I read your book because of a tattoo

It has been a cold, wet start to winter and the rain seems unlikely to relent any time soon. We were at the beach this long, wet weekend, with the intention of dancing along the sand and collecting shells and spent much time indoors instead, watching movies on the couch and listening longingly to the roar of the stormy ocean outside. It was so wet that even I, the inveterate rainwalker could not head out through the dunes to splash in the waves.


It was a slightly crestfallen Jenn that woke this morning in the grey wetness, looking balefully at the clouds and wishing for the tiniest interlude, a quick steal onto the sand, as I packed up the detritus from the hotel room and the collected pens and sponsor waterbottles from my conference. The children were in surprisingly good humour, considering the resort pool that they had only seen glimpses of and the beach and playground equipment that eluded them as we set off this morning. Bellies full from the buffet breakfast (the highlight of their trip) we drove North West, into the shadow of the volcano to trip through some of the world's most beautiful country.

The bickering from the backseat ebbed and flowed with the raindrops as we ascended into the Border Ranges and into the forest, watching the ephemeral rain waterfalls off the escarpment that are only there when the rain is heavy. A brief hiatus in the bucketing rain left the leaves glossy and wet, with every breeze dislodging heavy drops that splodged over noses and tickled down collars as we pulled everyone out of the car and off to see a waterfall that had eaten through the rock and formed a Natural Bridge, the cave underneath home to thousands of glow worms, seen only by their glistening silken threads.

The spray off the waterfall mingled with the tangy rain drenched air and tasted sweet as it snuggled down in my chest. The girls racing along the paths, asking with teenaged exasperation why we were walking through the forest on a rainy day just to see TREES. When I asked the Possum, who was holding my hand, he smiled and told me the trees were singing. Whereupon I tumbled him up as he giggled, hugged him tightly until he squirmed and whispered that that was exactly it - I needed to hear the trees singing.

I am glad that at least one of my children has inherited my insatiable need to be out in the green, though to be fair to the other two ratbags, they enjoyed themselves as well, watching waterfalls and trying to catch glimpses of pademelons as they sprung between trees.

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It was the Possum's third birthday this weekend. Three. It makes my heart ache to think of a time when he was not part of our lives, when I did not wake with his feet warming on some part of my body while his body curls with his elbows tucked in neatly. I was afraid that as he grew older my need for another baby would resurface, but he is so much more than enough that every stage of his growing older is more lovely than the last. Being his mother and getting to hold him against my heart is such a massive privilege. I am a very lucky woman. We are all utterly besotted and he is thriving.

On Friday we took his birthday cake into daycare where he solemnly blew out all the candles and exulted in the joy that is quite unexplainable of having a birthday. More than just the attention and balloons, it was his joy in simply being alive in his new shoes that flash as he walks and help him leap puddles in a single bound. Of his skinny little hips in his new jeans and shirt that made him look older, wiser and ultimately more vulnerable than he ever seemed as a newborn. I had to restrain myself from holding him to me, just to absorb through my skin the radiance that lights him from the inside out, exploding through his cheeky grins.

I feel often that I should write more here, about what is happening in their lives, of their stories and their triumphs, but I also feel that many are not my stories to tell; to share with the world at large. Though as the guardian of something so wonderful it feels as though I want to bring that light to others too. Do I sound like every besotted mother, convinced of the loveliness of her own progeny? Of course, and it's how it should be, but I know there is something special about my boy - if only because, temporarily, he is mine.

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The title of this post comes from Vonnegut, who I read on the advice of strangers who commented and submitted to Contrariwise. I was reminded of it as I clicked on a blog I once read miserably, to push the blade deeper into my chest and hope that the fragile creation within it would finally die and stop hurting. And it didn't hurt at all tonight, and I didn't even finish because I was not interested in playing with knives any more. I read a little and all I could think was "So it goes". And while that felt empty and strange for a little while, I was pouring a bowl of cereal later for dinner when I broke into a huge grin and a laugh tumbled forward from my lips. Because the ridiculousness of finding a life philosophy from a tattoo that echoes in all of the secret places of your soul was so delicious that only a squirrel could understand. Or perhaps a tree.

So it goes.

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 11, Something blue

Frankie

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.

Joyeux Pâques

Ideally I would love to cheat with this post and show you delightful natural photos of excited children chasing around with exquisite handmade baskets exclaiming over Easter eggs, before sitting prettily in natural white light and beaming. But for me to have taken such shots I would have had to have slithered out of bed at 5am, as that was the time when the delighted shrieks could be heard from the back of the house. And I confess, terrible mommy blogger that I am, instead I rolled over and snuggled into Bingley and went back to sleep.

In fact, it wasn't until the first noises of rapid sugar come down at 8am that I started blearily opening my eyes, and even then, the appeal of closing the door and celebrating our sugar bought sleep in seemed much more rational. So now the only evidence that a certain furry gentleman passed by this way at all is a confetti of silvered paper over the playroom floor and a slightly manic look in my children's eyes. I have been told, with gusto, of the many eggs they found and how well they helped the Possum find them too, but for the veracity of this account you would have to trust the Monkey, who has been intermittently sobbing and hanging from the doorway as she bounces off the walls.

Ahh Easter.

We went to my Dad's family's Easter celebration yesterday, in the same place it always is under the trees, and the kids raced around while Bingley and I sat back and let the grandparents take in turns chasing the erstwhile Possum. It was right near the beach, and although a grotty beach, the wind off the water and the sun and the salt made it perfect. I am hoping against hope that the weather holds until next week, when we will be at a much nicer beach taking a well earned family break. Unfortunately my tradeoff for getting a few days off is that I am working from 8:30pm until 8:30am for the next 3 nights. I am hoping at least to be rostered on with some friends who can keep me company for the long nights.

But for now I need to decorate a pavlova and find an antidote to sugar while the roast perfumes the kitchen and my Mum and Dad stir up the kids. Hope you have a lovely Easter!

Papillon

I was effusively happy today. Ebullient. Infectiously cheerful... I drove to work in the sunrise and the warmth saturated my skin just as I was waking up. It felt so good to be warm and warmed. Wrapped in my purple coat and surrounded by periwinkle sky.


My mind was dancing today, little flashes of colour and idea and promise fluttering around me all day. When I am happy it feels as if all that is joyful in my life gambols around me, dancing in swathes of light that make all of me light. I bounce when I am happy, almost unconsciously. My hair, my eyes, my toes. And I love that my Pixie Possum does as well.

When the Possum sees me in the afternoons, it is mere seconds before I am earnestly slammed into with a full body hug. He is now a writhing mass of little muscles and pudgy toddler belly, but his delighted afternoon baby cuddles cheer me up the second I walk up the stairs. Not that I needed cheering tonight, as all of me was alive as I pushed through the front gate. Elated and excited. Happy and satiated.

It felt all day as if little butterflies were buffeting me, each with a message; brief, beautiful and luminescent. I felt as if all things were possible indeed as if all things were necessary. I felt for the first time in such a long time that every part of me was happy. From the tip of my fingers to the tip of my nose that the Possum kissed as I bundled him up into a mammoth hug.

Nothing could touch my happiness. Nothing could marr it. No work task was unwanted, no raised eyebrow able to taint what for some reason was just a beautiful day. I felt the Gleam today, it came and played with me, flashed about in a showy rainbow everytime I tried to concentrate on work and laughed that I had ever doubted. My fingers itched for a pencil or coal and canvas and I had to remind myself not to sing aloud, as the Gleam called me over the margin.

I read the Monkey her story tonight and when she hugged me, her curls over her eyes and her stretched out limbs wrapped around me she told me she loved me and that I seemed happy tonight. And I was.

Saturday morning

I have conjunctivitis. Only in my right eye, which weeps uncontrollably and caused me to wake up with my eyelashes crusted together and the hair on the right side of my pillow to be matted and stuck to my face. My eyelid is almost swollen shut and I look like I've been punched. Très chic, non?

Luckily today is Saturday, and I am curled up in bed with the softness of Autumn rain enveloping the house as I wipe my face yet again on my sleeve, no doubt reinfecting myself but somehow unable to stop. I have two whole days off in a row, 48 whole hours and have slept gloriously for some of them, and played trains with the Possum in others. He said "car" today, one of his first ever words and I was so excited that I scared him. He doesn't speak much, my baby boy.

Oscar the cat is curled up next to me. In his dotage he has become a sooky, purring lapcat who wants to snuggle into your warmth. There is something truly delightful about a cat - they are so snooty, so haughty. They never consider your feelings and they don't live for your attention like a dog. They are masters to be served and even though I have had one pretty much my whole life I still get a pang of pleasure when I feel my cat jump on me in the middle of the night and make a nest against the middle of my back. That and purring may just be the most therapeutic sound in the world.

It's pouring with rain now, and I have the cat curled up on one side and the Possum on the other. He has one sandal that is two sizes too small on one foot and the other is bare. We were looking at pictures of cats and dogs to try and encourage him to speak, and he had great fun before making a little sigh sound and falling fast asleep.

It is the perfect weekend, even with the gunky eye and the matted hair. All white noise and cool. Soft. Wrapped in grey.

Elastic

It is a beautiful morning. Warm and rose coloured. I woke with the sun slanting over my eyes and smiled. The birdsong was (and is) jubilant this morning, farewelling the last of Summer as I stretched out in the warmth. I have found myself unable to sleep in, even though it was the objective this weekend and not minding at all.

Yesterday the rain clouds threatened at dawn and the pitter patter of rain on the roof was made for lazy days in bed;yet unable to sleep, curling up with a good book that was rich and tasty, licking the flavour from my lips. The girls made cubby houses outside with bright coloured blankets strung over the table and the hammock and the boy ran through squealing.

He has been snuggly of late, missing me. He clings to me when I am at home, Friday curling up in my lap in a sobbing ball, holding tight around my neck as I sang us both to sleep. Insisting on finding me when something hurts until I can kiss it all better. Burrowing his head into my shoulder when he is tired, tiny hands gripping my shoulders so that I can't let him go as the chubby limbs gradually go limp and heavy. He is so beautiful I don't know how to do much other than snuggle him. I can't be cross when he screams, or when he comes crawling into bed covered with the milo that he has been gleefully scooping into his mouth with his hands.

Yesterday in the afternoon the high level wind had blown all but the most majestic of late afternoon clouds far off into the distance and we scrambled to the park to run and jump and play. Watching the fearless Possum chase the "Duh!" and the Monkey climb to the highest point and pretend to wave a flag. The bright green grass and the breeze pushing through my protective shield and waking me up in spite of myself. It took nearly an hour until I looked up at the sky, and I wonder at why it took so long. The setting sun turning the clouds into gilded chariots racing across the sky; the birds flitting overhead in jealous squabbles over branch position.

I am still not well. I am still not entirely me. But in the triumphant chorus of twilight yesterday afternoon I saw her flickering in the last light on the horizon. The tiniest gleam of gold as the sun gave a last sigh and sank beneath the brilliant sky, pulling up the covers and letting dusk sing her lullaby.

I will overcome this melancholy, as I have overcome it before. I miss the sun, I miss my fire. I miss the dull burn in the base of my heart that could spill forth at any time into my veins. I miss my light and the golden hue my eyes once took when superlatively happy. I miss the other half of me, the spark that kindled.

I miss my Gleam.

References

I'm lying in bed, with my headphones on listening to soft and slow music. On really low so it's just whispering about like waves do on a distant beach when you're on holiday. Sprawled out next to me is the Possum, who is breathing a bit noisily and probably has an ear infection. He wasn't too miserable today until I tried to put him to bed, which was apparently a very bad idea. So I cajoled. And stroked. Then cuddled. Then cuddled and sang. Then lay him across my chest and sang until he got heavy and started snoring.

I love baby snores, even if they're associated with grumbly nights, because somehow, they're just beautiful. He's curling and uncurling his fist in his sleep, and it's hard to beat the temptation to reach over and touch his skin. The sweet sweaty smell of him. The mustiness of his scalp under his too long hair. The shirt pulled up over his belly showing the soft soft skin there and a belly button that you want to press.

He is perfect in sleep; stretched out diagonally next to me, his feet on my lap, kicking the keyboard occasionally. But I love him so much more when he is awake. His cheeky smile, his babble, his habit of lifting his hands innocently when he can't find something with the quizzical lift of eyebrows.

.........................

I was so tired today - I got home from work last night around midnight, and as so often happens when it's the last shift in a block I couldn't fall asleep. The insomnia washing over me in waves as I tried futilely to just switch off and sleep. The hours ticking on by and reminding me that I had to get up and take the kids to school in just a few hours making me anxious and sleep even further away from my grasp, drifting off near two and waking groggily at 3 to the Possum.

This morning I prepared lunches in a dream, and dropped the 3 off at their respective daycares so that I could stretch out and catch up on my "weekend" sleep. But it wouldn't come. A rude guest that I'd prepared for and waited all week for, asI lay on my bed with Oscar the cat curled up in the crook of my knees and didn't sleep some more.

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Last night at work I was told that I should consider Emergency Medicine as a career as I'd be wasted in Radiology. This is from the same rotation that told me last year I wouldn't get a job as no one would give me a reference. You would think that would go a long way to taking away my anxiety of even turning up to work there every day - but it doesn't. I still feel small and stupid there, even though I know that I'm not. My logical self and my feeling self battle over it every shift as I prepare for work, the feeling self getting worked up into hysterics and breathing into a paper bag while the logical part tells her to harden the fuck up as she wields a mascara wand. But I have filed it into the part of my brain that lists all the reasons I shouldn't quit for the days when it's hard to remember not to.

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While lying on my bed, impotently waiting for sleep to come today I pondered the mysteries of eyeliner, and wondered if I could wear both eyeliner and red lipstick without looking like a $2 whore. Make up can be a little hit and miss with me, to the extent that some days I will carefully apply, look in the mirror and then wipe it all off. I find that some days I can wear make up and some days it wears me, and on those days it needs to be removed.

I have always liked red lipstick, and have had some somewhere, the rouge making me happy for some reason. My mouth is too small, and bright lipstick highlights that, but I've found that as I've become older I care less. I can't somehow contour my way to beign beautiful, so I'm doing what makes me happy instead. And of course, because this is how it works, I look better that way. I'm more me when I try to be me, than when I try to be a better, prettier, perkier version. Obviously.

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I am sad tonight, listening to my sad slow music and with my eyeliner from earlier smudged over my lower lid, as tears fall from tiredness and fatigue and something else so poignant. I hurt tonight. Hurt in those places that medication can never reach and that don't ever go away, not even in sleep. I think I'm losing a friend, a friend that is angry with me and hurt by and all sorts of things that I can't heal. Not with my hands or my heart or my voice. Not even my doctorly brain.And it whispers to me occasionally that it's proof again, that I'm just not worth it, not good enough. And no one will ever give me a reference.

Wish bow

Part of me was keen to push my face into the pillow and ignore the bright sunshine until 10am. After the first migraine in about 6 months and the knowledge that I have 9 days in a row coming up (will work conservatively 100 hours in that block) sleep looked very very appealing. But sleeping away life means that you miss so much. And even though I was having a fascinating and very rich dream set in Bali, there is a real life which is to be lived as well.

So I got up, looked at the state of the toy room and seriously considered reneging on the waking up thing. But instead shrilly helped the girls pack it all up and wipe unidentifiable decomposing food up from the floor and the crevices of their couch. And the whole time I was scrubbing I was having a vicious tantrum in my head - first real day off in so long and I work so hard and I'm doing this. This. And then I ruminated and I stewed and I festered and I thought longingly of being stretched out on a couch, listening to music and not talking. Not doing anything, just doing something I wanted to do and the festering boil of resentment burst until my insides felt like pure bile.

Then the Possum crash tackled me from behind and giggled and I slapped myself and got on with the living part.

The Elfling had her second ever proper play date today and we dropped her off at 10am to have a full day of playing. The first time I'd dropped her off I had felt panicky and slightly paranoid, but this time we barely stopped the car before zipping back off into the sunshine, heading towards one of my favourite places on Earth.

I'm often told that Brisbane is a nice enough place to live, but not really somewhere you go to visit. Nothing to see, nothing to do. And I always rankle a little bit, because whenever I ask these wearied travellers where they've been in Brisbane, or what they've done, many have been nowhere besides the mall, and possibly the museum, and that was 10 years ago.

In the intervening time Brisbane built a gallery to house Modern Art. Not the gilded Frederick McCubbins and the vases. But art that isn't just pretty on a wall. It's the sort of stuff that our illustrious daily paper mocks because "a 5 year old could do it" showing beautifully how little of it they understand. It's art that makes me cry. It's art that makes me sing. Because it's art that requires you to participate. It's art that actually does something rather than look pretty.

The exhibit at the moment is one that I particularly love. You walk in and the first thing you see are two great 3 storey high slippery dips that curl around the entrance way in steel and acetate. To the right is a city of pure white lego with intricate minarets and an equal number of 4 and 40 year olds studiously creating and changing the exhibit so it's different every time you visit.

Facing this elegant ghost town is a wall of ribbons in every colour of the rainbow tucked into tiny holes. Each ribbon printed with a simple wish. Wishes for time portals. Wishes to be older or wishes to be younger. And you can take a wish - tie it around your wrist with a bow, so long as you leave a wish behind, printed on simple paper and creating the art work as you go. I stood there next to the Monkey reading the wishes and trying to find one that came close to the biggest wish I have. And I printed my wish. My wish that I can't actually say out loud, poked it into the wall and pulled a wish ribbon out and tied it in a bow around my wrist. The Monkey doing the same - her wishes a lot more simple than mine "I wish to be bigger".

I laughed then - her exchanged wish was a picture of our cat as she admired her pretty ribbon wish. And I wondered if I could change my wish - so that I could be as blithe and carefree as my baby girl. We looked at other exhibits - one where you could send a postcard for free and another where you could build a bird out of "currency". And I absent mindedly folded a crane while the Monkey and Possum created, then thrilled to see a single identical crane hanging from the tree above me. Joining the two as they were fated to be.

Lunch was at one of my favourite pokey little Vietnamese places in West End where the Possum tried to swim in the fish pond and the Monkey ate from a Princess bowl that made the meal extra delicious. Then we wandered across to the city where I bought my annual cleanser "gift with" pack and a new Leona dress and tried on shoes with red soles and sighed a little bit. Before the small ones decided that enough was enough and we ran out on the grass and played and laughed and looked at clouds.

It was a lovely day, and as we walked back to the car across the bridge, the storm clouds rumbled overhead. Big life filled clouds tinged with light and gold. And I sucked in the warm humid air and let the wind play with my hair, the ghosts of wishes that continue to haunt me whispering. And I picked up my squealing Possum and blew raspberries on his belly, while the Monkey bounced about and asked me to tie her wish bow again, because it kept coming undone.

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.