My daughter has been having some friend problems lately. To be honest, I think we are lucky to have come right through to Year 6 with this being our first real issue. It is nothing major (although I’m sure it seems that way to her) and she is mostly a happy resilient kid, so I am not marching out to champion her cause. Not yet, anyway.

What I am doing is listening. Listening to her feelings, hugging her while she cries, listening to the things she isn’t saying, but is showing. I’m trying not to do too much talking, because she needs to come to some realisations herself. But one thing I did have to let her know. Next year – at high school -  it all changes. I think we focus so much on the negatives of the high school years and our own experiences, that we feed into the fears that kids have. “It’s so big.” “The teachers aren’t as patient.” “The work is hard.” “We’ll be the youngest kids instead of the oldest.” What I wanted my daughter to understand going in to high school, is that next year is an opportunity to make wonderful friendships. Yes, there are a lot more kids, but that increases your chance of finding the few true friends who you just click with. She seemed a little skeptical, so I told her my own story.

I walked into the local catholic high school with only two other kids from my public primary school, neither of whom I knew particularly well and ended up in a class where I knew nobody. So I stuck with my primary school acquaintances for a while, making the odd new friend here and there, but never really anyone that I clicked with. Slowly over the first few months I got to know more of my classmates and as we got to know each other better, particular girls began to stand out. Girls who always lifted me up and never let me down. Girls who I understood and who understood me.  Then I named three names to my daughter.  Three women who she knows so well because they are like family to her. She has heard me sit and laugh for hours with each of them whenever we get together – whether it is once a week, once a month or once a year. I saw her eyes widen, as she realised how long we have been friends.  And I think she got it. She was certainly a lot more confident and hopeful about her own problems.

So once again my friends have come to my aid. This time without even knowing. Thanks guys! (You know who you are.)

If somebody took a photo of you right now, right this second, and then showed it to a complete stranger, what assumptions do you think they would make? What judgements could they form based on this one moment in time that they see you?

Forgive me if I get a little philosophical again, but it is something that has been on my mind of late. How often do we make judgements or assumptions about people based on the small part of them that we see?

I was talking to a friend yesterday, who was both amused and bemused at the comments made to her by a fellow school parent at a birthday party. My friend had been assisting in their children’s kindergarten class and had helped the other mum’s daughter finish reading her home reader because she wanted to change it over. The mum confessed to my friend that when she heard the story from her daughter, she had thought “Oh no, why did it have to be you. We just hadn’t had time to get the reading done, and you’re always there helping and always look like you’re on top of things  and have it all together.”

My friend and I chortled quite merrily about this. In fact I offered to call the other mum and set her straight about all my friend’s parenting shortcomings. But then my friend wondered, “Is this really how other people see me?”

I guess the answer is yes. People see what you project in the moments that they know you. This mum had only seen my friend in the few minutes at school. Now I know that books are a passion with my friend. She is an avid reader and not only enjoys sharing her love of books with her own children, but ensures that she finds ways to share it with her wider community. With two older children as well as a kindergartner, she has been involved with the school’s reading program for many years. No wonder she looks self assured and confident when other parents see her helping out in the classroom.

While my friend’s experience could be viewed in a mostly positive light, there are more obvious negatives to drawing conclusions about someone based on relatively brief encounters. In this particular situation, the other parent might not have broached the subject in such a light-hearted way or indeed at all. She may have allowed this one perception of a person colour any other encounters they had. Suddenly someone who helps out with reading because she loves books and hates canteen and sports carnivals, becomes an “Übermum” and a pushy parent.

Now look at other times we make judgements about someone with very little or even no knowledge about who they really are. Have you ever tsked about an overweight person in the shopping centre eating a donut and a milkshake? Have you ever rolled your eyes at someone speaking abruptly even angrily to their child or spouse or parent? Have you ever made an assumption about someone by their clothes or appearance? I know I have. It’s hard not to.

What we see of people we don’t know or only know a little is just a snapshot of their lives. And snap judgements are very often wrong.

Oh and by the way? If you see a crazy woman in her thirties in the local Westfield on a Wednesday berating a sweet little old man? Don’t judge. That’s me and my dad, and we bicker because we love. Right Dad?

I have a theory. Actually being of a philosophical bent I have many theories, most of them sound, but some possibly bordering on nutjobbery, so let’s keep this narrowed to just the one for now.

My theory is that people identify best with the season in which they were born. I am a Christmas Day baby, so I have always had a thing about summer. I love long lazy summer days by the pool or at the beach. I have summer playlists on my iPod. I adore those books promoted as “light summer reads”. The sound of cicadas is like music to my ears. There is no smell more delicious than the combination of salt water and sunscreen.

And yet, I find that I am growing increasingly fond of winter. Perhaps it is age catching up with me, but I am enjoying  cocooning indoors during the colder months.  Maybe it is because our winters here in Newcastle are pleasantly mild. When I lived in Germany, I found the late autumn and winter depressing. Snow delighted me at first, especially when I could sit in my bedroom window and watch the flakes fall onto the garden next door, but I soon learned to loathe the stuff. Struggling into boots and parkas is all very well for a week of skiing in that relatively small patch of real winter  that we Australians call The Snow. When snow, sleet, frost and ice have to be conquered just to get to the mailbox, then the novelty soon wears off.  Daylight is only glimpsed for several hours, and three and five year olds can become like caged beasts without enough room to run. For the record, so can 18 year old Australian au pairs.

But twenty years later, I think I might actually enjoy a bit of time in a real winter. And this faux-winter that we get here? Superb! I spent the weekend on the sidelines of soccer fields and netball courts, basking in the sun while my kids played. Sure it’s not always this nice,  but it’s mostly glorious weather we have here.  And I still get to indulge in my favourite things about winter:

Tea and toast – sweet, strong milky tea and white toast dripping with butter. Is there anything better?

Tracky daks, cardies and fuzzy socks – My lazy day uniform. Just try being strenuous in those clothes!

Scarves – Oh how I love scarves! They dress up t-shirts and jeans, they keep your neck warm, they add a dash of colour to a utilitarian wardrobe. Plus they’re all I know how to knit.

Snuggly cats – even the most surly of moggies becomes a ball of affectionate warmth in winter. Sure he’s just using me for body heat, but his double-thick winter coat and rumbling purr is pure contentment.

Casseroles and soups – I am the soup queen, mainly because even I can’t go wrong when the instructions are “bung it all in a pot”. If high school science labs  got rid of the pipette and the petrie dish and brought back the cauldron, I would have got a much better mark in Chemistry. Just sayin’.

What are your favourite things about winter? Plus – lets test my theory – are you a summer or winter baby? Which season do you like best?

Last week I had a couple of those random twitter experiences that get your mind working. First Susan at Reading Upside Down outed me as the intrepid children’s book sleuth when Rebecca Newman (@_boobook_ ) was hunting for a book she had read as a child. (You can read about how we did here at her blog. )  I do possess mad googling skillz, and was one of those kids who read every book in the library, so this was a labour of love. Susan knew about my fondness for such pursuits when I helped her sister rediscover the Green Knowe series. Like Rebecca, she could only recall certain aspects of the book – a boy called Tolly, ghosts of children and an old mansion. Her description rang a bell, and we were both excited to find the books and reread them.

Then I had a lovely chat with several folks about the Australian childrens’ books Bottersnikes and Gumbles. It was fun to see how many of us Australians (of a certain age) recalled such details about a series that never reached the dizzying heights of renown as Snugglepot & Cuddlepie or Blinky Bill. They obviously made an impact on us in our young reading years.

So here are a few more books from my childhood that I recall with incredible fondness, yet aren’t often listed in the classics that we ensure we set aside for our own children.

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit – Judith Kerr

I think I read this as my brother was reading it in his class a year ahead. The story of a young Jewish girl (the author herself) who fled Nazi Germany with her family, it was my first real introduction to the Holocaust and the history of World War 2. Before then Hitler was just a name of a bad guy that sometimes got thrown my way at school because my family came from Germany.  Since that first reading at around ten years of age, I have sought out many books on the subject, both fiction and non-fiction. My own daughter has just finished Morris Gleitzman’s beautiful Once and Then, which like When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit is told from the perspective of a child.

The Cay – Theodore Taylor

I remember the feel and the cover of this book (not the one pictured) quite strongly for some reason. The edition I read seemed quite new – although at the time (around 1982) it was already over twelve years since it’s publication. It’s possible that it just wasn’t one of those books that kids are drawn to, but it has stayed with me, although I haven’t read it since. I remember the cat and the eventual friendship between Phillip and Timothy, and how they looked after eachother when stranded on the Cay.

Island of the Blue Dolphins – Scott O’Dell

I must have been going through a “stranded on an island” phase, because I’m sure I read this around the same time as I read The Cay. Actually, now that I think about it, we may have been doing a theme of that kind in our library lessons that year, and I was always the good girl who read every book! Animals always featured strongly in the books that I loved, and I remember crying as I read about Rontu the dog (wolf?) in this story.

The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster

Now here’s a great story, that people just look at me strangely when I tell them about it. I have no idea why it isn’t better known because it is so much fun to read.  My brother and I had a copy, which I first read at a very young age, when I was probably too young to understand all the clever puns and wordplays. I read it recently with my ten-year-old son, and he delighted in the story of Milo, who travels through the Phantom Tollbooth to the magical lands of Dictionopolis and Digitopolis to rescue the princesses Rhyme and Reason.

A Little Bush Maid – Mary Grant Bruce

If one side of my heritage led me to reading holocaust and world war two fiction, the other side has given me a deep and abiding love for stories set in the Australian bush. Although idyllised and very much a product of their time with regards to the representation of aboriginal and chinese Australians (and I understand they have since been edited to change this), the Billabong series of books were captivating stories for a young city girl who thought living on horseback and camping out under the stars was a wonderful life indeed. It was also fun to read classic books with a female protagonist that were still ‘ripping yarns’ and full of adventure.

Do any of these books ring a bell with you? What other less-commonly-known children’s books do you recall from your own childhood? Or do you have a book mystery you’d like me to try and solve?

After a recent bout of the flu, I’m afraid to say that my home isn’t quite as tidy as it should be. A thumping headache and a rainy morning on Sunday encouraged me to shelve my plans to get myself and the kids ready to go to church and I made the executive decision to stay in bed for a while instead. What a great idea.

At 9.15am I received an unexpected phone call from a friend from out of town. He was wondering if he could call in for coffee to chat and catch up for an hour or so. No rush. He wouldn’t be at my place for at least half an hour. Was that okay? Sure, I said. Sounds like a great idea.

Not only did the house need urgent attention, my purple PJs with the blue hippos on them probably weren’t going to cut it for greeting a guest either. The kids were quickly mobilised into a loungeroom cleaning taskforce while I tried to simultaneously wash up, tidy the kitchen and clear the dining room table. That done, I just had to clean the bathroom, hide the washing pile and get myself showered and dressed. Piece of cake. Cake? Oh no. What could I serve with coffee?

M: I’m feeling sorry for the friend. He was obviously expecting you to be at church, and was planning on leaving a “Sorry I missed you” message.
S: Hmph. At least I got it together in time. What would you have done?
M: Anyone who shows up at my house before 11 on a Sunday morning gets to watch a horror flick entitled “The Undercaffeinated Monster from the Depths of the Doona”.

The whole experience got us thinking and we have come up with a brilliant new business idea – Unexpected Guests R Us. For a small fee, you join our contact list and periodically we call you and say we’re on our way over. It’s amazing how much cleaning you can get done in 30 minutes if you know there are guests arriving.

Basic package would be a phone call with 30 minutes warning. Advanced package would give only 20 minutes. The deluxe package would include an extra challenge. Something along the lines of “We’re on our way and we’ve got Aunt Mabel with us. You know how much she loves your homemade scones with jam and whipped cream. See you in half an hour.”

So give us a call, but best to try on our mobiles because we’re on our way. We’ve got our neighbours two-year-old triplets with us. Will that be a problem?

My twelve year old daughter wrote the following for her school’s public speaking competition, after we were talking about the Bear Grylls in Newcastle hashtag on Twitter. I thought it was pretty funny, so would like to share it with you all. Apart  from removing names and the lovely all-caps and rainbow colours she had going on, all words are her own. I hope you enjoy it:

I was watching a TV show called Man vs Wild the other night. If you haven’t seen it – you’re not living!

In Man vs Wild there’s this guy called Bear Grylls, right? He goes to some of the harshest places on earth, but he doesn’t take a plane like any normal person. He’s Bear Grylls! He has to jump out of a helicopter.  Then he puts himself in the position of a lost hiker or tourist and shows you how to survive. Like all tourists he only takes a few things with him –

• a water bottle,
• a pocket knife,
• his clothes
• … and a camera crew!

Some of the adventures Bear Grylls attempts include

• Jumping off a waterfall in the amazon
• chasing rhinos across the savannah
• eating a sheep’s eye in Alaska
• and jumping into quicksand to show you how to get out.

What can I say? This guy’s mental!

Anyway while I was watching Man vs Wild the other day I thought how would Bear Grylls cope being stranded in the wilds of my school?  Well for starters he’d jump out of a plane and parachute onto the library roof. He’d then abseil down the building and CRASH! He’s through the principal’s window. There’s glass everywhere but there’s no time to pick the pieces out from his skin because someone’s coming! Quick! It’s the principal! Bear Grylls drops to the ground. He knows what he must do. He commando crawls out of the principal’s office and past the EVIL OFFICE LADIES!

All right, he could get in easily enough – but how would he survive? If you have ever watched the show you would know that water is essential for survival. That should be easy enough in a school playground – there’s bubblers right? But Bear always prepares for the worst. He would probably pee into his Wiggles drink bottle in case he gets dehydrated and can’t make it to the bubblers. How disgusting is that?!

Next problem is what would he eat? Well he could raid the canteen but he would have to fight off the canteen lady first. And even though he is an SAS commando and has trained in the airforce I reckon she could take him on. Looks like he would have to raid the garbage bin for the last half-chewed chicken chippy. But wait a minute – that sounds a bit boring for Bear Grylls. He’d probably go down to the creek and catch one of those red belly black snakes for his lunch – YUM!

As night falls, the air gets colder, and Bear knows that he has to build a shelter – and fast! He usually finds tree branches, bamboo and palm leaves to make a cover for his bed. But everybody knows it’s an immediate yellow card if you start ripping down the trees!  He could get supplies from the work shed. Hey – he could even sleep in the shed!

Oh well – no one said he was smart.

After a hard night’s sleep out in the cold, Bear thinks he has primary school sussed. He has found food and a water source, but then – the lunch bell rings. It takes all Bear’s survival skills to avoid the herd of stampeding kindies on their way to the sandpit. There are kids everywhere – he has to get out! NOW!!

Finally Bear has an idea. He creeps into one of the classrooms and grabs a desk and a meter ruler. With the desk upside down and using the ruler as a paddle, he rafts down the creek then crawls across the scorching earth of the local soccer grounds to finally make it to civilisation – BI LO!

With all his skills and training, Bear Grylls has conquered some of the world’s most deadly terrains. But I reckon my school would be his toughest challenge yet!

With the new Sex and the City movie coming out about now, lots of women my age are looking forward to catching up with their old friends Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda. And I am starting to feel a little lost again.

Despite having watched a handful of episodes over the years, I have never caught the SATC bug. Although I enjoyed it when I did watch it, the show just didn’t resonate with me as it did with so many women, and it never became appointment TV.

It’s not because I can’t relate to the premise of the show. Yes, I’m a largely fashionless, married mother on a budget in suburbia, but so are many SATC fans. I think my point of disconnection is the four main characters. Not as individuals, but rather as a collective. You see, I don’t often spend time with women in the plural. I don’t have a group of like-minded gal pals that I organise morning teas, play dates, girls’ nights out or in with.

That’s not to say that I don’t have wonderful friendships with other women. I have several beautiful close friends that I love to catch up with on an individual basis, with and without our families. I’m just not part of a particular group of women friends, who all know each other and socialise together. I do have acquaintances that revel in regular get-togethers “with the girls” . When I am invited along to such occasions, I often feel out of place. I’m not sure why. I have never been made to feel unwelcome. The topics of conversation are not that dissimilar to what I would cover with my closer friends. But it feels so very different to one-on-one.

Maybe it is because the chat moves faster. More people equals more ideas and opinions. Perhaps I am not as assertive in expressing myself in front of  a crowd, although when the company is mixed I don’t seem to have a problem. Maybe, just maybe, it’s because somehow when women are presented as a group, I feel like I don’t measure up. I’ve always been a little less fashionable, more geek less chic, less feminine.  When women are together in a large group, I feel like my unwomanliness becomes more apparent and  I am on the outside of my gender looking in. Which is ridiculous when I think about it, because women aren’t some kind of hive mind, and to pass us all off as the same goes against my every belief. Maybe I feel more comfortable being myself in a group of two, because there is better chance for the other person to discover who I really am, and I in turn can better see who they really are.

So my female readers, what about you? Do you have a group of women friends that you love spending time with? How do you all know eachother? Or are you more comfortable with your friends one-on-one?

My son is not your average lad. When people talk about boys being more assertive, more physical or just generally more boisterous than girls, I know they haven’t met Davo, whose boofy family nickname belies his gentle personality. He’s an enigma at times. Incredibly bright, but not particularly enamoured with academic success. Awards and certificates don’t inspire him. He just gets in and does the job. He’d rather sit quietly in the back corner, and yet I’m told he speaks confidently when called on in class. He plays soccer the same way, watching mostly from the side, but running in and having a go when he feels confident.

Davo  seems happiest being a bystander, an observer. He’d make a great writer, except he hates to actually write. His  face sums up his personality so well – big limpid blue eyes, massive eyes, hiding behind a mop of sandy brown hair that is begging for a cut, but he prefers unkempt. (He’s not much into appearances.) Mouth curved into a small smile. He doesn’t say much.

Oh but when Davo does speak – everyone should sit up and listen. For underneath the quiet exterior is a funny and thoughtful young man. He measures his thoughts and his words carefully, and often sees details that go unnoticed by the rest of us. He is not completely averse to silliness of course, he’s still a kid. And there is nobody better at pushing his sister’s buttons – the one time he uses his superpowers for evil rather than good. But the rest of the time there is a stillness about him, that is incredibly soothing and highly uncommon in nearly ten year old boys. Davo and I can sit together for ages, just reading or watching TV and talking to each other about everything and nothing. I hope we can continue this for as long as possible as I watch my gentle boy grow up into a gentle man and a gentleman.

Related Post: About a Girl

There has been a lot of talk about Jessica Watson around the traps (a phrase which here means that I am too lazy to direct you to all the articles discussing her, but I’m sure you’ve seen some.). She has been described as an attention-seeker, as a risk-taker, as too young, as a record-breaker, as a hero. It is this last word – hero – that seems to stir people up the most.

T he dictionary.com definition of hero: a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.

OK – so apart from the “man” part that applies, I guess.

We live in a country that encourages “hero faxes” to its Olympic athletes, so it is hardly surprising that the word ‘hero’ is being used about a 16 year old who performed such an amazing feat of endurance and strength of character. In this context it seems entirely apt.

No she didn’t save lives, and there are many teens and adults quietly doing amazing things every day that are just as worthy of media attention. But I think that nitpicking what she did detracts from the fact that she is inspirational to any young person who has a dream and dares to follow it.

In full disclosure, I was a nay-sayer as Jessica left. I thought it was foolish for a young girl to be risking her life to chase a record. I thought her parents were mad to let her go. But as she has faced the challenges along her journey, I have been turned around to cheering her on. I don’t care if she broke a world record or not, or if she gets money from appearances afterwards.  At 16, I didn’t know my arse from my elbow. I was working a crappy McJob, goofing off in class, swooning over boys who barely acknowledged my existence and wasting a fair bit of my potential. If I knew then what I know now, I would have been running at life with both arms outstretched. Good on Jessica for having the guts to do that.

Updated to add: here is  a list I found of heroic characters. http://changingminds.org/disciplines/storytelling/characters/heroic_characters.htm I think we can all agree that Jessica fits the “bold adventurer” category.

My severe arachnophobia is well-known. I blame the Dr Who Planet of the Spiders episode. My research showed that this first aired in 1974, so assuming it came to Australia not long afterwards, I must have been around 3 or 4 years old when I saw it. Even looking back at the hokey 70s prop spiders gives me the heebeejeebees.

OK – posting that for you is killing me.

I’m getting a little better. As an adult, I have managed to let go of my daddy-long-legs fears. That’s a good thing, because my house is full of them. But it wasn’t until my late teens that I managed to cope with them.  Growing up with an outside loo was torture. Tarantulas and bird-eating spiders are exotic and not likely to be crawling into my bed at night, so I can cope with their existence as long as I can’t see them. The black housespiders that nest in the eaves are creepy, but keep their distance. Redbacks are nasty, but teeny tiny and easily identified. These days my real anxiety really only shows itself with two kinds of spiders. Unfortunately they are kind of rife around here.

Despite knowing that huntsman spiders are benign and safe, I can’t cope with them being in the house. Fair call too, because they are HUGE. Like the size of my hand. And they sit on the wall and ceiling with their legs all spread out. It’s unnerving. Once when my daughter was a newborn, I noticed one above the doorway to our bedroom. Thank goodness I had moved the bassinet into the sunroom before I saw it, because I honestly cannot say if I would have been able to walk under the spider to go to her. And if I had, I doubt I would have been able to walk back out. I checked on it for hours to make sure it didn’t disappear, because if there is one thing worse than a spider you can see, it’s a spider you can’t see but you know is there.

My arch-nemesis is of course the funnel-web spider. A much more sensible fear, because of the whole Most Fucking Venomous Spider in the World thing. They are in my nightmares. Just thinking about them makes my hands shake. Until three years ago, I had little exposure to them, despite always living in their territory. And then we moved here – to this nice house backing on to a tad of bushland, with a pool. How many “funney buggers” have I seen since? We are in double digits! Never near the house, always in the pool after heavy rain. I understand they can survive underwater for days, and when you pull them out they might look dead, but they can come back to life. Here is one we pulled out back when we first moved in. Now they are so commonplace we don’t bother taking pics. Gah.

But my favourite (and by favourite, I mean most nightmarish) spider story is this:

One day when I was a new young mum, I was doing a load of laundry. I was whistling as I worked, because there is nothing more cheery than washing a pile of wee baby onesies on a sunny Spring day. As I loaded up the washing machine, I noticed a teeny tiny spider just inside the rim. About the size of my little fingernail. A ‘pidey. So I squashed it with my thumb and closed the lid of the machine. Strange. There it was again. A teeny tiny ‘pidey on the lid. So I squashed it again. With my thumb. Not before noticing that it looked like a miniature cute widdle huntsman.

And then I looked up…

The ceiling of the laundry was covered in hundreds of teeny tiny huntsmen. Crawling with them. And one big mothership huntsman in the corner, glowering at me. It was like the end of Charlotte’s Web, when her egg sac hatches and the air is full of tiny spiders. If Charlotte’s Web were written by Stephen King.  I shut the door and walked away. I may have curled up and sobbed for a while, I can’t recall. Then I did what any right-minded, environmentally aware person would do – I had my husband napalm all up in that joint until  the little bastards were dead, dead, dead.

So now you know what’s in my Room101. What’s your worst phobia?