Comments on: Eating words

By: byrd

byrd — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 03:37:41 +0000

Damn your scope, peoples being peoples. Never mind the synchronicity of a ‘foodblog’ keeping hands busy and heads connecting.HA.(what a welcoming little imagined kitchen).
I like the observations about ‘centering activities’ and would add the weight of concrete expected outcomes. I find it a lot easier to let the we uns participate when ive accounted for their contribution, from extended time frames to misshapen results and revisiting basic OH&S stuff. The accounting being in my head, no telling the actual results.

By: kate

kate — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 09:00:41 +0000

I find gardening is generally ok with the two year old. But I generally don’t mind the potential for dropping things in the garden and he isn’t going to hurt the worm farm. Laundry he can be genuinely helpful, getting stuff in and out of the front loader is a breeze these days. Cooking, sewing and knitting I am more emotionally involved with. They’re things I’ve always done alone, to centre myself, I like to concentrate on them. If you’re a wee bit resentful of company in the first place, but you’re trying to do the right thing and share your favourite tasks, having the share-ee snatching breakables or lunging for the sharp or hot stuff tends to result in less than stellar “parenting moments”. On the other hand, I love drawing, but it doesn’t really bother me if he takes the texta and draws over the top of the thing I drew. Somehow drawing together works.

By: librarygirl

librarygirl — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:15:06 +0000

Halligan could be describing my life since becoming a mother 15 years ago – beautiful piece of writing. Just last weekend: stuffing canneloni tubes while assisting with homework and chatting…

By: Dr Sister Outlaw

Dr Sister Outlaw — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 08:50:22 +0000

I wasn’t so good at the kid-wrangling either, specially not in the garden. Then something clicks. Probably around the time they learn they’ll get the bowl to lick if they sit still enough … and yes, there’s such a nice space for communication over a busy workbench

By: Zoe

Zoe — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 03:45:38 +0000

kate, I find that Jethro is often OK if his big brother is around. If it’s the two of us he’s usually on a chair in the kitchen getting in the way.

I’ll have to hunt down that AS Byatt on a strong day, Pav ;)

By: Cristy

Cristy — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 03:14:29 +0000

I yearn for the day when Lily can ‘cook with me’ in a meaningful sense, but (thank goodness) we are slowly moving beyond the grab and destroy phase that Kate describes so well – that one is a challenge.

She just loves to kneed pizza dough with us. Sadly she also eats all that she can reach, but I figure that a bit of flour, yeast and water isn’t going to kill her.

Gardening has always been easier for us…

By: FDB

FDB — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 01:21:34 +0000

“premenstrual as anything”

I think I’ve got a couple of their albums lying around somewhere.

By: Lucy

Lucy — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:46:37 +0000

Halligan’s got a extraordinary way of communicating her love of food and childhood and literature. I’ve read that piece before, but not isolated like this.

Tears for this little black duck, too.