Firsts
The first year of Louisette’s life has been VERY exciting, and as I tried to think of new and interesting photos for each day I took a lot of photos of significant moments. Suddenly her babyhood is over and I want to make sure I remember every second. A photo a day wasn’t enough, but it’s a start.
In Jan/Feb, she was born:
She took several days to open her eyes for more than an instant:
Another day or two to look at me for the first time:
And another day or two before she was genuinely awake for the first time:
She had her first hundred or so stories:
She noticed her own limbs, and was Deeply Concerned:
In Feb/March, she grew interested in looking at things:
Discovered the joy of dummies:
Would sometimes accept tummy time without complaint (it’s very good for young babies – to develop skills for crawling, and to keep the back of their heads from becoming too flat):
Began baby push-ups:
And learned to smile:
In March/April she began flailing in the direction of dangling toys:
Laughed (complete with joyful flailing):
Visited Hong Kong and Beijing:
Deliberately grabbed a toy for the first time:
Began playing simple games:
Learned the joy of “Ooh, shiny!”
Could sleep anywhere, anytime (including in a freezing Mongolian wind):
And discovered that her hands were both portable and useful:
In April/May she loved to fly:
Loved to sit up:
Realised tummy time meant, someday crawling – and tried SO hard to make it work:
Decided water, her screamworthy enemy, was actually kind of cool:
Impressed everyone with her ability to stand:
Held hands with A Boy:
And plunged headlong into the world of toys:
In May/June she began eating solid food:
Was fascinated by the pretty girl in the mirror:
Began using fine motor skills (I said BEGAN…):
Loved being upside down:
Attempted to interact with the cats:
And found her feet:
In June/July she began saying “Mum” when she wanted me to come, and was suddenly able to push herself up on hands and knees:
Could stand up with only a Jolly Jumper, a hand on her back, or something to hold on to herself:
Could turn the pages of her board books:
And had her official dedication at church:
In July/August, now six months old, she learned the joy of not sharing:
Learned crawling in stages – first she would go up on hands and knees and faceplant herself forward, then she began pawing the ground like a horse – and then BOOM! She could crawl.
This meant that when she saw a toy truck for the first time, she could race across a room and play with THAT:
Meanwhile, walking!
. . . drumming. . .
. . . and drinking from a sippy cup (which took a few days to learn).
In August/September she was suddenly much harder to photograph (too darn quick – but she now threw up only about once a week, down from a six-week peak during which she threw up a dozen times every day):
She also learned to take her books (and Mummy and Daddy’s CDs) off bookshelves:
Visited Questacon and Cockington Green:
Could pull herself up from the floor and cruise (walk along furniture):
She had her skin tag removed (from her face; all this is just to check all’s well – which it was):
Grew her first teeth (that’s a special finger-toothbrush daddy’s using):
Attempted self-feeding:
and taught herself to flip paper pages:
In September/October she couldn’t play outside for thirty seconds without choking on something:
Established herself as a climber:
LOVED water:
Went to Floriade:
Turned out to be surprisingly good at catching a rolled ball (it was another month or two before she was good at passing it back and forth):
Developed anticipation (of falling) for the first time (but could stand up herself by leaning against something):
and could climb stairs:
In October/November she usually (but not always) slept on her tummy with her bum in the air:
Looked awesome in pigtails – but continued to have plenty of bad hair days:
Loved to stick her tongue out:
Was fascinated by her tiny cousin:
Was very comfortable in the water, but continued to try and drink it – all of it – whenever we encouraged her to try holding her breath and putting her head under:
Learned to drink her own bottle (finally – although it took a while for her to have the strength to drink the whole bottle without someone else taking over):
Heartily enjoyed Nanny’s swing:
And made significant progress towards consistently getting down from the couch safely (mastered it a month later, with rare exceptions):
In October/November she grew to loathe bibs (and insisted on finger-feeding herself as much as possible):
Could suddenly clap and wave:
LOVED the beach:
And was reasonably gentle with Ana most of the time:
In December/January she babbled constantly (featuring much “Mum/Mummy”, “Dad/Daddy”, “gat/dat/cat”, and the so-called Indian war cry – then she added “duck” and the occasional “dog”, and then became obsessed with saying “dat” – that – and pointing at things):
She went to her first Carols night:
Where she saw her dad play bass for the first time:
And instantly and obsessively grasped the allure of the stage:
She also began standing independently for the first time:
Could ride on her dad’s back:
On December 24th she suddenly realised she could walk across a room pushing her beloved car:
And then she had her first Christmas (and her first taste of ice cream):
On New Years’ Eve she put her face fully underwater and blew bubbles for the first time. Meanwhile, her top two teeth were coming through (and then another pair on the bottom, too):
At age one she could amuse herself very well for long periods of time as long as someone was in the room admiring her (being on the computer doesn’t cut it), and could last about two minutes properly alone before getting annoyed. She could identify photos and certain animal pictures correctly more often than not, and would usually self-settle. When she wanted a story, she would bring a book to us and attempt to climb into our laps – sometimes grabbing our hand and forcibly placing the book in it. She could climb onto some couches without assistance or props (yikes). She still drooled a fair bit, and loved to put everything (including her youngest cousin) in her mouth.
On 2 January she attempted her first solo step. On January 11, she took her first solo step. This video was taken the day before her birthday (that is, January 14). And that’s that: Goodbye, baby: Hello toddler. A whole new adventure begins now.
Happy birthday, Louisette.
Kindle Review
I’ve owned a Kindle Prime (the old, black and white version) for more than a month now, and I luuuuurrrve it. I’ve been rolling my eyes at e-reader devotees for years, but when my Dad asked me to look at his I was converted in an instant, epiphany-style. One glance and I realised, “Oh. It’s a book!” (All the best epiphanies sound stupid when said out loud – I love him! What if we took bread and sliced it?)
The Kindle is just….books. A portable library that aims to simply let you read the stories and forget it’s there. And it succeeds almost instantly. I understood how to buy and read a book on it in about thirty seconds, and after five minutes more I was proficient in a few features. I actually use it to check my email (it can JUST access Hotmail, telling me I have email from so-and-so but not letting me open it – on my first few attempts it’d crash and at one stage I thought I’d broken it).
The page-turn buttons on each side are great, except I’ve had to teach myself not to accidentally press them whenever I pick it up or shift position. It also takes a little while to get used to a screen that’s not a touch screen (and having seen an amazing interactive children’s book on an ipad, I realise the lack of touch means missing out on a whole world of awesome), but these days I’d much, much rather own a book on my kindle than on paper.
I’ve recharged the battery only once, and was delighted that my kindle told me (in heaps of time and repeatedly) that the battery was running low. So if my book ever does run out of batteries, it’s definitely not the book’s fault.
I’m still getting used to the sense of how long a book will take to read. I know how long it takes me to read 100 pages, and I can instinctively adjust it for the size of the book and the typeface. But the Kindle is different. If you push a button, it will display “Location 456 of 987” (or whatever) but these make very little sense. I guess there are bugs to work out. Luckily, there is also a display bar at the bottom of the screen showing where you are up to in a book with a lengthening black bar and a percentage. This is brilliant (especially because it has dots for chapter divisions) but/and it changes the timing for each book. By now I’m starting to get the hang of it instinctively, but it’s definitely not as accurate when it comes to the inevitable, “Should I try to finish it before going to bed/work?” question.
Before my kindle arrived, I had a notion of happily reading in bed, not having to break a book’s spine to see words close to the margin, and not having to support the weight of the book with my arm when reading the “wrong” side. (Yes, I really am lazy enough that these things annoy me.) It’s even better: I can prop it up on its cover ($40 for lovely leather with a gorgeous look and charming tactile feel that appeals to my steampunk self) and use no hands at all. Oh, I like. (Speaking of steampunk-friendly aesthetics, I really like the black and white screensavers too.) Also, the book keeps my place for me and can bookmark other bits wherever I like. No more losing a vital scrap of torn paper and trying to figure out where I am without accidentally reading ahead.
Unlike the ipad, it’s certainly not designed to be multi-functional – but it DOES handle glare beautifully: better, in fact, than paper. And because the original Kindle is so old in tech terms, you can get one for under $100. And when your book is done, you can buy another one without getting out of bed.
I really, really love my Kindle.
(No, sadly they’re not paying me to say this.)
And the winner is……
*cough*
This is a bit embarrassing.
I was slightly hesitant to give away the only print copy of my book, so I had CJ enter the contest to win a copy. And, um, he won. We really did spend out $3 to buy the book, and this contest result really was random.
You may deride my methods in the comments. Who knows? Maybe I’ll give it away again another day.
Top Twenty-Five Photos of my Louisette 365 Project
I like this shot because it’s so simple and so complicated. It was most definitely planned, and planned to be public – I blogged and tweeted throughout the labour, and every blogger knows “pics or it didn’t happen”. I didn’t really like the idea of having a shirtless photo (most people give birth naked just because labour is a bit like that, and then immediately breastfeed because motherhood is a bit like that – skin on skin contact is great for the baby if you can get it) so I carefully instructed my sister to help me get a shirt on, take the, “Hey look! Baby! Tired mum!” photo, and then take the shirt away again. I also remembered at the time to ask for a shirt immediately after Louisette was born.
My sister took the photo – a few actually – and I thought to myself, “Honest facial expression! No gooey stuff!” because that’s how I roll.
Those photos are rubbish, and have long since been deleted.
Once that job was done, and I’d stated for the record that I was definitely going to have another child (about thirty seconds later) I was free to adore my astonishing miracle. Technically, the birth wasn’t even fully over (the baby was out, but not the afterbirth – which, incidentally, I’m told was a particularly fine specimen). That’s when my sister took the above photo.
I love it because there’s nothing but us in the photo, and you can clearly see both our faces, and exactly how impressed/unimpressed we are. I love it because I’m not aware of getting my photo taken – just of Louisette. I like that I don’t just have the usual makeup-free flushed face and sweat-tangled hair of all these type of photos, but there is a cut on my lip – the kind of small detail in a bigger story that is the most memorable part (I don’t know if my lips just dried out and cracked, or if I bit it and didn’t notice). And I love that you can see her tiny hand.
This photo was taken when Louisette was four days old, and we took her back to the hospital (we had stayed in hospital overnight and left in the morning – less than a day after Louisette was born) for standard hearing tests. Since it was her first outing, I decided to dress her in all her best finery for the occasion. This photo and the next (taken on the same day) show just how tiny she was.
CJ was soothing Louisette while we were at the hospital, and I caught that moment – wedding ring, tiny exasperated face, and that tightly-clenching hand of a girl already familiar with her dad’s voice and smell. This photo is my absolute favourite. In a way, it is our family photo – we are all represented.
This was the first time I deliberately set up a pose for Louisette – in the washing basket. That is our actual washing, hastily shoved about for a few seconds as I realised the excellent balance of colours.
Louisette used to fall asleep on my lap during every feed, and the cuteness was heartbreaking. It’s not particularly easy to take a photo of something in one’s own lap (something who’s over half a metre long when she isn’t scrunched up). The key is having good long arms. . .
I like this shot for its simplicity, and for the directness of her gaze. She was only a couple of months old at the time.
My mum loves to give presents, and went overboard over Louisette before CJ and I were even trying to conceive. When I was pregnant I was so sick the gifts barely registered, but this giraffe mobile arrived at just the right moment as the nausea hormones lessened and some of the happy hormones were able to get through. I was obsessed with it throughout the pregnancy. Louisette likes it too 🙂
That jacket was the first item of clothing we bought for her (with a voucher) after she was born, and she wore it a LOT because it was so beautiful. Sidebar: she was actually born with genuine furry ears, like a cat or an elf woman.
I just love images with sand, water, and mountains – all together (like here in Hong Kong) is particularly good. I like CJ and Louisette too. This photo almost didn’t make the shortlist, because of the haze. Sadly, that’s Hong Kong for you.
I’m constitutionally incapable of leaving out China’s Great Wall in any list of personal favourite visuals. It’s a stunning monument in a grand setting. I also don’t mind this picture of me.
It takes a rare piece of luck to get such a portrait-like photo of a baby. I’m grateful for the simple background keeping the focus on her adorable face. This list would be incomplete without at least one shot that makes me fall into her big blue eyes.
As you can imagine, this photo is also the result of luck, and a LOT of it. All awake? None feeding or crying? And Louisette cleverly making herself stand out amongst the crowd? Perfection!
Louisette still plays with several members of this crowd, and I hope she always does.
Louisette with both her girl cousins. The cuteness here is off the scale (hugging Louisette was the 2-year old’s idea, and Louisette was delighted); all three are happy and in focus (believe me, that’s not easy!) and the colours work nicely together.
The hardest part of this photo was the speed at which I needed to get the shots in between pulling grass, leaves, and twigs (she always prefers choking hazards to mere dirt) out of her mouth. She’d just started sometimes looking at items briefly before tasting them, so the idea of taking her photo in the ivy happened not a moment too soon. It was actually just a nature strip at a playground (with slovenly youths wandering by lighting fires on picnic tables), but it looks fantastical and lush here.
The colours of autumn in Canberra make it worth braving the cold. I like that we’re both in furry hoods here. This was taken beside Lake Burley Griffin, near Questacon. It’s been called “The Drop Bear Picture” ever since.
The colours happened by accident. It all just came together (although I realised the shot could be great, and flung off the couch cover and moved CJ’s arm to make it just right). I love that we caught the brief period when she was doing that sweet little hand gesture, too.
This shot genuinely just happened. I love the way Louisette lights up in or around water, but I’m rarely able to use a camera at the same time. This is her having a bath in our plastic paddle-pool shell on the balcony.
Ever since she learned to roll over, Louisette has preferred to sleep on her tummy, but this time she was so tired that she passed out without even grabbing Eeyore off her chest first. I guessed – correctly – that she’d stay asleep even if I removed her dummy. Since you can see her whole face, this is a favourite among all her sleeping photos.
This photo was taken on Christmas Eve, when we introduced Lousiette to the concept of presents for the first time. At first she was intrigued, then bewildered, then she got it. I was taking about a million photos, and this one caught the mess, the obsessive photo-taking (CJ took a million photos too, using his phone), and – most importantly – her smile.
I must confess that although I took many photos almost exactly like this one, my camera was sorely outdone by the camera (and photography know-how) of a friend. I’m just glad he passed this on! I love the circles of the tunnel – all the more so with the hat-circles echoing the theme. You can see she’s a tiny bit overwhelmed by the newness, but she’s not going to let it stop her having fun.
I was annoyed that the last photo in this list wasn’t even technically one of mine so, realising that Louisette loved her new chair and that the foam and bricks made a nice geometric background, I took eighty photos in very quick succession. Once I had them down to a (very respectable) top ten, I saw that (despite my conscious efforts) this was the only one in which the photo was actually straight. Arg!
The expression is a classic, so I don’t mind leaving out the ones of her laughing.
Ah, who am I kidding? I love this one too.
PS Thank you to Jolyon for rotating this photo so it was straight!
The ball pit is a brilliant background. . . if you can get a child to stay still (and not weirded out) long enough. This was not a first attempt at this shot. I love her dress (if I’d dressed her specifically for the ball pit I would have chosen a plain colour, and I think that wouldn’t have worked as well – she’d have disappeared into the mass) and her long legs.
Usually for this list, I leave out the blurry ones (which cuts out a large proportion of even the good photos). But this perfectly captures a moment when Louisette is industriously emptying the ball pit (apologies to the Hellenic Club, incidentally) and her two-year-old cousin (borrowed specifically to thrill Louisette on her birthday – she was out of her mind with delight to have her cousin, both parents AND a playground all in one hour) doing backstroke. Because it’s a ball pit, and that’s what you do.
I wanted a really excellent birthday portrait to end the 365 project. To cut a long story short, I took over three hundred photos and used up six batteries – but I expanded this blog entry from a top twenty to a top twenty-five in a single day. The balcony in the morning has really excellent natural light, and so when I saw Louisette playing with the ball in front of her decorated box, I thought, “Man, if only this whole scene was happening outside where I could get a nice photo of all the colours and smiling together.” So I picked everything up and moved it – and it worked.
The other birthday photo I really wanted to finish off the 365 Project was a mother-daughter moment to echo the first photo in this set. I dressed in dark pink to complement her (then trimmed it out of the final shot but whatever) and picked a plain background – in this case, our carport – still using morning light. I chose this one out of the final four because Louisette is facing the camera and I’m facing her – just like in that first photo we had together.
Also, she’s adorable.
Glitterbug: The First Birthday
Louisette turned one ages ago, but I delayed her birthday so that I could wrangle every single one of Louisette’s cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents into one place at one time – not an easy task when Bil and Bonnie live in Beijing!
So other than that Herculean task (it took literally months to coordinate), I had one goal: As little stress to myself as possible. And, ideally, the same for Louisette (it’s so sad when one-year olds cry through their entire party – Louisette is very social, so I knew I had a fair bit of wiggle room there, but I still made sure her actual birth day was genuinely all about her – we borrowed one of her cousins and met Dad at a playground, and Louisette was thrilled). Every parent knows the first birthday isn’t about the kid – it’s about the parents, friends, and family.
So, the family (with the bonus of my godparents, who visited specially from Sydney):
Yes, that huge crowd is fundamentally just the immediate family of CJ and myself, plus the immediate family our brothers and sisters have married or created themselves. And there’s plenty more in Louisette’s generation to come.
We had the party outside (at Weston Park, where parking, toilets, and a playground are all located close together) because our house was too small, and both our parental units have a LOT of people staying with them. Also, I didn’t want to have a big tidy up at a parental home.
The disadvantages were that I needed to personally stake out the one good bit of shelter (it was very hot and there was scattered rain with stormclouds threatening), which meant leaving CJ at home to simultaneously mind Louisette and prepare food. Poor CJ, and poor me (attempting to remember everything from afar, while pointedly putting up balloons so other people would leave Our Spot).
I cunningly had my brilliant sister make the cake (a huge stress averted, including the transportation of said cake):
Louisette was allowed a sizeable piece, AND she got to feed herself.
I found Louisette’s dress online (gorgeous! And fully washable) and simply waited until Bil and Bonnie asked us what we wanted as a gift (I have awesome friends who understand my ways so well 🙂 ). I also took two changes of clothes for her. She rode a miniature train, played on a playground and had fun with a kids around her own age (all of whom were carefully photographed so if they’re BFFs in future they can prove the friendship started super early):
And of course there were presents, yay! Check out Louisette’s intense concentration.
Financial cost: $0 (those who could brought a plate to share, and there was a huge pile of leftovers)
Stress cost: Could have been so much worse.
Summary: Full family achieved; awesome cake made and devoured; pile of toys received; fun had.
Next year I think we’ll stay at home, though 🙂
Ten Questions for Feminist Mums
Regular readers will know that I’m a fan of feminist blog blue milk*. She likes to read the responses of other feminist mums to the following ten questions, and since I’m currently promoting my ebook SEE THROUGH, she’ll be posting extracts of this on her blog.
How would you describe your feminism in one sentence? When did you become a feminist? Was it before or after you became a mother?
Duh. Of COURSE women are as good as men, as smart as men, and deserve to be paid as well as men – in money, in respect, and in equal shares of the annoying/gross/stressful/responsible household jobs. It took me many years to realise not everyone thought that way – and that very few people truly act that way, including myself.
What has surprised you most about motherhood?
My experience is, I think, unique – having a baby did something to my body chemistry (and my heart) and I recovered from seven years of mental illness. Early in my marriage I wasn’t sure if I should have children, because it looked quite likely I’d be unable to care for a child. But after talking to family members (mainly to check I could rely on a lot of emergency babysitting if I had to) I took the chance.
Before I was a mother, I could work a maximum of twelve hours a week. Now, in addition to looking after my own baby, I also babysit other young children for up to ten hours a day, thirty-five hours a week, on a regular basis. I think it’s possible there was some kind of chemical reboot during pregnancy (and all the pro-baby hormones helped), but it’s also because I desperately needed a grand, all-encompassing purpose in life – and for me, being a mother is that meaningful and satisfying. (Although doing paid work is also vital to me to feel like a human – a belief that is fundamentally flawed, but too close to my centre for me to cast aside.) I still have panic attacks and times when I can barely get dressed, but ultimately I’m pretty functional. Most women’s sanity goes in the opposite direction with motherhood.
How has your feminism changed over time? What is the impact of motherhood on your feminism?
Getting married turned gender roles into an obsession long before I had a baby. When little Louisette arrived, the spotlight on my marriage grew even more intense.
For me, the weakest point of my marriage is the risk of falling into a mother-child relationship with my husband. Anyone who can’t be trusted to do their share of household chores is not an adult.
I knew it was the weakest point of our relationship before we married, and have carefully (often tearfully) explained it to my husband over and over. He simply doesn’t understand what I’m saying. The more powerful members of society never do understand what it’s like to be the less powerful member. That’s one of the perks of power – everything seems fair from where you’re standing.
It’s not all his fault, however. Organising things and making household decisions (from groceries to what kind of house to buy) makes me feel powerful, so I have a tendency to jump in before he has a chance to do his part. It’s not like he’s the only one sending us in that fatal mother-child direction. (And yes, it’s definitely fatal. How can I be in love with someone I see as a child? How can he be in love with his mother?)
Having a daughter also gives me a highly convenient litmus test for feminism. All I have to do is think, “How would I want my daughter treated in this situation?” and I know when someone is treating me badly. I hope that by the time Louisette grows up she’ll have enough self-worth to figure out her rights without needing a prop.
What makes your mothering feminist? How does your approach differ from a non-feminist mother’s? How does feminism impact upon your parenting?
I tread a compromised path, like all mothers. To survive in our society, I think a woman must be able to believe in her own attractiveness, and I choose not to fight that particular battle, because I know Louisette would suffer for it. My prettifying efforts started from her birth, when I dressed her in attractive and usually pink clothing. I believe a girl who is constantly told how pretty she is as a child will be better able to handle the sudden awareness of societal messages saying, “Shouldn’t you be thinner? Shouldn’t you have bigger breasts? Shouldn’t you have blonder hair?” as she grows up. I will teach her to use make-up, to shave her legs, to do her hair. She can stop doing any of those things if she wants to, but she’ll have the skills to fit in if she chooses the more comfortable path.
At the same time I already try to steer her away from the stories that equate goodness and worth with beauty, and that tell the reader the purpose of life is to get married – like Cinderella. Beauty is nice, and everyone has a little bit – but there must be more to you than that.
The correct response to this photo is, “Awwww!”
As a writer, I believe stories tell us who we are and what matters. When I write my own novels, my protagonists are almost always female. They have problems, and they solve them – actively. When they like a boy, they generally tell him, and if a boy treats them badly they don’t stick around. Why would they? But generally they’re too busy saving the day to care too much what boys think. Isn’t that true of all the world’s most interesting women?
Most of all I try to be aware of the contradictions in both society and myself, so that when my little one is old enough she can sort truth from lies, and choose what compromises to make in her own life.
Mental illness runs in my family, so I try to teach Louisette resilience as both a preventative and a cure. I watched a psychology video once that presented toddlers with a problem. Both started off by crying for help, but when no help arrived in a few moments the boys stopped crying and attempted to solve the problem themselves. The girls continued crying.
I try so hard to sit on my hands when my own baby has a frustrating problem to solve – so she learns that waiting to be rescued isn’t the solution to everything. You can’t learn resilience without frustration, and you can’t learn it without pain. Sometimes I have to let her fall down. I remind myself constantly that we all unconsciously let little girls fall down less often than little boys – and that’s not a good thing. (We also shush little girls more than little boys, but that’s another story.)
Do you ever feel compromised as a feminist mother? Do you ever feel you’ve failed as a feminist mother?
Of course, always! I could lie awake every night thinking about the mistakes I’ve made – or I could be transparent and let my daughter see the cogs working. “Mummy usually takes care of remembering birthdays, because Daddy doesn’t like to organise things. Daddy usually drives the car because Mummy likes looking out the window.” I have a lot of faith in thoughtfulness and questions.
Has identifying as a feminist mother ever been difficult? Why?
LOL! I literally got up from the desk before answering this question, and moved some large-but-light toys onto the couch. Why? Because my husband is vacuuming right now and I’m aware that he won’t move the toys himself – and our daughter has a habit of attempting to eat cat hair that she will most certainly find beneath her own toys. While our marriage is probably the envy of many readers (he vacuums? Every week?!) it has its weaknesses – and Louisette will echo our relationship patterns for the rest of her life.
Incidentally, I also pointed out to my husband a few moments ago that now was his last chance to vacuum this weekend (baby asleep; no guests; not late at night). He appears incapable of figuring this out himself – which makes all the household chores my responsibility, regardless of who physically does them. That’s not right.
My husband will be the image of “normal man” for my daughter – most potently, the way he treats me (the image of “normal woman”). If I don’t pursue equality in my marriage, how can I expect my daughter to pursue it in her life?
Motherhood involves sacrifice, how do you reconcile that with being a feminist?
From the age of twelve to twenty-four I planned to move to Indonesia to teach in slum schools for free. . . . so Australian motherhood seems easy in comparison. The important thing for me is the ratio of meaningfulness to sacrifice. Given that motherhood more or less cured me from mental illness, giving me my life back – I’m still gaining a lot more than I’m losing.
It’s interesting that it was only after having a baby that I finally published a novel for the first time. Parenthood is sufficiently daunting that, in comparison, almost nothing is scary.
This was the best picture of Louisette and I that was taken on my first Mothers’ Day – and yes, I’m wiping up her spew.
If you have a partner, how does your partner feel about your feminist motherhood? What is the impact of your feminism on your partner?
My husband spends a lot of time observing other people’s female children from birth to young adulthood, and thinking about the kind of girl and woman he wants our daughter to be. If nothing else, his hopes for her make him a feminist. He wants her to know her strength, to be respected, to be herself.
When he’s at home, he doesn’t “help” me look after her – he just looks after her.
Feminism has given him a more interesting wife.
If you’re an attachment parenting mother, what challenges if any does this pose for your feminism and how have you resolved them?
Mother Nature is definitely sexist – just look at the female reproductive process as compared to the male contribution. On the other hand, while I’m furious that women are still often forced to abandon their career to be a mum, I think all of the horror show of pregnancy and birth is worth it for women to get first dibs on the opportunity to be the stay at home parent. Because I imagine it’s easier for a woman to choose this life than a man.
I love being around my daughter all day, every day (with certain much-needed breaks) and I have a unique solution to my own attachment to her, as opposed to my longing to work. My job is writing novels and babysitting – and in both jobs I have my daughter with me. The pressure is enormous sometimes, but I have everything I need.
Do you feel feminism has failed mothers and if so how? Personally, what do you think feminism has given mothers?
It has definitely failed mothers, because pretty much every woman I know feels she has to do paid work, whether that is her preferred choice or not. The cliché that motherhood is the most important job in the world? I actually believe it. That belief cured my mental illness and gave me my life back. Apart from anything else, it’s parents that teach the next generation how society should be – so if we want the world to change, motherhood is where it’s at. Being a mother doesn’t take away any of my ability to think, read, write novels, work for money, or be an interesting person. It is tragic that so few women have the choice to stay at home.
—————————————————————————————————
*This is not a child-safe blog, FYI.
Ebook contest
My sweet innocent* ebook is now just over a week old and ready to get properly to work. Yep, it’s giveaway time!
I happen to have something entirely unique: the one and only print copy of this book. It’s all the more unique because it’s not actually the finished version – it’s the third draft (long story). Even the title is different – “Justice is Blind” instead of “See Through”.
So this is the prize (not the child – she’s strictly there as an uncredited and unpaid model although it’s possible that you could clone her if you take a very close look at one of the corners of the book):
How to enter:
First, buy the ebook here (if you don’t have an ereader, don’t worry – it’s available in a wide range of formats including versions you can read on your computer) by February 24 2013. That will cost you all of $2.99.
Second, email fellissimo at hotmail dot com and tell me that you bought it. You will be entered in the random draw, which will happen on the 25th of February. You’ll be emailed if you are the winner, and if you have a blog or etsy or other website you’d like me to link to, I’ll do that from here.
Your prize will be the physical book – signed of course.
YES if you’ve already bought the book of course you can enter.
If you’re interested in the process of publishing an ebook, I wrote a guest post all about it here.
*Well, it’s a bit violent at times but what young child isn’t?
Monthly Photos: Lady in Red
PS The rather brilliant Australian fantasy author Rowena Cory Daniells let me start my ebook blog tour at her place, where I talk about how the book that I wasn’t meant to write came to be.
————————————————————————————————————————
When Louisette was four days old, I put her in a red dress and took the photo below. I liked it so much I tried it again exactly two month later – and a (mostly) monthly tradition was born. Here are twelve photos taken over one year, on roughly the same day of each month (as you can tell, I forgot a few):
Cry, Wolf (free contemporary fantasy short story, PG for violence)
I howled for the joy of night and the hunt. The rain and the darkness fell as one, and I licked them up. I leapt and streaked through the trees, and the rabbits knew my name. They knew my name was death. Their name was dinner.
I smelled the wet earth, and the rot of pine needles thick under my paws. The taste of the air was river-fresh and water-wet. I opened my mouth to lap at the rabbits’ sweat as it steamed in the chill air. My dinner smelled of panic. I ran, they ran; the rain ran down the trees.
Howls broke out beside me, and I couldn’t name whose howls they were.
It wasn’t the song of Bristle-Fur, my pack’s alpha male, or of Broken-Teeth, his mate. Long-Tail was a long way behind, and his yaps were faint as footfalls. He never could keep up.
I didn’t recognise the howls at all, and put on a burst of speed. The rabbits appeared and disappeared as they bounded up and down. “My food,” I snapped to the strange she-wolf beside me. “Go hunt with your own pack.”
The bitch burst from a screen of bushes and locked her teeth around my shoulder. It burned.
I couldn’t drag both her and her wet coat no matter how I ached for fresh meat. We two wolves tumbled over and over, off balance and angry.
I felt a warm fluid oozing from my shoulder. The she-wolf had let go and I was bleeding. I struggled upright.
My fur stood to attention when she dared to face me, her back to a broken tree. The colours of her coat mirrored the night sky, where clouds scattered to hunt the full moon.
I didn’t like the way she looked. The mottling of her fur shaded her body in the wrong places, making her shape waver and bulge. I growled, and she lowered her belly against the ground, suddenly submissive. She pointed her muzzle up at me and whined. I quivered with the wrongness of it all: “What are you playing at?”
“I’ve changed you,” she said. “Don’t be afraid.”
“Of you? Your pack?” I barked short and sharp, and she tipped herself onto the ground, drawing her front paws in toward her chest.
Her belly was paler than the rest of her, and her teats grew out of shape. They were larger toward her neck. I turned away in disgust.
“Forgive me,” she said, and her voice screeched like a human in my ears. I turned back to see how she made that sound. My ears flattened against my head. She was writhing on the ground, whimpering, knocking her back paws against the dead tree. I crouched into the prickly sweetness of the pine needles and watched.
She changed in front of my eyes. Her body stretched out, and her fur turned pinkish white. It vanished against her skin. The fur on top of her head grew long, yellow and curling. Her claws turned stubby and wide, the same off-pink as the rest of her. Suddenly she stood over me, balanced on elongated hind legs that were thick with fat. She smelled of control and death. She was human.
“Forgive me,” she said again in her high voice. “I didn’t want to be alone.”
My bitten shoulder seared me with new pain. I squealed with it. But the human wasn’t touching me.
She watched silently as the bite she made tortured me. I twisted my body into the ground, itching so badly I wanted to scrape my fur right off. Desperate, I bit into my own flesh to ease its pain. My fur filled my mouth – and then it shrank under my teeth.
All I had left was a mouthful of blood, stuck through with pine needles. Beyond that was my naked skin, smooth as a snake. I sat bare and shivering on the ground, with my hind legs poking out in front of me. Big fat legs, good for nothing but eating.
There was a root sticking into the back of my knees. I could feel every knobble of the bark. No fur. . . My shoulder settled into a pulsing, but normal, wound, and I lifted my hands to press on it. I had hands, two of them, and my claws were gone. Lifting my hairless chin, I tried to howl. I screamed.
“It’s all right,” said the other girl. “The first change is always a shock.”
“What have you – am I –” I stopped and snarled at her.
“Oh, you can talk. That’s good.”
I swore.
“You’re adapting well,” she said.
I clenched my teeth against more screams and waited until my heart stopped thumping out of my bent ribs.
“What is going on? Tell me, or I’ll snap your skinny neck.”
She folded her legs beneath her, with her bald belly exposed so I knew she meant no harm. Other than what she’d already done to me. “You’re a human.” Her shoulders lifted and fell.
I stiffened at the movement, but didn’t attack.
“Just for tonight,” she said, “and whenever the moon is full it’ll happen again.” She examined me through narrow eyes, and finally sighed. “My human name is Juliet. What’s your name?”
I stood upright, pleased to find how tall I was, and that I could dominate on two legs. Perhaps the big legs were good for something after all.
“My name is Howler.”
“Okay. For tonight, we’ll call you Helen.”
“Why?”
“You and I are a new pack. A human pack, for the night. The other humans will give us food like you’ve never tasted.”
My stomach growled on my behalf. “Where?”
First she made me dress with her in human clothes she’d hidden away for her own use. I learnt to use buttons and zippers, and to resist the urge to bite off the constraints wrapping my chest and arms and legs. The clothing wasn’t dead and wasn’t alive, and it itched. Fabric flapped against my skin as I walked.
I was still unsteady on my hind legs. My jaw ached with longing to have something struggling for its final breath between my teeth. “Soon,” I muttered. “It had better happen soon.”
Juliet and I trotted down the highway, walking into the realm of humans. My wolf heart told me it was a trap.
I wanted to crouch, to run away, but I grimaced and settled for wrapping my arms around me. The rain slowed and stopped.
Every stone of the road pressed its claw into my soles. It didn’t smell like it should. The metallic road-stink remained, in a smaller dose, but it didn’t smell of danger. That was worst of all. Even my nose told lies to me.
Then we found Blood-Mouth, my mate. I tasted him on the air, and lifted my head. My nose told me the truth: Pain. Danger. Death.
Juliet bared her teeth. “Someone’s body is here.”
We walked on without speaking, and found Blood-Mouth on his side in the bushes. His corpse was packed with maggots expanding their territory outward from his belly. The gravel around him was black with his blood. His mouth was frozen open in his last howl.
Instead of noting his passing and calculating the new social order, I felt tears running down my cheeks.
“What are you doing?” asked Juliet.
I sniffed, and scrubbed my cheeks with the palm of my hand. “Crying. Why aren’t you? You’re as human as I am.”
“He wasn’t my pack, Helen. I’m sorry, but can we go? I feel like there’s maggots in my stomach, just from looking at him.” She sighed. “Being human makes me so weak, I can hardly stand it.”
“Who killed him?” I asked. “It’s. . . important. Was it you?”
She shook her head, and walked to the other side of the road. Her hand over her mouth muffled her words. “It would have been a car, controlled by a human.”
“Then it was humans that killed him.”
“Yes.”
“Which ones?” My fragile hands curled up and became fists. “So that’s what they’re for,” I said quietly.“Why are you asking so many questions?”
“This is what it is to be human,” I said, sniffing out the truth of my words as I spoke. “I care. My mate was murdered. It’s. . .”
“Wrong,” she said softly.
“Yes.”
“Let’s make it right,” she said. Her eyes gleamed in the darkness.
We ran along the road until we found a house. It was neat and square, and made up of smaller red squares, with a rectangular door. Juliet showed me the human way to knock on the door. A human man answered, yawning and blinking. His top half was unclothed, and his chest and head had orange fur.
“Did you kill the wolf?” I asked. “The one on the road?”
He scratched his head. “Are you from the animal society? It’s late.”
“The wolf was killed some days ago,” said Juliet. I could hear the growl in her voice. “Do you know who did it? Was it you? Your car?”
“Listen, there are far too many wolves around here anyway,” he said. “I had no idea you people needed a report for that sort of thing.”
Deep within myself, I noted the moment when I became fully human. It was hate. I lifted both my fists and hit that murderer in the throat.
He stumbled backward, but gripped onto a table and kept his feet, gasping for air. I could see his skin changing colour, because he didn’t have the fur to cover it. The colour was good. Juliet was one step behind me, and she clawed at his face with her clawless fingers. The table tipped and fell, smashing a vase and sending water and jonquils across the floor. I jumped at the man’s chest and ripped at his throat. My teeth didn’t work properly and I got barely a mouthful of flesh; bald and wrinkled. I spat it out in revulsion. Juliet and I stood to watch the man bleed into the flowers and broken glass. Loosened strands of our hair lay across his chest. Juliet’s hair was yellow. Mine was black. Black is better. It’s always better.
“That was easy,” Juliet said doubtfully.
“Haven’t you killed a human before?” I asked.
She shrugged, admitting it. “They’re just like us except naked. And slow.”
I picked up the table and put it back in its spot. “I’m hungry, but I don’t want to eat him. His blood smells – odd.”
“Humans eat the strangest things. I ate cow once.”
“What, a whole one all to yourself?” I asked.
“Pieces so small I had to ask what it was. Cooked, too. That’s why the blood smells wrong. All blood will smell wrong to you tonight. Us humans have to cook our meat before we eat it. It’s part of being civilised. Come on, we have to find the kitchen.”
Juliet was showing me how to eat fruit when we heard a human scream from the front entrance. We took our apples and went to look.
An adolescent female stood in the doorway, framed by the night sky. The skin of her face was red instead of pink like ours, and her short hair stuck up around her head. I liked her for her hair at once. If it had been grey instead of that same orange colour, she would have looked more like a wolf than Juliet.
“Good evening,” said Juliet, and introduced us both.
The teenager screamed again and ran away. I watched as she grabbed for the hallway phone and sent the plastic base crashing to the floor. “Do you think we should chase her?”
“We can’t eat her – not raw – and I don’t think she’s playing,” said Juliet. “Something’s wrong.”
She sniffed the air, and I knew she was truly worried. “Maybe we should explain to the pup who we are.”
“That seems very human,” I said, and found my head nodding a yes.
We walked up the hall to the girl’s room, automatically stepping lightly so we didn’t make a sound. The carpet was soft as pine needles, and perfectly flat.
It was easy to tell which room belonged to the girl, because we could hear her saying her own address, loudly and clearly.
“She’s on the phone,” whispered Juliet. “Talking to someone who’s not here.”
I lay flat on the carpet and held my mouth to the crack under the door. “Good evening,” I said, copying Juliet’s level manner. The girl stopped breathing. I didn’t need a fully developed sense of smell to scent her sour waves of fear, even through the door.
“I’m Helen. What’s your name?”
“Marie,” she whispered. Juliet nodded encouragingly at me.
“Was that your dad, by the door?”
Marie whimpered, and I exchanged a pleased grin with Juliet.
“Marie?” I said.
She began to cry.
“Answer me in words, little human. Was it your dad I killed?”
“Please go away.”
“You’re doing so well,” I said. My voice was smooth as the sighing wind. Juliet was nodding at me, impressed.
“I’m sorry we had to destroy one of your pack, but we had a reason.”
“You – of course you did.”
I sniffed loudly at the air beneath her bedroom door. “Marie, your dad was a bad human. He killed my mate. Do you understand?”
Before she could reply we heard a splintering of wood from the front door. Marie screamed, and kept on screaming. Juliet and I turned and found ourselves staring right into a new pack. They were all men, bigger than us. Each one was dressed the same, in blue, and they were on the hunt. I could smell it in their sweat.
We gaped at them; at their short hair and at their guns. I could tell without looking at her that Juliet felt the tiny stirring of air on the back of her legs at the same moment I did. We were a pack, and the men were against us. If there was air behind us, there was a way out. I rose into a crouch. The hunters took a step forward and Juliet and I broke for the back door. We toppled two more hunters on the way out.
The air was as sweet as the first breath of a winter morning. Under my naked feet the grass was wet with dew. We ran so fast the wind couldn’t have run faster. The highway was flat and there were no tree branches dragging on our backs.
We scented cars behind us as they bellowed rage at our escape. They roared the hunt to one another, and we remembered my dead mate. Fear-maggots crawled in my own stomach. Juliet and I were smaller than the cars, and slower. We both knew we’d be eaten before the sun rose. I remembered the taste of human skin, and how soft it was in my mouth.
“Cars stay on the road,” Juliet yelled to me. I howled in reply, and understood what hope was. Juliet and I were a pack. We’d stay alive. She ran to the far side of the road, and I cut away into the trees. My legs itched and bled.
I heard her howl out a human song note that flitted through the trees to let me know she was near. It was as familiar as my own voice, and as alien as my hairless, itching hands. I shrieked like a human girl when my body clawed at me from within. There was no time to hide, and no strength to run. I collapsed without another sound. The pine needles cushioned my fall.
Juliet screamed out to me through the trees, and I understood the howl in her voice. My pack member was caught; she was hurt, she was dying. I tried to stand, to go to her, and fell face first into a bush. My fur pushed out of my skin while I shuddered. Juliet’s clothes broke and I ripped them off me. I bit my own lip straight through, but I didn’t cry out. I didn’t want to be dinner.
When I had my own body back, I stood silently to listen for Juliet. The stink of human was already fading from the air. My stink. Sweet-smelling pine needles filled the forest in every direction, and I knew who I was again.
I howled my joy to the morning. The rabbits would feel my teeth in their necks before the sun was high.
Broken-Teeth howled out a reply, calling me to come. But I ran for the road, cursing my bleeding shoulder. There was something I had to do before I ran to him. I had to know.
Juliet was easy to find. The humans had driven off the road in pursuit of her, and all I had to do was follow their car tracks. I could hear them hunting not far from me, but they were as clumsy as giant pups wading through the undergrowth. The forest was mine, and they no longer concerned me.
Juliet was slumped at the base of a tree, almost invisible in mottled grey death. Her body hid the artificial brightness of her human clothes as they lay beneath her. No wonder the men had passed her without stopping. I licked her rough fur, searching for a wound. She was shot. All that killed her was a tiny bite between her ears. It smelled of civilisation; of fire, iron, and blood. I cocked my head, wondering what to make of her, the one who bit me.
She never told me her real name.
Felicity Banks 