January would not be January in Australia without tennis, soaring temperatures and random torrential rain. It was on one such afternoon last week when we decided to christen the new wooden chess set the boys had received for Christmas.
One in a Million
The sky this week has been an endless dome of blue during the day, and a breathtaking spray of stars at night. I was out one evening walking, when I happened to look up. The humbling and indefinite expanse of universe, as seen from my little street, stopped me in my tracks.
Broken Glass
I WAS going to write about something really sweet and positive this week, but something more important has come up. And it is, perhaps, one of the things I most dislike.
Not sorry for being sorry.
As far as weeks go, this one was rather tough. Between work stress, writing deadlines, late nights and the general juggle of four kids, I was running low on energy and even lower on patience.
Five Small Changes
The list of ‘things I could be doing better’ always feels so desperately endless. Help the kids with their homework, read more stories, cook healthier dinners… but between running a business, running a home, and trying to have some kind of a life, it can seem overwhelming to find everyone a clean set of clothes, let alone be the kind of mum that cooks regular five star meals.
Select your settings
I can’t believe it had never occurred to me to try. I suppose I assumed there was no way that four boys would sit quietly and not fidget madly through a ten minute meditation. But after what we experienced this week, it's crazy we hadn’t done it sooner.
5 lessons from dogs
It was a sunny Saturday a couple of years ago when we decided to drive around to the local dog pound ‘for a quick look’. Yep. We all know how this story ends.
Dangerous Waters
Yesterday we returned to a beach where one year ago, I nearly drowned. I hadn’t expected the surge of emotion that hit me as I saw that shoreline again. I have many great memories on that beach, but the feeling of being dragged under, gulping water instead of air, came back to me in nauseating playback.
Iron Sulk
What do you do with a sulky child? My ten year old has a tendency to be more negative than the others and I have to admit my patience gets really low when I hear him complain about things for no good reason. Why are we having left overs again? Why can't we play outside for longer? Why did he get more Milo than me?
Win or Lose, You Learn
It’s been a big week for sports. Federer defeated Nadal in what proved to be an epic final of the Australian open. Greene got 10 rounds of controversial revenge on Mundine. And a very aggressive season of my Kitchen Rules got off to a punchy start.
The more I think about it the bigger it gets.
I have driven past the sign under the bridge dozens of times without giving it much thought- when out of the blue, it suddenly made sense.
The more I think about it the bigger it gets.
Styled like concrete graffiti under the Story Bridge, the mural was commissioned by the University of Queensland in 2009 as part of the Living Cities program….
Business Boys
It always astounds me that whilst our education system happily covers topics such as the use of synonyms and the patterns of continental climate… that it generally fails to deliver much substance across more hands on, real world subjects such as financial planning, relationships or personal development. God forbid we teach our children something they might actually use.
BOYTHERHOOD BEGINNINGS
Boytherhood is a blog about the exhilarating and utterly draining adventure of raising boys. I should know. I have about seventeen of them.