I realised something the other day about why I have issues with cooking and why I think I suck at it: it's because I don't understand the principles behind each recipe. (People think I'm a foodie because I take so many pictures of food, and therefore assume that I can cook and cook well. Not so: I love eating food; I hate cooking, and if I had enough money, I would totally hire a personal chef.)

What do I mean by “principles”? Take quiche, for example: quiche was the first dish I ever learned how to make. People are surprised when I tell them that but that's because they think quiche is hard. I say to them, “It's not hard; I can make it!” But I can say that because I've made it so many times, I understand the principles behind quiche. Here's the recipe I use for quiche. I can't remember where I got it from, so apologies if I am violating someone's copyright:

Ham, mushroom and corn quiche

Ingredients

• ham (about 4-6 slices chopped into little bits)
• 3 mushrooms sliced
• half a cup of frozen corn
• 1 sheet of square puff pastry
• 5-6 beaten eggs (depending on the size of your quiche dish)
• about 300 ml milk (the amount of milk should match the amount of eggs)
• 3 tsp dried basil
• pepper to taste
• enough grated cheese to cover the bottom of the quiche dish

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (200°C if your oven isn’t very strong).
2. Grease quiche dish with margarine/butter and line with puff pastry (make sure it's defrosted first. You can cut off the corners that stick out and use them to patch up other areas).
3. Cover the base with grated cheese.
4. Fry ham, corn and mushrooms in margarine/butter and then spread evenly on top of the cheese.
5. Combine eggs, milk, basil and pepper, and pour on top of everything else in the quiche dish.
6. Bake in oven for about 50 mins.

You can even modify the recipe to make mini quiches in muffin tins if you want:

Now, this is what I mean about the principles behind quiche: this is what you need to know about the way quiche cooks if you ever want to modify the recipe:

• Whatever you use for filling (be it ham, mushroom, corn, chicken, asparagus, sweet potato, broccoli or whatever takes your fancy) has to be cooked properly before you put the quiche in the oven.
• The main part of the quiche is the egg and milk combo.
• When the quiche is in the oven, what happens is the cheese melts and rises to the top and browns, the egg and milk mixture turn solid, and the filling is caught in that much like insects in amber.

Most recipes don't explain that. I guess someone decreed long ago they don't need to since whenever I read recipes these days, they're often stripped down to the bare essentials. But then because they don't explain why the instructions say to do this or do that, I end up stuffing it up because I don't understand, or sometimes I substitute something for something and then it all goes wrong and I don't understand why.

For example, take this Taste.com.au recipe for chicken pasta bake: step four reads:

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat until foaming. Add flour. Cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, for 1 to 2 minutes or until mixture bubbles. Remove from heat. Stir in milk until smooth. Return to heat. Cook, stirring, for 4 to 5 minutes or until mixture boils and thickens. Stir in tasty cheese. Season with salt and pepper.

It's the part where you make the cheese sauce. When I first made this recipe, I didn't have any flour (because I don't bake). But for some reason, I had cornflour so I thought why not use that? (See, this is why I suck at cooking.) But I didn't understand why it said to melt the butter and mix it with flour before stirring in the milk: why not mix it all in together? My friends had to explain to me it was because the flour would get all clumpy in the milk, and that these instructions were standard when you were making white sauce. Well, there you go! I didn't know that. No cookbook has ever explained that to me. Where would I have even learned that? Certainly not high school Home Economics.

Even so, knowing that hasn't helped me to master pasta bake; I thought I would make one that had a tomato-based sauce and it was a total disaster.

Risotto, on the other hand, I can do—but only through the cheating method where you use a rice cooker instead of standing at the stove for hours, stirring and pouring, stirring and pouring. Somehow I understand the principles of risotto—namely:

• Whatever you want to put into the risotto—mushrooms, sweet potato, carrots, chicken, zucchini, capsicum, etc.—has to be cooked first. I would sometimes grill the capsicum, peel off the skin and then chop it up. Carrots and sweet potato I would often steam in the rice cooker. (It is rather embarrassing how long it took me to work out that root vegetables need much longer to cook than some other vegetables like mushrooms and zucchini.)
• You have to use the right kind of rice (like arborio), and the rice has to be made using some sort of stock (usually chicken).
• Once the “filling” is cooked and the rice is cooked, you combine it all together and sprinkle cheese all through it on a low heat so the cheese melts but does not burn on the bottom. For extra flavouring, add pepper, parsley, lemon juice or verjuice.

Do you understand what I mean? (*Sigh*. Maybe I need a special cookbook written just for me.)

Anyway, that revelation has helped me have more confidence in cooking, I think. Recently I decided to try a new recipe because I wanted to make shepherd's pie but realised we had no potatoes. (Potatoes are not a standard root vegetable at our house.) We did, however, have sweet potatoes, so I wondered if there happened to be a recipe for shepherd's pie with sweet potato. Turns out there is. The thing is, it had all sorts of weird ingredients in it, like hemp milk (but fortunately the recipe said you could use normal milk), artichoke hearts (which I assumed were just a kind of filling that could be substituted for something else), raw organic agave nectar (which I ignored, but then learned that it was basically to make it sweet so then the second time I made this dish I used honey instead) and fruity olive oil (didn't have any so used normal olive oil). Oh, and the first time I made the dish, I had no nutmeg so used Moroccan seasoning instead. (I'm sure if my grandmother had made this sort of food, she'd be rolling in her grave, but both my grandmothers were Chinese and pretty much just made Chinese food.) Oh, and I didn't have those sort of tomatoes so just used normal tinned ones.

Anyway, it could have been another culinary disaster, but it wasn't. I think it was because I sort of understand the principles underlying shepherd's pie though—namely:

• Anything you want to put in the filling with the mince has to be thoroughly cooked before the whole thing goes in the oven. So I steamed the carrots in the rice cooker first (or maybe I microwaved them; I forget. I've since discovered that the microwavable rice cooker steamer thing I have can do carrots in 15 minutes, whereas in the rice cooker, they normally take twice as long). And I fried zucchini, mince, peas and corn after cooking the mince and the onions. And then once everything had been cooked, I added the seasoning—the balsamic vinegar, honey, thyme, basil, parsley, cinnamon, salt and pepper (and I think I added oregano too for fun). All that lined the bottom of the baking dish.
• Then on top I spooned the mashed sweet potato. I steamed the sweet potato in the rice cooker first (it takes about 25 minutes or so, according to the steaming chart that came with it. I am thankful for the steaming chart because otherwise I would have no idea how long things take to cook. Apparently sweet potato cooks faster than carrots; who knew?) Then I mashed it with a potato masher, mixing in the sat, pepper, nutmeg, olive oil and milk.
• With ordinary shepherd's pie, you put cheese on top of the potato. I didn't do it with this recipe, but I wonder what it would have been like if I had.
• Put the whole lot in the oven for 25 minutes.

So while I certainly don't claim to be a Masterchef and even though I think I still have stacks and stacks to learn about cooking (e.g. I cannot do roasts. And I cannot make a soft-boiled egg to save my life), I feel like I'm starting to get somewhere. I still don't enjoy cooking. But I like to think that I have a bit more of an inkling about what I'm doing.

Now if I could only understand the principles behind exercise …

Money, money, money

I worry how this post will be received. I don't want to come across as being cheap for cheapness' sake. But at the same time, I don't want to come across as being greedy or covetous or overly focussed on leisure. I guess I worry that what I say will not be received the way I intend because you, my dear reader, may not share my perspective on and attitude towards money.

Ah money! That's a contentious broad topic on which I wrote half a blog post and then discarded. In terms of elementals, I pretty much agree with Tony Payne's Cash Values studies on money—that God owns all the money, but he graciously shares his wealth with us so that we may serve him with it; that things become problematic when you start worshipping money instead of God; that the Bible advocates prudence, wisdom and generosity in the way you use your money; that money is a tool by which you live (and pay your bills); and that one of the financial priorities of all Christians is to support those in gospel ministry so that they can get on with the specialised task of building God's kingdom in a more intensive manner.

However, with the third point—prudence, wisdom and generosity—I sometimes feel that I am a lot more relaxed in the way I use my money than other Christians. I recognise that in terms of material things, God has given me much. I also recognise that my family background has influenced my attitudes a great deal. When I was growing up, we never went without. One could even argue that we kids were pretty much spoiled. And yet my parents taught me to save and be (somewhat) disciplined with money. But at the same time, being cheap was never considered a virtue; if you had a problem that could be solved with money, it was never a waste to use money (if you had it, that is) to solve it. In contrast, I get the feeling that in the families of other people I know, their default position was to try to solve the problem themselves instead of throwing money at it. But in my personal opinion, one approach is not necessarily better or more godly than the other.

Generally speaking, most Christians are poor—or at least poorer than the majority of the population. It's partly to do with the way they use their money (e.g. in giving much of it away—to ministry work, to charitable work, to those in need). It's also partly to do with the fact that they serve and worship the true and living God, not material things. All of this is admirable and wonderful. However, sometimes this way of living translates into beliefs about money and the way people ought to spend their money that I think is rather ungodly—as if poverty were a virtue in and of itself. The rich are viewed with suspicion (perhaps with Proverbs and 1 Timothy 6 in mind), and anything the rich do is pounced upon and examined through this particular lens.

So I notice that often I feel like I'm being judged for what I do and the way I spend my money (not that I'm hugely public about that and not that anyone has said anything in particular). I know that you can't jump to conclusions about what someone else thinks of you and what you do; unless they reveal to you that that is what they think, you can never be sure so it's best not to assume. However, it can be hard sometimes for me to avoid thinking that someone else has formed an opinion about me and my spending habits just from comments they may utter or their facial expressions. I think that's why I am often automatically or unconsciously on the defensive when I talk about things like this—as if I have to justify everything.

Justifying a habit

I don't have to justify everything. But I wonder if it's worth trying to do so for the sake of argument. Or whatever. Basically, surrounding the topic of cheaper movie tickets is the related topics of rest, leisure, and Christians and art.

Rest

I think movie-watching partly falls under the category of rest and the theology of rest. In the Ten Commandments, we are commanded to rest because God rested on the seventh day from his work of creation (Exodus 20:8-11). It was supposed to be a day of enjoyment and fellowship—with God and with his people. The human body is frail and mortal; it can only be pushed so far before it breaks. Rest is essential not only for our physical, mental and emotional health, but also for our godliness: when we are well-rested, we are more patient, more compassionate, more forgiving, slower to anger and less irritable. In addition, resting demonstrates our trust in God—our confidence that he is in control and will carry on without us (because he doesn't need us). I keep thinking of this article which originally appeared in Christianity Today, which argued that perhaps the best way to love your neighbour was to get a good night's sleep.

“Rest”, I think, entails more than just sleep. It also encompasses exercise, leisure and, to a certain extent (because this also overlaps with work), creative pursuits.

Leisure

By “leisure”, I'm thinking of the things in life you enjoy. For me, it's reading, (some forms of) shopping, walking around looking at things, going to concerts/plays/musicals/gigs, spending time with friends and, of course, watching movies. (And TV.) I love the experience of going to the cinema—seeing something on the big screen with the surround sound, the popcorn, the trailers … really, just insert the content and themes of my five-page comic “Reel life” in this section and you get the picture. I don't expect everyone to enjoy movies as much as I do (and certainly I seem to be more in tune with what's coming out soon, what's currently shooting, what's considered “good” and what's not than most people I know). (I know I also tend to watch a lot more than most people I know.) But I don't understand people who elevate one artform over another—as if books are somehow inherently superior to the popular artforms (like pop music and television) just because they contain words.

For the time-poor (and being a parent of a young child, I am very much time-poor in the leisure department), movies are compact and easily consumable. I find that ever since Astrid was born, I have neglected reading (much as I love it) simply because reading takes up more time and requires more brain space (in that when you read, you need to keep the world of the book you are reading in your head for the next time you take it up again; it is near impossible to read a whole book in one sitting when you have kids [unless it's a picture book]). Going to the cinema also gets me out of the house for a couple of hours, giving me a fairly decent break, as well as feeding and nourishing my appetites for story, art and culture.

Christians and art

Which leads me to my next topic: Christians and art. It's a contentious one, and there are many passionate beliefs on both sides (the sides being those who have a more relaxed attitude towards the arts and those who have a more stringent view). Part of it, I think, has to do with the overlap of the ages—that we live in the world, even though we are members of God's kingdom, which hasn't quite reached its fullness and won't until Jesus returns, and so we are not of the world. Many Christians I know tend to view art with a great deal of suspicion—which makes it doubly hard, I think, to withstand the shadow of others' judgementalism if you are a Christian and an artist, for anything you do will always be critiqued and critiqued extremely closely. Furthermore, members of your audience who are Christian, if they know that you are a Christian too, will have very strong opinions about what you've created—and what you ought to have done (being a Christian artist—whatever that means in their minds)—opinions rooted in their own views on Christians and art.

For example, sometimes I get the feeling that if you are a Christian writer, you can only write about Christians. Or you can only allow your characters to commit moral actions—as if, as a Christian writer, you can never write about sin and sinners with any sort of verisimilitude. I can only imagine the sort of complaint letters Frank Peretti received because of the scene in Prophet (which really is only one extremely brief and discrete paragraph) in which his non-Christian protagonist has a one night stand with another character. I suspect that part of the outrage comes from the attitude that a Christian ought not to know so much about sin. But we live in the world (though not of the world), and as a writer and a Christian, you are always observing life around you with all its flaws, and I think if you are seeking to be faithful to God, you will do well to represent human nature in all its fallenness without whitewashing any of it—as if we mere mortals could ever aspire to the holiness and majesty of the divine.

Anyway, I digress. One thing more, then onto what this post is really about.

The artist and the critic

I enjoy watching movies as a leisure/rest thing, but at the same time, I am always critiquing and learning as I watch (as I do with all artforms—to varying degrees, of course; I feel I am not as educated when it comes to music). Movies teach me about narrative, storytelling, emotion and characters. I do not speak the language of film (and I don't think I ever will; I admire the collaboration that goes into making a movie, but I don't think I have the mentality to ever put my creative energies into producing that sort of art). But as a writer, I appreciate the writerly/narrative aspects of film that intersect with writing and the visual aspects of film that intersect with comics. (The former is more important to me, however; I'm not that visually minded.)

I tend to watch a fairly wide variety of things—documentaries, dramas, romcoms, superhero films, adaptations, animation, and so on. There are different things about each genre that interest me. For example, with adaptations, I'm fascinated by how the makers have translated a story from one medium to another, and whether they've been successful/unsuccessful (and why). With romcoms, I'm interested in the narrative and what makes it ring true emotionally (and whether they have managed to capture the true nature of love and convey that successfully to the audience). (IMHO, the best romcoms are less about the romance and more about the heroine's transformation/realisation about herself; the romance is really secondary and almost a metaphor for the internal journey of the character in a Jungian sense … I digress.)

So movies feed the creative part of me as well as functioning to refresh and rejuvenate me. I do not watch for the sake of watching; there is a point to all this consumption.

I don't know why I feel surrounded by all this judgementalism; just who is judging me? And why? Why do I need to be defensive?

Never pay full price again!

So we come to the meat of this post: how to obtain cheaper movie tickets. A standard adult ticket these days costs around AUD 18 (more if you're attending a specialty screening—3D, Gold Class, IMAX, etc.) That's pretty steep! But it doesn't have to cost that much. In fact, the cinemas and distributors make it very easy to see things for less:

• Go to a cheaper cinema: There are a few still around—for example, Randwick Ritz and Beverly Hills (though the latter is still a bit pricey).
• Go on a cheaper night: Most cinemas have cheap Tuesdays.
• Join the club: Particularly if you live in Sydney's Inner West and you see movies fairly frequently, it's worth it to join the Dendy and the Palace. For the Dendy, adult membership is $24 for two years, renewing for two years is $22, member tickets are always $12 (no matter what session, and you can buy one for a friend), you get special ticket prices to member screenings, and they send you the occasional voucher in the mail to use at the candy bar for cheaper popcorn and drinks. Oh, and if you see four movies there in a three-month period, you get your fifth ticket free. For the Palace, it's $28 for two years, they give you a complimentary ticket (well, two if you're choosing membership for two years), they send you another complimentary ticket on your birthday, they invite you to members screenings and members tickets are only $13. So even if you only go to that cinema twice a year, it's completely worth it. Event Cinemas and Hoyts don't have as good a club program, in my opinion, but they do have “movie of the week” $10 tickets for members (usually close to the end of a film's run). They do have special members screenings; it's just that they're usually for films I'm not interested in. Event Cinemas also have this points program whereby you get points for every film you see, and then when you've accumulated a certain amount, you get a free ticket.
• If you're on Twitter, you really ought to follow Hopscotch (well, if you like the films they distribute). (This is their Facebook page.) They often do giveaways as a promotional tool to drum up interest in their films—free passes, passes to preview screenings, two for one passes, and so on. Sometimes these go to the first 100 who send them their details; sometimes you have to do things like send them a photo that reminds you of Paris (for Midnight in Paris).
• Hopscotch and a few other distributors also tend to give free tickets to their industry partners to give away to their target audience. I'm on the mailing lists of a few organisations like the Australian Ballet, the Sydney Opera House, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Sydney Writers Festival and so on, and often at the bottom of their newsletters, they have competitions to win tickets. Again, sometimes they're for specific screenings. Sometimes they're two for one passes. Sometimes they're double passes valid for the entire run of the film. I often enter for the films I'm interested in, and it's surprised me the number of times I've been sent a pass. I've received passes for The Lives of Others, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, The Soloist, The Forbidden Kingdom, District 9—well, you get the picture: quite a wide variety of films.
• Finally, our health fund gives members discounts on movie tickets for Event Cinemas and Hoyts. At the moment, it's AUD 10.50 plus booking fee, plus they send you codes that you can use when booking tickets online. The whole system is so sophisticated now, you just need to have the barcode on your phone for them to scan; no need to print them out. I can't remember what the expiry date is on those tickets (six months? A year?), but I go often enough for it not to be a problem.

One last thing: always read the fine print. Unfortunately some passes and tickets cannot be used for certain sessions (most significantly Saturday after 5 pm, which is really the worst time to go the cinema anyway: all those people!) Check and double check before you head to the box office. And enjoy!

When we became three

When I was pregnant, my worst fear was that I'd get post-natal depression. I was a prime candidate: I'd suffered bouts of depression in the past; my husband was a fellow sufferer (and, according to one friend, the birth of the first child is usually when men who struggle with depression get it the worst); having a baby was one of the hardest, most disruptive and life-changing things ever; and if I was down and my husband was down, who would look after our child?

So throughout my pregnancy, I prepared for the worst. As well as reading Kaz Cooke's Up the Duff and What to Expect When You're Expecting, I also perused Vicki Glembocki's The Second Nine Months and Rachel Power's The Divided Heart: Art and Motherhood. As well as attending ante-natal classes, my husband and I did a church-run marriage course to work on things like communication and conflict resolution. As well as talking to friends about what the initial months were like, I arranged for my husband and I to have coffee with another couple who had experienced severe post-natal depression. As well as keeping track of OBGYN appointments and questions related to birth and labour, I blogged about how I was feeling physically and mentally. As well as purchasing maternity clothes and nursery furniture, I tried to get myself an iPhone at a friend's recommendation, because you could operate it one-handed and use its social media capabilities to get support or find company during lonely night feeds.

Nine months passed and delivery day came. After six hours of uncomplicated labour, we got to meet our little girl, and our family expanded to three. From the beginning, it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. Sure, I was sore and bleeding, and it felt like an earthquake had ripped through my body, leaving fissures and stretch marks, but according to my midwives, my post-natal recovery went like a dream. Sure, the fatigue and interrupted sleep took some getting used to, but as long as I got enough rest (albeit in two-hour doses), I functioned okay. Sure, it was all new and we were very much learning as we went, but the physical tasks of caring for a newborn weren't particularly hard to master, and I was fortunate not to have any problems breastfeeding.

Little things made the initial months easier. My church organised a meal roster for friends to cook us dinner or buy us takeaway. My mother very generously paid for a cleaner to come once a fortnight. I got our groceries home delivered so I wouldn't have to take my baby to the supermarket and then lug everything up three flights of stairs. My husband worked freelance from home, and was available to take over when I needed a break. I never felt isolated because I had social media and I joined a local mother's group. But the thing that made the biggest difference was my daughter: to my surprise, I discovered I had a fairly happy baby who fed well, slept well and only cried for good reason.

Nevertheless, further down the track when most of the attention, interest and concern had died down, I found myself struggling. Some days were relaxed; other days, I felt trapped, but couldn't pinpoint what was wrong. Some days I accepted my life and looked forward to what lay ahead; others days, all I could envisage was the never-ending treadmill of feeds and dirty nappies, and I couldn't help thinking, “What have we done???” Some days I embraced motherhood; other days, I wondered if I had done the right thing in quitting work, and felt irrationally compelled to ring my boss to beg for my job back. Some days my husband and I were united, working shoulder to shoulder as Team Awesome Parents; other days, we sniped at each other and argued about the right way to do things. Some days I found myself grieving—grieving the loss of my old life, my figure, my independence, good sleep, physical functionality (as I was still experiencing pelvic girdle pain, carried over from the pregnancy), my social life, my semi-disposable income and my wonderful job; other days, I wouldn't have it any other way. Above all, I wondered who—or what—I was now: a milk factory? A housewife? A burden on society?

Unlike some other women, motherhood did not come naturally to me. Aside from clothing, feeding, changing and bathing my baby, I did not quite know what to do with her. I was a classic introvert who was used to spending my days alone in an office, so being around someone else all the time was really confronting. I had friends with kids, but I didn't really understand the full nature of what family life was like: the mothers I knew seemed to disappear off the face of the earth after giving birth, and when they resurfaced months—or even years—later, they acted like disaster victims, still reeling in the aftermath. I'd ask how things were going, and they would reply in vague platitudes or maddeningly pithy statements that offered no insight into their experiences. No one really talks about the reality of life with kids—at least not with non-parents. Furthermore, I found my options regarding mommy-dom to be most unsatisfactory: I could either be an over-involved, over-invested helicopter parent who sacrificed herself on the altar of family, or a working woman who sacrificed family time on the altar of career.

It was then that I realised two things. Firstly, I had taken one step on the road to depression, and if I didn't do something, I'd find myself in a very dark place. The bright side (if I can put it that way!) of having previously encountered melancholia was that I knew what it looked like and could take measures to deal with it. Secondly (and this was terribly obvious), having a baby was the biggest thing that had happened to me since getting married: my husband and I had entered the so-called “third” stage of life, and the challenge now was to “embrace the daunting roles of parents and to absorb the impact of Her Majesty the Baby's dramatic entrance [while at] the same time [working] to protect [our] privacy”.¹ No wonder things were hard. No wonder everything was affected. And no wonder I felt the way I did.

So I started taking measures to do something about my mental state and to adjust to the change of becoming a mum. I gave myself permission to mourn what I had lost. I read books (Anne M Smollon's MIA Missing in Action: How Mothers Lose, Grieve and Retrieve Their Sense of Self was particularly helpful). I learned to rebuke false thinking, and stopped comparing myself to others. I tried to sidestep the politics, and taught myself to ignore unwelcome and overly prescriptive advice. I reduced my expectations of what I could achieve on any given day, and tried to become more flexible. Most of all, I made sure that every week I scheduled in time for my husband and I to enjoy our marriage, time for myself to rest and relax apart from my family (and time for my husband to do likewise), and time for me to cultivate the non-mommy parts of my life (like writing). It seems to me that being a parent is like running a marathon: you're in it for the long-haul, and you have to do things to keep your strength up so you don't pack it in halfway through.

I realise I'm still in the early days of parenthood: I don't have it all together, and I will keep learning as my little girl continues to grow, change and turn life upside down. Even now, I'm anxious about what's to come—crawling, walking, weaning, toilet training, the incessant chatter of toddlerdom, the crushing fatigue that comes with having two, starting school, teenage dramas, perhaps marriage and leaving the nest—but I know I'm getting ahead of myself. The future comes one day at a time. The important thing is to focus on (and enjoy) the now.

But even though I am a newbie mother, I want to say to other newbies that given the hard yards begin after labour, in the midst of all the nesting and baby things shopping, it's worth investing some time to make things a bit easier for yourself. My preparations did not arm me for everything; it surprised me that the mental change of motherhood was harder to deal with than the physical and the practical stuff. But I think the things I did cushioned me somewhat so that I did not experience post-natal depression as severely I could have. It's okay to feel sad—to grieve the passing of your old life and the change in your circumstances. All change is loss, and with loss comes mourning. But mourning helps you to face what's ahead, and once you've worked through it and come out the other side, you're more than ready for what's in store, and can enjoy motherhood and your baby unhindered, unruffled and undistracted.

¹ Taken from Judith Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee's nine psychological tasks for building a successful marriage in The Good Marriage, Warner, New York, 1995, p. 28.

And while we're on the subject of depression, let me plug my book again, which you can read in its entirety online. (It's also available to purchase in both soft and hard copy form. Um, yes, I meant to mention that on my blog sometime …)

However, around the time that one of those blocked-out weeks came up, Ben had to take on work because he had been low on work in the months previous. At first we thought we could just change the week to another week (since it's all arbitrary, really). But then Ben decided to take on other work, and recently he's been working insane hours—six days a week plus evenings too for freelance stuff. This means we've been going and going for quite a long time now—almost six months without stopping—and at the moment, I'm not getting some of my normal non-Astrid periods. I'm starting to go a little nuts. Even if you're not doing a lot together, full-time childcare really takes its toll. I'm pretty much in mommy mode (um … you know what I mean) 10-11 hours a day seven days a week (six if I can wrangle a day off with Ben's agreement). It's exhausting. (And if you think I'm a wuss, I invite you to try it while your spouse works as much as Ben has been and feels as tired as he does.)

At first, I scheduled in another week during which I thought I could have a break, even if Ben couldn't. But then I realised that I needed to be more strategic about it. Hence the idea of the “Mommy Holiday”. (NB: The “Mommy” in “Mommy Holiday” is an oblique reference to Mommy Wars by Leslie Morgan Steiner, which is about stay-at-home mums and working mums and mums who do both. I haven't read it but I intend to. Okay, the connection probably only makes sense in my head. Anyway.) The idea behind the Mommy Holiday is to find ways to rest and recharge so that I can still continue the marathon of parenting. Here are my made-up rules:

• Minimise all housework: I normally do laundry on Mondays but I did it on Saturday so that it would be dry by Sunday so that I could put it away before our cleaning lady comes on Monday. I've also swapped cooking shifts with Ben so that I have one on a day that is less inconvenient for me.
• Use disposable nappies (and swallow that eco guilt): This means washing the cloth nappies that Astrid's already used before Mommy Holiday so that they don't sit around in the bucket all week getting smelly and awful.
• Call in babysitting favours: Along with family, I have friends who have offered to babysit in the past. Before Mommy Holiday, I mapped out the week and tried to schedule in sitters for particular times and days because it's easier to say to someone, “Could you come and look after Astrid on Wednesday afternoon between 12 and 5?” instead of “When can you babysit for me?”
• Plan to do something nice every day of Mommy Holiday: This is tricky because it also has to fit in around Astrid's needs. But I think that it can be managed according to timing (e.g. if she's tired from running around, she's more likely to be content sitting in a highchair in a café while I drink chai tea). That said, there are still evenings available for things like movies and catching up with friends.
• Don't feel guilty about leaving your baby: For the first time in her young life, Astrid is clingy, and I think it's because she's around me so much more than before. Babies don't seem to have very long memories: after a couple of weeks of Ben working full-time away from home and only seeing her briefly in the mornings and evenings, she would cry when he would pick her up or hold her, which wasn't very nice for him. (It's better now though.) In addition, now she cries hysterically when I leave without her, which is just heartbreaking. But I've been told by her sitters that she usually calms down pretty quickly and is happy afterwards, which makes me wonder why she cries so much when I'm going out the door. I think she needs to learn that her universe is not going to fall apart if she's not with me. In any case, I'm sure we get sick of each other after so much time together, and it's good for her to also hang out with other people.
• Make time for all aspects of rest—that is, sleep, exercise (so this week I'm planning on trying out aqua aerobics for the first time), leisure (for me: reading, movie-watching [at home and at the cinemas; I wonder if I should do a blog post on how to get cheap/cheaper movie tickets …], catching up with friends) and creative pursuits (for me: knitting, writing, perhaps some bookbinding, etc. Oh, and I'm going to a comics masterclass). My theory is that doing so will make the Mommy Holiday feel like it's been rich and varied, given that it's only going to be for a short period of time.
• Arrange for your spouse to do things to help you: For example, Ben has agreed to do breakfast for Astrid for two mornings this week before he goes to work so that I can sleep in.
• MOST IMPORTANT: Don't feel guilty about taking rest even if your spouse is not also resting. I planned this time so I'm going to take this time. It will be good for me. I feel like if I don't do this (and if I don't do this now), I'm going to burn out and run away screaming into the sunset. Okay, perhaps that was too much hyperbole, but I think you get what I mean.

Mommy Holiday starts tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes.

But before we get started, I think it's probably worth me saying a few things about why I'm writing these posts. I'm not sure if I have before and I can't be bothered checking (the clock is ticking and I don't have that long to squeeze some writing in before it's back to being on parental duty). Briefly, I'm writing these posts:

• as a record for me so I remember what it's like to look after a child of this age;
• as a record for Astrid who might be curious one day to know what she was like at this age;
• (most important of all) to trace the process of becoming a mother/parent in a way that (hopefully) others who are not parents will be able to understand. In a way, I'm writing these posts for past me: I would have liked to know this stuff before Astrid was born, but I know that it was probably difficult for the friends around me who were parents to articulate it. I don't claim that it will be like this for everyone, but I hope that in chronicling what it's like for me, it might be useful in some way to you. In any case, you'll get a taste of how others live, and that in turn will (I hope) promote further understanding and empathy.

So let's begin.

Playing

Developmentally, the biggest thing is that Astrid is now walking. It seemed to happen awfully quick: one moment she was working out how to pull herself up to a standing position, the next moment she was kind of shuffling along sideways while holding onto something (e.g. the front of the couch), the next moment she was taking a few faltering steps on her own out into the open, and then the next moment she was full-on walking—everywhere! She's fast too—not quite running, but almost, like she wants to (so she can get away from me!). She still falls a lot (particularly when she's tired), but that doesn't upset her too much: she just gets back up and keeps going. She's also getting better at moving to a standing position again after falling, and doesn't always need a prop to help her up.

Seeing her walk around is really funny but also cute: she tends to do it with both hands up—sometimes holding something in each hand. (My father-in-law reckons it's for balance.) She hasn't quite developed good spatial awareness yet because she steps on things, trips on things and bumps into things. I wonder when she'll become more spatially aware.

Walking means she is waaaaaaay more mobile. I think she's got a real independent streak: you can't keep her confined for long because then she will start to complain and want to be let out. This means that long stints in the pram are a thing of the past. She would prefer to get out and explore the world (and put all sorts of things in her mouth—leaves, bark, twigs, worse, etc.) We have started going to playgrounds a lot more, and even though Astrid is a little bit small for them, she enjoys them a lot. She LOVES the swing. One of the mums in my mother's group commented that I was pushing her rather high, but that's because she totally loves it! She's a bit of a daredevil, really: she'll go on the baby slide but she really really likes the BIG slide (and in one of the parks we go to, she can climb up to it by herself. She can't climb onto the slide itself, so I have to help her with that part [and I always make her go down feet first on her tummy because she's not quite ready for feet first on her bottom], but I'm sure she can't wait for the day when she doesn't need me). She likes walking around the park too, but strangely she tends to stick to paths (I think it's because they're level, whereas the grass is a little trickier for small feet.)

Astrid walking has also given me a taste of something that I think will happen throughout my entire life as a parent: the experience of your child leaving you. I guess it started at birth when she left my womb, and then as she has developed and grown in her physical abilities, it's just increased. I realise that it will happen more as she grows up, forms her own friends and interests, starts exploring more than just the physical world out there, and so on until the day she moves out of home/gets married or whatever. I realise that this is a natural thing too—that it's part of the process of parenthood that you gradually let go and allow your child to be independent and free, while at the same time worrying about what will happen to them. I guess I mention it now because I find it interesting, and it reminds me of something that Neil Gaiman said about writing The Graveyard Book (I forget where)—which is that he started writing the story years ago when he son was a little boy, running his bike around the graveyard near their place because there was nowhere else to play, but he abandoned the story because he couldn't quite get it right, and now, having written the book, he said he felt like he needed to have that experience of being a parent and having his children grow up and leave home in order to complete the story. I predict I will think about the ending to The Graveyard Book a lot as Astrid grows up.

Watching Astrid play is rather interesting: it's not so much “playing”, but walking around, holding things, picking up things, dropping things, knocking things together, knocking things over, rattling things, banging on things and taking things apart. She's not at the stage yet where she'll take an object (say a toy car) and make it do things (e.g. drive it along with her hand while saying, “Vroom vroom!”). I wonder when that happens.

She also likes rough play, and laughs like crazy when we do it. In keeping with her daredevil streak, she loves stuff like being held upside down, being dipped, being held by her ankles down my back, being held by her hands while I swing her or spin her in circles. This isn't great for my back (she now weighs around 10kg) but it's a good way to keep her amused.

We find now that she's more of a toddler (toddling around), we now need to be more firm about discipline and dealing with tantrums. Even though she can't talk, we can see that she knows when we say not to do things (e.g. don't hit the television). But she will go and do them anyway while looking at us for confirmation that she should not. Sometimes she will do that multiple times, and each time we will have to say to her, “No, Astrid, please don't do that.” I know this is all normal; I just find it interesting that we have never had to teach her any of this: she just does it naturally. In a similar vein, when Astrid is around other kids, she has to continually be taught to share, to be gentle with others and to not grab things out of other kids' hands. (One mum commented to me the other day that it doesn't matter what it is: if someone else has it, the child wants it.) I think sometimes that surely this is empirical evidence for the doctrine of total depravity. (I'm sure others will disagree.)

Even though Astrid is now having more interaction with other kids, she usually ignores them (aside from trying to take what they are holding). She will often watch older kids intently—as if she is trying to learn how to do what they are doing (running, jumping, swinging really high, etc.) But her awareness of physical contact is still pretty low: she will cry if she's hurt, but sometimes she really doesn't care if other kids hit her, push her away or pull her hair.

The changing awareness thing is quite interesting because you never know what's going to happen next. For example, this week for the first time she was upset by the noise of the vacuum cleaner whereas she never was before. (She tugged on my leg imploringly until I turned it off.) I also thought she didn't care much about her toys, but when we've had other kids over, she's really possessive of them and upset that they're playing with them. (Strangely enough, however, at her birthday party, she wasn't that upset, but that could have been because there were lots of kids playing with her toys, and those kids were a lot bigger than her.)

A note on toys: I think I understand how they tend to multiply and overrun the place. It's not just that people give you toys as gifts (or their old secondhand toys, or the secondhand toys of their friends) and you also buy toys for your kids; it's that you kind of develop toy “collections”—batches of toys for different contexts. You don't want to give a kid all these toys at once, because that would be overwhelming. You also don't want to give a kid the same toys all the time, because that would be boring. So I tend to keep certain toys in the lounge room, certain toys in her bedroom, certain (small) toys in a bag that we take places whenever we go out somewhere where I think she might get bored, toys at the grandparents' places, toys for the car, toys for her cot, etc. And then sometimes I rotate those around, depending on what they are and how much Astrid plays with them. I expect that certain toys will become more fun when she gets a bit older: at the moment, for example, stuffed toys are boring, but cleaned out yoghurt pots with pegs to rattle in them are just fantastic. Also at the moment, she's more interested in knocking blocks down than building them up, but lately I've noticed her starting to put the blocks together. I've been told that at around 18 months, she might start interacting with her stuffed toys a lot more—lining them up and making them talk to each other or something.

Another word about toys: because of the boredom/variety factor, it really is worth not spending stacks and stacks of money on fancy toys when the baby is young. It sometimes feels like a total waste when you pay a lot for a toy, only for the kid to play with it for just five minutes before chucking it away. Secondhand is fine. Also, you don't worry about secondhand toys losing their pristine condition because they've already been knocked around a bit. I got a few from one of the Baby and Kids Markets, but I also rummaged through the massive bin of toys at the Anglicare Depot at Summer Hill and managed to get a lot of stuff—cloth books (which I think are quite good for travel toys because there is something different on each page), little rattly things, a rubber ball and a whole pile of Lamaze things. They were all in excellent condition and just required a little cleaning before I gave them to Astrid.

While we're on the subject of buying things, I should mention that Astrid is now wearing size 1. (I should also mention that in one week, she grew 5 whopping centimetres, and drove me crazy as she woke up through the night and fed like a newborn.) However, size 1 (even though it's not consistent in the kids fashion industry) doesn't always fit her well in places (e.g. her pants are sometimes too loose and too long). It can be really tempting to just buy her pretty dresses, but pretty dresses tend not to do too well when she's playing, so I try to keep her in practical clothes that are fine to get dirty. I've bought a few things, we've been given a few things and we've borrowed a few things, but I think now it's time for me to build up her wardrobe properly as she will probably be in size 1 clothes for a while.

The other thing I should talk about in this section (because I'm not sure where else to put it) is that Astrid is now talking a little. “Mama” was her first word (that is, the first word that she said that I think she meant and understood). “Dada” came second, but she tends to say “Mama” more—especially when she's upset. (And it can be really hard to hear your baby crying out, “Mama! Mama! Mama!” when you're trying to do something that's good for her but that she doesn't like.) It's interesting as well that once she started talking, my perspective on her changed: it makes no sense, but suddenly she seemed much more like a little person. Really, with all these developmental changes, she seems much more like a little person, but I couldn't tell you what I thought she was before. I can tell you that I feel like I'm getting glimpses of what Astrid will be like when she's older. I'm pretty bad at guessing people's ages because, as I said in an earlier post, to me, people are just quintessentially them, no matter what age they are, and it only becomes a “thing” when the age gap is large. I find myself thinking of Astrid in those terms too—that she is quintessentially herself, with all that that entails, and that she will always be such. (That is, unless she turns out like Ben who has an unpredictable element to him; of everyone I have ever known, Ben is the one who has changed the most throughout the years.)

She's still saying a lot of babble talk, and she hasn't really picked up any new words (though sometimes we think we hear her say a word after us—e.g. “light”). But now she is pointing a lot (protodeclarative speech, says Ben; he says it means she wants us to look at the thing she's pointing to). I can just picture her talking more in her little cute voice. People tell me that it can be hard dealing with the incessant chatter of a toddler so I wonder how I will find it.

Sleeping

Astrid's night sleeps vary. At the moment, she's pretty good at going to bed at around 7 pm every evening. If need be, she can stretch out to longer without getting too cranky. I think the controlled crying has paid off in some way, however, around the week when she turned one, she was very upset about being left to sleep, and there were a lot of dramas around bedtime the way there were several months before.

Sleeping through the night can vary: sometimes she wakes around 10 or 11 for a feed, and then again at 4 or 5; sometimes she will sleep for 11 hours straight. (Unfortunately sometimes if she does that, I don't because my body clock has been programmed to wake when she used to wake.) In the weeks around when she turned one, she was still waking a lot—3 am and so on—but then was still raring to go at 7am like before. I found that quite hard, and was very glad when that growth spurt/wonder week passed. I've since become quite sceptical of people who say you can train your baby to sleep more or sleep according to a schedule: I really think it depends on your baby. Sleeping through has nothing to do with the amount of solid food Astrid is getting because she gets heaps (more on that later), and it has nothing to do with ability because she's demonstrated that she can do it (11-hour sleeps! She doesn't do them all the time, but she can certainly do them). I have come to accept it as normal that she will wake in the night, and I consider myself lucky when she does not.

That said, I think perhaps that putting Astrid to bed at a certain time does result in a certain waking time—in that if we put her to bed at 6 pm, she'd wake at 6 am. So now we put her to bed at 7 pm. (NB: This does not work if we put her to bed at 8 pm; she does not then wake at 8 am!) So in the morning, she normally wakes around 7 am (though for a couple of days or so, she was waking at 6 am, which was quite hard on me. I realise that's not as bad as some babies, who wake their parents at 4 or 5 am; to each their own). I get up most of the time to give her a milk feed and then a solid breakfast, but I have negotiated with Ben to have a regular morning when I get to sleep in (by which I mean sleep until 8 am). Sometimes, however, if it's been a particularly bad night, I ask him to get up and do the morning stuff so I can sleep a bit longer. Just knowing I have at least one morning when I do not have to be up makes things a little easier.

Astrid is usually up for about four hours before she starts getting sleepy again. For a while, she was having two daytime naps that lasted anywhere from 40 minutes (and there's not a lot you can do in 40 minutes, so it's basically not really worth the relief time) to (once) 3 hours. I wasn't very diligent at putting her down for the second daytime nap because it occurred so late in the afternoon (and I get the sense that Astrid is an unusual baby because most other babies I know seem to wake at 6 am). But now she's pretty much down to one sleep, which she takes at around 11am for about two hours or so. Meals are still three hours apart (so when she was having two naps a day, I had to make sure she had morning tea beforehand, even though those times lined up somewhat—i.e.

I discovered that if she did have a long middle-of-the-day nap, she was unlikely to go down for a second daytime nap, even if she was quite sleepy. (She would just stand in her cot and cry if I tried to put her down.) So now she's pretty much down to one sleep at day, and I try to make sure she gets it because not only is it a good break for me, it's very good for her so that she's not as cranky for the rest of the day. That said, sometimes she will take a second nap—for example, if we're driving for a while in the car.

Eating

Developmentally, eating is one of the areas where she's not as advanced. I feel somewhat responsible (though Georgina keeps telling me I shouldn't because I've never done this before and barely know what I'm doing, and it's not like she's starving or looks malnourished). It's true; I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to teaching babies to eat. I think for a long time I was still coming to terms with the fact that you do have to teach babies to eat. You'd think it would be natural and instinctual—like sleeping. But no: like sleeping, babies need to be trained. I think perhaps if I had understood that earlier—and if I had understood the steps you take to train your baby to eat food with textures (i.e. purée to fork mash to soft lumps to finger food), then we might not have had to undergo all the dramas that we did.

Furthermore, I also had to step back and say to myself, “It's okay if Astrid isn't good at eating. She can't be good at everything. What are you, a Tiger Mom?” Some babies are not so good at sleeping (and some babies won't sleep in the car or in their pram), whereas Astrid will. Some babies Astrid's age aren't walking yet, whereas Astrid is out conquering the terrain. Some babies were eating what their parents eat at 10 months; Astrid did not. That's okay.

However, I do worry that my hang-ups—or rather my indifference to food (in that I do enjoy eating it, I loathe cooking it, and if I was rich enough, I'd hire us a chef, and sometimes I think that if Willy Wonka's gum that tastes and nourishes like a three-course dinner ever became a reality, I would just have that sometimes because often I simply could not be bothered)—sorry, my indifference to food has passed onto her. I have to keep saying to myself what the baby books say: “Food is fun! Food is fun!” instead of “Food is so boring!” I am often lazy about food (and it makes me happy that Ben is now in charge of the cooking), but when it comes to feeding my child, I can't be lazy.

At the moment, we're still doing what I outlined in my last post, with a few modifications: basically I make some sort of meal, blend half of it and then mix it with half unblended, and then feed it to her. But I realised I couldn't keep doing that forever and that Astrid needs to develop the skills to eat food so that she can one day eat with us. So now we're transitioning to a new way of doing food whereby hopefully we can cook something for ourselves for dinner and then give Astrid a modified version of that to eat (as opposed to me making a lot of stuff to freeze). Unfortunately this means that I will have to resume cooking duties at least some of the time, but Ben is confident that we won't have to cook every night—at least not for now. (When Astrid is older and is consuming more food, we probably will.) At the moment, I'm trying to encourage her to eat more finger food, so she's having bolognaise sauce (with about a third of it blended) on macaroni with steamed vegies cut up into small pieces on the side. At first when I started feeding her that, she cried and had tantrums in her high chair, sticking her fingers in her mouth like her teeth hurt (and perhaps they did because she was teething a bit too, but then it might also have been her jaw because I think perhaps babies need to develop their jaw muscles through chewing). But after persisting with it for a number of days, she's now starting to get the hang of it, and with some encouragement, she will pick up her food with her fingers and feed herself.

I also think she's enjoying that more as well because it means she has more control. (This fascinating article on the importance of siblings and the effects of birth order had this interesting throwaway line: “Parents shouldn’t just roll their eyes, even though conflicts over sharing are so common, because property for a small child is a critical way of establishing authority and control over a world in which they have virtually no power.”)

On the recommendation of another mum, I bought this cookbook off the internet. (Protip: Whenever you buy books online, go to Booko, type in the title or ISBN [International Standard Book Number] and it will tell you who sells it the cheapest.) It amuses me that it has these gorgeous pictures of puréed food in beautiful bowls on lovely table settings of pristine folded napkins and cute little spoons; I think perhaps it should also contain “after” shots of when the baby has smeared half of it all over herself and the other half all over the highchair. I guess that wouldn't sell many cookbooks though!

The other good thing about the book is that it contains meals that are suitable for adults that can be modified for babies and toddlers, and it shows you pictures of the larger meal and then the portion that you take out for your child. As well as a short section on purées, it also has sections on sandwiches, smoothies, yoghurts, dessert and party food. I haven't tried most of the recipes yet, but I plan to suppress my laziness with food and give them a go. (I think I will need some help, however, as I have no idea where you get polenta and what you do with it.)

At the moment, Astrid's meals work like this:

• Breakfast: Wheat cereal mixed with water or full cream milk, plus a tablespoon of apple and pear purée. (I know I need to push her a bit more on breakfast foods. More things to research sometime …)
• Morning tea: Like afternoon tea, this varies, but can consist of any or some of the following: dried fruit (raisins, apples), real fruit (pear, rockmelon; not apple because she's not too good with that), Salada crackers, Milk Arrowroot biscuits, full fat yoghurt, rice cakes with some sort of spread, bread/toast with some sort of spread, and sometimes, because it's easy, Rafferty's Garden fruit snack bars.
• Lunch: Some sort of meal with vegies—now in finger food form so she can pick it up herself. She also has some apple and pear purée.
• Afternoon tea: Same as morning tea.
• Dinner: Same as lunch, though I will often also give her yoghurt for dessert.

I am still giving Astrid milk feeds around three times a day: when she wakes, before she goes down for her daytime nap and before bed. I'm still a bit confused about weaning, but I think what I need to do is get her drinking cow's milk more and then start dropping feeds. It's only recently that I've started giving her more full cream cow's milk with meals (because she is more interested in drinking it, whereas before, she would kind of give up on it). In the near future, I'll drop the daytime feed and see how that goes before eventually dropping the others. I know that I don't have to wean her, but I think it would be good thing to do—if only for the sake of me gaining a bit more freedom and energy. I have mixed feelings about it though: I have lost a lot of weight through breastfeeding (and a lot of my clothes are now too big for me!), but I ate whatever I wanted, and if I wean, I'll have to stop that. (That's probably good thing …)

One last thing in this section: because mealtimes were becoming a real battleground, I thought perhaps baby sign language might help. I sourced the wisdom of my Facebook Parentals group and they pointed me in the direction of Australian Baby Hands and the Auslan Signbank Dictionary. Basically you adopt around four or five signs that you want to start off with (in our case, “eat”, “drink”, “more” and “finished”) and start using them with your child consistently. Once you know them, it's pretty easy to do that because the opportunities to use them come up pretty regularly (e.g. at mealtimes). Apparently it's never too early to start, but it may take a long while for the baby to sign back to you. Astrid is still not signing back to me after several months, but I think the sign language helps her understand me and what I want from her a bit better. Interestingly, one of the parents who is a speech therapist says it doesn't matter what sign you use for the word. You as a family can even make up your own signs for things.

Oh: thought of one more thing! It's pretty small so it doesn't warrant its own section. I've noticed that Astrid will tend to do a poo around the same time of day everyday, and that they often coincide with mealtimes—i.e. after breakfast, after lunch and after dinner. It's funny to think that it's that predictable, but there you go. (I have no idea if that helps with toilet training. I guess I'll find out.)

The first birthday party

I figured it was worth mentioning here because it seems to me that the first birthday party is a bit of a rite of passage for the parents. According to the wisdom of my Facebook Parentals group, first birthday parties are really for the parents more than the baby, and they are a celebration of the fact that the parents have survived their first year as parents. All birthday parties afterwards are more for the child; my minister says that even the second birthday party is different because by then, they have started developing their own friendships.

So we invited whoever we wanted to Astrid's party. I think it must have been strange for our single and married-but-childless friends (certainly I've found it a bit strange when I've been invited to first birthday parties in the past), and perhaps we should have been clearer about the purpose of it (apart from subtitling the party with “YAY!!! Ben and Karen survived their first year as parents!”). But anyway, we did get a good turnout. We were going to have it in the park near our place, but then in the week leading up to it, my iPhone weather program said there was a 50 per cent chance of rain, so I changed the venue to our flat. We were a little worried about how we would fit that many people in (we expected around 35 over the course of the day), but I figured people would just cope (which they did). We also asked people to bring portable chairs to help with the seating, which worked pretty well.

Despite being advised to keep the party short and within Astrid's waking hours, we decided to hold it for five hours between 11 am and 4 pm because we wanted to see our friends. We told them to come whenever they wanted and leave whenever they wanted. In hindsight, I should probably have said that formal proceedings (i.e. cake) would kick off at a certain time. Oh well.

We took care of most of the catering ourselves, and as usual, I ended up buying too much food. The night before, I did a lot of stuff, but I also did the bulk of the food preparation on the day, so I was a bit stressed. Nevertheless it came together better than I hoped. So we had:

• Sausages (gluten free from Woolworths; two different types): we cooked these in our kitchen grill in batches, and I forgot to put out the tomato and BBQ sauce to go with them;
• Quiche (I made two; one was vegetarian);
• Three types of salads: green, pasta and Changs oriental fried noodle salad, which I think of Haoran's salad because I first had it at his place;
• Bread rolls;
• Various nibblies (carrot sticks, celery sticks and dip; chips; fairy bread, which the lovely Bec made up for me);
• Cake (of course!): it was coconut cake, which is Ben's favourite, from Sideways. Perhaps we shouldn't have gotten so much because we had stacks left over, but my goodness it was yummy! This was the small portion we decorated for Astrid (there was another bigger plate of the stuff for everyone else):
  
  Ben bought the farm animals and the letters to put on it. The letters are now on her door, and the farm animals we have saved for when she's a bit older and less likely to chew on them.

I asked the grandparents to keep on eye on Astrid so that I didn't have to do that and look after party things. One set of grandparents also brought ice for us. People came by all afternoon—them and their kids (who played with all the toys)—which was just lovely, and I loved how relaxed it was. Astrid also coped quite well—even with the fact that all these strange children were playing with her toys. However, she didn't get a full sleep in the middle of the day, then got really cranky and had to be put down for a second nap in the afternoon.

The party finished up around 4 pm, and clean-up was pretty straightforward, though in hindsight, I should have commandeered some people to help as I was completely wrecked by the end of the day.

We kept Astrid's party simple, but there are people out there who can go completely over the top when it comes to children's birthday parties. (See the posts on Babyology; I particularly like the look of this under the sea party, this vintage high tea party and this aeroplane party, but I don't think I could ever put in that much effort myself. Also, this post on “Are our children’s parties out of control?” gives you a taste of how over-the-top parties can be.) I didn't have a theme. I sent out an electronic invitation that didn't require much design work. I strung up some pretty lights and put the Blurb book of Astrid photos I had made last year on display. But that was about it.

With Astrid herself, in the week leading up to the party, I took her for her first haircut. (I got a friend to do it. Astrid seemed to be coping okay at first, but then burst into tears and was inconsolable, despite the fact that she had watched her daddy having his haircut just before. I think she was just tired. So my friend had to finish very quickly. It's interesting that Astrid's like that with a lot of things: we think she's fine with it, but then she has a delayed reaction and freaks out.) She has a fringe now, so it's nice not having to clip back her hair so it doesn't get in her food while she's eating. I also put her in a nice dress for the day. But that was it.

Motherhood

We're on the home stretch now. I wanted to finish the way I always do—with a few reflections on motherhood and what it's like to be a parent.

Coping with the everyday

I don't want to sound uniformly negative about motherhood. I do enjoy being a mother, and there are times when I need to remind myself to step back and savour the experience. I worry that these posts come across as being rather negative because I am charting all the adjustments and changes that happen with parenthood. So please don't think that.

I did say in my last post that motherhood is physically hard-going. I forgot to mention that motherhood is also very physically affectionate. Astrid is not an affectionate or clingy child (though she has been a bit clingier recently), but every day I spend a good portion of my day hugging her, kissing her, carrying her and so on. I think I have more physical contact with her than with Ben. (That's normal, so I have been told. Some mothers feel like they get their need for physical contact met by their child, they don't need it as much from their spouse.) So that's quite nice.

People also told me that it gets easier. I wondered what they meant, but I think it's because you understand your child better, you have had more practice at doing stuff, and things stabilise a bit more (as much as they can ever!) The changes from 1 to 2 years old are nowhere near as dramatic as from 0 to 1. I do think I'm getting better at this whole motherhood thing: I do have a sense of what's going on instead of just losing the plot and feeling helpless. I find that, for me, it helps to face the day with a plan. (I don't know if that's just because I'm organisationally minded.) Even if it's a simple plan (e.g. walk to the shops), it makes the day go better, otherwise everything falls to pieces. Writing it out also helps (so I put it into my Evernote daily list). I usually try to have something for the morning and something for the afternoon. So a typical day might go like this:

Then the following day, it starts all over again.

Week-to-week, it's pretty much the same:

• Monday: Music time in the morning at church; housework in the afternoon (always laundry, but every other week, I vacuum the floors, and mop the kitchen and bathroom floors. Our cleaning lady does the rest on alternate weeks).
• Tuesday: Mother's group in the morning. There aren't many of us who come anymore because a lot of mums have gone back to work, but there are still a few. In any case, I take Astrid to the playground so that she can run around for a bit. In the afternoon, I usually have a stint of writing time—often with Guan, but sometimes he can't make it, so I've taken to going to a local library. (I found a good one with a lovely study room that has powerpoints and nice lamps. I just wish the desks were a little lower as it's not hugely ergonomically friendly for my size, but you can't have it all …)
• Wednesday: In the morning, we either go to the shops (sometimes walking, sometimes driving) or the playground. In the afternoon, we have Bible study with four other mums at Sarah's place.
• Thursday: I still try to plan something nice on this day. Now that Astrid's a lot more mobile, certain things I used to do (e.g. go to the movies) are out of the question. So I try to take her to playgrounds, parks, new places, or we go visiting. I've noticed that it feels easier if we're with, say, one another mum and her baby, than if it's just her and me. I think that as a general rule, if the adult to baby ratio is greater than 1:1, it's always easier because somehow the childcare gets spread around a little without anyone in particular being specifically in charge of it. I think that solo childcare is quite unnatural, and it's rather sad that that's the state for many modern women, whereas in the past, there would have been more adults around and childcare would have been more of a shared endeavour from day to day.
• Friday: The mornings vary but in the afternoon, I take Astrid to my mum's place and go write there for a couple of hours. We often stay until after Astrid's dinner, and then I take her home. Sometimes Ben and I have marriage time; sometimes Ben goes out and I have a relaxing evening by myself (good for introverts!)
• Saturday: We try to do stuff as a family, but sometimes we also have stuff on. Sometimes also Ben and I take turns at giving each other a bit of alone time, with the other one spending one-on-one time with Astrid.
• Sunday: Again, sometimes we have stuff on, or we give each other a bit of alone time. Often I have church things on in the afternoon, like women's craft catch-up, a related meeting or band practice. Then church is on in the evening.

I should note that sometimes I do go out on weeknights—like to the movies. (I usually co-opt a friend into coming with me, but I don't mind going to stuff by myself.) I'm very grateful for my single and married-with-no-children friends because they are usually very flexible and can fit around my schedule to do stuff with me. That said, I am also grateful for my friends who are mums: I've found that visiting other mums is a great thing to do during the week, and not only does it give us something to do and provide Astrid with some social time with other kids, it's good for me because I learn from them and can also listen to them and support them.

The relentlessness of it all can be overwhelming sometimes though. I feel like I cope with the ongoing sleep deprivation with varying success, depending on what's going on at the time. Parenthood really is like running a marathon, and I really notice when it's been a long time since I've had a break. But there are no weekends (as in rest) in parenthood: any rest you get has to be carved out. It's kind of sad, but I've found that unless I schedule stuff in and ask for non-baby time, it doesn't happen. But if doesn't happen, I start going a bit bananas: I get depressed and don't cope.

The future

I often feel like I'm just in maintenance mode—just keeping things going from day to day, week to week. It's hard to do much more than this (and indeed, I've found that working on Kinds of Blue stuff has taken a lot of extra effort). So it makes me wonder how other parents cope—especially when it gets harder (e.g. when you have another rugrat to look after). I've been talking to mums who have two or more and from what they've told me, you just end up not doing as much. I asked one how she manages the mental space that two takes up, and how she is able to remember things like feeds and nappy changes, and she said that the kids often get changed at the same time, or she kind of watches them to know whether it's time to feed, time to sleep, etc. Some put their older children in childcare or preschool a day or two a week, which eases the pressure that having two brings. I guess you kind of surrender control and let life take you without getting overwhelmed. And I guess you just adapt and do what needs to be done—whether you're the mother of toddlers, preschoolers, primary schoolers or high schoolers. Good thing the future only comes one day at a time. I must remember that when the thought exhausts me.

Now that Astrid has turned one, I am nervous about what comes next—mostly because I feel like I know nothing. Another mum pointed out that I knew nothing before, but that's not strictly true: you get a sense of developmental milestones and the like from baby books, and when you start out, there are classes to teach stuff like how to breastfeed, how to change nappies, how to transition your child onto solid food, and so on. Now there are no classes, and the books are of limited value because every child is different. It makes me wish that there were classes—that it would be considered normal (as one speaker put it, except I can't remember who said it or where) to attend parenting classes at each stage of a child's development—less for “this is how you should do things” and more for “here are some ideas for how to handle the things you're facing”. I guess maybe I should go back and take another look at the Raising Children Network DVD. And I should keep talking to other parents. But also I know that this fear is part of the control freak in me. I need to keep on trusting God and trying to do my best by Astrid instead of trying to divine the future.

The other thing that makes me anxious about the future is the prospect of returning back to work. I think if I went back, I'd definitely just do part-time to start with. I worry about childcare and what that will be like for Astrid. (I cried a bit during the final scene of The Help when the nanny had to say goodbye to the toddler, and though my first thought was, “I've become so mushy since becoming a mum”, my second was, “How could I leave Astrid with someone else?”, which is a bit of a ludicrous thought since I leave her with grandparents and occasionally friends all the time. But that's never for longer than a couple of hours.) I worry about whether I will be able to cope with work on top of motherhood and looking after a household. I worry that I won't have time for rest or creative endeavours. I worry that I will run out of the mental capacity to hold it all together (already I am forgetting things not long after I think them; writing this post was a bit an effort and was only possible after collating copious notes!) One day soon I should probably read Mommy Wars and see what it's like for other women.

Marriage

I think one of the biggest things that we were unprepared for was the impact of the baby upon our marriage. I don't want to go into too much detail about it, but I will say that I think one of the problems was that looking after Astrid is very emotionally draining for me—especially as I'm an introvert. I would get to the end of the day and feel like I had nothing left to give Ben. Ben and I dealt with it by going back to marriage counselling (and just so you know, if you're ever looking for someone, Relationships Australia do marriage counselling and they charge you according to your household income. However, they are not a Christian organisation and I think the majority of their counsellors are not Christian, so bear that in mind if you are specifically after a Christian counsellor). Counselling had some value, and certainly things have been better since we started. (We are no longer going at the moment.) However, what frustrated me was that there wasn't much out there on the subject of what happens to your marriage when you start having kids. It's a big thing (remember that it's the third task in The Good Marriage), but hardly anyone talks about it, and everyone is very closed-mouthed about their own experiences. But everyone goes through that adjustment.

I asked my Facebook Parentals group about it, and I did get a few private responses (I guess it's hard to talk about because it involves your spouse). But interestingly, the most helpful thing I've found on the subject so far has been this book called Babyproofing Your Marriage by Stacie Cockrell, Cathy O'Neill and Julia Stone. One mum in the Parentals group said she found the book really negative and unhelpful, but did say that she had read it before kids. I'm only part-way through it and I think I can understand why she felt that way about it, but for me, my first reaction was, “Yay! We're not the only couple experiencing this!” I don't agree with all the solutions the book offers, but what I like about it is it explains the different issues from both the husband's and the wife's point of view. Plus you get a little glimpse into other people's marriages and how they operate. Also, it's quite funny to read in places (though Christian readers should be warned that it's coming from a non-Christian worldview, so there will be things you will probably find distasteful). In particular, the chapter on scorekeeping was just excellent.

Nurturing the self

I wonder if I harp on about this too much, but I think it's because it's my way of coping. Sometimes I think I am too soft because other mums have it much harder than I do (they have more children, they have less support, they have less family around to lend a hand, their husbands work long hours full-time). But I think such comparisons are like comparing apples and oranges: everyone is different. For me, I know how I'm wired and how I can keep myself going, so it's probably good that I keep thinking about this topic and how it relates to my situation.

It's hard not to think of mothering as a “job” (a job with no weekends, no health benefits, no holidays and no sick leave). I've already talked a bit about what I do to stop myself from going crazy (have a plan for the day in place, schedule in rest time and alone time, do pleasant event scheduling [e.g. arranging to go to the movies with a friend], try and make sure I actually rest when Astrid is asleep during the day, and when she's gone to bed in the evening). I feel like I'm still coming to terms with what I can now do, as opposed to what I used to be able to do. So now I'm only just keeping on top of my email, I barely check my RSS feeds, I favourite things in Twitter but often don't get time to read them (I stay on top of my Twitter feed but only just; I culled the number of people I follow from 500 to around 150, and I only really check it twice a day—and more because I enjoy reading it than because I feel like I have to keep up), I hardly read anymore, but I know that's because I prioritise television watching and knitting instead (because I can do both at once, whereas it's very hard to knit and read at the same time). Part of me is a bit sad I can't do it all anymore, but that's something I just have to accept.

So that's nurturing myself rest-wise. But I've also discovered it's important to continue nurturing myself creatively—not just for enjoyment and leisure purposes but also in terms of professional development (I mean as a writer). So when I'm consuming media (be it television, movies, books, TED talks, articles and the like), it's not just to be entertained, to be informed or to learn, but it's also to glean what I can about writing and storytelling. In an ideal world, I'd love to be able to earn a living through writing, but in order to get there, I have to produce and work hard. That means continuing to learn about the craft and continuing to practise the craft. At the moment, all the grandparents are travelling overseas and I am not getting the two scheduled writing periods I normally do. Strangely enough, I'm really feeling it—not to the point where, like Rachel Power in The Divided Heart, I feel like I'm going to explode with words, but something similar. I am trying to keep a writing project on the go at all times. At the moment, I'm working on a short story. I know that I don't get a heap done from week to week, but I do feel like I move forward in small increments (as Mark McGuinness says in his post on creativity when you have kids). Hopefully if I keep at it, I'll one day be able to make my dream come true.

In terms of nurturing myself spiritually, I find I have to make sure it doesn't drop off the agenda in the midst of everything else. For a while, Bible reading and prayer wasn't quite happening. Now it sort of happens: I listen to the Bible on MP3 over lunch, I pray bit prayers throughout the day (e.g. when I have a shower in the morning and when I put Astrid to bed at night), and I pray for people when I think of them. It's less regulated and organised than before when I operated on the six-card system, and I don't like that it's not very thorough. But hey, frequency rather than quality at the moment, and then maybe later in life, things will improve. At the moment, I think I am doing well to even fit it in.

Of course, there is also church. I've made it pretty much every week since about eight or 12 weeks after Astrid was born, apart from the weeks when I've been sick. Every time I make it, I thank God and consider it a minor miracle, considering what's involved to get there with Astrid. Every time I go, I get something out of it. I've started doing band, which makes things a little tricky with Astrid, but so far it's working. I've also volunteered to help organise women's ministry things, and I'm helping out at Music Time (doing setup).

There is also my mums Bible study group. We were slowly working through Psalms 1-20, using the Bible brief for those studies. But now we are doing Luke and using the Swedish Method. Bible study with the chaos of babies, toddlers and other distractions can be tricky, but keeping it short and simple seems to work, and amazingly we always learn something encouraging during each study. I've really enjoyed the time we've spent together. I know it's going to change a lot as a few of us are moving away later in the year, and it may dissolve altogether, but I'm thankful for the time we've had and the way it has kept me on track spiritually.

Right. That's enough. Let's finish with an obligatory cute picture of my darling little girl. This was taken the day of her first birthday (pre-haircut):