My life on and off screen

MELISSA DOYLE

First published in 2014

Copyright © Melissa Doyle 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, London

83 Alexander Street

Crows Nest NSW 2065

Australia

Phone:      (61 2) 8425 0100

Email:      info@allenandunwin.com

Web:        www.allenandunwin.com

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available

from the National Library of Australia

www.trove.nla.gov.au

ISBN 978 1 74237 527 4

Internal design by Darian Causby

Typesetting by Midland Typesetters, Australia

Dedicated to my husband John—without whom I could not do any of this—and to our children Nick and Talia—everything we do is for them.

Contents

Introduction

Absent Notes

Asking for Help

Autographs

Baby Zone

Bana-meter

BFFs

Big Brother

Birthday Parties

Bellies and Boobs

Body Combat

Cartwheels

Celebrity

Christmas Day

Chucky

Community

Copycats

Cracking It

Cricket

Damn the Clock

Diamonds Aren’t a Girl’s Only Best Friend

Dishy Dads

Divorce

Eating

Einstein

Embarrassing

Empty Nest

Escaping

Faking It

Father’s Day

Favourites

Fire Truck

Food

Friends

Gadgets

Genes

Girls Gone Mild

Gold

Grandparents

Groundhog Day

Hair Apparent

Heroes and Role Models

Home Sweet Home

Housework

Identity

Immortality

Independence

Job Descriptions

Juggling

Kids’ Fashion

Kochie

Labels

Little White Lies

Lost

Love

Make-believe

Making Friends

Maternity Leave

Memories

Mess

Mother Lions

Movember

Mummy Olympics

Naughty Corners

Network

New Year’s Resolutions

No

Nudie Rudies

Off to School

One-on-one Time

Organised Chaos

Owls

Parent Coaching

Parents

Playground Politics

Pocket Money

Quarantine

Quiet Time

Recycling

Red Carpets

Romance

Rostering

Royal Birth

School Holidays

Smoke and Mirrors

Social Media

Sons

Sport

Spotto!

Tears

Technology

Teddy

Thrift

Tragedy

Tweetheart

Umpiring

Unity

Vale

Victory

Wasting Time

Wills

Woof

X-rated

Yasi

Yummy Mummies

Zzzzz

Afterword

Introduction

Routine waits for no mum

Dressed to the nines in a little one-shoulder black silk number, en route to one of the most important nights on my employees’ annual agenda, the Channel Seven Network Showcase, I ask the driver to go via our local cricket field so I can drop my son and his mate off at their regular Tuesday night training session. So there I am, lugging this massive damn cricket bag down the hill and onto the field, tiptoeing barefoot—leaving my gorgeous but impractical heels in the car because they would simply make the job too perilous and sink into the grass—and taking small delicate steps because my figure-hugging party frock was not made for great big strides down a hill. Boys safely deposited and another mum promising to bring them home, I resume the journey into the city in my sleek hire car, bound for the red carpet, a much needed glass of bubbles and my focus firmly switched to my other job: TV presenting.

Of course I’m juggling too many balls in the air; of course I never get enough sleep given my alarm has woken me between 3 and 3.15 a.m., depending on the day of the week, for the best part of fourteen years. Of course I drop many of those balls, lose a few more and sometimes even forget I had some on the go . . . but isn’t that the life of most working mums? And would I really want to change anything?

I am writing this introduction at my desk one Wednesday afternoon. I have twelve minutes left before I have to pick the kids up from band practice. My desk is a cluttered space in a room just off the kitchen. There is a Total Girl magazine next to me, sitting on a stack of unfinished homework and open on a page all about Selena Gomez. The pin board above me is a jumble of permission slips, a swimming carnival reminder, party invites and babysitters’ phone numbers. Two Year Four homemade clay lions smile at me, one a tad lopsided, the other has lost its tail. And I have the ever-present Post-it pad on hand, scribbled with today’s to-do list.

Probably not the serene, organised environment for a talented and focused author. Lucky I’m not one of those. I’m just a regular busy mum with a full-time job, two happy little kids, a loving husband who walks in the door after dark, and a massive pile of washing that needs folding.

My job just so happens to give me a public profile and the opportunity to meet some famous people. It also gives me the chance to do some good by slipping into a fancy frock on the occasional Saturday night to raise money for charity. And as a journalist, it gives me the chance to tell stories and get an up-close view of the best and worst of human nature.

I have been outside the Vatican to witness the joy as a quarter of a million people receive the blessing of a new pope. I have stood in tears in the aftermath of this country’s most devastating bushfire as a man pleads live on air for the whereabouts of his missing wife and children. I have laughed with Tom Cruise and have wondered at the strength of flood victims who have lost everything.

But when I come home, kick off my heels and wash off my make-up, I am no different to any other woman doing her best to raise a family, run a house and spend time with her friends.

I leave notes for my husband, John, to remind the kids to take their swimming gear to school in the morning. I chase the cat around the house with a worming tablet. I let the ironing pile up and I cook satisfactory but slap-dash meals.

Some weeks I’m really organised and everything runs like clockwork, but no sooner do I pat myself on the back than the following week goes off the rails. The fridge is suddenly bare, the kids are in a tizz because I’ve lost an important permission slip, and I’m frantically trying to reach my dad because my husband has to go interstate and I need him to come and stay the night.

I wrote this book not because I am any sort of parenting expert (far from it) or a lifestyle guru who lives amid perfectly pressed gingham tablecloths, quinoa salads and handwritten invitations, but because I wanted to share with you what makes my family happy, sad, frustrated and amused, and I hazard a guess it’s probably for the same reasons in your house. I am one of those mums who firmly believes we need to support each other a little more. And I mean really support—not just say it and then judge someone behind her back.

To support one another, we need to start with the truth. I don’t want some picture-perfect mum making me feel bad about myself because, you know what, I bet at the end of the day she’s not so perfect. I reckon she’s just like you and me—fallible, vulnerable, tired and probably doing her best to keep up appearances.

We’re all in pretty much the same boat and, give or take a few factors, our lives run a rather similar course. Being a parent, a wife, a friend and an employee can be a minefield. Some days are smooth, others are lonely, tough, tiring and emotional. Every day is its own little balancing act. And all we can do is the best we can.

And for all their fame, I’m sure Angelina Jolie and Crown Princess Mary of Denmark still experience what we do, maybe just with a little more support and a few extra nannies. I’m sure they too suffer guilt, exhaustion, doubts and meltdowns. There are days when I lose the plot, cancel again on my girlfriends, forget to do things and feel like only half a wife and mother.

Parenting can be really hard. Throw a job into the mix, a busy partner, a sick child or a single-parent family and sometimes I’m sure we all question why we’re doing so much and whether we can actually cope. Then if you want to exercise and have a social life . . . well, it’s a shame I have to waste seven hours every night sleeping!

The first thing I think we need to do is lose the notion of what it looks like to be a mum. The ones we see on TV sitcoms aren’t real. We need to let go a little, acknowledge who we really are, how much we can actually do and, most importantly, how much we really want or need to do. Recognise what your priorities are and everything will be simpler.

Why put the extra pressure on yourself to live up to some Hallmark card image? That takes too much energy and leaves us with too much guilt.

Having said all of that, I absolutely adore being a mum. I know I don’t have to bake cupcakes for them on a Sunday and turn their beds down each night . . . but I like to. I made the decision that’s the sort of mum I wanted to be. I am lucky that by working shift work I could be at the school gate each afternoon through Nicholas and Talia’s primary school years, take them to sport, help them with their homework and cook them dinner every night.

And I make the most of it because, for the time being, they still want to spend time with me too. I figure before long they’ll be more interested in hanging out with their friends than their daggy old mum and dad.

Maybe I should have outsourced more; maybe at times I have piled too much on to my plate . . . maybe I attempt to do it all in order to alleviate my working-mother guilt. Or maybe it’s simply because I enjoy it, take pride in my role and the gorgeous love I receive makes the tiredness go away.

I look at my family and know they are all happy. I am too, so I give it a go for another day. Whatever your circumstances are—working or staying at home, single- or two-parent families, challenging kids, lack of sleep—hopefully you can say the same.

And when we hit a bump in the road, let’s call on each other a little more. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness; it’s being honest and true. And I bet if you put up your hand and asked a girlfriend for help, not only would she be happy to oblige, she’d be grateful you opened the gate so she could reach out to you.

In this book, I share some personal stories gathered over the last few years. Sorry if the kids’ ages jump around a bit—as you will tell, I wrote this over many years and many different stages in their lives and mine. I started it when I was co-hosting Sunrise and getting up before dawn. I finished it when I was working evenings and getting a little more sleep.

Nick and Talia are now twelve and ten years old. Only time will tell if I’ve been a good parent, but I love them dearly and so far we’re having fun. They are healthy, happy, social and two of the loveliest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. They make me proud, frustrated, angry, happy, delighted, heartbroken and sometimes simply overwhelmed with joy and love.

Like me, you probably got advice from everywhere—your parents, neighbours, friends, strangers, books and Google. Listen and take on board what works for you; smile sweetly and walk away from what doesn’t.

Find like-minded confidants for when you need to sing out for some help. For me, it’s usually my girlfriends who have children the same age or just a few years ahead of mine.

Relax knowing sometimes you’ll make mistakes or drop the ball, but don’t ever feel alone. Don’t think you’re the only one who has bad days and good days. We all juggle everything with our own unique flair and in the way that suits each one of us best.

And isn’t that wonderful.

Absent Notes

I still rue the day I missed my daughter’s ballet concert. It was one of the biggest nights of Talia’s year, and I was away on a work trip.

For the twelve months leading up to it I had ferried her to pretty much every single ballet lesson. I tied her hair up in the perfect ballet bun, lovingly cleaned her shoes and heaped praise on her second position.

But I missed the culmination of all that hard work and practice. I wasn’t there to see her flit across the stage in her multi-coloured tutu and watch her bask in the limelight with the beaming pride of a six year old who is yet to understand humility.

Telling her I wouldn’t be there was just as heartbreaking. We were driving to rehearsal when I broke the news that I would be missing her big day. Talia’s eyes filled with tears, so of course I started to cry too. Then she held up her little hand and said, ‘Stop. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. It’s too sad.’

Wow, rip my heart out and shred it like a piece of flimsy tulle.

There have been special moments and events over the years of juggling work and family that I have missed. Each one has left me wracked with guilt, and positively sad that I wasn’t there.

After years of cricket practice in the backyard and patiently sitting through evening training, it was at a rare game I missed that my son scored a hat-trick. Probably the biggest moment of his sporting life, and he had to tell me about it on the phone.

Nick once told me he understood that because I worked I couldn’t get to anything at school like cross-country or reading groups. His words broke my heart—not because they were true, but because he seemed to forget all the things I did get to. Obviously my absence has a bigger impact than being present.

It’s so hard not to beat yourself up over such things. I have certainly been to far more events than I have missed in their young lives, but even if it’s only one you can’t get to, it feels like one too many.

I made it to Nick’s cricket presentation and took dozens of photos of him accepting his trophy. And we ordered the DVD of Talia’s ballet concert, dressed her in her costume and watched it one Saturday night, doing our best to relive the glory all over again.

Oh, and the date of next year’s concert is already in my diary.

Asking for Help

So there I was in an interstate hotel room on a Saturday night, struggling to do up the buttons on my black ball gown. There was a whole row of intricate silk buttons that went from the nape of my neck to my lower back that needed looping, and, having never excelled at yoga, there was only so far my arms could stretch. I struggled from the bottom up, then from the top down, until finally, with hair and make-up in place and my emcee scripts in my purse, I rode the elevator with my dress half undone and sheepishly walked into a room full of complete strangers to ask someone to do me up.

Sometimes admitting we need help is the hardest thing to do. Maybe we’re stubborn, maybe we try too hard, maybe we simply continue to believe we can do it all. Either way, the truth is sometimes we can’t, and we need to call out.

But why do we find that so hard to do? Asking is not a sign of weakness; it’s not admitting failure. Stuff stoicism—I just have to be practical.

Occasionally, on the verge of tears, I’ve rung John and asked if he can come home from work a little earlier. Other times I’ve begged Dad to pop around and take the kids to the park to give me just half an hour alone, or I’ve asked another mum to take the boys to that week’s footy training, making sure my name is on the roster for the week after when it suits me better.

I’ve also learnt to say no. No to volunteering to help with the Year Three fundraiser, no to a midweek meal with my girlfriends that starts at my usual bedtime, and no to managing the soccer team.

Sure, I feel guilty—the desire to please rears its ugly head—but when I say yes to everything and take on too much, it’s my own ugly head that rears up and I’ve learnt that’s when I need to pull back.

I have no problem when someone asks me for help—in fact, I rather like it. I’m chuffed they call out and trust me enough that I won’t let them down. So I take that feeling and apply it when it’s my turn to reach out and ask for help.

And I also know it won’t be like this forever. There’s no doubt as the kids get older and become a little less dependent on me I can be a little less dependent on others.

But back to my glamorous ball: the end of the night was just as problematic as the start. I got back to my room well after midnight and realised I had the opposite problem with my dress. I thought about calling the front desk but knew a call to some poor young bellboy from a forty-something woman in the wee hours asking him to get her out of her dress may either frighten the daylights out of him or start the rumour mill. So I struggled and struggled until I finally got enough buttons undone to be able to jump up and down and shuffle the dress around so the buttons were at the front.

Sometimes you also have to know when to manage something on your own.

Autographs

At the age of seven, my daughter assumed that cooking extraordinaire Donna Hay was my best friend. She’s a great woman and an awesome cook and I’d be lucky to call her a friend, but Talia thinks because Donna gave me a copy of her magazine every time she came on Sunrise that we must be close.

Just slowly they are waking to the realities, and advantages, of Mummy’s job.

In fact, drawing the line between who really knows their mum and who recognises her from the telly has taken a bit of explaining.

There have been times when I’ve discreetly capitalised on meeting some of their favourite celebs . . . and come home with autographs from Katy Perry or Brett Lee.

But I’ve also put as much energy into teaching them that, for Mummy, it’s just a job. No more or less important than Daddy’s or anyone else’s. Luckily, two of our neighbours are doctors and another is a fireman. These people, I tell my kids, really are saving the world.

It’s an odd thing having a job where some people know who I am and what I do before I have had the chance to say hello. It leaves me little to share at the school reunion and not much privacy in the gym change rooms. But it also makes me feel incredibly privileged and lucky to have so many friends, people who have welcomed me into their lives without actually having met me. They say hello with such familiarity that I have to do a quick mental check to make sure I don’t actually know them.

My kids weren’t always so happy about Mummy’s profile. After a friendly chat with someone in a shop and then explaining to my son that no, in fact I didn’t really know that person, the ‘don’t talk to strangers’ lecture becomes a little hypocritical.

And occasionally it can be uncomfortable. Like the sales lady who followed me into a lingerie change room: me carrying a load of bras to try on, her carrying a pen and paper dictating the message she wanted me to write to her daughter. Or the girls who once followed me into a toilet cubicle and seemed quite shocked when I politely asked if they could wait outside.

There was the mum I met at mothers’ group who swore she recognised me from somewhere. She insisted I didn’t tell her as she tried to guess, then felt so relieved when she remembered she saw me all the time at our local Coles supermarket.

I’ve had moments in a doctor’s surgery waiting room when I’ve spied myself on a magazine and hastily shoved it to the bottom of the pile, blushing. Once Talia was confronted with a family portrait while cutting up a magazine for a class project.

The kids laughed when they saw their mother on the back of a bus. My husband made a predictable gag, and I quickly changed lanes.

Nick is pretty quiet about what his mum does. Most of his classmates are still in the dark and he wants to keep it that way. Probably why they want me to collect them at the ‘kiss and drop’ zone nowadays is to avoid any embarrassing moments.

My daughter is a little more vocal but maybe because at her age she just sees the glamour. When I went to London in 2011 to cover the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, she asked me to wave to the bride and take plenty of photos. I’m still trying to teach her the difference between covering an event like that and attending one.

Maybe I’ll get Donna over to cook a meal and she can explain it.

Baby Zone

Nothing makes me cluckier than seeing a pregnant belly. Friends, colleagues, strangers . . . it’s enough to make me want to join them. I find myself breaking all codes of etiquette and reaching out to touch their lovely rounded tummies. And the sight or smell of a newborn baby just tugs at my heart.

But before you go jumping to conclusions (or Mum, you read this and get excited), the answer is no. We have given away the cot and pram and never again will I buy a box of nappies—well, not until I’m a grandmother at least.

Once our youngest started school, I knew the dangers of empty-house-let’s-have-another-baby territory, but I resisted. Instead we got a dog.

The thought of sore breasts, pacing the hallway at midnight with a crying newborn and once again lugging a four-kilogram nappy bag everywhere we went negated any cute images of a soft little baby. That chapter is long gone and the thought of going there again is just way too hard. Too much time has passed and too many changes to our lives have been made.

We had just over two and a half years between children, purely because it took us that long to decide we were ready to do it all again. And the gap suited us. When Talia arrived, Nick was almost out of nappies. The cot was free, and he moved into the toddler seat on the pram. He could dress himself, feed himself and watch The Wiggles while I fed his baby sister. And all of that suited me. I was still in the baby mindset, but the older one was slightly more independent.

On the other hand, my girlfriend had a much smaller gap, and consequently two babies within eighteen months. She hated pregnancy—had morning sickness all day for nine months—so she decided after the first go that it was immediately or never.

I was lucky in that I loved being pregnant. I packed on the weight, but otherwise enjoyed every moment.

We didn’t find out the sex of either baby. I wanted a surprise after all that hard work. I thought I had an inkling, but I was wrong both times! Pregnant with Nicholas, I found myself wanting to wear pink after avoiding it for twenty years. I felt so feminine that I was sure I was carrying a girl. Carrying Talia, I felt equally certain. I put on the same amount of weight, craved the same foods and all but painted the room blue. Wrong again!

It’s a cliché, but it’s true: you don’t mind what sex it is, as long as the baby’s healthy. Your teenage fantasies about family dynamics no longer matter when you are finally carrying your own child. The pregnancy hormone kicks in and protecting your baby is all that matters.

The baby zone really is all-consuming. When you’re in it, it’s all you talk about. You are resigned to years of mopping up vomit and getting excited when bulk nappies go on sale. The steriliser stays on the kitchen bench and there are packets of sweet smelling baby wipes everywhere you could possibly need them.

But when you pack away those fiddly jumpsuits and stop mashing vegetables, life changes dramatically. The next chapter brings with it little people who can order in a restaurant and carry their own library cards.

So we culled the Fisher-Price toys and took the child safety locks off the cupboards. And suddenly babies and all that comes with them seemed so very long ago.

John and I had five years of marriage, ten years to make inroads in the workforce and a lot of carefree years with minimal responsibility before we decided to start a family.

Luckily for us, Mother Nature agreed with our timetable and we didn’t have to wait too long . . . but ask the grandparents and they’ll tell you they’d been waiting forever!

When to start a family can be a challenging question for a lot of couples. Often the decision is not yours entirely, and quite frankly there is never a perfect time.

I found out I was pregnant the very week I got the career break of a lifetime. Professionally the timing could not have been worse. But personally I was over the moon.

I had my son at 31 and my daughter at 33. I had faith that I’d worked hard enough for long enough to take maternity leave and not lose my place on my career path. But John and I also realised how much we wanted children and if that meant sacrificing some elements of our career, then so be it.

Such a personal decision as having a family can become a very public discussion point. Barely had we made it home from hospital with number one than the questions started on whether we were having another.

Having the ‘pigeon pair’, as everyone put it, seemed to silence the interrogation a little, as though having one of each was a tidy conclusion to my breeding program, but many people still thought it ok to ask about number three when we hadn’t even made such a decision.

Luckily, by the time I turned 40 that chatter had eased considerably.

It does make me wonder though how tough it must be for people to manage the questions if they can’t have children or simply don’t want to.

You’d never point-blank ask someone how much they earn, who they voted for at the last election or if their diamonds are real, so why is something as personal as having babies a free-for-all?

I have a friend who found herself at the right age but without the right man. So she headed overseas, found a suitable donor, and came home to give birth to her adored baby girl. Another friend met the man, got engaged, fell pregnant, then they split before they made it to the altar. Both women are loving being single mothers.

Most women do it when the time is right for them. They’ve met the right person, or they’ve waited long enough and decided to go it alone, or the time is right in their career. However, sometimes nature simply doesn’t respond when we decide tonight’s the night.

So enough with the guilt, the judgement and the questions. Whether we’re ‘too young’ or ‘too old’ to be having children, have a natural or caesarean birth, breast- or bottle-feed, return to work or don’t—the noisy commentary that surrounds women’s choices in motherhood is relentless. We are all so different, as are our families, our circumstances and the way we parent. And thank goodness.

Personally, I can visit my friends and their babies, buy them cute baby clothes and breathe in that newborn smell. But too much time has passed for me to cross into the baby zone again.

Sorry, Mum.

Bana-meter

It’s one thing to meet all the new class mums at the beginning of a school year, zero in on the like-minded ones and quickly develop some sort of rapport, it’s another thing to sit on a couch opposite a Hollywood superstar, start a relaxed conversation and try to maintain a professional demeanour when all I really want to do is pinch myself.

If it’s a movie junket, I’ve got anywhere between four and ten minutes to develop a rapport. I enter what is usually a hotel room, where the bed has been removed and replaced by two chairs facing each other; there’s a bank of soft lighting, two cameras, an entourage, a make-up person and the star—already sitting in the prime position, movie posters strategically hanging behind them. Sometimes they stand to greet me, other times they don’t bother.

The PR person starts the clock and I’m off and running. Too much time wasted being friendly simply eats into question time; go over and they cut me off and send me packing—incomplete interview in hand.

A few have used the ‘I caught a cold on the plane’ excuse to avoid shaking hands, others jump up and greet me so warmly I spend the next few minutes quelling a schoolgirl blush. Maybe hitting me with the nice stick is all part of their strategy.

Granted, it’s an artificial way to get to know someone. I figure celebrities are usually going to be nice to the chick with the camera and the window to their audience. It’s how they greet the make-up team and the crew that I watch most closely. It might be a snapshot, but you can usually get a pretty good understanding if they’re a decent person or not.

Sometimes it goes really well. In 2006, I flew to LA for Sunrise and scored the first interview with Tom Cruise the day after he became a father to his daughter, Suri. He was promoting Mission Impossible and word came through as we were checking in at Sydney airport that his wife, Katie, had given birth. The movie company said he was cancelling most of his interviews, but we boarded anyway to take our chances. As it turned out, he withdrew from the bulk of his domestic media commitments, but cherrypicked a few internationals. So there I was, waiting patiently in the hallway to be ushered into the hotel room cum studio, when Tom Cruise suddenly rounded the corner. It was a frenzy of cheering, high-fives and congratulatory hugs as he made his way towards me, beaming at the applause he was getting. I was swept into the room on a wave of enthusiasm and so began one of the most incredibly exciting six minutes of my career. Luckily, I had brought some Wiggles gifts from home. He loved them, hugged me at the end, suggested a photo and left me completely starstruck by the whole Hollywood game.

Other times have not been so successful. I interviewed the cast of The Great Gatsby in 2013 when they came to Sydney to promote the movie. Carey Mulligan had just flown in that morning and chose to be interviewed along with Tobey Maguire. My first question, ‘How proud are you both of this film?’, sent them into fits of giggles. It wasn’t that my question was even funny, but rather something had set them off earlier and clearly once they started they couldn’t stop. But the clock was ticking, so I pushed on. ‘Tobey, tell me how your friendship with Leonardo has evolved over the years?’ Hysterics again. I offered them time out—maybe they’d like a drink or a moment to compose themselves? But no, they wanted to continue, so I kept trying. Each question was met with giggles, and time was running out. A good six of my eight minutes was wasted and the movie studio executive was winding me up. In the end, I hardly got anything and the story became about their delirium.

Most of my celeb encounters have been on the Sunrise set. Eric Bana was one of the nicest people we ever welcomed. On a measure of modesty, decency and humility, he scored a ten out of ten. So my co-host, David ‘Kochie’ Koch, and I decided he set the bar. We called it the ‘Bana-meter’ and it was the scale by which all celebs were measured.

Some passed. Some failed.

Some celebrities do all they can to make us feel relaxed. They clearly know how to handle the media and have us eating out of their palms. Others are plugging a movie or a product and only sit there because it’s in their contract and they clearly would rather be anywhere else.

Kim Kardashian flew to Australia the day after ending her high-profile 72-day marriage. Painted head to toe in foundation, she kept looking to her entourage off camera for support when we continued to ask about the divorce proceedings. There to sell a range of handbags, she must have assumed Australian media were too far away to know or too insignificant to care about what was happening in her personal life. Either way, we pushed until she stonewalled. She then fled the country that afternoon.

Kelsey Grammer took such objection to us showing his reality star ex-wife in the set-up story—even though we had run it past his manager—that he rang our producer after the show and ripped into him, almost pushing him to tears.

Rupert Everett once turned up looking like he’d just got out of bed and clearly didn’t want to be there. And Michael Richards, who came bounding into the studio in a dressing gown, filled us with such certainty that we were in for a fun segment but left us disappointed when he clearly didn’t want to talk about his time on Seinfeld.

Hollywood stars are the beautiful people of this world. But ironically it was the most beautiful of all (who shall remain nameless) who refused to sit in the usual guest spot on our couch because that wasn’t her ‘good side’. She then spent five minutes adjusting her body position according to where the lighting was and sitting so awkwardly to make her look slim on camera that her stiffness was completely off-putting.

Then Debbie Reynolds comes along: a Hollywood legend full of so many incredible stories and so willing to share them.

Katy Perry threw every ounce into her performance and then hung around until she had met and signed autographs for every single fan in the crowd.

Often the bigger the star, the more gracious the person. They are the ones who set no time limits or restrictions on questions. Music legends Kenny Rogers and Stevie Nicks were open and giving, k.d. Lang gracious and Shirley Jones and David Cassidy both full of stories and happy to share them.

I had such a lovely chat with Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, her people invited me to join her for lunch.

Pink was in our studio and ready to perform on the day the miners Brant Webb and Todd Russell were rescued in Beaconsfield, Tasmania, in 2006. With our whole rundown thrown into disarray as we covered the breaking news, she sat patiently and waited. Eventually it became clear we simply had no room that morning, so with nothing but understanding she pre-recorded a song for us to play the day after.

When we broadcast from Disneyland for the park’s fiftieth birthday celebrations in 2005 we had Dame Julie Andrews live on Sunrise. She was charming and friendly—but it got better. That night, as the biggest stars in Hollywood walked the red carpet under a sky of fireworks, she saw Kochie and me in the media crowd. She remembered both our names and came over to greet us warmly, sparking incredulous looks from the international journalists around us.

With the stars come their fans. Justin Bieber and One Direction both caused crushes outside the studio. Young girls camped out for days to get a good spot, then cried hysterically when their idols appeared before them. Most screamed so loudly they probably didn’t hear them singing, and some even fainted and missed the whole show.

Other bands sent us into a dither: Coldplay performing outside the Opera House in 2012 (Chris Martin is probably one of the coolest men I’ve ever met; his dad was in the crowd, spending time on the road with his son); or Chris Isaak dragging me up to dance with him as he sang ‘Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing’—I blushed so hard it almost hurt.

But by far my favourite star is Hugh Jackman. As friendly and gracious as he is handsome and talented, he treats every interview as though it is the most important of his career and signals his minders to back away if he’s happy to keep talking. But it was when he saw me on the red carpet covering my first Oscars last year, stopped and greeted me by name and with a kiss—in front of the international media pack—that he won me for life. A ten out of ten on the Bana-meter.

Either way, the stars have given me lots of fun stories to share at dinner parties and interesting moments to reflect on when I return to real life standing in front of the washing machine.

BFFs

She’ll turn up with a bottle of wine and some dinner just as the afternoon has fallen into a screaming heap and you’re having a bigger meltdown than the children.

She’ll whisk you out for a good powerwalk on a Saturday morning when she instinctively knows you need to escape the house for an hour.

She’ll lend you her babysitter, always cook extra when she’s baking and will bring your child to the car at the school gate when it’s raining if she gets there first.

Apart from during your teenage years, never in your life will you need your girlfriends as much as you do now.

Motherhood can bring out the best and the worst in women. There are those who turn it into a competition and those who rally together to make it all easier. The latter are worth their weight in gold.

A true girlfriend won’t judge you, she’ll just listen with sympathy. You can call her in a flood of tears when it’s all getting too much and she’ll tell you it’s ok. She’ll give you advice when you want it and understanding when you don’t.

She might be from your childhood, or you may have met her since you became a mum.

Like me, you might be lucky enough to have a few.

I have treasured friends from my own school days—girlfriends who sang along to Wham!, knew me long before I started working in TV, and with whom I always pick up exactly where we left off.

I have a gorgeous girlfriend I met at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, NSW. We grew up on different sides of Sydney and were thrown together on a country campus, where we quickly formed a bond that is just as strong and fun today. Besides, she’s got some pretty dodgy photos of my perm circa 1988 and jokes she’ll make them public if I don’t return her calls.

One of my closest girlfriends I met in mothers’ group when I had my son, Nicholas. In a room full of new mothers with differing parenting styles and levels of intensity, we instantly bonded and have remained close ever since. We’ve since seen each other at our best and worst.

With more of us moving interstate, or simply living on the other side of town, we no longer have the family support network we once did. Nowadays we need to create our own little village of people we love and trust, and grow to rely on.

Importantly, there are the mums you meet at school, the parents of your children’s friends. Just because your kids bond doesn’t mean you will, but if you do it’s a bonus! And a mum who’s running a similar race to yours can be invaluable. You can help each other out with school or sport pick-ups, drop-offs and training afternoons. And if you’re lucky, your friendship will endure long after the kids have moved on with another crowd.

We have an unofficial roster going. The mums who work Monday to Friday can always put up their hands to take the load on weekends—they cut the oranges for football or drop team mates home. Others can do the midweek duties and earn a Saturday morning sleep-in.

I know one mum who works later in the week. Her son does gymnastics three afternoons a week and between her, a nurse, a school teacher, a stay-at-home mum and on occasion the coach, they manage to get all five of their boys to training every week.

For most of my children’s primary education I was free in the afternoons, but never in the morning, so the girls knew when to count me in or out.

You benefit, obviously, because it all flows smoothly. But the kids also benefit. They are always happy to have a playmate and they grow up seeing how a community works. What a lovely way to learn about teamwork.

Never before have we needed such a team around us.

And we all need someone we can talk to, warts and all, who will be there for us as much as we are there for them. Life gets busy and we don’t always see our friends as frequently as we used to or want to, but we can always manage to pick up exactly where we left off.

We can parent alone. But it’s harder and not nearly as much fun.

Big Brother

Nick taught his little sister to ride a bike.

After her parents, grandfather and older cousin all failed, it was her then ten-year-old big brother who had the ultimate patience and skill to succeed where everyone else had bombed.

The thing I am most proud of in my whole life is the relationship my two children have with each other.

Sure, they scrap like any other siblings. One minute they’re picking a fight, poking a bruise or hiding the other’s favourite things, and just when I’m at the end of my tether and can scream no more, they’re under the same blanket on the couch watching TV or happily playing one-a-side soccer.

Nick’s the ultimate protector: he watches out for Talia, takes her side when I lose my cool and shares his lolly haul after a party. He’ll let her choose the movie and let her get her way more often than he probably should. Like a wise man, I think he does it to keep the peace.

Nick looks out for his sister, and I hope he always will. When she started school he’d check on her at recess and lunch . . . obviously not telling his mates where he was going. Hey, a man’s got to have some credibility.

Fast-forward ten years and I’m sure he’ll be a bit more vocal, especially when his twenty-year-old mates are suddenly interested in where his cute eighteen-year-old sister is.

Talia, in turn, adores him. When we can’t reason with her, it’s her brother who can defuse the situation, get her to change her mind and back down in an argument. Mind you he’s also the one who can provoke her into an angry frenzy and send her screaming into her room.

But she’ll probably be the one vetting his girlfriends.

I imagine by then he’ll be quietly happy he always treated her so well.

Birthday Parties

I’ve made some pretty dodgy looking birthday cakes in my time. You know the ones . . . they look nothing like the photo in the book. The cricket pitch with its field of green desiccated coconut; the fairy princess with the legless Barbie stuffed into the middle; and the island girl, which gave Barbie a second run for her pain.

Nick’s guitar cake was the most complicated. I was still in my PJ’s at 1 p.m. lining up the strings, less than an hour before a bunch of four-year-old boys were due to arrive.

Birthdays are a gorgeous tradition in our house. The kids flick through The Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book and plan their cakes years in advance. It’s then up to me to cook and decorate to implement their chosen theme. We’ve had a room full of Little Mermaids, sack races, glitter ground into the deck, piñatas swinging from the rafters and a cracker of a cricket match.

At the time of the Beijing Olympics in 2008, my then five-year-old daughter wanted a ‘China Girl’ party. We put lollies in noodle boxes, fished chocolate frogs out of jelly with chopsticks and blew the candles out on a panda cake.

Turning five is a pretty big milestone! It’s like the junior version of reaching eighteen—a transition of sorts from toddler to schoolgirl, teddy bears to Barbie, and from chewing books to reading them.

I will admit the clean-up after these events is usually a nightmare and the noise level does our heads in, but we’ve loved every single party, snapped hundreds of photos and packed endless lolly bags.

They’re not the ritzy hire-out-a-venue parties that are the stuff of urban legend. Our parties are pretty simple and probably a bit cheesy, but I find them really satisfying and rather a lot of fun. I actually love making the cake and welcoming the kids into our home. And it means we still have room to lift the bar for their twenty-first.

But, sadly, I wonder if I’m reaching the end of the line as far as homemade games and mum-and-dad-as-entertainer parties go.

My kids have been to some pretty flash events. Sometimes the toys they take home in the lolly bags are better than the gifts they arrived with.

Pin the tail on the donkey is so yesterday, but animals are ok so long as they’re real and part of an eco-friendly three-ring circus. And in these politically correct times, you can play pass the parcel only if each child gets a gift.

I’ve heard about parents booking the musical group Hi-5, fairy floss machines and jukeboxes—all before their birthday baby can even walk. Which puts our three-legged races, water bombs, musical chairs and slumber parties to shame.

And I think I’m being kicked out of my old-fashioned era by the kids themselves. By the end of our last party, we were fast running out of games, songs and food.

As they get older, I’m sure they will tell me how they want to celebrate their birthdays . . . so long as they still don’t mind me making the cake.

Bellies and Boobs

I’ve never been one to go topless at the beach; in fact, I will rather sheepishly admit I’m a bit old-fashioned. My girlfriends would probably go so far as to kindly call me a prude.

I do have a cracker of a photo of myself aged about nine, bare-chested on a summer holiday with a great big smile and a very prominent ribcage.

But those days are long gone, along with the bright yellow crochet bikini bottoms and the figure to get away with it.

Funny then how pregnancy and childbirth forces you to get over your insecurities and view your body as a specimen in a science lab . . . to be examined, weighed, scrutinised and tested in ways that would horrify you at any other time.

Strangers reach out and feel your growing belly. Every second person has an opinion on both how, and who, you are carrying. They comment on your size, ogle at your ballooning bust line and puffy ankles.

My second pregnancy occurred while I was co-hosting Sunrise. Viewers would write in and tell me not to cross my legs and risk varicose veins. They also knitted me baby blankets and suggested names. Jill at the checkout of my local supermarket required regular updates, while others stopped me to show their own baby photos.

I was too large to slink away and hide so I simply embraced it. It probably helped that I loved being pregnant. I had no morning sickness or complications . . . just massive weight gain and an appetite to fuel it.

I’ll leave the birth bit out—needless to say, it’s a bit of a public free-for-all. Modesty is the last thing you think of when you’re lying on a bed in agony and trying to push a baby out.

So flash forward. You’ve got over the humiliation of sharing every gory detail with doctors, nurses and girlfriends. You’ve tossed the cabbage leaves and the blow-up ring for your seat.

Now it’s time to get your breasts out! And this time it’s nothing like those days in the yellow bikini.

Feeding anywhere other than the privacy of my home required some strategic draping of a muslin wrap . . . but, even then, there’s not a lot left to the imagination.

There are surprisingly few comfortable, clean places to feed a baby without the world watching—well, at least that was the case twelve years ago. You learn to frequent the same shopping centres that you know have a mothers’ room. You work out how long it takes to get there from just about anywhere in the city and how long your baby can hold out for.

And days with that damn breast-pump were even worse! I once flew interstate to host a lunch for 500 ladies but, moments before it began, I was hidden away in a storage room, perched on the edge of a container, expressing milk and trying not to splash my silk blouse.

Almost as humiliating as a few hours earlier when I passed my handbag through an airport security screening and there, clearly illuminated on the X-ray screen, were my lipstick, house keys and breast-pump. The male guard handed back my bag without eye contact but I saw a subtle smirk.

One morning I was stuck in my hotel room in Queensland, due on air in fifteen minutes and frantically expressing, desperate to alleviate the pain of missing an early-morning feed. It was my first night away from my baby and I was in tears . . . hormonal, emotional and frustrated.

The more I tried to hurry, the slower the milk flowed. Some things can’t be rushed.

Unless, of course, it’s a toddler in need of a toilet.

Just as I mapped out feeding venues, years later I formulated a similar map when toilet training. I very quickly learnt where every child-friendly bathroom was within a twenty-kilometre radius of home. When a three year old has to go, time is of the essence.

Boys are a lot easier. A discreet tree still works when you are cute and under four. For Talia’s urgent calls I would carry a potty in the boot of the car. Gosh, I don’t miss those days!

Once all that is done, you then face the next dilemma: how old is too old to take a boy into the ladies toilet?

I have only just recently let Nick go to the men’s room alone. For years I would drag my poor son into the ladies. Aware that some women might be uncomfortable having a boy there, we would hover at the door until the coast was clear then dash in. We’ve even used the occasional disabled loo (sorry) because I could fit a pram in as well. What else do you do, leave the pram next to the trolley full of groceries outside?

And what about changing out of his wet togs after swimming lessons? He would have struggled if I sent him into the men’s on his own to shower and change. But we did reach a point when he was old enough to feel uncomfortable changing in the ladies, let alone how the women felt about it.

From the moment you start a family, breasts, bathrooms and bottoms become a big part of your life—and everyone else’s—whether you like it or not.

Ironic, given we have a boy whose favourite party trick is his whoopee cushion.

Body Combat

I’m sure I’m not the only girl who’s flicked through a selection of photos from a party and deleted the most unflattering one where my bum looks big or my double chin ages me ten years. But it’s pretty demoralising not being able to erase an image because it’s printed in a magazine.

Sure they might accompany it with a nicer, newer picture of me after I’ve lost a few kilos but, like many women, the ‘before’ photo is the one I focus on. That’s the one I fix to the fridge as my own inspiration, and torment.

Or there’s waking up to find my name and age in the newspaper’s birthday column. Not that I ever lied about it, but it’s awfully real seeing it in print.

I assume you’d be hard-pressed to find a woman who doesn’t have some sort of body insecurity, or a day when she’s feeling fat, pimply, hormonal, or all three. It’s just that sometimes you don’t really want to share all that with an audience.

Imagine being a Hollywood celebrity. Any time you leave the house with a billowing shirt or after a big lunch, the headlines scream ‘Baby Bump!’. No woman ever feels confident on a ‘fat day’, but imagine if the tabloids ran pictures of you with giant circles around the offending area and told everyone you were pregnant. After you picked your crushed self-esteem up off the floor, you’d then have to ring your mother and deny, or explain.

Or there are the magazines that publish ‘stars without make-up’ editions. I know many of us are secretly fascinated by them because they make us feel better about ourselves. The superstar might have a body to die for, but she gets pimples just like I do. Makes me feel better already. But I wonder how they feel? Does she skip the newsstand when she picks up her coffee? Does the receptionist do a quick cull of the old magazines when she visits the dentist?

Why is it we need proof that these stars are normal, vulnerable and flawed in order to make ourselves feel better? Does tearing them down really build us up? What’s wrong with a bit of good old-fashioned jealousy, and leaving it at that? I will never look like Angelina Jolie or lead her life, so good luck to her. I can be happy for her—a little jealous, but still happy.

I’ll admit I got a bit nervous as my fortieth birthday approached. For a woman in television that is traditionally when the bell tolls. Aren’t we meant to buy comfier shoes, reading glasses and bras without lace?

But luckily women on TV are reflecting what is happening in the real world. Women in their forties are just hitting their stride. We finally have enough experience to know what we’re talking about, the confidence to say it, and the courage to deal with the consequences.

Still, it doesn’t make the process any easier. I am a woman after all.

So what does growing old gracefully really mean? Having the elegance not to admit that I actually really hate the wrinkles, saggy knees and evil little greys springing from what was once a lustrous head of hair?

If to say grace involves a little prayer before my meal, then I pray that nature treats me kindly and doesn’t encourage my roast pork crackling to settle forever on my hips.

If to grant a period of grace allows me a little more time to look as young as I feel, then please be generous with time.

But I also take comfort that the alternative to growing old is far worse.

It’s a shame we women are so tough on ourselves. But we are—or at least I am. I wish I had the toned body of an Olympic athlete, but I’m not prepared to devote the time required. I wish I had the smooth, youthful complexion of a Hollywood star, but I don’t really want to look fake. And sometimes I wish I had the confidence to say to hell with other people’s criticism, but I don’t and nor am I prepared to harden myself up enough so that it doesn’t hurt. So instead I choose not to read most of it. I’ve never googled myself. I figure if I have to ignore the bad, then I’m not allowed to read the good either.

Sometimes I wish I’d appreciated what I had when I was younger. Hey, I was no supermodel, but I was certainly slimmer, fitter and smoother. I didn’t hit my stride until my thirties . . . it took me until then to really find my own style and mojo. So I guess I wouldn’t want to sacrifice those things in order to return to where I was in my twenties.

There is absolutely nothing we can do about getting older. It’s inevitable. It happens to us all. So I no longer have perky breasts, but I have two robust children. Instead of smooth translucent skin I have stories to tell and experiences to remember and little lines to remind me that I laughed along the way.

I also have a good twenty years of some serious fashion disasters. Outfits that I thought looked great at the time and now turn up in the nostalgia features in magazines, or the file footage in Channel Seven’s vault of less than flattering haircuts.

There’s a giant photo of Kochie and me in matching white shirts, smiling for the camera and taken rather close up. For many years it hung in the main corridor of the network and I laughed every time I saw it because strategically hiding behind Kochie’s back was my broken right arm, plastered from fingers to armpit, and, just out of shot below, a very pregnant belly.

I used to think these are the pictures I would hide or delete, but now I merely have a little giggle and thank God today’s fashion has improved. I no longer want to hide the evidence of what I tried or how I felt.

But I’d still be happy to delete the fat ones.

Cartwheels

Who doesn’t bear a scar from their youth and wear it like a badge of honour?

I put my teeth through my bottom lip coming off my trike while hurtling down our steep driveway. I still have the jagged scar that shows what a slap-up job the 1970s doctor did in emergency.

I can remember once flying over the handlebars of my bike and crashing with such speed into the gravel road that my friends had to go and fetch my dad to bring me home in the back seat of the car. My bike, body and pride were so busted there was no chance of us hobbling home.

But aren’t we all secretly proud of our war wounds from childhood?

I remember a boy in primary school running through a fork in the tree in the playground and getting stuck. The fire brigade was called in and, as humiliating as it was for the kid in question, he earned major street cred and we all dined off that adventure for weeks.

But so many parks and schoolyards are now without carousels and monkey bars. Some schools have banned gymnastics and handstands in the playground and running on the concrete. It’s obviously designed to protect students from injury as much as it is to protect the school from lawsuits.

As a mum, I spend every waking moment protecting my kids. I would move mountains, slay dragons and pretty much kill to keep them safe.

But how far do I go in keeping them safe from themselves? I feel like I need to let them face a little danger and learn that sometimes accidents are just that—accidents.

Testing boundaries and pushing yourself are part of growing up and maturing. Sometimes, within reason, the only way to learn not to do stupid things is to do them. It’s healthy to see how far you can go before fear kicks in—climb a little higher than you think you can manage and go a little faster than you should—because, let’s be honest, as we get older most of us lose the nerve to do so, aware that a mistake now hurts so much more and recovery takes twice as long.

Now I’m not advocating injury or dumb risk-taking, and at the first sight of blood I’m usually the one running for cover. And Mum, I’m sorry for all the times you had to patch me up, take me to hospital and darn torn stockings.

But it kind of makes you sad when statistics show more and more schools are shying away from outdoor adventures and a quarter of Aussie kids have never climbed a tree.

The seven-year-old son of a friend of mine once fell off some monkey bars and broke his arm. He was in the playground after school and she was with him at the time, standing less than a metre away.

A few years later someone else did the same thing in the same playground but that child’s mother sued the school. There is now a sign saying you can’t play on the equipment after school hours and, if you do, it’s at your own risk.

So is that it? Are the litigious few ruining it for the rest of us who accept there is an element of risk in everything we do and are prepared to live with the consequences?

What will happen to a generation of kids who grow up cocooned in cotton wool? If the most dangerous thing you do before the age of ten is cheat at Monopoly, does that make you want to try the risky stuff when you are older and mum is not around? And is that too late to be testing your nerve and boundaries? Or are we way too frightened by then to try anything because we’ve never known what it’s like to fly down our street on rollerskates and skin our knees?

Child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg says adults are ‘worshipping at the altar of occupational health and safety’. And we all know it’s happening everywhere, in offices and supermarkets around the country. There are obviously situations where the ‘safety police’ have changed our lives for the better—seatbelts and baby capsules, to name a couple. And there have been moments when I’ve stopped Nick from climbing on the roof to retrieve his footy and Talia from finding out if her fairy wings actually work. But I also know a spill in the playground is normal, trees are meant to be climbed and mastering a cartwheel can be so satisfying (not that I ever could).

And I’ve also since driven past and seen that driveway from my childhood I once thought so steep is in fact just a gentle slope. But I still proudly wear my scar.

Celebrity

Tell me I’m not the only one who looks at pictures of Crown Princess Mary with her family and smiles at how refreshingly normal they appear. I love that toddlers will be toddlers, whether you live in a real castle or a make-believe one.

My daughter, who thinks she is a princess, behaves no differently from a real one. She too tugs on her mum’s top at the most inappropriate times, gets sick of having her photo taken and demands my undivided attention no matter who else is around.

It’s kind of reassuring to know whether your spoon is silver or stainless steel, some things are the same for all families.

And kids can be the best levellers. When you are new in town and trying to make friends, kids are the ice-breakers. They can start the most interesting conversations in queues and diffuse the most tense situation.

I even look at ‘Brangelina’ in a whole new light. Ok, they might be devastatingly good looking and successful but they too once carried a nappy bag everywhere they went and, just like the rest of us, wiped dirty bums and got up when called in the middle of the night. There is only so much their nannies can do.

Just because they live in mansions and never worry about the price of fuel doesn’t mean celebrities don’t break up sibling fights, wipe away tears, worry about bullying and sing a little goodnight song.

Having real diamonds in your tiara is such a small detail!

Christmas Day

I adore Christmas.

We deck the house in tinsel and anything else red, white or remotely festive. The kids have their photo taken with Santa every year, and I let them decorate the tree and resist the urge to step in and coordinate or straighten anything. Frankly, by the end of December, our home looks a downright mess—but I love it and wouldn’t swap the madness for anything. I was forced one year to get organised long before Santa’s arrival by the imminent arrival of my second baby, and found the fact that I had everything sorted long before December liberating. So now I’m one of those people who stash away presents throughout the year, and, as long as I remember what I’ve actually hidden and where, I find the forward planning brings me as much pleasure as the season itself.

And I’m a stickler for traditions—but with an easy twist. We love roast turkey, but I cheat and get the rolled breast already stuffed from the butcher. I love a glazed ham, and, like everyone else, we live off the leftovers for the next two weeks. In our house, it’s a feast on the deck, a dip in the pool and an afternoon sleep on the lounge-room floor.

Christmas can be such a happy time, but such a tense one too. Peel off the wrapping and you’ll find very few families survive the Christmas celebrations completely unscathed.

No matter how much we think we’ve grown up and become our own person, family dynamics have a way of wiping away the years and bringing us right back to where we left off.

We may return home with spouses and children in tow, but we return immediately to our childhood roles. It seems ancient issues last longer than Auntie Rosie’s brandied pudding and can bubble over quicker than unattended custard.

Rivalries invariably resurface. Whether you are ten or 40, mum’s favourite never changes, daddy’s little girl will always be daddy’s little girl, and the brother who always skipped the washing up still skips the washing up. Dad is the only one who can carve the ham properly and grandma still has the seniority to insist things are done her way.

Add to the mix new spouses, in-laws, old arguments and a few glasses of champagne and you can have one scary pot of tension.

Then there is the issue of who goes where . . . whose family takes priority for lunch or dinner on Christmas Day and who gets Boxing Day or Christmas Eve. Or how many different houses you can cram into one day, and who has to drive.

Better still, you may be brave enough to finally host the day at your place. It’s a lot of work but the benefits outweigh all the preparations and washing up.

I love nothing more than planning the menu, setting the table, piling the food in the centre and letting everyone help themselves and eat way too much, carols playing and everyone wearing their paper hat.

And the smells take me right back to being a kid and doing the same. Wearing my best dress, watching my grandmother light the pudding, hoping I got a sixpence and spending the rest of the day playing with my presents.

So if you make it through ok and come out the other side all still talking to each other and glassware intact, then take a bow. It seems Santa and stone fruit aren’t the only things we can bank on in the summer holidays.

Chucky

There is a great book by Paul Reiser, the actor from the nineties TV show Mad About You, called Babyhood. It starts with Paul and his wife on a plane watching a couple with their two small children. The little ones are screaming, vomiting and generally running amok, and Paul and his wife look on in horror, vowing to never go down that path.

Spoiler alert if you plan on reading it: the book ends with a similar scene on a plane, but this time Paul and his wife are the parents and another childless couple is looking on.

I laughed and could relate so much when I read it.

Nick has inherited the carsick gene from me. And with the pride of a boy who still laughs at fart jokes, he can name every location he’s called for an emergency stop to chuck, or, worse still, the places where he hasn’t managed to call out in time.

He’s chucked on planes, just as we were coming in to land, leaving me on my hands and knees mopping up noodles. I wonder if we are the only family who pinches the sick bags from planes and stashes them in a handbag. Forget the mags and biscuits.

He’s chucked on long car trips. He’s chucked on rides. He’s chucked into his dad’s baseball cap when that was the only container available.

Travelling with kids can be a challenge. There’s the sheer amount of stuff you need, especially when they’re babies. There are the boredom levels that kick in no matter how many fun car games you can make up. And there are the things you can’t control, like weather delays.

Sitting in an airport late on a Sunday night, ears cocked for updates on whether our plane will even arrive, let alone fly us home to Sydney, is frustrating enough when you’re an adult. For kids it’s an eternity. As is watching the fog roll in and registering that each minute we are delayed is going to produce two very tired children and a fallout that I’ll have to deal with 24 hours later.

Some airlines have now introduced child-free zones on board—a direct response to consumer demand.

Before having children we all vow there will be minimal impact on our lives. We will continue to frequent restaurants and simply slip the baby capsule under the table. We’ll still go to friends’ houses because our child will be the cutest and most socially gracious toddler around. We will simply bring them up that way, to mix in an adult world and behave.

Fast-forward to when you actually have the children and see how different it is. Anyone with a baby quickly realises it’s near impossible to just pop the capsule under the table. It’s rare that they sleep soundly and on cue to let you enjoy a romantic candlelit dinner undisturbed and undistracted. You go from being the ones looking on in horror as someone else’s child throws a tantrum in the supermarket, to being the parents of your very own out-of-control little one as everyone else’s eyes burn into you.

You quickly realise it’s just easier to stay at home and order take-away.

Slowly but surely your baby’s routine dictates your own. Life is just more harmonious that way and your little one is much more settled. And a settled baby makes for a settled family.

How wonderful it is when suddenly one day you realise you have started to turn the corner and your child’s world is almost aligned with your own. They are a little more travel-friendly, open to trying new foods, can handle the occasional late night and approach new things wide-eyed rather than with trepidation.

They don’t cry on planes, throw up their dinner or require you to carry a massive nappy bag stuffed with clothes, teddies, blankets and snacks.

You can last the night without changing their clothes or yours. They can go to the toilet and wipe their own bottoms. They can eat with proper cutlery off porcelain plates and you know they won’t hurl them across the table.

They may even smile at the waiter and order their own meal.

It’s like one chapter ends and a whole new one begins. Suddenly they become companions, mates to explore the world with, take to the footy or the shops.

It was about the time our kids started kindergarten that John and I felt the subtle shift. They wanted to help me prepare the meal and even set the table. They could hop in and out of the car by themselves and buckle up without being reminded. They chose their own outfits—and sometimes they were even coordinated.

The nappy bag has been thrown out, the cot passed on, and our local Thai restaurant has come back on the agenda. Only now we book for four instead of two.

Community

I love being part of a close community. I know this won’t surprise you, but I chat to everyone! I chat to the butcher, the grocer, the postman, the neighbours, heck, I even used to drive through the manned tollbooth on the Sydney Harbour Bridge so I could say hi to the person collecting the coins rather than dropping mine into the automatic bucket. Yes, my husband thinks I’m crazy.

But there is something comforting and safe about knowing you live in a little patch of the world where those around are looking out for you.

We can come together through our kids, church, gym, local bridge club or even the local footy team. And never was that more obvious to me than when I covered the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria in 2009.

The Whittlesea Football Club became such a unifying focal point as the area recovered. But it was about more than a game of footy, although that was pretty fabulous. It was about giving the people of Whittlesea something tangible to focus their recovery efforts on so they could attempt to return to some sort of normal life.

During the fires, the grounds were used as the staging post for all emergency vehicles, and the clubhouse acted as a triage centre for the wounded. But when the fires had been extinguished and the devastation was clearly apparent, it was the rebuilding that took so much effort. Watching the footy grounds regenerate and the bar reopen at the clubhouse became a measure of the community’s progress.

It was as though the local football team’s desire to get the grounds ready for its primary purpose mirrored everybody’s need to rebuild and recover.

And as the grass grew so did the locals’ spirits. Car horns were blaring and beer was flowing the day the oval was once again used for its true purpose.

You don’t have to understand the rules or particularly enjoy sport to enjoy a game of footy in this country.

I remember my dad dragging me along to Brookvale Oval on a Sunday afternoon back in the seventies to watch his beloved Manly take on arch rivals Parramatta. I was a kid who had no idea what was going on, didn’t really enjoy it all that much and could see nothing more than the back of a whole lot of heads until I finally grew taller in my teens. By then I could watch the action and actually understand how important it was to Dad when his team won and that I was there with him.

And now it’s come full circle. I was honoured to be named the Number One Ticket Holder for the Greater Western Sydney Giants to kick off their first season in the AFL in 2012.

I’ve been able to watch a young team grow and get to know a talented bunch of boys with big dreams, plenty of skill and the whole world in front of them.

I’ve got an orange section in my wardrobe and now my family spends weekends, in between my kids’ own sporting commitments, screaming our lungs out as we cheer on our team.

I think we should be pretty proud in this country that we can go to a game with the whole family, feel safe and have a great day out. We drove to Canberra for the Giants versus Western Bulldogs game, my son sitting in the back seat in his GWS jumper, his best mate Timmy wearing the opposition’s. They learnt the other’s team song, sat together at the game and pigged out on pies. Not many places in the world you can do that without being heckled or worse.

As a family it’s important we find things to do together. Footy may be it for your family too. No matter how bad your day is or who’s feuding with whom, if you can make it to the oval, don your scarf and cheer, most things can be forgotten, at least for a few hours.

My cousin and her kids are mad on horses. She rides, her daughter does the gymkhana and her son cross-country. Whatever it is, find a common bond.

And me, well, I’m just grateful I have a son who now loves Manly and is happy to hang with his grandfather at Brookvale Oval. It frees me up to watch the Giants.

Copycats

At the age of five, Talia would have extended conversations with someone on the other end of her pretend Tinkerbell mobile phone. She would tuck it between her ear and shoulder and walk around deep in conversation with I-don’t-know-who, about I-don’t-know-what. She would throw her head back and laugh and went so far as to wave her finger at me as a warning if I dared to interrupt her.

My laughter quickly turned cold as I realised she was doing exactly what I do—talk on the phone way too much and tell her to wait until I’m finished.

She will join me in the bathroom and pretend to take her non-existent make-up off. Or shuffle around my room attempting to walk in my high heels.

And haven’t we all heard phrases thrown back at us with a remarkably familiar ring. The expressions my kids use often leave me wondering where they come from, until I hear my husband use the exact same words.

‘Just so you know . . .’ or ‘We’ll see’; the latter came to me from my grandmother, now that I think about it.

It makes you realise how much children mirror their parents, particularly when you don’t even know it’s happening.

My son hates peas because his dad does. I don’t think he’s even tried them. And John hates them because his mother does.

My son will follow his dad around the house with his tool kit, and watch the same sports on TV.

My daughter talks too much, chats to anyone and won’t take no for an answer. I’ll let you work that one out . . .

But it’s not all bad. I always greet our school lollypop lady and I’m proud to see my kids do now too.

And I know in turn I’ve picked up habits from my parents. My mum’s fantastic deal-with-anything attitude and my dad’s gift of the gab.

So hopefully our children will adopt some of our good habits and not just the bad.

Cracking It

Sometimes the stars are aligned . . . for disaster.

For me it’s usually when I haven’t had enough sleep, or I’ve taken on too much, or I have to ask my children to do something one too many times, and then that’s it . . . BOOM!

It’s usually a slow burn. I always know when I’m starting to wear down and tensions are starting to build up. Then it happens: three globes blow in the one night, two of the sort I don’t have in the cupboard; the cat pees on the laundry floor and I accidentally step in it, propelling myself into a skid across the kitchen floor; while using the step ladder I’m carrying to change the globes to break my fall, it drives into my foot. Cue tears.

At other times, the mess in the house finally pushes me to breaking point. The books/footballs/shoes/projects just suddenly seem to take over and, once I’m done with my futile nagging, I just lose it. In a frightening tsunami of screaming motherhood, I let rip. But I tell you, the place is cleaned up in an instant and the memory of my temper lingers long enough for the kids to keep the place tidy for at least a few days.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who has moments when I seriously question what on earth I am doing and why I am trying to do so much?

Or weeks when I start at one end of the house to maintain order but by the time I get back to where I started, I’m due to go again?

It’s usually when I’m tired or rushed that things go wrong. Like the night I was trying to make my nails look respectable before an event but dropped the bottle of dark nail polish on the bathroom floor moments before I was to due to leave the house. The glass smashed and the polish spilled all over my white tiles, grout and cupboard doors. There I was on my hands and knees in my party frock scrubbing the floor, and myself, as the taxi tooted outside.

Like all households, we’ve had windows broken from the odd cricket ball, timber floors scratched, skirting boards dented from a remote controlled car, and the couch smeared in chocolate. For some reason these aren’t the things that set me off. Maybe it’s because I expect them.

And I can remain in control when there’s an injury. Nick once broke his arm at an indoor gym party. It was at one of those YMCA venues padded to within an inch of its life, and yet he still managed to hit the one spot that could do damage.

These are the times I can remain in control and focused on what needs to be done.

Three times Talia slammed her fingers in the door, enough to warrant a visit to the hospital each time. On one visit we all sat together watching the AFL Grand Final in Emergency.

Maybe I started the ball rolling when I fell down the back steps while pregnant with Nick, or fell and broke my arm while pregnant with Talia.

These are episodes when, surprisingly, I can keep my composure. But stupid mistakes on my part are not. I once ruined my car’s black seats when I sat down wearing a yellow raincoat that proceeded to transfer the sunny rubber coating straight from my coat to the black leather. I cursed every night as I scrubbed at it with a toothbrush for weeks to get it clean.

It’s often the silly little things that tick us off. The vacuum cleaner getting stuck on the door jamb, the grocery bag splitting on the way up from the car, not finding a single pen that works or dropping a tub of yogurt in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Some weeks the mountain simply feels too big to climb.

That’s when I know I need more sleep, a little glass of wine and a few quiet moments with my kids to remind them, and me, I’m not always a screaming dragon.

Cricket

It’s pretty embarrassing the moment your son’s hand-eye coordination outperforms your own . . . and that was when he was still in nappies.

Nick is a great little sportsman. He’s been obsessed by pretty much all sport from the moment he could clutch a ball in his tiny toddler hands.

He clearly takes after his dad in this area. Thank God.

So there can be little else more humiliating for a mum than being thrust into the position of wicket keeper and trying to catch a cricket ball in front of about 50 under nine year olds—only to fumble and drop the damn thing in front of them all.

Poor Nick . . . I always assumed my time to embarrass him was years away.

I was hopeless at school sport, and it’s now coming back to haunt me. When John is away, it’s up to me to partner Nick at cricket training. His lovely old weather-beaten coach smiles at me with that ‘at least you are trying’ look, then steps in and takes over.

Lucky I can be the taxi driver and take him to training and games, cut the oranges, or stand in line with him for hours in the men’s underwear section of Kmart to get an autograph from his idol, Brett Lee.

And lucky John doesn’t travel as much anymore.

Sport is a major part of my kids’ lives, and one I’m keen to encourage. I’m so glad they love being active. And the best advice I was given was to keep them busy—that way, they have no time to get into trouble.

But there is busy and then there is busy.

Rather than choosing what to play, we’ve had to eliminate a few things. There is simply not enough time for a boy who spends his days dreaming of playing for the Socceroos, the Giants or the Australian cricket team to train, play and still fit in his homework.

It’s been really hard to draw the line in the sand and say no to a few things. We’ve been keen for Nick to try as much as possible before he hits high school and is forced by time constraints to narrow his options even further. But there are only so many days in the week and only so much equipment we can afford.

Like most men—sorry, boys—Nick wants all the gear so he can look the part. He sees Rebel Sport as the Holy Grail and studies their catalogues with the sort of enthusiasm I wish he’d apply to his schoolbooks.

Talia also plays soccer, but not with the fervour of her brother. She’s much happier in the ballet studio. But that still involves after-school lessons and a tutu, not to mention a hair-sprayed end-of-year extravaganza.

But how active is too active, for both them and me? It’s nice to keep a few afternoons free for chilling out together at home, or having a friend over for a play. And I certainly don’t want to wear them out. But I also know it’s the perfect time in their young lives when they can have a go at anything and everything, before friends and study rule the timetable and the fear of failure curbs their enthusiasm.

So as we begin another year of ballet, soccer, cricket and homework, at least I know there are some balls I’m able to throw in the air and catch.

Damn the Clock

My perfect weekend is to simply ignore the clock, to not have to be anywhere at any particular time.

It’s even better if I can also ignore the phone, not leave the house and not hear the sound of my own voice for two days, but I realise that could be highly unsocial and a little impractical.

But the clock I can ignore. I can stay in my PJ’s long after I’ve got out of bed and not run to any routine at all.

Every other day, time management rules my life. I spent fourteen long years getting up at 3 a.m. to get to work by 4 a.m. I knew exactly how long I had if I hit the snooze button, where I could pick up time and what I had to skip by spending those extra nine minutes in bed. I could be even more streamlined if I hit it twice.

I prepared dinner at 4.30 p.m. to make way for the nightly 5 p.m. Sunrise conference call to discuss the next day’s show and we ate as a family soon after. My relief was palpable when John came home early enough to bathe the kids while I read research briefs. If it all ran smoothly I could get to bed on time, which meant one less hit of the snooze button the next morning.

Being a working parent has taught me to prioritise my time in a way I never had to before. There are certain things I need to do each day and certain things I want to do. During my time on Sunrise, being at the school gate every afternoon was paramount, so I made sure I crammed everything into my mornings in order to make that happen.

Moments are no longer wasted. What I can fit into 24 hours surprises even me. Every minute counts. I used to be the world’s biggest procrastinator. School reports always said I spent too much time talking and setting up my desk. Ok, I still talk a lot but I can do other things at the same time now.

Our nightly conference would fall smack-bang in the middle of the witching hour. The kids would be as tired, hungry and worn out as I was. Not the best time to be on the phone, and alert.

But bless that mute button . . . I have wiped bottoms, cooked and served spaghetti, scraped ice-cream off the floor, built Lego and dressed Barbie, all the while discussing global warming and footy tips. It’s multi-tasking at its best.

Mind you, a few mornings I did arrive at work to see a surprise guest on the rundown. They must have discussed that segment when I was a little distracted.

Working and mothering has also taught me how to find ways to cut corners. There’s the butcher who marinates the meat that makes basic meals more appetising; when I cook lasagna I always make two and freeze one.

I’d hang out a load of washing before I went to bed so it was dry by the time I got home the next day, or leave the shopping list for John to do after the kids and I were asleep.

Now I work evenings, reading an afternoon and early evening bulletin on Channel Seven, and given I spent so long peaking before lunch, I can get up, have the house sorted, lunches made and a load of washing out all before the kids have wiped the sleep from their eyes.

Even at work, I live by the clock—on air to the second and keeping interviews to time.

Hollywood interviews are so precise: usually four minutes and not a second more. Just like that scene out of Notting Hill, you walk in, sit down, hide your nerves and fire off as many questions as you can before you’re kicked out and the next journalist is ushered in. There’s no time to break the ice with small talk or chitchat at the end, and if you want a ‘Thanks, Tom, for your time’ on camera, then don’t go a second over or they simply cut the tape.

So I have learnt the more I keep to time, the easier it is to manage. But please don’t think I run our lives like an army major! We have days when it all goes to the dogs, and either I have a meltdown or the kids do.

Or, we throw our usual routines to the wind and spend the whole glorious sunny afternoon in the backyard. Then we simply play catch-up and eat two-minute noodles.

And hit the snooze button.

Diamonds Aren’t a Girl’s Only Best Friend

I got dumped by our teenage babysitter.

After asking her to mind our kids and having her say no four times in a row, I finally got the hint. She was breaking up with me.

Perhaps my children are horrors and I don’t know; we don’t pay her sufficiently or leave good enough chocolate; she simply doesn’t like us anymore; or she just has a rollicking good social life.

It’s hard enough to cope with the rejection, but it’s even harder to replace her.

Every woman has a list of essential contacts she needs to keep everything ticking along.

I have Ken, the butcher. He always flirts, gives the kids a lolly and guarantees me top quality meat. Sometimes when it’s marinated or stuffed I even take credit for all his hard work.

There’s Richi, my hairdresser. Only he knows how many greys there really are fighting for supremacy.

There’s Norma, our cleaner. What she can do in two hours once a fortnight makes coming home on that wonderful Tuesday an absolute pleasure.

Lois is our neighbour. She pops over for a cup of tea and brings my washing in if it starts raining before I get home. She’s also an emergency port of call for my kids should they ever need help.

Sonya, my make-up fairy, welcomes a bleary, blotchy 40-something woman into her chair every day and transforms her into a confident, TV-ready talking machine.

These are the essential members of every woman’s team. Finding them is hard enough, but keeping them is vital.

We made contact with our babysitter after she left a flyer in our letterbox. It was a gamble on an unknown, but I admired her initiative and trusted her sweet smile. It seems that wasn’t enough, so now we’re on the hunt for a new one.

I once committed the cardinal sin of taking a number from a girlfriend and borrowing her babysitter . . . then proceeded to steal her. It wasn’t intentional. It was just that every time I booked her, my girlfriend would coincidentally call her the following day and find her committed to us. It’s up there with perving on another’s husband or dissing her homemade biscuits. You just don’t do it.

So we are starting again. It’s preferable they have a licence. There’s no point getting a cab to and from dinner when you then have to turn around at midnight and drive the babysitter home.

And you don’t want anyone too young, in case you have a late night (which is rare, in my case) and feel awful that some poor teenager is struggling to stay awake on your couch.

They also have to be fun, for the kids’ sake, but not too fun because you do need your children to go to bed eventually.

But, hey, beggars can’t be choosers.

I’ll keep asking around, and when I do get a new one I promise to stock the pantry better this time, and when I pay, I’ll always round up.

Oh, and I’ll send flowers to Sonya, Richi, Norma and Lois—and keep flirting with Ken.

Because some things in your life are very very valuable.

Dishy Dads

We had a dishy dad in our mothers’ group. He was known as the ‘Fox in the Henhouse’, a lovely guy with a gorgeous little baby. Well, at least I think he was lovely. We were all so enamoured with the new dad cuddling his tiny baby we didn’t really notice.

I’m sure I’m not alone here, but is there anything more appealing than a man with his child?

What woman doesn’t smile when she sees pictures of Brad Pitt with a child or two on his hip, David Beckham with his look-alike sons trailing behind him, or the dishy dad who picks up his kids from school in the afternoon or drops them off in the morning . . . his tie a little askew and his darling little daughter clutching his hand?

Seeing my husband become a father made me love him even more. And seeing a man nurturing his kids makes me positively swoon.

I know it’s a generalisation, but dads nowadays seem so much more hands-on. Gone is the era when Dad would walk in the door after work, take off his hat and be greeted by freshly washed children and a wife in a clean apron holding his scotch.

When I returned to work after having our second child, John took a month off. I’m ashamed to admit that the house was tidier and far more organised than it’s ever been under my captaincy. Our then two-year-old son loved every moment of having his dad at home, and I know John did too. (Although I did chuckle that his hopes for a midday game of golf with baby in tow didn’t quite pan out.)

Even now when I travel for work, I always return to a clean home and sometimes one that’s been slightly reorganised. When he’s completely in charge, John makes the most of it. The lounge room gets a makeover and the laundry once had a fresh lick of paint.

And while I’m singing his praises, John has mostly been the one to get up to the children at night. He always says it matters less how he looks in the morning—and don’t I love him for it.

US President Barack Obama even talked about the importance of fatherhood in his bid for the White House: ‘We need [fathers] to realise that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child, it’s the courage to raise one. So many of our children are growing up in front of the television set, in front of video games. As fathers and as parents, we’ve got to spend more time with them, and help them with their homework, and turn off the TV set once in a while.’

I am acutely aware of the bond between my children and their dad, particularly because I still share that to this day with my own dad. While there’s nothing John does with them that I can’t, I realise it often takes on different significance. I have slipped into the role of chief cook, washing lady, homework nagger and dental check-up supervisor. And while I can kick a football and throw a cricket ball, I’m told my skills are a little lacking . . . I’m good for practice, but dad is better for coaching.

The other thing I’ve learnt is how differently men parent. We need to let them dress the baby, hook the nappy and set the table their way. Just because it’s different to ours doesn’t make it wrong. I have a girlfriend whose husband never put his kids to bed when they were little. He never attempted to and she never insisted. Not only did she create a rod for her own back but he missed out on some pretty special times.

Parents all do things differently to one another and that’s the appeal. It means our children learn to be flexible and adaptable.

And we have to be. The Fox I was talking about earlier ended up leaving our mothers’ group because he didn’t feel comfortable. My dad talks of a time before parents’ rooms where he struggled to take me to a public toilet. He couldn’t go into the ladies and he said he wasn’t comfortable taking me into the gents.

Mind you, he was happy to take me shopping. I can remember once calling for attention from the change room as the shop assistants fawned over my handsome single father. No wonder I was spoilt.

In our world, it’s the mums who take the kids to training and the dads who take them to the games on Saturday; the mums who natter on the sidelines and the dads who hold team ‘strategy’ meetings at the pub; the mums who wash the boots and the dads who direct the kids how to use them; the mums who cut up the oranges and the dads who sneak in the Red Frogs. And don’t we love them for it.

Divorce

Only in Hollywood is it ever an amicable separation where former couples vow to remain friends and respect one another’s privacy.

In real life it’s usually a painful, devastating, sometimes nasty and usually long, drawn-out process. When there are kids involved, it’s even more complicated.

Imagine if those kids have superstar parents and every aspect of their split is splashed all over the weekly mags for the consumption of readers the world over. Every little detail analysed, quoted, misquoted or simply made up. How hard it must be to not only have to survive what is arguably one of the most traumatic experiences for a child, but to do it in the eye of a storm with a world watching on and clamouring for some dirt—true or untrue—about their mummy and daddy.

Divorce can be brutal on kids. I know because I was that kid. It can be confusing, unsettling and most of all just very, very sad. And whether or not your parents are celebrities, it’s no different.

One of my best friends has just gone through it. It was a tough process for everyone and it broke my heart to watch. I wanted them to stay together; when it was obvious they couldn’t, I just wanted them both to be happy. But more than anything I wanted their two girls to come through unscathed.

As a friend, all I could do was listen. No one knows what goes on in someone else’s marriage. It took maturity and my own relationship to work that out.

With the naivety of a child, I spent years wishing my parents had stayed together, but now with the wisdom of age I see they weren’t meant to be. I couldn’t see them as the individuals they were, but rather the figureheads of the perfect family I wanted but didn’t have.

Watching my friends go through it, I could recognise the point of no return.

Anyone going through a split needs a good support network around them—one for the parents but one also for the children. Every kid needs somewhere to go and feel safe.

So I just told my friend to remind her kids every day she loved them. Tell them the split was nothing to do with them and make sure she always kept their bedroom intact so they had their own sacred space. I also told her I loved her and I supported her because she needed it.

Thankfully, many a child has survived and come out the other end, stronger and resilient for the experience. And very, very loved.

I know I did.

Eating

Since the age of nine, Nick has eaten more than me. His legs are long and obviously hollow. He has not an inch of fat on him, can run like the wind, and has an appetite that needs feeding roughly every two hours.

Like a farmer trucking in hay during a drought, I’m constantly trying to keep up with demand. If only our backyard could produce apples and cheese.

When he was a baby I used to worry if he was getting enough milk. At six months I did my best to manage the mushy transition to solids, and from then on the worry continued: is he eating enough? Too much? The right stuff? At the right times?

It seems everyone has an opinion: experts, the media, well-meaning grandparents, the community nurse and other mothers. It can all get pretty confusing.

As a journalist I’ve done stories on Australia’s alarming rates of childhood obesity, then in the next breath I’ve told viewers about the rise in eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. I’ve reported on the debate to take seriously overweight kids away from their families, proposals to weigh kids at school and send home health report cards, and also the issue of bullying when kids take these matters into their own hands.

So how do we as parents take a step back from all the hype, fear and conflicting messages and raise healthy children with normal attitudes to food?

I’m trying to take the cue from my kids.

Nick is built like a racehorse—always has been and probably always will be. Since birth he’s been long and lean and prompted plenty of people to ask if I was feeding him enough.

So I went and saw my lovely GP, herself a mum and one of those calming people who make everything simple. She assured me as long as he was growing, active and happy, he would be ok.

It’s interesting to observe how his body works. For him, food is merely fuel. He is still young enough that his appetite is dictated only by his energy requirements and not yet by bad habits. When he’s growing he eats us out of house and home. He eats enough to keep up his stamina on the AFL field and when he’s not hungry, he’s not hungry. My daughter is similar. When she’s undergoing a growth spurt, she eats more. When she’s not, I have to nag her to finish her meal.

But then I worry that I am forcing them to eat more than their little bodies need. I don’t want them growing up and losing their own natural mechanism that stops them eating when they are full. I was always told to eat everything on my plate, a habit probably not ideal for my waistline.

We sit down together as a family for our evening meal and I want it to be an enjoyable conclusion to our busy day. It’s where we chat without the distraction of the TV (switched off) or the phone (ignored). It’s enough to get the kids to stop mucking around and eat nicely, without me having to make threats if they don’t eat.

We all probably have some sort of issue with food. Whether we eat because we are bored, hungry, tired, miserable, or craving sugar or comfort, the challenge to us as parents is to get our children to eat the right things at the right times and for the right reasons.

We need to teach them to find their own balance.

Einstein

One of the best bits of advice I ever received was when I rang our local primary school to enrol my then four-year-old son.

Mrs Stewart answered the phone and started chuckling when I told her Nick was about eighteen months away from starting. In a very kind voice and with the gentle tone of experience, she told me to relax and call back in a year. But before hanging up she gave me a few words of wisdom. She said not to give school another thought until his first day. She told me to forget about teaching him to read or add up or learn each country’s capital city—that’s what school is for. My job, she said, was simply to let him be a kid.

Socialise him by all means, she advised. Make sure he can use a toilet, eat his lunch alone and ask for assistance, but leave teaching to the experts. She said just have fun, teach him to be friendly, play nicely and handle separation from his mum and dad, and leave the rest to them. Don’t wear him out before he’s even begun. Let him be a little boy. It was unexpected but astute advice that I took on board.

We all think our baby is the cutest and smartest ever born. That’s natural, and probably just as well, really. But current thinking is that we could be doing more harm than good by trying to put them ahead of the curve.

It probably happens more with our firstborn, because (let’s be frank) we simply have more time and more to prove; however, child psychologists are now telling parents to ease up. Teaching children the theory of relativity before they can even say the word is causing too much stress, for them and us.

There are warnings that too many gadgets can overload young minds and fancy educational flash cards and language DVDs can actually have the opposite effect. When stressed, little kids turn off their thinking processes.

I even once covered a story on the growing number of kids who were as young as eight turning to sports psychologists to get the edge on their rivals.

Why do we want them to grow up so fast? Are we simply keen to skip a few vital steps along the way? What’s the rush?

Don’t peak too early, I say. Don’t hire Buckingham Palace for their twelfth birthday because then what do you do for their eighteenth? Maybe sometimes we need to remember to give them a book instead of an iPad.

Or is it that we are so keen to have them ahead of the pack? We want them to have every advantage, assistance and head start we can possibly find in the misguided belief this will make them high achievers.

Now that my kids are a little older, it’s overloading their schedule that I struggle with the most. My son wants to try everything, be involved in everything. He loves sport and music and being with his mates and will put his name up for most activities that take his young fancy. I admire and encourage him and can see why he was voted school captain.

But I also acknowledge that sometimes we reach the end of the week and we’re all as tired and worn out as each other. I really try to get him to slow down and pile a little less on his plate, but I also realise that primary school is the time to try it all out. Firstly, failure is a little less daunting and embarrassing at this age; secondly, I know once he starts high school he’ll be working a lot harder. He’ll struggle to play summer soccer, weekend basketball, club cricket and AFL, as well as school sport. Oh, and find the time to learn.

It’s a constant struggle to find a comfortable balance between encouraging Nick to give everything a go and not wearing him out completely so he gives it all away.

Amid all this, as a parent, I also need to make the time to reinforce a few things he needs to learn above and beyond school. And they’re pretty similar to the things I focused on when he was four: he must have the time to be a kid, play nicely, have manners and be friendly.

Thank goodness he can use a toilet.

Embarrassing

Most kids reach a moment in time when their parents embarrass them. Maybe it’s when they hit the dance floor at a family wedding—seeing your dad bust a move can be mortifying. Or when mum kisses you in front of your mates.

Throw in a job where you get recognised on the street and the humiliation is compounded. Or when you’re trying to learn about cyber safety at school and your mum pops up in the Healthy Harold video. Yeah, I’d probably cringe too.

It was once spelt out to me in pretty clear terms: ‘I wish you had a normal job.’

It is an unusual experience to have a job where some people know who you are and what you do before you have met them yourself. While I love meeting new people in this way, I can see why at times my kids have been mortified.

So, I asked them, what is a normal job? Eric, our neighbour, the paediatric surgeon who saves lives, or Amy’s dad, Pete, the international pilot, or Timmy’s mum, Marg, our local GP?

I get that when you’re a kid you just want to blend into the crowd. And no parent wants to make that any harder for their children than it already is.

I once sat at a dinner with a famous international actor who said his son asks him to pick him up from school around the corner. It’s a tricky balance when you’re a kid between wanting to be known as your own person and muddying that with who your parents are.

When I was a kid, my dad was the local real estate agent. Everyone in our suburb knew him. We couldn’t walk through the local shopping centre without him being stopped every ten minutes and asked for advice or an update on how a sale or a house hunt was going. I can clearly remember hating it. I tugged on his trouser legs so we could get out of there and I could have him all to myself.

But then it changed. I don’t remember when my dislike of sharing him with the neighbourhood turned to pride, but I started to realise that he was pretty important to a lot of people. I also saw he was kind and relied upon in a way that made me really happy he was my dad.

What your parents do for work is often the great unknown. It takes mum or dad out of the house into some vast office where they get to talk on the telephone, have lunch and generally look busy. It can take years for a kid to actually work out what it is their parent does, apart from wear nice clothes and talk to people.

And for years my job has been no different. Despite the visual proof each day of where I was and what I was doing, it was merely a job that took Mummy away in the wee small hours.

When anyone would stop me in the street for a bit of a chat or to talk about Sunrise, Nick would tug at my arm to drag me away, just as I once did as a child. He was embarrassed and hated sharing me with complete strangers in the supermarket. He would tell everyone with such pride that his dad worked in an office and was a big boss, but would barely answer when asked what his mum did.

I think it was interviewing the likes of Justin Bieber and One Direction that finally turned the tide. I gained me a bit of street cred and my children some major playground currency.

So when Nick had exhausted every item in our house for his weekly class news item and decided to take his mother, I was flattered.

Not because I’d have a group of attentive primary school kids in front of me lapping up behind-the-scenes stories, but because my son finally decided my job was cool.

The questions came thick and fast: ‘How does a television actually work?’ (Like I’d know!); ‘What time do you get up?’ (3 a.m.); ‘What happens if you have to go to the toilet in the middle of the show?’ (Hang on or hope for a long commercial break). Suddenly I was the one embarrassed and tugging on Nick’s arm.

And as for my dad, well, he spent years embarrassing me in front of my friends by insisting he pick me up from every party, and was always there fifteen minutes early. Or I’d catch him dad-dancing to Air Supply at full volume, or frightening the hell out of any boy that stopped by. But now I understand that was his job too.

Just like it’s mine now that I’m a parent.

Empty Nest

In Year Five Nick went to school camp. Band camp, actually, but don’t bother making the joke, the parents already did!

While he was off on his little adventure, the dynamic at home became so different with only one child. Talia’s generally the noisy one but without her chief antagonist there was no one to fight with or yell at, so it was calm and silent—for a time.

I’m not sure why kids need to pick a fight but it seems they just can’t go without it sometimes. Devoid of a brother to argue with, Talia slowly circled her dad. She was looking for an opening to rile him up, to get a reaction. Talia and her father are two peas in a pod—she may look like me but she shares his personality traits. So it’s never long before she gets a result.

For the most part, though, it was quiet. I can only imagine what it will be like when they leave home.

When it comes to leaving home, our kids have very different views on venturing out into the world. Nick says he never will. I’m sure he’ll change his mind once he’s older (please, let him change his mind once he’s older!) but for now he’s determined he will stay forever.

Talia on the other hand would leave tomorrow . . . well, maybe not so soon but certainly once she’s finished school. She wants to head out into the world and explore it. ‘Oh, I’m sure I’ll miss you, but I’m gone,’ she says. She has romantic visions of Europe and Asia and somehow the thought of either staying home or travelling with us seems remote.

So, in a way, I hope they’re both a bit wrong. We want Nick to stay for a while but we know once he’s older he’ll head out and do his own thing. Likewise, for all Talia’s posturing about her independence, we know she’ll always come back and will probably be around longer than either of us thinks!

It’s funny how two kids, given the same upbringing and same opportunities to travel, have such vastly different views of the world in which they live.

Having only recently taken our first ever holiday without the kids, John and I are now looking forward to when we can be grey nomads. Well, maybe not so much the ‘grey’ part, but we plan to travel a lot! Travel is one of my favourite things to do, and I can’t wait to explore the world when we have the time and our trips aren’t dictated by school terms and television ratings schedules.

Life is strange the way we cycle through stages: as newlyweds you love the freedom and independence; with kids you can’t remember a time without them and want to spend all your time with them; teenagers you can take or leave; then, when the kids leave home, it comes full circle. I hope we’re still happy and healthy enough to do all that travel and maybe the kids can stay home and look after the pets.

Escaping

Such anguish is universal to any parent who travels for work. The guilt of leaving home and the sweet little voices that tug at your heartstrings down the phone line.

Throw in a different time zone and a busy schedule and it’s always when I am in a hurry or falling into bed that the kids are up for a chat. Talia has to tell me about each of her friends at kindy, what they wore, what they ate for lunch, and on an expensive international call Nick insists on giving me a hole-by-hole description of his round of putt putt golf!

But as any busy parent will tell you, a hotel room can also be a sweet capsule of silence. And hey, sometimes you’ve got to grab any moment of escape that you can.

You’re guaranteed a good night’s sleep. There’s no ‘Mum, I’m busting!’ from down the hall at 1 a.m. When we’ve taken Sunrise interstate, I’ve found myself checking into my room late afternoon, sliding into the hotel slippers and spending the next few hours watching a cheesy in-house movie and ordering room service.

Bliss.

As much as I miss my family when I’m away, it’s so nice to have some time alone; to shower without someone knocking on the door and to go to the toilet without Talia bringing in Teddy for a chat.

And John and I have made a promise to each other—not to feel guilty about being away. There’s no point in ringing home, hearing the background chaos and apologising for not being there. We say, enjoy the quiet, savour the meal and sleep like a starfish in the bed, because in no time the other one will be away doing exactly the same thing. Savouring the mini escape.

Faking It

On many a Sunday afternoon I make the kids a batch of cupcakes or a yummy slice to get them through a week of morning teas. It started off as my way to send them off to school with a little bit of mummy-love packed in their lunch boxes back when I didn’t see them in the mornings or cut their sandwiches. By then I was long gone, half my day done at work before they even woke up.

Sometimes I bake from scratch, but most of the time I cheat and use a packet.

A little cheating in the kitchen can go a long way. Bottled pasta sauce can become yours with a few fresh herbs from the garden. Frozen sausage rolls can look homemade if you coat them in egg yolk, sprinkle with sesame seeds and hide the box.

Once Nick went to a friend’s for a play with the tastiest chocolate slice ever. Only a few hours earlier, our neighbour Lois had dropped by with some delicious slice for us. John saw it on the kitchen bench and presumed I had baked it fresh for him to take, so he bundled it up and proceeded to make a great impression.

It was homemade . . . unfortunately, just not in my home.

Depending on my week, the afternoon sport roster or what’s in the fridge, dinners can be anything from a roast chicken to two-minute noodles.

If I’m organised enough on a weekend to plan a few meals for the week ahead and buy the ingredients, we can manage quite well. But if it’s one of those mangled weeks or we’re rushing in late from soccer training, then an omelette or even a barbecue chicken will have to do.

Sometimes it’s time; sometimes it’s simply my lack of ability. Either way, I do my best to be a Domestic Goddess. But even the kids understand my limitations. Talia had a preschool party once and the kids got to nominate what special food they would bring in. They had listed everything from chips to cupcakes and orange segments, but Talia wanted Nutri-Grain bars cut into little pieces. Bless her! It was quick and easy.

For class parties I’ve smeared homemade icing on store-bought biscuits, slathered jam on pikelets straight from the packet and decorated sponge fingers grabbed from the supermarket. Some days I simply need to take a shortcut because I still want the same outcome.

I like cooking, baking and having fresh flowers in the home. I enjoy switching the kids’ bedside lamps on at night and turning down their beds in readiness. I rather like being a ‘homemaker’ and doing what I can to make our home cosy, comfortable and smell nice. The gentle vibe of our home makes me happy. Even if occasionally I can’t take all the credit!

I always feel intimidated by those mums who arrive at someone’s place looking immaculate and pass around trays of cupcakes so perfect they look like bought ones.

Now I take comfort, because maybe they are.

Father’s Day

I am a daddy’s girl.

I was the little girl in blonde pigtails who very quickly realised she had her dad wrapped around her little finger—and still does.

My dad has been one of the biggest influences in my life.

He taught me honesty and kindness and the value of hard work, but he also taught me how to pitch a tent, change a tyre and recognise an Angus steer from a Hereford. He grew up in the bush and there was no way he was going to let me grow into one of those useless chicks afraid to break a nail or give anything a go.

He took me to the footy, the ballet, cattle sales and shopping for clothes. He made me study, forbade me riding in cars with boys on their P plates and grounded me when I crossed the line.

And he gave me his network of best friends, mates he’s had most of his life and certainly all of mine, who would have stepped in at any time as substitute fathers if I needed them.

I am lucky to have such strong males in my life. My dad and my husband keep me grounded. If there is any risk of being dazzled by the bright lights of my industry, one or both of them will bring me back to earth with a thud.

There is something so different about a bloke’s perspective. They don’t sugar coat things the way we women can. And sometimes that’s just what we need.

So while I sing the joys and challenges of being a working mum, I want to sing the praises of my husband.

He keeps me grounded, but also our kids. He seems to step in with just the right amount of strength when I’m at risk of mollycoddling them. When I weaken and let them off the hook, he holds his ground—for their sake as much as ours.

In the next moment, he’ll take our daughter dress shopping and spoil her rotten, fall asleep on the couch with our son watching the footy, or head into the office wearing his Father’s Day cardboard tie.

Favourites

My then nine-year-old cornered me in the kitchen one day.

‘Am I your favourite child?’ Nick asked, point-blank, no warning.

‘No. I love you both equally. But you are special because you’re my firstborn.’

‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ he concluded with his usual cheeky confidence, despite my arguing otherwise.

So I asked him if he had a favourite parent.

‘Yes. Sometimes daddy really annoys me so then it’s you. Other days you annoy me so then it’s him.’

Ah, to be so versatile, and honest, with your affections!

It’s a complex thing trying to reconcile the different relationships you can have with your children. There is no doubt you love them equally, just as there is no doubt you can have different bonds with each. After all, they are individuals.

And I know through life those bonds will be tested at different times. My daughter is a bit of a mummy’s girl, but fast-forward about five years and I imagine, like all young women, she’ll see daddy as a much better alternative to her daggy, bossy mother.

At the moment, mummy has currency. I interview interesting people, bring home Katy Perry’s autograph and I’m recognised in the playground. When you’re in primary school that’s cool.

Once they hit high school, though, I anticipate I’ll be told to pick them up around the corner and out of sight.

My son is doing his best to teach me how to pitch, bowl and goal keep . . . and I love it that he sees my worth outside of the kitchen and the laundry! I’m not very good, but he’s ok with that. In fact, it gives him a bit of a laugh.

Until I had my own kids I never knew you could love two little people from the same womb so much, yet so differently and genuinely have more than one favourite.

Although Nick does sign every card and letter he writes to us ‘from your favourite child’. Got to love his certainty.

Fire Truck

I’m not much of a swearer, and certainly not in front of my kids. That’s not to say when I’ve sliced my finger cutting vegetables or smashed a glass on the floor I haven’t let the odd word spring forth in anger. But I regret it instantly and tell my kids to neither do nor say as I do.

And being cut off in traffic can bring out the worst in me. But how do I tell my kids not to speak like that when they hear it almost everywhere they go? When they come home from school with the smile of a cherub and the language of a wharfie!

I mean no disrespect to wharfies . . . but it’s one thing to have colourful language fly out of the mouth of a burly bloke throwing a rope; it’s another when those words fly out of the mouths of babes.

We’ve already had to talk our way around those radio ads for nasal delivery technology and avoid explaining what a ‘two-minute man’ is.

And we’ve had to contend with the times they come home from a play date having learnt something new from that very dependable fountain of knowledge, The Friend With Older Siblings.

I really don’t want to sound like a prude, but we seem to be surrounded by swearing, innuendo and pop songs with beeps. And trying to maintain some sort of standard that my grandmother would deem reasonably acceptable is getting harder and harder.

Nick is at the age where the moment we tell him not to do or say something he’ll give it a go anyway to try us out. He’s quickly finding out what words should only be sniggered behind his hand and out of earshot of his parents. And he thought it hilarious to teach his little sister that age-old gag: ‘What starts with “F” and ends with “UCK”?’

I have a gorgeous girlfriend, the mother of two well-mannered daughters, who has a potty mouth. I know her well enough to tell her to zip it when my kids are with us. But what if you don’t know someone that well?

We have a cross-and-tick chart on the fridge that covers a multitude of sins, and more crosses than ticks by the end of the week means footy training or ballet is off.

So far so good, in terms of threats that work. Until I drop a jar of pasta sauce on my toe . . .

Food

When my kids were little, I drizzled honey on carrots to make them sweeter, slathered cauliflower with cheese and chopped zucchini so finely it was almost undetectable to the naked eye. I decorated the dinner plates, we ate by candlelight and even attempted to grow our own vegetables . . . all in an effort to entice my kids to eat a healthy meal.

But it seemed the more time I spent planning and preparing a meal, the less likely they were to eat it. The more I’m keen to try something new in the kitchen, the less they’re keen to try it at the table.

They would wolf down two-minute noodles but baulk at lasagne. Or, just as demoralising, they’d eat it, as long as it was drowned in tomato sauce.

Sometimes I seriously wonder why I bother. But you can employ tricks.

I know of one mum who sprinkles hundreds and thousands on the vegetables her kids don’t like and they gobble them up! Another sticky taped a jellybean to the middle of the plate and her toddler had to eat everything around it first.

Neither option is nutritionally sound, I know, and probably even a little dodgy when you have the whole ‘to bribe or not to bribe’ debate, but sometimes a parent has to do what a parent has to do.

And trust me, at times you’ll try anything.

We’ve tried relabelling. ‘Fairy cloud’ sounds more appealing than plain old mashed potato; ‘pink fish’ way more exotic than salmon.

I’ve also tried the mass-catering approach. My son loves cauliflower but hates peas. My daughter loves peas but hates cauliflower. So what if I have a few pots on the boil at once?

The most frustrating has got to be when they refuse to eat my spaghetti, but then come home from a friend’s house raving about a new dish they loved: spaghetti.

Maybe it’s just my cooking!

My mum used to make me sit at the table until my plate was clean. Never mind I was sitting alone, the kitchen had been cleaned up and she was already in her nightie.

We find the reward system works best in our house: if you don’t finish your dinner, you miss out on dessert.

The older the kids get the more willing they are to try new foods. And at times I’ve employed the standover tactic. ‘At least try it,’ I tell them. ‘Spit it out if you hate it.’ So now my daughter loves prawns and scallops—an expensive palette that I may live to regret encouraging.

But it was when I started working in the evenings and my husband took over the kitchen duties that things really changed. After twelve years of me turning out a daily meat-and-three-vege, it was clearly an exciting new chef and his exciting new menu that made the difference. Now I arrive home at night to the best smelling kitchen and two kids bragging about their crumbed barramundi.

So I’ve taken over mornings. A poached egg on toast is my way of clawing back some kitchen credits, and I pack as much variety as I can into their lunch box—a sandwich, some fruit, cheese and a homemade treat. Sometimes half of it comes home, mushed up in the lunch box or forgotten, but I figure as long as they eat at least one or two things from each major food group each day, we’re doing ok. I do my best to keep processed food to a minimum, but I’m also realistic and busy. They may not like every vegetable, fruit or meat but they like some. So, until their tastes expand, I’ll stick to what works and just occasionally try something new.

And I’ll keep the tomato sauce on standby, or tell them their dad cooked it.

Friends

Who would have thought two five-year-old girls could make so much mess? Those cute little pigtails can be deceiving. Like tornados in tutus, my daughter and her friend all but trashed her bedroom. The bed sheets were strewn on the floor, every single Barbie was in a state that would embarrass Ken, and pretty much all of her dresses had been pulled off their hangers and dumped on the ground.

Now don’t get me wrong . . . I don’t for one moment live with the false illusion that my daughter is an angel or even particularly tidy for that matter. But rock star she isn’t. She had never made a mess quite like that.

What do you do when they have a companion in crime with whom they wreak complete havoc in your home?

My son has a mate who is as quick with his smart answers as he is with his charm. Nick loves him, but I dread when he comes to play. He’s cheeky, precocious, and after he leaves it always takes time for Nick to calm down and return to speaking nicely.

So what do I do? How do I tell his friend that we don’t speak like that in our house, without becoming the cranky mum that other kids dread, or, worse still, embarrassing my own son? And can you discipline someone else’s child?

You may have read The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas and seen how that scenario played out. Or you may remember the case in the UK in 2013 when the pharmacist smacked a three-year-old girl who knocked some items off a shelf. Her mother was quite rightly angry and eventually got a letter of apology from the chemist.

What if the parent is there and you really want to step in? At a gymnastics class, my then five-year-old daughter was waiting in line to do a handstand when one of the little boys started digging his feet into her back, kicking and trying to shove her out of the way. His mum was talking to another mum and didn’t see so I bit my tongue. I was so tempted to step in—he’s notorious for doing his own thing—but I didn’t think it was my place. And to be honest I was too scared of how his mother might react. So I chickened out and moved Talia away instead.

Do any of us have the right to discipline someone else’s child? Given we probably don’t, do we then have the right to influence who our kids spend time with?

As adults we are hopefully a little wiser at choosing our friends, but I am torn on applying my knowledge and instinct to the crowd my kids hang around with.

While I really want to have a say over the company they keep, I also know I shouldn’t stifle their independence. Some lessons need to be figured out alone. Mind you, I write this when they are twelve and ten years old. My opinions may do a complete about-face in another four years.

I am sure I had, and still have, the odd friend my parents were less than happy with. But unless they were dragging me into illegal activities, I figured the company I kept was mine to determine.

So without being so obvious as to tell them with whom they can and can’t play, I will subtly suggest they hang out a little more with the nice ones. I can plant the odd seed and hope it grows, encourage the good ones to come over a little more, and make excuses when they want to bring the scary ones home.

After all, even Barbie needs looking out for sometimes.

Gadgets

I mowed the lawn last weekend. It was a mighty big effort, even if I say so myself.

But before I get too carried away with my newfound macho-mum persona, I must admit it’s pretty rare. It’s only about the third time in my lawn’s history, in fact.

My husband was busy digging up an old tree stump in the backyard, so, faced with two physically demanding jobs, I chose the one that at least involved a bit of machinery to lighten the load.

Mind you, I then came inside and made the kids’ lunch, a fresh batch of biscuits and hung another load of washing on the line. Not sure if that was multi-tasking or washing away the testosterone, but it was satisfying, blooming tiring, and at least I didn’t stuff my back like my poor hubby.

One thing I did get though (and I don’t think John ever has) was a few toots from cars passing by. Now why does the sight of a chick behind a mower call for such a response? I’m not sure if it was a good-on-you-luv type of toot, or a push-harder-there-luv toot. Either way, I waved and kept mowing.

Who said it’s my husband’s domain to mow the lawns? Probably the same idiot who deemed it my responsibility to cook the meals: me.

But at least we have some pretty nifty inventions on our side to make things a little easier. How my great-grandmother would gape if she saw me cook a meal in the microwave with a recipe displayed on my iPad, or do a load of dishes in one room and a load of dirty laundry in another, at the same time. Oh, and straighten my hair, steam my clothes, record a whole season of my favourite show with one button and fill the house with my own music playlist.

Pity I still struggle to open a jar.

The cooler the item, the keener we all are to get it. And hopefully in turn we will want to actually use it. On the back of MasterChef, I have started to buy my hubby the funkiest and handiest kitchen gadgets I can find. And he has started to cook the most elaborate weekend meals I can imagine. Seriously, a rolling garlic press? A mango cutter? A deep-fryer? He does love the coffee machine and has mastered a pretty mean espresso . . .

I guess I don’t mind doing the lawns if it gets me out of the kitchen once in a while.

Genes

When my daughter surprised us all at the age of eight and enrolled in the school public-speaking competition, everyone smiled and said, ‘Just like your mother.’

But, in all honesty, it’s her dad she takes after. He was the one who debated at school and dreamt of being a barrister. I was as quiet as a church mouse until I graduated from university and found my voice in front of all things, a TV camera.

She might look more like me, but inside she’s as feisty and strong as her dad, and shares his black sense of humour. If there is a bruise, they will both poke it.

Our son is a carbon copy of his dad physically, but emotionally he’s just like me.

You can’t help but be proud when children inherit your finer characteristics . . . but it can fill you with despair if you see their weaknesses and know inside exactly how they feel because they were, or still are, your own.

How do you tell your child to give everything a go, join the team, try something new or take a risk when you couldn’t yourself?

How do you encourage them to be brave when at that same age that was the last thing you were capable of? Does that make us all the more keen to help them overcome the very things that with hindsight we can see held us back?

How do you stop laughing when the dry humour or silly fart jokes are straight from the older horse’s mouth?

Nick laughs at absolutely anything, just like me, but thankfully he takes after his dad on the sporting field.

Talia leaves her shoes, projects and piles of stuff all over the house, a little like her mother, but luckily she inherited her father’s spelling skills and attention to detail.

Funny though how parents are quick to claim the good traits as from their side of the family and dump ownership very quickly of the bad. She’s my daughter when she’s good, my husband’s when she’s not!

And just when you think you have their personalities nailed they will emerge as individuals . . . so uniquely their own person that you marvel at their strength and wonder where they came from.

And that’s when you have to remind yourself that they’re not extensions of us, but people in their own right.

I love seeing Nick and Talia’s unique personalities emerge. And I marvel how two kids from the same set of parents can be different to each other in so many ways. But that’s why we’re all unique.

As you know, we stopped after two children—two rather miniature versions of their mum and dad. I’ll always be curious about what might have been had we gone for number three.

Girls Gone Mild

Remember those Saturday nights hitting the town with your girlfriends, drinking a chilled West Coast Cooler and listening to Rick Astley’s smooth voice vowing to never give you up?

This was back when getting ready to go out was as much an event as actually going out. Rather than a mad dash out the door hollering instructions at the babysitter, you spent days deciding what to wear, where to go and hoping that nice boy you met at last weekend’s party might make an appearance.

We’d plan our outfits and the exact time and place to meet—long before mobile phones meant you could leave it as open as a vague ‘I’ll SMS when I get there’. We’d laugh about boys, swap clothes and sweet-talk our parents into picking us up.

Nowadays, I’m told, women spend three days preparing for a Saturday night out! According to a UK study done in 2012, girls liaise with friends on what they are wearing as early as Wednesday, and follow that up with an average of ten text messages, three emails, five phone calls, eight Facebook posts and three tweets before the night even eventuates.

Oh, to have the time again and to have such simple concerns!

Instead of swapping clothes, my girlfriends and I are now exchanging tips on coping with sick parents. From nursing a broken teenage heart, we’re nursing each other through a split that comes with a settlement, child support and so much more baggage. Instead of cursing that silly boy for not ringing, we’re sobbing over a failed marriage and trying to manage the feelings of our children as well as our own.

Where once the biggest decision was what to wear with our bubble skirt, it’s now talking through the pros and cons of medicating a sick child.

The anguish I have felt over being ill-prepared for a university exam is nothing compared to the trauma of rushing a sick parent to hospital or seeing the parents of my friends, whom I have known since I was in braces, pass away. These parents were like my second family, who always welcomed me in when I couldn’t stay at home another minute. They calmed the crazed teenage girl within, they took my formal photos and loved me as their own. They have known me since the dodgy days of Passion Pop. So when it’s time to say goodbye . . . well, this is what we need our friends for.

The girls may not be mucking up together as much nowadays, but the bonds run deeper.

The ones who promised to bail you out if ever required are now the godparents of your children.

The one you made wear that terribly unflattering satin bridesmaid dress is now in kitten heels because her bunions are giving her trouble.

The support networks we relied on when breakups and bad fashion were our biggest disasters are now the ones who nurse our broken hearts and sympathise with our maxed-out credit cards.

Nights out are a little more sedate—drinks, dinner or a movie. At our age we can’t afford a headache the next day. But time with the girls is no less important. If anything, it’s a happy release from the madness at home. I call them ‘mental health’ breaks. A coffee with the school mums, a walk after school drop-off, a cheeky little pinot noir at the local bar that’s just opened up the road.

We all have a few more runs on the board nowadays, a few bigger issues to deal with and maybe a little more wisdom to help us.

But we can still frock up once in a while for a good night on the town, just minus the perm.

Gold

If only winning an Olympic medal was like winning the Melbourne Cup where they hand out miniature versions to all the connections that got the horse across the line. The owner gets the big cup, but replicas go to the trainer and jockey.

In handing out Olympic medals you’d have one for the coach, team manager and, most importantly, the athlete’s family.

Doesn’t every parent who’s got up at 4.30 a.m. to drive their child to swimming training also deserve gold around their neck?

Many an athlete has credited their parents’ support as the reason behind his or her success; or that of their spouses, who run the home front and give them the space they need to simply focus on their sport. They receive food, laundry, nurturing and encouragement.

We’re still only in the little league, but already I know how important it is to my children that Mum, Dad or preferably both of us are there to cheer them on each week at football or gymnastics.

God forbid I miss that goal of the week! When Nick gets it in the net he immediately looks over to make sure we saw it. The pride on his face almost brings me to tears. His grin is enormous! Mind you, it’s no different to when my husband comes home from a round of golf and fills me in on every shot, every hole, every club used.

And it’s only now I really appreciate how my parents spent years trying to find the perfect activity for me. I was kicked out of ballet for talking, found swimming too boring and was simply too slow at anything that required speed. I was never going to make it to the Olympics.

Instead they bought me books. Sometimes we would read together, other times I would hide under the covers with a torch long after I was meant to be asleep.

It’s these moments and passions we don’t want to miss. No matter how busy our lives are, as parents it’s so important to find that time to support our kids. It’s not always possible and sometimes duties need to be shared around a bit—particularly when there’s more than one sporting champ and you have some scheduling issues. But if it’s not John at football, it will be me. And if it’s not me, it will be a grandparent.

So all hail every parent who has got up in the dark to take their child to the pool, stood on the sideline and frozen at a football game, sewn sequins on a leotard or cut oranges on a Saturday morning. And all hail every partner who cooks perfect low-fat, low-carb, high-protein meals and keeps the home fires burning while their loved ones train endless hours day after day.

That sort of success takes teamwork. If only the whole family could fit up on the dais.

Grandparents

There is no one like a nonna to envelope you in a big mushy cuddle of love, and nothing like listening to a grandfather embellish stories from his youth . . . each adventure a little more daring, each win a little more triumphant at every retelling.

My kids are blessed to still have all four grandparents, and with each they share a different and unique relationship.

My paternal grandfather was an old bushie, a cattleman of the old school. Sadly for me he died before I was born, but I adore the stories of a stoic man who could pick a good steer with his eyes closed and the photos of him looking so comfortable on the back of a horse.

My maternal grandfather worked as a purser on a ship and apparently held the record for stuffing the most Minties in his mouth at once. We would hide together in the spare room of my grandparents’ house giggling as he dug out his secret stash. I was only four when he died so I never learnt the secret to such an important and handy skill.

More than three decades later, my children make their grandfather get down on his knees at one end of the hallway as they take a run up and launch themselves into his open arms. Sometimes they do a few laps around the kitchen as though the further they run the more force the hug holds.

With three grandparents living interstate, Poppy is the mainstay nearby. While Pa couldn’t be at all their sporting fixtures because he lives so far away, one of his roles has been as keeper of the family tree. He’s done an enormous amount of work to ensure his grandkids know of their heritage—something they probably won’t appreciate until they have children.

And while we can’t always be with distant grandparents, the birthday calls and Christmas cards make the distance seem smaller.

Those of us lucky enough to have known our grandparents usually have pretty special memories.

My kids have Nonna, who always arrives with lollies and a surprise hidden at the bottom of her suitcase. She cooks like only a grandmother can and spends hours on the floor playing and drawing. They have Poppy, who will happily kick a soccer ball in the backyard. When I start running short of time because dinner needs cooking or the children need bathing, Poppy has all the time and patience in the world. He is content to read the same story over and over again.

I had a grandmother who would let me watch her get ready to go to church or lunch with her girlfriends. I watched in awe as she chose her hat, gloves and purse to perfectly complement her outfit. She taught me to be a lady, always write thank you letters and keep my shoes polished.

My husband’s grandmother lived with him from when he was two. She played such a special and important role in his life. He always showed her his school photos and reports first, shared his happy and sad moments with her, and his earliest memory in life is crawling into her bed for a morning cuddle.

Now that I am a parent I appreciate the unique grandparent–child relationship even more.

I can see first hand how priceless that bond is to my children and what a light they are in the lives of their four grandparents.

And I recognise how priceless their grandparents are to me. I couldn’t do the daily shuffle without them. They are the first people I call when I need a hand. When John or I travel it’s usually one of the grandparents who moves in. My dad lives nearby and is more than happy to stay overnight as long as I cook him a half-decent meal. Food, and the thought of two little warm bodies crawling into his bed for an early morning cuddle, seals the deal.

I am completely relegated to second place when a grandparentarrives, but more than happy to be bumped down. Grandma’s cooking always tastes better than mine. She can convince the kids to eat anything. Meals I have tried serving for years suddenly become favourites. And the joy of a grandparent’s arrival always takes the pain out of a parent’s departure.

Studies even show that children who spend more time with their grandparents are not only kinder but smarter, performing higher in learning scores due to the extra one-on-one attention.

So if your children are lucky enough to still have their grandparents, treasure every moment, nurture their special bonds and always remember the Minties.

Groundhog Day

It’s the cooking, washing and tidying up that must happen day in, day out that never seems to end.

Every day I am faced with mountains of dirty clothes, as though it just multiplies inside the laundry basket on its own, hidden from view like some insidious bacteria breeding in the dark. If I don’t stay on top of it, the pile simply gets more overwhelming, and the kids quickly run out of clothes.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to rummage through that basket for a ballet leotard that should have been washed and wasn’t, convincing my daughter that it’s not really that dirty.

And the cooking: seriously, every night?

It’s not so much the preparation of the meal, but coming up with something that both appeals and will be eaten by everyone. Cooking something they don’t like is not worth the argument. Please place an order, team . . . I’m happy to oblige!

Every single day there are lunches to be made, the dishwasher to unpack, school bags to empty and notes to attend to. Shoes to put away, beds to make, homework to be done, teeth to be cleaned, paper to be taken to the recycling bin.

They are ‘First World problems’ as my husband tells me, and I acknowledge I sound like a right royal whinger. In fact, I’m truly grateful that these are all that I have to wear me down. But sometimes, just sometimes, the repetition of my day drives me crazy.

I can clearly remember the first time I made my way up the five flights of stairs to my very first rental apartment, in Queanbeyan, the cheaper alternative to living in Canberra. I was twenty years old and had just landed my first job as a cadet reporter at WIN TV. I finally felt like a grown-up, doing grown-up things. I was shopping, cooking and looking after myself, even if I was eating dinner on milk crates and sleeping on a mattress on the floor. It was all such an adventure. Today it’s all such a chore.

It’s doing the same list of tasks every single day that is the boring part of motherhood.

There are piles of stuff left at the bottom of the stairs that never quite make it any higher during the day until John or I have one mighty big work out and go up and down twenty times in a frenzy to put it all away.

Folding the undies and socks, setting the table, cleaning the kitchen, picking up the miscellaneous stuff left lying around.

There does come a time though when your children can become rather handy. And while I’m not advocating slave labour, I am advocating making the most of their enthusiasm before it wears off.

Nick, now twelve, can cook dinner. His repertoire is fairly limited . . . but he can do a mean roast chicken with baked vegetables. I’d be happy with cheese on toast as long as I didn’t have to make it myself.

Bless all those TV cooking shows that have ignited a passion in children to find their way around the kitchen. I’ve taught my kids to make the family crumbed cutlets—as taught to me by my dad and graciously passed along. It’s hardly some secret traditional family recipe; in fact, the cutlets themselves are nothing fancy. It’s more about the process of handing down the skills I learnt—oh, and handballing another chore.

They don’t mind helping with the grocery shopping, Nick in his Heelys (runners with built-in wheels) and Talia driving the trolley. Nick reckons a supermarket aisle is the smoothest surface to ‘ride’ on. At least if I forget something he can find it super fast.

They are strong enough to help unload the groceries from the car, and tall enough to reach the clothes line. As long as I keep mixing the chores up, and offering pocket money, I have two compliant helpers. And hey, the more they do, the less falls on me. I can’t wait until they learn to drive and cook lobster mornay.

But it’s not always this way, and sometimes I find the asking and the nagging just isn’t worth it. In the time it takes me to crack the whip I can have the task completed. So sometimes I simply take the path of least resistance. Again.

Hair Apparent

There are not too many things you can be in control of when you’re a kid. You’re told when to get up, what to eat, what to learn, where to play, when to be quiet and when to go to bed. So I reason that my kids need to have some control over a few key things in their world: their bedrooms and their hair.

Look, I’ll admit I have to fight every urge in me to go in and sort it the way I want it, but their bedrooms are their own fiercely protected domains and I have to relinquish control.

No longer can I nominate colour schemes, offer decorating tips or suggest furniture placement. It’s their world now and I have to concentrate my efforts on other rooms in the house.

Instead of a serene, tidy, mother-friendly environment, Nick has one fire-engine-red wall and a very loud black-and-red Manchester United doona cover that he loves. Trophies, model cars, cricket balls and souvenirs cover pretty much every available surface. Posters cover another wall—bands, sport teams and their associated products.

I see a dust trap and a challenge to clean. He sees a lifetime of fun times, happy memories and heroes. But as long as he puts his clothes away, makes his bed and keeps the floor clear, I can live with it.

Next door, Talia has created a sparkly pink paradise inhabited by Barbies and Disney princesses. Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez and the H2O girls smile from posters behind her door. Half completed craft projects, notes from friends and numerous snippets of paper are my endless challenge.

And the crudely written ‘No boys allowed’ sign sticky taped to the door is hers. In response, Nick has ‘No Talias allowed in my room’ on his.

And then there is the hair.

I am sure I don’t have the only son who has tried to emulate David Beckham in his spikey phase, Justin Bieber’s sweep or even Zac Efron’s hairstyle circa 2010.

I may want to take to that sweepy fringe with a pair of scissors, but I’m assured it’s just as much in fashion as my ‘Rachel’ cut was in the nineties. And besides, we have a cracker of a school photo to remind him of this era in years to come!

My fashion credentials are also being called into question as both kids reject the vast majority of my choices in favour of their own.

Already I’m getting that ‘really, Mum?’ look. I didn’t think I was that old or daggy, but apparently it comes earlier than I thought. It seems it’s not just kissing them at the school gate that’s embarrassing.

I have a son who loves his skinny jeans, rock-star look and sports teams, and a daughter who wants to grow up faster than her mother is comfortable with. We’re trying to span the gap between dressing as a little girl and teenage fashion without fast-forwarding before the time comes. It’s tricky territory.

But you know what, I couldn’t be prouder. I love that they are becoming their own little people, recognising what they like, making and living with some of their own decisions.

Red walls can be repainted, posters changed and hair grown.

All this is inevitable, and as long as it’s within some limits I’m happy to start relaxing the apron strings.

But I do draw the line at door-slamming and not kissing me goodbye.

Heroes and Role Models

Never in my wildest teenage dreams could I have imagined that one day I would meet some of the people whom I admired as a kid.

I spent my afternoons after school in the seventies squeezing Vegemite through the little holes in my Vita-Weats and giggling at IDream of Jeannie. Fast-forward 25 years and there I am interviewing the entire cast, grinning like a Cheshire cat and so relieved to find them as warm and friendly as I had hoped—and Barbara Eden just as gorgeous.

I’m incredibly lucky in my job to meet famous and interesting people. Some have been people I’ve admired from afar for many years, and behind the professional veneer I’m reduced to a starstruck girl.

I once sat in the make-up chair at 5 a.m. with Jane Fonda in the seat beside me and we chatted like two girls over coffee. She couldn’t have been friendlier. I grew up admiring her drive, her bravery and her courage to apologise when she knew she had made a mistake.

I interviewed the gorgeous Florence Henderson, who, as Mrs Brady, was the matriarch of my favourite TV family for such a large chunk of my childhood. Off camera she was beautiful, sweet and generous to talk to. For a girl who grew up in a blended family, Mrs Brady was my benchmark for kindness and unbiased love.

I’ve laughed with Jerry Lewis, who, as a child, taught me that almost anything could be funny. We dropped three other Sunrise segments that morning to enjoy his bountiful humour and larger than life personality.

I interviewed Kylie Minogue, who spent longer chatting to the crew and me after our interview than she did in front of the camera. I remember once dancing to ‘Locomotion’ and, years later, there she was before me—an international superstar who had taken her talents and well and truly run with them.

One day I finally met Jana Wendt, the poised but steely, legendary journalist, who probably inspired a generation of women like myself to attempt to follow in her path.

We all have heroes and role models, people we admire for different reasons. Some of them are closer to home. One of the most influential women in my life was my grandmother. She taught me to be a lady. She abhorred laddered stockings, tatty nails and bad table manners. She always dressed in her finest for church, including hat and gloves. She taught me to make an effort. She taught me to respect myself and those around me.

My mum spent years urging me to push myself, saying, ‘See what you can do when you try?’ It annoyed the daylights out of me as a kid but, like most wise words, I finally learnt and appreciated their meaning, and even went so far as to eventually repeat them to myself. The irony is I now say it to my children.

My dad always told me I could do anything I wanted with my life. He never, ever implied that being a woman would hold me back in any way. The only thing he said I couldn’t do was pee standing up. (He did admit my wimpy chicken arms might also rule out a few other options, but at least that was something I could fix if I chose.) He gave me confidence—not arrogance, just the required amount of self-belief.

He also told me to work hard and dream big.

And so my children now dream big as they both adorn their walls with posters of their heroes. Football players, singers, basketball stars . . . the choices are theirs but some I certainly encourage more than others.

I am happy my daughter adores Taylor Swift. Swift is a young woman who certainly seems mature beyond her years, takes her profile seriously and, most importantly, found fame on the back of her considerable talent and hard work.

My son has a poster of Tim Cahill on his wall, an international soccer superstar but also all-round good guy. He places as much importance on visiting the young kids at his former Sydney primary school as he does mixing with the elite of his sport.

Cahill’s but one of a wider range of sportsmen Nick thinks highly of. There are stars of cricket, premier league soccer and the motor racing track. Thankfully, they all appear sensible, polite and worthy of an impressionable boy’s admiration.

Not every person in the public eye is suitable for role-model status. Maybe we are expecting too much of our footy players—and pretty much everyone else who has ever sung, danced, kicked a ball or acted—to take the moral high ground. Just because our children know who these people are, why do we expect them to live up to standards we determine?

I think that’s unrealistic. Of course, it’s a shame when a child’s hero falls off the wagon or combusts in a cloud of public scandal, but that gives me the chance as a parent to use the incident as an example of what not to do. As important as it is to teach my children hard work and talent equals rewards, they also need to recognise that it’s just as easily ruined or wasted.

A few years back, an on-field punch by Sydney Swans’ player Barry Hall was all Nick and his team mates were talking about.

Seeing their hero in red and white suspended was a big lesson in what not to do. Action and consequence can be an intangible thing to get your head around when you’re a little kid and waiting for dinner seems a lifetime away . . . but seeing a bloke as important as Hall suspended for doing the wrong thing sends a pretty clear message to anyone, whether you’re seven or 27.

Why the star forward was sent home opened up a conversation with my son about why we don’t hit, the significance of being a good sport and how no one is too important to escape punishment.

Amid the posters, I also hope my children look a little closer to home for their role models: parents, siblings, cousins and grandparents. Admire the stars, but leave it up to us to teach them values, responsibilities and consequences—not a singer in her underwear or a Ferrari-driving football player.

Home Sweet Home

Our home is my most precious place on earth. The sound of my front door closing gives me such comfort. I know every noise and what it means . . . the thud of the heater kicking in on a cold evening, the rumble of my husband’s car coming down the driveway, the kids clanging the front gate and running inside, the cat meowing at our back door.

My home is where I feel safe, relaxed and happy. We lock the gate, ignore the phone and invite friends to come to us. Nothing shows love more than a meal you have put thought and effort into.

Our house is nothing particularly fancy. It’s decked out in my favourite colours of chocolate brown, cream and blue. It’s a photo album of our life. Kids’ paintings are framed and hanging on the wall. We have a whole wall of family photos, including black-and-white wedding portraits of our grandparents and cute but meaningful happy snaps.

Trinkets from our travels are on shelves or framed, each one reminding us of a special place we’ve been, and the emotions associated with those experiences.

Ok, so our decor doesn’t look carefully styled or immaculately coordinated . . . it’s more an eclectic mix of pieces I’ve fallen in love with. But I can tell you where each and every item has come from and why I love it so much.

I am also prone to a little rearranging. My husband has been known to come home from the odd business trip to find a wall painted a different colour or a room subtly reorganised. I rotate knick-knacks and pictures, and much of the time no one even notices.

Home is where I take off my shoes, put on the kettle and crank up the music, depending on my mood. We love nothing more than to cook up a feast then deal with the mess the next morning, to bring out the good linen or enjoy a very long and late barbecue on a hot summer night.

Our deck is where the cat sleeps in the afternoon sun, or I do. Where our kids can bring their friends or just hang out with us. I know I am lucky to have such a sweet piece of paradise.

And I hope it will provide my kids with a happy sanctuary now, but also a sweet place in their hearts forever. I can remember every home I grew up in. My favourite hidden places in the garden, the number of steps leading to the front door, my guinea pig hutch, the colours of my bedroom and the exact path I took to walk to school.

Now it’s my turn to create that story for my kids.

Housework

Every time John travels I seem to forget to put out the bins. That job is on his to-do list, and unless he sends me a gentle little SMS reminder early enough, then I’m usually outside, after dark, cursing as I struggle to manoeuvre the massive things into position on the kerb.

Like most working couples, we share the chores, although how exactly I can’t tell you. There was never a specific discussion to decide who does what, but more a natural evolution.

I take care of groceries, cooking, immunisations and birthday presents. John is in charge of lawns, bins, bill-paying and the weekend sport roster. I pick up Talia’s multiple little piles of books and paper; John picks up mine. I do more vacuuming, but he’s always got up to the kids during the night (a trade I’m more than happy with).

And there are degrees. When I clean it’s a mad dash around the house at the end of the day picking up toys and putting away the laundry. When John cleans it’s a full-on spring clean. He’ll actually wash the inside of the cutlery drawer and vacuum under the cushions on the couch.

It’s a bit like our cooking. I do the weeknight ‘what can I slap together this evening in under twenty minutes’ meals, while John does the weekend, all-day extravaganzas. What I call the ‘Glory Meals’.

He takes the time to select the fish, grind the curry paste, nurture the soufflé and match the courses. Our guests are blown away by his culinary skills, while I grumble something about frequency and envy. I’m just happy if my meals get eaten.

There are times I wish he did more, and times when he wishes I did. Like most couples, we both think we do above our fair share. But I like that our children see us working as a team.

And now that they are getting older we can recruit them as well. They have their regular tasks such as setting and clearing the table, tidying up toys and keeping their rooms clean. Anything above this comes with the promise of pocket money. Monetary incentive obviously works at any age.

I just can’t wait till Nick’s strong enough to put the bins out.

Identity

The tears (mine) dried up and the new shoes (Talia’s) were scuffed and my then five-year-old daughter was off and running in the big wide world of the schoolyard.

It’s a pretty emotional time when your youngest heads off to school. At the same time, my then seven-year-old son started Year Two. I tried so hard to keep it together for Talia’s sake . . . but there’s something a little sad about saying goodbye to your baby.

On the plus side, I could look at a week stretched out before me with five days all to myself. The hours between the end of my workday and school pick-up were suddenly mine again. Hot on the heels of my sadness was a sense of liberation!

It was time to have a bit of ‘me’ time. I could see a movie, catch up with the girls for lunch or simply come home and do the chores with a bit of daggy music blaring, no one to tell me to turn it down or be embarrassed by my dancing around the house.

All parents know that once you have kids your time is never quite your own. You can’t sleep in after a late Saturday night; you can’t sit on the couch and watch TV all day; and you can’t walk out the door whenever it pleases you.

Of course, I don’t mind, and having a little body creep into bed for a Sunday morning cuddle always beats the sleep-in, but after nearly eight years of having someone smaller than me dictate my hours, daily patterns and free time, I looked forward to having some of that back.

This is the moment mums can once again do something for themselves. If you have always wanted to play tennis, learn Japanese or get the garden under control, now is the time. Or maybe it’s returning to the workforce or even studying.

But when so much of our focus has been on children for so long, it can be as daunting as it is exciting. It’s all too easy to find yourself at a bit of a loose end and in danger of an identity crisis. Suddenly we are back to having conversations that don’t mention nappies or sleep times. When every moment of your day has been about someone else, it’s time to prioritise yourself.

I have a girlfriend who has just sent child number four off to school. She hasn’t worked for thirteen years and is rather nervous about what she should do next. She wants to work but feels so out of touch. She laughs that she wouldn’t even know what to wear into the office!

She’s also faced with the tough task of finding a job that will fit in with her family and leave her free both before and after school. While she’s keen to do something for herself she also wants to stay involved with her children’s education. And then there are the reading rosters, cupcake stalls and days of canteen duty.

It doesn’t have to be a job that becomes your focus. Now could be the chance to get fit, finish off the backyard, or maybe take the odd day out and simply do nothing.

The irony is, though, just as you feel you’re reclaiming your time you gain a new identity. From now on at school you’ll be someone’s mum. That’s the badge you wear when you’re the parent of a school child. Who you’re the parent of is all that matters.

But at least now you have a few precious hours before the bell rings at 3 p.m. to be yourself.

Immortality

Having children changes many things, from your social life to your hip size, but for me the biggest realisation was the value of my life—no longer for my own sake but for that of my children. To be needed so much is both an honour and a frightening responsibility.

I keep a diary for each of my kids, recording all those embarrassing moments and funny things they say and do. I tuck into it every card their grandparents send them, and I write how much I love them and how proud I am of them. It’s something from me to them for when I am no longer here.

It’s a parent’s worst fear, no longer being around for your children. I say a little prayer each time I get on a plane. Their future always crosses my mind if John and I go somewhere together without our kids.

Remember when Angelina Jolie made international headlines for her decision to have a double mastectomy to reduce her risk of breast cancer from 87 per cent to five per cent? I wouldn’t hesitate to do the same. If there is anything I can do to buy some more time in this world as a mother then I will gladly do whatever is required.

And when we read about tragedies, or hear of another friend battling illness, it makes us think about the time we spend with our kids. Is it quality or quantity, is there really any difference and does it matter?

Life isn’t full of cheesy moments around the dinner table like in some contrived sitcom. Meals in our place are usually a negotiation: ‘Finish your dinner and then you can have dessert’ or ‘There’ll be no sport/ballet unless you eat up.’

While these moments don’t seem precious at the time (in fact, most nights they are agony) they are still moments together. I try and extract information from my son about his day; I try to get my daughter to stop talking and start eating. Battles aside, we are sitting together and sharing. I sit on the edge of their bath and chat. I involve them in cooking the dinner and setting the table. Sometimes I’m nagging them to do so, other times I even use bribes, but I figure it’s still time together. It’s not what you’d call quality . . . I’m just trying to pack in as much as I can. And every moment counts.

When I am home with the kids I try hard to focus on them. No more long conversations on the phone to girlfriends or afternoons in the sun with a good book. When my daughter was in her final year at preschool I would always schedule things like a haircut on the days I didn’t have her with me so as not to miss precious time together. If I did have work to do at home she would sit beside me at my desk colouring in. The deal was after every paragraph written or phone call made I would stop and colour a flower in Dora the Explorer’s garden.

While working on Sunrise, I crammed the household chores into the hours before school pick-up and took exercise around the oval during Nick’s soccer training—all so I could make the most of the time I had with them each day. I spent so many years not being there in the mornings, so I made sure I was there every afternoon.

Now it’s reversed. I make breakfast and lunch before I wake them up. I take them to school, do any chores that need doing, head to work and make it home to spend time together at night.

It’s all about making every moment count while I can. I figure in a few years they probably won’t want me around as much as they do now, but as long as I am still around that’s ok.

Independence

How do I know when the time is right to let my children walk home from school alone? At what point is my son old enough to ride his bike around the neighbourhood without me going with him? Or meet his friends at the park without me there?

How as a mother do I fight that primitive urge to keep my children close and protected at all times? When do I start to let go a little?

Both of my kids are slowly starting to agitate for change. They are showing small signs that they want a bit more freedom and a bit less of their mum hovering in the background.

I really don’t want to be a helicopter parent, monitoring their every move and being too afraid to let them out of my sight, or too scared to let them try new things in case they fail. But nor do I want anything to happen to them when they are out of my care.

There was a study done in 2012 that revealed 60 per cent of parents thought it unsafe for their primary-school-age kids to go to school on their own. The two biggest fears were stranger danger and road safety. The study found that while children worried about strangers, it was not nearly as much as their parents did.

So does perception match up to reality, or are we being so cautious that we’re hindering our kids’ independence? Are we really breeding the ‘marshmallow generation’? Kids so soft because we’re too afraid to let them get hurt or dirty?

Maybe it’s because we’re being bombarded with stories of the worst things that can happen. During the blanket news coverage of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann or Daniel Morcombe, every newspaper, TV and radio station, website and conversation with other parents gave us more details. Maybe that’s what plants the seeds of doubt. We hear about so much crime at home and overseas, and not just once but over and over. So we simply think the world is a far more dangerous place than it may really be.

Or it could be that the consequences are so catastrophic it’s not a risk we are willing to take, no matter how small it may be.

How do we find the balance?

Before we let our parents lecture us on how things were in their day, there is no doubt times have changed. But have we gone too far the other way? Is our over-protectiveness only damaging our kids in the long term?

Play equipment in schoolyards has been modified or taken out altogether and our fear of stranger danger outweighs the actual chances of anything happening.

The term ‘bullying’ is now used to cover a lot of what was simply ‘teasing’ in our day, which only takes the focus off the real cases that genuinely need our full attention.

I remember walking home from primary school. I even remember forgetting to walk my younger sisters home once, and Mum racing back to find them safe but crying in the principal’s office. The consequences for me that day were pretty catastrophic!

I also remember Mum once bringing us home from school to find the kitchen window and front door wide open. She locked us all in the car until the police arrived. Our home had been robbed in the fifteen minutes Mum was gone. Obviously, the thieves knew her routine. This was the late seventies.

Thirty-five years later I’m a parent trying to find that balance, to work out how much leash to give and when to rein it in tight.

I’m also aware there are simply more cars on the roads, people are busier and traffic is a nightmare. All it takes is the one that fails to stop as you step out onto the crossing to fill your heart with fear and your mind with doubt.

So I’m hoping that when the time is right, my children will form a little posse of local kids who can all walk home together—safety in numbers. I’d meet them half way to start with and gradually increase the distance until they travel alone.

I want them to be strong, independent and resourceful children who also get enough exercise and hang out with kids in the neighbourhood.

I also want them to be a little street smart and learn to think for themselves. I want them to be aware of what and who is around them and when something is not right.

But I am also their mother and it’s my job to protect them as much as it is to teach them to fly on their own. And it’s my job to know when they are ready and when they are not.

They know I would slay dragons with my bare hands for them. Hopefully I have a few years up my armoured sleeves.

Job Descriptions

On their own, they are not jobs I ever thought I would be qualified for: psychologist, chef, chauffeur, cleaner, care-giver and cold war negotiator. But I find myself doing all of those things as well as teaching manners, breaking up fights, organising parties, mopping up blood, repairing fairy wings and playing wicket keeper.

Motherhood is the hardest, most emotional, demanding and rewarding full-time job there is. And I wouldn’t swap it for the world.

And ladies, when we kick back and relax on Mother’s Day in our new pink chenille dressing gowns and enjoy slightly cold toast, we can be comfortable in the knowledge that all our hard work is actually worth a fortune.

A group of researchers calculated the comparative professional rates for what mothers do every single day for free. They found a stay-at-home mum is worth about $163,000 and a working mum does about $100,000 worth of tasks on top of her paying job.

Both roles have risen in value in the last few years as more mums do less outsourcing as the global recession bites.

But the figures are about as useful to us as a busted dishwasher. Pay or no pay, we keep doing what we do because we have to and we love to. (Ok, maybe the ironing is more need than want.) It’s multi-tasking at its best.

And we salute our own wonderful mums who showed us the way.

Juggling

Some things are non-negotiable, like being present for your child’s first day of school or their annual concert. For special occasions I would ask for an early mark from work or take an annual leave day. Sometimes it’s been a pretty public departure—half way through Sunrise I once said goodbye and dashed. But I’m pretty lucky to have had a boss who appreciates there are some things a parent just has to do.

My kids’ annual school presentation day starts at 9.10 a.m. The hall is always full of mums and dads dressed in suits who have committed to being late for work that day. Back when I hosted Sunrise I could manage to put in half a morning of work and then leave just before the 8.30 a.m. news in time to join in the national anthem.

As luck would have it, one year I encountered an accident and I got caught in the ensuing traffic jam. What should have been a twenty-minute trip took me an hour. I was frantic, looking at my watch every two minutes, so I took every back street I could remember to try to get to the school on time—hey, at least I was moving.

I arrived before it finished, just as the headmaster was handing out the last awards, but I had missed the ‘big moment’. Nick had been practising ‘Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport’ for weeks and I had missed it. He saw me arrive and looked so proud and happy I was there, but I was gutted. John had the video camera but it’s just not the same. I felt awful. I felt guilty. I fought back tears as I waved to him up on stage.

When the assembly wrapped and the other kids had returned to their classrooms, Nick’s lovely teacher saw me standing at the back and knew I had missed the performance. So to the delight of the class I got an encore. The kids got to sing again, the other parents brought their cameras right to the front for close-ups and I got to see ‘Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport’.

We hear endless discussions about finding a work/life balance; I like to think of it as finding my work/life priorities. Many things at home and work are important, just at different times.

While my kids are young, they are my priority. John and I simply put our family and their needs first. I also have a busy work life with a job that often requires long hours and quite a bit of schedule shuffling. Life is pretty busy right now, but I figure it won’t be like this forever. I always feel stretched, as though I’m not doing everything properly. Occasionally I have a meltdown about it all, feeling simply overwhelmed by the sheer volume in front of me. But after a bit of sleep and a pep talk I’m back on track and able to cope. Sometimes I have to simply work through my list: some things need to be done, while others can be put on ice for a later time. Luckily I have friends who understand and bear with me.

I also remind myself that this was a choice I made and what I wanted. I made the decision to have a career and I’ve worked hard at it. John and I also made the decision to have a family and we wouldn’t change a thing.

That’s why it always meant so much to me to be there at the school gate each afternoon when I used to work mornings, particularly since I hadn’t seen my kids since putting them to bed the night before. And they were always as happy to see me as I was to see them. I felt selfish when they wanted to go to a friend’s house for an afternoon play when I would rather have had them home with me. There are enough afternoons with activities—ballet, footy training or band practice—that I treasured the ones left free.

I figured they needed a quiet afternoon at home as much as I did. And I know the time will come soon enough when my vote counts less than their friend’s. A social life will very soon take priority over time spent with their mum. As a teenager, so it should.

In the meantime, we keep searching for the right balance. I now read a news bulletin in the afternoon and again in early evening. So I am there when they wake up and make it home before they go to bed. Weekends are sacrosanct. I still have a great boss who shows his commitment to me by giving me the flexibility to be committed to my family. I have balance and he has a happy and loyal employee who returns the favour with hard work and dedication.

And it’s not just my boss who has to be flexible. I’ve had the odd last-minute trip away that has seen John just about drop everything to care for the kids. A few years ago I headed to Beaconsfield, Tasmania, with one change of clothes and high hopes those poor miners would be out by dawn. Nearly two weeks later when Todd Russell and Brant Webb made it above ground and I made it back home, John’s boss was one of the first people I rang to thank. He had let John arrive late and leave early, or work from home when he needed to, during that two-week stretch. He didn’t have to be so accommodating, but he did it anyway.

A little give and take on everyone’s part can make it all work.

Kids’ Fashion

I have to admit that I’m a bit of a dag. When it comes to clothing, I’m just as happy in my comfy jeans and a T-shirt as I am all dressed up for work. I’m lucky that not only do I get access to lovely ball gowns and exquisite work clothes, we have stylists and hair and make-up people to make sure the whole thing comes together.

There’s many a day when I wish Nat and Sonya—two of Channel Seven’s fabulous stylist and make-up staff who work a lot with me—actually lived in my house and were on call. Especially when it comes to my kids.

Nick is pretty easy these days, but oh-so-woefully unfashionable—and he couldn’t care less. He’s happy wearing the same grubby Dick Johnson Junior Mechanic T-shirt and his footy shorts all weekend long. In fact, he’d wear them every day if he could. And it’s not like he doesn’t have nicer clothes to choose from, it’s just that he loves his sports gear and doesn’t like collars! Go figure.

Talia on the other hand is already acutely aware of the niceties of dressing up. She will change clothes five times a day to suit her mood and forever wants to make sure her hair is perfect. She even has a Pinterest page where she saves her favourite plaits!

No nature versus nurture here—Talia loves to watch me being made up or getting ready for a big charity ball. She already has picked out which pieces of my wardrobe she’ll inherit one day (as if Nick is going to fight her for them!) and which ones she thinks will still be fashionable enough for her to wear. Or maybe she’s already planning on cutting them up for restyling.

She loves to design her own outfits and, with the help of technology, has apps that help her do just that. She has a small mannequin and fabric offcuts and she will play happily with them for hours.

But when it came to choosing a new summer dress recently, she opted to have her dad take her shopping. John is stylish enough, although he would be the first to admit that clothes and grooming don’t occupy a lot of space in his mind!

Dutifully, John took Talia shopping for her new dress. They spent hours trying on various ones and wandering the shops together. I saw it as a nice chance for father and daughter to bond. John and Nick have so much in common that it’s nice when we can swap roles and I get to take Nick out and John has time with ‘Noodles’, as he still calls her.

Then they came home with two new dresses and a pair of sandals. Hmm. I guess that maybe it wasn’t just the chance to spend time with Dad but that she probably figured she could push the boundaries of spoiling more with him than me. Not that I think she planned it that way but I’m sure she knew dads don’t like saying no to their daughters!

And the dresses? Both lovely and age-appropriate—until the next growth spurt.

Kochie

We all have different people who come into our lives at different times and for different reasons. Some pass through, some stay. Some we learn from without even intending to – both professionally and personally.

I’ve always said that if you can work with people who you genuinely call friends, no matter what your job is, you’re very lucky indeed. And I’ve been very lucky.

I sat alongside David Koch (or ‘Kochie’ as he’s affectionately known) for most of my professional career and as high profile as he is, as many people recognise the ‘bald head and big nose’ (his words not mine!), it seems he can be an enigma to many.

The one thing I’ve been asked over the years as much as ‘What time do you get up?’ and ‘What time do you go to bed?’ is ‘What’s Kochie really like?’ Maybe I’m not the most qualified person to answer this, but I have a pretty good insight.

He works hard. He’s passionate (just ask him about Port Adelaide or the Sydney Kings and you’ll know that!). He’s loyal and decent. And we stood by each other—literally and figuratively—for nearly fourteen years. You cannot do that if there is not mutual respect, support and, most importantly, genuine friendship.

We’ve worked together on exciting stories, such as the Beijing, Athens and London Olympics. We’ve cried together covering such tragedies as the Victorian bushfires and Queensland floods. We’ve walked into court together as defendants and sat next to each other on planes and talked the whole way. He showed my ultrasound scans to our audience to share the news of my pregnancy, and carried my bags for the next six months. He would check my teeth for remnants of breakfast during the commercial breaks and always make sure I got home safely if we were out.

In fact, once when we were interstate, the hotel gave us one room at check-in. We had to politely explain we weren’t actually married.

Don’t get me wrong—we’ve had the odd day when we just got sick of the sight of each other! But that was usually the result of fatigue, a by-product of being shift workers. We’ve never lost respect for, or trust in, each other, or the ability to have a good laugh together.

I’ve been pretty lucky to have some strong male figures in my life, and Kochie has become one of them. We first started working together when I was 27 years old. Since then, we’ve developed a unique and close relationship borne from a shared passion for what we do. Trust me, there’s no alarm clock in the world that will get you out of bed at 3 a.m. on a cold winter morning if you don’t like your job. We both believed passionately in using the forum of breakfast television to improve things and make a difference. As much as just telling the stories, we always knew we could also be an agent for change. We’ve each championed charities and causes and both supported the other’s.

I can’t tell you how many times I would be out on a Saturday night and someone would yell ‘Where’s Kochie?’, as though to see us apart was unusual. People often ask if we socialised together much and the answer is no. Quite apart from the fact that we would spend six to seven hours a day together, five days a week, for 48 weeks a year over forteen years, we’re at very different stages in life. David’s children are grown. Mine are still at school.

Mind you, the moment we would take Sunrise on the road for an outside broadcast we’d always have a team dinner—and still manage to find plenty to talk about. Sometimes we’d share a little too much, which became embarrassing fodder for the next morning’s show!

David has a wonderful, devoted wife in Libby who works hard alongside him in their business and raising four intelligent, hard-working, high-achieving children. They are a tight family unit.

Aside from the odd bit of financial advice, David has taught me a lot about family. He showed me how to prioritise. He has always put his family needs first. He told me to give them my time, outsource if I had to in order to have more hours with my kids. He said having them in the car and driving them to sport was a great place to talk, and he said to keep them busy – they have less chance to get into trouble that way.

We all gather advice from everywhere around us. Sometimes we take it in without even realising. It’s reassuring to have other families in your life whose standards you admire.

So if a measure of any man is the family around him, then David is a success. I miss working with him each day.

Labels

I don’t know if being categorised or labelled is meant to make you feel better or worse about yourself. I guess it depends which category you’re in, and whether you’re a yuppie, a dink (‘dual income, no kids’), generation X or Y.

Is the tag ‘Aspiring but Struggling’ something you really want on your name badge when you’re a mum?

A national conference on motherhood in 2008 tabled a report that lumped mums into six main categories.

Most of us are ‘Treading Water’, meaning there’s a bit of tension between work and home but we are coping.

The next group carry the lofty title of ‘Highly Functioning and Fulfilled’. This sounds the healthiest, and most women in this group work slightly fewer hours than their sisters in the pool above.

Coming in at number three are the ‘Guilty Copers’. These mums worry about what the kids are up to while they’re at work, but are too tired by the time they get home to be able to do much about it. They also spend too much time concerned with their image, hoping to at least look as though they’re coping even when they’re not!

The fourth group—around sixteen per cent of mums—manage the whole day-to-day balance pretty well but dispute that working really does make them a better parent. They worry less about the image of being the perfect working mother and care more about actually making it work: they are ‘Indifferent yet Successful’.

‘Aspiring but Struggling’ is next. These are usually the mums of younger kids (remember constantly telling yourself it will get better?). They find the pressure of work interferes with family life and they often turn down career opportunities to fit it all in.

The rest are ‘Indifferent and Struggling’: mums who couldn’t care less about the whole image thing and are simply too strung out between the demands of work and home to be the kind of parent they want to be.

Overall, we learn that apparently fewer than twenty per cent of us mums have got it all together. Only two in ten mums are coping, and one in ten is struggling.

Personally I think the biggest challenge would be deciding which category we fall into on any given day. Ask me on a Monday when I’ve spent the weekend washing, planning meals and grocery shopping and I’ll be feeling a lot more confident and in control than on a Friday when I’m tired and have a million domestic duties ahead of me.

Some days we all struggle and wonder what on earth we’ve done to our lives, whereas other days it all comes together in a smooth blend of laughter and home-cooked lasagne.

Like a good golf game, it’s the perfect moments that are enough to spur you on after a bad day in the bunker. As long as the number of days we are functioning and fulfilled outweighs the number where we are struggling and indifferent, we will be ok.

So maybe we are a mixture of all of the above. Some days we are racing down that pool with Olympian ease and the starting blocks are a million miles behind us; on other days we feel like we’re drowning in the wake of ‘Highly Functioning and Fulfilled’ mothers, and can only just manage to keep our heads above water. As long as we keep paddling, we’ll make it to the finish line and look back and convince ourselves it wasn’t that hard after all.

And then we can come up with a new label for that.

Little White Lies

‘He’s been!’ There is no better sound to wake you up than the kids shrieking with delight on Christmas morning, even if it is 5.30.

Finding their stocking stashed with presents is obviously the highlight, but hunting for evidence that it really was Santa who had snuck in the back door (we don’t have a chimney) and left their goodies comes a pretty close second.

Like diligent little detectives in PJ’s, they check the beer has been drunk, the biscuits eaten and the carrots munched on. The few stray reindeer whiskers left in the water bowl closed the case. Once again, there was no doubt that the fat man in the red suit had delivered on his promise.

But what happens when the investigators become less like the team from The Famous Five and more like the gang on CSI? What do you say when they start asking the tough questions and the evidence no longer stacks up? How as a parent do we explain to our son that his mate Timmy is wrong—no matter what his big brother told him—and Santa is real?

And should we?

At seven, the questions started. Until then Nick had been happy to go along with the magic of Christmas, Easter and even the Tooth Fairy.

Of course she is real, I assured him. As if Mummy or Daddy would get out of bed in the middle of the night to fish some stinky, gross, blood-encrusted tooth out from under his pillow. As if we could do it without waking him! More importantly, as if we’d even want to!

He bought it. Phew.

He has, however, worked out that eating the crusts on bread does not make your hair curly; no matter how crazy a face he pulls, a change in the wind will not make it freeze; spinach does not give you muscles; and walking on the cracks in the footpath has not harmed his back in any way.

I’m not really sure why we tell these little porkies to our kids. The injection won’t hurt; the grocery shopping will only take ten minutes; and visiting the dentist is fun. My parents spun the same stories to me. Maybe repeating them is just in my parenting DNA. Some traditions are part of who you are, right or wrong.

It’s a coming of age when our children no longer have blind faith in everything we say. While I’m glad their inquisitive minds are working overtime on these matters of international importance, part of me is sad that this chapter is coming to an end.

So we told our son Santa only comes to those who believe. No matter what your age, do any of us really want to take that risk?

There is no harm done by clinging to a little bit of the fairytale. I know he no longer believes a giant rabbit leaves chocolate at Easter, and I know he found my stash of Christmas wrapping paper that was identical to Santa’s and put two and two together. But I know, like me, he’s happy to hang on to the gorgeous fantasy.

Our biggest challenge is ensuring he doesn’t give the game away to his little sister.

Lost

One dark cold night a few winters ago, Teddy didn’t come home. We had no idea if he’d jumped out of the pram on the walk home from school or if he had decided to stay a little longer at soccer training after the kids had left the oval. Either way, we had a four year old lying in bed that night, alone, and calling out in a sad mournful voice, ‘Teddy . . . come home!’

So what do you do when the littlest member of the family is facing heartbreak? When the trusty sidekick she has held every day since birth is missing?

You turn the entire contents of the house upside down, of course. You open every cupboard, lift every cushion, search the car and double check every single hiding spot she has ever used in the past.

Then you send your husband out to walk the streets in the dark, to retrace that afternoon’s path home just in case Teddy was lying crumpled in a gutter somewhere. He even checked the dog poo bin at the park. Now that’s fatherly love.

But all to no avail. So then I join the hunt, detouring on my way to work the next morning. I scope the soccer field with my lights on high beam at 3.45 a.m. just in case Teddy is sitting on the swings or alone on the slide.

With a bit of luck and exhaustion, ‘Ariel’ sufficed for one night, and Talia—and the whole family, for that matter—got some sleep.

And there was Teddy the next morning, sitting smug and warm at preschool. He had in fact never come home.

So when your child anoints a favourite companion, try and buy two!

Or, as we have since done, ground the bear.

Love

Can I simply love them any more?

It happens from the first moment those newborn eyes open and look into your face; when you know they understand who you are; when those tiny hands find their way around your neck as you hold them at your shoulder.

The first time squishy little arms could wrap you in their tiny determined embrace. The first time they say ‘I love you, Mummy’, and every single time after that they tell you in so many ways.

Some moments are like a soft-focus nappy ad: watching Talia skip down the back steps in her ballet gear, bun high and tight, little skirt flipping, big pink coat done up tight around her neck as she braves a winter afternoon.

Or the evening in front of the telly when Nick finds his way across the couch to snuggle closer, ever so subtly making his way into such a familiar position, still my baby boy, all gangly limbs. Young enough to still hug his mum unashamedly and sometimes hold my hand.

Plus the simple but heartfelt messages in the Mother’s Day cards they make.

It’s the force of my love for them that still takes me by surprise. I wish I could think of a stronger word, one that isn’t used when I describe chocolate and sleep-ins; a word that captures just how overwhelmed I am by the joy that I get from being with them every single day. How I can look at them in those little unplanned moments and feel so proud that I am their mum and they are my children.

I am theirs, always, completely.

Make-believe

Like a lot of women, I probably obsess about my weight a bit too much. I spend most days wishing I could drop five kilos and am forever on the quest for a pair of jeans that will make my bum look two sizes smaller.

But since becoming a mum, I now try to keep the bulk of this conversation inside my head. I have two children with fit, active little bodies. They both love sport, eat well, take an interest in what they wear and are learning to appreciate what being healthy means. I know it’s up to John and me to keep that relationship normal.

Girls in particular are bombarded by ideal body images. Talia loves flicking through my fashion magazines. She cuts out dresses she likes and pins them to her notice board. She also loves to dress Barbie and dreams of one day being a fashion designer. She’s already noticing the power of appearance. I don’t know what I will do when she stops playing with Barbie and wants to look like her.

Nick on the other hand is driven by sport. It’s all about what the body can do in his world. How fast it can run, how hard it can kick a ball, how long it can last on the field.

And this is what I am trying to teach them both—that their body is to be cared for, loved and respected. But, gosh, it can be hard sometimes.

Have you watched a music video show lately? Have you seen how Miley Cyrus dresses? Have you seen how Rihanna moves?

I remember attempting to ‘do the locomotion’ and to ‘strike a pose’. During her peak, Madonna was hardly much tamer than Lady Gaga . . . but like all things you argue in favour of when you are young, you suddenly see your parents had a point when you become one yourself. (Not that you’d ever admit it!)

We don’t watch Saturday morning TV in our house, mainly because we are racing out the door to sport. Even if we weren’t, I don’t really think I’d want my kids watching some of those music clips.

I know they are both about to face an enormous amount of peer pressure on how to dress and behave as they reach high school. I just hope my influence will be stronger than America’s.

I’ve never been a midriff-baring kind of girl—I neither had the abs nor the inclination. Talia’s wardrobe is hardly trendy (and nor is mine, for that matter). While I still have control over what she wears, it’s cute and conservative; what I think is age-appropriate. Nick is just happy if it’s a sporting brand!

Due to my job on TV they have both had a glimpse into the media’s world of make-believe. They know Mummy spends hours with a make-up brush before she heads out to host a charity ball. And they see her remove the false eyelashes and borrowed jewellery after an evening in front of the camera. Thankfully they are both learning that glamour is just an illusion, and luckily they prefer the non-glam, make-up-free version of their mother that they see on weekends. Or at least they tell me they do . . .

They know the models in magazines are airbrushed, well lit and wouldn’t in fact look like that pushing a trolley at the supermarket.

And what about body image? We are inundated with pictures of thin models with gaunt, bored-looking faces. I only hope this body shape is a trend that will pass in time, just like it did in the 1920s.

As one of the most important role models in my children’s lives, I realise it’s up to me to avoid giving them hang-ups about body shape and eating habits and avoid passing on any negative issues I may have with my own figure.

It’s up to me to tell them what is real, and what isn’t; that some women are born with the face or body to model and others aren’t, just as some men are built for rugby and others are shaped for marathon running. I tell them food and exercise is all about being healthy and strong and fit, and good food gives them glowing skin, shiny hair and the stamina to last an entire game of soccer.

As my daughter grows up, I tell her fashion is about style and often what you can’t see is far more attractive than what you can. And I’m trying to teach my son to appreciate a woman for her inner beauty. Mind you, he’s more impressed by her goal-kicking tally than anything else at this stage. Long may it last!

In the meantime, I’ll keep my chocolate binges private, and I’ll buy more Spanx and tell them I’m going to the gym—even if I’m not.

Making Friends

I have to admit I’m pretty awful at remembering names. The older I get the harder I try and the more I repeat them over and over in my head. Sometimes it works, to the delight of Jill at my local supermarket, Visuka at the post office and Jack the car park attendant.

Other times, like at school pick-up, it fails dismally.

Kids have such a delightful way of bypassing the whole terrible memory dance. In her very first week of school, Talia made two new friends. But as only a five year old can get away with, she had no idea of their names. She knew one was in the yellow class and the other in the blue class, and she had obviously spent a few lunch times in their company and chatted happily, but when I asked her their names she said ‘I don’t know!’ as though their names were irrelevant. They had decided they were friends and, at that point in time, that was sufficient.

Still to this day, I’m in a similar situation, but I don’t think I can get away with it with such ease. All the mums mingle outside the classroom waiting for our cherubs to burst out when the bell goes. We all smile and most afternoons make idle chatter such as ‘Isn’t it hot!’ and ‘What a nice teacher we have!’

But unlike the kids, we don’t wear nametags. If you are not careful, the time to ask someone’s name quickly passes. Before you know it, too many afternoon conversations have been had to admit you have no idea who you are talking to. Or if you are like me and introduced yourself on day one but have completely forgotten a name by day three, how long can you bluff for?

We all usually know the kids before the parents, so you can easily step in and say, ‘How is Ella enjoying school?’ You have established you know who they are mum to, without revealing you have no idea who they are. Then hope you can find that class list at home and put names to faces!

The kids have been a wonderful way for John and me to make new friends. With similar interests, lifestyles and timetables, you find yourself spending a lot of time with the parents of your children’s friends and team mates. Your lives are oddly parallel, and, mostly, if you like the kid you’ll like their mum and dad.

In fact, the vast majority of the friends we see most regularly have come into our lives via our children. Through years of sport, learning and shared experiences we’ve formed some close and what will be lifelong friendships.

The soccer dads regularly hold what they call ‘strategy meetings’ at the pub and the mums can extend a quick afternoon school pick-up into a lovely long catch-up in the playground.

Given they usually live locally, you can stop by for a cup of tea and a whinge about the teachers, you can take turns doing the Saturday morning soccer run, and often find someone equally bored to talk to during those long, long hours of summer cricket.

And if you’re lucky you’ll find a special one or two who transcend your kids’ friendship . . . almost a kindred spirit in the daily perils of parenting, someone who understands exactly what you’re going through because she’s going through it herself.

And if you’re extra lucky, she’ll be much better at remembering names and might prove rather handy at school pick-up time.

Maternity Leave

My husband had grand plans before our children were born to design a pouch that could hang on the front of his golf bag to carry a baby. He dreamt parental leave would be a mix of lazy afternoons on the golf course and time spent tinkering around the house.

Needless to say, reality was very different. I took six months off when Nick was born. He was a power napper, which left me with little time to get very much done at all.

John would come home from work and find me sitting on the couch in the dark, a sleeping baby in my arms and a faithful dog sitting at my feet. Nick had finally fallen asleep that way and, like any first-time parent, I wasn’t game enough to risk waking him by getting up and turning on the lights. I was too scared to move an inch.

I only had three months off when baby number two arrived. John took a month off when I returned to work to ease the pressure, but with a two year old to wrangle the time wasn’t what either of us had imagined.

Luckily shift work meant I could make the 3 a.m. feed, head to work and be home for the 11 a.m. feed. I was exhausted and hormonal but so grateful to have two healthy children and a way to make it all work.

Maternity leave can be a big decision. It depends on your family circumstances, your finances and very often the baby itself.

Some parents take a year and enjoy every moment. Others find working for a small company or running their own business doesn’t give the flexibility a big multinational with paid maternity leave and an onsite crèche does.

Around 40 per cent of mothers return to work at some stage within the year after having their first baby, and take a little longer after subsequent children.

Of course every family circumstance is different, and decisions can be determined by everything from finances to childcare costs, working hours and yours or your baby’s health.

One of my girlfriends gave birth prematurely at 35 weeks—clearly a scenario she hadn’t expected. It meant that all plans went out the window as she focused solely on her vulnerable newborn.

But with the rising cost of living, just how you will manage is becoming a bigger decision for families. And more and more companies are doing what they can to keep good staff.

Just a few years ago Caltex Australia introduced BabyCare, an initiative that included bonuses, emergency childcare payments and purpose-built breastfeeding rooms. It was a strategy to retain talented staff and increase morale.

But not everyone has such luxury. And it certainly doesn’t get a lot easier as the kids start school.

We’ve heard the stories of parents arriving with their deckchairs at midnight to secure their child a place in before- or after-school care. Others delay their start time at work and cut back on lunch breaks so they can negotiate the school drop-off or pick-up—and save a small fortune.

For me, shift work meant I could juggle the school pick-up, homework, activities and dinners. Just as my neighbour did as a nurse, working night shifts for most of her children’s young lives.

Other mums quit full-time work at this point in their lives and instead start their own business, allowing them to work from home and choose their own hours. But of course there’s a fair amount of risk and bravery involved so if you’re feeling financially vulnerable that might not be the answer.

But if ever there is a time in your life when you can do more than one thing at a time and have the determination to make it work, it’s now!

Yes, it’s hard work, and yes, it’s tiring. But I figure it won’t be this way forever. I’ll rest when I’m grey, take up golf and palm a few jobs off to the kids.

Memories

I keep a journal for each of my kids. It’s basically an over-stuffed notebook where I write down all those humorous and embarrassing stories that are worth retelling at their twenty-first birthday party. Sometimes I’m consistent and write regularly, other times I only manage on birthdays or when something stands out.

It’s packed with all the amusing things they say and do that give their grandparents a good laugh but bore anyone who is not related.

There are a few great notes in there that the kids have written to me, like Nick’s ‘Ime not felin wel’, which he taped to his remote control car and sent down the hallway to find me after he was sent to his room.

There are sports awards, little homemade books of kisses and Mother’s Day cards. Maybe it’s all to remind me of how sweet and loving they once were so I can reminisce when they are horrid teenagers. Or maybe it’s more to remind them!

There is Talia’s letter to Santa, ‘for cristmes I want enythin’, and Nick’s ‘I do not want all of this’ to prove that once upon a time he had restraint and simple tastes.

I keep the notes they write to each other to show they once got on, and all the cards and letters sent by their grandparents.

I have a drawer full of their favourite artwork but do my best to cull every few years.

I keep report cards, awards and ribbons . . .

Each has a box stashed at the top of their wardrobe with class photos, their first shoes and favourite but no longer loved toys.

One day I will hand it all over to them as a sort of jumbled 3D history of their growing up, and mine.

Such sweet memories, indeed.

Mess

There are a few things you have to let go of when you become a mum: your abs, a spontaneous social life and your desire for neatness.

That’s not to say I ever had a six-pack or an immaculate house, but now that I’m stretching my time between four people instead of one I’ve had to relax my standards a bit.

I now live with school bags in the kitchen, notices all over the fridge, footy boots at the back door and homework all over the kitchen table. We’ve built extra cupboards, hung notice boards and encouraged the kids to work in their rooms, but it seems our kitchen is the natural hub of all activity and clutter. So I live with it.

School holidays, particularly wet ones, are the most challenging. I would come home from work midmorning to find two kids still in their PJ’s and a variety of projects on the go.

For Talia this usually involves scissors, textas, sticky tape and mountains of paper. The table becomes art central as she makes pictures, letters and cards for everyone.

Nick assembles his regular holiday tent. He strings sheets across his room and drags his mattress onto the floor. He has a sleeping bag, water bottles, a torch and a wonderful time. So what if I have to tiptoe around the chaos for a fortnight?

As long as the place remains hygienic I figure we are doing ok. I won’t let salmonella kill us but I don’t want to let stress get to me either.

We do lots of baking and I take a deep breath as flour covers the floor and the occasional egg is dropped. Floorboards are easy to clean.

That’s not to say I don’t have moments that really stretch my patience. I remember the very day we moved into our house. We found a corner for the kids and set them up with a few toys to keep them busy as we went about unpacking. Talia was a toddler and I put her in front of her easel. What I didn’t bank on was her sweet little eye seeing a blank canvas that was exactly the same colour as our lovely clean walls. Her artwork covered the paper then continued onto the wall beside her. Luckily it washed off.

I have a friend whose toddler decided to paint her fingernails, and the bathroom tiles. That was a little more permanent.

As my husband taught me to say, ‘Control the controllable.’ If it’s an accident and I can fix it, then I can deal with it. There is no point in going off my head over the small things.

One day the kids will leave home, the place will stay tidy and I probably won’t know what to do with myself. I also know my social life will return.

But I think my abs have gone for good.

Mother Lions

There is something extraordinarily levelling about motherhood.

Our circumstances are vastly different, as are our challenges, but mothers the world over share one particular common trait: an instinct to do anything to protect our children.

That mother-lion streak was what surprised me the most when I first had my babies. The belief that I could and would do whatever was required to keep them safe and loved.

Maybe that’s what unites us as mothers. For it was meeting other women in remote, poverty-stricken parts of the world that taught me no matter how different our circumstances are, our motivations are the same. Australia, Mongolia, Africa—clearly, as women, we face different challenges but we all want the same result for our children. Safety, health and love.

Travelling to the Dadaab refugee camp in 2011 was one of the most depressing assignments of my career. But there I met women whose dignity and determination will stay in my memory forever.

Dadaab is a small remote town in Kenya, in the north-east of Africa, which is home to one of the world’s biggest refugee camps. It’s an enormous, dry, dusty expanse of tents, children and uprooted lives. It’s been there for close to twenty years, but recent droughts and civil war have forced more people to seek refuge and when we arrived nearly half a million were living there, having to queue for food, water and basic household items.

We travelled to the camp in convoy with local World Vision staff, aid workers and police officers carrying machine guns. We were warned about the dangers of carjacking and banditry, and briefed on emergency evacuation procedures.

It’s a desperate, volatile place. One thousand five hundred people were pouring into the camp every day, the majority of them women and children. Most had walked all the way from Somalia. They would arrive at the pre-registration tent exhausted, give their details and collect their first food ration: a bag of maize, oil, flour, beans and one BP-5, a high-energy nutritional biscuit. This would have to last them for three weeks or until they were moved formally into the camp to join hundreds of thousands of others, who were just as desperate.

Babies were crying, toddlers were tired and hungry. Between 40 and 50 per cent of all children there are acutely malnourished. Their mothers seemed to be barely holding it together. But they were the lucky ones. They told me the camp is better than what they left behind.

Such families had endured unbelievable heartache as many children had not survived the long walk to the camp. One woman I met had lost two children, her home and her livelihood, but not her dignity. She was tall and stood proud, her beautiful face clearly sad but positive at the same time. She carried her youngest child on her hip while the rest ran around and played behind the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) tent that was now their home. They still managed to find some fun in this desolate environment, as only kids can do.

Tent, mud house or two-storey brick home—the details and challenges may be different but there is something so consistent and familiar about motherhood. And that recognition between mothers is a bond that unites us.

That bond was apparent when I travelled to Ethiopia in 2011 to meet my World Vision sponsor child Eliyas. His photos are on our fridge and, after many years of correspondence and watching him grow, he’s become a familiar part of our family.

After two full days travelling, we reached Chencha, a remote village high up in the mountains. It was wet and surprisingly green, so much so that we were forced to abandon our cars when they couldn’t navigate the thick, sticky orange mud and we had to make the last of our journey on foot to Eliyas’ home.

Friends and neighbours had gathered to welcome us, crowding around Eliyas and singing as we approached. Dressed in his best clothes and holding a bunch of freshly picked flowers, he stepped forward to greet me with the warm but shy hug of a fifteen-year-old boy.

But it was meeting Eliyas’s mum that touched me the most. We couldn’t speak the same language but it didn’t seem to matter. She embraced me with such warmth and looked into my eyes with gratitude and kindness, and we both had tears in our eyes. I have never felt so deeply rewarded, humbled and satisfied.

I knew she appreciated the somewhat small role I was playing in her son’s life and future. And I was simply so grateful that there was something I could do.

I experienced a similar sentiment when I met the mother of our sponsor child in Mongolia. I first met Khulan when she was just eight years old. She was a sweet, happy little girl who was excited to have visitors from so far away and was besotted with the soft toy koala I had brought.

Khulan’s mother has a heart condition and struggles just like any single parent to support them both—a task even more difficult in a country as harsh as Mongolia. The temperatures can plummet to minus 50 degrees Celsius in winter and go up to 40 degrees Celsius in summer. Nearly half the population live below the poverty line, which for most means a choice between food or firewood.

The landscape is barren and harsh. Khulan and her mum live in Selenge, a remote village in the north of Mongolia near the Russian border. They share a small two-room hut with Khulan’s aunt and baby cousin. It’s relatively comfortable compared to some houses I’ve seen. There is carpet on the floor, albeit worn and torn, a compact kitchen, and a single bed for mother and daughter to share. There is nothing but hard dirt in their yard and the remains of a former vegetable patch.

Like any other suburb, kids play outside, kicking a homemade ball. But here it’s dusty, desolate and freezing cold.

I knew the essentials about Khulan. She loved to dance, and she jumped at the opportunity to dress in her sparkles and show me a routine. She was doing well at school, as evident in her neatly written maths homework. With the book and textas I gave her, we sat on the step in the sun and she drew a picture of herself and her mum.

It’s a rather surreal experience to meet a child whose life you play such a significant role in. I didn’t feel like a stranger. I knew so much about her and her face was so familiar. We even managed an awkward hug. But I knew to this little girl I was a complete unknown, not much more than a distant pen-pal.

But sponsorship means Khulan can continue at school and her mum can afford life-saving medication.

It’s also given me so much. Primarily, the opportunity to help someone else but also the chance to understand and appreciate a life so very different from my own, and a recognition of the inequalities in our world.

In 2013 I returned to see how Khulan was doing, but this time with my twelve-year-old son, Nick.

We met a polite young woman of fifteen doing remarkably well at school and hoping to one day work as a customs officer, a prestigious job that would pay her well.

Her mother had since remarried and Khulan now has a baby sister. Her mum and I communicated through an interpreter, and I learnt just how valuable our sponsorship has been and how grateful she is that her daughter has such a positive future ahead of her.

I also hope this journey had a positive impact on my son. He saw what real poverty looks like and I hope he took away an understanding of the struggles that face a family when they don’t have what we have. He may not fully absorb the lesson yet, but I hope in time it will influence his compassion and view of the world.

I want him to know that not everyone lives in a house with electricity and running water, a school up the hill and a doctor just a phone call away.

The picture Khulan drew for me when we first met all those years ago still hangs above my desk. It’s of a little girl and her mum standing outside their house next to a tree and a garden of pretty flowers beneath a giant yellow sun. It’s happy and colourful and drawn by a sweet little girl with gaps between her teeth whose outlook is positive and future is now just that little bit brighter.

It’s that sense of hope that I took away. When we left in 2013, Khulan smiled and waved, and she and Nick shook hands with the awkwardness of youth. We drove away knowing we had given her some security for the future, and that, as a mother, I had been able to do something for both my own child and someone else’s.

As a journalist, I get the opportunity to tell a lot of different stories—some are told to give the audience a smile, others simply need telling. I am privileged that my job allows me to do both.

As a World Vision Ambassador I am humbled that I can be a voice for these children, and help raise funds to make their lives a little easier.

As a parent, I can give my children so many opportunities. They have access to a good education, top quality heath care and a carefree childhood.

But most importantly I hope I can give them an appreciation of what they have and an understanding of what so many others don’t.

As a woman, I have a profound respect for the women I have met and admiration for what they face and how they manage.

According to World Vision, women do 66 per cent of the world’s work and produce 50 per cent of the world’s food, but only earn ten per cent of the world’s income and own just one per cent of the property.

Aid agencies tend to focus on women because for every dollar earned, women and girls reinvest around 90 per cent back into their families compared to a 30 to 40 per cent reinvestment rate for men.

I used to think I would never understand how these women in the Third World keep going, what strength drives them to walk hundreds of kilometres to a refugee camp, how they face another day when they lose a baby or worse, more children.

And although I don’t for a moment pretend to have an ounce of their strength, I think I understand a little more about what motivates them and drives them to survive at all costs.

Such drive is at the core of all mothers. Whatever our children need, we will do what we can to provide it for them, and I can see in these women a determination to fight on. I can’t imagine losing a child would hurt any less living in a refugee camp than in a comfortable four-bedroom suburban home. And I can’t imagine the desire to keep your babies close and safe is any less strong either.

These are the women I admire. Women whose sense of family is as strong as mine but whose challenges make mine pale. ‘First World problems’ as my husband says when I have a whinge about something that really doesn’t matter.

I wish we could all have a little more understanding for our wider mothers’ group. Meanwhile, I will teach my children to grow up with compassion and kindness and hope they will one day do their bit to extend a hand.

I feel so very proud that I too am a mother lion.

Movember

Telling your man he needs to see the doctor for an annual check-up is usually met with the same reaction as ‘Honey, we need to talk’: fear, avoidance and excuses.

But in November, it’s all about the men in our lives, and the lives of our men. The idea is to grow a moustache and raise awareness of prostate and other male cancers. So for four weeks men focus on their own health and we applaud them for it.

It’s a motley sight to behold—from the shag piles of seventies glory that would make Magnum PI jealous to the freshly sown lawn with just a few measly strands poking through.

Some are scattered with more salt than pepper that ages them overnight; others would make Merv, Dennis and Boony proud.

But what it does do is get the boys thinking about their health. And just like Samson who gained strength from growing his hair, some even take the next step and visit their doctor for a check-up.

Why is it the men in our lives usually do all they can to avoid a doctor’s surgery? Are they stoic, too busy or scared?

Prior to an overseas holiday, I booked our kids and John in for a number of injections. We didn’t tell the kids until the last minute in order to avoid an emotional build up. In the end they were actually ok when the needles came out. It was John who went pale and passed out. And with childhood delight, they will never let him forget it.

So girls, encourage them to give the razor a miss in November and think about their health. And then start December as smooth as a bauble on a Christmas tree and leave the fuzz to Santa.

But next to the beer and cookies, we’ll leave him a little reminder to go for a health check-up once the seasonal rush is over.

Mummy Olympics

One of the worst aspects of motherhood has to be the competition.

And it all starts when you’re pregnant. There is always one who takes great pride in having the worst morning sickness, biggest weight gain, smallest weight gain or most frightening complications.

Then comes the labour. She has the longest, the hardest and the most gruesome stories to tell. Or she pops it out in half an hour and takes great delight in leaving the ward in her skinny jeans. Her baby will undoubtedly walk at eight months and learn to read by the age of two.

Then it starts with the birthday parties. Who can hire the biggest jumping castle, the scariest reptile collection and send home the most elaborate lolly bags.

If she works, her life is the hardest; if she doesn’t, she questions the mothering abilities of anyone who does. Her kids will do more after-school activities, excel at everything and be way above everyone else in class. They will also have the most creative lunches, the coolest runners and the newest stationery.

I hate feeling so scrutinised by these mothers. It takes me right back to the playground myself when I couldn’t keep up with the cool crowd, and now that I’m a grown-up nothing has changed. And you know what? I don’t really want to try and compete.

Why is it women can be their own worst enemies? Are they simply alpha females who need to be the best at everything, motherhood included? And was it always this way?

I’ve heard horror stories from girlfriends whose daughters were selected for the netball team and had to incur the wrath of the mother whose child wasn’t. Women who lobby on behalf of their kids for the best of everything at school—and they’re still in primary. They’re either setting their kids up to rebel, or follow in their own nasty footsteps.

I don’t have the time, energy or disposition to make motherhood a competition. I’ll do it my way and seek out other mothers who respect that. I’d rather put my efforts into sharing fun times than trying to outdo each other.

Let the games be played by the kids.

Naughty Corners

We’ve all heard the debates and probably even had them ourselves: to smack or not to smack our kids.

We know that childhood experts tell us not to hit our kids and instead find alternative means of punishment. Yet we’ve all heard our parents tell us a smack on the bum did us, or them, no harm.

Frankly, I’m getting kind of sick of everyone telling me what or what not to do. Don’t feed them too little; don’t feed them too much. Don’t let them drink this, eat that, watch this, play that or hang out with them.

Surely there’s a healthy balance between the no-vaccination/ no-sugar/phosphate-free end of the spectrum and the Maccas-eating/ coke-drinking/stay-out-all-night extreme. I’m an educated woman who wants nothing but the best for my kids in terms of their health, happiness and wellbeing. Sure I read books and articles, take advice from people I trust, rely on girlfriends and their experiences and talk everything over with my husband. But in the end we have to rely on our own instincts and what we think suits our kids. At this stage, I think we’ve got them sussed.

I know punishment is a completely different issue. And we obviously all have different definitions of smacking. Some say it’s a smack across the back of the legs, and others clearly take it a lot further. And we all have different standards of discipline.

It’s not my place to tell you what to do or what might work best for your child, I can only reflect on what’s worked for ours—so far. And until they reach eighteen without a stint in jail, I still won’t know for sure I’ve succeeded.

When my kids were in nappies the naughty corner worked best. But both had different places of punishment. For my son, to be sent to his room and miss out on the action was, in his mind, as bad as it got. But for my daughter, time alone in Barbie heaven simply wasn’t a deterrent. Instead, sitting at the bottom of the steps or in the naughty corner in plain view of the family and all that she was missing was enough to get her to curb her ways.

When they got a little older, deprivation was the key. For Talia, it was taking away whatever her favourite thing was that week. For Nick, it was threatening to keep him home from sport.

Nowadays it’s losing their gadgets. A confiscated iTouch hits home with greater impact than anything else.

There is no doubt that as they get older it gets harder to make your point when they behave in a way you don’t condone, but it also opens up so many more avenues to explore.

Good old-fashioned grounding worked for me in my teenage years. That and the age-old ‘You have disappointed me’. To think about it still cuts me like a knife.

The one thing John and I have learnt though is to follow through. A threat that turns out to be simply a threat very quickly loses its power. And so do you.

I guess it’s tapping into what makes them tick and, without wanting to sound too brutal about it, knowing where they hurt. A cancelled party invite, a week without technology or a day sitting out cricket—it’s all about impact!

Network

Forget power lunches, corporate cocktails and team-bonding weekends, few jobs will ever require the level of networking as parenthood.

It will be the day when you need to get your son to swimming or daughter to ballet that you’re held up at work, and chances are when you do escape the fuel light is flashing in the car. Thank goodness for other mums.

They say it takes a village to raise a child and sometimes you also need that whole village to get them from A to B, and on time.

During one school holiday Nick did a few mornings of tennis camp and Talia chose butterfly dance camp at the local church hall. As luck would have it, they both started at the same time and finished spot on at midday as well, so another mum and I had the ‘you get the boys, I’ll get the girls’ conversation.

And lucky we did. It made our lives easier, but it also meant neither of our children was left sitting forlorn and surly long after the balls had been collected or the music packed away.

The mums’ network is a roster system based on SMSing and availability. It’s like an underground movement you are totally unaware exists until you need it.

With more and more of us moving away from our families, we are increasingly reliant on our friends and creating our own support group.

The mums’ network is like a barter system for transport and child-minding. You put your hours, skills and available duties up for grabs and see who bites.

All through my children’s primary school days my résumé would have described me as out of action in the mornings due to work, but available most afternoons. I was always more than happy to mind a friend’s child after school. It gave my kids someone else to kick a ball around with and bought me a few credits for when I was stuck at work and had to call for help.

We even used to plan ahead to avoid the double shuffle when one child was at school and one still at preschool. A few of us had children at both so we’d often grab an extra child and swap.

Nowadays the network is at its most valuable during the crazy afternoon calendar of ballet, soccer training and band practice. It’s inevitable that one child needs to be dropped off at a suburb far from where the other is waiting to be collected, and mine are still too young to wait patiently and confidently on their own.

AFL training on those cold nights, midwinter, is complicated. Four of us have a roster going and we share the drop-offs and pick-ups, giving each one a turn once a fortnight to brave the chill and the evening traffic.

Befriend other mums . . . and do a deal! There’s always one willing to take an extra to midweek training in return for a sleep-in on a Saturday morning.

All those years when I was the mum who couldn’t volunteer for the 9 a.m. reading group or the midmorning canteen prep, I could provide plenty of scrap paper for drawing, clean up at the afternoon art class and happily supervise afternoon sport.

Nor can I go on the school camp or supervise the running group, but I can bake for the school fete and muck in at the annual working bee.

Instead of us feeling guilty about the shifts we can’t do while others feel burdened by all the shifts they are left with, why don’t we get the old-fashioned networks up and running and share the load a bit more?

And the network is not just about managing our kids. A group of like-minded mums can be a valuable team to have behind you.

Twenty-five years after last encountering a medicine ball, I found myself just one of a rather motley bunch of soccer mums, throwing balls, skipping ropes and attempting push-ups.

Motivated by the fit one in the group, we decided to hire a personal trainer for ourselves while our kids trained for soccer on a Wednesday afternoon. So while my daughter and her posse of younger siblings held court near the slippery dip and the boys practised their skills on one side of the oval, we were on the other side trying to find ours.

We numbered about eight in assorted shapes, sizes and fitness levels, a number that ebbed and flowed each week depending on who had the time or whose kids were sick. Luckily we found a patient trainer because he was constantly losing one of us at ten-minute intervals to take our kids to the loo, top-up their drinks or tend to the odd scraped knee.

He also understood that after so many years out of the system, we were a little rusty. Our star jumps failed to spark, our speed was shot and our coordination wasn’t exactly graceful.

But it was a fun way to make the most of a spare hour, keep warm on a cold winter afternoon, tone up the tuck-shop arms and impress the kids. And get to know the other mums.

Everyone needs a good support network, and sometimes the strongest can come from those who are living a similar life to yours.

There’s nothing more reassuring that a good chat at school pick-up, even the odd coffee or play in the park after the 3 p.m. bell.

You’ll probably find there are other mothers in exactly the same boat as you, and just waiting for someone else to reach out. It’s just that none of us is game to be the first to ask.

New Year’s Resolutions

I think it’s about time I give up on my annual resolutions to lose five kilograms by March, keep on top of the garden maintenance and stop dumping my stuff on the kitchen table (although this one is more for my husband’s sanity than any real desire on my part). Next time 1 January roles around I will celebrate what is good and be happy with what I’ve got.

Maybe as I get older I’m more realistic about what I can achieve, and when.

So what is it about the beginning of the week/month/year that makes us suddenly resolve to change things in our lives? Is it just that we like the symmetry of a fresh start on a Monday, or do we really think changing our ways in January will work better than if we started in December? Maybe it has something to do with a January diet coming fresh on the heels of a decadent Christmas—one final gorge before the fast begins.

I have a little snippet from an interview with Cindy Crawford stuck to my notice board. (Who would have thought a supermodel could be so inspiring? Funnily enough, John and I agree on Cindy being an inspiration but I suspect for slightly different reasons.)

She said, ‘If there is something you don’t like about yourself, work at it. If you are unable or unwilling to put in the work, accept it.’

Hmm. Is this a cop-out or can I embrace this philosophy and finally come to terms with the fact I will never be as skinny, super fit, perfectly organised or tidy as I would like? Mind you, I’d happily accept being Cindy too.

Instead of trying to start the new year with a bang, I have decided to make small adjustments I can deal with. Maybe just eat a little healthier more often; occasionally walk instead of drive when we need milk; and clutter the kitchen table by all means, but maybe sort it at the end of the day instead of the end of the week.

The last promise I made myself was to see my friends more—and for once I achieved it.

Like most busy families we tend to spend more time with our friends who have kids and lifestyles compatible with ours. We see them at school pick-up and Saturday sports and a weekend barbecue simply becomes easier when the kids all get along.

But like everyone we have friends across town or interstate, and others with older children or none at all. These are the people I’ve known half my life and sometimes seeing them requires a bit more organising. With one family, we nominated the first Saturday afternoon of every second month. We laughed at the absurdity of it, but it actually worked! With old friends you always pick up where you left off and the comfort of their company is always worth it.

So is dragging ourselves off the couch on a Saturday night every once in a while. Given our busy weeks and my many years of 3 a.m. starts, it was always easier to stay in and crash early. But when we do get out we are always glad we did.

So next year I have decided to take baby steps . . . do a little tweaking around the edges instead of all-out change. And instead of New Year’s resolutions I will make New Year’s affirmations. Let’s improve what we want to or can, otherwise embrace who we are, what we have and go a little easier on ourselves. What a great way to start the year.

Thanks, Cindy.

No

Funny how a word so short can be one of the toughest to say: no. But it brings with it guilt, judgement and the fear of hurting someone else’s feelings. And they’re pretty strong emotions to reconcile.

As you may have gathered, I’m a big advocate of the mums’ network. The juggle is a lot easier, and a lot more fun, when we help each other out.

But while support is one thing, what do you do when you start feeling used? How do you say no when your goodwill is clearly being taken advantage of and your patience is running out?

I’ve made my fair share of urgent ‘I’m stuck in traffic!’ calls to girlfriends, asking them to mind my kids for ten minutes until I arrive. I’ve even asked them to take my children home with them on the odd occasion when there is no way I will make it on time.

I’ve also taken just as many calls from girlfriends in the same situation, and I’m more than happy to return the favour and share the load. In fact, I’m keen to offer as much as I can in order to store as many brownie points in the bank as possible!

Urgent favours, prearranged play dates or offers to pick up a child from after-school sport come without expectations. It’s when your services are assumed, and abused, that you can start to get narky.

So what do you do when someone calls on you over and over, and expects you to say yes? How do you say no?

I don’t know about you, but I find it one of the hardest words to use. Maybe I’m afraid I’ll offend, appear callous or even lose a friend.

I struggle to say no to my dad when he calls asking a favour on a day when my diary is already packed. I find it hard to say no when the dentist rings and wants to reschedule the kids’ appointment to a time that really doesn’t suit me.

I get myself stressed and tied up in knots because I am too gutless to be assertive. So I’m trying a little harder. When I am simply too busy, I say so.

And when the reason is I simply don’t want to, I say so too. Instead of coming up with some weak and obviously cobbled-together excuse as to why I can’t have someone else’s child over for a play that afternoon, I’m trying the honesty path. Sometimes my children and I just need a quiet afternoon at home together. Given for so many years I didn’t see them in the mornings because I was at work when they woke up and I already share them with ballet, soccer training, band practice and homework, there are moments when I just really want them all to myself after school.

Now at times I simply tell my dad it’s impossible and suggest we pick another day when my diary is a little clearer.

I also want my kids to learn the importance of standing their ground. Saying no when a friend wants to make a trade in the playground. Refusing to hand over their favourite card will hopefully empower them years from now when more tempting but alarming incentives are at stake.

I’m slowly working out it’s not so hard to say no. And people don’t seem to mind as much as I feared. I feel better, less resentful and a little less stressed and I’m actually more inclined to want to offer more when I know it’s appreciated.

Nudie Rudies

We are a house with a ‘no boobies at the dinner table’ rule.

Before you laugh out loud and assume I am outing myself as a nudist, I can assure you I am not.

It’s my daughter. When she used to come home from school the first thing she did was whip her uniform off and run around in her knickers. Luckily she was five and cute as a button, but I had to draw the line at her being topless at the dinner table.

On a hot sticky summer afternoon, I’m sure there’s nothing more delightful than the freedom of not wearing clothes. But just in case not everyone agrees, when the doorbell rang I asked her to dash into her room and cover up so she didn’t flash at our unsuspecting visitor.

Just as there is an underground movement of adult nudists, it appears there’s rather a lot of little ones out there too. I have a friend with an eight-year-old son who gets his gear off at any chance. Another friend’s six-year-old daughter started walking out the front door one afternoon to collect the mail . . . naked.

With time and gravity on their side it was still cute . . . but age eventually broke the habit. Or maybe winter did.

Or maybe it was simply growing up.

I must admit to feeling a little sadness when my children started becoming self-conscious. When my son started closing his door when he was dressing and my daughter finally used her robe to leave the bathroom, it was another snippet of innocence gone. As a parent, learning to respect their privacy is so important. I figure if I want them to knock before walking into the bathroom on me, then I should do the same.

But at least we can have guests over for dinner—modesty intact.

Off to School

The memory of my sweet little five-year-old daughter in her oversized brand new school uniform is enough to make my eyes well with tears. In her crisp white collar and blue checked dress, she suddenly looked so tall and grown-up. The ribbons in her plaits were blue instead of pink, her giant black shoes and white socks so much less individual than her sparkly little pink ones. With one change of outfit she went from being Mummy’s constant little buddy to a confident young child about to embark on the next chapter of her growing up.

There is nothing cuter than seeing a hundred wide-eyed four and five year olds marching through a playground, holding hands and wearing cardboard bunny ears with their names written across the front in giant junior handwriting. Their hats wide enough to shade them and a couple of extra friends, and that giant backpack . . . well, I think I’ll be carrying it for her for some time to come.

And it’s easy to spot the mums of the kindy kids . . . they’re the ones in tears.

When Nick started school a few years before, we had put so much energy into building him up for it that we were all convinced everything was going to be ok. He was shy and nervous so we only talked about school with excitement and confidence. By the time he was ready, so were we. I was emotional, but just so eager for him to go forth, grow up and explore the world.

But then came number two. There is something different about sending your last born off to school. It’s because they seem so much littler or because I knew we were saying goodbye to the sweet and fun world of toddlers forever—closing the book on babies, prams and nappies. Before I know it, Talia will be testing out rude words, catching nits and focusing on her girlfriends more than she focuses on me. Maybe that’s it. I’m selfishly having a little trouble dealing with the fact that soon I will no longer be the most important thing in her world. Social groups, boys and TV actors will replace me.

Of course I tried to hide all this anxiety because she was just so excited. It helped that she knew the school well, given she was there twice a day, dropping off and picking up her brother. And it helped that a group of her friends from preschool made the transition with her.

She was busting to learn, to meet new people and to simply put everything together. Her little mind was frustrated that she could spell words but not quite read as she tried to catch up to her older brother. The questions never ceased. She is social, chatty, sweet and confident. And I can’t wait to see the woman she will grow into.

I guess it just came around a little quicker than I expected.

One-on-one Time

Nick and John went fishing last weekend along with another mate and his boys. They caught little more than bait and a bit of sunburn, but had a fantastic time together.

When life is so busy and schedules so packed with all the things we need to do, it’s wonderful when we can steal some time to occasionally do the things we want to do.

Ironically, the less time we have, the more we need to make sure we find it, because it’s those one-on-one memories that last forever.

My husband used to take Nick with him to buy coffee and the papers every Saturday morning from when he was a tiny baby. It gave me, as a new mum, the chance to sleep in, but it developed into so much more for my two boys. It was their special weekly routine—a chance to hang out together away from Mum. As Nick has grown, their Saturday morning activity has developed into sport. John is always on the sidelines cheering and serving oranges.

Time together as a family is important, but so too is time alone with each of your children as individuals, to really talk with them and listen.

I don’t know how Brad and Angelina manage with their brood of six, or even America’s ‘Octomum’, but, as any parent will tell you, where there’s a will there’s a way.

A colleague of mine, himself a father of four, says he used to drive his kids everywhere. Whether they be going to sport or parties, he says when they were in the car they were his. He had a captive audience and it was a great chance to talk.

I used to find walking my kids home from primary school opened the channels of communication. My son, who has perfected the standard ‘dunno’ shrug, seemed to open up a little more when we were walking, as though the movement of his legs inspired his mouth.

My daughter loves to be with me when I am getting ready to go out. She sits in my wardrobe, trying everything on and earmarking what she wants one day. She slips her tiny little feet into my high heels and winds up my lipsticks, squashing the tops into the case, but she makes getting dressed so much more fun. I hope one day she does wear something of mine.

We also read together at night. They each jump into bed with me for a story . . . Talia first, then she’s off to bed and it’s Nick’s turn.

It’s having those few precious moments with each of them individually that I crave, and enjoy, so much. And as they get older it only gets better as they develop interests and find things we can do together.

My daughter loves nothing more than hitting the shops (I don’t know where she gets that from) but we have precious girl-time together, try on dresses and stop for a hot drink.

My son is happy to whip my butt on the oval with a soccer ball or a cricket bat and ball.

It doesn’t really matter what we do. It’s just about being together and recognising them as individuals.

Like all families, we are busy, stretched between work commitments, running the house and trying to stay in touch with friends . . . but the moments we can find to be alone, no matter how small, make all the difference.

Organised Chaos

As a full-time working mother of two, never in my life have I been so busy, and, because of that, never before have I been so organised!

Organisation was not a word that sat comfortably with my name. For the first 30 years of my life I tended to ‘go with the flow’. If anyone was going to leave an assignment to the night before, be 24 hours late for a party (yep, very embarrassing) or forget the garlic bread was in the oven until the meal was over, it was me. And nor did I particularly stress about it. Assignments always got done, there was always another party and I was probably better off without the garlic bread anyway.

But as life got busier and it wasn’t just my time I had to manage, things simply had to run more smoothly. Sunday is now my day to start the week with a little preparation.

If I can have the weeknight meals picked, written on the calendar and the ingredients in the fridge, it takes away that mundane nightly ‘what are we having for dinner’ conversation. For some reason a cookbook on a Sunday seems so much more inspiring than the nightly fossick through the fridge. And it makes the task so much easier for me. Racing in late from cricket training midweek, I know the decision has been made and the pantry is stocked.

The more I can do on the weekend, the better I ultimately feel. Meals planned, washing put away and the kitchen bench clear—starting with a clean slate gives me less stress in the busy days that follow.

If I’m going to all the effort to make meatballs for dinner, I make one batch for now and freeze another for later.

Even as I write this I am laughing at how boring it all sounds! I must have well and truly crossed into motherhood when tidiness and order thrills me as much as chaos and spontaneity once did.

I look at it as self-preservation. I could handle a little chaos, and in fact thrived on it, when I only had myself to worry about. I left everything to the last minute. But when I start spinning out of control nowadays there are a few others who suffer. Best Mummy knows what she’s doing!

Nothing satisfies me more than a giant summer holiday clean-out. Sorting the kids’ wardrobes and passing on what no longer fits; reining in my garden; tidying the linen cupboard; tossing the out-of-date items shoved to the back of the pantry. If I can start the year a little neater, lighter and less cluttered then I can better handle the chaos as it builds up—and build up it will.

The endless supply of notes that come home from school, permission for this, directions on that; the art works, each as elaborate and important as the next: they all get shoved in a basket to be sorted.

There’s a pin board for certificates, magnets on the fridge for reminders and mission control is the family calendar hanging on the laundry door.

Each child has their own folder so class lists and receipts don’t get lost and lunch boxes and notes have to be unpacked straight away.

Military precision!

It runs like clockwork . . . sometimes.

Owls

Boy, oh, boy, did this one sneak up on us. One minute we’re changing his nappies and the next we’re looking at our watches wondering when our son will be home!

Of course I knew this would happen eventually, I just wasn’t expecting it so soon. I thought the ritual of sitting up late on a Saturday night waiting with lights blazing didn’t happen until the teenage years.

To be honest, I fell asleep on the couch and John was the one who soldiered on. But how strange it felt the first time it happened.

Nick loves his footy, so rain or hail he won’t miss a game. Even if it means hitching a ride with another family on the nights we decide to be Ma and Pa Kettle and stay in. A night game usually doesn’t finish until well after 10 p.m. so that means he gets home around 11 p.m. Even I struggle to cope with such a late night (probably why I was already asleep), let alone a seven year old!

At least at this age, we don’t have to worry about him driving, getting in trouble or having a few too many beers. Fast-forward eleven years and it’ll be a different story. It dawns on me the anxiety I must have caused my parents.

Bedtimes have been pretty strict in our house. Fourteen years of mum working shift work can do that to a family. I was always reliant on routine when they were babies and it hasn’t really changed. The hour may be a bit later, but I still have a no-nonsense approach to getting off to bed. There is nothing more draining than the nightly fight to call it a day.

Sometimes when there’s a big game on, we’ll stay in and watch it on TV. If John’s away, I will sit up with Nick but end up falling asleep while he watches every minute. He’ll have his Sherrin in his hands and it won’t stop moving as he mirrors every play he sees. I’ll get the jab in the ribs when he says, ‘Did you see that mum?’ Through glazed eyes I’ll look over and wonder where my little baby boy went and think that it’s all going by too fast.

And just when I think he’s all grown up, he’ll grab his teddy and snuggle in next to me. I’ll close my eyes again and remember when he was tiny—until the next jab in the ribs and cries of ‘Big Bad Barry Hall’s kicked another one, Mum!’

Parent Coaching

Who knew at 40 I’d be learning to take a mark and kick a drop punt? Or play wicket keeper and learn the proper technique to catch a cricket ball.

Nick’s AFL and cricket clubs have both arranged parent-coaching clinics. I never really had the sporting bug (or ability) at school, but as the mother of a very sporty son, I figure I’d better get my skills up so I can at least hold my own. And not completely embarrass both of us.

Parenthood is the perfect excuse to revisit your childhood in so many ways. You get to watch those hilarious animated movies, play with Barbie again and book a table in a restaurant at 5 p.m. without feeling out of place.

If it weren’t for Nick, I would never run around a footy field lining up my kick. He’s even had me as wicket keeper in the summer. I was pretty shocking and let way too many balls sail past, but I must admit it was kind of fun!

Now I just wish they would do something similar at school.

Nick’s learning the finer details of grammar and I’m rather embarrassed to admit, but those skills are all rather scratchy. As a journalist, trust me, I hang my head in shame. But twenty-plus years out of school and spellcheck on my computer have left me a little lazy.

I remember thinking what a complete waste of time learning algebra was. Maths was definitely not my strong point. But it’s amazing how quickly we can get rusty on the skills we spent years rote learning. I drummed knowledge into my brain for long enough to spit it out the next day during an exam. Over the years, the file has been wiped clean in order to fill with new stuff.

I thought my cramming was so clever at the time, and although it’s placed me in good stead for my job as a journalist, I’m not laughing now that Nick is asking me if ‘wet’ is a noun or a verb and I have to seriously think about it.

It was embarrassing enough at his school assembly when it was pretty obvious the vast majority of parents didn’t know the second verse of the national anthem. The first verse was sung loud and proud, but it quickly petered out and the song was finished at half strength with only the children’s voices.

Kids are an endless source of questions and I’m fast realising that answering ‘rabbits’ just doesn’t cut it.

So we’ve stuck a times tables poster to the kitchen wall and we practise together. I’m learning the basics all over again—everything from the three Rs to onomatopoeia to singing the national anthem.

Oh, and now I look slightly more confident on the footy field, even if I still can’t catch the ball.

Parents

Sitting in a non-descript consulting room taking notes as a doctor delivered some devastating news to my father was one of those goalpost-shifting moments in my life.

Suddenly, I was the grown-up. No longer daddy’s little girl.

With one swift diagnosis of cancer the responsibility had shifted to me. I found taking charge softened the shock and gave me something to focus on, a simple way to help.

As we age, so do our parents (if we’re lucky). But suddenly noticing your dad is no longer the big, tough, invincible man he once was can be a pretty startling moment. Or when your mum starts to buy shoes for comfort and wear her glasses more.

Your parents will start to ask you to talk louder, forget your birthday and have more doctors appointments in their diary than social outings. In fact, all they seem to talk about are doctors, tests and body parts not working properly. Their golf game slows down and the pill bottles line up at the dinner table.

I was so focused on watching our kids grow up, and so determined to ignore that I was getting older, that it came as a shock to notice my parents had aged faster than us all.

We’ve always asked them for help and as grown-ups it doesn’t stop, but it’s another dynamic entirely when they ask you.

And that can take a fair bit of adjusting to on both sides.

It’s like watching Superman fold away his cape.

As their child, you have to walk a delicate line, knowing they are feeling vulnerable but fighting it.

I can’t show my frustration when my parents forget something or tell me the same story. I must find patience when asked to repeat plans or speak slower. I have to remember that, as hard as it is to watch someone decline, it must be even harder to be going through it, to feel your body slow down and ache, your eyesight and hearing fade, and watch gravity pull down and youth pull away.

But it can also be a subtle shift in power that gives you the chance to show appreciation for all the years your parents wiped your bottom and stayed awake at night.

Now we get to do the driving and they can sit back and relax, confident in the knowledge they are the ones who taught you to drive.

Sometimes though you have to take a little more control. As when my husband helped his parents make the decision to downsize from the family home to over-55s living.

Packing, culling, moving and adjusting was a major life change to undertake so late in life. They had to consolidate a lifetime of memories into a smaller unit and make new friends—a tough ask at any age.

But it beats the alternative: frocking up in black as I drive my dad to yet another farewell for one of his buddies.

I am grateful I can take charge, but also appreciate the moments when I can grab Dad’s hand and quick as a flash I’m still his little girl.

Playground Politics

If you thought the bearpit of federal politics was harsh, wait until you encounter the politics at the school gate. There may be a little more perfume, and gym gear instead of dark suits, but trust me—the alliances, lobbying and factions are just as powerful.

Some mothers love a committee. They have the time and the desire to help. And just as a company board attracts a range of talents, so does the said committee. Some like to talk, others like to act; some like to play games and assert power, others drag their feet.

And then there is the politics in the playground as eight-year-old girls jostle for supremacy. They haven’t yet learnt the subtly of power play, and make it brutally honest who’s in or out of favour that day.

Or there’s the politicking among pre-teen boys, who have the bodies of young men but the maturity of twelve year olds.

The alpha kids are pretty easy to spot as early as primary school, and teaching your kids to handle them is one of the life lessons unique to a schoolyard.

It’s not just reading and writing they need to master before they head off into the wide world of grown-ups.

The playground is a little social cauldron where we make friends, deal with enemies and avoid the nasty kids. You find your position on the totem pole, learn that not everyone will like you and you won’t like everyone else. Nor will you be invited to everything.

Some kids have the confidence to move between groups, spending time with different friends from sport or art classes. Others tend to pick and stick, and are shattered when there is a falling out. As a mum, I encourage my kids to widen their friendship base. And if they are not invited to a party, nominated for class captain or called up on stage to collect an award at the end of term, that’s ok. Not all of us are.

I’m sure that most of the time the kids get over it a lot quicker than their parents.

This is where sport teaches us that sometimes life can be unfair. One week in cricket they can score a century, the next they’re out with a duck.

School is where they learn to put up with the teacher they don’t like, because chances are they will one day have a similar boss. And some years they will have a class full of their best friends, the next year they will have to start again, alone without a familiar face, which can be daunting, but challenging.

Just as your kids are negotiating, so too will you: the mum who loves a chat but can’t read your body language when you’re itching to leave; the mum who targets you because she likes or doesn’t like your child; the mum who’s always late; the over-achiever whose child is and does everything; the mum who whinges about the teachers, class placements, the principal and pretty much everything else irking her that week.

Primary school is a relatively safe environment to learn the skills of self-preservation and negotiation. For the kids and the parents.

Now I just have to work it out all over again as my son goes to high school.

Pocket Money

Global recession, bank collapses, spiralling interest rates . . . try explaining those concepts to a kid holding out for their pocket money.

In a climate where adults are finding cash pretty tight, it seems our kids aren’t so hard done by. A survey conducted by Cartoon Network about five years ago found some children were getting as much as $100 a week! You can only assume they are in the minority.

The average for kids aged between seven and fourteen was just under $8 a week. They also found boys who earnt more than $5 a week were more likely to have a girlfriend . . . a phenomenon that starts earlier than I had realised.

Our kids have to earn their $5. There is a tally kept on the fridge and they earn a tick for every chore done over and above the compulsory family ones like setting and clearing the table and tidying their room. Five ticks earns $5—and they have the option to earn more.

We’ve also discovered it works in reverse. A tick is deducted for bad behaviour. That’s led to a few moments straight from The Price is Right where the kitty steadily shrinks with every cheeky back answer. I’m the host calling ‘Four dollars . . . three dollars’. They soon grasp the concept!

They also have the ability to redeem themselves and earn it back. Even at their age, money talks.

Obviously the amount is different for every family, but it’s never too early to start teaching kids about money, its value and how to handle it.

It can be a challenge when everything is paid for with plastic and children have no concept of how much you’re handing over when you simply tap in a PIN. Or the fact it’s up to you to have the money in the bank in the first place before you can make a withdrawal from the ATM.

We’ve opened them both bank accounts and they can watch their savings grow. The rule is half their pocket money must be banked each week, and always stay there. The rest can be spent.

My son’s first purchase was a cricket box (that’s a plastic willy protector for those of us who never played the game). At least he’s thinking about protecting his assets . . . always a smart monetary move.

Quarantine

Thank God for professional hairdressers able to repair a dodgy clipper job on a seven-year-old’s head, administered by a frustrated mother sick to death of nits.

They are the evil cousin of sharing, the scourge of the playground, unsightly little buggers that jump from head to head and take up residence in even the cleanest of hair.

I’m sorry if just reading this is making you itch, but something needs to be done before we are all tearing our hair out and kids everywhere are sporting uneven hairstyles hacked by unskilled and exasperated mothers.

Save the Itchy & Scratchy Show for TV. Don’t send your kid to school with nits.

Think of their classmates. They don’t want to take them home. Transferring nits to another head doesn’t mean they all pack up, move on and leave your kid alone, instead they simply infest both.

You may think your child is the cleanest one in school, perfectly sanitised, pressed and brushed before they walk out the door. To a nit, it doesn’t matter. Any head is fair game.

So sit down with a fine comb and a bottle of conditioner and catch the damn things, each and every rotten little one.

Our GP recommends smothering the hair in conditioner, putting on a shower cap and letting the little blighters suffocate for a good hour.

My friend’s daughter has had them about four times this year. Her mum keeps her home from school, diligently bombs the damn things, combs each one out, then sends her back to be reinfested.

She is sure she knows which child is the carrier, but is powerless. The school can’t even say anything. The breeding ground might be front and centre in class, scratching her head with more than just confusion, but there is nothing you can do.

Mums, let’s help each other out. Don’t send your child to school if they are likely to swap anything more than ideas. Keep combing, checking, plaiting and spraying—and leave the haircuts to the professionals.

Quiet Time

I can clearly remember when I took my first holiday alone since I’d had children.

I went away to a health spa for four days and slept, exercised, read two books and slept some more. I came home feeling refreshed and rested, but I must admit the guilt slightly tarnished my happiness.

I had spent ages convincing myself it was ok to go. God knows I needed a break. I was tired, snappy and worn out. But there’s something so self-indulgent about packing up and heading off alone when you have a family.

There’s also something gruelling about running a house, cooking a meal each night, getting up at 3 a.m., working full time and coming home and hemming school pants. Your own needs tend to get bumped down the list.

I’d dreamt about the idea for years, but never seemed to go through with it. Maybe it was turning 40 that tipped me over the edge. Maybe it was seeing a few more lines under my eyes. Maybe it was just self-preservation.

Why do we find it so difficult to take time out for ourselves?

Is it because there simply aren’t enough hours left once we do all the things that need doing in any given day, or is it because my time-management skills aren’t up to scratch?

Some weeks I’ve sat down on a Sunday afternoon, planned a week’s worth of meals, done the ironing, set the house to run smoothly and even scheduled in a visit to the gym. Other weeks it all goes pear-shaped and I’m just frantic. We’re eating take-away barbecue chicken and the washing hangs on the line for three days.

With everyone else wanting a little piece of us, it’s easier to forgo that facial for seven years than say no to reading Cinderella or kicking a footy in the backyard. And would we really want to anyway?

My girlfriend Amanda goes for a run to relax. She serves her kids dinner and then hits the treadmill. She works the tension out, the kilos off and the kids know to leave Mummy alone for just a little while.

I’ve always thought of going to work as my ‘me time’. It gets me out of the house, gives me something different to focus on and new people to talk to. But sometimes that’s not enough. Because when you do get a precious moment alone, it’s glorious.

I can drive home from work with the radio off, enjoying the silence. Or I use that time to call a friend and have a conversation uninterrupted. Or I’ll duck out to the shops on a Sunday afternoon under the guise of grabbing something for dinner and take a fraction longer than necessary, savouring just being by myself.

Or I’ll meet a girlfriend on the weekend for a walk. Ok, I’m not technically alone, but it’s amazing what a good power walk and a debrief with your best friend can do to clear your head.

I must admit my favourite indulgence used to be a Saturday afternoon sleep. It meant I could stay awake past 8 p.m. on the only night that mattered, and although I felt guilty sneaking off to my bedroom and quietly closing the door, I also realised a rested mum equals a calm mum and that equals a happy house.

Sometimes I will simply sit on the deck in the sun with a magazine, a cup of coffee and kindly ask everyone to just buzz off and leave me alone. Occasionally it works!

I’m lucky I get to travel for work occasionally. A night interstate or a few days overseas, either way it’s a hotel room to myself, room service and complete silence.

Just as important, if not more so, is couple time, but it’s usually even harder to schedule. No talk of phone bills, school assessments or kids’ fights. Easier said than done, I know. Sometimes it feels like those issues are all John and I ever talk about!

We hardly ever go to the movies—that just seems such a waste of precious conversation time together. Give me a lovely meal cooked by someone else any day. No washing up and time together to remember why you fell in love.

Our next goal is a holiday away, just the two of us, for the first time. We’ve just got to call in a few favours so that someone can mind the kids.

We all need a little time for ourselves. ‘Me time’ before I had kids used to be a whole Saturday shopping with the girls. Now it can be as simple as buying the groceries alone on a Sunday afternoon.

Don’t feel guilty when you walk out the door. And don’t forget to relish the simple things.

Recycling

If only my children’s raised voices sounded as sweet as the instruments they were fighting over.

Unfortunately, a full-on argy-bargy over using their sibling’s things usually degenerates into a screaming match that inevitably ends in tears.

Some things simply have to be shared between kids. We’re not crazy enough to spring for two drum kits or glockenspiels. In fact, we reasoned when Talia followed her older brother into the school band and decided to also play the drums that the economies of scale made our initial instrument purchase a little easier to swallow. That and the fact an electronic drum kit and matching headphones is probably a lot quieter than a French horn or an ill-played flute.

Bicycles were once in the do-not-touch category too . . . until Nick’s legs grew so long he had to get a new bike, and hand his prized possession over to his little sister. Pimping it up to look a little more girly just seemed to rub salt in the wounds so the handlebar streamers soon came off. But she happily rode it until her legs grew longer and she got a brand new bike of her own.

I once tried bedazzling Nick’s old jeans, still in perfectly good condition, so they could be passed on to Talia, but that failed. She flat out refused to wear ‘boy’s jeans’ no matter how hard I tried to bling them up.

What can’t be passed on to his sister makes its way to friends or charity. And my cousin has three daughters younger than mine, so she has become our go-to for Talia’s used clothes and toys.

In fact, favourite garments that my daughter can’t bear to part with no matter how small they are only get let go if they are guaranteed to go to her cousins.

And now she’s eyeing off my wardrobe, hoping that when I ‘grow out’ of things they will be hers. I told her they will one day, but I’d rather not ‘grow’ anymore.

Getting extra mileage out of things has long been the domain of a practical parent. We inherited a cot and pram and then paid it forward when our time came to cull. School gear can easily have a new nametag sewn in if it’s generic enough to cover both genders. If it’s not, then the clothing pool will find someone who appreciates frugality.

I admire my girlfriend with two daughters and two sons. In her family there is a natural progression for goods and a double hit out of most purchases.

In the meantime, I’ll keep trying to buy generic items, sew on patches or hope they continue to play the same instruments, no matter how noisy.

Red Carpets

One minute I’m polishing the kids’ school shoes or ironing a mountain of shirts, next moment I’m discussing the advantages of silk over georgette and what drapes better.

Like a bride on her wedding day, walking the red carpet at a big event is the culmination of a lot of preparation, a tonne of hairspray, lashings of body shimmer, killer heels, borrowed jewels and some well-placed Spanx.

For an event such as the Logies, the preparations begin months ahead.

Picking a frock is the first step. I have been lucky enough to stand in the room of a couturier and have calico draped around me as he draws, pins and adjusts the initial frame of the dress.

It’s an incredible process to be a part of and only because of my job have I been privileged enough to participate in such luxury. Not that my best friend’s auntie in country NSW who made my wedding dress wasn’t as talented as Christian Dior, but let’s just say it wasn’t until I was given the chance to represent a TV network that I could indulge in such finery.

It’s our network stylist who is across what everyone is wearing, making sure that no one doubles up, and coordinates the loan of jewels and clutches.

Come the big day my network colleagues and I spend the Sunday afternoon getting ready like a giggly bunch of teenagers heading off to the school formal. We girls spend hours getting our hair and make-up done. And it’s also a bit of fun for our regular team of hair and make-up artists to do something a little out of the ordinary. They can ditch the natural TV look for false lashes and big hair.

Showtime: the car drops me off at the end of the red carpet and as I step into a sea of flashbulbs I hear fans screaming out for their favourite soap star. Then it’s a daunting walk down the carpet, past PR minders with clipboards, stars posing and young fans with autograph books.

There is nothing more intimidating that following one of those gorgeous young things who know how to work it for the cameras and pose just so. Feeling like a clumsy cousin, I wander along behind them, and simply stand and smile. Seeing my picture printed a few days later, I clearly lack the flippant air of the seasoned poser who has mastered the subtle come hither smile or the sexy backward glance. There I am looking shy and awkward, but hey, in a gorgeous dress!

We are then ushered into the ballroom and seated for dinner, each relegated to the table that reflects the network we work for and our program’s pecking order.

And just like anyone else, I then spend the night checking out everyone in the room . . . oohing and aahing over frocks, tans, diamonds and a bit of not-so-subtle cosmetic surgery. No matter who you are, everyone in that room is bound to see someone who leaves them feeling like a young fan—be it a sports person, music star or favourite TV actor. But everyone is trying to act cool, at least until the after party.

For me, it’s off to bed as soon as the broadcast is over. I wait in line for a cab with aching feet and fading make-up. Knowing I have to be up and at work in about three hours, I am smiling, cheery and definitely not due for a hangover.

More often than not, the following afternoon I’m madly pushing a shopping trolley around my local supermarket before school pick-up . . . still with a pretty great hair-do, but the sparkle of the night before fading with my energy.

Nine-and-a-half times out of ten though, I’m on the outside of the ropes at special events with my name on a lanyard around my neck. And from that side, the carpet certainly appears a lot more magical, glamorous and fun.

I can honestly say of all the big events I’ve covered, the Oscars is one of the most exciting. I know there are more important things happening in the world, but to be swept up by the magnificent dresses, beautiful people and screaming, adoring crowds, even for a few hours, is an experience to remember.

In 2013 I covered my first Academy Awards and Sunrise was broadcasting live from the red carpet in the hours leading up to the ceremony. The cameraman, producer and I spent three hours walking the path that would soon be taken by some of the most recognisable faces in the world, mingling with international journalists and giving our viewers back home a sense of the building excitement. Then at the stroke of 2 p.m. (9 a.m. in Australia) we were swiftly moved into our positions behind the barricades by men in black suits and curly cords at their ears.

The other side of those barricades is not what you might expect. My area was about one-metre wide and two steps high. I shared it with four other journalists from the US, the UK and Spain and two cameramen. I wore a floor-length, custom-made gold lamé Steven Khalil ball gown, and I spent most of the night with the skirt bunched into one hand so it didn’t get trashed in the crush.

The idea is that when the stars walk past you scream their name and hope they come over. There is a pecking order within your holding area and it’s up to you to establish your credentials during the course of the afternoon. There are those who yell the loudest and get the talent, and those with superior film knowledge who happily interview the obscure directors the rest of us don’t even recognise. They’re the ones who walk past with their publicist leading the way holding a sign with their names and actually asking if you want to speak to them.

And there is a pecking order on the red carpet too. There are three channels: the one farthest from the media is for executives and invitees with no public profile; the narrow one in the centre is for the big-name celebs who don’t want to stop for interviews; and the channel closest to the media is for those who do.

It’s a lesson in perseverance, hollering and pot luck. It also shows that sometimes God just has a really good day: Charlize Theron, for instance, gliding down the middle channel in white, looking willowy, graceful, and breathtakingly beautiful. She didn’t stop to talk but she did walk past twice.

Some smile as though they’d love to stop and chat but their feet keep moving. Others work the crowd like a charm. George Clooney shook hands, Jane Fonda gave a regal wave. Sometimes it’s their minders who play the bad cop, taking the blame for keeping them moving, while others, like Hugh Jackman, won me over for life. By calling my name, coming over and greeting me with a kiss, Jackman instantly catapulted me up the media ranks. My value in my journalist pack suddenly skyrocketed and even my cynical seasoned cameraman was impressed.

Of course we didn’t go inside for the awards. Instead the media filed into a function room, helped themselves to the buffet and watched the telecast like everyone at home.

When it was all over, I dashed back downstairs to catch some of the stars leaving. Kristen Stewart hobbled past on her crutches, Salma Hayek left with her husband’s tux jacket wrapped around her tiny frame, and a gorgeous Jennifer Aniston in a swooping red dress clutched the hand of her fiancé. Suddenly they looked like normal people . . . very, very beautiful normal people, but as cold and tired as I was.

By the time I got back to my room, kicked off my heels and twisted and wriggled my way out of my boned and buttoned dress, the magic seemed to wash away with all my make-up. The pumpkin had reappeared. And I imagine the superstars I had been gazing at were doing the same thing.

Just like a bride, the next day you wake up to a stunning gown hanging on the back of the door, a tonne of happy snaps to remember the occasion, some great stories to tell and an extraordinary night to remember forever.

Romance

There’s a great episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where Ray and Debra finally get out of the house for a date night. They spend hours getting ready, savour the build up to being alone, then, before the entrée is even served, they run out of things to say. A long boring silence is met with ‘Pass the breadsticks . . .’

Funny, but true!

It usually takes a wedding anniversary or birthday for John and me to finally book a babysitter and head out for a romantic dinner. The delay is not for any reason other than we simply don’t get around to it. We’re just as happy to hang out at home, order take-away, watch a movie and be together as a family. Once you have children, they tend to take over your life and dominate your social calendar.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the every day and forget to take a little time out for yourselves as a couple. Particularly when the kids were little; I felt guilty, as though I owed my non-work time to our children first and foremost.

It took me a while to realise that nurturing my children is just as important as nurturing my relationship and myself.

Happy parents make for a happy family.

It’s almost like you go into this child-cocoon for a few years when you start a family. You are focused purely on home base. Babies are completely reliant on you for everything and that can be all consuming and draining on your time and energy.

But then you come out the other side. You’re ready to hit the town again and happy to see your partner as the spunky young man you once married, not just a nappy-changing assistant. You want him in your bed, and not just so you can shove him out when the baby cries during the night.

The mother of a friend of mine has a lovely saying: ‘You have your kids on loan but each other forever.’

So we continue to strive for the right balance. Time alone as a couple, time alone as individuals, and time together as a family.

I snatch moments for myself when I can. It may be as simple as driving home from work with the radio blaring and the windows down, or, on days when I’m all talked out, switching the radio off and enjoying the silence. It can be pottering in the garden given the kids find that way too boring to hang around for long, or being home alone in the middle of the day, ignoring the ironing and instead watching TV without feeling guilty.

Time together as a family can be a picnic blanket at Saturday morning sport or a barbecue just for us on a Sunday afternoon.

And time together as a couple can be as simple as a nice dinner out, or even a quiet dinner in and a movie uninterrupted—and, of course, a basket of breadsticks.

Rostering

I have spent much of the last week baking ahead of an overseas trip for work. Meringues, muffins, panforte, (my mother-in-law’s recipe which I had to learn as a condition of marriage!)—all bribes or rather thank you gifts for my girlfriends and the volunteers I have recruited to keep the kids’ lives running while I’m away.

Now, I know an ice-cream container stuffed with homemade pink meringues doesn’t quite equal collecting my son from school and taking my daughter to ballet, but it’s one small way to show my girlfriends how much I appreciate them.

My hubby has cleared his diary as much as business will allow, but given the average nine-to-five job is those hours and more, I need a few extra hands on deck to fill the gaps.

There’s a lunch box packed with treats for Poppy. He has the Wednesday afternoon soccer-training shift. He’s pretty easy to keep happy though . . . a regular Friday night roast dinner and the odd chocolate cake usually cuts it.

My mother-in-law is also scheduled to come and stay for a few days. For me, that’s a treat. I will return to clothes ironed with starch and creases sharp enough to cut butter, the bath scrubbed with Gumption and the kids high on lollies and priceless grandmotherly love.

I have left a detailed roster on the fridge—who picks up and drops off—and a week’s worth of meals prepared and in the freezer. All carefully labelled, of course. Making sure every ‘i’ is dotted and ‘t’ is crossed eases a bit of the guilt I feel when I’m away from home.

But even when I’m not going away, it’s the logistics of having everything run on time every time without a hitch that does my head in. Trying to keep up the pace without sounding like a nag.

It’s the everyday planning that I find the most time-consuming. Who has sports day, news day or a project due; how to organise things when one has ballet and the other has to be at cricket training at the same time; who’s dropping one child off at the party on Saturday morning and taking the other one to sport.

Most of the time it runs pretty smoothly, until it’s stuffed up by me, ironically the one who ties herself in knots trying to keep it all on track.

I once took some time off when John was away for work and embraced the full-time mum hours. I baked like Donna Hay, and packed lunch boxes with wondrous fluffy delights. I read every note that came home on the very day it came home (as opposed to three days later when I found it in the car/at the bottom of the school bag/ under the junk on the bench) and arranged them on the fridge door in calendar order.

I even replied to a party invite before the due date.

Just when I thought I had it all under control, we reached day two and I forgot it was mufti day. Marching through the front gate were all my son’s friends dressed in their casual gear. So, with a seven year old in tears in the back seat, we turned around and dashed home to change. The note on the fridge stared back at me—I must have forgotten to actually read it.

Day four was hardly better. We left his school bag behind.

I’d been putting all my energies into mastering the afternoon shift, and it’s clear that while I was at work I gave little consideration to the mornings, what they entailed or how they worked.

My son has had two late notes in his whole school year . . . and both were on my watch.

So my lesson in all of this is stick to what you’re good at. I’ve mastered afternoons and all the stuff in between, while John has the mornings sorted.

Keep the roster on the fridge, updated and organised. And keep baking pink meringues.

Royal Birth

There I was standing outside St Mary’s hospital in London in July 2013, excitedly telling Australia Catherine the Duchess of Cambridge had gone into labour. There were helicopters hovering overhead, photographers on stepladders packed into a holding yard behind metal barricades, and journalists like me lined up in the street giving breathless reports to viewers back home in every language from English to French.

And deep inside the hospital, trying to ignore the commotion, was a 31-year-old woman probably screaming in agony as she gave birth to the future king of England.

Every mum has a birth story. Granted most won’t be anything like Kate’s, but most mothers will happily share the details of one of the biggest days of their life.

Some will want to fill your mind with fear. They’ll describe every gruesome detail, maybe even embellish the bad bits to have you believe their labour was the toughest, longest and most painful ever. They want kudos and they want you to walk away in shock and awe.

Others, like me, will take the more politically incorrect road and tell you it was the most amazing experience of their life. Of course it hurts—hey, you’re pushing a kid out—but it can also be the most powerful, amazing, incredible thing you will ever do.

You grew a human in your body!

I remember feeling so amazingly strong following the birth of my firstborn (after I recovered from feeling so weak and worn out). From that moment on I knew I could do anything. Giving birth entails some of the most incredible moments of my life; the emotions, the physical limits I could push myself to, and the gorgeous little people that came into being because of it are simply indescribable.

Both my births were pretty textbook. I had smooth pregnancies and carried full term. I remember our hurried dash to the hospital to deliver Nick. It was during the 2 a.m. car trip when I realised my contractions were rather close together. John wasn’t sure whether to drive slowly and gently or step on it. He stepped on it. Nick was born a few hours later after John had enjoyed a hot breakfast delivered to the room ( intended for me, but clearly not what I was wanting at that point) and watched Tiger Woods win the US Masters. Talia’s birth was a little more organised . . . due a few days before Christmas, we opted to have her induced. I had a lovely little bundle in my arms on Christmas Day.

Don’t listen to the naysayers who will try and scare you with tales of horror and pain. Give some serious thought to how and where you want to give birth and embrace it. I hope it goes to plan, but if it doesn’t, let it go. The health of you and your baby is all that matters. When your robust child is rushing home to you from school, you would have long forgotten you didn’t light the incense or use your playlist.

It will change your life in more ways than one.

School Holidays

Parents either love school holidays or hate them.

Maybe because I escape the house every day to head to work, I fall into the first category. School holidays in our house are an excuse to be together all day, wear our PJ’s, make a mess and check off all the fun items on the wish list we stick on the fridge at the end of every term.

We hang sheets between chairs and transform our living area into a Bedouin playground . . . using pillows, towels, pegs and torches. Once I give in to the mess and relax, we have a blast. We bake cakes, decorate chicken pies with our initials in pastry and make Smarties biscuits.

There’s a little bit of control that every modern mum just has to let go of once in a while. And trust me: when you do, it’s liberating!

The kids love helping me cook, so to hell with the mess, I can sweep up flour later. So what if the Smarties aren’t centred, the icing is a gross shade of blue and crayons cover the coffee table? The ironing can pile up in the corner while we have a pyjama day.

When the kids were smaller, we’d go to the video store and hire classics from my childhood such as Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book. There is something blissful about not going anywhere, not having to dress up. Our biggest excursion is often to the supermarket for more supplies.

Dinners are a little more extravagant than usual. By that I mean anything that takes longer than twenty minutes. We trawl through those admired but largely untouched cookbooks for inspiration, and because I’m not rushing out the door to get Nick to footy training or collecting Talia from ballet, I can put a roast in the oven.

When you live life by a routine it’s so nice to throw that out the window once in a while. It’s grounding to just chill out.

It goes without saying that as adults we’re busy. Always overcommitted, with somewhere to be and someone to see. But what about our kids? Are we forcing them to grow up via our diaries and timetables, always a training session to go to, a friend’s house to be at, homework to complete?

I know how much I crave just plonking on the couch and vegging out in front of my favourite mindless TV show, so why would my kids be any different?

The bulk of our summer break is usually spent at home, having barbecues, playing backyard cricket, inviting friends to stop by, or going to the beach and doing as little as possible.

In winter we bunker down, hold movie marathons, have friends over and drink hot chocolate.

With so much on the agenda all year, sometimes we just need to stop. Be together. Do nothing. Eat popcorn on a Saturday night and play a game of Uno.

And it’s so important to let the kids entertain themselves. Holidays don’t have to be an endless array of theme parks, excursions and play dates. What is wrong with finding worms, drawing or building tents?

When life feels like every moment is accounted for in order to make it all run smoothly (and, believe me, I’m a big advocate of routines) it’s nice to sometimes throw the agenda right out the window. Savour having nowhere to be. And let kids be kids . . . let them find ways to entertain themselves. Send them into the backyard, let them take over the floor with a puzzle and stay up late watching reruns of Tom and Jerry.

May my biggest dilemma be trying to work out the secret password to the tent.

It won’t be long before they don’t want to do this stuff with me. Their friends will be more exciting and important.

And when that happens I’ll probably long for the time I spent putting the house back to normal, folding the sheets, putting the mixmaster back in the cupboard and packing the face paints away for another time.

Smoke and Mirrors

I used to think that when I took my daughter out as a toddler I needed some sort of badge to pin to her top when she was wearing an outfit of her own creation. One that told people, ‘I’m three and I dressed myself.’

I needed a disclaimer that would absolve me from any responsibility when she was wearing every available shade of pink and purple finished off with sparkly Barbie gumboots, a crown and a giant pair of fairy wings.

Maybe as a grown woman I need to do the same—to fess up to when I don’t dress myself. For it’s when I am teetering across the playground in high heels and full make-up straight from work that I feel most out of place and self-conscious. My girlfriends crack a few jokes as my heels sink into the wet grass, because normally I would have slipped into ‘my’ clothes by then.

There are two decidedly different ‘fashion Mels’: the Mel who would get glammed up each morning to appear on Sunrise with impractically high heels and some wonderful borrowed clothes, and the regular, casual, slightly less-coordinated Mel who existed the rest of the time.

The daytime Mel was very lucky. She had clothes chosen and laid out by a professional with way more style and coordination than I’ll ever have. Her hair was blow-dried and her make-up carefully applied to conceal dark circles and create what Mother Nature didn’t. I wore suck-it-in underwear, great shoes and lipstick, all to make me look and feel slimmer, taller and prettier.

It was like playing dress-ups each day, because God knows I didn’t wake up looking like ‘that Mel’.

But once the clock struck 9 a.m. I’d run out of the Sunrise studio, discarding my heels faster than it took for the coach to turn back into a pumpkin.

The at-home Mel removed all the make-up the moment she got in the front door. She’d be straight into flat shoes and comfortable clothes and instantly feel relaxed.

On weekends I used to think I had to at least look a bit like Mel from the TV, but to be honest that was just way too difficult, time-consuming and simply too much pressure. We all need to relax when off-duty and for me that means avoiding a mirror. I’m hardly going to rock up to the kids’ soccer games on a Saturday morning in full make-up. I used to worry I would disappoint people who expected me to look like I do in front of the camera, but now, as long as I’m looking half decent and tidy, I’m ok with it. Mind you, I do get ‘Has anyone ever told you you look a bit like that girl on the TV?’ I don’t want to know if I look better or worse.

And the help I receive Monday to Friday makes the weekend contrast seem even crueller. It’s like waking up the day after your wedding when you were looking your most gorgeous and finding your hair flat, face blotchy and you can’t wear that incredible dress again. It’s a blow to any girl’s ego!

Please don’t for a moment think I don’t care. I probably spend way too much money on skincare in the hope of attaining the glowing youthful complexion we see in the ads. And like most women I’m always striving for that smart casual I’ve-just-thrown-this-together look. I tear pages from magazines for inspiration and stick them to my cupboard door, and sometimes straight out copy them. But try as I might, I never seem to look as put together, neat and casually glamorous as those models do.

And when I get called away on assignment and left to my own devices, it’s even more haphazard.

I remember a few years ago when I flew to Tasmania with less than an hour’s notice to cover the mine collapse. It was a Sunday night and I was cleaning my teeth in my PJ’s when I got the call. As we thought the men would be out by dawn, I took one pair of jeans, an extra shirt and just one jacket. I was there for two weeks. All I could find at the local hardware store was a pair of men’s Blundstone boots three sizes too big. I did manage to find a few extra pairs of knickers at the local supermarket.

Covering the Victorian bushfires, I was in a similar situation. There I was rinsing my socks and underwear each night in the bath and hanging them around my room to dry.

It was decidedly unglamorous, but far closer to the real me.

I’ve had near disasters. Flying to Canberra to host Sunrise’s coverage of the 2010 federal election, I arrived on time but my luggage didn’t. A problem at the best of times, but when you’re on national TV in less than 24 hours and every panel member had been dressed to colour coordinate . . . well, it was tracked down later that night and couriered to my hotel, but not before I had started to panic.

Although, maybe I would have been better off had it not been returned. I wore a white jacket and a top underneath in such a soft pink that on air it blended into my skin and looked like I was wearing nothing more than a very low-cut blazer. Viewers assumed I was being unusually risqué. My colleagues and I have since dubbed that particular shade of pink ‘election nude’.

I’ve also had shockers on air. Outfits that looked ok on the rack but were failures in front of a TV camera. I’ve had hairstyles I’ve regretted, breakouts I’ve tried to hide and weight fluctuations I’ve tried to camouflage.

But then, haven’t we all?

It’s just that mine have been a little more public. And where most of us can shove photos of those embarrassing moments to the back of the album, mine are out there for all to laugh at and comment on. Especially me.

Social Media

Love it or hate it, social media is here. It’s a big part of our lives and only getting bigger.

I first joined Twitter and Facebook to keep up with the pack. I didn’t want to be left behind when everyone else was talking about them; more importantly, I didn’t want to be one of those mums who had no idea what her kids were talking about.

Mine aren’t yet of the age to be participating in social media. Facebook for them is a few years away, thankfully, but when the time comes I’m glad I understand what they are getting themselves into, and have enough knowledge to keep an eye on their activities.

We have all heard the horror stories about when teens are bullied online and their parents find out too late; kids who fall victim to friends who aren’t who they claim to be; and girls who post something online and live to regret it, not yet understanding that once a picture is out there it can never be taken back.

As a parent it’s my job to know what my kids are up to online. Sure, it takes a little more effort than when my parents simply had to monitor my very long after-school phone calls, but it’s going to be a big part of their lives and I have no choice but to understand it.

As parents we need to go online and play, go into their world and get a grasp on what they are doing and with whom they are communicating. Don’t be afraid of pressing the wrong button . . . you won’t break the machine! Learn. Many schools offer classes for parents, or you could pay your kids to teach you. All kids like having one up on their parents.

Saying you don’t know what it’s all about is a cop-out. And don’t rely solely on cyber-safety technology. If you’re doing that, it’s probably already too late. Your kids will know way more than you and can probably find a way to keep what they are doing a secret.

The reality is that not every kid is comfortable talking about their online activity with their parents, and not every parent is able to monitor everything their children are doing.

Experts tell us the key to kids being safe is to teach them as much as possible about what they are doing and the implications of their actions.

I once heard it likened to a child posting their picture, name and address on a telegraph pole in the centre of town. A child would be horrified to do such a thing. Well, tell them the internet is the equivalent.

It’s all about education and open communication, and, if not with you, then with someone you trust such as an older sibling, cousin or friend.

There are also plenty of really helpful sites for parents. You can check out the Australian Communication and Media Authority’s (ACMA) cybersafety site: www.cybersmart.gov.au

Or the Alannah and Madeline Foundation: www.amf.org.au

I also came across this great list from Telstra with some tips that I found useful, so I hope you do too.

1. Understand the sites and technology your kids use and know who they’re talking to.

2. Create a list of online rules with the family such as time limits and sites that are ok to visit.

3. Educate your kids so they know not to give out personal details online without parental knowledge.

4. Make sure your kids know what to do and where to go if they encounter cyber-bullying.

5. Regularly sit with your kids when they are on the internet. Let them know you are interested and keen to understand their online activity.

6. Advise your kids to take extreme caution and keep online friendships online, and to never agree to meet their online friends without parental supervision.

7. Talk with your family about the risks of internet use, particularly in chat rooms.

8. Reinforce positive behaviour and values such as being respectful of others.

9. Don’t ignore new technologies—kids and teens will use them, if not at home then at friends’ houses or in the schoolyard. Ask your child to give you a lesson on sites or internet gadgets you may not be familiar with.

10. Install software or subscribe to services that can filter content and block offensive websites.

Source: Telstra 2012 www.exchange.telstra.com.au/2012/04/20/telstra-safe-social-service-protecting-kids-online/

Sons

Until his voice drops or he’s too embarrassed to be seen with me in public, I figure I still have some degree of influence over my son.

I’ve already relinquished any control over his fashion and long ago gave up pestering him to cut his hair, wash his face or wear a singlet in winter. But I can still insist he clean his room and I can still hug and kiss him in public.

The older he gets, the bolder the line between mothering and smothering becomes.

I want him to grow into a strong independent man who can hold his own with the boys and not get beaten up behind the sheds at school, but also one who cares for his sister and remembers his mother’s birthday.

I can encourage him, but must also be prepared to let him fail.

I want him to grow into a confident and kind man. Gentle but strong, considerate but spirited and adventurous.

The harder I try to find a balance, the more I am aware that women can send some pretty mixed messages to the grown men in their lives.

We want you to dress nicely and get up to the baby crying in the night, but we also want you to re-hang that squeaky door and get the possums out of the roof.

We want you to hunt the meal but also cook it occasionally, father our children but also read to them and plait their hair.

Blame David Beckham. He set the standard for style and showed men they could combine a love for a sarong with some pretty awesome sporting prowess. His fancy footwork on the field balanced out that squeaky voice and gelled hair.

Then along came Daniel Craig and women the world over swooned at his rugged handsomeness. Unlike Beckham, James Bond wouldn’t be caught dead with painted nails or wearing his wife’s knickers.

So after years encouraging our men to get in touch with their feminine side, it seems they did . . . and then we changed our minds.

Sorry, boys.

Shed tears by all means, but wipe them away with your Chesty Bonds singlet.

Sport

For a good fifteen years of a parent’s life, Saturday and/or Sunday mornings are spent praying for a parking spot, lugging gear and oranges and cheering for a sport you’ll never fully understand.

Forget weekends away—they are for parents who haven’t committed to weekend sport.

Love it or hate it, I’m assured I will one day miss it.

In summer, we’re a cricket family . . . that’s a good four to five hours sitting in the sun in comfy camping chairs, reading the papers, chatting to other families and standing up and paying attention when my son goes in to bowl or bat.

In winter, it’s AFL . . . a lot faster paced, which is just as well in the freezing cold.

There are plenty of parents who will tell you they’re not too happy with weekend sport, but I’m not one of them. I’d only be at home loading the washing machine or cleaning out the fridge. May as well sit in a comfy camp chair in the sun, drinking coffee and chatting to the mums. It’s forced relaxation!

We even have a handy system going at cricket, given it’s such a long game. If you’re immersed in the paper or a conversation, someone will give you a heads up when your son goes in to bowl . . . enough time to jump up and cheer accordingly.

Granted the long game can be a little trying on a younger sister, but there are usually enough spare siblings around to get some sort of off-field game going.

We’ve actually built up some wonderful friendships over the years with the parents of our kids’ team mates, and our children have made some great friends who live locally but attend other schools—all because we spend so much time together on our weekends.

It’s also become a fun way to explore our neighbourhood. We’ve played at ovals I never even knew existed, hidden gems only a few kilometres from home. We’ve also trekked across town, and cursed losing half the day.

Most importantly, I have quickly learnt which fields have the coffee carts . . .

It’s such a nice way to watch my children have fun. There is nothing sweeter than when one of the boys gets a wicket and the entire team runs in to congratulate him, leaping in the air and whooping with joy. Or when someone kicks a goal in soccer and runs around the field with their shirt over their head and their fingers in the air like their Premier League heroes.

I remember watching my then five-year-old daughter’s first soccer game. Her little team like a flock of birds sweeping from one end of the field to the other in perfect unison. She really had no idea about what she was doing but, thankfully, she wasn’t the only one. They were all hoping the ball would simply come to them and if it did they’d kick it.

But while they have fun, I also value what they are learning about competition. Childhood is the best time in life to learn that we can’t always win.

I sometimes worry that we have become too politically correct in our accolades. Schools give the whole class achievement awards so no one stands out; the entire team gets a trophy at the end of the season; and, in some sports, each child gets to kick a free goal at the end of the game so no one goes home feeling disappointed.

It’s important to teach our kids to have fun, it’s important to teach them to be competitive, but we also need to teach them that they won’t always get the gold medal.

Some of the most human moments at elite levels of sport have for me been watching our top athletes manage loss with dignity and grace. We feel their disappointment, but it’s how they handle it and the guts and leadership they show that puts them on the top of the podium in my eyes.

We all want our kids to grow up winners. We want to give them every opportunity in life to succeed. And we need to teach them that it takes hard work and ability to get there. But even if they slug their guts out, not everyone can swim like Michael Phelps, or run like Usain Bolt.

In the real world, there’s always the person who puts in half the work but still breezes through; a girl you grew up with might be blessed with both beauty and brains; or a colleague may be promoted ahead of you when you honestly believed the job was yours.

I hope my children will grow into adults who always work hard and strive to achieve but can recognise and appreciate when others around them do better.

Spotto!

Funny how when the kids are no longer in the car I still find myself calling ‘Spotto!’ when I see a bright yellow vehicle going past. Childish, I know, but hey, that’s part of the fun.

It’s like rediscovering the joy of a Paddle Pop running down your arm on a hot Saturday afternoon, or being mesmerised by the rhythm as you go higher on a swing in the park . . . and make the kids wait.

Kids games are fun for a reason, so let’s continue to enjoy them when we’re all grown up!

When was the last time you painted with the kids and let yourself get messy, or went to town with the biscuit mix and hundreds and thousands and didn’t stress over the mess? Or the last time you built a Lego tower or spent a whole day in the pool without worrying about splashing your hair and getting waterlogged?

Having kids is the best excuse to be one yourself all over again, and have a great time doing it. Sitting on the floor and building a puzzle, kicking a ball at the oval—these are the moments I most enjoy and the ones my kids remember. I just have to resist the temptation to try and prevent the mess or pop a load of washing in the machine in the middle of a game of Monopoly.

Of course, the chores have to be done, but a lot of the time they can wait.

You might find you’ll have a lot of fun. After all, these games are loved for a reason. If nothing more, engaging in playtime will force you to stop once in a while, ignore the phone, and let the world pass by.

So help dress up Barbie, bury yourself in the sand, paint with your fingers and sing along in the car.

Just remember, sometimes you need your kids with you for validation. John once dropped Nick off at daycare and drove another 30 minutes to work before realising he was still singing along to The Wiggles, alone.

But just as games, fairy floss and puddles can remind you how much fun being a kid is, things like thunderstorms can remind you how scary it is too. What is it about that roar in the night sky and the flash of light that suddenly makes you feel so small as you’re curled up in bed?

Sure enough, just as you are relishing the warmth of the doona while the storm rages outside, you hear the shuffle of feet down the hallway. Next minute a little body crawls into bed beside you.

‘Mum, I’m scared.’

I’m sorry my kids are scared of storms, but secretly happy they still need me.

So like any pair of storytellers, we analyse what might be making the noise. Maybe it’s their great-grandfathers in heaven playing a wild game of bowls, or the clouds blowing in the wind and crashing off course. In the end we all decide it’s the sky’s equivalent of a certain bodily function. All bluster and noise but no substance. To a then seven-year-old boy who cracked up at a whoopee cushion, it was the perfect explanation.

I’d better add toilet humour to my list of childish moments.

Tears

There is no doubt that getting up at 3 a.m. to do your job is horrid. As much as I loved working on Sunrise, for many years I missed out on breakfast with the kids, morning cuddles and making school lunches—oh, and my quota of sleep. But if there was a silver lining it’s that I never had to do the daycare drop-off or say goodbye.

John has always been the one to manage the emotional roller coaster of the teary farewell. I only ever got the happy-to-see-you end of the day. And just as well, really. Nick cried every time he went to daycare. The tears only lasted as long as it took John to get back to his car, but this went on for six excruciating months. His teachers kept reassuring us he was happy and settling quickly, but it was still awful. John was as distressed as Nick.

Inevitably, that gut-wrenching emotion makes you question everything you’re doing. Were we making the right decision? Should I have quit work and stayed home? Were we being horrible, uncaring parents?

The only way John could get some peace of mind before heading to the office was by loitering in the garden and peeking back in the windows five minutes after walking out the door to see that Nick really was ok and already playing. And most of the time there was another parent doing exactly the same thing. It helps to know you aren’t the only paranoid and emotionally strung-out mum or dad wondering if your child really is managing without you.

Talia was a different matter. She was always keen to go to daycare and even had her outfits picked out the night before. From the outset she looked forward to seeing her new friends, reading stories and making craft. I’m not sure if it’s a girl/boy thing or a first-child/ second-child thing but our experience with them differed so much. And I know how relieved John was to discover that he didn’t need to worry about Talia at drop-off.

One afternoon when I arrived at 3 p.m. to collect Talia from preschool, instead of being overjoyed to be going home she sent me packing and told me to come back at 5.30 p.m. so she could spend some quiet time with the teachers after everyone else had gone. I was so shocked that I left, but came back an hour later and fibbed it was 5.30.

Aside from the decision of whether or not to return to work after having a baby, putting your childcare plan into place is the hardest step. Will they cope without me? Will I cope without them? Will they love their carer more, or me any less? And how do you cope with your own tears and guilt when everyone else is focused (quite rightly) on your child’s emotions? After all, you’re meant to be the grown-up here.

Knowing they are happy and safe where they are going certainly helps. And remembering John and I were their one and only mum and dad made me feel better about leaving them with the spunky, pretty and way-more-fun-than-I’ll-ever-be teacher.

We tried to get our family (big members and little ones) used to this new routine in advance. Before I headed back to work we did a few dry runs. John dropped Nick off at daycare while I sat at home and cried. We figured that it was best not to make our first teary farewell the same morning that I headed back into the office after my maternity leave. Running mascara isn’t the most ‘together’ look and it’s hard to convey your commitment to your employer when you can’t stop crying long enough to say hello!

How many times can you call the daycare centre to check your child’s ok without crossing over into that crazy-mum zone? I always figured if you had to rely on a webcam in the kindy to make sure they were ok, then best you move them somewhere else. Or stay home.

When to return to work is a difficult decision to make. It’s complicated by emotions—some rational and some not. But when you do make the decision that you feel is best for you and your family, embrace it and don’t beat yourself up. Jump in the car (with no one else to buckle in) and, if you’re heading back to work, crank up the radio, sing something other than The Wiggles at the top of your lungs and enjoy your moment of solitude. And get your husband to do drop-offs.

Technology

As much as I like to convince myself I’m a groovy young mum there are occasional moments that remind me I am well and truly from the generation before.

As if using the word ‘groovy’ doesn’t already give it away . . .

Like when our kids stumbled across a box of old cassettes and had no idea what they were! It was one thing to be reminded of my teenage love affair with Wham!, Bobby Brown and Spandau Ballet, it was quite another thing to have to explain such archaic technology as cassettes and videos.

They were incredulous when I told them I used to wait until the radio DJ had stopped announcing the song so I could quickly press record on my old red tape deck to make my own dodgy compilation tapes.

Today my son downloads music from iTunes for me and compiles his own playlists. He consolidates the apps on my iPhone, can iQ a show on Foxtel and enter his footy tips online.

My daughter manoeuvres the internet with the dexterity of someone who has grown up doing it. She can find her way around the Barbie website with the same skill I used to apply to simply dressing Barbie.

When we bought Poppy an iPod for his birthday, it was his granddaughter who taught him how to use it. And not so long ago Talia asked me if she could install Kik so she could chat with her friends. I said no because she was too young. When I suggested she just pick up the phone and ring them, she looked at me in shock.

Like most children of their generation they are learning computers at school and appear completely undaunted by the array of information before them. Projects now involve PowerPoint presentations and memory sticks. They don’t know life without mobile phones, GPS or laptops. Encyclopaedias no longer crowd our bookshelves; any information they need is just a Google search away.

Maths homework is done on a website that lets them compete with kids anywhere in the world. Travel news from friends comes in via their parent’s Facebook, and postcards no longer arrive in the mail.

I’ve listened to the advice of every single expert who says monitor and take a keen interest in what your kids are doing online. The computer is on my desk near the kitchen and I am never far away.

I must admit to only recently moving from my trusty Filofax to an electronic diary. I held on to the familiarity of paper and pen for as long as possible, until I was the dinosaur in the family.

But while I can remember the originals of half the remixes I now hear on the radio, I know it’s no different to when I was growing up and my parents were faced with the same issues. I giggled at Dad’s LP collection, and can remember the brick-like phones we first had mounted in the news cars in my early days of journalism.

It’s just that in my head I don’t feel quite that ‘mature’ yet.

Teddy

My teddy is a 40-plus-year-old panda with unnaturally short limbs and not a lot of fur left. He sits somewhere in my cupboard behind handbags and hats . . . accessories more befitting a woman of my age.

He reminds me that I was once little and totally devoted to the very first partner that shared my bed.

While I can’t completely part with him, I also can’t remember when he went from being the most important friend I had to a mangy looking soft toy.

And now, after many years of devotion, being dragged around by one arm, and participation in every major and minor event in Nick’s life, his teddy is moving on too. Or up in the world, depending on how you look at it.

Instead of being bundled under the doona every night with my son, Teddy now sits up on the bedhead and watches over his little sleeping friend with wisdom and affection.

Rather than a demotion, I see it as a changing of the guard. He’s been replaced with a soccer ball in winter, a cricket bat and ball in summer, and an AFL ball on Sundays.

My little boy is growing up.

There is something slightly sad about no longer seeing your child’s sweet little arms wrapped around their faithful bear. Personally, I can’t see how a cricket ball can provide any warmth or softness at all.

Talia is a little more generous with her affections. She too has a favourite teddy who takes prime position, but she spends a good five minutes at bedtime lining up teddy number two, an elephant, a unicorn, a couple of Barbies and whatever else is in favour that day. She is squished to one side and doesn’t stretch out until we tiptoe in after she’s asleep to remove a few of the more uncomfortable items, such as books or ballet shoes.

Although Nick’s teddy may have been relocated, he is still much loved and a source of comfort, particularly if Nick has a less than stellar day on the footy field, an injury in the playground or a good dressing down from his mum or dad.

And I can be comforted for a few more years that it’s a Sherrin in his bed, and not a Sharon.

Thrift

As I sit on the lounge-room floor with a needle, some thread and a little pile of clothes that need repairing, I suddenly feel rather old-fashioned, but modern at the same time.

Darning is one of those forgotten skills that is once again flourishing through necessity. Thrift is the new black because the world is in the red and has a desire to be green.

Is this the universe’s way of bringing everything back into balance? If the current generation is all about ME, then is a global financial crisis Mother Nature’s way of cutting the big spender off at the knees and bringing her back to old-fashioned values?

I’m proud to be a career woman, but I am secretly just as proud to channel my inner housewife and use my nanna’s 46-year-old Sunbeam Mixmaster to whip up a birthday cake. I love making sausage rolls and sewing nametags onto the kids’ gear.

Faced with having to tighten the purse strings, we are forced to return to our nanna’s skills set. It may be driven by need, but ultimately it’s about being practical. Thrift is good for the planet, good for our wallets and good for our own satisfaction.

Now before you conclude I’m some modern Mrs Cleaver, rest assured I cut corners as well as the next mum. The filling in my sausage rolls might be homemade, but the pastry is bought. I may buy the kids’ clothes a size too big and hem them in order to get an extra year’s wear, but it’s a pretty dodgy job!

I remember my grandmother washing the plastic bags she used to bring the fruit home in. She saved every jar and reused them for her homemade jams or sauces. She had spent her life on the land and made it through the war with very little, so knew what it was like to go without. She was thrifty because she had to be.

Today’s conditions might not be as tough, but they call for similar measures. We are all tightening our belts, thinking twice about which cuts of meat we buy and in which areas we can trim the fat.

We’re even learning to ‘shop’ our own wardrobes. It’s called ‘slow fashion’: when you buy something that lasts longer than one season. Apparently the trend is to use clothes you already have in your wardrobe and wear them in different ways. One magazine editor wrote about the novelty of having something for more than five years and actually wearing it.

Wow, my economic credentials are frightening even me. I must have been planning for the GFC for some time now. I’m wearing clothes I’ve owned for ten years. I’d be wearing more, if they still fitted.

Who on earth starts her wardrobe again each season? Who doesn’t wear clothes she bought last year? Does it really take a GFC to teach people to stop wasting money?

In our house, it’s the kids who need new stock each season—not because they are fashion savvy, but because they grow like weeds. Pants that I hem at the beginning of winter need letting down by the season’s end. Sleeves are inching up their arms, and feet are pretty quickly being squashed into shoes.

That’s why my daughter goes to school in a size-too-big winter tunic reaching half way down her shins and her sleeves rolled up, because Mummy, the recessionista, sees no point in forking out for a uniform that she’ll grown out of in three months.

We see a sale and we stock up. We tap into the hand-me-down network. I scored four school uniforms for Talia from the friend of a friend. I then paid it forward by passing on Nick’s winter pants to a work colleague with a son two years younger.

And I don’t really think my friends can tell if my plain black pants are this year’s cut or 2010’s. I have no idea so I can only assume they don’t either.

I also look at some of my purchases safe in the knowledge I can one day hand them down to my daughter. Anything I buy of quality is justified with the intention that I will one day pass it on to her. I’m sure she’ll find it all incredibly daggy and we’ll have one of those ‘I can’t believe you wore that, Mum!’ conversations, but I have myself convinced that what I buy might one day be vintage and coveted.

Twenty years from now . . . that’s slow fashion.

Which brings me back to my pile of sewing. Why not darn the socks or mend the knickers? It saves me buying new ones.

Everything seems to go in cycles. The generation that does it tough makes sure the next never misses out. Baby boomers gave their children every opportunity. The current generation has grown up in a time of abundance of everything from jobs to life choices. So maybe this is the world’s way of slowing that down, throwing a little challenge into the mix so we appreciate what we have. Some children will grow up affected by a global recession, so maybe they and their peers will have similar values to my grandmother’s and appreciate that not everything is to be thrown away—a backlash to the excess of the eighties, perhaps.

For this or other reasons it seems we are all focusing a little more on home. We’re cooking more, gardening more and even sales in craft supplies are up.

Hopefully manufacturers will follow suit and go back to making goods that last. I wish for mixmasters that survive as long as my nanna’s and socks that won’t need darning.

Tragedy

Like many families, we sat and watched in horror as the human tragedy of the Victorian bushfires unfolded on our TV screen in February 2009. From the safety of our home, we shook our head in disbelief as we heard the death toll slowly mount and knew that this was far worse than the normal summer fires.

On the Sunday, as the worst of the flames ripped through so many pretty Victorian towns, I travelled to Whittlesea to cover the unfolding events for Sunrise. Nothing could have prepared me for the scenes of devastation, loss and heartbreak amid occasional glimmers of hope that have forever stamped this as the worst event of its kind in Australian history.

We are inundated with words and stories and graphic images in our everyday life, so often from the other side of the world, that when confronted with tragedy in our own backyard, it can seem surreal.

Such an event presents a situation of stunning contrast and conflict, a rollercoaster of emotional extremes that seems never-ending. Despite having covered disasters like the Beaconsfield mine collapse in 2006, I had never before witnessed such a dichotomy. Grief and elation punctuated the crowd of people gathered at the community centre and often within minutes of each other.

It’s an Aussie truism that when the chips are down, you can rely on your mates. That sentiment was certainly true in Victoria in the aftermath of the bushfires.

Deservedly, much was said and written about the volunteers, firefighters, medical crews and emergency services—their stories will forever inspire us in their bravery and move us by their generosity of spirit. For all that, the smaller, sometimes unseen gestures will remain with me. Never before had I witnessed such an overwhelming community response to the needs of individuals.

As I stood and watched the sadness unfold, I saw good news and bad. I saw how people responded as they tried to deal with and comprehend what was in front of them.

I watched women arrive laden with home-cooked meals, salads and platters of fruit, selflessly delivered to community halls and sites throughout the district. Men carried boxes overflowing with linen and blankets. People arrived with garbage bags stuffed with baby clothes and toys. Others arrived with shopping bags full of freshly purchased groceries. And others thought of toothbrushes and tissues, baby food and pet food.

I saw an elderly women walk into an evacuation centre clutching her dog—the only remaining possession that was truly her own. The children of a family who walked out of the centre were wearing fresh clothes and boots a few sizes too big—but they were together and grateful nonetheless.

I stood for hours outside the Whittlesea community centre as people swarmed, desperate to hear if their family, friends or neighbours were alive. With no official word able to reach them, they simply had no idea. What cruel agony to endure.

One man paced for hours waiting for someone—anyone—to tell him if they had seen his wife and three children. Last he heard his family was holed up at home. There had since been no communication. He couldn’t get past the police line to check for himself and nobody else could get to the house to give him any answers and put him out of his misery. The waiting was tearing him up as minutes passed like hours, prolonging his pain.

Others wrote names on yellow Post-it notes and stuck them to the community notice board in the hope that missing relatives would see the note and ring to say they were alive and well.

All around me were tears and embraces. There were the sympathetic voices, ‘I’m so sorry,’ and the sobbing responses. One woman fell to the ground howling when she got news. A grief counsellor fell down beside her and scooped her into her arms. In the next instant, a woman drove past with the window down yelling out good news that her neighbour Laura had been found alive on the far reaches of her property.

There were extraordinary displays of emotional support. Strangers hugging strangers and consoling one another, offering cups of tea and a quiet place to sit to try to comprehend the enormity of what they were hearing but didn’t want to believe.

How uplifting it is to see such support and unconditional love appear unsolicited from unexpected places just when it’s needed the most, when so many are feeling alone and helpless.

So often we hear news stories of indifference to our fellow man—but not in Whittlesea. Not that week.

I saw only the best from strangers; the true Aussie spirit rising to the occasion. Whatever we might say about each other we know this: in times of need we are all here for each other.

Covering events such as these has no doubt changed me as a person. The moment they no longer affect me is when I should pack away my journalist’s pen and notebook. They also deeply affect me as a mother. I come home and hug my children, grateful they are safe.

Tweetheart

I used to take my nightly Sunrise conference call with my mobile on mute, tucked into the pocket of my apron and my earphones plugged in. At the same time I would scan my iPad for recipe ideas. My son would be watching TV, my daughter doing her maths homework on the computer, my husband emailing work from his laptop at the kitchen table.

We are constantly wired, connected and in touch with the world . . . we just have to make sure we stay in touch with each other. Come dinner time, everything is switched off, but I wish I could do it more at other times.

Why is that little alert tone from my phone such a lure? Why, when it beeps at me, or the phone rings, do I feel the urge to respond?

I’m hardly an on-call brain surgeon, but I have a strange compulsion to be contactable at all times. Maybe it’s the journalist in me, trained never to miss a story. Maybe I simply kid myself that I’m more important than I really am.

When my kids and hubby are with me it’s easier to turn off the phone; after all, those who need me the most have no need to call.

I also try really hard to switch off when the kids come home from school. I try and give them my full attention as we tackle homework and discuss playground politics. I don’t want them to think they come second.

There is nothing I hate more than talking to someone and they answer their ringing phone mid-conversation. It makes me feel so offended, so I try not to do that to my kids.

Maybe we all need a little technology free-time . . .

We’ve all seen that mum at the park, chatting on her mobile while her child plays alone. She might be spending time with him, but it’s wasted if she’s spending it talking to someone else.

And we’ve probably all been the mum on the phone shushing our kids as we talk or text.

I share my time with so many people all day, so when I’m with my kids I really want to be theirs. I don’t want them to think that technology is the only way we communicate nowadays, either. I still handwrite thank you notes and make my kids do the same.

I’m also very aware that cyberspace has become the new toilet wall. People are a lot quicker and braver to be nasty when they have a degree of anonymity.

My kids are on the brink of Facebook and communicating with the world via the internet. For now, I monitor closely everything they do online and have the power to control what they look at and who they talk to. And long may it last.

We have the computer on my desk in a common area. I regularly check what they have been looking at and who they have been talking to.

And sometimes it’s me. When a little email pops up from my son telling me he loves me, well then maybe technology is not such a bad thing after all.

Umpiring

Who knew there were so many scenes for potential conflict when you have more than one child?

Disputing what we watch on TV I can understand, but does it really matter who sits on what side in the back seat of the car?

I put the armrest down as some sort of Berlin Wall, but still they somehow manage to argue about who climbs in which door, and who sits behind the driver.

One moment they can be such angels, so gorgeous and kind to one another that John and I smile in the knowledge we must be doing ok in this parenting business. But moments later our confidence is gone as the kids break into a fight over who gets to walk through the front door first when we get home.

They even fight over which one of my hands they hold! Apparently the left one is better. Who knew? Thank God I only have two children or we’d be having some real issues.

They used to argue over who would get out of the bath last and get the chance to stretch out and splash. It got so bad I made a chart: a piece of paper and a pencil Blu-Tacked to the wall to keep a roster of whose turn it was to get in or out first.

They would fight over who sits where at the dinner table. There is apparently ‘A’ and ‘B’ seating in my kitchen. So we all picked our own seats and stuck to those. That works well, until someone else joins us for dinner, such as Poppy. Then it’s a whole new battle over who sits next to the guest of honour. My daughter has now started keeping track.

How is it kids can squabble over issues I never even knew existed? I mean really, I thought both my hands were the same.

I tend to let them battle it out by themselves though. If I can handle the noise, or escape outside, I figure it’s up to them to work it out, find a compromise and learn the art of negotiation. We’ve all got to learn to back down some time.

And then just as the dust settles over who gets to squirt the tomato sauce first and who had the most vegetables on their plate, it’s over. They run off and play together with no memory of the rip-roaring but trivial argument they just had. They leave me tearing out my hair with frustration and threats, their latest issue long forgotten.

Thankfully, there are no grudges and no sulking.

Until the next time they get into the car.

Unity

Like so many others, we’re a two-working-parent family. And throughout nearly twenty years of marriage that has meant a bit of give and take, occasional frustrations and the odd shift in the balance of power.

At times my career has been through intense periods, requiring me to work taxing hours and weekends, and travel to cover news events at the drop of a hat, sometimes for a few weeks. John is the one at home managing the timetables and forced to adjust his day to fill in the gaps my absence has left.

Other times, he’s had the pedal to the metal and I’ve done the lion’s share of running the household. He’s travelled or even spent some time commuting interstate when his company made the move south.

Sometimes it’s worked ok, other times it’s left one, or both of us, feeling wrung out and overworked. But it’s still a choice we’ve happily made. And we’re hardly the only ones.

Job offers, a new baby and salary levels can determine who will stay home. Athletes regularly face scheduling their lives around the playing season.

The trick is to maintain a healthy respectful balance and not let resentment creep in. When you are a couple, one person’s success needs to be a shared success. As the saying goes, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

We try our best to hold what we call ‘stop-and-check’ meetings to make sure everyone is managing the juggle. It makes us appreciate what we both bring to the team even more.

I remember one morning on Sunrise I interviewed Megan Basham, the American author of Beside Every Successful Man. Basically she suggested women forfeit their own careers in order to enhance that of their husband’s.

Now before you react like I did with wide-eyed horror, she was talking about the wives of men with demanding jobs and she cited Michelle Obama as her pin-up girl. She says Michelle quit her job as a lawyer to stay at home and be a wife and mother to support her hard-working husband.

So despite women marching in the streets, burning their bras and working their butts off in order to have it all, she is questioning what we’ve been aiming for and is asking if we’ve got our focus wrong.

Michelle is hardly your typical example. Firstly, she all but has to put her career on hold to keep the home fires burning—her husband’s job isn’t exactly nine to five; secondly, it’s not like she is quitting in order to stay home and darn socks. She is probably working just as hard as ever in her role as First Lady, just without her own pay packet.

Basham says that she noticed a few years ago among her girlfriends ‘work began to seem more like an intrusion on our real lives than a vital part of it’: ‘We realised we had to start looking at our dilemma from a new angle and to start seeing our marriages as our own little business enterprises and our husbands as partners in that enterprise.’

She talks to successful men who admit it was the support of their wives at home that helped them reach such dizzying heights in their career. She also says by standing by your man, you can help him uncover the finest man he can be.

Well, I agree. After all, isn’t that what love is all about? Don’t we all want our partners to reach their full potential and be as happy, successful, satisfied and content as they can be? And doesn’t that include me? What if I too want to work hard at something that is my own and gives me satisfaction beyond the walls of my home? Isn’t that what feminists fought so long for—choice?

I have many girlfriends who stay at home while their husbands work. Their family unit is happy and it works for them. Two have walked away from incredibly successful careers to devote more time to their families as they never had enough hours in the day to be the wife, mother, employee and person they wanted to be. Others worked in jobs until they got married and couldn’t wait to quit and throw themselves into full-time motherhood.

Whatever choice you make has to make you happy and work for the family unit you have created. Enough with the guilt! We all want someone beside us who is encouraging and supportive of our choices, whatever they may be.

And what is success? I hope mine will be measured when I die. If my children are happy and good people and I have made those I love happy then that will be a success. I can also look back knowing I worked hard at a career that brought me pleasure, satisfaction and sparked my interest every single day. Hopefully, along the way, I did some good things with my position, such as working with a few worthwhile charities to raise money and awareness .

I’d be lying if I said getting up at 3 a.m. for all those years was easy. I wish I had more hours in the day and spent more time preparing the evening meal. On days when I was at my most tired and grumpy I imagined a life in the country feeding chooks. My house would be calm, tidy and adorned with fresh flowers. But ten minutes later I’d be hooked in by the next news story and couldn’t wait to find out what was around the corner. I am enjoying this journey as much as the next person.

My husband has achieved amazing things in his career and I too have worked bloody hard for my breaks. Over time it will always ebb and flow. There will be times when a husband takes centre stage and other times when the wife steps to the front. Hey, take a look at the Clintons.

Beside every successful person should be someone who loves and supports them, and wants them to be content, satisfied and reach their full potential. We all need our own cheer squad—not just the successful men.

That’s what makes a team.

Vale

So there we were, the four of us, huddled under an oversized golf umbrella on a rainy Saturday morning, burying Lucy, our lovebird, in the rose garden.

A romantic gift from my husband in the early days of our relationship (‘a lovebird for my lovebird’ completely won me over), Lucy had spent fifteen years chirping, scattering seed all over the floor and replying to every squeak of our rubber-soled shoes on the timber floors.

But two partners later and a life of relative luxury, she literally fell off her perch, her little legs raised straight in the air.

Of course I cried my eyes out, but the kids were remarkably composed. It was their first experience with death. How lucky we have been.

So we wrapped her tiny little blue body in some tissue, popped her in a shoebox and gently placed it in the hole we’d dug. And then we talked about dying.

Talia at four wanted to know how long Lucy had to be under the ground before her body flew to heaven. Nick at seven wondered what her soul looked like as it flew through the sky. And lucky she was a bird, they said, because as least she had wings.

We have since buried at least half a dozen goldfish in the same part of the garden, the kids taking some comfort in the fact that their deceased pets are at least all together.

Death is just one topic where you realise how terribly practical children really are. For them it’s all about logistics and the facts.

Not long after we buried Lucy, the father of Talia’s preschool teacher died. The children had been told, so when her teacher returned, I told Talia to give her a big hug and tell her she was thinking of her. Too often death is one of those topics that leave us lost for words.

But not my daughter. I think her exact words were: ‘Don’t worry, Alison. Your dad’s dead, but mine is still alive.’

Very inappropriate, but they were the facts. Of course I was mortified to hear it, but Alison reassured me as a preschool teacher she’d seen and heard it all!

I dread the day we have to help our children deal with death a little closer to home. Primarily because it means we would have lost someone we love, but also because it means explaining our own mortality. My parents always told me they would live forever and, so far, I am lucky enough that they have.

Victory

‘Booyah!’ This is the victory cry in our house, delivered with force and glee, and usually followed up by a dance of some sort that involves fist pumping and a winner’s lap of the lounge room.

There’s nothing like a game of Uno to bring out the competitive streak in our family. And by far the most competitive is our eight-year-old daughter.

Mind you that doesn’t translate to the sporting field—only spelling lessons and board games. Talia tried soccer but was far more focused on her hair and whether I was watching, running the length of the field and giving me the thumbs up and a giant smile as the ball sailed past. She tried athletics but was more interested in talking. But challenge her to a game of Monopoly and winning is all that matters.

If she’s not winning she has no problem bending the rules, changing them or attempting to cheat. She loves board games and loves nothing more than inviting a new victim to the table, smiling sweetly then proceeding to beat them soundly.

Cue the victory dance.

On the flip side, we’re working hard on teaching her to lose with grace. At the moment she almost chokes when forced to congratulate her opponent or watch them dance with glee.

Nick, on the other hand, is a team player. Give him any code that involves team mates and gentleman’s rules and he excels. He’s the first to slap his victorious mate on the back and brag about their abilities.

Teaching them to win and lose and be gracious about both is vital.

Is there anything wrong with being competitive? As long as you’re a good sport about someone else winning, is it wrong to strive to be number one? Or are we watering down the drive to be top of the tree when schools award participation ribbons instead of first, second and third in a bid to minimise competition?

With a numb bottom and slightly stiff legs, I sat through my son’s exceedingly long school presentation morning with the glow and patience of a parent. Every separate grade of children made it’s way onto the stage to sing their prepared piece. There were a few missed notes and the odd forgotten dance step, but it was worth it to hear their names called and watch them clutch their certificates to their chests with accomplishment spread across their faces.

But in this era of political correctness, every child walked away with the same certificate. No one had any more, or any less. Since when did we stop rewarding the smart ones to save the feelings of the rest of us?

I’m all for encouragement. Even the donkey needed a carrot dangled once in a while. But why doesn’t the child who works extra hard get extra recognition? What has happened to the individual achievement awards? Hard work should be rewarded.

I understand we don’t want our children disappointed and discouraged. But is painting us all with the same beige brush the answer?

This is not about a child failing; it’s about another one succeeding. Because someone does well doesn’t mean the person next to him hasn’t. And it’s no different in the adult world.

Some people seem to have it all: the looks, the job and the flash car. Don’t we need to teach our kids to be happy for those we envy and see it as no reflection on ourselves?

We all have different talents and interests. I try to tell my children that some of their friends may be better at maths, quicker at reading or smarter at science. But we all have our strengths and they need to find theirs. We won’t all be Rhodes scholars, sports stars or Isaac Newton, but we can always strive to be.

If there’s no first place or trophy to win then how do we ignite the fire in our bellies? Rather than bring the top down to the bottom, get the bottom to reach the top.

Which is all well and good, until our eight year old beats her dad at Scrabble.

Wasting Time

I decided long ago to compromise: I settled for a messy home and a happy one.

I think my standards of tidiness started slipping the day I returned from hospital with our firstborn. I can remember welcoming visitors on the second day by apologising for the chaos and pointing them to the kettle.

Now before you conclude I’m some sort of slob, rest assured hygiene is still paramount, but clutter is not.

I have a busy house with two children, two working parents and a few pets. The kitchen bench has morphed into a central station and the fridge is a jungle of magnets, reminder notes and merit awards. My car is a mobile kit bag with folding chairs for sport, a footy, fabric shopping bags, a first aid kit and a towel. I am always prepared.

It was never a conscious decision to do less. Instead, time constraints and the sheer volume of things to do forced my hand. It soon became a case of what I was prepared to live with and what I could let go. Of course the clutter drives me crazy, but trying to make the place look like a showroom all the time would make me crazier. I try to tell myself it won’t be like this forever. One day in the future I will get enough sleep and I will feel in control and the kids will learn to clean up after themselves. In the meantime I can live with a little dust.

Like any mum, I don’t have enough time to do everything, and sometimes I need to do nothing.

In between rushing the kids out the door or nagging them to put away their ironing, we need some downtime. Sometimes we just have to stop.

When my kids were toddlers we would spend an entire afternoon in the sandpit. John built it under a tree in our backyard because the grass wouldn’t grow in the shade. Some of our happiest moments were spent there: playing with my son for hours on end; keeping cool during December while nine months’ pregnant; playing with my two children and a bucket of water. Those moments are more important than a gourmet meal. I can remember how much fun we had. I certainly can’t remember what we ate for dinner.

Find something special and make time for it—maybe it’s a walk to the park with your kids, or lying on the floor together and playing with toys. Treasure those moments. They are what you will remember years from now, not the taste of the dinner or the whiteness of your washing.

In school holidays we always aim for at least one pyjama day. It’s exactly that—a day spent in our PJ’s drawing, playing Monopoly or watching movies.

During the school term, we might walk home from school slowly, dawdle and pick a few flowers on the way, or I’ll sit on the couch with the kids and watch TV with them.

Sometimes we all just need to waste some time. Savour the time to do nothing, not tick anything off the to-do list, let dinner be late. It doesn’t really taste much better whether I spent an hour on it or twenty minutes.

Mind you I can only go so long. Then I’ll have a cleaning and organising frenzy! I’ll race around the house like a woman possessed to make up for the time lost—but not wasted.

Wills

It took nine years after the birth of our first child for my husband and me to take a real trip away together, on our own, without the kids.

Sure we’d had the odd night away for a wedding interstate or a night in town after a particularly late function, but never more than one, and never out of the country.

Booking was a hurdle. I’d spent weeks tossing the idea around in my head—should we, shouldn’t we—until John finally just booked our seats and said we’ll work the other stuff out later.

Of course the other stuff was what had me procrastinating. From who would look after the kids while we were away, to who would look after them if we never made it home.

The first part was easy. We made it a holiday for them as much as us. They packed bikes, board games, teddies and gifts and spent two days with Poppy, two days with family friends and the final two days with other friends. All were more than happy to have them . . . it also gave our friends’ kids someone else to play with.

The second question was not so easily answered.

The advice when you have children is to update your will. Distributing your assets on paper is straightforward but the details of working out a future for your children without you in it is another.

The most agonising decision was guardianship.

We thought about the grandparents, but realised in ten years from now they might be a little too old to deal with teenage angst.

We thought about our friends, and those we admire as parents. Our kids would do well to grow up in such loving homes, subject to the encouragement and discipline my girlfriends’ kids get. But that’s too much to ask of a friend: hi, I’ve left you my favourite tea set, oh, and my kids.

In the end we decided on their godfather. He is a very dear friend who loves them as much as we do, someone they are both familiar and comfortable with, and someone with whom we know they’d be happy. It was a pretty emotional conversation to have, but thankfully I don’t think he was surprised. And we were relieved he agreed immediately.

But even then you know that no one will ever love them the way you do, know them as well or know what is best. The fear of not being there for them was almost enough to stop me getting on the plane.

Of course we made it home, and of course we had a wonderful week away together.

Now I’m over the fear of leaving them I realise how valuable it is for them to see Mum and Dad having time alone together and respect the importance of our relationship.

It also does them good to miss us occasionally!

Woof

When Nick was born we were the proud owners of a beautiful black-and-white Border Collie called Tilley. She was definitely my dog—a shadow all through my pregnancy and a dependable companion when I was up feeding my newborn through the night. She’d sneak in through the doggy-door and sit patiently at my feet during those lonely dark hours.

She was as protective of our new baby as we were. John had brought home some of my clothes that smelt like our new baby before I came home from hospital. She was trained to sit at the nursery door, but go no further. We even used to stick our hands in her bowl half way through her meal to get her used to little fingers that may one day overstep the mark and steal her bones.

She was beautifully trained, patient and dependable. And then she died. I was devastated.

As any dog owner will tell you, it’s the first few years with a new pup that are the most challenging. So we waited another five years and another pregnancy later before were able to embark on that journey again.

In came Rex . . . a blond Border Collie with what can only be described as ADHD. He knocked the kids over, tore through the house, chased aeroplanes, their shadows and even his own. We ran him three times a day but still that wasn’t enough. Rex and I went to weekly intensive training classes, but he remained out of control.

Small children, two years and much anguish later it was clear our family wasn’t the right one for him. So we sent him to a farm. Not in the euphemistic sense, but a real working sheep station with hundreds of hectares and other dogs to chase.

Telling Nick was one of the hardest things John and I have ever done.

We went to visit Rex six months after, but to be honest it was too upsetting for us all to visit again.

I am such an animal lover and think it’s wonderful for children to have pets. They learn so much about responsibility and unconditional love but you also have to be realistic.

The next addition to our family was a kitten, a little tabby from the RSPCA. She was low-maintenance, placid and very cute.

Darcy now sits quietly and observes the fish, and the never-ending conversation about if we’re game to try for another dog.

X-rated

The trickiest questions can come at the most unexpected times.

Maybe it’s the safety of a crowd that can give kids the courage to ask that burning question, or the anonymity of somewhere other than home . . . or maybe it’s just a random moment.

We were sitting in the waiting room at the dentist when my son surprised me with, ‘So how did I actually get out of your tummy?’

My shocked response was, ‘Are you sure you want to have this discussion here and now?’

Whether I was stalling as my brain spun into a state of mild panic or I was simply trying to avoid the inevitable embarrassment for both of us, it didn’t matter. His answer was yes.

So in the most clinical and unlikely of environments, I proceeded to explain to him the mechanics of pushing something very big out of something very small. I didn’t blush, or use silly euphemisms for body parts, and I only answered his questions.

‘How did I come out?’ ‘Did it hurt?’ ‘How long did it take?’

My honesty was met with stunned silence and an abrupt end to the conversation. I think he’d heard enough. But at least it was a start.

How and when to talk to your kids about the birds and the bees can be a source of agony for parents. My mum left a copy of Where Did ICome From? on my bed. And what it told me was very different to the stories I’d heard in the playground that involved watermelon seeds and storks.

John and I decided on the wimpy approach: we’d answer honestly, but only when asked.

There is no doubt all kids are different. Some are curious a lot earlier than others and some want much more information.

The expert advice is to give straightforward, age-appropriate answers using the correct names for body parts. This avoids any confusion if children ever need to talk about their bodies. No setting off alarm bells when they tell the teacher that tickling their weenies makes them giggle.

And be grateful your kids are comfortable enough to talk about it with you. I was so embarrassed to buy my first bra, I took the train to a shopping centre about half a dozen stops further along the line than our usual and hid in the change room trying to decide which one fitted best.

Explaining puberty is our next challenge. For a few kids I know, this was even more shocking to them than learning where babies came from, maybe because it affected them more immediately and directly. It’s also a little more complicated to explain. Luckily our school holds a child and parent information evening. I’m not sure who they think needs it most, but, either way, I’m looking forward to someone practised in teaching explaining the science of growing up.

I also know when I don’t have the answer or know how to explain something, the internet will be my friend. There is so much information available to help. That, or a visit to a good old-fashioned library.

We’ve also noticed our children becoming aware of their differences and starting to ask questions, both about their own bodies and ours. They reached a point on their own where they wanted privacy in the bathroom, and it was up to us to respect that. We certainly don’t wander the house starkers, but nor we do we slam the door screaming when they wander in to the bathroom for a chat and one of us is in the shower.

When they do decide to have the conversation, I am there to answer their questions with honest informative answers. Hopefully the steam will camouflage my blushing.

Yasi

Sometimes the roles of mother and journalist are simply not that complementary.

In January 2011, I was sent to Cairns to report on Cyclone Yasi, the biggest storm to ever hit Australia. As I flew in, nearly everybody else was flying out.

On the day the storm was due to hit, I spent eight hours on air warning people about the dangers of what Queensland Premier Anna Bligh was calling a monster storm.

By the time my shift was finished the airport was closed, most roads out of town were blocked, police had cleared the streets using loudhailers and I was completely freaked out.

Ringing home is probably the worst thing you can do when you’re feeling a little vulnerable. You know when you’re just holding it together and someone asks you if you’re all right? That’s guaranteed to start the tears flowing.

I was staying in a big sturdy seven-storey hotel. I knew I would be safe, and once hotel staff delivered me a bucket, a torch and ran through the safety plan, I felt a little calmer (sort of).

I also knew John had dropped everything to pick up the slack at home. Once the mum in me was reassured everything would be ok, the journalist in me could kick into gear.

Our evacuation point was an internal windowless conference room. I would spend the night with two hundred strangers, our pillows and our nerves.

With time on my hands, I dashed to the local convenience store in the hours before the storm hit (along with pretty much every single other person in Cairns) and stocked up on emergency essentials such as bottled water and chocolate.

The chocolate lasted about an hour.

It’s a palpable fear when you have children, particularly when they are still at an age when they need you, and leave the family home to put yourself at risk.

No longer is your safety a personal consideration. Instead it becomes an obligation to the little people at home who depend on you, for another ten years at least.

Of course I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t survive the night. The category-five cyclone hit just before midnight. Winds of nearly 300 kilometres an hour roared around us, trees snapped, buildings were damaged. The noise was truly remarkable, but, as history has told us, Cairns dodged a bullet.

Nearby rural communities weren’t so lucky. They were all but flattened, their produce and livelihoods wiped out in one wild angry night.

We didn’t get a wink of sleep that night and I was on air again at 4 a.m. for another eight-hour marathon. Although I was looking a little worse for wear, my presence at least reassured my family—and my friends who had all sent me messages asking if I was crazy.

The next morning we rose at 12.15 a.m. to drive to Tully, one of the towns hardest hit. Even in the darkness we were confronted with a mess: shop awnings and tin roofs crumpled and lying on the road like balls of paper. We set up our equipment using our car headlights, and breakfast was an apple given to us by hotel staff before we left Cairns. Mind you, I was reluctant to eat or drink too much with no toilet or commercial break in sight, practicalities not really considered.

At times like this I am grateful I am a mother and can feel the sort of empathy I don’t think I could before. But I also feel guilt. And it’s only made worse by ringing my own family every day and telling them I’m not sure when I’ll be home.

Particularly when just a few weeks before Yasi I’d been called back from holidays to report on the Brisbane floods. Leaving my family tore my heart, but I fully understood that was nothing compared to the people who had lost loved ones and the tens of thousands who had lost their homes.

My kids have also come to understand this is Mummy’s job. They know I have to go away sometimes to cover stories, and they know more often than not they are disasters. Bushfires, floods and mine collapses.

But while still at primary school, they are also coming to realise how frightening the world can sometimes be. Like most people, we found ourselves glued to the horrific pictures coming from Japan, only a few weeks after we had seen floods and a cyclone devastate Queensland, then an earthquake crumple Christchurch in New Zealand. Granted we are a very news-oriented house (by nature of my job) but it was only a few days after the Japan quake that my children asked if we would be ok.

I suddenly realised the relentless amount of information available, our constant viewing of television and reading of papers had left them both a little scared.

Their question was simple and practical: could we have an earthquake or a cyclone at our house, and, if we did, where would we go?

We know that kids deal in the here and now so John and I did our best to answer them honestly and directly.

We told them both scenarios were unlikely where we lived, but, if something happened, the four of us would shelter in our little downstairs bathroom together. That would be our family safe haven. It’s the closest thing we have to the windowless internal conference room at my hotel in Cairns, although much, much smaller.

Experts call it ‘vicarious trauma’, and the chief executive of Kids Helpline, Tracy Adams, says it’s important to explain what is happening, but tailor your answers to the child’s age, and then give them a chance to make a difference such as donating their pocket money or writing a letter.

So just as we had once practised our fire evacuation plan, and talked about which neighbours we would go to if there was a problem, we got out the map and saw just how far away Japan was and attempted to explain fault lines and earthquakes.

I also decided to watch a little less news in their company.

It’s a delicate balance not to give them a distorted view of reality, either way. I don’t want them thinking that we always face such major disasters and the world is a frightening place, but nor do I want them growing up without knowing that beyond our fence there are wars, famine and tsunamis.

I’m so grateful that I do have a role to play. We can all find a job to do in times such as a national disaster. Nurse broken bodies and hearts, rebuild homes, fix roads, clean up rubbish, or, in my case, disseminate information—tell you when to leave, where to go, what areas need assistance.

I hope one day my kids will be proud of their mum and then my two jobs will sit nicely together.

Yummy Mummies

Ah, the pressure to be a yummy mummy.

It’s not enough that we grow and deliver a healthy baby, we’re also expected to stride out of hospital in our pre-pregnancy jeans and high heels, the very image of maternal chic.

Seriously, who does that?

I couldn’t even walk in those shoes before I had kids, so there was no way I was going to risk a spill and wear them carrying a precious baby or wrangling a toddler.

Why do we put such pressure on ourselves to prove to the world that we can do it all—have a family and look a million bucks?

I love flipping through magazines and looking at pictures of Angelina Jolie or Heidi Klum and I might even grudgingly (or secretly) envy Victoria Beckham with her stylish sleek dresses and life of luxury . . . but they’re not the mums I look up to. To me, they’re not real. Maybe their life is a lot more like mine that I realise—late nights cleaning up vomit, finding lost teddies, breaking up fights and getting everyone to the table for dinner—but they do so with a wealth of support and round-the-clock staff.

Don’t get me wrong, I love looking at what they wear and will admit to taking the odd supermodel photo to my hairdresser for that post-birth I’ve-had-my-hair-in-a-ponytail-for-twelve-months haircut, but that’s as far as it goes.

And aren’t we sick of hearing about mammoth weight drops? Who achieves the best post-baby body the quickest? What horrid pressure! Every morning spent with their trainer is one less with their gorgeous newborn.

Then there are the gorgeous stars who smile at me from the cover of a magazine with the caption ‘How I plan to regain my famous figure’. Isn’t it more important how she plans to raise a child in Hollywood and keep him or her normal? Mind you, I’ll read the article anyway—with a large dose of jealousy—then remind myself she is probably only 25 and her career does depend on the size of her butt.

Of course, exercise, health and feeling good about yourself after giving birth is vital, but it’s not a race. Motherhood has become way too competitive anyway: whose baby sleeps all night, walks first, speaks first, counts to a hundred. As mums, let’s ease up on ourselves and each other. Sure, having a baby changes your body, but it also changes your life. Let’s talk about how content and happy a new mother looks, not how long it’s taking her to get a flat tummy.

Every mummy is yummy. For some it’s their job to be a size zero. They employ chefs, trainers and probably had damn good genes to start with.

Of course we all want to lose the baby weight and we need to keep ourselves strong and well for our baby’s sake as much as our own.

And exercising and feeling good about yourself is so important to the mental health and wellbeing of every new mum.

But we also need to be happy, healthy, proud and satisfied. At the end of the day your baby’s contentment is really all that matters.

Zzzzz

Parenthood, particularly in the first few years, brings with it an obsession with sleep.

It starts when you’re pregnant and you wake up for no apparent reason in the middle of the night. Just when you should be stocking up on slumber, your body gives you a nasty little taste of what is to come. Soon enough you’re being woken by a hungry cry and dragging yourself out of bed, exhausted and convinced life as you know it is over.

To the parents of a newborn, ‘sleeping through’ becomes as big of a milestone as walking.

And sleep-ins are gone. Remember the lazy Sunday mornings when you could lie in bed as long as you wanted and read the entire newspaper? They don’t come back until your kids are old enough to turn the telly on themselves and patient enough to wait for you to surface. We even moved the breakfast cereal to the bottom shelf in the pantry so they could fix themselves something to eat. Alas, it didn’t work. It’s not Corn Flakes they want, but our company. Not because they can’t do the above but because we can.

Gone too are the Saturday afternoon naps on the couch in front of the footy, and, for a few years, the solid uninterrupted eight hours at night. There’s always some little person who needs to go to the toilet, can’t find Teddy or has had a bad dream.

Sometimes it feels like we will never ever get enough sleep again.

So, as someone who spent fourteen years getting up each day at 3 a.m., I’m an expert in getting what you can, when you can.

I have mastered the art of the nanna nap. I can nod off on the couch for ten minutes and wake up rejuvenated. I’ve even parked at the school gates fifteen minutes early and gently closed my eyes. If I have a child-free day I can go home, crawl under the covers in broad daylight and sleep for two hours. Mind you, I then spend the next hour wandering around dazed and guilty that I’ve wasted my afternoon.

I get excited when I travel interstate. It means a plane trip, which to me means a nap. I can nod off before we have even left the ground. Though I’ll then wake myself up with a little half snore or loll of the head, totally humiliated and apologising to the person next to me.

My secret fantasy is a weekend in a hotel room. No, not quite what you think. In my fantasy I’m alone with nothing but room service and black-out curtains.

The average Aussie mum gets well below seven hours of sleep a night when she has a child under six. And if that doesn’t make you yawn, mums lose between 400 and 750 hours of sleep during the first twelve months of parenthood.

But while I struggle to get enough, I am pretty rigid about how much sleep my children get. I was the boring mum who always took her kids home for their nap, on time, every time. And even now, bedtime is the same time each night, probably because I am just as keen myself to hit the hay. In fact, for many years they were tucking me in and turning out the light.

We know we need sleep for optimum health, but in our house we also need it for sanity. There is nothing quite like the agony of a late afternoon meltdown, as things spiral out of control due to fatigue and hunger.

And that’s just me.

Afterword

On the morning we shot the cover photo for this book I was sitting in the chair of an inner city studio, with my dear friend Sonya doing my hair and make-up and my publisher Claire supervising proceedings—three regular busy working mothers.

And we spent most of our time looking at pictures of each other’s kids, swooning over how cute they were and laughing at the absurdity of each other’s mornings. I had dashed out of the house at 7 a.m, the moment the babysitter arrived to mind Talia and get her to school, because John was away on a band tour with Nick. Sonya had dropped her three kids off at her Mum’s house, who was tasked with taking the boys to school and handing her preschool-aged daughter over to a friend for the next leg of child minding for the day. And Claire had left her baby, along with a list of instructions and a big tub of sunscreen, with her Mum who had just flown in from Ireland.

All in all, a typical day in the life of most busy women!

They say the only thing constant in life is change. I compiled these stories and anecdotes over the past few years and as I progressively read and updated them, it struck me how true this saying is. My lovely little people, Nick and Talia, have changed so much in the time it took me to write this book (too long I know—sorry Allen & Unwin!). But it’s fun for me to reminisce and to share my family experiences with you. Hopefully my stories will highlight that we’re all the same really. Each family has its own quirks and ways, but we all muddle through and find some way to make sense of it all.

I think I’m a typical Aussie working mum. Wanting a career, loving my work, but equally wanting to make sure that I care for my kids, not just financially, but emotionally with my attention. Some days it works and some it all goes to hell in a handbasket.

Nick is twelve now and will be thirteen by the time this book hits the shelves. As I look at him I can see what a sweet, kind boy he is. He’d want me to say he’s ‘tough’ and ‘strong’ too, and you know what, he is. As he starts on the journey through high school I can see that he hasn’t suffered from me working. School captain. Drummer. Dancer. Avid sportsman. I couldn’t be prouder of the young man he’s becoming.

Talia turns ten next week. She’s an independent, confident and capable girl. She has a cracker of a wit, loves all the girly things in life and is equally sweet, mild mannered and good.

It’s for them that we do it all. At least that’s what I’ve always told myself. It’s only recently as I pondered this book that I realised I was right all along. You work hard to get ahead, to provide for your family and to gain some personal and professional satisfaction from your chosen career. You carry the guilt whenever work means you miss some family commitment and you hope and pray it doesn’t have a lingering effect on the kids. And you make up for it when you can by spending time with them and taking an interest.

It can be done. It’s not easy and you need drive and determination . . . and a helping hand regularly. John and I have always got each other’s back. If his work takes him away, I focus on the family and pick up the slack at home. Likewise, when I am away he takes over and we both make sure there’s always someone there for them. It may take a village to raise a child, but it certainly takes a team in my house.

Thank you for reading my book. Hopefully sharing my experiences helps you—even if only by reassuring you that you’re not the only one with a crazy household!

Table of Contents

COVER PAGE

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT PAGE

DEDICATION

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

ABSENT NOTES

ASKING FOR HELP

AUTOGRAPHS

BABY ZONE

BANA-METER

BFFS

BIG BROTHER

BIRTHDAY PARTIES

BELLIES AND BOOBS

BODY COMBAT

CARTWHEELS

CELEBRITY

CHRISTMAS DAY

CHUCKY

COMMUNITY

COPYCATS

CRACKING IT

CRICKET

DAMN THE CLOCK

DIAMONDS AREN’T A GIRL’S ONLY BEST FRIEND

DISHY DADS

DIVORCE

EATING

EINSTEIN

EMBARRASSING

EMPTY NEST

ESCAPING

FAKING IT

FATHER’S DAY

FAVOURITES

FIRE TRUCK

FOOD

FRIENDS

GADGETS

GENES

GIRLS GONE MILD

GOLD

GRANDPARENTS

GROUNDHOG DAY

HAIR APPARENT

HEROES AND ROLE MODELS

HOME SWEET HOME

HOUSEWORK

IDENTITY

IMMORTALITY

INDEPENDENCE

JOB DESCRIPTIONS

JUGGLING

KIDS’ FASHION

KOCHIE

LABELS

LITTLE WHITE LIES

LOST

LOVE

MAKE-BELIEVE

MAKING FRIENDS

MATERNITY LEAVE

MEMORIES

MESS

MOTHER LIONS

MOVEMBER

MUMMY OLYMPICS

NAUGHTY CORNERS

NETWORK

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS

NO

NUDIE RUDIES

OFF TO SCHOOL

ONE-ON-ONE TIME

ORGANISED CHAOS

OWLS

PARENT COACHING

PARENTS

PLAYGROUND POLITICS

POCKET MONEY

QUARANTINE

QUIET TIME

RECYCLING

RED CARPETS

ROMANCE

ROSTERING

ROYAL BIRTH

SCHOOL HOLIDAYS

SMOKE AND MIRRORS

SOCIAL MEDIA

SONS

SPORT

SPOTTO!

TEARS

TECHNOLOGY

TEDDY

THRIFT

TRAGEDY

TWEETHEART

UMPIRING

UNITY

VALE

VICTORY

WASTING TIME

WILLS

WOOF

X-RATED

YASI

YUMMY MUMMIES

ZZZZZ

AFTERWORD