Hey Mickey: Babies Love Books. Or Book.

Did you ever hear of Mickey? How he heard a racket in the night? Because I can tell you anything you might have missed. I know ALL about it.

'Is it very different having a boy?' people ask me. Well, sure. I mean, he likes cars, balls, building towers; he's a mile a minute, climb the table, run away with the iPhone laughing kinda kid. But Una loved cars and still plays with blocks. Frederique was active and into everything. Avery likes drawing and music and Charlie and Lola. He likes to dance. He approaches drums with his hands already flailing in the air. He loves to brush my hair. At his new creche he rocks a baby in its cradle and says "sssh, sssh." He tries to give a real life baby a drink of water. Though he is not usually that interested in nurturing play, he nurtures us. "Are you all right?" he asks as Una sobs on the stairs, or calls to Fred wailing angrily in the bedroom. ("No Avery," she wails back, "I am NOT all right."). "Are you all right?" he says to me, if I lie down on the couch, patting my shoulder, stroking my hair.

If I have observed anything it is an aesthetic difference. It is a tension between our two bodies, because he is not me in a way that is clearly delineated. When Frederique was a baby (my first), all sorts of identity collapses threatened, and sometimes at my most tired and deranged, I felt I was parenting myself. A trace of that remains, sometimes I look at her and see my own face staring back at me, my own fears troubling her eyes, or - more delightfully - my own smile at the corners of her mouth. Though Avery's eyes are my eyes. His are brown like mine, rounded. Fred's are the mirror of her father's: the sea on a changeable day when the light is soft and intense and even one minute and blazing through clouds the next.

Avery has a penis. This in itself is a novelty to me. Sometimes when I open his nappy I say, "Hello penis" because it still takes me by surprise. From behind he is squarer than the girls were, at the hips, at the shoulders, under his bum. He is tubbier than Fred was at the same age (tubby, I suddenly realise is an adjective I am entirely comfortable using for a boy, but would hesitate to ascribe to even a baby girl.) I am told constantly, often by strangers, "Boys are so much more affectionate than girls." Una used to tell me she loved me all the time. She would seek me out for a cuddle. Fred loved to sleep in my arms. But admittedly Avery ups the ante. He flings his arms around me, snuggles in, kisses me on the lips. He is just as affectionate with Martin and the girls. Fred perhaps gets more kisses than all of us. Is this because he is a boy? Or because he has been conditioned by older sisters? Or because he has been in competition from the beginning for my affections, my attention? "Mummy" is one of his few clear words, and he shouts it across the room. From the girls he has learned the art of saying "Mum, mum, mum" to get my attnetion, even if he has nothing to say.

So did you ever hear of Mickey? Perhaps you've been living under a rock all these years, and you don't know this famous picture book by Maurice Sendak in which Mickey wakes up to a racket, falls somersaulting out of his clothes into a dreamscape where rotund bakers sporting Hitler moustaches are baking an oversized morning cake. They mistake Mickey for milk and mix him in. But Mickey is master of his own destiny. He makes himself a bread dough aeroplane and flies into the stars over a cityscape of bottles and cartons, watched over by full Mama moon. He dives into a giant milk bottle to retrieve the milk for the morning cake as compensation for his own refusal to be the milk. He brings back the milk so the morning cake is saved, but he also wins his own identity, he's not the milk and the milk isn't him, a fact he rejoices with a phallic Peter Pan-esque crow before returning to the comfort of his own bed. If you want, I can recite the story for you word for word.

I admit Avery will tolerate two other titles, Yummy Ice-Cream has been a firm favourite for a few months now (I point to Panda, then Sheep, then Owl. "Freddy, Una and Avery," I say. "Yeah," says Avery with one long nod, as if the thought was just occuring to him too). And we've been reading This Little Nose to him since he was a teeny "poor little grumpy person" with a little red coldy nose. But In the Night Kitchen is Avery's book.

'What was my favourite book?' Una asks me as I read In the Night Kitchen one more time, and I struggle to remember one book that Una particularly loved - is it middle child syndrome (maybe Fred would never have permitted Una to dictate through preferences) or is it that she was simply eclectic in her tastes. Fred had a favourite book from before she was one, it was Rose Meets Mr Wintergarten; however, it wasn't to the exclusion of all others. But if we try to read another book to Avery he says "Hey!" (as in "hey, what do you think you are doing?") and hits the offending book. So it's Night Kitchen. Again. "One more," he says after the last page. "One more me baby."

It strikes me as I read In the Night Kitchen that Avery is a boy, Avery is Mickey in a way that my daughters have never been. The proud male body that struts is Avery's body. To a point. A round ended, bluntish point. I realise that Avery is subject in the way that the girls are never really subject in so many of our favourite books and movies and TV shows. Yes, yes, I know that Mickey is the sort of antihero we can all relate to, individualistic, fulfilling his own needs and happening to save the morning cake along the way. But his maleness is quintessentially part of his identity, part of the joy of his being. "Cock-a-doodle-doo" he crows.

"Ew!" says Una. "You can see his doody." 

"That is a very rude book," says Fred.

There's nothing essentially rude about a penis, I insist. "After all, Avery has one." But they are 6 and 9 year old girls. We will beg to differ on this one.


I had a brief flicker of envy at this sharp realisation. Avery is a boy. Of course, I am not suggesting this means his life will be necessarily easier. He may be marginalised in other ways: he might be gay, or acquire an injury or have a learning disability, or he might simply not fit with the social expectations of a white western male. As the brother of sisters, as the son of a feminist mother, as a male in a post-feminist era, he may feel he has to apologise for his masculinity, there are times it will probably feel a burden to him. But it's a privileged position to begin from, if for no other reason than he is born into the role of protagonist in so many stories, he will grow up without the confusion of identification that my daughters face, that I myself have always faced. For every Brave there are a hundred Toy Stories and he will own his place in them all. He is Peter Pan, he is Captain Hook, he is Indian Chief, he is Sherrif, he is President, he is Soldier, Sailor, Tinker, Spy, he is Old Macdonald, he is Policeman, Fireman, Postman. He's a pantheon of gods, of superheros. Of course there's no reason why my girls can't be any of these things too, and they have been, for a time, slipping in and out of these roles. But still. There it is. The body that sets him apart from me. Yes, the difference is mostly aesthetic to me, a feminist with the power to deconstruct codes like masculinity and femininity. But still, I am struck by what a powerful thing the aesthetic is in our image-driven culture where what things look like dictate their function, their purpose, their reception and the narratives that coalesce around us, bringing meaning to our past, shaping our destiny.

News n Chews*

When I was in grade 2 I went to a different primary school for one year. It was the primary school where my dad was the Acting Principal. We would drive together in the little brownish orange Renault 12, which had one of those fold out arm rests in the middle of the backseat which formed an excellent border between two squabbling sisters, though of course on those days I sat in the front, except when we were driving Stuart Mitchell from across the road. He would get out at St Virgils and then I would climb over from the back seat into the front. It was 1982. The school was in Glenorchy, a suburb north of Hobart (actually its own municipality). On the way to school Dad would often stop at News'n'Chews, probably to buy cigarettes and a newspaper and I would get a "chew", a Whip or a Nudge, which were small then (the same size as a Milky Way), or a Caramello Koala, which of course you must always eat EARS first, then nibble the head until you reach the caramel, suck the caramel out, then consume, feet last. This is the only way to eat a Caramello Koala, and if you have been eating it the wrong way all this time then consider yourself edumacated. If you are from overseas and do not know what a Caramello Koala is, or if you are from the 90s onwards and do not know what a Nudge bar is, then alas.

Anyway, this is a newsy sort of post, so here it is:

First news:
Only Ever Always been shortlisted again! This time for the Western Australian Premier's Awards. My brother-in-law recently relocated to Perth after joining the Navy - he wants to be a submariner. Anyway, this seems a fair deal to me: a brother-in-law in exchange for a shortlisting. Thanks Western Australia! Crow Country, by my mate Kate, is also shortlisted, so are we officially a power couple?

Second news:
The Melbourne Writer's Festival and me. I shall appear. It is coming up fast and I have dates. Would you like to date me? I am interviewing (Morris Gleitzman and Melina Marchetta!) and doing panels and even more daunting there is one session that is simply called Only Ever Always. Just me and my book. Woah. I would really love it if you come. Details to come about the interviews, but the three panels are available for booking. Remember to come by the signing table and say hello.

Third news:
I have a story in Island 129, out this month (launched by Karen Pickering on Wednesday 18th in Hobart). For those of you interested in the relationship between life-writing, blogging, creativity and fiction, especially anyone who has been reading this blog for a while, you might like to know that the story has strong roots in the blog. This post here (about Snappy - ah Snappy) forms the backstory, and the actual incident the story was based on happened during this period, and some of the imagery from that poem ended up in the story, as well as this conversation with Una. The other thing that happens in the story is true too; I never quite got around to writing a blog post about it (though I wrote and rewrote it in my head). Anyway buy a copy of the magazine (or better still subscribe) here. I wonder if News'n'Chews stocks Island Magazine.

*When I googled to see if News'n'Chews was still there, I discovered I had used this title, and this anecdote, in 2007 for a similarly newsy blog post. Sheesh. We authors are always plagiarising ourselves. We need a refresh button.

The Girl in Bed 1

There is an anorexic in Bed 1; I hear her giving her birthdate to the pediatrician and work it out in my head. She is a few months away from her 14th birthday. She is painfully self-conscious as are the other two anorexics in the ward. We saw them earlier, about to sit down to morning tea. It was laid out in the playroom on the table, despite a notice instructing that no food or drink be consumed in there. Martin and I walked into the empty room and sat down at the table as Avery pottered about, helping himself to trucks and dinosaurs. Broom, said Avery. And, Rahr. And occasionally, a rasping wheeze, a bone rattling cough. We glanced at the meagre servings - not sure at first if this was before or after the meal. Processed cheese slices, individually wrapped servings of a crackers, oranges. The girls stood in the hallway, talking earnestly to each other, all of them radiating the same painful self-consciousness. It dawned on us that they expected to sit in here, but none of them were able to negotiate the complex task of entering the room with us already inside.
Avery found a black and white chequered flag and waved it in a surprisingly authentic figure-eight. He stumped out to the three girls and they studiously, painfully ignored his incredibly overt charm. He insisted on drawing their attention. One finally giggled nervously as I went out to scoop him and bring him back, plonking him next to the bins of toys again, wiping everything down that he'd touched.
A nurse came in.
'He is welcome to stay and play,' she said to us, 'but we need the table.'
Martin and I moved to the edges of the room. The girls came in and sat down. Almost immediately one complained about the orange, she doesn't know what to do with it. 'Oranges are for juice,' she said. 'You juice them, you don't eat them.' The other girls agreed, none of them, if they are to be believed, know how to peel an orange.
Martin and I took Avery back to the ward and left them to it, despairing over the impossible project of entering and consuming an orange.

Later the girl in Bed 1 was on her bed, drawing. The Happiness Trap sat on her bedside table. There were two 'get well soon' cards on her chest of drawers. She had a pillow from home, white with strong black geometric patterns and two teddybears, one large and brown, the other gaudy pink. She was settled in - for how long?
The doctors were visiting the ward. Our doctor examined Avery who, after waiting all morning to be examined, had just fallen into a deep sleep. His breathing was still ragged and there was still the occasional cough, but he had improved so much, I expected we would simply be discharged and therefore I was paying more attention to Bed 1.
The girl hid her drawing bashfully when the doctor showed interest in it.
'Wow, that's really good. Is that one of your special...things that you do?' the doctor asked. I got the sense she'd muddled up her syntax, almost got lost in the middle of the sentence. Awkward.
The girl shrugged. 'I always draw when I'm bored.'
'Do you want to talk about it?' the doctor asked, and she doesn't mean the drawing anymore. The girl was silent. 'Not today?' offered the doctor.
I was scribbling this down in my journal (despite the fact that there is a sign outside the ward saying No Recording Devices) so I didn't see her response but she isn't going to talk about it now.
'How are you feeling in yourself? Any aches and pains?'
'I'm still getting them. Eating. And drinking all that Sustagen.'
They exchanged a few more words, the girl had some work, some textbooks, she said.
'We don't want you to fall behind,' said the doctor. She patted the girl. 'You'll get there.'

I was writing this down when the doctor examining Avery said, 'Has anyone talked to you about his heart murmur?'
I put my pen down.
She explained to us that infants can get them when they are sick, or for all sorts of reasons, but it can also mean there is something structurally wrong with the heart. 'On his x-ray his heart looked a bit...' she trailed off - there was something she wasn't telling us. 'Big,' she finished vaguely, and she frowned, listening intently to her stethoscope.
They had taken the x-ray in case there was an obstruction that had caused his sudden severe retractions, which is what caused us to call the ambulance in the first place, our tiny boy gasping air in, his chest receding so savagely it threatened to disappear, his stomach ballooning, his narrow ribs protruding.
The doctor told us the next step would be an ECG which they may as well do while we are in the hospital and that she will have to examine him again when he is awake.
Martin had to move the car because parking is terrible in the area, mostly two hour. Before he went, he brought me a cup of tea from the parents room. He spilled a little on the floor and we had a brief bitter squabble, fuelled by exhaustion after a long night in emergency for both of us, and then the rest of the night for me sleeping in a fold out chair, tending to a fitful Avery every 45 minutes, breastfeeding him like a newborn every few hours. And then this new uncertain worry, scratching at our tempers.

I sipped my tea. Avery slept soundly. I heard the whirr of what sounded like a dial-up modem, the ding-dong ding-dong of someone summoning the nurse, and on another patient's television Homer Simpson declare: 'Boring!' My room was empty now, the girl in Bed 1 had slipped out unseen by me, maybe scared off by the intensity of our conversation, or maybe she was more polite than I had been and hadn't wanted to eavesdrop. The girl in the bed across from me, a seven year old with a broken wrist from a scooter accident, had gone home a few hours before. Her mum had been friendly, bought me a latte in the morning and wouldn't take my money (I was short anyway). In two weeks they were going to Thailand. Bed 4 had been empty since we'd arrived somewhere around midnight.
The hospital had that timeless, dreary quality of an institutionalised day. Early, when the night's long artificial twilight had finally given way to morning, Avery had looked out the window into the grey concrete courtyard and pointed up. 'Sky,' he said. The sky was the same colour as the concrete.

Avery woke up. Lunch arrived and Avery refused everything (even the jelly) except the mashed potato. The two doctors came back before Martin, while I was still shovelling potato into his mouth. As I was telling our story again to the second doctor (the short haired groovy one who had previously attended to the anorexic girl) the other one gets a call. She gets off the phone looking cheerful, embarrassed, mostly relieved.
'That was radiology,' she said. 'They mislabeled the x-ray.'
She listened to Avery's heart again. 'It's definitely on the left,' she told the other doctor.
It transpired that radiology had labeled the x-ray so that the heart appeared to be on the wrong side (the right instead of the left).
'There's no sign of the murmur now he's sitting up,' she said to me. 'Which means it's nothing serious. If it was something to worry about it, we'd still be able to hear it.'
She listened a few more times, again expressing relief that the heart was where it was supposed to be. It does happen rarely, they told me. The night before the doctor in emergency had said that one in a hundred appendixes are on the mirror side - not to us, this was to the family in the next cubicle, whose son, as it turned out, did not have appendicitis on either side.
Avery coughed then, and the doctors were confident that it was croup. He got another dose of steriods and we were also given a script so we could keep them in the house in case of a relapse.  
On the way out of the hospital I passed a board that had been put up for positive affirmations. I wanted to write my favourite aphorism on there, 'Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid', but I felt suddenly self-conscious.
'She was incredibly beautiful though,' said Martin, meaning the girl in Bed 1.
She made me hurt, as if all her raw nerve was somewhere outside her skin, and the signals from her brain were intercepting the signals from my brain. I felt her self-consciousness in the submerged part of my self, the stratum layer, that is and always will be thirteen, almost fourteen.
And with Avery bright and buzzing from the steroids, warm in Martin's arms, we walked down the corridors, past the birth centre where Avery was born, into the empty space of the wide bright foyer, down the lift to Basement 3, through the carparks and finally out into the wintery grey street, specked with a sort of pre-rain hanging motionless in the air. We walked down towards the bowling centre, where Martin had parked. 

'Sky,' said Avery.

Love Story

I walked into the bottle shop with a cleanskin red I'd bought only twenty minutes before. I had Una with me.
'My husband says I bought the wrong colour,' I told the man behind the counter.
'Wrong colour?' he asked confused. He thought I meant the label.
'Red not white.'
He laughs. 'Oh right, I like that. Wrong colour.' He laughed again. 'What do you want? Semi or a chard? I've got some cold.'
'Oh, chardonay,' I said, like I have an opinion. I don't really care. I don't really know the difference, having been most of my life a red drinker - but suddenly red is too intense for me.
'Here you go, Darling,' he said.
Outside Una told me with conspiratorial quietness, 'Mum, I think that man has fallen in love with you.'
'What makes you say that?'
'He called you Darling."
I laughed. 'I'll have to watch out for him.'
Worried, Una said, 'I hope he doesn't come and take you away one day.'
'I won't let that happen,' I assured her.
Una thought about that. 'You would punch him in the nose,' said Una.

Polenta and goats cheese "cake"

This isn't really a cheese cake but you make it in a spring form cake tin, so I am giving it the honourary title of cake. Avery loved this dinner and even the girls wolfed it down and they can be iffy about onion. I guess the cream and the butter and the cheese help. The onion retains a bit of crunch but you want that with all the creamy cheesiness so don't be tempted to cook it first.

From Donna Hay seasonal diary 2006

1 cup water
1 cup milk
1/2 cup polenta
30g butter
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
sea salt and cracked pepper
150g spinach
1 small red onion
6 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup single cream
80g goat's cheese crumbled

Preheat the oven to 180ºC (355ºF). Grease a 20cm springform cake tin.

It also says to line the base with paper, which maybe you could do if you want to be fancy and not serve it out of the tin like I did, but greasing it will be enough I reckon. Save a tree. 

Place milk and water in saucepan.

Forget about it until it bubbles over dramatically and then say to your husband, "oh I meant to do that.". OR bring to the boil.

Gradually pour in polenta, stirring until smooth. Reduce heat and continue to stir for five minutes. Stir through the butter, parmesan, salt and pepper. Oh, and I added nutmeg.

At this point you can lock yourself in the bathroom and eat the buttery cheesy polenta straight off the wooden spoon and then make scrambled eggs for dinner for everyone else. OR you can proceed with the recipe.  


Spread polenta over base of tin, top with onion and spinach. Whisk together eggs and cream, pour over spinach and top with crumbled goats cheese. Cook for 40 minutes or until set.

It says it serves 4 but I think you could easily feed six with a hearty salad and bread. We had leftovers.

Vego for June

We have started having the conversation about eating animals. It has happened later than I thought, Frederique is 9, Una is 6. Up till now they have hadn't had a problem with the idea of meat, easily slipping between cuddling their pet chooks to tucking into a roast chicken dinner. I was vegetarian for many years as a teenager, but went back for bacon around the age of 20 and now eat more or less everything. Anyway, after a few conversations where the girls expressed great concern at the idea of eating fluffy baby lambies, we've decided to go vegetarian for a month. I too have been wondering about the ethics of meat eating again. I am not really opposed to eating meat, but I do want animals to have quality of life, and somehow I don't think simply selecting free range options at the supermarket is enough to ensure this.

I am sort of hoping this might give us a chance to readdress what we eat, when we eat it, how we shop... Our hens were off the lay, and so I briefly entertained the idea of going vegan, but I just don't think I am prepared to go that far, especially with Avery so young and, you know, lattes. Cheese. Lattes.

The girls like chickpeas, lentils, beans and a reasonable range of vegetables and both eat all fruit. There is a nut free policy at school, and we've struggled to find savoury sandwich fillings that they'll eat, but it seems they like broad bean dip with alfalfa sprouts. Getting their lunchboxes healthier and more substantial is one of my goals with this month's trial. Martin deals with his own lunch at work (I am not sure if he will go vego for this - he usually has tuna). I cook lunch for Avery, usually an egg, baked beans, veggie fritters or leftovers, sometimes he has a tuna sandwich. I have a salad or toastie or leftovers or a "snack plate" - cheese, biscuits, fruit & veg, nuts - or, if I am lazy, fruit toast with peanut butter. Which is what I have for breakfast most days too.

Anyway, my rough evening meal plan for this week - seven meals though if we are lucky at least one of these meals will get thrown over for dinner at A Boy Named Sue:

Veggie soup
Beetroot and feta gozlemes with Waldorf-ish salad (with hazelnuts instead of walnuts, since we have some)
Tempeh sausage rolls
Gado gado (hard boiled eggs and steamed and raw veggies with homemade peanut sauce)
Goats cheese, spinach and polenta bake (from a 2006 Donna Hay Diary) with orange and fennel salad
Store-bought sesame falafels, store-bought hummus, flat breads, tomato and cucumber salad

Google Prediction Zeitgeist

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Why won't my baby sleep?
Why won't he marry me?
Why won't my ipod sync?
Why won't my macbook pro turn on?

Why don't you love me lyrics?
Why don't muslims eat pork?
Why don't I have a boyfriend?
Why don't you get a job?

Are you interested?
Are you being served?
Are you there chelsea?
Are you gonna be my girl?

Why didn't they ask Evans?
Why didn't you tell me?
Why didn't frodo fly to mordor?
Why didn't I think of that?

When did the titanic sink?
When did facebook start?
When did jesus die?
When did alcatraz close?

How far?
How far did I run?
How far along am i?
How far is the moon?

When will the world end?
When will I die?
When will iphone 5 be released?
When will timeline become compulsory?

I don't know how she does it
I don't know where you're going
I don't know how to love him
I don't know what to do with my life