I lose my temper every day.

Sometimes these things aren't apparent to a blog reader. In fact, sometimes they're not apparent to many outside the household at all - I tend to lose my temper towards the end of the day, just before The Earl arrives with his cavalry, by which time we are usually out of public scrutiny. So I am telling you all here, now, for the record, so that you know.

Recently, Young Master has started to get the hang of peer interactions. After years (wasn't it centuries?) of trying to explain to him how people get along, something suddenly clicked and he got it. I didn't realise how much of a mental burden it was to me that he hadn't got it yet until after he got it. All of a sudden I can relax when he is playing with other children: I don't feel the need to anxiously monitor his interactions and head off potential disasters, whilst at the same time trying to stay well enough back that I'm not interfering unless actually needed - all whilst running after an early toddler.

He has also figured out how to handle me. Yesterday, I was stressed and distracted, trying to deal with a bureaucratic issue (that has not yet been resolved), spending way more time than usual on the phone and computer. Towards the end of the day I was writing yet another email when The Young Master appeared beside me, saying something. I didn't hear him, and I told him in a frustrated tone that I was still trying to sort out "this whole mess" and needed to send another email, but when I raised my hands to the keyboard he took them gently and gave each of them a little kiss whilst speaking in a soft tone. Distractedly, I gave him a smile and a pat on the back and lifted my hands to the keyboard again, whereupon he repeated his act, and this time I heard him: "Mum," he said, "I wish you would use these two hands to come and play my game with me instead of using them to type another email."

I blinked for a moment. Where the fuck does he learn that? But of course it worked, because I kissed his hands back and, looking into his face, assured him that I would come and play games in exactly two minutes, whether I had finished sorting out "this mess" or not. And I did.

I do marvel at how he gets these things. Did I teach him that? I don't think I did. Probably I taught him to be shrewish and hysterical and the rest he worked out on his own, as if by magic. If I can take credit at all, maybe it's for choosing a school where someone else could teach him good lessons - even then, I chose it largely on convenience, so not much credit at all.

The cynic in me says I did teach him that in a sense, but what I have actually taught him is not love or kindness or some other lofty attribute, but how to manipulate me skillfully for his own ends. When I go mad at him he hugs me and tells me he loves me. Result: I quickly stop being mad. One day he looks up at me mid-hug and says, "Mum, whenever you get mad at me I always give you a hug and tell you I love you."

"I've noticed you doing that," I reply. "Out of interest, why do you do it?"

He nuzzles my stomach and squeezes me extra-tight. "I just don't want you to forget." Even if it's just a tool of manipulation, can I really be upset that he has decided to manipulate me by returning anger with affection? So many times I've preached that the best response to abuse is empathy. People, I have said, don't set out to be mean just because they want to hurt everyone. If they are being mean, it's because something, somewhere, has gone quite wrong. Solve the problem: starting with sympathy. I find it hard advice to follow, of course, but I should be glad that someone in our house seems to be fighting fire with water, whatever his motivation.

I lose my temper every day. Recently I lost my ring, too, or I thought I'd lost it, but really I'd just dropped it into an obscure corner of my purse. The Young Master found it whilst looking for something else, and when he held it up to me I gasped dramatically and he flinched. "Why did you just gasp?" he wanted to know.

"I'm surprised to see my ring!" I answered. "I've been looking for it for a whole week and I'd decided it was gone forever and I was very sad about that, because I've had it for such a long time and it was given to me by an old friend."

"Oh. So you're happy?" he asked.

And I bent down to him and cupped his face in my hands and looked into his eyes. "Do I get mad a lot?" I asked guiltily, searching for the answer in his expression as much as his words.

"No," he said. "A bit. Sometimes you get very angry. But I know we can always be friends again afterwards." And he smiles and hands me my ring.

I thought I might try NaBloPoMo - that is, posting a blog post in November. I like to bend the rules to fit my situation.

Serenity wrote a post about her Diego negotiations that really rang true for me. I've got to tell you, the endless whining, pleading, pestering and tantruming kids do over much-desired objects and experiences is one of those things that pushes my buttons enormously. So much so that, as per a sage observation Rachel once made about kids being able to tell when something crosses your personal lines, we hardly ever experience the phenomenon around our house these days.

When we do, I have a protocol. First, I make sure my reply to a request has been a) heard and b) understood. Then I remove the item from the equation - by changing my answer from "maybe" to "no", or by declaring an amnesty of a certain time period during which the thing will not exist within our household. I have this whole lecture that goes along with it. At the beginning of the lecture, I identify with The Young Master's feelings of helpless yearning. I ask him to reflect on how utterly horrible he feels as they consume him. I assure him that these feelings are common to pretty much all of human kind throughout history, and explain the good news that many techniques have been developed so people can quell such horrible feelings when they are not productive.

At this point we have a little musical lesson centred around that well-known prayer - "Lord, grant me the serenity..."

I point out to him that this case falls into the "things I cannot change" basket rather than the "things I can", because he does not yet always have "the wisdom to know the difference". Then I ask if he'd like me to help him achieve that elusive serenity by explaining some of the most widely-practiced techniques, and if I time it right he is too busy trying to work his way towards the practical meaning of that last paragraph to do anything but accept.

Cue geography lesson: pretty soon he is holding his globe, and I am tracing monkey's Journey To The West and giving him Intro to Buddhism 101. He cottons on to this quickly, because we live next door to a Buddhist temple, and we frequently hear bells or chanting, and smell the burn of incense. I explain the practice of eschewing worldly possessions, even to the extent of shaving one's hair and wearing a basic outfit of robes, and of shutting out the experiences of the world in order to spend time in focussed meditation. (Sometimes, if I have given my lecture fairly recently and therefore need to use a different angle, I trot out The Sound Of Music instead, and we discuss Maria and nuns and prayer and get stuck for a while trying to define "flipperty-gibbet".)

By this stage he has forgotten any thoughts of tantrums in both his curiosity over where in the hell I could possibly be going with all this, as well as the simple passage of time. When I bring it all around full circle by suggesting we need to follow the ways of our neighbourly monks by removing the desired item or experience from his world so he can use the time to sit in quiet contemplation - if necessary, in his room - he looks at me sharply, suddenly aware that I have snuck up on him and now have him surrounded.

I give him a wry grin, followed (before he can answer) by a gentler, more serious face, then I tell him that I really do want to give him what he wants, as per my original reply, but I also can't have him whining, pleading, pestering me or throwing fits over the thing because - first of all - it's rude and unpleasant and makes me feel very stressed and angry, and secondly it feeds this horrible feeling of helpless yearning he tells me he doesn't like to experience. So I suggest he could either distract himself with a specified alternative or one of his own choosing or, if he thinks that won't work - or if he demonstrates its unworkableness - we can make like the monks. Mostly, the pestering subsides, but every so often he loses his judgement and crosses the line.

This happened most recently a few months ago. I can't even remember what he wanted, but I had told him I would get it for him as soon as I'd finished my current task, which I estimated would take about ten more minutes. Within that ten minutes, however, I reached my limit and revoked my earlier answer, declaring that the item was obviously causing us all problems and I was removing it (temporarily) from our world in favour of quiet meditation, and was willing to adjust the distance of that removal and the amount of contemplation in direct proportion to the intensity of the negative feelings he had on account of it. The Younger Master drew in an enormous breath and I braced myself inwardly for the drama, whilst trying to present a composed and sympathetic face and casting about for our globe.

His mouth opened. Then he shut it again, and stormed off. I stuck my head around the kitchen door to see where he was going. He took a sketch pad and a set of crayons from his stationary cupboard, sat himself at the coffee table, and began drawing with intense concentration. After ten seconds or so he looked at me angrily and said, "Mum, I am writing a story about a boy whose mum tells him no and he takes that no and gets his cricket bat and he hits the no outside and it gets run over by a car."

"Ok," I said carefully. He returned to his work. After thirty seconds or so, I shook myself from my stunned daze and returned to mine. In five more minutes I finished it, and came to sit next to him on the couch. He drew in silence, and I felt a bit superfluous, so I got out a book, read a chapter, then put it away again and completed some more housework. I prepared lunch, and did the dishes. I read half of another chapter. One and a half hours later, he finally completed his work, and presented it to me as a reading, for my commentary.

And I thought, "Oh my goodness. I've created a blogger."

Humour is tricky. Parody is trickier. I once watched a documentary about a Korean-Dutch comedian who took his show back to his parents' North Korea, where the authorities changed everything "to make it more presentable to a Korean audience". I wasn't entirely sure who was being offended by whom, much of the time, but I'm pretty sure both, and everyone. Comedians will tell you being funny is like that. Jenny Allen has certainly experienced it this week with her piece I'm A Mom, which didn't appeal to Pamela of Silent Sorority, amongst others. This surprised me - not the lack of appeal, per se, but her eventual reaction to it - because the message Jenny and Pamela are trying to convey are so much the same. (Here is what Pam wrote about the infamous Anne Romney mum-speech.)

Humour is tricky. There is a cliche in the world that Americans have no sense of humour, which is, of course, outrageously untrue (example: Jenny Allen), but it is a testament to the delicacy of humour that it can be so hard to deliver across even the most subtle of cultural boundaries. I have a couple of American friends, and both of them insist on suffixing their jokes with "I'm kidding!" which, for me, not only sucks the humour out of it, but almost offends me. Where I come from, not being able to recognise or handle a bit of light-hearted joking around is a social deficiency akin to mean-spirited name-calling, or complaining loudly and repeatedly about your host's roasted pumpkin. When an American friend says, "I'm kidding!" after a joke, I hear, "I am funny, but you are socially deficient. You are probably the sort of person who gets pleasure from mean-spirited name-calling, or thinks it's ok to loudly and repeatedly criticise your host's roasted pumpkin." I have to consciously remind myself that they are actually trying to remove offense from their humour, rather than add it, and that this is probably their response to being misunderstood as expats living in a foreign culture. Then I have to forceably resume what remains of my merriment.

The whole thing is topical for us at the moment. Lately, whenever we laugh, The Young Master wants to know why it's funny. This morning I laughed because when (for the forty-third time) I released the balloon I'd blown up for the purpose of releasing, it flew around and around the room and into the rubbish bin. "Um, it's, well, it's like even the balloon is tired of the game," I explained.

"I'm not tired of the game," Master replied gravely.

"Yes but... no I suppose you're not. Why don't we blow it up again?" But it was too late. I'd laughed, by my laughter and the following explanation I'd inferred that there was something funny about the fact he was still interested in the game long after everyone (including, apparently, the inanimate balloon) had ceased to be interested, and now I was locked into a discussion about the nature and meaning of humour and I had to think fast about what I wanted him to learn. Was I supposed to agree that the joke had been made in error, and promise to never joke about releasing balloons again? Would that teach him to be fearful of making jokes, which can be such a useful tool? Should I, by my example, encourage him to tack a metaphorical or actual "I'm kidding!" on to the end of every joke he makes, to ensure the listener doesn't take it too seriously, knowing that this will offend a lot of people he has to spend Christmas with? Should I demonstrate how to suck it up, push him to laugh at his own quirky determination to watch that balloon fly around the room til both his parents lie passed out on the floor from hyperventilation? Would that send an inappropriate message that I think him foolish, or that he can laugh at anyone over anything and expect them to join in?

I thought Jenny Allen's article was funny. Much funnier than a tired old balloon flying into a bin after its forty-third journey around the room, and more important, too. Through parody, she deftly exhibited not only the offensiveness of recent political speeches to women without children, but to women everywhere, whatever their choices or circumstances. It's a feminist piece, calling on politicians to speak to women as if they have a place outside the assigned role of motherhood - much as you might speak to men, regardless of their current reproductive status. She had a tightrope to walk between the too-subtle and the too-obvious, and I thought she walked it brilliantly, but not everyone agrees. Some, like Pam, think the piece doesn't push hard enough, and is in danger of being taken seriously. Of course, if mother-worship is a hot-button topic for you, it will be harder to recognise or appreciate the parody. Your buttons will have been triggered and your anger will already be high before the writer smirks, metaphorically speaking, and as a result the joke will be lost much more easily.

Humour is tricky, but it is also a powerful tool for facing adversity, making a point, or bridging a gap between people - even across cultural boundaries - so I really do need to know how to explain its nuances to my four year old. If you have any universal rules to throw me, I'd be most grateful.

Sometimes I feel like I haven't really found my parenting voice.

--

Once upon a time there was a woman who had no children. She chased their spirits through the forest in vain, for they always eluded her at the last moment. Then one day, whilst she was running, a little voice called out and said, "I'll be your child." And she took the speaker into her arms and cherished him gratefully.

By and by, another child saw her with her son, and wandered out of the forest to join them. But her son was angry and could not control his jealousy. One day, over a petty grievance, he struck his sister hard, and she fell down, broken. The woman tore into a rage, and broke him, too. Then she wept for those two, broken children she had wanted so hard to care for, and cried out to the fairies to let her know what to do. The fairies appeared, their faces long and grim. They only had magic to restore one of her children, and they didn't know which to choose.

On hearing this, the woman wept harder. Her son was so precious to her. He had come to her when none of the others would, and she had loved him for so long. But she loved her daughter, too, and she was innocent, having caused no harm. As she wept, her tears grew thick and black, bitter like a brackish pond.

Then something strange happened. A tiny plant grew from the tear-soaked soil. One shoot, then two - then a whole carpet of yellow flowers, waving with the howling gale of her sobs. The fairies began to talk together, and eventually one came forward. "With these flowers, we have magic enough to restore both your children," she explained. And they did.

As the woman embraced her two children, she cried once again, but this time they were tears of soft crimson, and tasted of the earth. Red flowers grew, and blue, and violet and green. They spread throughout the whole clearing, as far as the eye could see. But the fairies left with solemn faces, because they knew there would never be enough magic to restore the woman herself.

---

Little Running Bear hurtled through the forest, down one path, then another, until he realised he was lost. "What shall I do?" he asked the air, and the air replied, "Did you take a wrong turn?"

I must have, Little Running Bear thought. Then he asked, "Who will tell me which it was?"

"Talk to the caves," the air said. So Little Running Bear talked to the caves, but he heard only echoes in reply.

"They haven't told me anything I didn't tell them first," Little Running Bear said crossly, and he sighed a deep sigh of despair. "Who will show me where I went wrong?" he wondered aloud, and this time the trees replied.

"Look to the pond," they advised. So Little Running Bear looked into the pond, but he saw only his reflection.

"The pond showed me nothing I didn't show it first," he protested, and he hissed a soft hiss of exasperation. "Who will lead me where I need to go?" he cried out to the hills, and the hills whispered back, as quietly as they could (for hills are very big and very loud), "FOLLOW THE PATH."

So Little Running Bear looked down at his feet and there, on the ground, was the furrow of his own footsteps, leading right up to where he stood. He retraced carefully, circling around and around, until he had explored every inch of where he'd been, and where he'd been headed. "The path took me nowhere I hadn't trodden before," he complained, and he moaned a soft moan of disappointment.

"Everywhere, there is no guide but myself," he concluded, and the leaves murmured assent. So Little Running Bear looked to the skies and to the streams, knowing only that he must leave, to find his way.

--

So I dropped The Prata Boy at kindy today, and on the way home I felt I needed a boost, so I swung through the servo near his school and decided, after not much deliberation, on an iced coffee. Caffeine. Sugar. The sort of formula that gets you through the day.

But whilst I was standing at the register waiting to pay, the magazine rack caught my eyes and I thought, "Ooh, maybe that's what I want." Little brightly-coloured mind-candy, you know. Something to stimulate the imagination and excite the appetite of the soul. So I looked through the options to see what I should buy.

The teen genre was an easy pass. Awkward questions about boys and periods are *cough* half a lifetime behind me now. And I've been married thirteen years this week, so the bridal magazines weren't exactly topical to me. The conception and pregnancy stuff has lost its relevance, and the parenting ones seemed to be aimed at rank beginners, so I left them on the shelf, too. We've completed our home renovation as of a couple of weeks ago, and I've already thrown my small library of research into the bin with a sigh of triumph and relief, so I moved past those offerings quickly. The homemaker magazines made me pause, as did the one on personal finance, but a closer inspection revealed no promise of anything that might interest me except what I'd already been over many times before. I stared, without compulsion, at the travel section, happy with my holiday plans for the next twelve months and not really wanting to glimpse any further.

And I thought, this is where I'm at, then. I'm at the place where I don't know which lifestyle magazine I should buy.

Then the woman behind the counter said, "Hello, Ma'am, just the iced coffee, is it?"

And I said, "Yes."

I've been away (working this time - just flogged). I'm back. I am catching up, once again.

I had a dream the other night and in it they told me I had cancer. It was a slow-moving kind - I could look forward to a good-quality life stretching years, or even decades into the future - but it was also incurable, and they advised against further pregnancies lest the compromise to my immune system loosed the beast within. I woke up wondering what I'd do with the frozen embryos. I like to say it's behind me, but sometimes it's not.

Here's where we're at: I feel we should use them some day and just see what happens, but I am currently in no mood to go back to the fertility clinic and I don't see myself being in that mood for quite some time. As PB and SB mature, I find myself wanting, in fact, to start the gradual move back to being a fully independent person, with the types of goals and aspirations which are hers and hers alone; which have nothing to do with the more vicarious achievements of potty training or beginning to read. Not that I don't take pleasure in those things - it's impossible not to be pleased when PB delights in being able to count all the way to one hundred by himself with only the minor omission of the number fourteen (always fourteen), or when SB finally, after much trying, works out how to get her shoes onto her own feet and stamps around looking smug as a bastard. But ultimately those achievements are theirs, not mine. I want to think of them as theirs, not mine. I want them to live out their own lives, not mine. And part of that is building my own life, which is not theirs. I can't start to do it if we're going back to the clinic next year to roll the dice with our frozen embryos.

Not only that, but I'm kind of tired of babies for the time being. The first time around was a steep learning curve. The second time was a chance to put our new knowledge to practice. The third time would be, I think, kind of same old same-old. I don't want to raise a child with that kind of attitude - on the off-chance, of course, that a live birth results, and on the greater chance that it doesn't, I guess I also don't want to have to make up my own mind to walk away.

My current preference is to leave the embryos in the freezer for eight to ten years before getting into it all again. By then, I'd have had time to do a few things. I'd be old enough that trying naturally or through further ART would be seriously uninspiring, and pursuing other avenues such as donors or adoption would be such a new ball game that walking away would be a relatively simple choice to make. And if it did work, scrambling to remember everything I ever knew about babies would be an interesting challenge - one I could share with my teen/tweenage kids.

Mr Bea disagrees. He doesn't want the decision hanging over his head - he wants it behind him. Wants it all behind him, one way or another, within the next year or two. I suppose it won't come to a head really, then, for at least another twelve, if not twenty-four, months, and - gosh - by then, I could be living with a slow-moving but incurable cancer, thus changing the decision entirely.

---

Of all the people I know, face-to-face, who have suffered infertility, one couple remains childless. The woman of the couple is now forty-two - old enough that trying naturally or through ART is getting kind of uninspiring, and of course adoption or third-party reproduction is this whole other ball game. Last time I spoke to her it was a year ago, she said she was fine, and that "if it [was] going to happen it would happen in its own time". I want to bring it up again when the situation suits, just to let them know I would talk it through with them if talking it through is something they think might help. At least, I mostly want to do that, but I have become aware of a niggling hesitation, and I have only just begun to pin it down: I think I'm afraid of being judged.

I have no problem with the fact that other people will make different choices from mine in the same situation, and on top of that - let's face it - two cases are rarely so identical that we can accurately use the word "same". But I think I have a problem when other people reason in a way that judges my reasoning.

There's a difference between saying, "I prefer to follow where life leads," and, "I figured Someone was trying to tell me Something." The first is a value-neutral statement about one person's preferences. The second is a value-laden statement asserting the existence of some supreme force or entity who knows best and whose messages have a particular interpretation which should be adhered to. It particularly irks me that those who use the latter argument almost always use tools, wear clothes, and take other kinds of medicine. Headache pills, perhaps. Sometimes they even fly in planes or sail in ships, as if Someone wasn't trying to say, "Take the no-wings-no-flippers hint, guys." I just don't believe that everything that was "meant to be" was meant to be easy, and I'm pretty sure a quick flick through most theological, philosophical or moral teachings would back me up.

I like to say it's behind me, but sometimes it's not.

Prata Baby - maybe that should be Prata Boy by now - turns four tomorrow. You will already know this if you are one of the random strangers he accosted today to impart this information. He is likely to be disappointed with the experience, given his expectations, which are heady, to say the least. He expects to be taller, faster, smarter, and more able to accomplish almost everything (in fact, he has a short list of things he has been putting off for the last couple of weeks, because "he'll find it easier once he turns four next Thursday") - all by the time he wakes in the morning. Hopefully he will be happier with his presents.

I already got my gift for his birthday. We have been struggling at school ever since this post, with much the same issues. It has seemed a case of two steps forwards, one back (if not the other way around at times) but today his teacher told me he has finally come around and has been getting along really well. I swear I nearly started crying at the school gate. She thanked me for all my hard work, but in truth it was a multitude of factors, which I am now going to write down for the edification, or at least reflection and discussion, of whoever is interested.

Things That Have Helped (*These a Great Deal More than the Others)

*Teacher
He has a new teacher this year, and I think she is better for him, for two reasons. First, she is rather liberal with the edible treats, and if there's one thing PB loves it's an edible treat. I have mixed feelings about this, but currently I am on the side of "whatever works". More substantially, however, his teacher this year has a relaxed confidence born of much experience. Last year's teacher had a tendency to worry about PB's behaviour, fretting over the fact that this technique or that technique just didn't seem to be having the desired effect, and I think that only fed the anxiety which lay at the root of his problems. I felt her pain. She was fresh out of teaching school with no children of her own, and I was drifting about in pretty much the same sea. This year's teacher has seen PB's type a thousand times before and can handle it with an unruffled deftness which inspires both him and I.

*Familiarity
He knows his school now, and he knows his classmates. He's just more comfortable interacting with them. Things at home are more stable, too - no new siblings to contend with, no new houses, no new countries. It's all comfortingly familiar.  

*Students
The Prata Boy has matured, plain and simple. He finds it less frightening to be separated from his family, although he still complains that he doesn't like it. Literally, he told the teacher the other week that he would prefer to be homeschooled because he doesn't like to be separated from his parents. He will grow out of it, and we will have to remember to go easy on him in the meantime. But in that meantime, he is growing much more comfortable with familiar adults, such as grandparents and teachers. (Sometimes I wonder if this whole thing wasn't a misjudgement on our parts, if he just wasn't ready to start school yet, but then I remember I only sent him because he had so clearly outgrown the stay-at-home life. Maybe three was destined to be difficult for him either way.)

It's not just PB who has matured, though. His classmates have also matured. Last year the teacher attributed part of his difficulty to the fact that he was well ahead of his classmates in terms of his spoken language - he was frustrated with them because they couldn't communicate together in the way he expected. Now, before I go sounding all puffed-up parent I have to point out that the majority of his classmates are at least bilingual, and some are multilingual. We were pleased he was so far ahead, but to be honest it would have been a worry if he wasn't. In addition, his great verbal skills seemed to have been learned at the partial expense of some other communication skills - reading body language, for example, or facial expressions. We have always tried to be the calm and patient parents. I am wondering if we shouldn't have lost our nuts a few more times along the way.

In any case, his classmates have closed the verbal language gap quite a lot since last year, and have probably also improved, as he has, in their non-verbal communication skills, and they have probably all learned a thing or two in areas like cooperation. The whole classroom is just a more civilised place these days, it seems to me.  

Talking, And So On
We have talked and talked and talked and talked and talked. We have read and read and read. We have played games. We have told stories and sung songs and discussed them afterwards at length. We have tried out a lot of impulse control techniques - magic ("dolphin" - he's in a marine biology phase) breathing, counting, ritualised gestures (he seemed to respond to making a triangle with his fingers when stressed), looking at things from the other person's point of view, looking at the upside, brainstorming alternative responses, etc etc etc. It's a pretty long and tiresome process, training new impulses - for "training new impulses" certainly captures what our game is more accurately than "controlling impulses". He's nearly-four. He's impulsive. I'm not sure I can change that. But the talking, I think, eventually, sort of maybe starts to sink in, a bit, in order to change the nature of his impulses, and therefore the outcomes.  

Food
PB has never been a picky eater, and I have always tried to provide him with a good diet, home made and whole meal, but I have become extra-vigilant, especially about things like food colouring (red sends him loopy), chocolate, and sugars generally, and especially as regards the timing and overall glycaemic index of his meals. We have explained to him how what he eats (or doesn't eat), and when, can affect his moods, and we have drawn a lot of food pyramids. He is very interested in how stuff works so he eagerly takes it all in, asks questions, and seems to be building some sort of practical understanding.  

Increased Responsibility
More chores. Higher expectations. Extra freedoms. His favourites are being allowed to mop the floor, helping to cook, and being allowed to ride up and down in the lift by himself (he always waits for us at the other end). His least favourite is having to use better table manners.  

Mum and Me Days
With SB getting older and more independent, I have started taking Prata Boy on Mother-Son excursions on the weekend. He seems to like this.   

*Exercise
I have left this one til last, because it seems to have made the biggest difference for the least effort - at least on my part. Early morning exercise really works for him. Mr Bea tries to take him out for a swim or something in the morning, and I have started making him ride his bike to school. He needs cardio. His little body is addicted to endorphins.

I had plans of saying something soppy at the end here, something about kissing goodnight to three and looking onward to four. At some point I was going to describe to you the severe social anxiety I have been experiencing over my first ever children's birthday party. But it is late and SB seems to be in for a rough night (teething) and tomorrow I have to shop for said birthday party as well as (probably) bounce out of bed bright and early to witness the opening of presents, so instead, I'll leave the discussion over to you, especially if you think I've missed a trick in managing unruly behaviour in preschoolers. But even if not.

First, let me point you to Life From Scratch by our very own Melissa which was on my Christmas list but sadly not gifted by anyone. Then I found out that it was temporarily on sale for 99c! At 99c I can probably get away with gifting it to myself. Duly downloaded and can't wait to read it.

--
Two thousand and twelve could be an interesting time. I may be making some long-awaited moves on my career. I have ideas for a couple of other projects. I have the optimism of a twenty-year-old when it comes to my ability to pull it all off. I love having my self-belief back, misguided though it may be.

I once heard someone in blogland say she preferred blogs where people wrote about what they'd been doing from day to day, rather than - I can't remember how it was worded at all - basically editorialising on some topic or other.Really? I thought. That explains a lot. Like, for example, how come people whose posts always consist entirely of a laundry list of events which have occurred in their lives since the last post can sometimes have quite the following.

Not only that. I have friends with whom I never seem to discuss anything but stuff which has happened to each of us since we last saw each other. It's pleasant enough, don't get me wrong. But my whole life, I'd been assuming we weren't really very good friends, until I read that comment, whereupon this occurred to me: perhaps that's how some people do friendship! It's an astounding thought.

Some bloggers, sooner or later, are forced by a commenter to write a post along the lines of, "Hey! People! This is my place to whinge, ok?" In the past, I have agreed wholeheartedly with the poster. Your space is what you want it to be, and for some people, what they want is a spot to put the nasty stuff so they don't end up inflicting it on anyone they know face to face. It doesn't mean they spend 100% of their lives whinging, and they shouldn't have to change the way they blog. Are they forcing you to read?

I guess I still agree with that. I'm not talking about those whose lives (at least as they're writing) are such a suckhole of suck that the odd bit of cheer is completely overrun by the mountains of suckitude - those people you can't help but feel for - I'm talking about those who just plain don't see the need to post the good bits, whilst seeing all the need in the world to post the bad. That is absolutely a valid way to blog. I'm a bit sad that they don't know anyone face to face who can handle them without the edges taken off, or (in a different way) for those who don't know anyone with whom they feel comfortable displaying their edges, but if blogging fills that gap, so be it and I'm glad the internet exists. It's pretty lonely, though, to be the person inside the computer who only hears about the rough patches and never gets to share the joys.

For myself, I blog to think. More than that: I connect to think. But in a world where everyone is rushing to and fro with work and family and houses and hobbies and social engagements and travel delete as appropriate blogging seems to fit the bill better than rambling conversations in late night bars or coffee houses or, afterwards, on park benches situated halfway home - more's the shame. I've been trying to work out why I don't seem so motivated to post now that infertility is behind me, and I'm pretty sure it's because I don't have a big mess inside my head to untangle any more. Or rather, I do, but it's cheerfully disorganised as opposed to actually squalid, and I don't have a chunk of time just now to put it all back in order anyway. I am pretty much resigned to just stepping over my thoughts where they lay until I dependably get not only a full night's unbroken sleep, but a few hours of regular solitude, and I'm ten thousand miles removed from going out of my way in search of new thoughts. (Melissa - are there many new thoughts in your book? Prepare me.) I am just not at a blogging stage of life, at least not blogging in any way that resonates with me.

Here's my thing.

I have made friends in this community, and I don't really want to lose touch with everyone I ever knew. And I can't rely on facebook or anything, because I suck at those sorts of places, and I guess I'm just afraid that, one by one, you'll all stop blogging and one day I'll think something and there'll be nobody left to mull with me. Is it inevitable?  I'm not finished with this space - or at least I'm not finished with a space. It's just my thoughts - my reasons for being here - are few and far between at present.

I'm not going to make any promises to blog more in 2012. I see no purpose to such a promise, to blogging for the sake of writing something down (and yet I know some blog for that reason, too, and God bless). I guess I just want to have somewhere to reflect on things at my own pace and time, and to have my reflections understood, and I am increasingly afraid that 2012 will take me further from it. Even as it brings me closer to other things.

I'm not quite sure what to do about it.

A couple of weeks ago I was sick. Not badly sick, just a little queasy and off my food. Heartburney. Bloaty. Tired. Blah. Heavy-and-crampy-feeling in the abdomen. And just a smidgen nocturic. Also, I was having some insanely vivid dreams, largely of a sexual nature. It went on like this for nearly a week.

There was a time I would have believed that nothing but IVF would help us conceive. That time was before Surprise Baby. Now, apparently, I am willing to believe that strange things can happen, even though they usually don't. I believe it enough, at least, to use a pregnancy test even though I am still breastfeeding and amenorrhoeic, we have been using two types of contraception (one of which is "teething baby"), and our track record at getting knocked up is not exactly stellar by most people's standards.

I sat in the bathroom staring at the unused test for a long time, just hesitating. I realised eventually that I was trying to work out how I'd feel about either result so I could brace myself appropriately. I'm not really sure I could handle another baby so soon. But I'm not so far removed from infertility that I could honestly think of an unplanned pregnancy as anything but miraculous and exciting. In the end I couldn't resolve the question either way, so I took a deep breath and piddled on the stick.

It was negative. Even then, I wasn't sure how I felt about it. Over a week later, I'm still not sure.

--

I finally managed to catch up with a book recommended by Miss E (password protected): Motherstyles. It's based on the Myer's-Briggs personality typing system. "I just can't work out if I'm perceiving or judging," I said to Mr Bea.

Mr Bea regarded me for a few seconds with a raised eyebrow and a bemused smile. "Can't you?" he said mildly, and then went straight back to what he was doing. I narrowed my eyes.

The next morning, I tore myself away from the conversation I was having with The Prata Baby about electricity to clear the breakfast dishes. I had just picked them up when he requested I read him a book about sharks. "Oh that's right!" I said, setting the dishes back down on the table again. "I was going to sticky-tape that torn page back together and I never got around to it! Let's get the shark book right now and do that."

I collected the necessary supplies together and we sat down at the coffee table to perform the surgery. Struck with inspiration, The Prata Baby requested his "special scissors for people in my agegroup" and the roll of tape. "Yes, great idea!" I affirmed. "We can do some cutting and sticky-taping. What can we cut up? How about... this piece of junk mail?" I suggested, picking a furniture catalogue up from where it lay, just nearby. PB thought that was a great idea. I glanced around for something to stick our cuttings onto, and noticed the cereal box still sitting on the table. Soon, I had torn it from around its contents, flattened it out next to us, scissored out a picture of a storage-box-cum-stool and a cup of coffee, and stuck them down onto our cereal-box "house".

"Box," I said for Surprise Baby's benefit. "Coffee." She cruised around the coffee table observing everything with keen interest. I gave her the sticky tape.

"Now," I said to both members of my audience, "we should choose some furniture," and I started flicking through the catalogue, naming various items for SB, discussing several tenets of interior design and decoration at length, listening carefully to PB's plans to fill the structure with water and sea creatures and have all the people swim around it in scuba gear, and googling for information on dolphins. After twenty or thirty minutes it suddenly occurred to me that no dishes had been cleared, the cereal was, if anything, less away than when I'd started, everyone was sitting around in their underwear, the stroller was completely unpacked, and we were already running several minutes late in getting out the door to kindy. And the worst part of it was that the only headway we had made on our pretend house was to add (at PB's suggestion) a second cup of coffee and a babyccino, as if I was deliberately trying to make a statement, in collage, about art mimicking life.

I figured I was probably perceiving.

It may be why I have trouble fitting in much blogging these days. I have tried, as you know, to find ways to carve out more spare time, and I have even used your suggestions, but somehow anything I save seems to slip through my fingers. On top of that, as an INTP, the social and feeling nature of the ALI community is a lot for me to handle after a full day's being social and emotional at home. I find myself wanting to shut off the computer in favour of some frothy TV sitcom. Maybe it's nothing to do with Myers-Briggs. Maybe I just don't drink enough coffee.

When we started our battle with infertility, I tried to be strong like a stone. I nearly cracked. Over time, I learnt to be strong like bamboo - bowing over in the face of the storm, but never breaking; perhaps even growing to stand taller than ever when the fine weather returned.

So it's not the first time I've cashed in on all those hours I spent watching martial arts cinema. And people tried to tell me I was wasting my time.

This is a parenting philosophy I developed myself, based on my recent reading*, so take it as you will, but it seems to work so well that I thought I'd put it out there for other parents who have seen Chan Long through more than one Police Story. I call it "Kung Fu Parenting". The central thesis of Kung Fu Parenting is that the key to resolving your parenting problems lies in the answer to one simple question: if this scene was part of a Kung Fu movie, who would be playing which role?

There are, from what I can see, three basic choices: the Young Student, The Evil Tough Guy, or the Old Master**. The idea is to make sure that you, the parent, always play the Old Master, and you don't have to be overly familiar with the formula to see why. As the film starts, the Young Student is prancing around making a lot of noise, high on his inflated sense self-importance. Although he might win a few rounds here and there, he is prone to getting smacked up throughout the film, either by a group of evil tough guys, or an Old Master. The Evil Tough Guys are more likely than the Young Student to win out in the early part of the film, but in the end they really have it coming to them and anyway, who wants to be evil? The only character who kicks arse for the entire film is the Old Master - and he barely lifts a finger to do so. He is, like, way cool. I mean, yes, occasionally he dies in the final showdown, but even then he still "wins" in all the non-getting-to-live-on senses of the word. Which totally counts.

To be the Old Master, you must first act like the Old Master. The body language of this character tends to be passive and low-energy. Drop your shoulders. Bend a little, as if you must hobble with the aid of a bamboo cane. Make your face impassive; inscrutable. Your expression should be ever so slightly weary, as if you have seen it all before and long ago figured out the answers, and are vaguely saddened by the knowledge that those around you have yet to achieve the same. Squint near-sightedly if you must. Resist the urge to command, and instead give some sort of vague advice. Then walk away as if you don't care whether anyone follows. No really. I swear.

Around our house, we have taken to reminding each other to "be the Master". When we hear ourselves say, "You do this thing right now young man!" - a classic Young Student or Evil Tough Guy line - it tells us to breathe out and try a different tack: "You can do that, or you can do this. But think hard and make a good decision, because otherwise you might not like my response." There's more to it, I guess, but it tends to be nuance. The Old Master isn't always an easy role with an obvious script, and reminding one's self to play it may seem like the first of an overwhelming number of steps, especially if you're winging it on a half-remembered version of Carl Douglas' hit song. But if you can claim multiple viewings of Karate Kid, you are probably good to go.

I was going to say something else, on a completely different topic, but it absolutely eludes me.

--
*Specifically the Love and Logic series, separately recommended by both Serenity and Melissa. I personally think Practical Parenting Tips for Birth-Six Years is by far the better book of the two I've read so far (the other being Teaching Responsibility). You don't have to know anything about Kung Fu to appreciate it.

**I am discounting the comic relief, the love interest or the innocent bystander, because these roles aren't directly involved in the power struggle at the centre of the plot. And as we all know, there is often a power struggle at the centre of the parental plot, especially when you are about to lose said plot.***

***I must also admit to over-simplifying an entire cinematic culture in a way that is very nearly criminal. I probably deserve a good flying kick for that one.

It's been a rough few weeks. The Prata Baby started kindy and "we" did not take to it like a duck to water. Or maybe he was like a duck to water, that is, kicking furiously.

I admit I was upset, embarrassed. Mortified might be a better description. And especially so after I learnt that other parents had been down to the school to complain about my child. My child beating up their child. I think every parent worries about bullying, but usually their concern centres around the prospect of their child as victim. I was unprepared, and I was horrified. And then I was angry, I guess, at him. At The Prata Baby. For making me horrified, or for being the kind of kid I didn't want him to be, or... I don't know. Does it matter?

--

I wasted the first couple of weeks reading up about homeschooling and alternative educational methods, and therefore missed the whole point. Then one day we had a particularly horrible morning - it was, in fact, the day before the day I posted about here. I had just dropped him off at kindy with a combination of relief, dread, and guilt on account of the relief, when a friend phoned for a chat. Naturally, she asked how I was and of course that led directly to her hearing about the whole thing.

"What... PB?" she asked, astonished, when I'd given her my troubles in a nutshell. "But he's the quiet, gentle one!" I think that was the turning point. I mean, it took twenty-four full hours for me to actually take a proper step back and start seeing the bigger picture, but I think that was the spark.

--

I want to write this down in case I ever need it again. I need to remember that The Prata Baby is a sensitive little boy who struggles, sometimes, to handle his emotions. I remember him at birth, crying as if to say, "Too much! Too much!" Not like Surprise Baby, who lay in my arms and blinked as if to say, "Huh, brighter than I expected. Interesting." I remember him at six months old, shattering my nerves to the point where I could barely make it through a day, let alone a week, with his constant, frustrated shrieking about all the things he wanted to do but couldn't. Not like Surprise Baby, who reaches for a toy and wriggles this way and that with nothing to say about it except for a few quiet grunts of determination.

Somebody else had to point out that my kid was "the quiet, gentle one". The sensitive soul. If there's a next time, the person who points it out should be me.

--

I need to remember to look for the subtle distinctions. The teacher described her transitioning method - a countdown, followed by the instruction to S! T! O! P! Stop what you're doing! I nodded and told her this was exactly how we did it at home, plus or - well, minus - the spelling out of words. But over the weekend I noticed that it's not really what we do at home. Because at home, after the countdown, I never say "Stop!" I say "Go!". Go pack up. Go get dressed. Start putting your shoes on. I don't transition him away from the activity he's working on, I transition him towards the next one. In fact, I often go a step further than stop vs go. I am the master of the segue, making it seem as if, somehow, what we're about to do next is some kind of extension of what he's currently working on. If we're drawing, for instance, and I know we need to get ready to go shopping soon, I will start drawing groceries so I can soon say, "Now it's time to look at some real vegetables at the supermarket," like everything I learnt about parenting came directly from watching endless episodes of Playschool. I didn't even realise I was doing it. I certainly didn't realise how much difference it makes.

--

Earlier this year, he started falling asleep unattended, but we have to be careful. If he does it for more than one or two nights in a row, we will pay for it at 2am when wakes from his sleep needing comfort. If we sit with him as he dozes off - at least, say, five times a week - he sleeps through.

--

One day he really didn't want to go to kindy. He shows his distress with a lot of loud bravado, hyperactivity and, apparently, bullying tactics, so the teacher didn't appreciate his behaviour as a sign of distress until I told her that it was so. Even then, she gave me this face. You know the one. The one where the person you're talking to can't even talk for a moment because they're using all their mental power to stop themselves sighing heavily and rolling their eyes at how fucking ludicrous you're being. She saw a child who was tearing around the classroom, pushing himself to the front of everything, throwing things, ripping things, shrieking and yelling, beating people up. I saw what was left when we got home - the sleep disturbance, the lost appetite, the bedwetting and thumbsucking, the uncharacteristic tiredness and moodiness. The clinginess. The wanting to be spoonfed like a baby and carried around everywhere. The unwillingness to turn up to kindy.

"Why don't you want to go?" I asked him.

"I don't like the other kids."

"Why not?"

"They push me and shove me."

"They push and shove you? Well that's not nice. Why do they do that?"

"I don't know."

"And what do you do?"

"I kick them."

"You kick them after they shove you?"

"No, before they shove me."

"So you kick them, then they shove you?"

"Yes."

"And you don't like being shoved?"

"No, I don't."

I paused for a moment, and blinked a few times. Sometimes he's younger, more naive than I think he is. I mean, he seems bright in other ways - he has taught himself to read several words, like "hot" and "cold" and "in", and he recognises most street signs. He sees something that looks like a no-smoking sign and deduces that it can't be one, because it doesn't have the red line through it. He wants to know about the age limits on cigarettes, and carries on an intelligent conversation about autonomy and paternalism to the surprise of the lady behind the counter at the 7-11. He invents things. Lots of things. Especially involving transport. He realises that it is difficult for him, with his short legs, to get on and off buses and he muses that passengers in wheelchairs must find it even harder and he comes up with the idea of a ramp that tucks up inside the bus and folds out onto the footpath when needed and asks me if I think that would work? He speaks well - people always comment. He picks up Chinese and Singlish with accents and tones, and even makes up his own, private language - for when he doesn't feel like talking to anybody. He asks the big questions about life, and about death. But he doesn't seem to work out, unprompted, that he could spare himself the unpleasantness of being shoved by not throwing around the preceding kicks.

I prompt him.

--

He doesn't like being bossed - finds it undignified. If you want him to do something, you are better off asking him nicely than delivering it as some kind of command. And it works to use positive language, telling him what to do, instead of what not to do. I got him to stop pulling things off shelves in the supermarket by changing the instruction, "Stop touching that!" to the request "Can you please put your hands in your pockets?"

--

The structure of kindy frustrates him - he doesn't really know why he should do everything in blocks of less than half an hour and then rotate to the next thing. Instead of packing up, he throws things forcefully around the room to indicate his discontent.

I don't know how to handle frustration well myself, so I google. In the end, I decide to try a sort of cognitive-behavioural technique. When he screeches at something because it refuses to obey him instead of the immutable laws of physics which bind the very fabric of our universe together, I sympathise with him as usual. "Oh, you're trying to do make X do Y? And it's not working? How frustrating!" But then, instead of pointing out that he is trying to defy the immutable laws of physics which bind the very fabric of our universe together - as I did in my previous, completely ineffective script - I say, "And at the same time, how very exciting!" He looks at me quizzically. "You've just made an important observation about the immutable laws of physics which bind the very fabric of our universe together! When you try to make X do Y, Z happens! I wonder why that is?" Then I muse theatrically for a few seconds, before drifting back to whatever I was doing before. It works. Instead of shrieking more and more loudly with each failure until eventually I confiscate the source of his displeasure, he repeats the action thoughtfully, over and over, in silence. He is no longer being thwarted. He is experimenting - and there are no failed experiments*. One day, I hope, he will internalise this script. In the meantime, his mood lifts almost instantly. His remaining frustrations are more easily put aside now that the feeling comes less frequently.

--

Mr Bea works hard to get home earlier and help out with bedtime. Everyone starts sleeping better within about four days. Coincidence? I decide not to get scientific enough to find out.

The extra time together also gives me a chance to inform Mr Bea that half PB's problems are down to our advice. We have told him to be nice to the other children, and he is terrorising the class with his bear hugs. The next morning, Mr Bea suggests to PB that he shake hands with his classmates instead. He has a relatively good day.

I think we are starting to internalise my cognitive-behavioural script ourselves.

--

I can't work on everything at once with him. If I work on everything, I work on nothing. I must focus on one or two behaviours, and learn to either let the others go, or eliminate the opportunity for him to engage in them. If we fight too often, he gives up trying to please me.

--

I got excited one day when he came home from kindy and tried to blame his baby sister for his misdeeds there.

"And then she shouted at the boy, 'Go home! Go home!' and then she kicked him."

"You're telling me Surprise Baby did that?"

"Yes."

"I see." I paused a moment and looked at him. "The thing is, PB, I know you're not telling me what really happened. The reason I know this is because Surprise Baby can't talk or deliberately kick people, and also she wasn't there. Is it possible you were the one who did those things?"

He gave me a long, careful look. "Yes."

"Ok. Well. When you say something like that that isn't true, it's called "lying". And you'll find that, for lies to be effective, they should at least be plausible. Now. There are a few exceptions to that rule. Advanced liars sometimes use what's known as the "double bluff". This is where-" All of a sudden I cut myself off. "You know what? The most important thing for you to know right now is that lying is generally wrong, and I don't want you doing it."

I bit my tongue before I started to confuse the issue by launching into a philosophical discourse based around the classic murderer-at-your-door conundrum. At that moment, I just wanted to enjoy the thought that he had demonstrated a major milestone in his social and cognitive development - one that, though it might not always be welcomed - could deepen his understanding of why he shouldn't kick people. Somewhere, he had cottoned on to the knowledge that other people have their own, unique viewpoint, which might be different from his own. From here, maybe we could make him properly appreciate that when he kicks people they hurt, even though he doesn't, and that making them hurt is bad in the same way that it is bad when someone hurts him.

--

We are walking home from swimming when I turn to find that he has stopped following me through the park, and is instead running towards a very busy road. I make after him, but I am carrying nearly 9kg of baby plus a swim bag and he has one hell of a head start. I call out to him, but get no response. Behind me, a woman starts shouting in panic, and my heart goes into my mouth. Then suddenly, he veers. He bolts around by the footpath and, when he gets to a driveway, he stops short and holds his hand out for my assistance with crossing. He seems surprised that I am flustered. Don't I believe he understands the road rules?

A week or so later, I am talking to a friend in the shopping mall when The Prata Baby wanders off into a nearby coffee shop and starts browsing the display case. I keep an eye on him distractedly, and after a minute or two he speaks briefly to the woman behind the counter, and walks back out to where I'm standing. "Mum, I'm hungry," he states calmly, "so I have ordered some raisin toast." Then he starts rummaging through my market trolley.

"What are you looking for?" I ask.

"A library book," he explains, pulling one out and holding it up in demonstration. Then he returns to the cafe where he seats himself on a couch and proceeds to engross himself in his reading material. Whilst he waits, you see. For his raisin toast. Which he is sure they are just now toasting.

I check the time. It's a bit past morning tea, so it stands to reason that he would be hungry. My friend pipes up in a bemused voice and says, "Well, he's got that all sorted out, hasn't he?" and at the same time my eyes fall on the display case and I notice something.

The raisin toast is on the third shelf, above his head height. To choose it, he had to stand on his tippy toes and ignore a wide selection of various cakes and biscuits, some of which had smarties on top. He has chosen something he might plausibly be allowed to eat, and then, without pulling on my skirt or whining or sinking to the floor to beat his fists in a three-year-old tantrum, he has calmly and optimistically ordered it and sat down quietly to wait. I start to think that maybe he is doing alright.

Maybe I am doing alright.

--

I develop a theory. Perhaps when children start driving you crazy by testing all their boundaries, it is time for those boundaries to be reviewed. I mean, gosh. Isn't it what I want, for him to become independent? How else does it happen?

I decide that there are several issues on which I should stop fighting him and start letting him take care of himself. Suddenly, plus or minus a few bumps - a soiled set of clothing here and there, for instance, because he hasn't yet learnt to make a good decision when I tell him it's his last chance to use the toilet for a while - we are just about having fun. And honestly, a bit of skanky laundry is nothing compared to the arguments we recently had to have over going to the toilet before leaving the house.

--

The kindy teacher seems to decide she believes me. She works with him as if he is, basically, a good kid but scared. On the last day before the holidays he gets a sticker. "He is still kicking the chairs sometimes, and he has trouble sitting still, but he hasn't been fighting with the other children." I tell her that sounds pretty much perfect to me. Especially since, I notice, he has actually made a kindy friend. When school finishes for the mid-semester holiday, I am genuinely looking forward to having The Prata Baby around. I want to ask him about that stroller invention of his with the electric motor and the running board behind with the chair on it for mum so she doesn't have to walk and the roof over the top to keep her dry in case it rains.

--

I need to write these things down so I remember them. I may need them again, when he's four. Or perhaps when he next changes schools. Or even with Surprise Baby, different though she seems to be. Next time, I want to be better prepared.

--

I have a couple more book reviews. More along the parenting lines this time. Bear with.

--
*There are no failed experiments, only failed hypotheses.

I have a few extra thoughts on the four-hour work week before I shelve it, both figuratively and literally. At one point in the book he tells that story of the fisherman in Mexico and the Harvard MBA. You know the one. The Harvard MBA is on holiday in Mexico when, late one morning, he meets a fisherman on his way home. He asks the fisherman why he is knocking off so early, and... well, if you haven't heard it, here it is.

What Tim doesn't say in his book - he seems a smart guy, so I will assume he realises it in real life - is that you could easily substitute "Mexican fisherman" for "nine to five office worker" and "Harvard MBA" for "Tim Ferris". In the final chapter, he talks about what to fill your life with, now that "earn an income" isn't the only thing on your list. And he suggests you might want to live your life in service to others, and he suggests that you might want to take up full-time employment of a different (more meaningful) kind. Well and good. What he doesn't say - or at least not explicitly enough - is that you may already be doing everything you need to do, you just need to recognise it.

As someone who resents the drive to consume that underlies much of our culture, I would have a hard time following his business model - which is based around shipping product - without feeling like a hypocrite for most of my day. I'm not saying I couldn't find a way, I'm saying I may be better off finding a way to get paid directly for the life of service I aim to live, rather than shipping product in order to earn the income which frees my time to... live that life of service. I am, in effect, the Mexican fisherman in my relationship to Tim Ferris' book.

Am I glad I read it? Yes. Although I have ultimately rejected much of what he suggests I should do, it has helped clarify things to me. I can even recommend it, not to those who are satisfied with where their life is headed, of course (why would you even feel like picking it up?), or even to those who are truly just overflowing with genuine aspirations (although it is of some limited use in this situation, see for example my last post). If, however, you are in the process of re-evaluating your life, if you are thinking of changing directions, if you feel that you are trapped or stuck and there is no way out of the place you're now in (which, in the reality of the free world, is unlikely), then I recommend it. You may find it gives you the tools and the courage to shut off the constant buzz of your never-ending to-do list and to recognise and evaluate your options in the clear light of day.

Book review over, but I am still looking for comments, tips, advice on my previous post.

Edit: I have been wondering, since I wrote this a couple of hours ago, whether a personal crisis such as... I don't know... infertility? might aid in the process of focussing on things of value in one's life and breeding the courage to act on that focus. Hm.

I don't know if you've read The Four Hour Work Week. For most of the book, I thought the author was an egoistical freeloader with a limited sense of both social responsibility and depth of character who'd been fired from most employee positions he'd ever held. The last part is true - he has been fired from most employee positions he's ever held. Having read the last chapter, I'm not as sure of the first part as I used to be. Are you thinking of reading the book? Well, let me ask you a question he asks half way through to help you decide.

If you won a fortune in the lottery tomorrow, what would you do with your life after that? If the answer is, as with many people, "Turn up at the office, same as always," then you need not pick this book up. There. I saved you hours of your time. If the answer is (as with many people) that you would change everything, or at least a lot, then it may be worth a read.

I read it, not because I felt I would change a lot, but because I am feeling pushed for time lately. As such, I'm not sure I gained much. Yes, there is a chapter on efficiency, but much of it does not apply to parenting. Save time by limiting interruptions, he says? My entire purpose at present is to respond to interruptions. Ooh, there's another one - hang on.

Solved. Now. Where was I? Yes.

Here's a non-secret about parenthood I'll tell you for free: parents aren't busy because they have a lot to do. Parents are busy because it takes for-freaking-ever to do everything. And here's another non-secret, a kind of two-for-one deal: even if I do manage to skate through my errands and chores in record time, it doesn't free me to do whatever I want. It frees me to spend time hanging out with my children. And I have to pause here to emphasise that hanging out with my children is not something I consider an eternal punishment, but at the same time it doesn't get me any closer to completing my plans for world domination saving the dolphins. My reading list is getting longer, not shorter, and there's only so much to be done by batching or going on a low-information diet. Clearly, I have too many dreams for one day. Lately it is occurring to me that I have, really, too many for a lifetime, but that's a whole 'nother barrel of posts.

Right now, I want to focus on the fact that even a small gain is still a gain. Perhaps, at least, I can find a way back to semi-regular blogging, or commenting, or some such. Or reading Life From Scratch (hi Mel!) which is just one of the books on my ever-growing list. So here we go, and this is what I'm hoping you can help me with.

Focussing On Important Tasks
There is this whole bit about discarding unimportant tasks. I find that I am often sucked in to performing unimportant parenting tasks, and I want you to help me illuminate unimportance where I may have missed it so that I can deploy my energies more effectively.

For example, who dresses their children twice a day? Oh, uh, me too. I mean, yes, I dress The Prata Baby at least twice a day, because things would probably go awry if I tried to put him to bed in his kindy uniform, at least in the short term. In the long term, I'm sure he'd learn to rely less on pyjamas and more on other sleep cues to settle himself down, and there's really no other reason apart from social protocol that he can't sleep in what is, essentially, a T-shirt and pair of shorts, just like his pyjamas. As it is, I don't tend to go through pyjamas-then-day-clothes-then-kindy-uniform-then-day-clothes-again. On kindy days, he wears his kindy uniform ALL DAY. Do I dress the baby twice a day? Only if the first outfit gets ruined with some sort of bodily waste. She gets bathed and dressed, and that's it until the next bath. As for me, I sleep in my underwear. Saves dressing time, saves laundry time, just by eliminating a change of clothes each from our day.

What parenting stuff do you NOT do, that everyone else seems to, or that you are sometimes tempted to do?

Batching
Who cooks seven days a week? Yeah, um, me too. To be honest, I aim for three, double batches every time, with one takeaway night (courtesy of Mr Bea). In practice, I often find myself cooking more often than that, due to lack of forethought. I should forethink more, it could save me a bundle.

I have also started batching my paperwork. I was in the habit of paying bills the moment they arrived in my letterbox, then filing them immediately. I have recently started putting them away in a folder and sorting everything out together on Saturday. Overall, it's faster.

Then there's the laundry. I have to put a load on every day, otherwise I run out of drying space, not to mention children's attention spans. But whereas I was folding it three or four times a week, I am now experimenting with twice (once is not enough).

I have also started batching the dishes. Once a day now. The Prata Baby never would have stood for it, but it turns out Surprise Baby will. This may fluctuate with age.

Which domestic or parenting tasks do you batch - save up to do all at once - to improve efficiency?

Outsourcing
I continually fail to outsource. It's a common problem, and a common complaint, that nobody else seems to be up to scratch. On the other hand, Mr Bea's not actually incapable of looking after the kids for a while even without my micromanagement. What's the worst that could happen? (Don't answer that, especially not with anecdotes.)

The one place where I shine at outsourcing is with respect to cleaning floors and bathrooms. A year and a half ago I realised I was doing this myself on a Saturday morning whilst Mr Bea and The Prata Baby were at the park, and I was hating most of it. I told Mr Bea I would rather work Saturday mornings at my chosen profession whilst he went to the park with The Prata Baby, and use my earnings to pay someone to clean my house during the week, even if I made no financial gain by doing so. Turns out I was not only happier but financially better off. Nobody wants to work Saturday mornings, so I could hire myself out at a premium, then pay standard rates to my cleaner during the week. And damnit if they didn't do the job better than me. It's not that I can't clean floors or bathrooms as well as the next person, but I suffer from a severe lack of motivation. I really, really hate it.

Oh, and I have pretty much given up chopping my own meat.

Do you have any tips for avoiding household micromanagement and/or handing household tasks to outsiders?

They are my questions three. Even an extra hour a week would be welcome.

F is for Fed Up. Lately, The Prata Baby pushes my buttons every day, all day. But the last couple of weeks it has taken a particular toll, because we have had the added bonus of a "teething" baby. I'll use the word "teething" because I'm not sure exactly why she's started waking on an hourly basis (at best), refusing to sleep anywhere but held upright against someone's chest, or crying inconsolably for up to two hours a day, chiefly around midnight, so by my mother-in-law's reckoning it must be "teething". (The first few months it's always "wind", then it's "teething" until such time as they can actually articulate some alternative.) If you ask me, she needs to see a doctor - and tomorrow, we will. But in the meantime The Prata Baby is pushing everyone's buttons as hard as he can, seemingly just to see what happens. By Saturday, I was badly overtired and fed the fuck right up.

A is for Angry. That's what everyone within a hundred metre radius could tell I was as I carried The Prata Baby under my arm, kicking and screaming, through the shopping centre in the afternoon. He had played happily in the playground with Mr Bea whilst I ran a few errands, but the trouble started as soon as I said we were heading across the mall to the supermarket to pick up some groceries for dinner. I don't mind a bit of dawdling and a bit of window shopping, but this time he was darting into just about every shop we passed, hiding amongst the merchandise, and throwing it onto the floor. I dragged him out of one shop, then another, replacing things onto shelves and tossing apologies around as fast as I could. I stripped privileges one by one. Mr Bea tried to give him time out at the front of one store, but he just laughed at us and rolled across the floor, nearly tripping half a dozen shoppers over on his way. In the end I told him he was going straight home to his room and staying there for I-don't-know-how-long-but-it's-going-to-take-a-long-time-for-me-to-calm-down-that's-for-sure. Then I picked him up and marched him to the door of the supermarket where I thrust him at Mr Bea in exchange for Surprise Baby and stormed inside to do my shopping.

I is for In Your Room. Somehow - though I guess it shouldn't surprise me - even though Mr Bea took PB straight home and I went on a detour through the supermarket with a baby for a week's worth of groceries before following them, I still managed to beat them to our front door. When they arrived I gave PB a clipped, "In your room," and ushered him there, and locked the door. With a key. Because these days, it's the only way to ensure the whole time-out process doesn't turn into a prolonged and completely ineffective game of springing in and out, arguing at every turn along the way. Not that giving him time out that far removed from the offense was completely effective to start with, but I suppose it kept me from throttling him at least.

He cried, of course. And yelled.　And banged on the door. None of it was very coherent and all of it was expected, so I gave SB to Mr Bea whilst I went to prepare dinner - sausages and frozen vegies (it was a "no cook" kind of day). Whilst I put the perishable items in the fridge and the sausages in the pan, PB stopped yelling and started singing instead. It was a high-pitched, wavering kind of song, as if he was trying to console himself, so I decided he had served his time and I let him out of his room. He came out waddling and saying he needed to go to the toilet. Turns out he had both wet himself and dirtied his pants.

I am the worst mother in the world.

The worst ever.

L is for Level. That's how I kept my voice when I went in to discuss things with Mr Bea. "I'm going to say something and you may not like it," I began, and before I could draw breath to get out the next bit he cut in.

"You're going to say I'm a terrible father. That I don't know how to handle my son. That I'm unnecessarily mean and nasty to him and that it's my fault he's out of control lately."

"I wasn't going to say that at all," I replied, a little taken aback. I had been thinking it - but about me, not him. "I was going to say that the last thing we need to do tomorrow is visit the zoo." We'd organised to meet friends there for a day out with the kids.

"Do you think that's effective punishment, though?" Mr Bea asked dubiously. "I mean, he misbehaved over an hour ago, and now you're going to tell him he can't go to the zoo tomorrow."

"It's not really about punishment," I said, "although if he chooses to take it that way it's fine by me. But this is about setting him up for success instead of failure." I corrected myself: "It's about setting us all up for success instead of failure. If we go on the zoo trip we'll have to stress to get everyone out of the door early, we'll be taking him to a new place where he doesn't know all the rules and which is exciting enough to erode his currently-limited impulse control. On top of that, we'll be investing not only our money, but our scant reserves of time and energy, which will only serve to raise our expectations of his behaviour. It's a recipe for disaster. It's just not a good idea. We should do something low-key and familiar, just the four of us."

I'd been thinking about the discussion I'd had with his kindy teacher on Friday. I'd been mortified to hear he'd been kicking the other children, but when the teacher told me she'd also had to pull him up for his enthusiastic hugging and kissing (it scares some of his classmates) I figured he just needed some guidance in terms of his interactions with peers. But then she'd told me about the destructive behaviour - kicking of walls and furniture, ripping plastic covers off desks and shredding them to pieces, throwing toys and smashing them around. I think she'd expected me to take issue with him then and there, but instead it had given me pause. "Thanks, I'll talk to him," I'd said, and she'd hesitated, then she'd nodded and said her goodbyes and we'd left. I'd been slowly getting the pieces together since then.

Six months ago he was praised everywhere for his placid and easy-going nature. Sure, he would get a little unsettled if we tried too many things in a row. At one point I had a rule that there would only be half a days' excitement in every forty-eight hours, as it seemed to be all he could handle, but I thought he was growing more resilient with age and experience, and he was cooperative and happy. Then he got a new baby sister. Then he moved into Grandma and Grandad's house for a month. Then he moved overseas. And of course, he turned three, and that never helps. Then we went home for a visit and came back and he started kindy four days a week for the first time and he started swimming lessons one day a week and Surprise Baby started "teething" and we all got tired and cranky and impatient and... somewhere in there we started spiralling out of control. Somewhere along the line it all started coming undone, and it was time to take a step back, simplify, return to basics.

We needed to take Surprise Baby to the doctor, for starters. On the one hand, this was exactly what The Prata Baby went through at the same age and there was nothing to be done about it except survive, but what if? What if we were missing a treatable ear infection or something? It was worth checking out. There were things we could re-organise around the house. Toothbrushes off the bathroom bench, laundry off the couch and into the spare room, breakables in a cupboard or out of reach. I find it hard to deal with regressions, to childproof our house back to when we had an eighteen-month-old because damnit, isn't he supposed to be twice that age now and know better? But backward steps are part of growing up, and we all have the ability to revert to childish behaviour in times of stress. Set him up for success. If you can't stand to pick your clean laundry from fifteen corners of the living room twelve times a day, put it somewhere out of sight and mind. He obviously can't handle the responsibility. And I resolved to take him out of kindy one day a week, at least for now, because these problems always seem to crop up on the fourth day. And I asked Mr Bea to reorganise his work day so he can help me through the bedtime routine because the screaming infant interruptions which happen every ten minutes and take twenty minutes each to resolve can spin it all out til 9pm or later - well past The Prata Baby's bedtime - and that doesn't help at all. And apart from that, I told myself to remember to keep it simple, low-key and familiar. I need to focus on achievable goals. I need to set us all up for success.

That night, last night, I lay down beside him, put my arms around him, and told him I loved him very much. I wanted him to realise I still do, even on the many days I am one big parenting FAIL. He grinned and hugged me back, and we exchanged kisses. But then he ruined it all by whinging about every little thing I did - the speed I sung his bedtime song, the order of the verses, the angle at which I was lying down and how I'd plumped his pillow (to name but a few) - until eventually I sucked a deep breath in through my teeth, kissed him on the forehead, whispered goodnight, and closed the door behind me on the way out. Over the next twenty minutes I listened to him weep himself into a fitful sleep and I didn't really care.

--

W is for Wakeup Time this morning. I told myself to start with a clean slate, but I could feel that some resentment had followed me through to the new day regardless. Try as I might, I could only push it aside so far. When The Prata Baby whined through breakfast - everything I did was wrong - I had to force myself to count and breathe before telling him I couldn't understand him, I could only hear whiny noises. Then when that didn't work I had to force myself to count and breathe again before opining that he must still be tired and what about going back into his room for some extra rest?

"No! I'm not tired!" he yelled.

"Feeling unwell then?" I suggested. "That needs rest, too."

"I'm not sick!" he yelled even more adamantly.

"Oh good," I said calmly. "So if you're not tired or sick, and you have food and drink in front of you so you can't be hungry or thirsty, and you've already been to the toilet this morning so you don't need to do that... then I can't think of a single excuse for you not to talk properly to me." He started whining again. "I'm going to give you three seconds to stop whining before you go to your room," I announced placidly, getting the hang of it now. "One!"

The whining stopped. The resentment dissipated slightly. The next couple of hours weren't too bad.

I is for Incidents. We had a few of them over the course of the day - he threw a toy at his sister and I scooped her up and pointedly left the room, closing the door on his protests. But I had to let him out temporarily with a pang of guilt - did I say pang? was that the understatement of the century? - when he complained that he needed to go to the toilet, and I know we will have to work to re-establish the rules of time out because of where we went wrong yesterday. He got himself into trouble again for hitting his father with a toy and again for biting him, and he had a colossal meltdown before bedtime.

And that is what counts as a WIN these days. I call it a win because at the end of the day it was a soft and gentle voice with which I put my foot down and told him he couldn't possibly need to go to the toilet again, and he left off and fell asleep in my arms.

N is for Never. That's when I get to stop trying anew. That's when I get to stop wiping the slate clean, taking a step back, looking for an untried solution. That's when I should lapse in consistency. That's when I should forget, when I should let him forget, that he still means the world to me. That I'm glad we have him, that it was worse, so much worse, when we didn't know we would.

Three is the age of questions, so they say, and The Prata Baby has certainly come out with some big ones so far - usually at the most awkward moments. A while back now we were riding the bus when he piped up with, "Mum, is there another little tiny baby in your tummy right now?"

All around us, bemused passengers turned to look pointedly out of their windows. "Right now?" I replied. "No there isn't. Why do you ask?"

"I want there to be another little tiny baby in your tummy," he said with conviction. "A little brother this time." My, my. Thanks for your input, I will take it on board.

It was only a matter of time before the big followup came. "How did Surprise Baby get made?" he asked one day, out of the blue. We were visiting family at the time.

"Um... what?" I responded, intelligently.

"How did she get in there?" he said, pointing, and then as if the question needed further clarification, he immediately rephrased: "How did she get into your tummy?" I told him that it was a bit complicated, and that he should ask me again at bedtime when it was just me and him and I had time to answer properly. He hasn't brought it up since, possibly because someone else got to him first. Later that day, I heard him explain to his toys, on his older cousin's authority, that the Baby Jesus had put Surprise Baby in my tummy. For a while I wondered if I should force a more scientific explanation upon him, but he seems satisfied, and I'll no doubt get my next chance too soon anyway.

Then yesterday, he came out with the hardest one of all, and at the most awkward moment imaginable. We were sitting at home, on the bed, just the two of us, with nowhere in particular to go in any sort of hurry. I saw it coming, like a horrible car crash, knowing that I had no excuse to dodge or escape; that I was going to have to answer in full, to PB's utter and unhurried satisfaction. "Boo used to say Dadda," he stated, repeating something Vee had said a few weeks before on our visit. "But why doesn't he say Dadda any more?"

He was grinning when he asked it, and I saw that smile slip from his lips as he took in my sombre expression. I took a deep breath. "Because a bit over a year ago, Boo's Dadda died," I told him gently, but simply.

"Died?" he asked.

"Yes. He got very sick. So sick, the doctors couldn't make him better again. Then he died. It's very sad."

The Prata Baby cocked his head on one side and considered this information calmly. Then he wanted to know more. Did Boo's Dadda go to hospital? Did they give him medicine? Did he sleep overnight at the hospital? Did the doctors cut his head open? (Mysteriously to us, PB has gained the knowledge that doctors sometimes open people's skulls to perform neurosurgery. The idea has, let's say, stuck with him.) I answered his questions calmly, gently, and truthfully. Yes, he went to hospital. They gave him a lot of medicine. He even slept overnight. But he didn't have the type of sickness that would benefit from having his head cut open so the doctors didn't perform that particular procedure, no.

There was a pause after that, during which PB fiddled thoughtfully with his fingers and I waited patiently for his next response. Eventually he looked up at me, studying my face, as if trying to figure out how to say what he wanted to say. Then in a small voice, he asked, "Mum, is Boo's Dadda going to come back to their place?"

And I had to tell him. "No, darling. When people die they don't come back."

Over the last twenty-four hours I've wondered why I didn't think to soften it a bit for him. If I can let him believe, without other explanation, that the Baby Jesus puts babies into people's tummies, surely I can let him believe - without other explanation - that Boo's Dadda "went to heaven" or some such thing. Or perhaps I should have added a few thoughts about the ways in which our loved ones stay with us after they die, even though they are no longer here in the flesh. I'm not sure. He seemed to cope alright with what I said, so perhaps it was best to stay blunt and simple for now. No doubt I'll get my next chance too soon anyway.

Last time I visited Vee was the first time I didn't see Max.

That's mostly what I remember from our trip last year. His absence - at least his physical absence - caught me off-guard when I walked through the door, even though I knew (of course) that he was gone. There was something about... seeing him not there. I'd met Vee face to face a handful of times prior to that, and I'd never seen him not there before.

This time it seemed more normal. So did Vee - that is, in a certain manner of speaking. Whenever I see her she seems to be holding it together abnormally well, but last year was especially awe-inspiring. She was not just functioning. She was actually coping. Or perhaps she was just distracted by the way I got so horribly lost I turned up for her home-cooked lunch closer to dinner time, then somehow managed to throw it all around her lounge room. I guess if I was that busy concentrating on remaining graceful and accommodating whilst setting up trundle beds and portacots for my hours-late guest and - I might add - facilitating doctor's visits for her son and then shampooing tomato out of my carpet and easy chair I probably wouldn't have time to fall apart either.

Still, there were brief moments when it bubbled to the surface, and in those moments I wondered how she kept from spilling over. This time, it was... well, the not-spilling-over seemed more like a given. Something she does with ease, every day, but not (I'm sure) all the time.

We visited her home, their home, the one she shared with Max and then also with Boo and then only with Boo, in the final week before she emptied it of its contents and headed for higher ground - higher both geographically and, I hope, emotionally. This time I marked our agreed time of arrival down in my calendar as several hours earlier than our actual agreed time of arrival, totally baffling Vee when I turned up on time babbling about being horribly late. She took some great photos she's not happy with but everyone else is, and she taught me a new recipe which I am yet to try and have so far not thrown onto anyone's carpet. PB enjoyed being at Boo's house even better than riding on the bus or giving Surprise Baby "train rides" in her cot around the hotel room or even chasing helpless pigeons whilst making a horrid, loud, and highly irritating screeching noise, which I thought was his favourite thing ever. And we enjoyed ourselves, too.

Thanks, Vee - you're a wonderful host and an amazing woman. And despite what you might feel, a darn fine photographer, too.

To heal, first and foremost, you have to want to heal. It sounds trite, and more than a little dismissive, as if everyone hurting is doing it on purpose for the attention, or perhaps to annoy. The thing is, some of the time we are doing it on purpose, but usually for a different reason. We carry our grief, our anger, and our resentment for further than is necessary when we haven't yet decided what to do with it. We have, after all, paid dearly for our pain. It's not reasonable to expect us to part with it easily, even though it is ugly and burdensome. Tossing it aside - "letting go" or "moving on" - is not our goal. Instead, we seek a transformation; a suitably valuable exchange.

A friend asked me this week to talk with her about IVF, as it has just been recommended to her as a course of treatment. How does she feel? I haven't met up with her yet, but from initial accounts, not great. She tells me I don't have to agree to the discussion - perhaps I'd rather not go over that period of my life again. Perhaps I am trying to put it behind me, to forget. I tell her that is not the case. I want her to understand that if I can transform any part of my sorrows into something that helps her along her path, we can both end up closer to healed.

And the truth is, I am ready to be healed. It took a long time after the birth of The Prata Baby for the process to start - I had to consciously set the task aside for a while in order to focus on caring for a newborn, and I think I underestimated the amount of damage I'd sustained. I was going well, you see, I was coping ok with our infertility in the leadup to his conception. I mistook that for being able to, afterwards, listen to conversations on gender disappointment or ideal age gaps without wanting to snap people's heads off, either figuratively or literally, and I was wrong. These days, however, it almost warms me to hear such naivety, as if I'm reassured by the notion that some parts of the world, at least, are running as we'd like them to run. And there is a practical sense in which infertility has lost its hold on me. Yes, we still have to go back for those frozen embryos, but since Surprise Baby's birth I have been feeling fully content with our lot and willing to surrender the rest to the will of the unknown*.

But I'm worried about this meeting, all the same. My friend already has a honeymoon baby, and is experiencing secondary infertility, which I have never really known. Second time around, I found it far, far easier to front up to the fertility specialist and set the wheels in motion, and everything fell into place a short time later. I am trying, in advance, not to shrug her off because of that. I am trying to remember that she isn't pre-adjusted to her membership in the infertility club like I was when we started trying for number two, that it's the first time around for her on this crazy, sometimes terrifying ride. And that anyway, she's not me, and can't be expected to react in exactly the same way as me at all times.

So I'm trying to figure out what I can possibly say - if, indeed, I am called upon to say anything at all other than, "Hmm... oohhh... gosh... dear me..." which, I suppose I mustn't forget, is entirely possible. Does she want practical information about medications or procedures? Does she need help deciding which path to take? Is she expecting me to give her some magic balm to make the confusion go away, because honestly, I don't have one, despite my prior experience and a great deal of wishing one into existence for the benefit of myself and others. All I have is the belief that she will, on a day too far away into the future, find herself smiling to hear fertile folk talk of trivial concerns, her heart warming with the reassurance that some part of the world, at least, is running as she'd like it to run. A belief that someday, she will find herself ready and willing to transform the pain she is now feeling into something better, to exchange it for something equally valuable, but much more gratifying.

Your input is appreciated.

--
*This may change. We'll see.