trinket and bauble was located just so.

I had also bought the kids each a mini tree, with their own string of lights to decorate as they wished. They had great fun with the tinsel and lights and loved being able to choose whatever they wanted in the lay out of their own trees.  I finished off the room with our snowflake icicle lights and giant star, and sat in front of the tree long after everyone else had gone to bed, with a fruit mince pie and a glass of milk thinking of just how much I love Christmas. 

Day 9, someone you love

I was at work late last night, and then headed out with an old friend who reminded me at 8pm that I was supposed to be meeting him for dinner. Oops. In any case, it was lucky I'd actually dressed ok that morning because I'd completely forgotten. But after being at work 13 hours I looked terrible and I smelled worse. He was gracious enough not to mention though, and it was a fun night after an aggravating evening at work. After I dropped him off at his place, I drove home through the quiet streets and listened to the radio and tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. At one red light I looked up, and above me was a wattle tree, about to burst into bloom, and I smiled. I've fallen in love twice under sprigs of wattle, and it remains one of my favourite flowers.

Anyhow, that was a long tangential ramble to explain why I missed Day 9 of the photo meme - someone you love. The difficulty being of course choosing just one picture when there are so many loved ones. I could choose the friends I saw last night, who have seen me tired and miserable and crying but joyful and drunk and disinhibited as well. Who have carried me home (almost literally) as I slurred my everlasting gratitude love for them. Who have eaten fresh pasta after I've rolled it for them and hugged me when exams were over.

I could show you my parents, who I understand a lot better now that I am one, and who I am heart squeezingly proud of as well as loving them to bits. I could show you how happy they look these days now that they are winding down from the ridiculous years of work and kids, and get to enjoy the spoils.

I could show you my aunties and uncles, my cousins and second cousins, all close, all get together a couple of times per year to eat too much and talk loudly. I could show you Bingley's family, and his extended family that wrap around us like a sorely needed blanket when things feel like they're unravelling and threadbare. Who I know would always support him and my babies, and who have supported me as well.

I could show you Bingley, who is making macarons in his quest for dominance over the perfect shell with feet, with a slightly maniacal look in his eye as he prods his macaronage to assess the bubbles. Who I woke up curled into this morning, with Oscar the cat, our first baby snuggled into my belly feeling warm and snug. Who nuzzled my hair as he stroked my hip and whispered "shouldn't you be going to work?".

I could show you the Possum, whose second birthday entry is still in a drafts folder and who has been snuggly and warm and adorable. Who is making more sounds and coming closer and closer to speech, as we encourage him with his different noises and sign language. Who is ruddy cheeked and golden haired and universally adored. Who is awake far past his bedtime, playing trains in the play room with the Elfling who is watching a movie and the Monkey who has passed out.

I could show you the Monkey whose curls could be a post of their own. Whose fierce temper and loving spirit make me want to scoop her up and hug her til she squeals most days. My funny quirky girl, who crawls into bed with me most nights, snuggles into the groove she found when she was a baby and snores softly. My ridiculous child, dressed in 5 layers tonight at her instigation and who looks not unlike the Michelin Man.

But instead I will post pictures of my Elfling, with whom my relationship is often strained by expectation and frustration and the desire to be a good parent while also being a good parent. I don't always understand her, and sometimes I am guilty of not taking the time to explore her fragile ethereal world before stomping in and getting cranky about the mess on the floor. She is clever and sweet and loves her friends to a fault. She is also anxious and a little shy, and maintains a self deprecating fear of her inabilities that makes me want to punch her Prep teacher. She is luminous and wild, tangles and briars and yet still the perfect rose tinted cream complexioned baby that lay in my arms some years ago.

May

I have had this window open now for the better part of 4 hours and have left it hanging in the breeze the whole time. Like an assignment that's due tomorrow that I'm putting off until the very last minute. Which is ridiculous because this is a blog, and the only reason to write in it is because I want to. There's no have to anything. And yet, here it sits, like a precocious middle child, reminding me of my duties, and feeling guilty for avoiding them.

It should not be difficult to write, there has been a lot happening in recent times. First and foremost I took a holiday. A charlatan's holiday, in that we left at 10am after I had worked through the night, and I had to come back in the middle for a late shift, but still, we went somewhere new where the walls were white and the ocean crashed outside my window and the air tasted of salt. It was lovely to go to bed at night with the doors open to the view and to hear the tempestuous sea. For the first few nights the weather was quite wild, and in our 10th floor apartment the waves still roared. It was an angry sea.

The first morning I woke up, and there was sun on my face rising over that water. It reflected off the mirror next to the bed, and refracted it all over the white room so that everything sparkled. I have not slept so well as I did the last few nights, in months. Years maybe. That glorious white noise speaking of power and fury and wind rocked me as softly as any lullaby all night long. It kept me calm and zen, even when I discovered that the Possum had drawn all over a wall in crayon, and had tipped a bowl of cocoa pops on the cream carpet.

The air did beautiful things to my skin and made my hair shine. I went swimming in the waves, and licked the salt from my lips, smelt it on my arms. I played in the sand with the kids and ate whatever I wanted. I drank sweet bacardi with fresh mint and I ate chocolate while sniffling over the Royal Wedding. I read 3 Mills and Boon stories while sticky with salt and stretched out on the unmade bed. I luxuriated in our in room spa bath and let the jets and the bubbles transport me to some place else.

The kids had a lovely time too, but I was reminded of how much work they can be out of routine. They were constantly bored, or fidgety, or grumpy, or hungry hungry hungry, and it was interesting remembering that they needed to be thought of at all times again. While I am at work, someone else is remembering that you need to take tiny bladder toilet breaks every 2 hours and that meals need to be about the same apart. Whereas I can often forget to eat, especially if I'm off in la la land as it was very easy to drift this past week. But there were lovely moments too. The Elfling has been reading books on her own, and "in her head" and it makes me heart glad. Watching her sitting on the couch curled up with a book made me squee, just a little bit.

The Possum loved the sand, was terrified of the waves, and adored drawing on everything. The walls, the carpet, the tiles, and even the speakers for the tv. I spent a good bit of every morning finding that which he had decorated while we had foolishly slept in, and weighing up how much that extra hour in the morning was worth. But he smiled a lot and he tried valiantly to talk, gradually, oh so gradually, moving on from pointing and grunting to mimicking sounds. He was and continues to be so delighted when he is understood, that I feel that talking will be very soon. But in the meantime I don't mind at all, he is still my snuggliest baby, he loves cuddles, he loves books, and he adores me, in a way that makes me feel humbled to be his mother.

 

And the wild Monkey enjoyed herself too. She has been reminding me lately a lot of how much of a failure I felt as a mother when the Elfling was four years old, and I am so glad that I've lived through that long enough to know that it is not just me and that it will get better. Four is tough. She is bright and clever and far too quick witted, but there are still vestiges of babyhood as well. A few soft reminders at cheek and wrist that speak of my curly haired baby girl, who gets lost so often now in my fiery red headed preschooler. She of the corkscrew curls and the titian temper. She is flailing a little at the moment, and I am missing her dreadfully, to the extent that the two of us are going on a special holiday soon, where she gets to be made a fuss of for a change, instead of being sandwiched between her high maintenance siblings.


Bingley and I are doing better as well, with the ability to spend time together under the sun. My job is wretched on a relationship. Any relationship - and it is only made more difficult by the things that are meant to bind us so strongly. Children and money have to be the single biggest stressors in any marriage, and play into it my misogynistic career and it's chaotic. But after a few nights of sitting back together listening to the waves, and waking in white light, I feel more settled. Restless, still not breathing properly, but settled. I still have moments of wretched despair, but they are less often than they were, and I take comfort in this.

As part of our renegotiating of our relationship I asked Bingley to take more photos of me, so that I might be part of our family chronicles. Usually this exercise brings me to the point of despair, with poorly focused photos that are framed to best exhibit my nose hair or back fat, but he took 2 single photos this holiday that made me happy that I insisted. I look happy and relaxed and alive, to the extent that I received no less than 15 messages on facebook in the hour after I posted. And I know that when I am having a bad day, and it will come, sooner rather than later, I can look at that photo, and know that in that moment I was happy. That in spite of my catastrophising fear that I have never been happy, that my eyes there tell a different story.

And for the rest, I've learned how to take self-portraits.

Elfling

 
Sometimes I forget that I am a mother; I know it is non correct Mommy blogger etiquette to say so, but I do. Sometimes I want to forget, because there is so much of being a parent that is unfun. Silly reasons that sound petty when you list them, which can make me feel belligerent and adolescent at times, wanting to whine why meeee. Why do I have to deal with this crap when I really don't want to. And often I post on the crap days, because the need to vent and let off that head of relentless monotonous steam is strong.

What I don't do often enough is post on the days when just looking at my offspring is enough to make my heart beat harder. To feel such absolute misplaced pride that I created something so incredibly beautiful and loving. It's easy to feel it about the Possum, because he is still a baby, all nommable limbs and creampuff skin. Giant blue eyes and a heart that was built for cuddles. He's my snuggly baby bear and I often feel lucky that I am his mother.

It's harder to not rebel against being the parent of a young girl though. To look at the path of adolescence ahead and wince a little at having to watch that from the sidelines while hoping desperately that I did enough of the right things during childhood to give her a pass through it. To know the line between strict and fair, guidance and hindrance. I often feel I am too hard on my Elfling, and then not there enough or soft enough in between. It sometimes feels farcical that her upbringing has been left to me, when I still have so much growing up to do myself.

I look at her big green eyes sometimes, with lashes even longer than mine - black fringes that look almost indecent against the lustre of her skin, and I feel fear. Terrified that I am not doing enough for her. That I will be paying the therapy bills for years to come because I'm not the mother I want to be, nor the mother I want for her. And I wonder if she will ever know how many choices I made for her. How many dreams I have altered, because it was more important that she be in them. And that I don't regret any of it.

It's amazing how much perspective can be gained from a simple moment, like lying sprawled and exhausted on the couch, and watching her dance as she watches tv. Practising her arabesque using the kitchen counter as a barre while she thinks no one watches. Early morning on the weekends catching her making peanut butter sandwiches for the Possum as they sit together cuddled on the couch. Writing stories in her journals and colouring in the pictures that she makes to go with them and laughing at the school reports that say that she needs help with her "recounts".

And then on days like today, watching her pick up the paper bag of gifts from her grandparents, all long limbs and angles, feet in sparkly shoes just like mine. Twirling in the window with her head thrown back laughing at the sheer joy of being alive. And thinking that for all the things I've done wrong, and for all things I will continue to screw up, she still laughs. She still illuminates. And I swallow deep in my throat and wince a little at the sudden panic in my chest. Because one day she will leave home, and she will fall in love and be hurt. And then maybe fall in love again. And I can't (and won't) stop any of that. But suddenly it feels like it will be so soon.

Fight the break of dawn

I had intentions to write but spent the night listening to sad sack music and recording my own voice singing it just for something new and different.

I'm in some weird funk, and wish I got PMT or soemthing so I could blame it on that. Can't think of any other reason why I am determined to listen to pianos and music that has always been able to make me cry.

I think that maybe I'm just tired. I have just come off a very difficult rotation - 60+ hour weeks, evenings, weekends. The stress of Christmas, organising back to school stuff, and a little problem with water that you might have heard our area experienced... That's not even taking into account all the stress at work beyond the hours including the family meetings, the palliation, the psychotic patients, the horrible diagnoses. I loved it, but by the end I felt like it was sucking at me. Physically attached to my chest and pulling at me.

And I start a new rotation next week, straight onto nights and I'm dreading it. Not like I did last year when my whole being felt sick at the mere thought, but I am just not looking forward to it. And for someone that usually loves everything about her work it's not a nice feeling. I wish I could just take a week's leave, but the way my hospital works you only get to take your leave once a year, and for me that is October, which will translate to working for 16 months straight without a guarantee of even having weekends off regularly.It sucks and I think that having had today to not be at work and sit in the sun reminded me of all of that.

I was walking around the shops with the Elfling today navigating her incredible book list and finding shoes and lunchboxes when we wandered into an art supply shop where they had a big wooden box of Derwent pencils. It was resting against an easel and my breath sucked into my chest at the sight of it. The problem with having too many dreams is that if they contradict eachother you can't help feel a little bit like you're missing out.

Enough sadsackness. I will be cheerful and determined and hard working again tomorrow, healing the sick, feeding the poor etc etc. But until then I'm going to sing, and cry a bit and marvel at just how good music sounds through proper speakers and wonder why it's taken me so long to buy a set of headphones.

PS Elfling is starting Year 2 on Monday. When the fuck did that happen??

Christmas 2010

Christmas always starts on Christmas Eve for me. Since childhood it has been tradition and is a day steeped in cinnamon and brandy and that sharp tang of anticipation. I have never before spent it at work, and it was hard to remember (as I wrote the date repeatedly), that it was actually the fabled date of my youth. That longed for day for all of the very long year wherein that magic suspension of time and space betwixt not Christmas and Christmas hangs.

The week leading up had been hectic: late night, last minute shopping. Dinners with friends and frantic tidying as the waterlogged, housebound children wreaked havoc. The solstice marked with a lunar eclipse that I happened upon, not knowing what it was - marvelling at the ghostly clouds of the oversized crescent moon as it grew before my eyes. The change from red to milky then ghostly white as she rose into the sky on the clearest night I can remember for weeks.

Staying up late to cut out the girls dresses by the glow of the twinkling Christmas star and the fairy lights, satiated by the reflection off the shiny floorboards. Waking up at dawn to dress for work and trudge through the rain to finish another full day before coming home to prepare yet more in a manic frenzy. Friends would laughingly tell me it was "just another day" while Bingley, becoming wise now in his 4th decade refrained from all but a questioning eyebrow as I pieced together the Christmas dresses before realising I had lost my standard sewing foot AND my bobbin.

The girls hopped around on Christmas Eve with so much innocent delight that it made me feel vindicated in all of my late night efforts. Coming home from work tired I pushed it all aside as we laid the table with our wedding china and sparkly crystal and turkey and stuffing and all things good. The girls ate though they were excited, bouncing in their chairs and clinking goblets together delightedly saying "cheese" instead of "cheers" while the Possum inhaled his turkey. 

The Elfling collected a plate after dinner and filled it with things for Santa - digging through the bottom of the drawer of the fridge looking desperately for a carrot for the reindeer and choosing a beer for Santa - all of which she laid out for him by the tree. It was standing there in the light of the tree with the Santa sacks laid out hopefully, the stockings hanging by the window and the little golden Wedgewood plate filled with treats that I suddenly felt the prickle of tears behind my eyes at the sheer hallmark perfection of that moment. I tucked the girls into bed where the excitement hovered over them in a shimmering cloud as we read one of the Christmas stories from the stash, and they Elfling knitted her eyelids shut, willing sleep to come so that it would be morning soon.

As per tradition I turned on the Carols in the Domain and sang softly as I sat at my sewing machine, the whirring keeping time with the ancient hymns as two bright dresses formed under my hands. And then with a jingling of bells, Santa has there and the sacks were stuffed with mysterious wrapped packages and Bingley helped to assemble the scooters and the little ride on 3 wheeler and the blackboard. I hung the completed dresses by the bulging stockings and looked at the loveliness and sighed. It was so pretty it hurt my eyes. My heart bubbling like warm champagne as it frothed around my veins.

I curled into bed next to Bingley and it was my turn to squeeze my eyes shut and wish for sleep so that tomorrow would be here: the room not entirely dark as the muted glow bounced its way around the room, reminding me that Christmas was right next door.

We woke in the darkness of Christmas morning to hear the Possum in that limbo between falling back to sleep and waking, and being far too early for the latter I tiptoed into the kitchen and mixed a bottle of formula, stroking his forehead as he sucked and fell back asleep. Smiling as I walked past the room of loveliness and curling up in bed, unable to sleep.

Dawn tickled around the window frame around 5 and not long after came the unmistakeable sounds of the girls waking up. The delighted, awed, hushed cries as the girls walked into the lounge room had me tearing up in bed, listening to the surprised delight as the Elfling realised that Santa and his reindeer had eaten their treats. The thud as the new scooters were exclaimed over with thrilled squeals and ridden up and down the hallway. The Monkey debating about whether or not she could open her presents yet, and guiltily satisfying herself with opening her sack and seeing the wrapped booty within, exclaiming to the Elfling to check hers too. 

Bingley and I lay in bed and listened to it - the sweet symphony of childhood and appreciation and sheer radiant joy - and he laughed as I cried a little bit, because if nothing else I am a sook. Finally overcome, and knowing they were not to open anything until everyone was awake, they tentatively came into our room and pleaded to be allowed to wake the Possum. Their faces glowing in the half light - the Elfling especially looking so beautiful it made me ache, the innocent happiness making me grateful all over again that I get to be her mother.

We allowed them to open their stockings while they waited, knowing the exquisite torture of waiting and delayed gratification as we lay in the new day, celebrating when so many days it has not felt like a celebration - grateful that today I want to be nowhere else, but with my family, listening to the raptures over finding new undies in the bottom of a stocking when they were sure that there was nothing else to find.

Eventually I allowed the girls to check, surreptitiously, if the Possum was awake. Stealthily they opened the door, tiptoed over to his bed and bellowed that it was Christmas, disconcerting a peacefully sleeping Possum who rubbed his eyes and looked tearful at this noisy interruption to sugar plum dreaming. The exuberance of his sisters causing him to retreat into the safety of our arms until he had woken up enough to appreciate what was going on - which at that point was a veritable orgy of paper ripping as the girls were unleashed on their Santa sacks.

It's all a bit blurry from here, as presents were exclaimed over, and alternately dumped into my lap to open as the girls jumped about like mini Christmas sprites, eager to pass out as many presents as they opened and cajoled the Possum to start ripping into his. I smiled as I opened the pyjamas I'd asked for, and thrilled a little bit at the silly Eiffel Tower bag they came in, as if they'd been made especially for me. But it was the very very heavy oblong gift that made my heart do that tiny gleeful butterfly releasing jump as I opened it.

It is a massive coffee table style book and they had had an older edition of it at the place we stayed a few weeks ago. I had sat there in the corner but the window that ran with rain and the cool grey light and pored over this book. It is travel-lite. It is not a dissertation into travel or in depth. It is the readers' digest of travel books, but I loved it. I loved that it had every country, with pictures and little facts and maps. How I love maps. It made me want to get out a little packet of post it notes and place them all the places I want to visit until I realised the futility of this as I want to go everywhere.

To many books like this are pointless - I can upload more information and more full screen pictures than are in this book to my lap in seconds. But owning it made me as thrilled as I was as a child to receive the latest Roald Dahl book, or any other of the most cherished books of my childhood. It is *mine* and it was sitting, heavy and beautiful in my lap, smooth shiny pages under my fingertips, that smell of new books and just the promise of it all. That yes I will go there. And there and there and there. Bingley often buys me nice things, but this is the first time that he got it completely, irrevocably perfect.

I sat in my chair for a long time reverently turning the pages of my book as the girls, finally finished with all their gifts tore around the verandah on their scooters, the Possum joining in on his little trike. Bingley busied himself in the kitchen making poached eggs on toast with Christmas ham and I bundled all the ripped and torn paper excess to be recycled as garden mulch and spoke to relatives who had been woken by the joint cries of excited children and a surprise cyclone that had crossed the coast that morning.

The rain did not dampen our spirits as we headed up to my Mum and Dad's place, the Possum and the Monkey falling asleep on the way as the rain beat a steady rhythm on the roof. Arriving to smiles and hugs and all the other Hallmark cliches as we dashed inside with the big washing basket of gifts, all strange shapes and sizes, the wrapped umbrella in the middle looking silly tied with a bow.

We chatted with Mum and Dad as Mum laid out platters and checked the turkey buff as it filled the air with it's juicy scent and I decorated the pavlova as is my yearly tradition.

Then the last of the relatives arrived and the orgy of gift giving continued - watching the surprise and delight of those receiving the perfect gift and the polite cheerfulness of those who didn't. I was especially proud of the Elfling, who on realising that she liked a gift the Monkey had been given instead, picked up her fallen face and smiled delightedly at me before giving me a cuddle.

Then lunch and cocktails (or mocktails for the little ones, who thought that the maraschino cherries floating in their sparkling apple juice were the last word in magnificence) and far too much turkey. Ridiculous cracker jokes that make me laugh out loud and paper hats. Tiny plastic gifts that the Elfling and Monkey collected up and played with for half an hour together, bemused by their junkiness but loving them anyway. The Possum pulling his own cracker with an expression of simultaneous terror and determination that still makes me chortle days later.

Putting together the mini fusball table after lunch, when not a single extra morsel of food could be forced into groaning stomachs and the heated games thereafter. The wii sports tournaments fought in the living room while I crashed out on the couch. Eating pavlova even when there was no room and the gluten free trifle. And maybe a couple of celebratory chocolates.

The girls were so well behaved all day I wanted a medal for parenting brilliance (as if I had anything to do with it) and the Possum was his usual sunshiny self. It was such a perfect day that I thought I would burst from it, filled with food and love and cheer and happiness.

We drove home into the soggy night and loaded sleeping children into their new pyjamas and bed and smiled. And smiled. And smiled.