June is busy, June is firey

June is the half-way mark. June is when we start saying "where has the year gone?" and freak out and start doing all the things we haven't got around to yet. Like spring cleaning. And June is when we say, "I don't wanna do my taaaaax" and start thinking about budgets and cutting back and being more sensible for the rest of the year. June is when the weather starts getting colder for most of us, making firewood gathering a peaceful past time.

June at our place is birthday parties and train rides to the city and nights spent toasting marshmallows over the fire pit. Sometimes we come over all 1800s parlour games and tell stories by our living room fire. The whole house smells like soot and burnt gumtree for days. I quite like it.

We go to the beach quite often in June. It's melancholy and interesting. A grey, desolate beach makes colours soar like fireworks, fizzing into the ocean. June feels like that to me.

x

DO

How often do you venture into the city? It's a rather wonderful place for children, engaging all five senses and filling them up with possibilities. It's very stimulating, though, so make sure you schedule in lots of downtime, preferably in a green space. Go at night to really add some sparkle.

T ry an urban scavenger hunt
The city is perfect for perspective drawing
The top 30 best cities in Australia for kids

I think the best places for children are often hidden places like the local nursery or eco-garden. Kids seem to be so welcome wherever plants are. There is usually a sustainable patch in most towns and definitely in cities, so hunt one out in your neck of the woods this month.

Our fave: New Leaf nursery in Ingleside
Find a community garden near you

MAKE

The Badoo is having a Fashion party over the long weekend. She's turning six. I know, don't say it. I'm making each of the girls a cute little skirt for a bit of fun. I use the term 'fun' very lightly. I'm no sewer, but I can choose great fabric and do a straight line and that's pretty much all I need.

Tutorial for making a simple skirt
D id you see my Minecraft party for Max?
F ab loom band projects for boys (+ girls!)

My slow-cooker comes out in June, ready and willing. And despite losing all our chickens late in May, we are still all about the egg recipes.

A lighter quiche lorraine
Slow-cooker Asian-style braised beef

Crockpot chicken and cashews
Lemon and blueberry blondies
Adapting soup for the slow-cooker

THINK

Taking pictures near where I grew up changed me, I think. Before that morning I thought I liked the calm, stylish, gentrification of things. Carefully constructed hipster living. Now know I better. In future, I'm aiming to be a bit truer to myself when deciding what I like and don't like. I'm sick to death of being told what I like!

More things you might like from the blog:

This post on judgement went a bit viral
I still want to troll myself
Reasons why I can't seem to renovate
Everything I know about kids' parties

DREAM

How is a childhood remembered? Why do we remember some things and not others and do we choose the bits that best fit the narrative in our heads or do they choose us?

This wonderful piece in the New York Times about family narrative has made me so conscious of the story my children are learning as they grow. Not Max's general storytelling, you understand (he's quite the white-to-grey fibber, my boy), but rather the narrative that we are weaving together that one day will become their "when I was young" memories.

Already I see patterns of this emerging: Max tells everyone I smacked him when he was young, not remembering or at least not being clear about the fact that it was only ever twice and that it traumatised me more than him. Cappers is already examining what is "fair" and "not fair" and has decided that the Badoo "gets more than me". I feel she will grow up with that narrative, even though it's not objectively true. Subjectively, she believes it and thus it is truth to her.

More than ever I see that parenting is a tough gig and really not to be taken TOO seriously. Knowing more about where we come from - our parents, their parents and their parents down the line to... a comfortingly long line, that's what. It helps to know that so many have got it so right for so long. Or got it so wrong - either way, we seem to do okay.

If we forget to laugh about parenting, we'll be swallowed whole in an instant. So laugh lots.

Enjoy your June!

Until next month, I'll see you at Maxabella loves... Thanks, as ever, <<First Name>>for being part of things.