Ramping It Up: Children w disabilities, opinions, books

If I had to do a Productivity Commission assessment of my life . . .

I'm attempting to be brisk and organised and productive, while still feeling the impact of a medical procedure yesterday that required sedation. A non-glamorous, not at all worrying, spare everyone the details, type medical procedure. Suffice to say I had to fast for days, drink litre after litre of water, and miraculously gained a couple of kilos in the process. Bugger it.

So it's a quiet day of answering emails, sending off requests, trying to con a library into scanning my thesis into TROVE (I've had one of those inquiries from OS about it that's both exhilerating and exhausting, as I'd have to explain why I can't just send him off an article he can use because - well - didn't quite get around to publishing much of it etc etc), chasing up lost super (blah), finding medicare claims, chucking things out (maybe), and discovering - yet again - that disability services stuff crosses state and federal boundaries in annoying ways.

Miz M has a Qld Taxi Subsidy Scheme card, which only involved filling in 82 pages worth of forms and getting supporting documentation from two different places saying no, really, can't sit in a regular chair, yes uses a mobility device, no can't walk at all etc etc. From memory, that was the same week I filled in another set of forms for a "Companion Card", and yet another for a disabled parking permit. All done, all good, all being used. But we're going to Sydney in October, for a week, and will need to use accessible taxis all over the place. Not to mention reinventing the wheel(chair) once again with an airline; making requests about taking the chair to the door (again), getting lovely and positive responses from the "Special Handling" gang (again), while knowing that the people at check-in will be flummoxed, confused, unclear about the process, and we'll have to give her life story all over again while I try to keep my irritation and on-the-verge-of-tears response under control (again) while Abe tells me to stay calm (again).

Doesn't sound cynical, does it?

Anyway, realised that the Taxi Subsidy Scheme is state-based, so I have to put a request (in writing, here we go) for a book of vouchers to use interstate.

No big deal; no wish to whinge excessively; 2 minutes on the phone plus 2 minutes to write an email. (The email to the Special Handling section of the airline takes much longer, as I work out how to be charming but assertive at the same time. Crossing out all my "maybes" and "perhaps" es; replacing them with "we require" and "you will" and "as you know" etc.)

But why, the fuck, don't these systems cross state lines?

OK, it's about funding and jurisdiction and which things are dealt with by the states, which by the Commonwealth. So what it comes down to? Blame Henry Parkes and Alfred Deakin and George Reid and whatsit Griffiths? Blame the constitution and 1901? Who, I'm quite sure, gave not a thought to care of people with disabilities falling between cracks in the health and welfare system . . . although, as they stood around pompously in Melbourne in 1901, Deakin daydreaming about spiritualism and getting back into his cossies down the coast, and George Reid thinking up another bon mot, they may well have known people with disabilities. After all, there was a contingent or two off at the Boer War or in the Sudan. There were epidemics everywhere. There were rats in Sydney; there was polio, there was typhoid, there were children being blinded by measles. Still, they didn't really think the Commonwealth govt would have much to do; they didn't even think it'd have to be a full-time government.

So I'm not sure we can blame the constitution makers and 1901. (Although Bob Katter and George Reid would've enjoyed yelling at each other over free trade, protectionism and tariffs. Sugar and the north. City versus country.)

But hang on, people, we've had over a century to sort some of this stuff out.

The Productivity Commission is dealing with some of it right now. It was the week before the election, when the latest round of submissions into "Disability Care and Support" were due. Life was busy, of course, but I knew I wouldn't forgive myself if I didn't write something. So I wrote about our girl, about that Difficult First Year, about the lack of communication and knowledge between different sectors, about feeling set adrift when community health nurses shrugged their shoulders and said, basically, "we have no idea what to do next". About the need for investment in the communicaiton and knowledge economies. About the need for a National Disability Insurance Scheme. Tried to draw out the implications of our own very limited experience to a wider, systemic, problem. Tried to include personal stories as well as pleas for equality, rights, love, education, access, equipment, fairness. Then just stopped, after a while, because it became rather draining. Wanted to make an impact by telling a personal story then drawing out the implications, but made myself teary every time I reread the damn thing to edit it (still had a really stupid typo in the final version, that made at least one sentence completely nonsensical). Sent it off, on the very last day (of course), exactly one week before the election. Was sitting up here, sending off copies to every politician I could think of (state member, federal member, state minister for disabilities, fed parlt secretary, The Therapy Place, Miz M's school) when I didn't hear my mobile phone ring. New phone, dammit, my ear wasn't attuned. And what do you know, it was Bill Shorten, while he was still Parliamentary Secretary, with a warm and intelligent message. Damn, I wish I'd heard that phone and spoken to him instead. Clever politicing, too, I have to say, so close to an election. Haven't got a response at all from my state member, which still irritates me (what is the point of being a rusted on Labor supporter if they Disappoint You!!!!)

But Oh. My. Gawd. You should see the submissions to the inquiry. There are over 500 up there to look at, but I don't quite have the strength this morning to delve back into them. They can wrench your heart out; and can also make you sit up straighter for the strength of analysis and the power of the stories. for their politics. Some, of course, are less than fascinating. But most, holy shit, batman. There are individual submissions that have been written in a hurry by people with not much time, talking about decades of care for their children. People writing angrily and proudly and stroppily on their own behalf, about their lives and their rights. Organisations talking about what they do and how they do it. People whose stories make you want to weep, for the injustice of inadequate support, money, equipment and for being treated so badly. For lack of resources in rural Australia. For lack of support in the middle of cities. And then there are clever, analytical, proposals from women's organisations taking on the gendered aspects of care. And there are people and organisations whose solutions you can flat-out disagree with.

But the stories the stories. Such a reminder of the power of ordinary lives and experiences. And no, it's not all about tragedy and despair; but it's certainly about a lack of equality and a desparate need for change.

There are 537 submissions right here.

And if those commisisoners decide to look outside the submission, they'll find grist to their changing-the-system mill everywhere they look. They'd find it in Pen's stories who, with aplomb and warmth, finds herself travelling from Canberra to Sydney for her boy; they'd find it in the story of Moo's apparent invisibility, and the anger and vulnerability that exposed. They'd find many things to think about via Miz Lauredhel and the Hoyden's About Town, who will not be silenced thank you very much.

Doctor's Wives: An annoying, sexist, supposedly demographic label

Well, we know there's an election in the offing, because one of the most annoying labels ever has started popping up in media "analysis" again. "Doctor's Wives." 

The morning began in its usual, weekday manner: alarm goes off at 6, and while nobody south of the border believes it, it's cold in Brisbane. Wrap myself around beloved and try to ignore the time. Then the brain kicks in. What if M's feeding pump finishes and the alarm goes off. What about getting to the Children's Hospital for a bloodtest. Is there any glucolyte made up. I'm not working today, but Abe is, so life will be easier if I can get to the hospital with Miz M before he heads to work, so he and Clancy can hang together.

OK, so get up. Get going. Engage brain courtesy of coffee (thank you, darling, beautifully made). Read part of the paper while we both feed children, eat breakfast, plan the day. Not too much conversation yet.

I'm driving to the Children's Hospital, hoping they'll manage to find a vein to take blood from my girl, while listening to RN. And then, there it goes.  The label that makes me sit up straighter with annoyance, and begin the endless bloody debate with myself about whether it's worth jumping up and down about.

The inestimable Geraldine Doogue on Radio National Breakfast, talking to Michelle Grattan about the election, whenever it will be, and the role of the Asylum Seeker debate, and what Julia Gillard's approach will be. And Grattan says something about the "Doctor's Wives".

This, my friends, shits me.

OK, the whole tenor of the reactive Asylum Seeker debate is annoying too; and Abbott's claims are unspeakably awful. Not wild about the fear and loathing underpinning the public discussion, and maybe that's what I really should be frothing about. And yet and yet and yet.

The casual sexism of the "Doctor's Wives" thing is so ingrained that it's never ever pulled up, interrogated, slapped down, or even seemingly noticed.

I can see why Geraldine couldn't stop mid-discussion to say Oh by the Way isn't it timed you stopped using that outmoded crappy term. It would be supposedly too PC by half. But what exactly is it meant to represent? Supposedly, it's about Middle Class Women of Affluence, whose lives are defined by their man's career and income, and their implied political views. It's lazy shorthand, that creates a group of Trudes and Judes from KathandKim, and gives them supposed political "clout". Sure, demographic analysis might be useful. Sure, trends can be followed. Sure, politics can't be truly subtle enough to allow for the real twitches and switches and thoughts of even a single street . . . But who is really doing this research? The likes of Bernard Salt, who's trotted out to repeat platitudes and generalisations and claim that it's analysis of the Australian population?

Where's the real research? Where's the qualitative research that goes beyond surveys dreamt up by particularly unimaginative marketers who once did a course in sociological surveys, couldn't quite remember the principals, and didn't do any of the humanities courses because they decided they were too "wishy washy" (or, perhaps, too challenging)?

I mean, fuck.

And who are these "Doctors"? 

All male, apparently.

All married, apparently.

And I'll swear to my last ever election campaign this is not merely a self-serving argument - but I am, indeed, while following the Prime Minister's own unmarried style (and bugger off Bettina Arndt, too), living with a Doctor. 

Oh, so it's me that they mean? Feminist lefty grumpy Labor supporters who wishes there was more Light on the Hill and a bit more vision, with a disabled child and an interest in the Yarts and Culture. A very specific demographic, that one. If only we wielded the power . . .

Then again, my own beloved could be a Doctor's Wife, too, if by their shorthand they mean PhD's in history.

Oh, no, don't tell me, they only mean medicos who are GPs or possible surgeons. Who are male. Who maybe work in a private hospital or own a chain of medical clinics.

Come on, Michelle Grattan, isn't it time you interrogated your own labels? You're smart, you're sharp, how about not throwing out these lazy lines in the lead up to an election. So many other presumptions and assumptions are examined in the media, but this one slips through year after year. 

Oh, I stand corrected: just did a quick search and in an earlier election, Antony Green made a comment about how demeaning and silly the term was. Yay, Antony!

Your Daughter? That's My Worst Nightmare

If only I could write like Hilary Mantel - whose wrenching, angry, memoir Giving Up the Ghost made me laugh out loud, or snort and snuffle into the lounge to the surprise of both Abe and Clancy. Because she's intelligent, because she's a good researcher, because she's articulate, doctors spent a lot of time being surprised by her and, because it's the late 1960s and early 1970s, they pathologise her rigour and turn it into psychosis. One doctor tells her she's conscienscious, with a mind for detail, in a mildly accusatory way. She was studying law, and so goes on to say, "I tried to imagine the other kind of law student, the kind who favoured the broad-brush approach, who took on the law of trusts, for example, with a grand generalist's sweep and dash." Well, it made me laugh.

I also loved this, when being treated appallingly by dickhead lecturers at university, who couldn't see why a woman should be studying law at all: "Some people have forgetten, or never known, why we needed the feminist movement so badly. This was why: so that some talentless prat in a nylon shirt couldn't patronise you, while around you the spotty boys smirked and giggled, trying to worm into his favour . . . It was assumed that marriage was the beginning of a woman's affective life, and the end of her mental life." (pp 160-161) And goes on to describe how, in job interviews, you were grilled about marriage, intentions, when you were going to "start a family", by "some grizzled ringmaster, shifty and semi-embarrassed as he asked a girl half his age to tell him about her sex life and account for her next ovulation." But really, it's  one of the best descriptions of pain and illness and misdiagnosis I've ever read. I had thought that both Joan Didion and Susan Sontag, even David Rieff, talked about illness and hospitals and the medical system well but, really, Mantel takes the cake by describing this ostensibly sweet self who was raging and railing and almost screaming with frustration inside a body that was going out of control. But then again, maybe I only think that because I finished reading it in the last few days, so it has inhabited my imagination.

That, and Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin - vibrant, clever, convoluted, sad, utterly gripping. In some ways, a novel about grief (I wept through one entire chapter; then was buoyed up the hard edge and street rhythm of the next, which left me surprised at the left-over sniffling); in others it has the euphoric poetry of Philippe Pettit's tightrope walk between the Twin Towers balanced over everything, turning your eyes and the character's eyes up and up. Then some cringeworthy moments of race politics where you can hardly look at the page. Still, it helps to have seen the doco Man on Wire, about that tightrope walk, to give you Pettit's arrogance and his poetic hopes, given that he walks in and out of the novel. Must go and find some more words by McCann, because this Irish-American storytelling was really something.

And on the whole entertainment thing, I've also managed to see two films (ta-da) and start a few other novels. Saw Jane Campion's Bright Star which was so beautifully framed and gorgeous to look at, and wasn't Abby Cornish fabulous, sweetie? And the opening scene, full of laundry and washing lines, like elegant birds in the landscape, made it a very domesticated, women's film, without being a conventional Chick Flick (which is a dopey term, but hey). For a story about a relationship with a male poet, it was so covered in cloth and held together by handstitching, with views below stairs and in the kitchen, so that the work of capital-R romance was on display. No "Elven Grot" for Keats' rather more earthy Lady of Shallot, rather a house that had to be rented and walls that were a little thin. Given that nothing much happened, it still held me . . . and of course, wept through the last bit, and emerged from the cinema with mad hair and a red nose, in the middle of a hot sunny day, and had to slink down the street without a tissue, feeling rather tenderised.

And then saw Avatar in 3D (on the "now for something completely different" stakes). It was so completely and utterly "filmic": a huge spectacle, roaring over your head and leaping right into your face. And yes, some ooga-booga spirituality and none-too-subtle colonialism versus the pure indigenous hearts and minds. But what a beautifully imagined world, with lovely detail. Am still wondering, though, what to make of the soldier with a disability at the centre of it: there he is, being self-sufficient and capable, and seems to have enough ramps and access points to get around in; yes, we see him being discriminated against by some macho marine pratts, but he doesn't give a shit; and the promise is held out to him that, if he could afford it, he could get working legs back again. So, is this the future? And then there's the project he's working on, where he has a "conventional/ unconventional" body by inhabiting this alien avatar. He first disappears into this pod, this terrible claustrophobic space that keeps him still and make him terribly vulnerable (exposing both him, and a central plot problem; that, and what happens when his alien self is asleep. Lucky there weren't any little alien babies nearby or he would have been in big trouble for sleeping through). His broken/ disabled body is left behind; he stands up and walks and runs and exalts in the physicality of his new alien body, that can not only stand up, it can leap, almost fly. He's remembering old sensations. Get up out of your wheelchair, my child, and walk. What if he'd been a kid who never could walk, who had to learn afresh: would he have enjoyed it as much? Must the disabled body always be positioned as something that's "wrong", so that even living virtually, while isolated in a pod, where "at least" he can walk is better than living in a new way in his own body. With all that military technology, you'd think he could have a pretty fine chair. I really want to know what the properly thought through disability activists and theorists think of this one. I don't really know what to think. A few links here, including a man who says hey, we don't all necessarily long to be "fixed".

But here's the link back to a non-alien, non-green-and-scaley skinned ordinary life. What if the person in the wheelchair is imagined not as a person - or a child - but rather as the worst possible scenario, the "nightmare"?

We live next door to a very nice, very social, couple. Two women who talk and laugh loudly, and know how to throw a generous party, with a bottle of champagne or 50, and everyone invited. So just before Christmas, I wandered over, leaving Abe (who wasn't in the mood) at home with the babes. There were lots of people who I'd seen in the street but not properly met. Often glimpsed as we all head off to work, or wrestle stuff into cars, or chase dogs down the street, or do 85 point turns (me) in a very narrow street with bugger-all parking. A young couple were there, pregnant with their first child. Young Professionals, who I didn't find wildly interesting, but I threw back too many glasses of sharp cold white wine and became all wide-eyed and overly-enthusiastic about everything (sigh, must grow out of that). So we talked about the baby, and the guy said things about how they were having one who'd be all dressed in frills and pink, making me grind my teeth with irritation, but really - perfectly nice, all very bland and middle class, everyone well educated and had read the right books on pregnancy and health. I'm not into giving out unwanted advice, or pretending I know how to do things. I did say they should yell if feeling overwhelmed, just on the basis that the snot/ green baby shit/ weird behavious might be reassuringly familiar.

So we talked about pregnancy, and health, and labour, and I did say that yes, with Miz M, it was a healthy pregnancy, full term baby, no known problems, and yet yes the mysterious, severe, disability happened anyway, and here's our lovely girl, likely to never walk or sit, may or may not ever talk, will need us forever.

Disability.

"That's my worst nightmare", he said. I was a little bit pissed so didn't get at all offended or upset, and just did my usual, "Oh well, you just cope with what you cope with, don't you" routine. But really, my daughter is your worst nightmare? Full marks on the subtlety stakes, I say.

And it had been a week of it. Not long before that, Abe and I had actually managed An Event without children. We organised a babysitter, and went out to a Christmas drinks thing for Abe's work, full of medicos and scientists and heirarchies like I'm not at all used to. Standing around on a lovely verandah with a view over the city and (again) very nice wine, and met some interesting and not so interesting people. A fabulous young woman who was a paediatrician and very funny, who pointed out a very senior guy she worked with, and that she'd always thought he looked as though he should be wearing a puffy shirt and being one of the three musketeers. It was D'Artagnan at thirty paces from then on. A man who ran a branch of an airline, but clearly didn't read the papers, which was odd. And a woman who told me she was a physiotherapists before she retired, and worked with people with disabilities. "Physios are terrific," I said, startling her with my conviction. So I had to explain why, and told her about Miz M's work with therapists . . . and then, in another act of great subtlety, she told me how her children used to be mortified when she'd be out with them and she'd see a client and go to say hello. "Mum", her kids would say, "why do you always have to go talk to the people in wheelchairs with pasta stuck to their foreheads". Oh ho ho ho and Merry Christmas to you, too, good to see there's a laugh to be had there too . . .

Hormones, uncertainty, work and friends

Blogging is like exercise - you stop, and then it's hard to get back into it properly. The intoxicating smell of sweat just smells like sweat. Can't find the hand-wraps. Don't want to write a whinge-post. It's too hot to get the heart rate up. Your observations seem lame. Every time you put on the t-shirt and cotton pants, a child wakes up and needs something. And. So. Boringly. On.

And like the warm-up stretches, the burn-out kicks and combinations you need to get started kickboxing, the blog begins with a warm-up series of apologies, excuses, guilt, and a quick one-two to your own head. Ah, the sporting analogy: I shoulda been a politician. Erk, no, the old "fit for office" crap of Howard-the-daily-walker, Abbott-in-his-cossies, Turnbull-skipping-with-his-wit or Rudd-stretching-his-piousness-to-the-limit makes me want to gag. Although the way they're all turning to religion is getting up my nose even more. Sure, watching the sectarian politics of the 1950s through the prism of history is interesting; hearing Sebastian Barry talking about the drama and tragedy of families divided by it in Ireland is utterly entrancing, although that could just be him; seeing the occasional Druid striding through the Parliament of Religions on the news is hilarious . . . but in a Prime Minister? Leader of the opposition? New Premier of NSW? Bugger off.

But, as it's the time of year when lipstick slides off your face and I find myself, mid conversation, distracted by the line of sweat moving down the back of my lef and dripping off my calf - then of course, I'm more than a little distracted by Christmas, logisitics, going to the Post Office, soaking fruit for Chrissie cakes, and by the enduring myth that things wind down at the end of the year. Instead, things ramp up. Deadlines loom. People I'm trying to line up for work become more and more elusive. And I try desparately hard not to be rattled by not knowing exactly what I'll be doing for work next year. Each week, for the last 6 weeks, I've had a conversation about how we've almost-sorta-kinda-nailed down the exact job. Can't complain, even, as I do have an ongoing position in a wildly interesting cultural organisation, surrounded by clever, sparky, opinionated, good people. But detail detail detail. And I've tried so damn hard to be flexible and accommodating and understanding and to proclaim to all and sundry that I'm Fine With That that I have, as usual, been in denial about the impact of uncertainty.

In other words, while making fruitcake, have been behaving, behind the scenes, like a bit of a fruitcake myself.

What Abe would call, in his gorgeously matter-of-fact medical manner, "emotionally labile".

Which is another reason to avoid blogging, because the world needs more whingers like it needs an unresolved, messy, disorganised, Climate Change Summit. Oh, that's right . . .

And on the subject of denial, I'm not prepared to blame feeling occasionally wobbly on my life. But I'm quite happy to blame hormones - while reserving the right to slag off biological determinists left, right, and centre. (Ah, the pleasure of contradiction.) But really, have been on the mini-pill for the last six months, and I never respond that well to fake hormones. I remember being on the capital-P pill when I was 18,19, 20 and it left me feeling all over the place. Not logically depressed, because let's face it there are logical reasons to be depressed, about everything from sexism and inequality to being broken hearted or whatever. And then there are the times it feels bit unhinged and cwazy. And I'm not prepared to be depressed about having a daughter with a disability because really and truly and ruly I don't find that depressing. Oh ok, I do get a little wistful and pissed off in children's playgrounds when there's nothing she can play on, when inclusiveness seems deliberately mitigated against, when the social-medical-financial-cultural systems seem so damn unhelpful, but on a personal level? Nuh. So, time to rethink the whole contraception thing.

Might be time to "get me tubes tied", which instantly catapults me into childhood, overhearing mysterious conversations between mum and her friends. Mum was in her early-mid-40s, just like me, when she went to the family doctor to talk about getting her tubes tied. Unlike me, at exactly the same age she already had seven children. Seven. Did I say seven? More than six but less than eight. More than my two, that's for sure. I was one of the Small Fry, as we were called, the babies. So the doctor looked at her and said, "Mother, but you're a young woman!" Did I say seven? Bloody hell.

(And yes, I know vasectomy is another good option, but poor Abe has been both done and undone, so his Bits deserve a break.)

And when you're 17, 25, 32, and you're obsessed with not getting pregnant; then you're 40, and obsessed with getting pregnant, it can seem endless. This thinking about ovulation. Conception. Terminations. Pregnancy.

Which leads me, of course, to my usual thinking too much into the future. Thinking about my girl, and her life, and her future, and what her relationship to her own body will be. What autonomy she'll have. I was listening just this week to a terribly moving radio doco about disability and sexuality. About the need and pleasure in being touched. And of course, I don't want to be weird about this, as Morgaine isn't even three, and I'm not launching into sexualising her, but they are big, important, issues. She's a very affectionate, physical wee girl. This morning, I popped her into our bed, and she loved the feel of the sheets and being in a different space. She kicked her legs and wiggled on her back. She rolled over to look me in the face. I traced my finger down her nose and across her jawline, which made her giggle like mad. At this age, as a child, she can easily get all the affection and physical warmth she likes. What happens when she's an adult? How long will we still be around to easily hold her hand and let her stroke our arms as we talk to her?

Because in my darker moments, I worry about her vulnerability. Of course. That's the thing about her condition. She has - and I was just reading one of the supporting documents we have - "severe weakness from birth". She will "require ongoing hands on support for all activities of daily life" forever. Which means she can accept your help, but she can't tell you to go away. When Clancy sinks his teeth into her soft buttery skin, as he's taken to lately, she can't push him away or make him stop. She can make a noise, but she can't make that all important sound, that feminist tool, that intervention, that statement of self: she can't say, "No!"

Will she ever be able to? That's what we have to work on. Communication, if not speech. And after trying and absorbing the Hanen Method, thinking about (but not properly applying) Makaton, we're now moving intoa picture recognition system, that will require a lot of intensive work. Of course, it's likely that what will work will be a combination of all these things.

And my hope rises, yet again, as I hear M making different types of sounds. They're Almost Consonents. This is a new category of sound I'd never been attuned to before, the Almost Consonent. Gradations. Her vowels are well and truly there, but the mouth control that goes into consonents are lacking. And so I hear what could almost-kinda-maybe be an M. A glotal stop that could be moving towards a G. Well, at least we're not native speakers of the Click Language. (I really did meet someone once, who spoke that language. She was here for a conference on rivers and land and the meaning of place - or was it of deserts or mountains? - and she explained her conneciton to that place in her own language, before translating it for us. Magic. One of those moments when a person speaks with their face and whole body.)

And oddly, there are no sounds but the whirr of a fan; the ka-thunk of building work next door; and that endless nagging of crows. Because Clancy decided to fall asleep just as I had managed to get all the Christmas presents bundled up and ready to post off; and M's respite carer is here, and has exhausted her with some four-point-kneeling over a footstool (which, given the effort she has to make to raise her head even a little bit, even when you're holding her forehead, is fair enough). So my biggest complaint of the last 2 months has been answered (can I not get two-and-a-half-minutes of uninterrupted time to do something, anything??)

And meanwhile, in the last very little while, an email came in confirming what I'd be doing next year. It means a change of focus, and bigger ideas, sustained ideas, meatier research. Which is great, but I need that reflective space to find and pursue and pitch some of those ideas. All at two-and-a-half-days per week. Time to turn into Eddie from Absolutely Fabulous: Ideas ideas ideas, sweeetie! Ooooh, look, Bolly.

And so, with the bubbles, the attention returns to Christmas. Which, as an atheist, is a completely family-and-friends celebration thing for me, which I do enjoy. I don't mind creating our own rituals, either, even if they are secular. Hell, especially if they're secular. But part of that tradition, for me, is noise and chaos, endless cooking, and going to the beach in the afternoon. Lots of sisters and neices and nephews. But this year, for the first time ever, it's "just us". Helllooooooo Nuclear Family, oh where did your picket fence go, et cetera. Which is a little disconcerting. So I'm trying to remember all the things that exasperate me about a noisy, chaotic, huge, messy Christmas, as there's no excuse not to do the things that just don't work with a huge gathering of coeliacs and vegetarians and 14 year olds and 9 yr olds and 50 year old brother in law who tells the same stories every single year. So I dream of elegant, funky, warm, delicious, relaxing, energising, fun, memorable (ie completely impossible) days of wine and roses. Huh!

But at least I've baked a damn Christmas cake. Gluten free and soaked in brandy. A ring of almonds on top that isn't too wonky.

The ritually flustered and stressful visit to the post office, of course, has yet to happen.

Why a child "just like yours" can be confronting

I spent time on the weekend speaking to a woman whose daughter was rather a lot like Morgaine. And there we have it, the dreadful and heartbreaking use of the past tense. Her daughter died a few years ago - a heartbeat ago, just yesterday, so close I imagine this woman still hears her sigh in her sleep - at the age of about three. I know this woman professionally. Not only that, she is Capital P professional, in a good way. She's very smart, highly articulate, and utterly competent. Also brisk, and fairly private.

I knew about her daughter, even though we'd always worked in different cities in the same organisation. It's one of those odd things, how these stories circulate - although they circulate with warmth, and compassion. Even so, I'd been lead to believe (before I had Morgaine), that her daughter had been so very severely disabled that she was hardly able to "do anything". I can't remember whether anyone ever used those terrible vegetable analogies. I hope they didn't, although a fearful part of me hears their echo. Because now I know that her daughter was pretty similar to Miz M. They both have types of Cerebral Palsy; both can't sit unsupported at all; both can't crawl, or walk, or talk. Both have hardly any head control. Both would be either sitting in a mobility device of supportive seating arrangement, or lying on the floor. Nothing in between.

Both much loved.

So on the weekend, we were in an unusual situation, meeting up socially with a bunch of other people, and with children in tow. Clancy has just turned one, so he was running around with glee, absolutely thrilled to meet these people, doing that indrawn-breath of laughter and delight, that wheeze of pleasure, that we grow out of. And M was there, partly in her chair, partly on the floor, and so this woman and I talked about her daughter: who was social, who was happy, who also needed a high level of physical support. We talked about therapies and what was available; about her experience of the UK where provision of services and equipment seems much much better than it is here (despite the way people love to slag off the NHS). She told me about carrying her up and down stairs and about Conductive Education. We talked about standing frames and travel, supportive seating and mobility devices, thickened water and modified barium swallow tests.

She was warm and straightforward, full of information and useful acronyms, ideas for support structures.

And part of me knew it was killing her.

She never let her lip quiver or her eyes gleam, and I was torn between knowing that to acknowledge it would be both awful and a relief for her; and also that it can be so very hard to talk about her like this, in the present, in this way. So I hoped it was some sort of validation.

And so she knew I was thinking about that; and I figure she knew I was fearful of the final detail and the terrible threat of death that hovered around us both. Her daughter really was very like my girl. They thought they had it sorted. And then, one morning, they went in and she had died. I know it was unexpected but I don't know what happened. One day we'll talk about that.

We emailed each other the next day, just to check in, to acknowledge the power of being able to talk about her; and so she could admit that yes it was difficult. Also, she said, your role changes, you're no longer a carer, and that's a strange shift too.

In a week that's officially Carer's Week, it was both lovely and scarey and heartening and thought-provoking all at the same time.

Then they look at you dewy-eyed and say, "You're a GOOD mother" . . . and I think of ten sardonic responses in 5 seconds

First, to get a few things off my chest: I just went to my first ever "singing-and-rhyming for under twos" in the local library, and on the whole, bloody hell, what a bunch of uptight first time mothers. Sheesh. Clancy was loving it, and wanted to meet everybody and wander around and be social and crawl on top of other kids and be generally thrilled. Which, I thought, was the point of the whole thing. Or not, apparently. Every other child was a bit younger, was not so mobile, and was resolutely clamped on a parent's lap (I say parents, hopefully, but ok ok it was all mothers), with some of them looking alarmed as he got too close. Which made me not at all willing to be social. Except for the woman with the v small bub up the back, who I'd seen around, and who had an indy look about her rather than a glossy blond-bob look about her (oh bugger off, yes I am prejudiced), and we had a rather nice chat at the end.

Also, I was once again on a mission to try to find something that I coudl use for Morgaine to sit in and interact with other kids in parks and backyards. A small, folding, beach chair with a tilt or various positions for the back, to which I could attach chest straps and head support. Is that too much to ask? Yes, apparently. SO in the process I found myself looking at various websites for specialist disability equipment, all of which was hideously expensive (ie $500 and more, mostly a lot more); and then also found myself looking at a no of different Cerebral Palsy sites, given that her PVL is a type of hypotonic CP. Well. That made me feel flat and depressed as well. (Also powerful, but a tad depressing, was the Access Economics analysis of CP, which talked about the economic impact as well as setting out life expectancy etc in a rather flat way.) First, many of them ignored hypotonic CP altogether, as if it didn't exist; and then I chanced upon other, properly referenced material, that said her style of CP represented 2% or less, especially at the severe end, which made me question AGAIN the defensiveness of the woman from the CP League who got all snippy with me when I suggested that, as it was the rarer form, their services might be on the whole directed to the other type of CP. At which point she rather condescendingly said that while it might be new to me it wasn't really unusual for them and (subtext) I didn't know at all what I was talking about. Well, I know stats are often misused, but a 2% incidence of something would suggest rare; and given the gradations of severity, and that M is clearly in the "profound" category, why the fuck was she so unhelpful and forbidding?

I raised this, broadly, as an issue with the paediatrician recently, when talking to her about access to services. I put it more politely, and tried to frame it in terms of gatekeeping, resources, information and transparency. All of which was rather over-egging if not over-intellectualising the disability pudding (as it were), as she said: "Oh, yeah, the Bitch on the Switch!" Hah.

So too much time online, looking at disability stuff, left me feeling a bit flat. Going to the library with the little energiser buddy raised them, slightly, as long as I was in a bubble that didn't require any "bonding" with other parents. Then headed off into the park where I bumped into a woman whose son also went to the Special School playgroup with Miz M. A story there, I suspect: I gather she has a pretty tough life, her son spends some of the time in foster care, and he generally looks at the adult world in a completely freaked-out way. Still, she and her son were having a v nice time on the swings.

But but but, I can't complain. I'm back at work, and it's terrific. Ideas, deadlines, collegiality, lots to do, creative possibilities, and the usual dilemma of wondering how far to just do what I do, and how much to change things, give challenging feedback, do extra and so on.

Also, have a challenging and interesting opportunity to submit a historical article to a scarily impressive OS journal. I need time to immerse myself in it, and Clancy having a 20 minute sleep (now) isn't it. Still, it adds to the froth and bubble of life.

In other words: mustn't grumble.

Oh, go on.

So, I keep returning to something that happened a few weeks ago, trying to decipher what it means, whether it's about identity politics or defensiveness, whether it's a feminist issue or simply one of over-reaction. Some old friends of Abe were in town, for an international HIV/Aids conference. Three visiting doctors, one from NZ, two from Sydney (a couple). The woman in the couple does academic research, and they have a newish child, too, who wasn't with them. Although it's not my area, I find the whole area of health policy pretty interesting, and have followed it for various work projects in the past; and of course Abe and I talk about it as well. So we were talking about that, and it ranged far and wide. We were also talking about related areas of health and hospitals, diagnosis and medicine, cultural practices and the drama of medical interactions - especially given some of the stuff Abe and I have had to negotiate recently.

But in the course of talking about observations I'd made in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, the NZ doctor said to me, "So, were you a nurse?" Hmmm, why did she say that? No, I said, I'm talking about what I saw with Miz M as a patient. But what, I wondered, did that say about heirarchies and gender, professionalism and (even) being seen as "partner of" Abe? There was also that use of the past tense, given Clancy's age, which puts all of those questions of work-based identity into an odd frame. It's also that strange, disorienting thing, of not being in "my city" anymore, where people know not only who I am but who I've been, what roles I've played (as they've changed, even professionally), and so noone here in Brisbane would anymore say, "Oh, you're a historian aren't you?" where people from Sydney would. Also, of course, there's something in there that says doctors (Abe) hook up with "nurses". It does mean I've trained myself, over the years, and way before I met Abe, to make sure that if I hear women talking about medical issues, I ask them if they're a doctor (not, "Are you a nurse?").

Anyway, I think she wished she hadn't said it and I don't want to demonise an extremely nice, intelligent, interesting woman. But you get my drift.

But the evening went on, and it was terrific. Really interesting people; lively discussion; good food (moroccan style chickpea salad sprinkled with sumac and goat's cheese); and some damn fine wine. Then, as the Sydney pair left, the woman looked at me with rather dewy eyes and said, "You're a good mother". I know it was meant completely and honestly and warmly, but I was a little taken aback. I wasn't sure if it was also an identity moment (I suspect it wasn't), or simply that thing which I've seen before, where people are so overwhelmed by the idea of a child with a disability, that they see coping with it, cheerfully or at all, as somehow heroic. It's easy to forget, for us, when you're in it, that it can seem such a Big Deal to other people. It makes strangers, and friends, quite emotional.

Perhaps that's obvious, but it still sort of rocked me back on my heels, and I didn't quite know what to say.

It made me realise that it's NOT something I say to my friends, unless perhaps in a crisis where they think they're not being a good parent, or want to test out an idea, or are seeking reassurance. Maybe it's from years of not being defined as a parent; maybe it's about being a sort-of-singleton till the age of almost 40, where my sense of femal identity was formed in other spheres. So when it comes to complimenting my women friends, there are other things I think about. Some of my very best friends, of course, do not have children: so I celebrate their wit, am happy to talk about their craft and skill with words, their highly visual way of dealing with the world, their warmth and humour. Other friends are mothers, and indeed excellent at it, but unprompted, I'll tell one how very good she is at her job, and why the way she deals with people, and her visionary sense of the big picture, is really admirable. So should I be telling these women they're "good mothers"? Maybe I'm caught in an old paradigm where, yes, it does seem overly reductive to me to tell women they're good mothers, as if that's the only thing needed to define them. Of course, I wouldn't in a million years want to call anyone a Bad Mother, although we can all call ourselves that in an ironic, martini-at-4, Ayelet Waldman kinda way. And that's funny.

Shit and String Beans: Marilyn French and Sleepless Nights

There’s always something to worry about at 2 am, or something that can creep in and hop on that little treadmill that gets your mind turning. Scampering about on its little feet, getting faster and more harried, pulling other little creatures onto it too. Not so much a stealthy footfall – not the sleek, furry entry of Ted Hughes’ “thought fox” – as an increasingly frenetic scurry. I remember reading that Hughes poem at school, and hell, that was well over 20 years ago, and something about the line “the sudden hot sharp stink of fox” that meant the poem was written, that line always stayed with me.

 

But it’s not poetry that enters my head at 2 am, it’s a list of obligations and desires; the things I should be doing and the thoughts I’d rather be pursuing. It’s my bloody buggery bollocks overdue tax returns for the last FOUR YEARS. Well, hey, I just finished them. I’ve addressed the envelope, and now I’ll need to send it by Express or Registered post, for fear of the documents being lost. (Which reminds me, I heard P J O’Rourke ranting about The Government – all government – last night on the radio. Part of his argument for less government, was that it can’t even get the post right, so how can we trust it with anything else? Well, I would’ve thought the postal system was something that on the whole does work, at least here; and internationally, the “penny post” was one of those early pieces of information technology that connected the world, and remade it in the shape of British Empire and all the Pink Bits. Well, that and the telegraph.)

But what I really mean is: holy hell, I finished my tax, sort of, except for the bit where the accountant checks it all and sends it back and tells me it has a fatal flaw. And that only leaves me with 986 things to worry about on any given night, not 987.

 

Although at the moment, any time I snort or fart or roll over or am awoken by an alarm or a baby snuffle, and have to get up and feed Clancy, there is poor Abe, staring at the ceiling and I can see his treadmills going around on warp speed. Worrying about work. Working crazy hours and grappling with yes very very big issues. Insomnia is catching, so we both stagger out in the morning, blearing at each other before coffee; while fending off the delighted yelps and shrieks and porridge-covered hands of Morgaine and Clancy.

 

And then I get to worry about my own return to work, and what it means to have been away for eight or nine months on Mat Leave. (Although hey, it looks as though tomorrow's Budget could be introducing wider paid parental leave for all. About bloody time.) What does it mean for work identity, identity identity, skills, career development, juggling every damn thing, and whether I’m about to be shunted off into something less interesting given the demands of a shrinking budget and not being so much in the spotlight. Not to mention being part rather than full time. Conniptions have to be rather restrained right at the mo, though, given the very real pressure Abe is under. And the tedious thing about all this, of course, is how familiar it is, how much it’s part of the (especially womanly) zeitgeist. Still, anxious I may be, but I’m not falling apart under the older pre-second-wave-feminism paradigm, of resentment and what the recently-departed Marilyn French called, “shit and string beans”. Some women still are, of course. But I remember first reading The Women’s Room when I was in my teens, and although it had been written a no of years before, in 1977 when I was 11, it was already partly historical for me. That was not my life; it was not my expectation. I knew I wouldn’t be straitjacketed into domesticity and motherhood. I guess that’s why I waited until I was 40 to do any of that – and, as Wendy McCarthy said about it recently, our expectations have changed; at the same time as she talked about how empowering that anger could be. But at the time, 14 or 15 or whatever I was, it was French’s way of characterising what so many women did as the work of “shit and string beans” that really got me. That had me striving for something very different.

 

And there was mum, seven children, and she dealt with an awful lot of shit and stringbeans, even while she encouraged all of us to keep striving.

 

Mum never saw me as a mother – even though when she died she already had more than 10 grandchildren. She worried about me, my apparently-single, moderngirl life, at the same time as she rather liked bits of my life. Whenever I went home to visit, she’d ask me in about 5 minutes if I was already bored (which I wasn’t; I was there to see her). I wish she could’ve met Abe – I think she would’ve liked his sharp, clever manner; his no-nonsense; and let’s face it his good looks. Huh. She would have too. But I think she would’ve been so sad about M’s disability, and that would’ve been a new thing for her to deal with. She took her children’s cleverness and being able to do things as a point of pride; at the same time as being, as she’d readily admit, a “fighter”. I can just see her, rather small and fierce, turning herself into an advocate. I guess that’s where we all learnt it from. While dad was happier to be a dreamer, a romantic, a giver of gifts and a chooser of the most overblown birthday and mother’s day cards ever. Close ups of dew drops on roses. And a bunch of carnations from the servo to go with it.

Still, he wasn’t an impractical dreamer, my dad. He was a builder by trade. A worker. King Gee overalls and still using some of the same tools he’d made himself as part of an apprenticeship. Hands that seem impossibly large when you’re a kid. A cigarette held high in the fingers, close to the hand, so they never got in the way of holding a hammer or flicking an awl or – in his later work, as a fruito – using a large knife to slash open the ties holding together a 40kg Hessian bag of spuds. Standing there, after school, in the back shed, weighing them up into 5 and 10 kg bags. Now he, on the other hand, might have wept over M; and then he would’ve been up here like a shot, building things. Homemade ramps. Large wooden structures. But he died at 62. I can just imagine Clancy on his knee though, laughing out loud. Two sets of very blue eyes looking at each other.

 

So today, I was going to think about what the Hanen communication course meant, and where the gaps were in the way it imagined us all. We “carers”. Who’d sometimes be hurried along a bit if we stopped paying attention to the occasionally simplistic “comprehension” parts of our course, and started talking about our own challenges. The child who can’t roll. The one who can’t move his arms. The girl who can’t sit up. None of them can talk the way other kids can. And we’d be moved back “on track”. I wanted to think through a critique of that.

 

I wanted to talk about ramps and run-ins; to reflect on a great story I heard about dealing with smart-arse strangers who say things to you, with your disabled child. Wanted to ponder travelling the world with a wheelchair. Another great story, about cobbles and Rome and the famoulsy crazy crazy traffic there. To discuss the politics of public versus private schooling, and what happens if you mention a preference for one over the other. (With my Sydney friends, I was used to a very strong pro-public school stance; here in Brisbane, in both schooling and health/ hospitals, there’s a much clearer middle-classes-go-private thing, which doesn’t work for me.) To talk about weight, and bodies, and wheelchairs, the bloody annoying “obesity epidemic” that gets pushed (ahem ahem, choke) down our throats. I was even planning to write about Stephanie Dowrick, who can be so blisteringly annoying - except when she's right - and why I liked her stuff about messiness recently.

But instead, it seems to be memory and sentimentality and parenting that’s becoming a theme. Maybe it’s because I’m reading Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine – which isn’t entirely grabbing me, but as an exploration of memory, and boyhood, and nostalgia, smalltowns and family mythology, it’s certainly interesting. And it has moments of exhilerating deliciousness, like the description of new tennis shoes and why the sound of a lawn mower matters; and the idea that old storytellers and transporting time machines is just lovely. I could almost glimpse Huck Finn around the corner. And a helluva contrast to the other version of family I just read: Christos Tsiolkas’s The Slap, which I could hardly put down and read in about 3 days, giving up opportunities to sleep in the process. Stolen moments between children.

And all this talk of sentimentality and memory, and parents “who are late” (as Mma Ramotswe would put it) means I’m almost looking over my shoulder at yesterday. At Mother’s Day, the ghosts of chrysanthemums and the thought of Ayelet Waldman’s Bad Mother, CrabMommy’s grumpy declarations, and the pleasures of seeing huge and diverse groups of people in the park yesterday. But I’ll turn my head instead, stop craning my neck, and look to the front instead.

 

(Stupid font-changing abilities! Stupid stupid random line breaks!)

Nothing to Wear; Too many Things to Think About

Only two or three weeks to go before this baby boy decides to be born, and it's well over 30 degrees C this week, so abruptly I have nothing to wear. Found myself doing that absurd thing of staring at my messy wardrobe hoping that a cool, cotton, flattering, floaty-ish dress would simply appear - before remembering that I do have such a thing, lent to me by my impossibly glamorous friend Dezzi. She's about a metre taller than me, and a completely different shape, but it's a great beachy cottony dress . . . which accommodated the pregnant belly well, but squashed pregnant boobs flat and stopped me from breathing. Bugger.

And no, am not into defining myself by clothes or flinging them about in a flurry of decision making, but also enjoy them, have always liked the idea of bright red lipstick and feminism going well together, and am a fan of the fabulous frock. Remember Poppy King's "seven deadly sins" lipstick range? Gave me an excuse to wear bright red, matt, "Anger" as my lippy of choice before her business went bung. But I believe she's about to re-emerge. So damn that Sarah Palin for appropriating lipstick in a folksy way for a rightwing cause.

And even though it's not our election, our issues and policies, or even our political system (internalising compulsory voting as "fair" and equal, on the grounds that everyone has to, takes a while to deconstruct and to realise that it's actually rare on a world stage), the US presidential debate has made me realise what a wimp I am at times over other people's views. It's not because I don't have strong opinions or thought-through stances, it's just that sometimes I find myself resisting knowing what the "other side" is saying. So I find myself NOT reading Janet Albrechtsen, NOT reading Amanda Devine (oooops, oh dear, this has been up for 12 hours and of course I really meant Miranda Devine or even perhaps this pisstake version), NOT engaging with the rightwing pundits, and then really that's just NOT very clever of me. Because part of the critique inevitably turns on presumptions made by both sides about what the other means, said, represents, presumed and so on. So I've been forcing myself to engage with it all. (and thank you, Abe, for pointing out my idiocy for linking to the wrong person - oh ok ok, so I was linking in a hurry!)

So this weekend, really, I didn't want to enter the Bill Henson art debate, because the fearmongering, moral panic, paedophile-around-every-corner arguments annoy me to bits; didn't want to follow all the anti-Maternity Leave invective, as it seemed so knee-jerk 1950s all-women-should-stay-at-home (responding to the latest Productivity Commission Report and recommendations); and really didn't want to follow a debate about whether or not mothers were hijacking feminism, as debated on various Oz feminist blogs and in opinion pieces, as somebody who had felt the wrath of the world against single women for so many years (the great fear: independent women!) while, as a finally 40-something mother and part of a hetero-couple, seeing once again all the ways in which motherhood is itself coopted, politicised, exploited by all sides of politics, and judged judged judged the way we are so bloody constantly, with supposed economic elements laid over the top.

See, a wimp.

It's not good enough to ignore these debates. I can't just take the moral highground, as I sometimes do, and just think "oh, you can all just fuck off". Although I'm very tempted. So I forced myself to read Angela Shanahan with her very annoying take on maternity leave - although I can see the inequality question is part of it - but was spitting chips by the way she used the Sarah-Palin-like "but I'm not part of the chattering classes, I'm just a mum" conclusion. Not only utter crap (you're a columnist on the op ed pages of a national broadsheet), but buying into the old Howard era anti-elite rhetoric is maddening. And playing the guilt-and-childcare cards against working women and work-life balance drives me nuts. Thank christ for old hoofer feminists who've been around the block more than a few times. A letter to the editor by Joan Bielski pointed out that the old strategy of pitting childless woman against mothers was a longterm desctructive one, and managed to pull apart the debate in useful ways.

And I was amused by the implications of David Marr's arguments over artist Bill Henson and the viewing and assessing of pre-pubescent bodies, as discussed on Radio National breakfast this morning . . . and what it means that we might need to limit access to schools of those who judge children's bodies, look at them, make selections, approach parents etc. Fine, he said, so we have to do it equally: so no film and tv talent scouts, and no sporting and athletic scouts. Huh! Just watch the whole powerful sports lobby go into meltdown!

As to the feminist debate, and its appropriation, or not, by mother-feminists and single feminists . . . oh, perhaps another day.

Really, I wanted to have a spray about the overwhelming use of biological determinism in popular culture stuff around childhood and child development - and in other stuff, too, now I think about it. It can be so hopelessly reductive, as if we all live in nature and not culture. Of course, some of this is pure defensiveness in terms of Miz Muffet and her disability, as so much of the discussion presumes a sort of Darwin-turning-in-his-grave idea of natural selection and survival of the fittest. So the latest edition of doco "Life At Three" did a simplistic "dangers of obesity" program, that was both biologically driven and judgmental, and didn't allow culture at all (eg an argument about overweight boy children of NESB parents, in which the Chinese background of the family under discussion, the impact of the one-child-policy, and the worshipful relationship to small boys, didn't count at all. Talk about bodgy science and a complete blindness to context and culture). And of course, there were also various scientists doing lots of self-righteous talk about the dangers of contemporary life and too much TV watching etc, and not enough exercise, that did make me think about what this will mean for Morgaine, as a child who can't take a single step, who can't do any exercise without someone else moving her limbs for her, but who has to eat to grow and, indeed, who finds important sensual and experiential pleasure in food and eating. So yeah, let's shore up the judgment about the fat kid in the wheelchair then, shall we?

Again, haven't yet had a chance to think this through in terms of its implications - but will probably talk about it with the new paediatrician when we meet her later this week.

But really, once again I'll say out loud that this blog needs to be more disciplined, but at the moment the imminent birth means I'm just filled with a wild sense of urgency, and a list of things I want to do and talk about and think through and grapple with. And because I'm sleeping badly, I compose arguments in my head (I've always done this, as I'm sure so many people have - and we used to think of it as writing in a journal, or letters to the editor, or speeches to a forum, or short-stories or a book and now, in an indulgent, badly edited way, it becomes an issue for a blog. Hmmmmm). So would really like to get to:

- A paean to friendships: and the importance of The Editor for my sanity, and why her long friendship is an inspiration; why Dezzie and her visual way of engaging with the world helps me see it in a different way; how Myff has helped my survive Brisbane; why long-distance friends help bring perspective; the role of best male friends in my life, especially Davos. And why I don't buy the jealousy-driven debate about why men and women can't ever be friends.

- More on the whole biological determinism debate, body size, behaviour and so on.

- Books. And why Louise Erdrich's Plague of Doves was a pleasure - and its connections to other people's blogs on Native American issues and indeed indigenous issues here are thought-provoking; why Julian Barnes' Pedant in the Kitchen made me laugh; the various things brought up by the Mothers Who Think collection; what's going on with David Sedaris; why a 1963 novel seems much more dated than one written in the 1930s or 1940s; Ayelet Waldman's novels versus her articles; all those disability studies readers I have stacked up ready to go.

- Children's culture and folklore, and the world of clapping games that my 7 year old friend reminded me of.

- "The limits of the glass half full approach" - and a conversation I had with a psychologist recently, on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and mindfulness etc. Damn, there goes my presumptions about the power of optimism and resilience! What happens if you can't change it, and you need other strategies?

Meanwhile, of course, the immediate urgency involves bills to pay, tidying up to do, piles of books and articles to file, new frocks NOT to buy, tax (damn, the most boring bit), phonecalls to make, and typos to correct. Oh, and perhaps what novels tend to call a "swipe of lipstick" to be applied . . .

Making a "Sensory Play Area" -- Or "Little Room"

I'm going slightly demented trying to make Morgaine her own "little room". Not because it's particularly hard to do, but because of my encounters with Hardware Stores and the type of men who shake their head in despair at your requests, and sigh, and say "oh no I've never seen one of those". Or promise to be helpful and then, when you get home, discover that you're missing three pieces that they said they'd given you, but didn't.

But I blame myself: I've learnt you have to be utterly precise, and check everything in an obsessive, slightly mad way. So despite writing out a list of lengths of PVC pipe and giving it to the 19 year old uni student in the major franchised hardware store, complete with total (yes, 5 different lengths, but 14 altogether) I came home with only 11 pieces. And despite phoning the nearest hardware and saying "do you cut PVC pipe to length", I should have specified the size, the colour, and added "really really?" to the end of the question. Because they didn't, really, having told me they did.

**** eeek, vomit crisis! Interrupted by Abe and M, downstairs, because post lunch she's just had a coughing fit that endued in her throwing up all over herself and requiring an all-hands on deck response. Poor little darling. And it has got worse I think she had pneumonia. So I suspect there is something to the "swallow test" I wrote about last time. Possibly she's breathing in bits of food and water and milk. ****

All of which makes my hardware whinge seem a tad irrelevant. Except I am keen to be able to showcase this damn sensory play space if I ever make it, and if it works, and if she likes it. Have been following a pattern I found on this Wonder Baby site although, being a US site it's all in irritatingly Imperial measurements. So once I get it done, I'll put up some pics and add the metric conversions, and explain how I got around the requirement to find a particular piece of PVC joiny-stuff that doesn't appear to exist. (Cue the headshaking from men of all ages, complete with no helpful suggestions.) So I stood in front of the existing pieces and stared at them until I came up with a creative solution - involving liquid nails and un-measured angles.

And I just have to stop being distracted by the fact that this therapeutically derived "Little Room" keeps making  me think of the Billy Bragg song about a "rainy afternoon/ spent in the warmest room" (warmest/ smallest etc), which was all about sex.

And we're about to head out the door, so I'll save up my rant about an article I just read in the Weekend Australian Magazine about food-and-sex, written by a woman who generalised to all women everywhere that, as soon as you have children, you stop being interested in sex. Well BOLLOCKS TO THAT I say, but there's more to it. The ongoing fear of women's sexuality, and the constant denial of it, SHITS ME TO TEARS. But I think it's worthy of a meatier dissection, that should take in the crap spoken about so-called "raunch culture" as well. Yep, sometimes I just think a woman and her orgasm is clearly too terrifying for words.

A woman I don't know just made my day

Huh, there you go: a reader! Thank you, Virginia Harris from the US. It was a long day - not a bad day, but a long one, definitely. I woke some time after 4 am, to hear the baby cooing away to herself. Abe got up and gave her a pat and checked her nappy and climbed back into bed and wrapped himself around me. That was nice, so I snoozed off, and awoke some time after 5, literally dripping and slippery with sweat. Hmmm-hmmm, too gorgeous for words. Hot because of the pregnancy; hot and sweaty from crazy hormonal dreams; hot from too many covers. Coughing half the night, bugger it, I think I'm getting some sort of coldy thing.

Morgaine was gurgling away, so I got up and did the bottle and breakfast thing, and still managed to be later than I wanted to be. Got to work at about 7:45, leaving Abe and babe behind to do the rest of the morning and childcare wrangling. Only two more weeks left at work before I'm on Mat Leave though, so there's a shitload of things to do, to organise, to write up, to handover, to do briefings on, to make sure I don't forget. And something I've been working on since May still isn't finished and gets more complicated by the minute.

Spent an hour and a half filling in the guy who'll be filling behind me. Another hour on the phone to the guy whose job I'm filling behind. Another hour or so with another colleague doing a job I used to do, with lots of energetic feedback and ideas and filling me in on new freelancers and others. Millions of emails. Reports to write. Some now very very late surveys I'm supposed to do.

And Myff tells me via email she may have to have some invasive, gynaecological, surgery, and I run out of time to reply. Damn damn and damn.

Discover in between work commitments that it's hard to find a paediatrician who might work as a conduit/ overview/ adviser for M. Have contacted 6 in the last few days, who've been recommended, and who aren't taking new patients. What?? Missing Sydney and having a dose of the "what type of berloody city is this anyway" things, and then finally find a woman who will take us on. Felt as though I had to prove M was going to be an interesting case (trust me! she's an enigma! we may never get a diagnosis! Surely that's a challenge . . .)

And of course, Morgaine's name is not really Morgaine, although it was on my personal list. It was vetoed by his-name's-not-really-Abe very early on in the piece. M's name is a little more unusual, and is destined to be spelt aloud forever and slightly mangled. So I was interested although a little annoyed by the tone of the recent Life Matters Talkback on names, which was a little too Anglo in its approach to "unusual" names. As usual, there was some good stuff in there, but it hardly acknowledged the migrant history of Australia, and the long tradition of names being changed. So was pleased to come across this Salon article on the politics of naming especially in the black American context. Not that M's name is a political statement, in case it looks like I'm making any grand claims here.

Where was I? Oh yes, writing in an unstructured way. Would usually either make all of these points discrete, or re-order and restructure . . . Instead, let's see how a bit of streaming goes, hey?

And I do know that in one of my first posts, not so long ago, I mentioned the diarist Samuel Pepys and so was pleased to come across this article about him, his shorthand, his sexual "peccadilloes", and let's face it his mysogyny and violence and arrogance . . . as well as the delicious daily life details of him being distracted by the small of shit from his neighbour, of him NOT cancelling a dinner party on the night of the Great Fire of London, and some great observations on the bourgeoisie and work from the reviewer. A reminder of why History matters.

Oh yes, that reminds me, my fave online feminist history site is Philobiblon.

But where was I, again? No, I need a bit more structure, and I seem to have begun this one not so much around an idea as a chronology ("what a difference, a day makes" -- lordy lordy, I can even hear her singing it). And the working day ended as so often, with the last hour an intense gallop towards the clock, knowing when I have to leave to pick M up from childcare. Cramming in phonecalls and emails and updates and decisions, and surprising young women in other parts of the country by saying I'd heard they did good work, and wanted to know more about who they were, what their skills are, and whether they might be available for 4 weeks, 3 months, 5 months of possible work etc.

Listened to the repeat of Late Night Live on the way to childcare, on the other side of town and closer to home, with some great stuff on the identity of Brisbane with journo Tony Koch and aca Julianne Schultz. Had been feeling a bit jaded and small-townish about the place in the last week or so (did I say I still miss Sydney???!!! well I do I do I do), so a reminder of its vibrance and art scene, the political radicalism that came in response to Joh Bjelke Petersen, the importance of the Springbok tour (although I was too young for that to register as other than historical) and, of course, the importance of the Fitzgerald Inquiry  which I do remember . . . made me feel better about having moved here 2 and a half years ago. But not entirely reconciled.

So, arrived to pick up my girl, who was in the midst of all the other babies and toddlers (great), but lying on her back on a cushion while they all sat up and did their thing (not so great). Was so pleased to see her didn't have the courage to suggest it'd be better if she'd been put in her TumbleForms chair, so that she could sit with them, be in the same eyeline, interact in a different way. Besides, I know they're very good at having her interact. And apparently she played with "goop" today, as part of a whole sensory play thing.

And ah, the warm soft smell of her neck as I carry her out . . .

Then home, and as she's sitting in my lap we check the home computer, and there's a lovely warm reply from Robin Barker, per my earlier post, and a response from my first ever known reader of this blog. Huh!

And to keep up the momentum, M and I do the whole bottle and cuddle thing; sing some songs; she plays in her chair; I finish making a batch of marmalade (yeah yeah, whatever, I find it relaxing); she's thrilled when Abe gets home; dinner of a slightly-too-gristly Osso Bucco I made (yes I AM the cook in the household, but abe does all the washing up and cleaning up and washing). M and I play on the lounge with a ball, even though she keeps sliding off to the side because she can't sit up unaided; while I have one eye on the Brit series "Grumpy Old Women", which had its amusing bits but really I want to grumpily declare they should retire the berloody franchise now . . .

And Abe has been playing with the baby downstairs, and now she's all very cute and ready for bed in her flanny jarmies, here on the spare bed in the study, while i think about heading off to mine, to read a reasonably entertaining history of cleanliness, or maybe to go back to the beginning of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas because it was so fabulous, or to pick up A S Byatt's Possession for 846th time, because it's the comfort read du jour.