Shoes

Here are some of the adorable shoes my daughter regards as Shoes of Evil.



Here are the shoes she will wear.

At least I'm not raising an Imelda Marcos.

Happy Friday to me

And happy beginning of the holidays too. The two great things about my job are that I can take Abi with me and that I get paid through the school holidays without having to go in. I still do some work, but I can do it whenever and it is so lovely knowing there is nowhere I have to be. I could probably make more money somewhere else, but the conditions definitely make up for any pay deficiency.

Yesterday we had many Shoe Dramas. I didn't realise quite how dependent my daughter had become on her black My First Volleys until I decreed she could not longer wear them because; a) they were too small; and b) they had holes in them in the manner of Orphaned Urchin shoes. I put her adorable blue boots on and oh! the wailing! The furious shaking of feet! The possibly-on-purpose kicking of mummy in the hip!

She had quieted down a bit by the time we got to work but still looked at me with tragic blue eyes when I said it was time for her to walk. "noooo, nooo; boo, boo" she wailed (translation: "I do not care for these boots, Mother. They are stiff and clumpy, unlike my beloved, light-as-air Volleys") She walked gingerly around in them looking sad for a while before I gave in and took them off. Dirty socks it would be, I decided.

Mum and Dad managed to get them on her later with the twin incentives of gingerbread men and the park, but she didn't really get used to them. One foot would kind of turn out to the right and she'd follow it around in a circle like a fish with one fin. Bit pathetic, so we made an emergency stop at Target on the way home and picked up another pair of Volleys in the next size up. I had hoped to get red, but there were only black ones available.

She was really cranky getting out of the car as she'd been asleep and I tried to interest her in all the other pretty shoes ("Look darling! Butterflies! And sparkles! Or how about these pretty red Mary Janes?"), but only got further 'nooo's as well as a few "boosh"es, as she pushed the pretty shoes away. When she saw the black Volleys she grabbed them and said "Oosh" in a satisfied voice, so I admitted defeat and off we went to buy them.

This is the first time she's really showed me she wants something different from what I am offering her in a sustained and determined way. I suppose I should be celebrating her developing independence, but I can't help sighing for the days not that long ago when she would dociley accept whatever I chose to put on her feet. My darling darling girl is growing up.

Review Tuesday

Today I visited a new cafe, always an exciting event in my life, and liked it so much I decided on the spot to include café reviews in this, my new blog.

The reviews will target the child-friendliness of each café I visit and I warn all you café-owners - I will be unrelenting in my search for the perfect babycino/box of good quality toys ratio. High-quality coffees are a must, obviously, and if you really want to get on my good side, try serving raspberry and white chocolate muffins.

Anyway, so today I went to Our Kitchen Table in Malvern, a reasonably exxy Melbourne suburb. I think it is officially an Eastern suburb, anyone want to correct me? I am embarrassingly hopeless at directions. The café is on Wattletree Road, near the corner of High St, opposite Central Park. Lovely warm atmosphere with plenty of room for prams to manouver between tables. One of the larger communal tables was playing host to what looked to me like a Mothers' Group - good sign for child-friendliness. No toys that I could see, but there were plenty of interesting magazines to read. I chose the July edition of Notebook, a magazine I always pounce on in cafés as I like it but not enough to shell out for it.

Abi and I sat along the wall on comfy padded bench-style seating, which was perfect for her as she could sit like a big girl and I didn't have to worry about her falling off the side. We drooled over the treat cabinet for a while (merangues with chocolate and strawberries! Lemon curd and merangue cupcakes! Big, old fashioned lamingtons! Do I need to continue!?!) but were seduced into ordering the ricotta hotcakes with strawberries and lemon curd. Babycino and latte to begin.

Coffee; pretty good. Slightly bitter, possibly from over-packing, but nice flavour once Abi had added a charmingly misshapen sugar lump from the cute vintage bowl. Babycino came in an old flowery china cup and had a strawberry marshmallow included, which mean old mum whipped away.

Hotcakes came quickly and were huge. Generous serving of strawberries and a dollop of lemon curd all covered in a berry coulis. The lemon curd was a bit too sweet for me but everything else was yum as. Definitely worth the $13.50 but next time I think I'd see if I could just order two rather than the three that came on the plate.

Out of a possible rating of five babycinos I give Our Kitchen Table a solid three and a half. I will definitely be returning. Having the park just across the road is a bonus as you could get yummy take away stuff and then let the kids tire themselves out in the playground.

Must go and make dinner. Nothing very exciting just tuna pasta. Will include garlic toast so that Abi stays happily at the table. Thank you to the lovely readers who left comments on my first post, you gave me a lovely boost!

So here I am with my very own blog and I'm all tongue-tied. I think I first thought about blogging about, ooh, five years ago, do you think I've considered every angle? I wouldn't want to rush into anything.

I feel a bit shy, to be honest. I'm sure no-one will read this and my dreams of Finslippy-style internet fame are unlikely to come to pass, but you never know. Maybe next year [i]my[/i] devoted readers will be paying to send me to Blogher, as happened to Antonia at Whoopee this year. I that's what happened anyway, not completely clear. Anyway, if they did she totally deserved it as she is HILARIOUS. Seriously, go and check her out. After you finish reading this, obviously.

For the past three years or so I've been keeping an online diary at Essential Baby. It tracked my long march to motherhood which twisted through irregular cycles, unhelpful diagnosis and huge amounts of money spent on acupuncture. Fortunately the end result was my darling darling daughter who is an absolute and total delight, even when she is being extraordinarily irritating.

Is this the kind of thing people want in a first blog post? You've probably all come over from EB anyway, so all this exposition is not really necessary. Hmmm, how about a photo of an adorable child with a flower?....Okay, not sure what happened there. I meant to have the photo go in just under this paragraph. No time to fix it now, I must go and watch something stupid on tv.