I have a secret. I love a good t-shirt. This is my latest one, a true bargain as I bought it for $1 at my local charity shop.

[$1 is too much some of you may say!]

The oh-how-so-terribly-disaffected-youthishness about the shirt aside, it’s actually excellent material, cut long like I like them, and fits like the proverbial glove.

Groovy as it is, I have wondered when the time will come for me to retire these items for the conservative little twin-set numbers and other stereotypes of the ‘traditional’ mother. I do have those garments in my cupboard, shivering self consciously at the back, because they know that when the day comes when I pull them out is the day I will have realised I can’t be twenty years old forever.

On the outside, at least.

******

It’s been four or five days since I’ve mentioned the kids. Naughty me. This is supposed to be a parenting blog! So how’ve they been doing?

Alas, Keira is ill.

As miserable as can be, too, and I’ve been on my toes the past 24 hours trying to keep the balance between patting her poor brow with a wet towel, and wanting to yell, “Okay, I get it. You don’t feel well. Stop with the sooking already.” Which is unspeakably nasty, I suppose, but don’t worry, she’s spending so much time asleep that I don’t think it often.

Riley is taking this new-found time and attention badly: not that he doesn’t like attention, but his parents are entirely the wrong sort of people he wants to hang with. He wants his “Sissss- tah!” (his inflection). He goes and scratches at her closed bedroom door like a dog after it’s master.

I’m just waiting for his taking on this infection, because that would be just perfect. Being this week is my birthday, after all. It would be just be Murphy’s Law.

karen andrews

Karen Andrews is the creator of this website, one of the most established and well-respected parenting blogs in the country. She is also an author, award-winning writer, poet, editor and publisher at Miscellaneous Press. Her latest book is Trust the Process: 101 Tips on Writing and Creativity