Hell is other people: Carols in the Park (2006)

The first inkling I have that Carols in the Park will not be fun comes before I even manage to park my bike. F jumps off his cushion on the back and runs excitedly towards the playground and back.

‘Wow!’ he says. ‘This looks great!’

The park is lined with card tables covered in home-made cakes and biscuits, glitter glue, stickers and Christmas ornaments, and racks of tee shirts. A stage is set up in the middle, with a loudspeaker blaring 80s pop into the rapidly cooling evening air. There is a caravan selling Mars Bars beside the sausage sizzle. And a baby animal farm with lambs, guinea pigs, goats and puppies.

Clusters of grown-ups sit on rugs and deck chairs gathered around the play equipment and in front of the stage. Some of them attend to small children, but most of them are chatting among themselves, waving plastic wineglasses or stubbies.

Children are darting excitedly about everywhere, scrambling on the monkey bars, jostling at the stalls, running from one activity to the next. One small boy wears a Santa hat. Sisters wear matching Christmas dresses, red and green and gold, trimmed with red tulle and teamed with Blundstones. They have tinsel in their hair.

I walk up and down the playground, looking for somewhere to chain my bike. I pause at several likely looking wooden posts, but they all prove too thick. F darts to the slide and back, to the cake stall and back.
‘Mum! Mum! What are you doing?!’
‘Wait here,’ I manage, through gritted teeth, wheeling the bike further down the road, where I find a plant tethered to a conveniently sized wooden stake.

‘Can I have a sausage? A cupcake? I want to play!’
I spread the rug near the stage and take him to the sausage van. We eat what will pass for dinner and watch the crowd, then F runs off to play.

I am painfully self-conscious, as I always am at these occasions. I am not part of the Mother’s Club. I can carry on a conversation with some of the parents some of the time. There are two mothers who sometimes invite F to play and me inside for a coffee; one of regularly. There is another who often stops me in the schoolyard to say ‘We MUST catch up. We will.’ We never do. This embarrassing charade has lasted a year. Her son approaches me at the school gate and asks ‘when can I play at your house?’ ‘Any time’ I say, but his mother always hurries him off with apologies. This mum was standing beside us as F and I applied sauce to our sausages, but didn’t look at us. Now I notice that she had inadvertently set up camp behind us. Our eyes don’t meet.

I sprawl on my stomach on our quilt, facing away from the mum and my other ‘neighbours’, with their wine and conversations, and pull The Monthly from my bag.

Small feet run across the corner of my quilt, kicking dirt over my pages. I brush it off and keep reading. Now is the perfect time, I tell myself, as I swing my bare feet behind me, to catch those articles I missed on the first read.
F’s sneakers skid into view. I close the magazine and shoulder my bag.
‘Should we look around?’

We visit the baby animals. F sits on a hay bale, hardly daring to breathe, as a guinea pig is placed in his lap. He strokes it tentatively at first, then with confidence. His face is intense with pleasure. He pats a sleeping dog, an indifferent lamb and passing goat.
‘You try’ he says as I watch him marvel at the lamb. ‘Wouldn’t you like a jumper like this?’ he enthuses.
He sits with the dog, watching to see if it will wake. I take a photo. At the gate to the enclosure, he pats a girl on the arm.
‘Excuse me’ he says solemnly. ‘I recommend that you pat the lamb.’

‘S and A said this would be boring! Boy, were they wrong!’

After we make a Christmas ornament, he returns to the playground, I to my quilt and magazine. The wind is cold, and I wrap myself in a scarf. The wind whips at the gap between my jeans and my flimsy Indian shirt. I tug on my jacket, but it rides up again.

F leaps over my legs and lands hard beside my head. He pulls an Andy Griffiths novel from his backpack and settles companionably by my feet.
‘Don’t you want to go play?’
‘Nah. Can you read to me?’
I wriggle around to face him and we lie on our stomachs together. We suck on candy canes as I read. Raindrops fall on the page: lightly, gradually at first; then steady, hard drops.

F has brought a smaller patchwork quilt, a Christmas quilt my mother made for him. He helped to choose the material and lay out the pattern. I pull it over our heads as I shelter, just as the PA crackles, Duran Duran stops mid-lyric, and the mayor introduces himself.

‘Wow,’ breathes F. ‘He’s famous.’
The school choir are on stage. A teacher with a guitar starts the first song. Around us, none of the kids or parents are singing. F scowls through the rain.
‘I want to sing too.’
‘You can.’
‘Up there?’
‘Here, you can.’ Under the quilt, I start to sing. F is not mollified, though he half-heartedly joins in. My jeans are sticky with wet. F and I are waging a war over the quilt.

Santa is coming, with presents, in one hour.

I gloomily reflect on my crappy performance as a mother tonight. One of the two friendly mothers walks past. I am too fed up to say hello. I’m afraid of what else I might say. Inwardly, I am furious. With myself, with the parents who don’t speak to me and with this whole stupid school where nobody is like me, not at all ... and of course, yes, with myself.

And even though I know it’s NOT about me, it’s about F, I am ready to go home. He sneezes.
‘Okay, we need to go.’ I jump to my feet.
‘Nooooo.’
‘You’ll get sick. You’re getting a cold.’
As I shake dirt from the quilt and roll it under my arm, the mother camped beside me looks over and smiles. She rolls her eyes, complicitly, and I smile back and wave.
Bitch. NOW she can see me. Oh well.

F mumbles and whines all the way to the bike. As I pad the back bike rack with the quilt, the PA dies. Two latecomers head our way.
‘It’s all off’ someone tells me. ‘We’re going home.’
‘M just arrived as everyone was going home!’ says F, TOO gleefully. ‘He’s too late, isn’t he?’
I mount the bike and squint into the rain as I glide past the queue of parked cars.

‘When we get home’ I shout over the traffic, ‘our Christmas tree will be waiting for us to decorate it. I’ll run you a hot bath and get the decorations from the garage and then you can have hot Milo with marshmallows.’
F sighs contentedly. His whine adjusts.
‘Oh, mum’ he says. ‘You’ve just cheered me up by saying that.’

Ten minutes later, as I turn into our street, I do something I know I should not.
‘F’ I call. ‘Do you wish I was more like the other mums, that I hung out with the other mums?’
It’s actually something I think about a lot.
‘No mum’ he says. ‘I like you just the way you are.’
Pause.
‘There is ONE thing I’d change ...’
Pause.
‘... but it’s really something I’D have to change.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Punishments.’

And we’re home, The Husband opening the front door to greet us, and a pine tree on the verandah.



* NOTE: I found this written out in an old notebook, and it just seemed to me to illustrate how much things have changed (for the better) in a year, and I'd never posted it, so decided I would now.

Jingle Bell Rock: Carols in the Park (2007)

I’m determined that this year’s Carols in the Park is going to be different.

For one thing, I have organised with a friendly mother to meet up with her tonight. So, I will have company. For another, F has joined the choir this year and will be up on stage, singing. We are part of things. We will engage.

I pack our patchwork quilt and a small, pathetic picnic, cobbled together from muesli bars, bread and butter sandwiches, cling-wrapped ham, and empty water bottles filled with juice and water. It’s all I can salvage from my near-empty kitchen. I’m pretty sure there will be food and drink there, anyway. I bring a book, just in case. And a pile of Yu-Gi-Oh magazines for F. I’m tired, and contemplating catching a cab to the park (a $5 ride) when F walks into the bedroom wearing his bike helmet with his red shorts and red and green Sylvester and Tweety tee shirt. If he’s ready to ride, so am I.

As we load up the bikes on the back verandah, we hear the front gate swing open and shut next door. Footsteps sound by the back fence.
‘M!’ shouts F to the boy next door. ‘M! I’m afraid I can’t play with you tonight. I have Carols in the Park and I’m singing in the choir! SORRY!’
‘That’s okay,’ comes the reply. ‘I have my school’s Christmas concert anyway and Santa is coming.’

**

It’s a short bike ride and I feel a little ashamed of the near-cab experience. I guess it feels easier than I imagined because this year, F is riding his own bike rather than sitting, heavily, on the back on mine. He is excited, and shouts conversationally at me as we cycle along the footpath of Somerville Road. Trucks and cars stream by, dulling his small voice into an indistinguishable drone. I shout back lots of ‘uh huh’, interspersed with instructions about when to stop and where to turn.

**

The park is sparsely populated when we finally arrive. The yellowing lawn is bordered by card tables, covered with brightly coloured cupcakes and lolly bags. A small fenced enclosure houses animals, once again. A couple of lambs, a chicken, a goat. A man in a too-tight red tee shirt emblazoned with ‘Kingsville Carols’ is helping the musicians unpack their gear from a van parked in front of the stage, a lumpen black block in the centre of the park. (I later find out he's the recent mayor.)

F runs for the playground as I lock up the bikes. I carefully unfold our patchwork quilt by the stage, nearby another couple of rugs. A woman walks by barefoot, nursing a can of beer. I watch her polished toenails pass. A mother I recognise trots officiously across the park in a Christmas apron. She carries a paper cup with a coffee company logo in one hand. I pick up my purse and follow her trail, back in the direction she came from. Yarraville Cellars has a tent here, next to the coffee wagon. I pick up a bottle of Margaret River sparkling and two plastic cups for $10 and make my lazy way back to my quilt, secure in the knowledge that tonight I have company. Tonight, I will not be conspicuously out of place. Tonight, I will be comfortable.

I sprawl on the quilt with my book, leaving the sparkling unopened for now, sipping at my water bottle instead. George Michael’s ‘Last Christmas’ crackles and blares near my bowed head, the syrupy lyrics jamming in my head with the description of an elderly Egyptian aristocrat preparing for his lover in my book. After a while, I wonder where the mother I’m meeting is. It’s now the time she’s due to arrive, 6pm. I stand to look for her. As I do, my eyes meet a familiar gaze. An ex of mine, my most recent and most contentious (four years ago, for the record) is standing on the blanket directly behind me. Weirdly, he emailed me about reviewing his latest book earlier today – the first time I’d seen or heard from him in months. Of course, he lives in the neighbouring suburb – this one, in fact – so it’s not entirely surprising that he’s here. Except it is.

‘Hi.’
‘Hi.’
It’s that familiar, stilted mix of awkward and familiar, as we discuss today’s email and the fact that his son’s primary school choir is performing tonight, too. I hadn’t realised. A tall, slender, pigtailed girl stops at his side.
‘H. You remember Ariel, don’t you?’
She squints at me, unsure. He gestures at F, buried in a Yu-Gi-Oh magazine at my feet.
‘You remember F?’
A shadow of recognition passes over her face. She nods a little and smiles at me. I say a cheery hello. She is a lovely girl. She met me and F just once. She and her young brother were floored and kinda spooked by then-four-year-old F’s excited, unpunctuated stream of chatter. (The Asperger’s, I now realise.) I think she liked me. I gave her some pretty bangles and a girls’ comic I’d picked up from work. She told her mother about me and her mother freaked. Ah, memories.

I count out my change, now aware of eyes (maybe) (probably not) on me from behind. F stays on the rug, reading, while I fetch us sausages in bread from a stand run by the local Scouts. $1.50 each. Bargain.
‘Can I have an ice cream too?’
I inspect my coins.
‘Do you think your dad will give me a couple of dollars to buy chips later if I buy you ice cream?’
‘Yes.’
‘Maybe, then.’

The Christmas-aproned mother stops at our rug and bends down close.
‘Hi. Raffle ticket? Go on.’
I count out a dollar from the silver coins I’ve given F for ice cream and write his name on the ticket. She gives us a printed booklet containing the words of all the carols and the logos of all the sponsors. F digs a biro out of my bag and sets to work circling all the songs he likes best. ‘Silent Night’ is in, ‘Rudolph’ is out. He is sad that ‘Jingle Bell Rock’, his favourite, is not there.

On stage, the man in the too-tight red tee shirt speaks into a microphone at 10 minute intervals, welcoming everyone and exorting them not to forget that Yarraville Cellars, the Scouts, the coffee place and the ice cream van are all here, and all selling stuff.

I’m really starting to long for my companion to arrive. The rugs are closing in, forming their own mismatched patchwork on the grass. The happy chatter I know so well – and dread – with its reminders of high school and cliques and me not belonging to one, not even to one person. Maybe this is why I love books so much. (It’s not.) With a book in your hand, you don’t look alone, you look busy.

**

Every once in a while, a small girl from F’s class will wander by. They say hello to us. F smiles and greets them, then returns to his magazine. The girls run shrieking around the park, weaving in and out of the rugs. Some of them are girls F plays with in the playground; girls from his class.

‘Why don’t you play with the girls? Your friends.’
He shakes his head. One of the girls is his Crush. This, I think, is the problem. He has been hanging out with The Crush more and more this year, to the point where he has been playing with her in the yard most days, rather than with his mates. I overhear him say things to her like ‘you look nice today’ and ‘that was a really good kick’. In this year’s music concert and his recent assembly performance alike, The Husband and I have noticed him standing on stage or sitting in the audience stationed conveniently beside her, shooting her the occasional reverent glance.

I should mention here that The Crush is absolutely stunning. Her father is Maori, her mother Anglo Australian. She has long, straight, shining hair that hangs halfway down her back and smooth dark-olive skin. Long dark lashes, huge brown eyes, a shy, sweet smile – and a healthy twinkle in her eye. She could easily have been drawn by Walt Disney. Even I have to admit that she is a pleasure to behold (as well as a fabulous girl - spunky, tree-climbing, kind). Her mother laughed to me, at F’s birthday party, that her daughter has been the token girl at a lot of boys’ birthday parties this year. F knows at least four other boys in his class who have whispered about being ‘in love’ with her.

The problem is that a week ago, The Crush’s best friend asked F, witheringly, if he was ‘in love with Crush or something?’ He of course said no, but his former best mate retorted that yes, he is, and he knows because F told him so. F was inconsolable after school that night (‘it’s humiliating’) and is now too embarrassed to talk to her. The real tragedy in this is that The Crush has been a wonderful friend for F, complimentary and encouraging about his efforts to improve his attitude and be a better friend. I love the way he is when he’s around her. (The other night, when I put him to bed, he sighed and told me that he's been wondering if all his recent good behaviour has been because of him, or because of her influence on him.)

But I have to let him be. I can give him advice about pretending it didn’t happen and not letting a couple of mean remarks lose him a good friend, but I can’t walk him over there and make him play with the girls again.

**

F and I are alone for about an hour. On a neighbouring rug, a loud-voiced woman barks a litany of complaints.
‘What the hell is wrong with her? I didn’t bring her here just to stand around. I don’t wanna be here anyway. Why is she just standing around? That’s it. I’m never getting takeaway again if you don’t appreciate it. What’s she DOING? I don’t want to be here.’
She and her husband are eating McDonalds, their burgers still half in their wrappers. I feel sorry for the girl standing around somewhere, presumably over in the playground. I fantasise about telling the woman to shut up or just go home. I try to bury myself in my book.

F licks his ice cream cone in the middle of the playground, watching the surrounding chaos. He is still stubbornly solitary.

I hear my friend the mother greeting a chain of other parents on her way over to our rug. She breezily apologises for being late.
‘It’s fine’ I say. ‘Want a drink?’
I probably could have been talking to some of these parents myself, this year: I’ve seen them at parties and exchanged pleasantries outside the classroom. But something in me is frozen. I feel safer behind my book. F and I are a fine couple.

F’s friend, L, crashes onto the rug beside us. He’s wearing a cotton wool Santa beard with a fur-trimmed hat and red tee shirt and shorts. He is buzzing with excitement. F joins him, and together they disappear into the playground. At last.

F’s father appears, camera in hand, and sits between us. Feeling better already, I offer him my plastic glass of sparkling. He sips at it and passes it back. He tells us that his wife and son were ejected from the Toy Library today, in the moneyed suburb where they live, because his son (just past one year old) was too noisy. His wife was volunteering at the time. The sparkling makes it even more hilarious.

The kids from The Other primary school file onto stage, all wearing their school uniforms and Santa hats. They kick off the first of three carols.
‘They’ll probably kick our asses at this, too,’ mutters my friend the mother (MFTM). She is up with things like inter-school rivalries, much more a part of the community than I will ever be. Apparently, they regularly beat us at sport.
F’s father and I squabble about school uniforms and who has more shirts at their house while the kids sing ‘Jingle Bell Rock’.

Then, it’s the moment we’re all here for. The Other primary school kids file off the stage and our kids take their place. They are wearing an assortment of red and green clothing. Some of the girls wear strappy, flowery dresses. They are beaming with pride. F stands, straight and tall, in the front row. He sings loudly, solemnly, enthusiastically. Most of the kids hold their songbooks in their hands, but his is at his feet, held in place by his sneakers. He’s obviously been watching what bands do, or something. He squints at his feet during the lesser known song, eventually giving up and reading the songbook of the girl next to him. I notice, regretfully, that The Crush is at the other end of the stage tonight. F’s friend L is a few rows back. He occasionally leaps up, his jaunty red hat poking above the heads in front of him. His grin threatens to split his face in half.

The Deputy Principal appears at my side, standing between F’s father and I.
‘Look at him’ she says. ‘He’s come so far. You must be so proud.’
We are, of course.
‘He said he wanted to join the choir because they needed more boys and he felt it was his duty’ I tell her. She laughs.

As they finish, I push my way to the front of the stage and open my arms for F to leap into them. His father is right behind me. As we all stand around congratulating the kids, waving at passing choir members with the ‘thumbs up’, a keening, wailing noise fills the air, coming closer and closer. It’s a fire engine, sirens blazing. A man dressed all in red, with black boots and a belly-deep white beard, is hanging from it, waving.

‘SANTAAAAAAAAAAAA!’

The kids swarm towards the engine, an instinctive mass of excitement. F is at the front of the pack. I run, barefoot, burrs prickling the balls of my feet. An anarchic line is forming behind a plastic chair that Santa is being led to. Squealing, shrieking, swelling and lurching. It’s survival of the fittest, as the kids squash forward, pushing in and out and squeezing each other tight in a serpent-like kid sandwich. I shout at them to all take three steps back to give the ones at the front breathing space, and sort out a couple of the obvious skirmishes in front of me. ‘Back of the line!’ ‘Give her some room.’ ‘Your big sister was in front of you a moment ago.’

‘WOW!’ says F. ‘My mum, the policeman of the line, huh? Who would have thought it? She should be a footy umpire!’

**

Ten minutes later, we have a lolly bag and are making our way back to the rug. F’s father is going home. I ask him to buy me chips first, and he does. We have a pleasant walk around the park. When I get back, F is reading his Yu-Gi-Oh magazine, eating lolly snakes and watching the band, made up of some musical parents, sing jazzy Christmas songs.

MFTM and I eat the lime flavoured chips and drink most of the sparkling, before F asks to go home. We leave her the rug and the remainder of the food and drink before we return to our bikes, and cycle home in the fading light, shouting conversation as we go. As we idle at the traffic lights at the top of our street, I notice a golden peach sunset bleeding into grey-lined clouds over our shoulders.

The Husband is waiting in the lounge room when we get home.
‘How was it?’
‘Great’ says F. ‘Can I have a drink, I’m thirsty.’
‘He was wonderful. He sang beautifully. We were so proud. And I was the policeman of the line. For Santa. F couldn’t believe it!’
‘Yeah, I was embarrassed. I couldn’t believe that everyone knew I was your son. It was humiliating.’
‘Oh.’ I am annoyed. ‘Well, maybe I won’t come listen to your class read tomorrow, then. If I’m so EMBARASSING.’
‘NO, mum!’ He throws himself to the ground and hugs my ankles, pinning me to the middle of the hallway. ‘NO!’
‘But I thought I was embarrassing.’
‘Not in the classroom mum. THEN you’re actually being HELPFUL.’

Oh.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night ... and all that jazz ...

Wisdom of children

Riding our bikes to school this morning, singing snatches of nonsense song and talking about nothing much, I tell F that one day he will be leader of the world. (I have no idea why.)

'Oh no,' he says, suddenly serious. 'I wouldn't want to do that.'

'Why not?'

'Because you'd look so important, no one would talk to you.'

'Oh. That's probably true. What about if you were leader of Australia?'

'Yep. Still too important.'

The little man on the pedestrian lights flashes green. F pedals ahead, over the main road.

He calls over his shoulder: 'I'd like to be leader of Yarraville, though.'

Show and tell

It wasn't just me who audibly snorted during today's show and tell in seven-year-old F's class today. The teacher's aide was similarly bemused.

Young A brought along her baby blankets to show the class. Very sweet. Then she rummaged in her bag for 'my first phone'. I expected a flourescent plastic thing. Instead, she triumphantly held aloft a stainless steel contraption much, much nicer than my last mobile phone.

'It takes photos and everything' she beamed importantly.

There was a collective gasp among her classmates.

As I said, the teacher's aide snorted. I don't know what I did. I think I laughed.

'I've taken the battery out' she said. 'My mum gave it to me last week when she ordered her new phone. She wanted a black one.'

So, I figured it must have been relegated to A's toybox instead of hard rubbbish.

I was wrong.

'Do you send messages?' asked a classmate.

'Yes. LOTS. I'm only supposed to do it when my mum and dad are in the room watching, so they know who I'm talking to, and because it costs lots of money. But ACTUALLY I send lots and lots from my bedroom upstairs.'

'Are there games?'

'Yes. LOTS.' She proceeded to list the games.

'Thank you A' said the teacher. 'Next please.'

Hypothetical dilemma

What to do when you are nearly eight years old, you profess to hate girls, and you realise - to your horror - that you have 'fallen in love' with one?

You don't tell anyone, even your mother, for a really long time.

You nearly DIE when she walks past you at the school disco and LOOKS at you - for once - and you are crying because a prep has been beating you up. How EMBARASSING!

She collects Yu-Gi-Oh cards, so you challenge her to a duel. But she says she is too scared to duel. You plot to convince her to duel you and PLAN TO LET HER WIN. This is a big thing, as you HATE to lose. Anything. And you often cheat in order to win, though you'd never admit it, not even to yourself.

You draw a love heart with your names in it and hide it in your drawer, never to show anyone. As you get out your textas to draw it, you decide to confide in your Mum about your BIG SECRET. You make her promise never to tell anyone, not even Dad.

'I won't,' she promises. 'Not even The Husband.'
'You can tell HIM,' you say.

Your Mum is on the phone to her Mum.
'My son is telling me a secret,' she says. 'But I can't tell you, sorry.'
'You can,' you say. 'Just her. I think she might know something about boy's fashion, and I need advice.'

When your mum gets off the phone she asks why you need to know about boy's fashion. You are not known for a great interest in fashion, beyond light-up TMNT sneakers that were JUST PERFECT for the disco and your habit of writing slogans on skivvies with permanent texta. And you quite like to wear your navy school trackies on weekends.

'So she will fall in love with me, too,' you tell your Mum.

'Oh,' she says. 'You think fashion will make her fall in love?'
'Yes.'

Your Mum tells you that she will certainly seek some advice on fashion for you, and suggests that the Husband may have some advice, as he knows a lot about boy's fashion.
'Oh YES!' you say. 'Good one Mum. That would be PERFECT!'
'And your aunties love fashion,' she says. 'They are FASHION EXPERTS. They used to buy all your clothes.'
'YES, that would be great.'
'What about me?' your Mum asks. 'Do I know about fashion?'
'Yes.'
'What about your Dad?'
'No.'
'He doesn't know about fashion?'
'No, he DOES NOT.'
'No,' your Mum smiles. 'He does not.'

The most important thing, your Mum says, the thing that will really make a difference, is if you are fun to be around. 'Do you want to know what made me fall in love with The Husband?' she asks.
'YES!'
'Well, he was handsome, of course. But more than that, he was very nice and we had great talks and we had fun together. And most of all, he made me laugh.'
'Oh,' you say. 'Well, that could be a problem.'
'But I thought you said you were the class clown?' says your Mum.
'Yes, I am.'
'But nobody laughs at your jokes?'
'They do,' you explain. 'Lots of them do. But some of them don't. And SHE never seems to laugh.'

Your Mum has one last piece of advice to deliver.
'Do you know what would make you even handsomer than you are now?' she says.
'No, what?'
'If you let me comb down your hair before school in the mornings and flatten down the sticky-up bits.'
'Mum,' you say. 'I don't think that will help AT ALL.'

Best Stepfather in the World

Today, The Husband reminded me of why I am so incredibly lucky to have him, not only as a husband but as co-parent of my child. F sent him a quite haughty email:

As you know it is very hard for me to work out my dream teams' passwords because I have two.

JUST TELL ME WHO THE PLAYERS ARE!

I'm afraid I was terribly amused and proud of his seven-year-old writing ability. However, The Husband took the more appropriate and useful parental response and chastened him for his attitude. In the nicest way.

I mean in THE NICEST WAY, too. In fact, he sent a two-page inspirational email on learning to handle annoyance at not getting things right or needing help, using a football analogy throughout, along with a charming illustrative anecdote about Chris Judd's brother.

I am so incredibly impressed by this damned fine example of (step) parenting that here is his response:

I didn't actually know that it is very hard for you to work out your
dream teams' passwords because of the fact you have two. Maybe next time you can use the same password, then you only have to remember one.

Shouting at me, all be it via email, is not appropriate. If you want my help you know all you have to do is ask nicely rather than demand that I tell you.

When you can't work something out or you get frustrated remember that getting cross isn't going to help. All that does is make you feel awful and unhappy and it doesn't solve the problem. Take a few deep breaths and ask yourself "Now, how can I solve this?" and if you don't think you can solve it yourself ask someone else, politely of course.

The rewarding thing about finding things that you can't do or work out is learning how to do them. Because once you've learnt how to do them it's an extra thing you can do. Sometimes it's challenging, but you feel really good once you have learnt how to do it. Remember when you hated to kick the footy because you didn't know how? Well, maybe you don't remember, but you used to hate it and never wanted to go outside and kick it. Now look at you you love it, you can't stop kicking it, it's all about footy for you. And it feels really good when you do a good kick, doesn't it? When you kick it straight to someone or kick a goal it's the best feeling.

When you are having difficulty with something, on the computer or playing sport or doing schoolwork, just remember that great feeling you get when you can do it. Focus on that and remember that you will feel that way if you try and work it out rather than getting angry. Even thinking about how good you feel when you accomplish something can make you feel good. Sometimes it's tough, but often the toughest challenges, the hardest things to do, give you the greatest reward and make you feel the best.

Remember this also, you have a lot of people around you who love you and are there to help you and always want the best for you. You should see all those people as people you can learn from so you can be the best you can be. Look at your Dad and Mum and Stepmother and me, we've been around for a while, and we've had to go through all the things you are going through and will go through. All we want to do is help you and make it easier for you. When we show you how to handball, or write, or draw, or ride a bike we're just trying to help you out and help you improve in these things and make it easier for you.

You know people like Chris Judd and Daniel Kerr and Mark Seaby and Andrew Embley and Chad Fletcher and David Wirrpunda and Jason Akermanis and Aaron Davey and Michael Jordan and heaps of other people all became the best footballers and best basketballers and the best at what they do because they would watch what other people did, ask them for advice and listen to the advice that was given to them. They
realised that to be the best, the key was to get help and advice from others and not think that your way is the best way and the only way.

And here is the best bit, the story of Chris Judd's little-known brother:

Chris Judd has a brother who's not much older than him. He played football with Chris when they were growing up together and he used to always act like and say he could do everything. When his Dad tried to show him how to handball, he would say, "That might be your way but I do it like this" or when his Dad tried to show him how to tackle he said, "I know, I know" and not listen. Chris's brother didn't want to show anybody that he couldn't do something, he was a little embarrassed, so he would just make up how to do things on his own. Chris on the other hand listened to his father, his coach, the next-door neighbour, his friends and would practice what he was taught.

Chris's brother struggled through junior football, he really wanted to be good at footy, but he couldn't bring himself to take the advice or ask the advice of his Dad and coach and other people, because he didn't want to look like he didn't know how to do something. Meanwhile, Chris got really, really good. He would train and practice everyday, listen to the advice his coach and Dad and others gave him
and admitted that he didn't know how to do something, because then he knew that someone would show him how to do it and he would be even better.

Now you haven't heard of Chris Judd's brother* have you? That's because he didn't make it to the AFL or any football league for that matter. He still doesn't listen to anyone or even see his family and does his own thing. He lives by himself in a small apartment in Perth and has no friends, no job and no family. He's always angry and miserable.

As you know, Chris Judd went on to play in the AFL, the best football league in the world, and was officially named the best player in that league a couple of years ago. He went on to win the 2006 premiership and became captain of his side. He even said when he won the Brownlow medal and the premiership, that he couldn't have done it without the help of a lot of people. People still reckon he is the best player in
the league, and you know what, he still trains and practices and listens to his coach and his Dad and others everyday to make sure he stays the best!

Love you lots

The Husband

I read it aloud to F. He looked at me with wide eyes during several sections, and looked pleased during others. Especially when I read about how good Chris Judd is.

'Wow' he said when I'd finished. 'If I keep going the way I am, I'll end up like Chris Judd's brother, won't I?'


*** I don't think the story about Chris Judd's brother is anything but an allegory, of course. Though I am so clueless about footy that it may well be.

The email generation

The Husband Skyped me today with a query about an email he had received this morning from my seven-year-old son. I was frantically making school lunches at the time he sent it and hadn't had a chance to read what he had written.

This was it:

As you know it is very hard for me to work out my dream teams' passwords because I have two.

JUST TELL ME WHO THE PLAYERS ARE!

They both play this online footy tipping competition called AFL Dream Team. That's what the email was referring to. Neither of us are quite sure what problem he was experiencing or why he asked the Husband, in Mexico, for his help.

But what made the Husband especially curious and me laugh and laugh was the way he phrased it, as if they are working together on a business project.

And the thing that REALLY made me smile was that F seems to have mastered, either by accident or design, what so many high school graduates have not: the art of the correct use of the apostrophe. Just look!

He is destined for a bright future.

* From a Chastened Mum: the Husband sent F a long and beautifully considered email about how to solve problems by talking rather than yelling at a person, even if it is yelling via email. (Including, 'Well, no, I actually didn't know that it was hard for you ...') Which is absolutely true. I really shouldn't be proud or amused by haughty emails. He is destined for a bright future so long as his stepfather helps his mother keep her head screwed on right.

Yapping bitches

I trudged to school for my afternoon pick-up through the bucketing rain today, wearing full eye make-up and lipstick as a result of an afternoon client meeting, teamed with and my trusty $10 hooded parka. Classy.

At school, I tied the dogs up by the gate and scurried across the yard to join the huddle of parents waiting under the shelter. No sooner had I started chatting to one of the few dads there, than the unmistakable yapping of small dogs cut through the dull thud of the rain. I started to go.

'Whose dogs are they?!' exclaimed one of the nearby mums.
'My god! I know!' boomed another, raising her voice in the hope of its reaching the culprit.
'They're right next to the SCHOOL GATES!' huffed yet another.
'Right!' said a fourth. 'I'm off to the microphone. That's IT!'

Meanwhile, I stood frozen, vacillating between running to move the dogs a few metres from the gate, as was my original instinct, and hiding so the pack wouldn't pounce and burn me at the stake.

When they mentioned the microphone, I jumped to it.
'That's my dogs they're talking about' I whispered to the dad. He laughed.

I bent in the rain to untie them and moved them down the road. As I turned to rejoin the schoolyard, I ducked my head again, though the rain was easing.

Back under the shelter, I made eye contact with the dad.
'If people really want you to do something, they shouldn't speak like that' I am surprised to find myself say. 'I was almost too embarassed to move the dogs then. If they'd asked reasonably instead of shouting about how awful the person with the dogs is, they would have got a quicker reaction.'

I realise I am speaking loudly.

I realise that once again, I am furious with petty playground politics and the way I always seem to take the role of the weird kid at school who can't do anything right.

I fetch my son, who has unbuttoned his shirt as I TOLD HIM NOT TO, revealing the bitten-off hole in his skivvy underneath. (He did it himself in the midst of a temper tantrum.) His parka is in his backpack and he stands shouting his news of the day into the rain.

'Stupid yappy bitches' I growl under my breath as we duck back across the yard and out of the gate.

At home, I ask F to peel off his wet clothes and put them straight into the washing machine. All except the skivvy, which goes straight into the bin.

Hell is other parents’ hang-ups

On Saturday, F and I trekked out to Readings Carlton to meet a certain idol of his. Author Andy Griffiths, king of the kids thanks to his wicked, Paul Jennings-ish sense of humour … and his wholehearted embrace of bums and toilet gags.

F is a big fan. He reads Andy’s Just series (Just Kidding, Just Annoying, Just Stupid) so often that the books look as if they’ve been buried under a few acres of landfill (which his room DOES sometimes resemble). He reads them on the train, in bed and on the toilet. More often than I’d like, about an hour after bedtime, I’ll open the door to the toilet and there he is, pants around his ankles, frowning intently at a Just book – with the look of a boy who has been hiding out in there for a Very Long Time.

***

Sunday, we had another engagement F was very much looking forward to: a birthday party for his sometime best friend, A. F had played at A’s house once or twice a week, until A’s mother cut off the play dates ‘until further notice’ a couple of months ago. She said she couldn’t cope with her son’s behaviour when F was over, and she was punishing him by depriving him of F’s company.

Yeah, right.

My fellow parent had not liked F very much for quite a while. Who could forget such gems as ‘the problem with his personality is …’ (one of them was ‘he reads above his age level’, I kid you not) and her ongoing annoyance that he had told her son where babies come from?

***

When I got back from overseas, my ever-so-slick ex had wrangled a couple of mothers into helping him out by each having F after school once a week. One of them was a single mother, who was helping him because he told her he was ‘all alone’. I pointed out to her that the Ex has a stay-at-home wife. (‘Oh god’ she said. ‘I never thought of that.’) The other was The Mother.

On my return, I offered to have her son every week for a while, or for the boys to play at each of our houses on alternate weeks. I could somehow sense that she wasn’t up to having F every week. In fact, while I was in Mexico, the Ex had laughingly told me about a few incidents where he would arrive to pick F up and find her having a meltdown over the boys’ behaviour.

The first Wednesday I was back (their old play day), I found F outside A’s classroom, giggling together over AFL trading cards. The Mother was looking slightly panicked by his presence.
‘But I play at A’s house on Wednesdays!’ F protested when he saw me.
‘Not necessarily anymore. We’re going home now.’
‘Can F come and play?’ chorused A and his younger brother. ‘Pleeeeease?’
The Mother smiled, with her mouth but not her eyes. I’d spontaneously taken her boys the previous day because she’d had a headache.
‘Oh, okay’ she said.
‘Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!’
The three boys raced ahead to the bike shed. I suggested the alternate weeks idea.

‘YES!’ she said, relieved. ‘Let’s do that. W [her youngest] was playing with A and F in the playground at the start of the year and I was worried and I spoke to his teacher and she said that’s normal, that’s fine for preppies to hang out with older kids they know. Now A is playing with B in the playground instead, so THAT’s good, but W is still playing with F. And he’s been coming home saying rude words ever since he started school and he NEVER did that before. So, yeah, it would be good to, uh, limit the amount they …’
At this point in the monologue it seemed to dawn on her that I wasn’t suggesting the boys only play together every other week, but that they rotate houses. She paused.
‘Yes, okay, let’s do that. Swap houses every week. Okay.’ She sounded like she wasn’t sure how to get out of it. Which I’m sure is exactly what happened between her and my Ex.

I bolted home across the park. I had mountains of work to do and I was (really truly) all alone for a month with F. I planned to make use of my newly gifted time to get through some work. As I sat down at my computer, the phone rang. I let it go through to the answering machine, listening to see if it was something I really needed to answer. No one spoke.

At 6pm, I arrived at the Mother’s front gate, as arranged. Our two small, fluffy white dogs yapped piercingly at my side. Her waist-high black dog barked back menacingly from behind the gate, lurching its great head through the bars to gnash its teeth at us. I stood there, shouting ‘F! I’M HERE!’

The Mother arrived and escorted Kujo into the house. She scurried back to the fence.
‘Oh GOD’ she huffed. ‘I called you as soon as I got home to say I’m sorry, I can’t do this, and ask you to pick him up. But you obviously weren’t there yet.’
‘What happened?’
‘Well, it wasn’t REALLY his fault.’
Apparently, A offered F his bike to ride home. F rode it. A started screaming and wailing that he wanted his bike. They caught up to F, who was waiting further across the park. A screamed that he wanted his bike. F said no, he gave it to him. The Mother said to A ‘no, I heard you give it to F, you can’t take it back.’
‘But, you know, he really could have given it to him anyway’ she said to me now. ‘He could see how upset he was. But anyway …’
A screamed all the way to the end of the park, where F waited to cross the road to A’s street. He offered A the bike. A screamed no. ‘But I wanted to ride it HOME FROM SCHOOL!’ he apparently wailed. ‘We’re NEARLY HOME now!’ And then once inside, he didn’t want to share his toys either, the cause of more screaming.
‘A is so HYSTERICAL’ wailed the Mother. ‘He says such NASTY things to me, to get a rise out of me. I don’t know where he gets it from. Neither of US are like that.’
I shake my head and commiserate as F comes out, schoolbag in hand, to join us. W scales the fence as F and A exit through the gate. They’re obviously fine now, all three of them squealing excitedly about nothing much.

‘I think’ said the Mother. ‘That we should not have F over any more. Until further notice. You know, to punish A.’
‘Okay’ I said, probably quite snippily, and stalked off down the street with the dogs straining at their leashes and her two boys following us on scooters.
‘F was bad’ W told me.
‘W’ I snapped. ‘Every time I see you, you tell me F was bad. He never tells me anything bad about you. Maybe he will if you keep doing it. I don’t really want to hear it.’
‘He took my brother’s biiiike’ W drawled, in that sing-song ‘I’m dob-bing’ tone.
I swung on him. Inappropriately. I’m 31, he is five.
‘Well, I heard that your brother gave him the bike. That your brother threw a tantrum about it. It sounds like your brother was naughty.’
F was looking at me with wide eyes.
‘No, he waaaasn’t. It was his bike. F was bad.’
‘He wasn’t, W. And I don’t want to hear it.’ I walked off, ignoring his shouts to the contrary at my back.

F didn’t say anything as we crossed the creek on the path home.
‘You won’t be playing there anymore’ I had to tell him. ‘It’s because of A being naughty, not you.’

***

Saturday. We are on the train, our first leg of our journey to Readings. We are deciding what to get A for his birthday. I suggest that maybe we should get something at Readings.
‘YES’ says F firmly. ‘Do you know that they don’t have ANY BOOKS? Really, mum. Their bookshelves are full of toys. Toys! A is NOT that into reading. All he reads are COMICS. We MUST get him a book and get him into reading.’
I am amused and tickled and pleased for so many reasons. As a bookworm, it’s nice to be reminded (by his natural enthusiasm) that my son is one of his own volition, not my pushing. As a profound disliker of The Mother, I am bitchily amused by his observation. As his mother, I am amused by his staunch statement. And as a lazy woman embarking on a lazy Saturday, I am pleased that we can kill two birds with one stone at the bookshop.
‘But we can’t get an Andy Griffiths’ says F. ‘[The Mother] hates Andy Griffiths. She says he is inappropriate.’
‘Ah, yes’ I say. ‘Though we could get him The Cat on the Mat is Flat. That’s not rude. It’s just silly.’
‘We’ll get him Maxx Rumble. A is into footy, so he might get into that. And it’s illustrated by Terry Denton. Will he be there? He can sign it!’
‘Oh. I think he is.’
‘Good. That’s settled. Do you know they don’t even get bedtime stories?’ says F, full of seven-year-old scorn. ‘They just get bedtime TOYS.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true. I’m sure they have books. Maybe they’re somewhere else, not in their rooms.’
‘They don’t! I’ve SEEN their house.’
I’m not sure. The Mother is a crazy bitch, but I know she reads.

**

The children’s buyer at Readings is an old friend. F looks at the table of Terry and Andy books and asks her where the Maxx Rumble books are.
‘You’re so clever!’ she tells him. ‘I forgot about them.’ F fetches them from the shelf, feeling very important, and hands them over, keeping one for himself. He takes a place near the signing table and sits between a couple of 11 and 12 year-old boys. One of the boys clutches a pile of the Just books.
‘Oh. I have them’ says F.
‘I LOVE the Just books’ says the boy. ‘I have the whole series.’
‘Not Just Shocking’ says F. ‘That’s not out yet.’ I don’t know how he knows that. I don’t know that.
‘I KNOW’ breathes the boy. ‘I have the whole series except that one. I HAVE to get it as SOON as it comes out. If I don’t get the whole Just series, if I don’t get Just Shocking, I will DIE. My life WILL NOT be worth LIVING.’
F looks at him in solemn admiration.
‘Me too’ he echoes approvingly. I can barely contain my amusement. This boy is talking exactly like F.
The three boys begin an animated discussion of the ‘bumosaurs’ in the new book and the characters in the Just series. They talk in detail about characters, events and favourite stories. I buy F the new book at the counter and get back just as Andy and Terry arrive.
The boys gaze at them in awe.

F is the star of the show. Or maybe, he's the sideshow. I veer between amused, proud and mortified. I'm not sure how much I should let him be and how much I should urge him to pull his head in. When the kids are asked to demonstrate farts, his is the grossest. He asks questions about ‘the time your sister Jen …’. He suggests Terry add a poo to his picture of a bumosaur. He suggests Terry name a bumosaur after him, inspired after another girl gets the honour. At question time, he shows signs of being one of those incredibly annoying people at writer’s festivals. The ones who make a statement instead of asking a question. ‘I was wondering, the other day I made a new comic about Bum Man. And his power is earthquake farts.’
‘And your question?’ asks Terry.
‘Well, Andy, I wondered if you would write it as a story in Just Shocking?’

When F’s turn comes to have his book sign, Andy greets him by name.
‘This one is for Terry’ F says. ‘It’s for my friend.’ He gets his Bumosaur book signed, then moves over to Terry.
‘Hi F.’
‘Terry, my friend’s mum is NOT IMPRESSED with Andy.’
Terry laughs. A lot.
‘Why is that?’
‘She thinks his books are INAPPROPRIATE.’
Terry laughs more.
‘Tell Andy. Hey Andy.’ He plucks his sleeve. ‘F has something to tell you.’
He repeats his statement. Andy splutters with laughter.
‘I think she sounds inappropriate! No, really, she’s absolutely right. My books ARE inappropriate.’

F goes home happy. So do I.

I tell him many times pre-party NOT to tell The Mother about what Andy Griffiths said about her. And what he said. I can tell he is dying to do it.

**

Sunday. I remind F as we cross the park not to tell The Mother about Andy. (He is recalling the incident.) I remind him two doors from the house not to tell the Mother about Andy. ‘Yes mum.’ I remind him that there always seems to be trouble here and that he must behave. ‘Yes mum.’

I find another parent lurking at the gate, looking worried. Kujo throws himself at the bars in a frenzy.
‘I’m not goin’ in there with that dog!’ the parent says. ‘I’ll wait ‘til someone comes out.’
‘Yeah, me too’ I concur. I’m sure Kujo doesn’t bite, but he puts on a pretty convincing show.
The Mother soon arrives and pushes the dog inside and out the back.
‘Hi’ she says.
‘Hi’ says F. ‘I went to see Andy Griffiths yesterday!’
I hold my breath. The Mother actually rolls her eyes at me and makes a disapproving face. It’s as if he told her we went to Sexpo yesterday. I am, as always, gobsmacked by the weird lack of social niceties. Who does she think took him to see Andy Griffiths? Why would I join in the disapproval?
‘Oh DID you?’ she says wryly. ‘And was he RUDE?’
F is off down the hallway, thrusting his present at his friend. Crisis averted. For now.

Another mother, dressed gaily in Bulldogs colours, breezes out the door, after arranging that she will pick her son up when the game finishes.
‘So, what time do I pick him up?’ I ask. I always ask this question when I drop him off anywhere, just to make sure I’ve got it right. But it seems I’m being confronting.
‘Well, B’s mum is coming at the end of the footy, so late in the afternoon. And the other kids … well, some of them are staying later and … The party finishes at three. Pick him up at three.’
She could have just said ‘three’.

***

I arrive to pick F up at 3pm. There’s no dog at the gate, so I am able to ring the doorbell. The Mother sweeps me down the hallway. A huddle of boys in football jumpers are watching TV. All except F, who is nowhere to be seen. They swing to look at me.
‘F said a bad word’ says A.
‘Okay’ I reply.

I give The Mother a questioning look.
‘I think he might be upstairs’ she says. ‘In A’s room.’ I nod at her and climb the stairs. The door is locked. I knock. No answer. I call his name. The Mother is behind me. She pokes a wire into the lock, as if she’s done it a million times before. F stands glowering at the door, arms crossed.
‘I have had the worst day in my entire life’ he grunts.
‘What’s wrong F?’ asks the Mother, bending to look at him and putting her hand on his arm. ‘Don’t exaggerate.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘What’s up?’ I ask, a sinking feeling in my stomach.
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘We can’t help you if you don’t talk,’ she coos.
‘We’ll talk on the way home.’ I take F by the hand and lead him downstairs. He says a grumpy goodbye to his friend, under duress. A waves cheerily back at him. He gets his lolly bag. The Mother follows us to the door, and then the gate. I say as little as I can without being rude.

‘What happened?’ I ask.
They had a fight over footy cards. A said his were lame. He said they weren’t. They shouted at each other.
‘And you said a rude word?’
‘No.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said B was an idiot.’
‘That’s the rude word?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Did you get sent to time out?’
‘Yeah.’
‘[The Mother] sent you up there?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long had you been there?’
‘Not that long.’
‘Was [The Mother] very angry?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She told me never to use that word again.’
The Mother has told me that her own mother used to call her stupid and an idiot and that she never wants to hear those words in her house.

I was pissed off. I admit that I have no sense of what’s reasonable where this woman is concerned now. To use a cliché, I’m a lioness with her cub. I know The Mother doesn’t like F and I can’t trust anything she says about him because she is biased. Any other parent, any other house, and F would get a talking to. I have no problem whatsoever, in principle, with any other adult telling F off or putting him in time out. As it is, I brushed it off. I’m sick of the ritual of punishment on the way home from A’s house. I told him I don’t think it’s a big deal. I told him I’m more concerned with how he treats people than the words he uses (I know – not always true) and that though he shouldn’t have fought with B, it sounds like there were a few people at fault. I asked him if anyone else was told off. He said no.

We walked to the supermarket and did some grocery shopping. When we got home, I made him a hot Milo with three marshmallows and cooked roast for dinner, with lots of roast potatoes. We watched The Simpsons together (VERY inappropriate, I’m sure).

**

The Mother has been avoiding me after school since I got back from overseas. Which I have appreciated, actually. Today, she was all over us.
‘HI F. HI there.’ Some white noise about her after school plans. Me, too pissed off to actually listen. All my conscious attention on not being rude. ‘Have you recovered from yesterday F?’
‘Yes.’
As we walked down the road from the school, she chattered to our dogs. The Evil One lurched at her, barking. F looked her in the eye.
‘He doesn’t like you,’ he said.

Looking a gifthorse in the mouth

My little boy is unhappy. Really unhappy, I think. And I am angry. I’m not sure who with.

His problem, as I’ve been told by his teachers, his school principal and other well-meaning parents, is that he’s ‘so clever’. He is ‘operating on another plane to the other kids’ and ‘they don’t get him’.

Of course, that’s not his whole problem. He is also remarkably stubborn and incredibly self-centred. He lives inside his head, with the outside world coming a distant second to the rich universe he has created for himself – a source of new ideas and obsessions, or characters to be drawn in to his elaborate games.

F has a football team at school, he tells me. The Melbourne Dinosaurs. He is the captain and they win every game. They are on top of the schoolyard ladder. He describes their games and his goals in minute detail as we walk home through the park.

He also has a band. They were originally called Kids R Cool but now they are called Dimension X. He is the lead singer and the lead guitarist. One of his friends is on keyboards (he plays keyboards at school), another is on bass and another is on drums. ‘We’re counting on S for the drums!’ F tells me in the early stages. ‘He hasn’t signed on yet but he just has to. He’s the ONLY ONE who can do it.’ When I ask his friends about their band, they look confused. They shake their heads, pause and eventually say ‘yeah, okay’.

He brought his football to school earlier in the week. At the end of the day he told me it was the Worst Day Ever. That was probably the third Worst Day Ever in one week of school days. He said that the other kids took his ball and then walked off and wouldn’t let him play with them. They said ‘we don’t want to play with F, he’s boring and stupid’. He also said his team were winning and scored lots of goals. One of his friends was wandering in small circles nearby, waiting to be picked up. I asked him about the game. F was correct about what the other kids said about him. But his team were thrashed. Of course.

No one else is aware of the Melbourne Dinosaurs either, though I hear about their adventures every day.

Two weeks ago, walking home from school, F told me about his terrible day. There were bullies. A kid hit him. Another punched him. Another poked him. I hear this stuff a lot, and I know it’s not all black and white. I know F can be an antagonist. I said ‘that’s terrible’.
‘Yeah’ he continued, dragging his backpack behind him on the bitumen. ‘Then I spent half an hour hiding behind the garbage bins crying.’
‘Pardon?’
‘A teacher found me. She took me to [the principal].’
He was more upset than I’ve seen him in a long time. He was crying, he said, because he realised that he didn’t have any friends and nobody liked him. We had a big talk and I promised to go up to the school the next day and talk to the principal. I told him that he was a great kid and repeated some nice things another mum had said to me about him recently. I hugged him – and he let me, which is becoming rarer these days.

That night, we went out. It was his dad’s night to have him and he picked him up from our destination to take him home. I got a lift to a taxi stand nearer to my house. In the back seat, F begged to come to my house. He sniffled a little and talked about how it would make his bad day a bit better if he could come home with me. We told him that he was going to dad’s and I would see him tomorrow. When his dad pulled up at the taxi stand, F burst into real sobs and clung to me. I got out of the car.
‘He’s really upset’ I whispered to his dad. ‘Please let me take him.’
‘I’m his father and I need to deal with this too.’
I glanced into the back seat, where F’s face was buried in his own lap.
‘Please’ I begged. ‘I can’t tell him he’s not welcome with me when he’s this upset.’ I burst into tears. F’s poor father (who had now driven to pick him up at 8.30pm for nothing) looked at me, standing in the street sobbing into the dark, and his son, now howling on the back seat, and shook his head.
‘Fine.’
F and I guiltily held hands in the back of the taxi as we crossed the Westgate Bridge, our eyes dry.

Half an hour later, F lay still in his bed as I stroked his hair and gave him a goodnight cuddle. Usually, he wriggles and talks in an attempt to keep my attention as long as possible. Tonight, he was so content for me to leave him to sleep that I perversely turned back to sit beside him awhile.
‘Mum’ he murmured eventually, turning on his back to face me with solemn eyes. ‘Today I realised that I was weak.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I couldn’t defeat the bullies, no matter how I tried.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Well then’ I scrambled in my mental odds-and-ends basket of homespun wisdom, hoping to come up with something that would fit the occasion. ‘That means you’re strong, actually. They’re the weak ones, because they needed to make you feel bad in order to make themselves feel tough. Cowards do that. By doing nothing, you showed that you’re not like that.’
I kissed him good night and left. Since then, to my surprise, he has twice told kids in the playground that they are weak because they are being mean to him to make themselves feel tough. It’s always surprising what sinks in, and what provides comfort.

I should mention that F has not begged to be left with me (or with his dad) at changeover time for a year or more.

Two days ago:
‘I think the teacher has found out my secret’ he glumly announced over dinner. ‘She announced it to the whole class.’
‘What’s your secret?’
‘That I play alone in the playground because I have no friends.’
‘Oh, darling. What did she say?’
‘She said: if F comes up to you in the playground and wants to play with you, you should let him. Say, ‘hi F, of course.’ Make him welcome.’ He frowned into his bowl of noodles. ‘It was so humiliating.’

I don’t know who I am angry with. I’m angry with the kids who are mean to him. But I’m aware that a lot of it is not that black and white. He has a temper and he can aggravate some of the ‘bullying’ he gets. He likes to be in charge. And other kids, understandably, are less keen on the idea. Especially when he’s one of the less popular kids in the school. He likes to play what he wants to play. I’ve asked him ‘well, why didn’t you play with … ?’ and the answer is often related to the game they’re playing. It’s no fun. He wants other people to play with him, but he wants them to play what he wants. He needs to learn that it’s a choice. Play on your own and be the boss of proceedings, or play with others and learn to compromise. But I also know that he tries to play with other kids and they tell him to get lost. I know that friends of his don’t play with him because their other friends ‘said so’. (I remember that one from my own schoolyard days.) And yes, I know that a lot of the kids ‘don’t get him’ and are ‘not on his wavelength’.

So, what do I do? I want him to learn to compromise, but not to change who he is. I like his wavelength. Where do I find other children who are on his wavelength? Surely there are other bright, eccentric kids out there who like to create their own worlds? (And hopefully, if they exist, they could create shared worlds.)

His first teacher firmly believed that he is ‘very gifted’ and suggested we get him tested. The school principal vetoed the idea and said he was too young and that what he needs is to learn to fit in. That his problems are social, not educational. His subsequent teachers have followed the idea that F needs to do what everyone else does. His first teacher extended him with his own books, educational magazines and a range of activities for him to do when the other kids were doing work that (she said) he knew backwards already. She thought boredom was his problem. When the other kids were chanting the alphabet, he would be sitting at his table with his head in a Horrid Henry book. He was allowed to choose his readers from the library. His current teacher took away the chapter books that he was reading last year (and earlier this year). What will he read next year if he reads the chapter books now?

As you can tell, I am confused. I am confusing the issue. Is it about socialisation or education or both? Are the two linked? Socialisation is definitely the priority. That’s what is making him unhappy. But am I allowed to care about the education, too – or does that make me a crazy stage mother? Right now, my solution of the moment is that we need to find him a school where there are other bright children, which might make it easier for him to make friends. Given my teeny tiny salary, that will be a challenge.

I know I need to work on his social skills. But that’s hard to do when he doesn’t have friends to work on them with. Of the ones he has: the teachers have suggested he should be kept away from one of them as they are a bad influence on each other; another is as dreamy as him, though in a different way, and they only occasionally collide; the Mother of the last has none-too-subtly discouraged her son from playing with F and has stopped their once-regular play dates 'until further notice' because they fight. A month ago.

I'm making him do Auskick on Saturdays, which he doesn't much like, in order to teach him team skills and get him socialising. I stand at the sidelines and admonish him to 'pay attention' during the training part, and then watch dejectedly as he mooches around the field during the game, occasionally throwing himself to the ground with frustration when he doesn't get the ball and spending more time frowning at the shouting, jumping, running pack than joining it. It is torture for us both. (Me more than him, I suspect - he does enjoy horsing around with his buddies during the training. And it's incredibly embarassing that he behaves like this.) But I'm sure it's something we should be doing, at least for now. He needs to learn the skills of teamwork before he can decide it's not for him. Right?

If anyone knows anything useful about schools in Melbourne where there are bright children, or where bright children are encouraged, let me know. And thank you, if you have, for reading this far.

My happy place (at least for now): Williamstown

Williamstown is a strange blend of identities. The ‘Toorak of the west’: home of the rich. ‘St Kilda of the west’: a seaside suburb that families from surrounding suburbs flock to in the summer months – and on sunny days in general. I lived in Williamstown for five months (winter months, mostly) and discovered yet another identity: conservative Williamstown. A place where newcomers are carefully watched by neighbours who have lived in the area for years, and report on their quirks and foibles. (I was almost evicted because I refused to remove a couch from the front porch – both my landlords and neighbours found it unsightly.)



It's a suburb with the feel of a country town, within sight of the CBD towers and the shores of the inner-city seaside stretch between Port Melbourne and St Kilda. Perhaps it’s the geography of Williamstown – a suburb largely bordered by the bay – that retains its small-town feel. That flavour is cleverly helped along by the heritage-listed buildings housing the shops and restaurants along Nelson Place, facing the wharf with the view of inner Melbourne across the bay. Like St Kilda, Williamstown has its own Botanic Gardens adjacent to the beach, and generous parklands running along the waterfront. (Unlike St Kilda, the public transport is awful – to travel to the city outside peak hour, the traveller must change trains at Newport station, one stop after North Williamstown. Try it on a cold winter night.) You can quite easily walk from one part of Williamstown to another - and on your way from, say, the library or the local Coles, to the beach, you’ll pass parks, playgrounds and picturesque stretches of seaside. It is a wonderful place to explore with a child. And yet …



I moved out of Williamstown four years ago, unspeakably relieved to escape the isolation of that beautiful suburb across the bay for the haven of a tiny flat in North Fitzroy. But since I’ve returned from overseas, one month ago, I’ve gravitated there for rest and respite. I’ve been there four times – an average of once a week – cycling to the train station with F on the back cushion, travelling two stations, enduring the still-frustrating train change at Newport, then disembarking. And every visit has granted me the mental equivalent of a deep breath before continuing on my way. I return both invigorated and relaxed (though often exhausted from cycling around with a nearly-eight-year-old and two heavy backpacks).



Today, Anzac Day, ‘Willie’, as we’re affectionately calling it, is packed with families. It’s a gorgeous spring day (even though it's autumn): flawless blue sky, golden sunlight, crisp air. The beach is crowded with toddlers and pre-teens ankle-deep in rock pools. Middle-aged men and women settle contentedly on the sand beneath wide-brimmed hats, books or magazines in hand. Dog owners meander along the shore in tracksuits. Two elderly Mediterranean women, round as grapefruits in sleek fifties bathing suits and shiny caps, wander along the fringe of the waves. A bronzed, white-haired man, also Mediterranean in appearance, strides in the opposite direction, chin raised high, swollen belly resplendent above royal blue Speedos. The parks across the road and further along the path, where sand blends into grass, are fragrant with the aroma of barbecue. Women in headscarves and ankle-length skirts stroll along the beachfront as I huff past on my bicycle. They nod hello to the Middle-Eastern family pedalling before me in single file.

A teenage Asian couple, self-consciously hip, pose for photographs against the backdrop the sea and sand. She wears black lace leggings under her skirt; his blazer-style jacket is teamed with blue jeans. A pair of forty-something parents walk backwards, two steps ahead of their infant daughter, who totters along with a red bucket, her face framed by a matching sunbonnet. Their hand-held video camera is trained on her every move.

A young mother, early thirties, strips self-consciously down to her two-piece bathing suit and follows her primary-age son to the conspicuously empty sea. He shouts excitedly and kicks at the shallow waves with one toe, spraying water back towards her. She resolutely looks at him as she kicks back, then out at the water – anywhere but back at the sensibly clothed adults on the sand.

‘Let’s SWIM!’ shouts the boy, as the water rises to his knees, then his waist, as he barrels towards the horizon.
‘Do you think Mum can do this? It’s pretty cold.’
‘Of COURSE you can!’

Of course, this is us: me and F. I do eventually submerge myself in the cold water. Despite Melbourne’s proximity to the chilly Bass Strait (and Antarctica beyond), today, the ocean is pretty okay. That’s relative, of course. It’s still bloody cold.

F flees the deeper waters before I do.



We collect shells in the rockpools. I inadvertently collect shards of glass, some of them dangerously angled upward, and deposit them in a bin on the footpath.
‘You DO care about the environment’ observes F, admiringly.
‘Yes’ I reply. ‘And I also care about people’s feet.’
We build a sandcastle with a fort and a dug-out pool. It is messy but elaborate. As I scoop out tunnels and get increasingly muddy (in my hair, up my legs), F declares that I am obviously an EXPERT at sandcastles.
‘Well’, I say, trying to sound authoritative. ‘I HAVE been doing this for thirty years.’
He thinks about it.
‘Since you were ONE?’
‘Um, yes.’ I have forgotten that I am thirty-one, now.
We eat a fish and chips picnic on our spread-out towels.



And then we pile all our books, towels, magazines, shells and wet towels and bathers into backpacks and onto my bike (with F on his back perch) and cycle across Williamstown to Nelson Place, where we buy ice-cream cones from the Williamstown Ice Cream Factory, choosing carefully from over fifty flavours.
‘Mum, I don’t want to swap a SINGLE lick with you!’ announces F, sweeping his tongue over a mound of iridescent Blue Heaven.
‘Good’ I reply, absolutely sincerely.

We eat our ice creams in the park opposite, overlooking the boats moored in the harbour and the CBD skyline across the bay. Evening is falling. The colours of the sky sky blend purple into mauve into dusky pink, then powdery blue over the sea. The lights come on over the tennis courts adjacent to the playground. A small boy sits on the end of the slide, chin in hands, watching the players with rapt attention. The dogwalkers and cyclists and joggers and shrieking children dissipate. F swings up and down on the flying fox. Across the playground, under a tree, his mother sits under a tree and scribbles in a notebook, pausing at intervals to inhale the evening air or listen to a magpie’s last call. Not really watching him.

‘MU-UUUUUM!’ he hollers. ‘PLAY WITH ME!’

Raising money: kid style

'Maybe we should have a garage sale,' I mused to F, as we ambled our way home from the milk bar.

While I was in Mexico, his father had taken him to the pub and set him up as a busker, raising money for his World Vision child. His father has also, in the past, taken him to the local newsagent and encouraged him to ask them to sell his hand-made comics for $2 each. And then ask the newsagent every week if they had sold any yet, or ask why they're not displayed on the counter. (The Husband felt so sorry for the newsagent - who was across the road from his bookstore - that he snuck in there one day and bought the comics to give them some peace.)

So, I wasn't surprised when F announced that he was going to sell the seashells he found on the beach yesterday for $2 each.
'We won't find any customers on our street' he told me. 'You'll need to take me to the pub.'
'I'm sorry, but no one will buy those shells for $2. And we're not selling shells at the pub. It's not quite the same as playing your guitar at the pub for World Vision.'
'Okay.'

F reappeared with his guitar.
'Let's go to the pub. I want to raise money for [World Vision child]. He doesn't have any Lego.'
'I'm sorry F, but no. We're not asking people we don't know for money.'

***

I remember how my cousin and I used to haul her white plastic ghettoblaster onto the suburban council strip, turn up the volume, and dance and sing - hats laid upside down on the grass.
'Do you have any change?' my cousin once called to a neighbour scurrying by.
'No, sorry.'
Ten minutes later, the neighbour scurried past again, head down, bulging shopping bag in hand.
'NOW DO YOU HAVE ANY CHANGE? We'll do a dance and sing for you!'
He stopped and dropped fifty cents into one of the hats.
'I'll pay you NOT to dance and sing' he muttered as he hurried off.
My aunt was mortified when she caught us.

I guess that now I'm my aunt - or my mum (who would have been equally embarassed).

***

'Wait a minute' says F, as I head for the front door, wrestling with a dog lead in each hand. He is leaning a piece of white paper against the wall, writing intently with his new lead pencil. 'I'm going to sign people up to the [Surname] Corporation.'
I watch him write 'name' and 'phone number' and picture him handing these out on the street. I know what he's doing. He's going to ask them to sign up to donate money.
'I'm sorry, you can't do that. You can't ask people to give you their details and send you money.'
'Why not? That man did it to you yesterday.'
He watched me sign up to Amnesty International yesterday on the main street of Yarravile. The 'man', a twentysomething who talked enthusiastically about the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie - which we were on our way to see - had stopped us as we walked by on our route to the cinema. F had been very curious about why I would agree to give $15 per month (every bit counts) to a man on the street.

'Amnesty International and World Vision are not just people on the street. They're groups that help people.'
'I'm forming a corporation. I'm going to help [World Vision child].'
'Yes, but people know those groups. They know that the money will go to poor people. I know you'll give the money to [World Vision child], but they don't know that.'
'Oh.'

He is deflated, thoughtful, on the short walk to the milk bar. He drags his hand along the fences we pass, lets his designated dog pull ahead, leading him like a horse dragging a cart.
'How would I get a job in advertisements?' he asks, suddenly.
'Um, you have to go to a modelling agency. Why?'
'I need money! I really want some Bionicle Battle Machines.'
'I thought you needed money for [World Vision child]. Was some of that money going to be for you?'
'Only a bit of it.'

I tell him that he can save his pocket money, that maybe he can do some extra chores.
'Models have to sit nicely and their pictures taken' I tell him. 'You hate smiling for the camera, don't you?'
'Yeah.'
Thank god.

On our way back from the milk bar - drinks in hand, milk in my satchel - I suddenly blurt it out: 'Maybe we should have a garage sale.'

I do have green garbage bags full of old clothes and toys piled on the verandah. I don't mean to reinforce the message that he can sell things to get toys - it's more that he's given me an idea.

'You could get a lot of money for that mattress under your bed' F observes, sagely.
'Hmmm.'
'I could make up little bags of my toys, like they do at Savers. I have four Action Men and an Action Man top and an Action Man vest I don't want. I could make Action Man packs!'
I am a little disturbed by his savvy marketing idea.

'How will people come?'
'I'll put an ad in the paper.'
'Mum, if you have Microsoft Word, you can make signs on the computer. And we can put them up on poles. Do you have Microsoft Word?'
'I do.'
'We can say: Boys! Get Your Action Man!'
'Maybe.'
'And Mum, I have a great idea for a sign.'
'What?'
'Is it your wife's birthday? Have you got her a present? Come here! We have unwanted jumble for every kind.'

I'll say it again: I am disturbed by his savvy marketing mind. Even if it is a bit misguided.

School holidays: Week Two, Day Five

F: Mum, I'm writing a letter to DA [Disney Adventures] and no one will stop me from posting it.
Me: Uh huh. Why would I stop you? Are you writing a letter about me?
F: I'm writing a letter that says I have nothing to do because Mum won't let me play the Play Station.
Me: Oh. Right.
F: Yeah, and I might ask them if they have any cheats for Lego Star Wars the video game.
Me: Yeah, you might as well do that while you're there.
F: You can't stop me from posting it.
Me: I'll take you to the post office and help you post it.
F: Mum, if they publish my name, will you let me buy DA? [He hasn't been alllowed to have kiddie mags for about a year, in a delayed response to the awful consumer crap content, advertising directly - and scarily effectively - to kids.]
Me (sarcastically): Absolutely. If they publish your name. I'm sure DA will be very concerned about your not being allowed to play the Play Station.

On reflection, I bet Nintendo are one of their advertisers. I bet they WILL care about his Play Station being banned. I bet they will publish his letter and give him tips on Lego Star Wars the video game (along with the game's price and availability).

And I'll have to buy him the magazine.

Hell is other parents. Part One.

I’ve had a bad parenting week.

Partially due to the Boy, who pulled his pants down in the playground AGAIN, forcing me to carry through with my ill-conceived threat to write to Santa and tell him ‘No Bionicles for Christmas’. This was Wednesday.

Monday, after spending the morning throwing up (no, I’m not pregnant) and the day at work feeling weak and dizzy, I arrive at After Care deep in brain fog. They look puzzled to see me. ‘F’s not here,’ they say. I panic. ‘Could someone else have picked him up?’ They couldn’t. His father and stepfather are both at work. Where could he be? What could have happened? Then I remember. On Mondays, he plays at a friend’s house after school. More than a little embarrassed, I reassure the worried-looking carer that I know where he is, I’d just forgotten, and head for the friend’s house.

‘You’re early,’ the Mother greets me at the door. ‘Are you okay? You look terrible.’ I feel terrible, and I’m about to feel worse. She pulls me into the ‘good’ sitting room, the one they don’t use, to tell me about her afternoon. Apparently, she’d overhead F saying something about sucking a woman’s breast on the way home and told him that if she ever heard anything like that again, he is no longer welcome at the house. ‘I like F,’ she said. ‘But A is innocent, and I’d like to keep him that way. I let him watch The Blues Brothers, but that’s about it. I don’t mean to judge, but I don’t know where F has picked that up from. Do you? He’s a very advanced reader, so maybe he read it somewhere?’ (Yeah, like all those Playboys I keep in my bottom drawer?!) I apologise, and assure her I will investigate and give F a thorough talking to. ‘I mean, it was one thing when he told A about how babies were made last week,’ she continues. ‘I didn’t really mind that, but … I didn’t really want him to know about it, but what can you do? I did have to put up with him saying penis and vagina all weekend, but … but that was okay, I guess.’ I still remember the look on her face last week when I told her that I’d overhead them having The Talk. I slink off to collect my wayward son.

‘What exactly did you say?’ I ask him as we walk home across the park.
‘I said that Supergirl was the stupidest movie I’d ever seen and A said Supergirl was beautiful. So I asked him if he wanted to suck Supergirl’s breast.’
‘Where did you get that from?’
‘From when you get born,’ he chirps. ‘You know, breastfeeding.’ His stepmother is breastfeeding. I breathe a huge sigh of relief and tell him to never say anything like that again.

Back to Wednesday. Wednesday is the day that A comes to play at our house. He’s a nice kid, and they play well together, but they also like to dob on each other. I have a rule: I don’t want to hear about it unless someone is hurt, someone is in danger or about to get hurt, or something is being wrecked. I find A before I find F.
‘My mum told me I have to tell you every time F says something rude,’ he tells me.
‘Great,’ I say, through clenched teeth.

I read F’s Communication Book outside his classroom. He has spent the afternoon in the office for pulling his pants down. I find his teacher. We talk. I find the vice principal. We talk, while F and A play in the corridor outside her office. I am almost in tears.
‘He keeps doing it because it makes the other children laugh,’ she says. ‘But they don’t laugh so much anymore. They think it’s weird.’ I nod and agree. I tell her what I’ve been doing, and ask her what she suggests. Then she says something that really brings me to the edge of tears.
‘F is a great kid,’ she says. ‘He’s come so far this year. We’ve told him we’re really proud of him. He’s incredibly smart, and sometimes that causes problems. But I love having him around.’
‘Really?’ I say. ‘You do?’
I’ve spent the year worrying that they don’t like him.

I feel slightly better as I walk the boys home. I tell F that if he does it again, I will give all his Bionicles to my mother-in-law’s foster child, J.
‘Who’s that?’ asks A.
‘His cousin,’ I say. It’s what F has taken to calling him, and it’s easier than explaining. I go to the newsagent on the way home and buy glitter glue, textas, paintbrushes. The boys play best when they are drawing together.

I push my bike, loaded with art supplies, through the hot, smoggy park. A lags behind.
F points to the wall along the power station.
‘That’s graffiti,’ he says. ‘S says when he grows up, he wants to write graffiti.’ The boys giggle naughtily. F whispers something.
‘Excuse me,’ says A. ‘F said when he grows up, he wants to sniff vaginas.’
‘WHAT?’ I am furious. I interrogate the boys. I turns out that F said he wanted to sniff bums. Okay, bad, but Andy Griffiths rather than Hugh Hefner territory. A just wanted to say vagina. I growl at them both. I am hot, my throat hurts, my eyes sting, and my arm is sore from pushing the bike for so long.

At the front gate, A taps my arm.
‘Excuse me,’ he says. ‘F said that daisy was stupid.’
I look at him.
‘And stupid is a bad word?’
He nods.
‘Okay,’ I say. I lock up my bike and entertain thoughts of killing the Mother, who has condemned me to what is already a long and painful afternoon.

I am cutting up honey toast and apples at the kitchen table. A comes to fetch his carton of Ribena, and stays to watch. He is thoughtful.
‘So, if F is rude again, his cousin gets all his Bionicles?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’
‘Oh.’ He pauses. ‘You know, you could give them to me.’
‘That’s an interesting idea, but I don’t think so,’ I say, envisaging even more dobbing in a plot to gain F’s Bionicles. I also envisage the end of the friendship.
‘Oh.’ He takes a slice of apple. ‘You could give half to me, half to his cousin?’
‘No.’
‘Maybe I could have just one?’
I snap. ‘A, if I was to give you F’s Bionicles if he was rude, you’d tell me was rude, wouldn’t you? So, I don’t think it’s a good idea. They’ll go to his cousin. And hopefully, F will be good.’
‘I won’t say he’s rude.’
‘No.’

The Mother is due between 5.30pm and 6pm. At 6.10pm, she hasn’t arrived. I want this to be over. I have a headache with trying to work out who is really being rude, who is making up stories, who actually deserves to be told off, and how to explain that I don’t really care if someone said ‘bloody’. There are just as many complaints about 'innocent' A as about F. Next week, I plan to revert to my rule.

The Mother arrives at 6.30pm, breezily. She has, as usual, brought A’s little brother. The three boys shoot out into the backyard for a light sabre duel. I want her to go. I am too angry and tired to deal with her. The Husband shoots her a look and disappears. He is furious, as is F’s father, about the fuss. They think she is a prude. F’s father actually came out with a killer of a line when I told him how upset she was about the sex ed, and penis and vagina. ‘What would she prefer?’ he said, icily. ‘That A goes around saying prick and cunt?’

The Mother deals with the frosty atmosphere by settling in for the long haul, to show that we are friends and everything is okay. She talks and talks. She follows the boys out the back and comments on the progress of the light sabre duels. She tells me about a meal she made recently, and gives me the recipe, step by step. She asks for lemons from the tree. She tells me that she wants to make lemon butter. She gives me a recipe for lemon butter. She tells me that the great thing to do with lemon butter is to make a pudding. She gives me the recipe. She tells me how nice the lemon tree is, and about her lemon tree, and about her friend’s lemon tree, and what her friend does with lemons, and how her mother propagates fruit trees, and how she herself does it. It is 7pm. She asks me, finally, about the sucking breasts thing. I tell her about the breastfeeding and she is surprised and relieved. She tells me, again, that she wishes A hadn’t been told the facts of life. She tells me, again, that he’s been saying vagina. That she was doing the ironing, and he said ‘Mum, you have a vagina, don’t you?’

At 7.30pm, she finally leaves. At the door, she grabs my arm and asks, ‘Are you doing anything right now?’ I need to cook dinner, serve dinner, bath F, get him into his PJs, put him to bed and read him a story. By 8.30pm. And then I need to write and research an article.
‘Why?’
‘A is missing his bike,’ she says. (He left it here last week.) ‘Can you walk him to the park so he can ride it home?’
‘Okay.’ I just want it to all be over. A asks if F can come. I say no, too sharply. I say that F will walk home too slowly and I need to start dinner soon, an edge of resentment in my voice. As we trudge to the end of the driveway, the Mother grabs my arm again.
‘Hey!’ she says. ‘Come here!’ And she gives me a hug. I smile weakly and wave goodbye.
‘Why does F like Bionicles so much?’ asks A.
‘I don’t know.’ I try to be upbeat and friendly, overcompensating. ‘I guess he just does.’
‘I don’t,’ says A. ‘I like superheroes.’ And with that, he climbs onto his bike and pedals off down the hill, me jogging behind.

Inherited nostalgia

As The Husband and I once again contemplate moving house, I find myself wondering what kind of living place I really want. What makes me happy?

I’m compiling a wishlist in my head, which more often than not contains a strong element of: ‘if only I had THAT house again, on THAT street’. Or something like it.

My son, aged seven, has inherited my raging nostalgia for past houses.

One Sunday night a few weeks ago, with just the two of us for dinner, I put on an old home video tape I’d discovered. We sat companionably on the couch, hands and mouths full of home-made hamburgers (higher than F’s mouth is wide), equally entranced by the sudden vision of four-year-old F in the bath.

My heart melted as he squirmed around, lisping a little (I’d forgotten he lisped at four!) singing the theme from Lilo and Stitch: ‘I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You’. To me, on the other side of the camera. Seven-year-old F was gleefully chuffed at his follow-up performance, solemnly miming ‘I think you stink’.

Then it was dinnertime and he was pouring sauce onto a hot dog on his plate. He tipped the bottle upside down and shook it. A red torrent drowned the hot dog bun, lapping at the broccoli and carrots sitting beside it. F stuck his fork into the mess and lifted the whole bun to his mouth. He licked it and put it down.
‘Don’t you like it?’ came the voice from behind the camera (me again).
‘No. There’s too much sauce.’
‘Do you think Mummy should have done it for you?’
‘Yes.’

The screen fuzzed black and white for a second and then filled with water and the sound of children shrieking. The camera zoomed in to reveal F again, chubby and lively in royal blue Speedos, jumping from the pool steps into the water as an awed little girl stood by, watched, then followed suit. It was the now-defunct Footscray Pool, where we used to swim every week or so. It was a fifteen-minute walk from our old house.

The Husband (then De Facto) cooked dinner as I filmed him. A close-up of the meal, one I’d forgotten was on his repertoire. I remind myself to ask him to cook it again. F’s beloved Cheer Bear (now face-down in a toybox) ‘talks’ to the camera and conducts a tour of the house. On the couch beside me, F giggles. He has abandoned his burger and curled up on the cushions, glued to the screen. I threaten him with ‘no TV’ and he wriggles back towards his meal.

He’s at the Show, stumbling in fake snow, throwing ‘snowballs’ at the camera. The screen goes black and I hear my own squeal. He’s hit me. Then he’s eating hot chips in the sun, the Ferris Wheel in the background. His Action Man vest, now worn, and faded, is proudly new, the colours bright. He shows off his Action Man compass and Action Man walkie-talkie. He waves his Action Man rifle in the air and takes imaginary aim.
‘I’m shooting helicopters,’ he says. ‘They’re the baddies.’

F perches on the end of his bed, impossibly small and chubby. A red cap partially obscures his face. A Spiderman backpack sits on one knee, his favourite Care Bear (Tenderheart) on the other.
‘You’re not going to kinder today,’ I say.
‘Really? Yes!’ he says, punching the air.
‘I thought you liked kinder.’
‘Nah.’

The camera is approaching the house from the street. Tendrils of jasmine embrace the frame of the porch. My old bike sits beside the wheelie bin, sun-bleached silver and purple streamers at the handlebars. I loved that bike. (Stolen) There is, for once, no F on screen. Stevie Wonder wails plaintively from deep inside the house. The hallway fills the screen, jammed with boxes and bare bookshelves. The virtual tour of the house continues, lingering lovingly in each room, pausing at the back door to take in the courtyard, F’s treehouse, even the outside toilet. Finally, the tour ends in F’s bedroom, stripped of its toys and posters. Painted stars and planets dance along the walls. Tenderheart lies abandoned on the bare mattress. As the closing bars of the song sob: 'this time could mean goodbye', the lens zooms in on the bear, closer and closer, pausing on his absurdly cheerful face before the screen goes black and the scene shifts to our current front yard.

F has abandoned his burger again. A corner scrap sits on his plate.
‘I’m feeling a bit sad,’ he says.
‘I’m sorry. Do you think it was the music? Mum was being a bit silly.’
‘No.’
I pat his shoulder, and am shocked when he crumples into a sob that racks his little chest, bursting from within. He is a dramatist, but not now. He’s seriously upset. I grab the remote and press stop, then gather him into my arms and let him cry.
‘I miss my old house,’ he gasps. ‘I want to go back there.’
‘I’m sorry honey, we can’t. The owners moved in.’
‘I want my treehooouuuse …’

I’m sad, too. I loved that house. I moved into it on my own: just the two of us, moving from a tiny flat (no yard) in North Fitzroy. I had believed that I would never afford a house for us and a yard for him. I had some truly awful times in that house, but I didn’t blame the house. I also had some great times. And we were happy there.

I managed to console F with an ice cream for dessert and a story about how his Poppa once built us a platform when we were young, which was like our treehouse. It had a sandpit underneath and a rope ladder on the side, and once, in a fight, one of my brothers threw the other off it.

Now he wants Poppa (who lives in Adelaide) to build him a new treehouse.

I spoke to Poppa this afternoon. He’s thinking about it.