We took Riley to the park yesterday. I think the photo shows that she was a little bored.
Due to seemingly unending bouts of teething, illness and my exhaustion, I have gotten out of the habit of getting out of the house with the munchkin. There was a time where I would always, or almost always, take her down to the park in the afternoon for a run around.
But I’ve lapsed into other priorities, boring, menial and somewhat necessary. Doing the laundry, cleaning the play area (destruction zone) and painting the …

Reading this post at Three Ring Circus today I could relate.
I never made friends easily, in part because we moved around a lot and at school, everyone seemed to have known one another since Kindergarten. It was hard to break into cliques. Especially as a naturally shy person. One time I did push past the shyness to make friends, because I was lonely, and for a time the loneliness outweighed my reticence. A few weeks later I was sat down by the group of friends and told, very matter of …

I never thought I’d be one to particularly enjoy the toddler years. The tantrums, the not having a clue what they’re saying half the time, the wilfullness. But in true, biased parent style, every age is my favourite.
And there’s a lot to love about the toddler stage. The beginning of words (even if I can only decipher some of them), the emergence of a little person with distinct ideas and preferences and the way sheer joy that they demonstrate on any given day.
Today, I loved that even though I was …

When Riley was about 14 months old she started reliably sleeping through the night and no needing my presence to get to sleep. Up until that point she was up three or more times a night and at nap time I would need to rock or stroke her to sleep.
Perhaps it was because I was no longer breastfeeding her, so there was less interest in night-time snacking, or perhaps it was that she had always hated the cot and I’d moved her to her toddler bed. Either way, I didn’t …

I was watching Julie & Julia tonight. A rare treat to watch a movie, alone and undisturbed. Which makes me sound like a social recluse, which I’m not. But I do love to get completely lost, every now and again. To be completely immersed in something. It got me thinking about writing and the beginning. It is a cruel master and a loving mistress, sometimes separately and sometimes together.
When I still had the luxury of perfectionism and before I realised that perfectionism was seriously beating the crap out of my self esteem, …

Where by virtue of her young age I can inflict my sense of style on her (for now)
The Saucy Rabbit
I don’t know why it got this name, but it did. Maybe because of his hat fettish.

Party Snaps
Riley and one of her good friends, enjoying the awesomeness of a jumping castle:

Her Name
Because nothing says I love you, like I can spell.

The Office
Because nothing says productivity like a bear obsessed with eating honey and sleeping

The Sleigh
My love for sleigh furniture can’t be put into words. But if it could it would be …

I’ve been concerned about the local schooling options since we moved to the Central Coast. And I realise this post might come off as snobbish. I don’t care. Some things I should embrace a certain level of elitism in. Education is one of them.
When we moved here, I couldn’t drive. So, I caught a lot of public transport. We live just a couple of blocks away from our local primary and high schools. And while I was on public transport I was often sitting next to students/teachers from this particular …

Riley is definitely feeling more herself again. Slept through last night – ah sweet slumber how I’ve missed you.
Today was Mothers’ Group. Her sharing skills take a nose-dive when we’re at home and it’s all of HER stuff that requires sharing. I have three rocker-type toys: The snail, the wooden rocker and a bouncing zebra. You would think that would be plenty for four children. But that would be assuming that they all don’t want to be on exactly the same one at any given time. Rookie mistake.
But she did …