Tobography

On Saturday morning, while I was attempting to get through a mountain of laundry, Toby was wandering around the house with a toy camera pointing and clicking. Which gave me an idea;

Take my iPhone
Turn off the wireless
Fire up my 'Hipstamatic' photography app, which puts all sorts of funky filters across your pictures, all of which are designed – oddly enough – to make your high-tech digital photographs resemble old-fashioned analogue ones.
Set said application to randomise
Give phone/camera to 3-year-old

So off went my son, happily clicking away for about 45 min, during which time he managed to catch all manner of weird and crazy images. Going back through them, though, I found it fascinating viewing the world through his eyes–both looking at the subjects he chose, and the way he captured them.

And because sharing is caring, here they are:

Barbecue #1.


Barbecue #2


An extreme close-up of our (very tolerant) dog


An extreme close-up of his (very tolerant) mother


playground/kitchen


to be honest, I'm not hundred percent certain what this is. But it's pretty, nevertheless.


Weeds growing out of our patio. ( What can I say, it's been a rainy summer)


The back steps.


A table, and a toy box.


Toys #1


toys #2

aside from the fact that most of his photos are better than anything I could take, it was great fun just watching him taking these. From the point of view of someone who writes for children (whatever that means) I think this was also a useful reminder of the value of seeing the world through different eyes whenever possible.

The Artist

(Not so secret) Agent!

so I guess that if I'm going to maintain my spectacular 2-posts-per-month average, then I better get something done here this afternoon…

As you may have gathered from the ongoing drought of blog posts here, I'm keeping as busy as ever of late. Tomorrow, for example, I'm heading up to Sydney for the day to run an all-day masterclass with the students at Sydney Girls High School, concentrating on tips and tricks for writing character (make them real, put a piece of yourself into every character, find the ‘truth’ in every character, make sure they have a relationship with the environment of the story… and so on)

I've also, of course, been buried in a veritable pile of marking for the last couple of weeks.

Oh, and (unbelievably) Toby turned 3 last week. This event was heralded by several parties, a trip up Black Mountain tower, a really quite ludicrous number of presents, more sugar than a 3-year-old's system can reasonably handle, one incredibly over-catered barbecue lunch, and two exhausted and somewhat confused parents asking themselves; “where on earth did the last 3 years of our lives disappear to?"

And, in the midst of all that, I do actually have a bit of writing related news.

You might remember me mentioning a while ago that I finally finished my most recent book. (Of course you remember, the damn thing has taken close to 2 years, and during that time I've been constantly banging on about it being ‘almost finished’.)

You might also remember me mentioning that this time, instead of pitching it to publishers myself, I had decided to submit it to a literary agent in New York to see if they were interested in representing it (and me).

Well I'm pleased to be able to announce that they liked it. So much so in fact that I'm now happily represented by Cheryl Pientka, of Jill Grinberg Literary Management! I don't mind admitting how thrilled, and completely surprised, I was to get such a positive response from Cheryl and Jill, as during the nerve-wracking wait for a response from them I managed, pretty effectively, to convince myself that the book had no merit whatsoever. I'm also excited because my new managers handle a lot of Australian writers, including several of my friends. (Actually, I owe a huge thanks to Melina Marchetta, who did the introducing here…)

And that's where I'm at. Early in the new year I expect to be launching myself back into The Hunter, and among the other things keeping me busy at the moment is the detailed planning and mapping out of the next 3 books in the series, which I should start writing in January.

In the meantime, I have a keynote speech to write, my teaching and grading for this semester to finalise, and then in a couple of weeks the family and I are off to Perth for holidays and weddings (not ours, obviously, we did that a while ago, now.)

So that's my news, and my litany of excuses for not keeping you all up-to-date. Hope everything is good with everyone who reads this (that is, of course, assuming I have any readers left), and that you are managing to ease your way into the festive season with a minimum of stress.

Just a Quick One...

I'm home from Noumea, where Min and Toby and I had a wonderful holiday. Unfortunately I've managed to come down with a shocking head cold, and awful backlog of work, so here, just to keep you all envious, is a photo of Toby playing on the beach that I took last week...

PWF day one

Okay, this'll be short, because I'm typing it up on mi iPad, having to use the HTML edit function to enter text, while drinking a (admittedly rather nice) beer in a pub near my hotel.

I've just finished my first really enjoyable day at the PWF, spoke to a couple of groups, both of which, though small, were really interested and good fun to be with. I also got to catch up with writer friends, including (and I'll apologize now for the lack of links in this post - iPad issues. I'll plug them in later on my computer. If I remember...) Margo Lanagan, Melina Marchetta, Brian Faulkner, and Bernard Beckett. I also got to meet the lovely Wendy Orr, though owing to a small brain fart on my part (thanks largely to the fact that I had bee. Awake since 5.00am, due to having a toddler still on Canberra time) i referred to her as an illustrator. She isn't, of course, she's a fantastic writer. And also very gracious.

While I was doing my festival gigs, Toby, who has been something of a little champion the last few days, was off playing with an assortment of grandparents. I suspect there was probably sugar and ice-cream involved. Then he went home with my mum and dad to their place, and I went and checked in to the festival hotel. We did this because the hotel is just a few minutes from the festival, whereas my folks house is a little over an hours drive away, usually through Heavy traffic. Festival gigs, though a lot of fun, are also a lot of hard work, so minimizing the commute is a good idea.

Of course, this means that, for the first time ever, Toby is spending more than one night away from both min and I. And, I'll be honest with you, it feels a little strange. Even though he's with two of the four people I'd trust most in the world with him, its still rather strange to be suddenly away from him, especially after the last few days, which have included some of the most intense parenting I've done to date - traveling and getting him settled with mum and dad.

The weirdness factor is also, I i, coming from the fact that now I'm essentially a tourist in my own town. On the way back to the hotel from the festival this afternoon, our driver took us through Kings Park (again, apologies for lack of links and images. But you can look it up, if your interested) Ten years or so ago, I used to do cycle training in Kings Park three nights a week. Today, in a bus full of interstate visitors, it was a little like seeing the place and the city again, turlough different eyes. Same with staying in town. It's strange - familiar but different. Actually there's a touch of the uncanny about it, which is something I'm going to be talking about in my workshop this saturday, so I guess that gives me an example to draw on.

Anyway, I'm rambling, and my autocorrect is inserting all sorts of weird rubbish into this post, so I'm going to stop. In short:

Festival: good
Perth: good, if weird
Toby: missing him (but looking forward to uninterrupted night sleep plus sleep in)

TalK to you all later.

Perth Writer's Festival, plus a day at the Show

Okay, I know, I'm a bad blogger. Sadly the last couple of weeks have, thanks to a combination of sickness, work and preparation for a writer's festival, been a veritable catalogue of exhaustion.

Still, here I am now, in my parent's house in Greenmount (Toby and I got here yesterday to discover that, thanks to a freak storm which had swept across Perth the previous day, mum and dad hadn't had power for more than 24 hours. Luckily my dad, who is perhaps the most resourceful bloke I know, had managed to borrow and rig up a generator, so at least we had cold beer (for me) and icecream (for Toby)) The trip across was actually pretty good. Toby was voted best child on the plane by everyone sitting around us, which was gratifying, and we both basked in all the help and attention that a lone father travelling with a garrulous two year old can generate.

Tomorrow, I launch into my programme at the Perth Writer's Festival, starting with their schools day. These are always a great deal of fun - I had a ball earlier this year at the Sydney Writer's Festival schools days, and I'm sure that the Perth day tomorrow will be just as good. In the afternoon, I'm doing a session with New Zealand Writer Bernard Beckett, who I met a couple of years ago at Reading Matters in Melbourne, and whose novel Genesis is still one of my favourite YA speculative fiction novels ever.

On Saturday, I'm lucky enough to be chatting with my friend Margo Lanagan, who continues to make me horribly jealous of her capacity to write the most imaginative, gut wrenching short stories (and novels) I've ever read. We're going to be chatting along with Will Elliot, who I've never met, but am really looking forward to crossing paths with.

That's one of the things I love about writer's festivals, actually - I always meet new and interesting people. In Sydney last year I met another Kiwi, Brian Faulkner, and we had a great time doing our panel session there together. On Saturday, Margo, Will and I are talking about The Magic of Oz - is there an 'Australian' Fantasy voice? (And does it matter...)

I'm also taking a workshop that afternoon, looking at fantastic worlds. There are still places available, I notice, in case you're, you know, in Perth and bored. I'll be talking about Freud, Asimov, and Isobelle Carmody, among others. It should be a lot of fun.

In any case, the evening is fast approaching here, and (now that the power is back on) Mum and Toby and I are heading up to the local pool for a little bit of a dip. So I'm going to leave you with a few photos taken last weekend, when Min and I took our little boy to the Canberra Show. We did well this year - we managed to spend four hours there, and left without any showbags, and after only minimal junk food consumption. We walked about ten kilometres. We got dusty and thirsty. There were donkey rides. And fire engines. And facepainting. Fun was had by
all...

A Terrifying Night

So, I guess I'm a fully qualified parent, now. Well and truly off my 'P' plates*

Tuesday in Canberra was a good day, if a little hot. (38 degrees** here and humid as hell) By 5.00pm our un-airconditioned house was like a sauna, so Imogen, Toby and I decamped to my mother-in-law's place for a few hours because:

a) She has a swimming pool and
b) She's a three minute walk from a very nice Vietnamese restaurant, and the thought of not cooking or cleaning up afterward had a lot of appeal.

At my MIL's, we had a lovely swim and then strolled down in the cooling evening and enjoyed a feast of Vietnamese food. Then, as the sun finally dropped below the horizon and some of the oppressiveness went out of the day, our little family headed home again to our house on the other side of Canberra. It was still quite warm inside (a solid 34 degrees), but we opened all the windows and doors, put on the fans, and gradually the house began to cool. We gave our - by then very tired - boy a quick cool shower, read him a book, and put him to bed, just like normal. He went out like a light.

Min and I sat up for a while, watched some TV, drank some water and then, at around 10.00pm, went to bed ourselves. We read for an hour or so and, by 11 O'clock the house had cooled sufficiently for us to get to sleep. A last quick check on Toby, who was sleeping soundly, and then lights out.

Until a few minutes after 3.00am, when we woke up to the horrific sound of a 2-year-old in the next room, struggling to breathe.

I don't think I've ever been so terrified as I was when I ran into Toby's room to find him kneeling on his bed, gasping like a grounded fish. His little stomach was sucking hard up into his ribs with every choking breath, and he was trying to cry but didn't have the wind for it. I sat on his bed and he tried to claw his way up me. Min was already on the phone to her mum (who, as luck would have it, is a GP) and searching frantically for the Ventolin inhaler which Toby'd been prescribed a year or so ago, during a bout of bronchitis.

This wasn't bronchitis, though, or asthma - I knew that much. He could breathe out easily enough, but was only getting the tiniest amount of air in. He didn't seem to have anything in his mouth or throat and he wasn't turning blue, but he was panicking and getting increasingly desperate.

As were his parents. We tried without success to get some Ventolin into him, but he was thrashing around so much that we couldn't get the mask over his face, or even just lever the inhaler into his mouth.

"Get him to hospital. Now." Amanda (my M.I.L) told us on the phone and within two minutes the three of us were in the car, racing to the emergency department at Calvary hospital. Amanda phoned ahead and told them we were coming.

At the hospital (which is right beside my work, and which we reached in a considerably faster time than it generally takes me to get to the office) Min ran in with Toby while I parked. By the time I got inside, Toby was in a bed in the emergency ward with about five people working on him. The nice nurse at the ED reassured me that he was okay, and going to be fine.

It was croup. Severe croup, which had swelled the tissues below his larynx to the point where his breathing was restricted. They gave him adrenaline, and steroids, and Ventolin, and oxygen and, over the course of the next hour, his blood O2 saturation levels normalised, and he calmed down. As did Min and I.

Then, at about 5.30, they transferred him to the pediatric unit at Canberra hospital. This involved a ride in an ambulance which, from Toby's point of view was the best thing ever! (He's still talking about it this morning.)

We stayed at Canberra hospital for another 3 or so hours, while Toby was checked over again and monitored. Then, at about 8.00am, they discharged us. Min had to go straight in to work and I took our - now wide awake and perky - little boy home again. I was exhausted, whereas Toby, who'd recently had both a large dose of adrenaline pumped into his system and a ride in an ambulance, was buzzing.

I stayed home with him yesterday, working from the kitchen table while Toby played contentedly. He's got an awful, hacking cough and his voice sounds a little strange, but otherwise he seems fine.

Last night thunderstorms rolled over Canberra and scrubbed the heat and humidity from the air. Toby slept soundly all night. Min and I fell into an exhausted sleep, but still woke up at the slightest cough or bump from his room, checking him every couple of hours.

Today life returned to normal. I'm back at work. I got a couple of hours of great writing done. Toby is back at daycare and Min at ANU.

It's funny - typing all this up, the fear is so fresh and real in my memory, but at the same time the fact that everything is okay and life has just ticked back to normal makes it all seem like a kind of displaced dream.

And I'm lucky, too. We can go back to normal - this is just one of those things that happen. Kids get croup all the time, though not always so suddenly and not always so severely. But at least we live in a country with a wonderful health system, and the security of knowing that we can deal with these things.

And at least, unlike so many people up in North Queensland this morning, Min and Toby and I have a 'normality' to return to.

So today I'm feeling very tired, very wrung out, but also very, very lucky.

* Another one for my overseas friends: in Australia, once you get your driver's licence, you spend a couple of years on your 'P' (for probationary) plates, which means that you have to display a large red 'P' plate on the front and rear of your vehicle, and are subject to an adjusted set of road rules with lower speed limits, 0% blood alcohol allowance and a few other bits and pieces... Once you get through your probationary period without losing your licence, then you're a fully fledged driver, and can pull down the 'P' plates.

** 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit

Bob the Brandname.... Can we sell it?

A few years ago, my good friend Karen wrote a little book called Consuming Innocence. If you haven't read it, then you should get your hands on a copy. It's a fascinating, frightening read. She takes you into the world of Big Marketing - deconstructing both the impact of modern mass marketing on our children, and the techniques which a lot of big brands use to increase their market penetration.

One of the big techniques utilised by marketing departments is to try and expose their brand and / or logo to as many children, as young as possible. To get them 'imprinted', if you will, so that certain brands and concepts form a 'natural' part of that child's social world. This, I recall reading somewhere, is the reason that a certain Large-American-Theme-Park,-Movie,-Television-And-Music Company is happy to have their copyrighted characters printed onto the crotch of nappies; toddlers and babies spend an inordinate amount of time lying on their backs with their feet in the air, staring at that particular part of their anatomy and in the process becoming firm friends with whichever cartoon characters happen to be staring back at them.

Karen's book looks at a lot of this kind of stuff, and takes you deeper into both the psychology and the economics involved, and some of the numbers are staggering. I won't say more than that about the book here, but it's something I think all parents should have a read of.

It certainly re-enforced my determination not to allow Toby (as much as was practicably possible) to be willingly inculcated into the sort of consumer culture that we spend our lives moving within. And, for the most part, we've been pretty successful. We don't buy him clothes or merchandise with big brands or characters on them, we avoid having the television on when he's up (though I'll admit to a couple of transgressions here; both shows involving trains. The boy is obsessed with trains and, to be honest, some times it's nice to be able to take ten minutes to get a load of washing done...) We deliberately sent him to a daycare which doesn't have or use television, but which has a whole lot of (un-branded, un-merchandise-y) toys and activities to fill the days.

And yet, despite all our best efforts, Toby uttered three terrifying words tonight*;

"Bob the Builder."

He said it while pointing to a picture of said cartoon builder in a catalogue which came with a 'Bananas in Pyjamas' DVD he'd been given for Christmas. The thing is, he knew who BTB was.

Which was news to Min and I. To the best of our knowledge, Toby has never seen an episode of BTB, nor read a BTB picture book. He doesn't have a BTB lunchbox, or any BTB clothes, or nappies, or wet wipes, or any of the myriad other objects which carry the BTB brand. The closest he's come to BTB is that he has a BTB-branded toy sander, which another friend gave him for Christmas** and which, since the moment it came out of the box, he's been convinced is a hairdryer just like his grandmother's.***

As far as we knew, Toby had never even heard the phrase 'Bob the Builder', let alone become familiar enough with the product to be able to pick it from a catalogue.

It's a triumph of market penetration; Bob the builder is firmly on Toby's radar, despite all our best efforts.

And, for me at least, the scarier aspect of this is the realisation that already, at just two-and-a-bit-years of age, Toby is already living and learning in a world of pop culture, brands, and highly targeted advertising. And at the same time as he's soaking up language, music, movement, numbers and everything else, he's soaking up brand identification, and it would seem that there's little we can do about it.

Except, perhaps, to introduce him tomorrow to 'Bob the Ballerina...'****


*actually, it's been an evening of landmarks. He also climbed out of his cot, fell on his head, and precipitated the sudden and unexpected conversion of said cot into a 'big boy's bed.' He's now tucked up firmly asleep under a sheet, while Min and I wait for the first 'thump' of boy hitting carpet...

**Toby did well out of last Christmas. We needed to borrow an extra suitcase just to get his presents back from Perth

*** A belief we have very wholeheartedly continued to cultivate...

**** Which, if truth be told, I've just spent two hours creating. That's how serious I am about this...

Hip Hop Happy New Year...

New Year's Eve tomorrow. Unbelievable.

2010 has, on the whole, been a pretty amazing year for me and the family. Toby has turned from a baby into a little boy, work has been crazy busy but really rewarding and satisfying. I've published my first scholarly papers, spoken at my first academic conference, seen the last of the 'Darklands' books finally hit the shelves, become an iAddict, been invited to edit the special edition of Write4Children, won a teaching award, gone to the Sydney Writer's Festival, visited with my sister and her two gorgeous girls in Perth in July, had the worst case of tonsillitis EVER, and just generally kept very, very busy. Min has been busily beavering away at her PhD, which is shaping up nicely now and Toby has been, well... you'll see...

The last couple of weeks, you might have noticed my absence here at Musings... and also on Twitter. This is because, after all the above mentioned hijinks, I decided that my Christmas holidays would be just that - holidays - and so in the spirit of Susan Maushart I rewarded myself with something of a 'shutdown'. The only things I've used my iPad for in the last couple of weeks have been reading and the odd game of 'Plants vs Zombies.' It's been nice. Refreshing, even.

So 2010 has, on the whole, been a good year.

And so, to 2011, which is shaping up to be another busy one: Perth Writer's Festival in March, the new edition of Into White Silence coming out some time in the new year, another big year of teaching, a big conference to speak at in July (I'm talking about Neil Gaiman - yay!), a book chapter to write, the special edition to put together, a house to renovate and, of course, a family to keep on their toes :)

Speaking of which, here's my new year's gift to you all. It's our current favourite song in the WHOLE WORLD! And it comes with some pretty mad dance moves, too. What spins me out the most is remembering that this time last year Toby had just started walking, and look at him go now...*

So happy new year, everyone. Hope you have a relaxing and restful start to 2011. Thanks to those of you who've been reading this meandering little blog during the last year, and who have taken the time to let me know.

In the meantime, Party on!

*Apologies for: a) the shaky camera work , (b) my 'singing' and (c) partially putting my thumb over the camera lens for the middle bit. It's still pretty cute, though, IMHO...

Music

I love music. Hell, thanks to Penni Russon, I just spent my entire week's coffee money buying the new Paul Kelly app for my iPad* I grew up playing music: piano, organ** and then later guitar.

Min is also musical: she plays violin, and sings like an angel. For our wedding present, a number of our immediate family clubbed together and bought us the piano which now sits in pride of place in the lounge room.

I love listening to music. When I write, I'll often have something playing softly in the background or through my headphones, if I'm at work. Usually classical. My faves are all the ones you'd expect: Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Bach. At home, I can't do anything houseworky without something on the stereo: Paul Kelly, the Oils, Crowded House, Missy Elliot and numerous others.

So I guess it's natural that Toby seems to like music, too. He's in a house full of it, surrounded by instruments and encouraged to sing and dance at every opportunity. We recently got him his first guitar - $15.00 from Paddy's Markets in Sydney, and worth at least twice that for the enjoyment it's giving both of us***


He's also showing the odd sign of becoming a Jazz musician when he's older, too...


And then, of course, there's the piano...


It's a good way to grow up, I think.


*Incidentally, Penni, you're right: awesome. Just frikking awesome. Everything in life should be that awesome.
** Don't bother making jokes about it. Trust me, I've heard 'em all.
*** We do an awesome duet of 'From Saint Kilda to King's Cross'.

Such a Perfect Day

Of course, I probably shouldn't be referencing Lou Reed in the title, because unlike his - let's be honest - fairly ironic take on the perfect day, today actually was pretty damn good.

I was a little worried that this weekend might be a bit of a trial, actually. I mentioned it in my last post. But today was lovely.

The little angel slept in! Until almost 7.30!*

Then we cooked a slap-up breakfast of bacon, eggs, mushrooms and toast with coffee (for me) and a toby-cino (for him)

Then, off to the pool. Foolish dad thought that on a freezing, blustery 7-degree Canberra morning that the indoor pool would be almost deserted. Shows what I know. Turns out that Belconnen pool was the most popular place in Canberra this morning. Still, no matter, we spent a very pleasant hour-and-a-half floating, splashing, playing in the fountains, jumping off the wall and sinking like a stone to the bottom of the pool.**

Home. Light lunch, and then Toby had a nice little 2.5 hour nap, while Dad did the housework and got stuff ready for next week.***

Then it was off to my Mother-in-Law's house, to take her up on her very generous offer of a Toby-Sleepover.

After dropping the bub off, I headed into civic for an early meal, a beer, and a very pleasant couple of hours reading 'After America' by the versatile John Birmingham which I took great delight downloading to my iPad for $16.00 while standing in Borders beside the $39.00 hard copy. (Sorry, John, but sometimes you gotta make a selfish decision...)

Now I'm home. Just had a shower in our lovely new bathroom, got a glass of nice Clare Valley Reisling in hand and a bit of Crowded House playing softly. The heater's going, the dog's curled up at my feet, and tomorrow I can even sleep in until 8, or even 8.15 if I want.

And sure, the house feels absurdly empty without either Min or Toby in it. And sure, I keep fighting back the urge to ring and just check and 'see how things are going', but that's fatherhood for you. Min'll be back home monday morning, (at the moment, she's having a day off touristing and shopping in Copenhagen) and Toby tomorrow, so I'm going to just enjoy a rare night to myself. Probably in bed with JB's book.

Yep. Pretty much a perfect day.


*7.30 might not sound like much of a sleep in to anyone reading this who isn't/hasn't been the parent of a toddler, but - trust me on this - 7.30 is like 11.00 in normal world time (which is a little like dog-years)

**Only a couple of times.

***And played Farm Frenzy 2 on his iPhone

Flying Solo

A couple of weeks ago, out of the blue, Min got invited to coach the ANU team in the second annual Copenhagen Negotiation Competition which means, of course, that she's off to Copenhagen.

Actually, as I write this, she's just taken off from Sydney, launching into a 30 hour effort - Denmark via Bankok and London. Luckily, I'm told that Princess Mary greets all Australian visitors to Denmark at the airport with a can of VB and some Vegemite on toast. I'm not sure how true this is, but I like to think it'll happen.

And, of course, the other upshot is that I'm a solo parent for the week. Yep, just me and Toby, batching it.

Thus far it's going well. We've watched an episode of playschool, made sausages, mash and peas for dinner ** Then (as tends to happen with dinner nowdays) Toby threw the mother of all tantrums, had a bath, and went to bed, where he fell asleep in an instant.

So now I'm sitting alone, in a suddenly very quiet and empty house. I've also done two loads of washing, already. In a while, I might go sit outside and have a beer and contemplate the next seven days. I've got my meals planned, the shopping done, Toby's daycare bag already packed for tomorrow, our lunches made, and have swept the floors. I'm organised. Bring it on, I say.

And, of course, I've been thinking about single parenting. This is the first time I've had all the parental duties to myself for any extended period. (I've done some short hops before, of course, but never even a complete overnight.) Min's done it several times while I've been off for various writer's festivals and uni obligations, but this is my first time in the pilot's seat.

It's kinda daunting, in its own way. Already, after just a few hours, I'm finding myself thinking differently. More logistically, for one thing. But I'm also looking forward to it - I really need to know that I can do something like this.

So, anyway, if there isn't a lot of blog action from me this week, you can probably guess that it's because I'm knee deep in toddler-town.

Should be fun. And, of course, one day I'll use the experience in a book.

**this particular dinner is something of a tradition in my family: when I was a kid, whenever mum was away, Dad made bangers and mash. I've got fond memories of eating bangers and mash for dinner on the night after my sister was born, so I felt kind of obliged to carry on the tradition.

On Two (or three) Wheels

A little housekeeping, first.

The astute among you* will have noticed a new banner at the top. I made it on my iPad, using a funky little text design app called 'Type Drawing'. I'm not convinced that I've got it completely right yet, but I kinda like the idea. Let me know what you think...

Now, down to business.

Bikes have been a big part of my life for a long time now. When I was a kid, growing up on the Cocos Islands, our bikes were our ticket to freedom; the island we lived on, called West Island was a long skinny, flat coral raft, about 7 kilometres long and about 500 metres across at its widest point. It was also about 2 metres above sea level. As kids, we must have explored every accessible inch of that island on our bikes. We rode them out onto reefs, along beaches, into mangroves (every bike on the island was painted in this sort of thick black tarry paint, to prevent them rusting out within three weeks, and so we pretty much rode them anywhere. I remember being awfully upset seeing my shiny blue bike disappear into the island workshop, and re-appear a couple of days later looking exactly the same as everyone elses...) and even up and down the island's runway.**

As an adult, in my 20's, I got into triathlon in a big way, and spent countless hours cruising around Perth and Fremantle with my cycling mates. Most saturday mornings we'd hit out from the uni at around 6.30ish, and put in a 50-80k ride, usually around the river and up the beaches, and stopping for breakfast down in Fremantle, or perhaps up in the hills, if we were feeling energetic. A few times a year we'd do a big ride down to Mandurah or Rockingham and back, notching up a hundred+ kilometres in the morning, and then going home to sleep all afternoon. I've got some really good memories of trundling around Perth with the boys, chatting and taking in the scenery.

Since moving to Canberra, my cycling has dropped off a fair bit. A year or so ago I traded in my racer for a more practical commuter bike, with big fat tyres and suspension, for the ride in to work, but I don't do it nearly as often as I should. Partly this is because the state of the roads and cycle paths is pretty disgraceful here, but mainly because of the high prevalence of utter bogans with whom you have to share the road.***

But still, I love being out on a bike and, for as long as I can remember, cycling has been one of the big pleasures of life for me.

I particularly remember my first bike. Don't know how old I was when I got it, but it was a red tricycle, with white wheels. I can clearly recall riding endlessly up and down the path around our house, and probably had my mother living in constant fear that I'd set off down our (incredibly steep and unforgiving) driveway**** My trike had a little platform on the back, which you could stand on and use to scoot the bike along and this - most importantly - was shaped like an aeroplane wing, with little 'go fast' ridges and a slightly scalloped trailing edge.

I can't remember what happened to my little red tricycle. I guess it got thrown out eventually.

But anyway, a week or so back, we decided that it was time we got a bike for Toby. He's been scooting around on one at daycare, and loving it.

So we went to Toys R Us, and spent a good chunk of time considering the relative merits of the multitude of models on display: did we want one with parental steering? mini-bucket seats? horns and rear-vision mirrors? seat belts? a sun shade? Drink bottle holders?***** Should we get him the one in neon green plastic, or bright blue plastic? (Or would getting him a blue one be buying into gender stereotyping?) We were determined to avoid the various merchandised ones, which ruled out the Elmo, Thomas and Bob the Builder Bikes******

Then, just when it seemed all hope was lost, we spotted it. Right up on the top shelf, on sale.

A little, shiny, red metal tricycle, with white wheels.

It looked eerily familiar. And it was perfect.

And Toby loves it...



*ie: all my readers.

** there was this great system: if a plane was landing, a siren would go off, and you had about three minutes to get off the runway and to a safe distance. I suspect this has probably changed in the intervening years.

*** On my last ride in to work, about 6 months ago, I was almost killed by a P-Plated commodore full of idiots who deliberately swerved into the bike lane at 80kph, passing within about 2cm of my handlbars, while one of them leaned out the window to whack me on my helmet. Sadly this isn't the first time something like this has happened to me here in Canberra, and I've been a bit loathe to get back on the bike since.

**** I never did. Though I did spend a disproportionate amount of my childhood trying to persuade my brother to give it a go...

***** I am not making any of that up.
****** That either....

Words Words Words Words Words Worlds....

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that it didn't take me long after my July Blog-a-thon to slip back into my bad old ways, aren't you.

Well, have I got news for you!

Uhm.

You're right.

Still, here I am. With bronchitis, nonetheless. But the antibiotics are cutting in now, and I can go for up to half an hour without coughing, which is nice.

Anyway, on to the serious stuff.

I spend my life swimming in words: when I'm not writing them, I'm speaking them or reading them, or assessing them. My 'spare time' is spent either weaving them together or pulling them apart. My own words, other people's words - doesn't matter.

Worlds of words.

And, of course, the upshot of this is that - like most people - most of the time nowadays I take words for granted. It's gotta be a pretty special set of words to leap off a page and catch my attention, and most of the time I just swim through them without noticing how beautiful - how powerful and miraculous - even the simplest word is.

The reason I mention it is that Toby is starting to talk at the moment.

Well, technically he's been talking for a little while, now, a couple of months at least. He started his first basic words back in about April or May; 'mum' 'water' 'milk', that sort of thing.

But lately, something has gone 'click' in that little brain of his, and now he's picking up words on a daily basis: he repeats whatever we say. He points excitedly at anything he recognises and tells us what we're looking at (Drives home are great fun; 'Car! Car! Car! Bus! Car! Car! Car! Truck! Car! Tiger!*)

Every word is a delight, to him and to me. The sheer joy that is written all over his little face at just having that simple, most basic skill of communication; the ability to name an object, and the connection that comes with it, reminds me every time of the sheer beauty of human communication; of what it brings to a life, and of what you can do with it.

This was really driven home to me when we were in Perth a couple of weeks ago. To Min and my amazement, Toby's cousin, Meri, who's about 18 months older than him and therefore a much more fluent speaker, could talk to him, and understand exactly what he was saying to her, even when we couldn't.

"Toby is thirsty. He wants water." She'd tell us, and suddenly the last five minutes of Toby trying to climb up onto the kitchen bench made sense.

"Toby's being silly." Meri informed us one evening, just as our son tried his best to stick his tongue into a dripping tap.

Watching the two of them talk - and they had long conversations on a few occasions - was one of the delights of the trip. Just like watching this little growing miracle of language is an ongoing delight now.

If nothing else, it's been a really good reminder to me not to take my words for granted - every single little utterance that Toby makes is hard fought for; he struggles to get his tongue around difficult sounds, or to tack on that extra syllable, or to pick one word out of a string of others. But when he gets it, there's delight all round.

And as a final, vaguely related offering, here's a video that's been doing my head in slightly. It's an Italian parody of a 60's pop song, sung in gibberish, but designed to sound like American English. You'll go nuts trying to 'interpret' it.

Which, at the moment, is probably how Toby is experiencing the world, too.



*I said his vocab was expanding, but we're still working on the difference between a cat and a tiger...

Kids, Family, Holidays and Sliding

We just got back from three hours in "Kidz Paradise" with Toby, his two cousins, one of my sister's Perth friends and her three kids, all under the age of 5. Aside from the fact that the proprietors can't spell 'Kids', it was a lot of fun.

Three hours of climbing, bouncing, sliding, ball pits, more climbing, running, climbing, sliding and bouncing.

And the kids were quite active, too.

There's that old biblical saying - you know the one; 'When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.' (1 Corinthians, 13:11)

Now, far be it from me to contradict the bible* but I don't think that the people responsible for Corinthians factored in 'Kidz Paradise', because I have to tell you, I suspect that I had more fun than Toby. In fact, it's fair to say that as soon as we were through the gate, my childish ways came storming back with avengence.

Of course, someone had to keep a close eye on Toby. And help him through the ball room. And up the climbing net. And down the ceiling-height tube slide. Even if he didn't think he wanted to go.

And, after all, what are fathers for?

You know the best bit? Adults were free! It cost us $7.00 for Toby, not a cent for me.

So I'm thinking of going back tomorrow, without the kids...

Actually, jokes aside, it has to be said that I wasn't the only person above 5 years of age crawling around in that playground maze. There were an awful lot of fathers, and mothers, and various other adult role models in there too. And they all seemed to be having just as much fun as I was. And watching us all, I realised that it was so much fun not just because it gave us an excuse to revisit our childhood, but it was an excuse to revisit our childhood with our own kids - and to share in theirs.

And so while, for the most part, I have put aside my childish ways, I'm also kinda pleased to discover that having a Toby in my life gives me an excuse to revisit them, every now and then.

I'm still thinking of going back tomorrow without him, though ;)

*actually, this is something of an overstatement. I've been known to contradict the bible on a couple of occasions. I haven't been smited for it, either. Yet. I'm told it's just a matter of time...

In Training

This one is primarily for Darcy, who made the very salient observation in response to this post last week that 'Trains are Always Cool.'

Indeed they are.

Especially if you're 19 months old, it would appear.

In response to our son's current obsessive affair with all things locomotive, and in an effort to utterly wear him out on a rainy saturday afternoon, last weekend we took him to visit Cockington Green Gardens. You may now snigger at the name, if you wish.*

Now, Cockington Green isn't for everyone. Imogen has fond memories of being regularly taken there as a child by her Grandmother, every time they visited Canberra. When we visited, the general crowd fitted into three categories:

1. Grandparents with their grandkiddies.

2. Parents with their kiddies.

3. Perplexed Indian Tourists.

It's a bit difficult to describe Cockington Green, except to say that it is, perhaps, one of the oddest places I've ever visited. There are lots of lovely, beautifully tended, English cottage-style gardens, all filled with miniature buildings. Miniature windmills. Miniature houses. Miniature villiage greens, soccer matches, canal locks complete with barges, a miniature hedge maze, miniature stonehenge, even a *bizarre* miniature tableau of what appeared to be four policemen burying someone alive while watched by a Franciscan Monk.**

And, of course, miniature railways.

Running between the tiny towns and buildings are tiny railways, of various scales and types, ranging from little steam trains to a funicular railway up an embankment, to a high-speed British intercity train, right up to the granddady of them all; a ride-on, gas-fired steam engine, which putters around the gardens at a suitably sedentary pace.

As you can imagine, Toby loved it:

The Miniature Steam Train. You can see Toby and Imogen at the back of the first carriage. They wouldn't let me drive it. Yet...

He especially loved the ride along train which, being steam-powered, made all the right hissing, chuffing and whistling noises. His father was rather impressed with this, too.

I should confess my longer term fascination with model railways here: My grandfather, on dad's side, had the most awesome miniature railway set, mounted on an enormous table which winched away into the roof of his garage. It was a proper miniature gauge railway, with stations and points, and tunnels, and sidings and a dozen small engines and rolling stock. There was even a train with a mail car that automatically snatched miniature mailbags from the a tiny gantry hanging at the end of one of the tiny station. When Grandad Percy fired up the train set - that was hours of entertainment, right there.

After he died, the trainset got pulled apart and passed around a little bit until it ended up with my dad, but we didn't have room to set it up, so it's currently in its component parts - most of the rolling stock still in their original boxes, because that's the sort of bloke my Grandfather was - in the attic at mum and dad's house. One day, when I have a house with enough rooms, I've got every intention of bringing that train set back to life.

In the meantime, there's Cockington Green...

The upshot of all this is that, at the end of our visit, we bought season passes. That's right. Unlimited entry. To the tiny village place with the semi-obscene name, the bizarre miniature cops-burying-people-alive scenario and the little trains. We only have to visit one more time to make it pay for itself. And besides, I'm hoping that if I take him there often enough, they'll let me drive the steam train, thus not only making the passes super-worthwhile, but also enabling me to live out one of the archetypal childhood fantasies.

So, if anyone's coming to Canberra and fancies a ride on a little steam train, shoot me an email...

* I know I sure did.

** It occurs to me now that I should have got a photo of that one. Perhaps next time...

The Words You Don't Say, Unless you have an Hour to Spare

Parenthood is all about education, as Min and I are discovering.

Not Toby's education, you understand. That's pretty much looking after itself.

No, it's all about our education.

And, believe me, we're learning a lot.

Mainly in the area of psychology. Which is odd. After almost a decade as a secondary teacher, and then just as long doing school visits and speaking gigs, I thought I knew a thing or two about how to communicate with kids, how to get them onside and all that.

Which just goes to show what an idiot I was.

Nowdays, when it comes to being masters of devious manipulation, both Min and I are well on our way to becoming, well, not experts, but not complete idiots, either. Of course the fact that we're so rapidly developing the classic parental skills such as 'bait and switch', 'distract and act' and of course 'cave in without appearing to' in order to deal with a child who's not yet two years old probably says more about us than it does about him.

Still, we're learning a lot. Toby is training us up nicely.

His favourite tactic is the one best described by the brilliant US author/illustrator Mo Willems in his picture book Knuffle Bunny (an almost perfect literary work, IMHO, and definitely one for the parents...) as "Going Boneless"

By using this one simple technique, our little angel has taught us the following:

• Don't ask 'Do you want a bath?' Just put him in it.
• Similarly, don't ask 'Are you ready to get out of the bath'. He'll let us know when he's ready by trying to climb out an nearly braining himself in the process.
• No, he doesn't want peas.
• No, he doesn't want to sit in his high chair.
• The expensive coffee machine is actually a toy.
• If he wants to go in his carseat, he'll tell us. Not the other way around.
• Our iPhones are, in fact, his iPhones (I've gone to great lengths to ensure that he doesn't yet know of the existence of the iPad....)
• Mem Fox and Helen Oxenbury's 'Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes' is the pinnacle of contemporary literature.
  

And, of course, we've learned the magic word. The one that you just don't use under any circumstances. Not, that is, unless you're prepared to spend the next hour (or two, or three) on the floor being wordlessly instructed by a 19 month old.

And that word?

(I hesitate to even type it, even though he's been in bed asleep for the last hour. Oh well, here goes...)

"Train"

I have no idea why, but the boy is obsessed by trains at the moment. From the second he wakes up, until the moment we put him back into his cot it's "Choo Choo?" (deliberate question mark there, you need a rising inflection to get the full effect.)

And if either Min or I even hint at the word "train" then it's all over for us, for quite some time. Out comes the Brio, and the Thomas set, and the Fischer Price. And then down we all go to floor level.

I'll be honest with you, despite everything, including my better judgement, I say 'Train' quite often....

Moments from the Universe

You've possibly noticed that after my little burst of multiple blogs a week or so back, I've dropped back into one-post-per-week again. This gives you an indication of the kind of week I've had; crazy.

I'm loving my classes this semester and am having a ball teaching a lot of new material, but by God I'm exhausted. I've been working pretty long days, just to keep on top of things. Generally out of the house before 8.00, not back again until well after 5.30.

Luckily, though, sometimes the universe comes to the party.

On Tuesday night, I was freaking out. I had two lectures to deliver on Wednesday and, despite spending a solid chunk of Monday's public holiday in at the office, still hadn't managed to finish either of them. Both were on topics close to my heart; the importance of editing, and the minefield of issues relating to Indigenous portrayal in children's and young adult literature - and so I wanted to to a good job of both. But, by Tuesday night, neither was close to done. So I worked on them until about 9.30, then packed Toby's daycare bag for the following morning, made his lunch, laid out his clothes and mine and got completely organised so that, come wednesday morning, Toby and I could hit the ground running (he's in daycare at my uni, so when I go to work, he goes to work...) and I could be in the office at the first available moment.

And wednesday morning went like clockwork: up, showered, dressed, baby up, both of us fed, coffee made and consumed, out of the house by 7.40, and first through the door at the daycare, right on the tick of 8.00am. My office is two minutes from daycare. All was looking good.

Except that, for the first time ever, the lovely lady in charge of the toddler's room missed her bus.

Which meant that there was nobody there to look after Toby, yet. Just me and him, and a quiet, empty daycare centre.

So we sat on the couch and read a book. Then we sat on the floor and played with some toys for a bit. Then I tickled him. Then he tried to tickle me. And then, about fifteen minutes later, and apologising profusely, the lady in charge arrived to find us both rolling around on the cushions, giggling.

She really didn't need to apologise. Not at all. It was the best fifteen minutes of my day. And when I got to my office, I was happy and relaxed, cheerful even. I got both lectures knocked over, and even had time to get a coffee before delivering the first of them. And I got a few precious, stolen moments to start my day.

So, to whichever deity or force of nature decided to make that bus run early on wednesday, thanks. I needed it.

And the Rain Came Tumbling Down...

It's not that I don't love you all, I'm just having a seriously busy couple of weeks at the moment.

Here's a photo from the weekend, though, when I took Toby for a walk. It rained for the best part of 72 hours last weekend, and so when the clouds finally lifted late sunday afternoon, Toby and I hit out for a short stroll. Didn't get very far, though - the waterway in that photo is Gininderra creek, a small trickle which is generally dry at this time of the year, and almost never reaches out much further than the central support of the bridge. When I cycle in to work, I usually go through that underpass. Not at the moment, though.

All in all, it was pretty impressive.

Family Matters

So tonight Imogen and Toby are coming home. I can't wait. They've had a lovely week over in Perth, staying with my parents, while I've had a lovely week of getting in to work stupidly early every morning, and then getting a lot done.

And I'm over it.

I have achieved quite a bit, though. One of my two units is almost totally done - lectures complete, website built, tutorials ready - the whole bit. The other is well along the path, though it's new territory for me, so will be a little more full on.

I've also got a good chunk of my next book written. I'm enjoying writing it, and hopefully will have the first draft almost finished by the time I have to start actually teaching.

The other day, my editor Kristina and I went through the final tweaks for Daywards. We wrote the blurb. We signed off on the cover. It's looking really good. It should be going to the printers tomorrow or wednesday. I can't wait to hold it.

Lets see... what else...

Saturday I went out to a Gliding Club in Goulbourn with the intention of going flying. Sadly I got there just as an enormous thunderstorm rolled over and turned the airfield to mush, so I missed out there. I did get to sit in a glider, though. On the ground. In the hanger. Wasn't quite the same, somehow.

I also sold my old road bike. This was a bittersweet moment. This was the bike I bought when I was in my late 20's and still doing triathlons fairly seriously. At the time, it was a state-of-the-art road bike, with carbon fibre forks, Ultegra groupset (bike-people will understand), a flight deck computer, Rolf 18-spoke racing wheels, the full bit. God I loved that bike. And I rode it, too - my mates and I put in thousands of kilometres around Perth and up and down the coast. Most saturdays we'd do a lap of the river - about 55 kilometres, stopping in Fremantle for a coffee and then up the coast a bit before heading back in to the city. Lovely days.

But for the last three years, my road bike has been sitting in my carport under an increasingly thick layer of dust. A spider had nested in the front brake. It was too hard and uncomfortable for riding on the *really shitty* Canberra roads, and so a year ago I got myself the bike equivalent of a station wagon. A big, wide-tyred, soft seated, low geared Shogun for riding in to uni.

And so this week, after putting it off for three years, I sold my shiny red road bike. I got $300.00 for it. Which I then spent on a Baby Bike seat and helmet for Toby, so from tomorrow, I can take him for rides on the 'station wagon'. I think this is a good investment.

Last night I started revisiting The West Wing, beginning again from series one. This show is such a brilliant piece of television. If you've never watched it, then (a) what's wrong with you? and (b) you need to do so.

But I'll be honest - I cannot wait to go to the airport tonight and have our little family back together again. Last week when they left, Toby was walking a lot, but still crawling about 50% of the time. Now, I'm told, he's running pretty much everywhere.

And I can't wait to see it.

As I write this, Min and Toby should be just about on their way to Perth airport, and it's almost knockoff time for me, so I'm going to go home and get the house organised.

Or perhaps watch a couple more episodes of The West Wing.

Fly safe, family.

A Baby Ate My Dingo!

Well, technically speaking, 'poked' is a better description than 'ate', but you get the general idea...