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.

Orientation, North; Blog Carnivals; airports & Museums

It's hot; Morgaine's wheelchair/ mobility device has just been repaired; the plumber has fixed the broken loo; four cartons of thickened water and associated paraphernalie has arrived; my new freestanding punching bag has just been delivered; and Clancy is asleep. It's 11.15 am. There's ragu simmering on the stove, and I have a mental list as long as the meandering pile of crap on the loungeroom floor. Let's see what else I can get done, because hey, it's been a month.

In that time, the latest Feminist Blog Carnival, on disability, care, age, Lesbian Vampire Films and a whole range of related issues has gone up and, as always, stacks of good things to read and much admiration to the woman who put it together. I'm looking forward to having a bit more time and space in my life down the track, so I can host one myself and help share the organisational load, etc, but - well - not right now.

There's also more happening on the proposed National Disability Insurance Scheme, with a Productivity Commission report just announced.

Meanwhile, even though I'm no fan of the whole patriotic fervour associated with the Kokoda Track in PNG, I understood the frustration felt by paralympian Kurt Fearnley - who'd just crawled the Track - when he found that he couldn't use his wheelchair at the airport. Y'see, we just took Morgaine on a plane for the first time, to Cairns, partly to finish our aborted Northern adventure and partly to defiantly decide that we wouldn't be limited by too many ideas of what we couldn't do with her, where we couldn't go and so on. To be fair, we had an OK time of it - but fucking hell, the hoops and barriers and reinventing of the wheel that goes on.

First, you have to deal with the endless gatekeepers, when you try to find out just what the system is for taking mobility aids and needing supportive seating on the plane. And each person has slightly different, inconsistent, info. Won't go into the long boring details, but anyway, finally discovered that you contact the "Special Handling" section of the airline, and give them all the details: size, weight, condition, supporting documents. You check the seating availability, and what you can use. Give height, weight, dimensions of the mobility device. Check with the Civil Aviaiton Safety Authority about what's what. Read all the airline policy. Make many phonecalls, and write long emails. Think you know what's what.

Then arrive at the airport, and no one at the desk knows anything about it. You have to hand it to those lads from Little Britain, it all feels very "computer says no". Still, we did ok. After some fairly firm, but smiling and being LOVELY interactions, we made sure they tagged her chair, and that we took it all the way to the gate. Then, because she can't actually sit in any of the wheelchairs they make available at airports or for transfers on planes, we had to carry her on, struggle with the car seat, balance a wiggling Clancy, and try a bit of om-style deep breathing. Then hope like hell they were able to bring it up to the gate at the other end. And they did and it was fine. Clearly, no matter how well organised, you just have to reinvent the wheel, do the explanations, go through everything, and try to decide how to not piss anybody off . . . each and every bloody time. And I reckon Fearnley has been doing that all his life now, and just got a bit sick of it. Ah, but aren't they the unwritten rules? Be grateful, be charming, be good humoured, don't make a fuss, don't go to the media . . . and know that the next time it could be easy or a nightmare and there's no way at all of knowing.

It's still hot. I'm still feeling the press of all the things I need to do against the back of my neck.

I've bored myself with the travel logistics stuff.

Would rather be talking about the wet, green, strange and beautiful North. The Daintree. The Reef. Cape Tribulation. Atherton Tablelands and Mareeba. And if I knew where I'd put my notebook I'd be better able to do that: from Cook and myths of origins to the way some of these local museums turn you into an instant curator . . . I think I'll need to do all that another time. When it's not so hot.

Treetop walkways and bushwalking with a mobility device

So many allegedly "green" and other critiques of the world - especially about consumerism, authenticity, travel-versus-tourism, footprints on the world, and heaps of other things but I'm not in a list mood - are based on the unencumbered, the able-bodied, the young and the righteous. And hey, I don't like being put on the defensive. But here goes. If I could have an "authentic" experience, off the beaten track, with nature and without pollution, without too much luggage - or baggage - then I would. OK, well, if it involved camping I wouldn't, to be honest. I've never quite seen the point. But work with me on this. So if I could, I might, and if I did, I'd catch the train, and hoist a bag, and carry a bottle of water and a book, and hold hands with my fella, and we'd slather ourselves with sunblock and jump into the ocean without looking back.

Instead, when we head out, there's a carload of stuff. There's back up. There's a heavy-duty mobility device, pretending to be a pram. There's water, for three of us; but there's thickened water for Miz M, so she doesn't aspirate. There's carnitine, for Clancy, in case he decides to go into a metabolic meltdown. And yes, there are mobile phones, all charged up and ready to go.

But we still want to just run onto the sand, dive into the waves, hare off up a path. Like many a parent of toddlers, we can't; but unlike some of the others, we have to assess those paths with a practiced eye. Look at the curve. Contemplate the buried roots. Think about those rocks.

And so, instead, we ended up in the Lamington National Park, at a guesthouse, driving up a winding winding road on the Friday night. Abe, tense and tired and grumpy after a difficult day/ week/ month at work. Me, slightly unprepared and feeling hassled and hussled. Every 100 m or so there's another sign warning of a "blind corner", a single lane - but no warnings about unexpected demands to read maps, to alert to signposts, to beware overhanging cliffs or conversation, falling rocks of comments, and other moments in the front seat. No dramas in the back: two small children in flanelette pyjamas as the weather was strangely cool, and we were heading skywards. So, conversational gambits wound through my head as dangerously as the road, and came out like those wire baskets that stop the side of the road from falling in. One of my brothers-in-law spent a terrible summer filling and making those; a desparate job and days relieved only by drinking too much at the end of them, and talking shit with the instant-friends from the work group (him, not me). So instead, we reverted to silence, while on Radio National a terribly amusing grandson of the bullying, clever, dreadful Waughs spoke about fathers and sons, literary antecendents, and the power of letters in the archive. Funny and inspiring, but the road curves didn't get any easier.

Finally, we arrived, and it was cold. So we cranked up the heat in the room and dehydrated ourselves and baked, tossing and turning under covers imprinted with "regent bowerbirds" with their flashes of orange, while Clancy complained and wiggled and would only settle in our bed, where he threw out wild and indiscriminate little arms, to wack us each in the eye.

The next morning was clear and beautiful. Poor Abe was exhausted, and he and Clancy curled up together, sweetly snoozing as we'd finally made the room comfortable. So Morgaine and I headed off for a guided birdwatching walk, at 6.30, where we met up with a group of mostly-elderly cheerful couples, one funky pair of 40-somethings, and a woman who I thought had woken up in a giant flanny nightie and slipped on a jacket, ugly shoes and a fleece jacket, in what seemed a moment of bravado and confidence, and I was ready to admire her bushwalkery don't-give-a-damn . . . and then I realised later it was just a terribly unflattering skirt. Ooops. So we could mostly walk along the walkways, and see dozens of birds, explained by a dry, knowledgeable, interesting woman. Flashes of colour. Strange sounds - including a "cat bird", that could easily have been rechristened a "strangled cat bird" - and iconic sounds, given context.

Iconic sounds, like the "whip bird", which I've heard so many times, echoing around the bush, but had never seen. Birds that mate for life, and a more confident male came skimming and hopping along the ground, to accept various approved-offerings to take back to his mate. A sound that echoes off cavernous skies and across valleys, implying high branches and grand outlooks, but which instead come from the ground. I've always associated it with bushranger Ben Hall, and the romance of his defiant, anti-state stance, all fed by populist writer Frank Clune, and the TV version which gave me one of my first ever childhood crushes.

Morgaine, I suspect, wasn't thinkign about bushrangers as I pushed her through the bush, but she did seem to enjoy breathing in the air, hearing the trees, and getting ready for an extremely large breakfast.

Later in the day, we went on another boardwalk, up to treetop level in the rainforest . . . and this is one of the few ways she'll ever get to experience the bush. It'll be constrained, rather than wild and unexpected. It has to be wheelchair accessible. It can't easily be off the track, taking another path, following the road less trodden. So many many constraints for my sweet girl, and there's a challenge for parents of a child with a disability: how not to overly constrain, overly manage, hem in? Are those treetop walks a wonderful opportunity, or ridiculously lame?

Still, some of that managing of experiences is just about childhood, not about disability. Communing with nature? Well, how about paying 4 bucks for a metal tray of birdseed, especially selected so as not to damage the natural feed patterns of the Crimson Rosella . . . and then being swooped upon by these gaudy, raucous, beautiful, bright, unlikely looking birds. Clancy was entranced and amused; Morgaine laughed out loud and shook her feet at them; and I thought having these beautiful, raucous, bright (you get the picture) birds walking on my arms and landing on my hair was EEK GET OFF ME!!! GO AWAY! GET YOUR SCALY LITTLE FEET OFF MY BARE SKIN YUK YUK YUK. Apart from that, of course, it was fine . . .

Then on the way home, on the Sunday afternoon, we were able to enjoy winding down the mountain and actually being able to see. While at the bottom, there was a vineyard with a tasting room, and a river with simply gorgeous trees and outlook and a huge homestead, that - apart from being in completely the wrong state - seemed very Ethel Turner, very "Seven Little Australians". I had a surreptitious check under the tree to check that Judy wasn't there, squished, in one of the most memorable moments of melodrama from both literature and tv for me, rivalling my crush on Ben Hall. I always overdid things, as a kid, so as well as reading Seven Little Australians, I searched out the other books that followed in the series, including "House at Misrule" (is that what it was called?) which the librarian sourced from one of the teacher's own bookshelves. One of those ancient books where the pages are crisp, and corners break off it you're not careful. Now, I think that was a helluva effort that woman made for me, a ten year old who wanted to read ALL the books in the series. I can see the library now, a demountable, and a small round woman with dark hair.

From that, though, the idea of "Misrule" has always appealed to me. It appeals to me as a carnivalesque idea, but there's always been a touch of Australiana about it for me: a rambling house, a bunch of kids, some 1890s-style nationalism that proclaimed the Aussie kid as "different", by which she meant "different from" the English. But when you're ten, that "other" is hard to identify, even if you know it's there. And at a pinch, I wonder if I can remember their names, without checking: let's see - Meg, Pip, Judy, Baby, Bunty and the Major. I think I've left one out. None in a wheelchair, of course, because the tree branch that fell on Judy, in the book - and in the TV series when I was about 8, that broke her back, killed her rather than injured her. No space, there, for surviving in a different body. With the tree, she both lost her defiance and kept it forever. Remained an ideal. Occasionally, but not very often, that actor turns up in other roles on TV, and it's always surprising. She must have extricated herself, you think; she walked away after all. Perhaps those legs will walk, after all.

Anticipation, Asylums, Art

I'm almost cross-eyed with tiredness today - which is so boring as to be hardly worth mentioning. I've always found the endless "how are you, exhausted?" style of conversation oppressive: the way it's about work, and parenthood, and balance, and busyness, and perhaps a bit of competitive woe-is-me-ness. And so I tend to deny it (I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine, a new day has dawned Pollyanna). But as I'm sitting here in a mad outfit, hair in a bandana, and baby boy has finally drifted off, I'll admit it.

Still, I see this as a reprieve. I was going to take Morgaine to a Special School playgroup, with some terrific therapy and other possibilities built in, meeting other kids with disabilities, and so on and so on, but got a call to say that they were swimming today . . . and it's impossible to juggle Morgaine, baby Clancy and the risk of drowning all at once. So I said I'd leave it and she's off to childcare instead.

And in about two hours time I need to be off again to the "It Takes Two to Talk" language course.

So, much to anticipate.

But I've been pondering anticipation in a completely different form this week, because I've just read Sebastian Barry's novel a A Long Long Way. The first chapter I found a  little mannered, even though I was instinctively drawn to the story and the characters, and then whoosh, I was swept in and loved it. The writing was more poetic and graceful than other I'd read recently, and he seems to deliberately reverse the use of adjectives to pack more punch. And why anticipation? Because it's a kick-in-the-guts, fuck-you, this is too beautiful and tragic, story of the First World War. It's a longish novel, but I read it very quickly. And then there's little Willie Dunn, our hero, and there are a handful of pages left. Perhaps two chapters. And I'm beginning to note the dates with dread. It's the beginning of 1918, and 11 November is burned into me. So I fear there aren't enough pages left for him to make it to the end of the war. Oh no, Sweet William. So a book whose power made me clench my gut with the feel of it, had me clenching it again with knowing the dates. I remember the same thing happened as I read the truly extraoardinary trilogy by Pat Barker, the Regeneration series. The narrative continued, and in my head the historical narrative tripped along, and I started to notice the date with increasing dread.

But I came to Sebastian Barry through a combination of an Irish friend, and by hearing an iv with him by Ramona Koval on the Book Show on RN, about his new book, The Secret Scripture. A terrific talker. Also good, also powerful, although so far not quite as overwhelmingly immersive as Long Long Way. But the Secret Scripture is centrally about an asylum, a patient, and a psychiatrist trying to make sense of both her life and his own, and Irish history at the same time. Which made me think about psychiatrists, and of course psychiatry, memory, trauma, storytelling, poetry and all that is right at the heart of Pat Barker's Regeneration Series. And then there's also Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace, which also has a psychiatrist, an asylum, crime and femininity, and a sly poke at our expectations about heroines, narrative, veracity and guilt smack in the middle of it. And then for a local flavour, I remember the impact of historian Stephen Garton's work on Medicine and Madness  when I first read it. And so much of all that is also about gender. (Well, derr . . .)

I didn't realise I had so much incarceration on my bookshelves.

Although the other thing I liked about Barry's A Long Long Way, is that it gave me a different take on the Easter Uprising. I thought I'd approached that in an even-handed way in the past, but even the ambivalent versions of it, those that allowed doubt and pain and violence to creep in, still had an heroic edge to them. Like the exhilerating Roddy Doyle novel, A Star Called Henry - not at all like his Barrytown series; and allowing for the mythic and the everyday and the doubt to all be combined. Although I also remember it because of sitting in a pub in Newtown with a rather political firefighter who I rather fancied at the time - yes yes, years before meeting Abe - and we got rather shitfaced together, talked about Irish history and rebellion and writing, and in a slip of confusion I went home with his 20-something friend. Hmmmmm, how did that story get in here?

But anyway, Sebastian Barry's Long Long Way shows how confusing and divisive and heartbreaking the whole thing could be, and included the rare perspective of Irishmen who'd gone off to serve with the British army.

And like so much "so-called fiction", it shivered down into the present, with the events of this week. The Real IRA and the death of soldiers in Northern Ireland.

All of which puts my little concerns into a helluva perspective, so I don't think I'll bother going into detail on:

- the difficulties of disclosure. Went along to a parents group thing at Childcare, which meant hassling once again about physical access to the centre, the need for a proper turning circle and ramp and door etc, all of which I'm completely fine and calm and directed about. But instead, having to say to a group of strangers "my dughter has a disability" meant that my voice wobbled and cracked and shook and I FUCKING HATE THAT. Feel so exposed and wobbly, or Wallaby as lovely Dezzy says, that I start to loath myself.

- the spectre of yet more STUFF. We were rejected for charity-funding for the next bit of equipment we need, and it's going to be a standing frame thingy. I've seen a version with giant wheels, that could make life for Morgaine easier, or could be over-egging-the-pudding (and beating a mixed metaphor to death with a tire rather than a whisk) and could be logistically rather tricky. Dunno.

- the reality-check of Clancy's condition and the whole metabolic disorder thing. He's a little livewire charmer, doing extremely well, and went to have the checkup with the specialist yesterday. And we all agreed he was doing v well, but then I realised that good management of MCAD aside, there WILL BE a crisis at some point. (Is it really inevitable, I asked? Oh yes, they said, and weren't overly worried about that.) But hey, we're talking hospitalisation and rushing around with heart in mouth. So as the NZ-born actress once married to Rod Stewart said in a long-ago shampoo ad (how do these things lodge ourselves in our brain, whereas the complexities of superannuation management dont'?), "It Won't Heppen Overnight But It Will Heppen". So, brace yourself, girlie.

- and I could whinge about having a sore back and cracked-feeling ribs . . . no, that's too too dull.

- and then there's the whole relationships-and-negotiating stress, which we did incredibly badly last week, and then did rather well on the weekend. So no need to put THAT in writing, thank you very much.

- and of course there's the all-consuming fact I have completely mad hair at the moment, and no idea when I'll be able to get it cut and coloured (and yes, persist in defying and denying ageing - bugger the going grey gracefully malarchy).

Sparkiness & Reading a Slave Narrative

Of course, now I feel guilty for talking about Morgaine and intellectual disability, because she's been the epitome of sparky inquisitiveness today. Interested in things. Laughing as she bangs two balls together; and I dismantled a plastic keyboard thing and lay it on the ground so she could reach it easily while lying, and she was batting and banging away at it, taking great pleasure in the sound. Music and rhythm is so important, I'll have to find some way of doing more of that.

And Clancy - although still a 12 week old limpet - is hilarious. He coos and squeaks and squawks and responds and also does big open-mouthed smiles into my face.

It'll be interesting to see what happens with a 12 week long language development course Abe and I need to do to help M with her language delay. It's following the Toronto "Hanen Method", and the program we'll be doing is explcitly holistic/ family centred: but trying to work out the logistics of how the hell we do it, both of us, supposedely without children in tow, is doing my head in. I suspect in the end I'll do it one evening a week while Abe stays home with the babies; or else I'll do it with Clancy balanced in my lap and sucking away, which would be a bit hard on him. Pay attention and let me think, take notes, be active and apply all this, for 3 months. Hmmmm.

But given it's about carefully applying skills re learning to speak, there's a good chance it'll accelerate his language skills, while we try to bring along M's. So perhaps perhaps perhaps they'll learn to speak at the same time?

Because words, and language, of course open up entire words for us. I can still remember being so utterly immersed in library books as a child, that I'd often finsih part of the allocation before I'd even made it home: 4 hard covers plus 4 paperbacks or magazines, and I'd sit in the sun on the lounge out the frontn of the library, and read two or three books I'd borrowed, and have to go back in to return them and find some more, with surprisingly liberal librarians. They didn't object to a polymath, etc.

And now, in between children and breastfeeding and phonecalls and organising and all the rest, am rereading Lawrence Hill's Someone Knows My Name - which I first read only a week ago - and the power of language and knowledge is just one part of this terrific, devastating, slave narrative. (I must find out more about him - I believe there's an interesting personal story of activism etc in Canada.) It tells a life story, and while she is almost too good to be true, given the way in which the history is intertwined, and the horrifying reality of what was done to people, a fine complex "fuck you" heroine works for me. This one's fictional, but it's based on real slave narratives - and is completely engrossing. I read it in a rush over 2 or  3 nights, and the historical explanatory prologue is just as engaging as the rest. Although it's also unbrearable, of course.

But there's nothing like it for a sense of perspective. And as happened with the Stolen Generations here, it has stories of children ripped from their parents that makes me, huh, both weep and need to stop, right now, and see what that little sound means. Hard to express without sounding mawkish; and of course the marker of suffering is NOT NOT NOT about the impact thinking about any of this has on me. If I had time, I'd work out how to express that properly.

Aunts and Marmalade

Just had a terrific coffee with an old friend of mine, Dorrit, which reconnected me both to old friends, Sydney, and to the world of ideas. Not to mention that I've always known he's one of the funniest, cleverest people I know. Who managed to turn a potentially wistful or tragic story about his ill father, into a hilarious tale of miscommunication, drama, broken glass, and an ambulance driver named Glen. Really, he should be blogging.

As well as talking about marmalade and its importance (but not in a Paddington Bear, twee kind of way), but more in a taste, texture, obsessive cooking and slicing up blood oranges kind of way (that'd be me) . . . we also talked about telephone calls, work, and family.

Which reminded me of a conversation I had the other day with an elderly aunt, Dulcie. I hadn't spoken to her in a long time, so she didn't know I was pregnant. I thought I should tell her, given she was about to increase her tribe of great nieces and nephews. Besides, with the death of my mother a number of years ago, she remains a connection both to her, and to a whole other world and history . . . and vernacular. Dulce is almost 80, and speaks the language of a certain type of fierce old lady, emerging from working class Sydney and a father with a sharp tongue (my grandfather, a charming old bastard, but definitely a bastard) who went to the Ragged School in the Rocks; I used to think it was an idea and an attitude rather than a place, but in fact it's part of a whole nineteenth-century movement of reform and education for the "destitute and neglected" children), and a mother shamed by having had too many children and losing her respectability via poverty. So Dulce is the sort of woman who calls diabetes "sugar" (yes, she'll say, she's got a touch of sugar); and is forever showing her attitude to people by saying, "and I could have slapped them". Children are kiddies; annoying men are pipsqueaks; and an awful lot of people are no better than they oughta be.

Aunts interest me. I spent years developing my own status as an aunt, never sure whether I'd have any children of my own and, as I was in my early teens when I first became an aunt, I relished and grew with the position. Not that I was anything like my own aunts -- their social expectations were entirely different. And as mum had so many sisters (and I have 5 sisters of my own), there were also shifting generations of expectations. My parents believed in education, and that girls had every right to it; her sisters mostly thought that we were all getting a bit above ourselves, and that there was altogether too much university stuff going on. But the other thing, of course, is about age position. I'm wary of a lot of the simplistic, sociological stuff about position in the family, partly because it lacks history. I remember speaking to author Michael Grose about this once, and his argument about why "first borns rule the world and last borns are destined to change it" etc, and asked him how he factored in  the lot of youngest daughters whose role it used to be (not so long ago) to stay at home and look after their parents until they died. And he said he'd never thought about it. Which showed a weird gender blindness, I thought, and also goes to the ongoing questions about carers and gender, responsibility, and frameworks for understanding all that.

Because Dulce, like my dad's youngest sister April, stayed at home and lived with her parents until they died. As a consequence, both are surrounded by family stories and mythologies, about the romance of lost loves and missed opportunities - although their situations were very different. Dulce had a job, and after working in a clothing factory ended up with her own fabric shop -- or haberdashery -- where she would terrify customers into buying LESS material than they needed. Completley counterintuitive, but pretty funny to watch. And she attempted to give me a detailed lesson in how to attach bias-binding, over the phone the other day, when I admitted that making little shirts for Morgaine had completely defeated me. She was reduced to helpless laughter when I admitted that I could make pants, but that when I accidentally sewed on one leg inside out, I just covered up the seam with braid and pretended I'd meant it to look like that. To her, it was funny because it was so impossibly stupid; and we both knew my mother would have made me unpick it, in the interests of perfection.

I also have some of Dulce's hats, bought in the 1950s when she lived for a while in Fashionable Melbourne with a tear-away sister who spent part of the late 40s turning up at home on the back of motorbikes; and who returned from Melbourne a single parent in the 1950s. Interestingly, everyone coped. Similarly, there was a gay woman cousin who worked as a mechanic during the war, and who would occasionally turn up for Sunday dinner with her girlfriend. It only seemed to annoy mum and her sisters because they had to do a last minute redistribution of food onto two extra dinner plates. So just when you thought you had all the prejudices worked out, they'd go and surprise you.

And, of course, they've all been compltely matter-of-fact about M's disability, and talk about Special Schools and the kiddy down the road in the wheelchair and other stories. I wonder whether it's connected to that generation's intimate knowledge of Polio?

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.