I know it’s in almost every home spread, maybe that’s what has me loving it.

The Eames Rocker (replica obv.)

Via Design Sponge

Orion light

Via Matt Blatt

And these gorgeous bedsides that I missed because someone else has them on hold, I’m not massively bitter or anything.

Via my iPhone at local store

Takes some of the sting out of our childcare debacle today. I learnt that happy to see mummy leave does not equal a smooth trial run but rather equals half an hour of aggravated squealing until mummy gets back.

Hands are significant in this tale, mine are no longer the same.

Anyone who has read here for a while is aware that I have previously been in a violent relationship and while it’s not what I want my life or blog to be about sometimes things cross my path which remind me that yet again it’s time to speak out.

An article of sorts came across my screen this morning and it made me physically ill.

25 Extremely upsetting reactions to Chris Brown at the Grammys

This is an open letter to those women and the people who chose Chris Brown to perform at the Grammys.
What these women have to say is not just ill informed or moronic, it’s dangerous on several levels:

It reinforces the myth that sufferers of violence asked for it. Most people do not enter a relationship expecting or accepting violence, most violent relationships are not so at the outset. Many of these relationships are characterized by an extremely romantic beginning; the sufferer in the relationship is charmed and even as the descent into abuse spirals out of control will often cling to the belief that the person they fell in love with is their reality, not the nightmare they are now in. Unfortunately these perpetrators are the human equivalent of a pitcher plant, using a beautiful facade to suck their partner deep into their consuming toxic depths. Like a bug in a pitcher plant it’s not so easy for the one trapped to just walk away.

It validates the abuser. Saying that you’d not only tolerate but welcome violence allows these abusers to justify themselves. The person who previously left or anyone who stood up to them is not strong enough, or didn’t love them enough. When the only enough they should be hearing is enough of your bullshit. People like Chris Brown and (the previously griped about) Matthew Newton do not need this validation. They get enough from the industries that feel it is acceptable to employ them as public figures when the only thing they deserve is to be ostracized; there are thousands waiting to fill their place in the public eye and I’m sure more the majority don’t perpetrate or condone violence

It says to sufferers that their pain means nothing. That their leaving the relationship was not a strong act and a reclamation of themselves as an important person. Getting out of an abusive relationship is hard work, most of the time your head has been so disoriented by your abuser that you have no inner compass to guide you to happy. Those who get the hell out alive are to be praised and held up as a light to lead those still trying to find their way out, not denigrated for exercising self respect. I knew others who didn’t get out alive, these statements spit on their death and the pain of those who really loved them, which is a truly vile thing to do.

It says to people in an abusive relationship that they should stay. Truly the most scary aspect of this, is the normalizing and acceptance of violence. It’s scary to leave, it can take more than one go. Reading the things that these women had to say might make someone stay in a relationship just a little bit longer. Just a little bit longer is all it takes for them to end up one who never leaves, not alive anyway, which to anyone surely has to be the bare minimum that we hope for for those who have been abused.

It deeply saddens me that in this day and age anyone would step over the line and offer themselves up for abuse. I hate the words that these women spewed forth, I hate the damage that they cause, but I don’t hate them. I would like them to read this, to have a long think about what being the sufferer of violence really means and to volunteer for a few nights at a shelter. See those bruises and that hurt in the raw, see the fear which clings to you and in the dark nights forever. To see these things second hand because while they might wish these things upon themselves I never would.

My right hand, the middle finger is permanently down turned and numb due to being stomped on in the final hours of being punched, kicked and thrown by my ex partner. Look closely ladies it might not seem like much but I’m betting it’s not a price you’re willing to pay not deep down.

We’re about to be even busier; our new love and very first own home together is in need of huge amounts of work. She’s as the real estate agents romantically say a renovators’ delight, and we actually are delighted.

Hope everyone’s weekend is as filled with joy as ours is.

Now that I have older children I’ve spent some time reflecting on that ideal and I have a real problem with it. Because it is simply not true.

I think it needs to be modified to balance encouragement with realism not only because not everyone can be a rock star, fighter pilot, bear whisperer; but to relieve the huge burden that being the master of your destiny can be. Children aren’t supposed to bear the full weight of that, adults probably aren’t either.

I know that being told I could be anything made me an indecisive wreck. Any person I saw happy in their job made me want that job, I didn’t know that it was the happiness of someone realizing their calling I was seeing, I put it down to some magical property that job held. Beyond that I couldn’t see what I wanted to be because what if I got it wrong it would all be over and it would be all my fault.

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one that suffered from this unrealistic tenet of the self esteem movement. It holds a good positive message that is lost in the static of pressure, one that can be remedied with a few simple changes.

There are those of us who know their path and follow it, that’s blissful, but this isn’t for them, I don’t believe they are the majority.

You can be almost anything you want to be IF:

You have a natural talent and are dedicated to developing it

OR you’re willing to put in the hours and hard work to hone a talent

AND you understand that following your dream might come with a price of sacrificing other dreams. Of not having a stable income, or being able to travel the world or any other variable.

Understanding that life can be great and that achieving joy and greatness often means hard work or sacrifice.

Understanding that you might have to work many, many soul sucking jobs to get where you want to be, but that in the end it might be worth it.

Knowing that in the end you might not have gotten where you wanted to be but that the trying might just have been enough, that knowing you exhausted all options trying could be as important as having made it.

Or even that you get there and find it wasn’t really what you thought it would be and now you have to start again in another direction, maybe that will be enough.

But most importantly can we teach our kids that there’s more to it than want? That there’s an ongoing conversation to be had; not short simple motivational sentences that promise to be the answer or the whole truth.

That’s not to say I don’t support less stable decisions. I’m on my way back to university to study visual art, I’m trying to not only follow my dream but set a realistic example of how to pursue it, but how to deal with it if things don’t go right. My eldest wants to write graphic novels, a narrow field with high risk and low reward, Im trying to instill those guidelines to being what you want while helping her chase the dream. Hopefully she’ll get where she wants to be and find it’s exactly as she dreamt. But more importantly she’ll know it’s not the end of the world if she doesn’t.

Proof positive that I way over thought the hand made toy issue.

No longer the master of the caterpillar crawl you’ve got the real deal happening. However you’re not content to rest on your laurels, adding sitting, standing and scooting around furniture to your repertoire. I was hoping you wouldn’t be so like your sister but you seem to be heading down the early walker path.

I wish we could get you a baby helmet to protect your poor purple forehead, your relentless fearless pursuit of momentum has left its mark, thankfully temporarily.

Your little laugh has started when you know something you think is funny is going to happen. On a count to three the giggles start at two.

Noise is the order of your mornings, gurgling and daddading, a bit of nan here and there. I’m pretty sure you think mum is synonymous with food (silly baby mum mum crackers) or hurt.

No new teeth have popped through yet but boy have they been giving you a rough time. I can only hope they are through soon and you get a break.

So many big changes in your daily routine, daddy is now at work during the day and the kids are back at school. You aren’t very impressed that they aren’t here at your beck and call. The changes will keep running strong this month you’ll be giving childcare a try while mum is at Uni. I don’t know how they’re going to cope with your high energy antics.

My little precious bundle every fleeting day I am reminded of how precious you are and how blessed we are. Thank you for coming in to our lives.

Today marks two years of marriage.

Two lovely, fun, chaotic, fast, testing years.

Two years containing no less than four moves, one law degree and one new baby.

It rings in my head a constant refrain ‘we are blessed’ you said to me, we are, we are truly blessed.

Hold my hand forever while we look out on this world together.

I love you Mr. Wolff.

Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.
- Saint-Exupery

The reasons I’ve decided to discuss this here are twofold.

One – while I try to keep to the positive happy stuff in my blogging I don’t want anyone else to feel they are less than due to the self censoring that is normal in blogs.
Our life is good but not perfect, we all have our challenges big and small, this being one I consider on the small side.

Two – I am so incrediblyOVER random strangers rudely asserting that my baby has conjunctivitis with no conversational prompting or good reason. This happens so frequently that I have started to find myself preemptively explaining that Eve has a blocked tear duct and it is neither conjunctivitis or infectious. Eve’s eye is often sticky within a short time of leaving the house, I carry wipes and drops with me to clean her eye, however the following pictures demonstrate why I sometimes leave the gunk alone until we get home.

Eve mid eye clean

Eve sees that I have the eye wipe

Eve’s feelings on having her eye wiped.

So thank you concerned strangers who appear to have my baby’s best interests at heart, I try not to think you get joy from your misinformed judgement of my parenting skills. But sometimes a little gunk is better for my baby than constantly traumatizing her to conform to people’s expectations.

Perhaps in the future we can overlook the gunk, you know in the same way I overlook your lack of manners.

* If it doesn’t get better by itself Eve will have a minor corrective surgery, I prefer not to dwell on that.