Starting a family

I was reading about fathers who write memoirs that barely mention their own family. I don’t often write too much about mine because it feels private and personal and also that is the part of my life that contains my strongest and most complex emotions so it’s the hardest subject matter to write about. But I don’t want to be one of those narcissistic fathers and I do want to get down some memoirs about those years, while they are still fresh, and just in case my kids read any of this one day. So here’s something.

When Rose and I first came out to Burra it was 2003, the week of the Canberra bushfires. For some reason I drove us here along the dirt back roads to make it seem like the house was out in the middle of nowhere. I wanted to give a bit of a wild introduction to it all – this was coming straight from London. Well Rose somehow coped with it all. On the day of the fires she made us all sandwiches and made us sit down and eat them. We moved into grandma’s house – she had died about a year earlier – it was in a quite neglected state as grandma didn’t have a lot of money to fix things. So we patched up the kitchen floor and lived right there in the kitchen for a couple of months in between travelling around Australia, before heading back to our South London flat on Dulwich Rd.

Three years later, having been married at Shropshire castle, we came back to that house to set up life in Australia. Turning into the driveway by the bridge, dad ran straight over a young wombat. It seemed like a bad omen.. but we settled in fast, buying Ziggy the cat within a couple of weeks, and shooting up on a quick trip to Sydney to pick up our pallet and a half of London belongings, which we had barely started unpacking when we discovered Rose was pregnant! We were both pretty happy and excited, we had been through a pregnancy that miscarried the year before, so it was a lot of nervousness in the start, but I guess we knew things would be alright if we had a baby because we had a place to stay on the farm right there. It certainly fixed us to the spot though – we quickly got to work fixing the house – most of the floors needed replacing, the bathroom needed fitting out completely. So we threw ourselves into that as Rose’s bulge began to slowly grow. Dad helped us out a lot. It was a fun, exciting time and we had some money from nana which we used to buy all the fittings and the bath and what not, Dad also helped out by buying building materials. We actually lived in dad’s house for the first few months through the first winter.

After about six months nana’s money was running out so i was looking for work – I nearly took a job at a local theatre – but sensibly probably ended up taking a public service job and i’ve stayed at that ever since. By the time Rowan was born we had a functioning bathroom and kitchen and were living in what is now the lounge which still had all the old wallpaper. We had all these doctor’s visits and were learning all about the strange things that go on during pregnancy, bodily changes, all the aches and pains, the stretching of everything, strange food things and nervousness about anything that could go wrong. Learning new words like Braxton Hicks. Prenatal classes at Queanbeyan with a bunch of other first time parents. I remember when Rose started contractions she was just pacing and pacing for what seemed like a day. I fell asleep at some point but we eventually decided to go in to Queanbeyan hospital on the morning of the 12th April, the doctor almost sent us home but when he realised we lived at Burra he told us to stay. Rose had a little nap I think and then it all started properly.. we moved into the birthing room and time stretched out where every contraction is an eon. I was just standing there holding Rose’s hand feeling quite useless, but how amazing to be there. Rose went without any gas or drugs, just somehow did it all with breathing and incredible strength. And Rowan was born – that tiny little white sultana head appearing after one contraction and then slowly coming out – all the nurses in attendance. And there he was, we stood there together with little baby rowan and the sun was just setting and the orange light was shining in through the open window right onto us. Rose exhausted and pale and incredible.

So then began all the visitors and the exhaustion because Rowan didn’t drink very well and got cranky really fast. But I stayed in the hospital with Rose for four nights and the midwifes all helped with settling and breastfeeding. Rowan slept on my chest a lot of the time, it was the only way we could get good sleep. We slowly went from being calm and collected first time parents who were on top of everything to starting to feel rather ragged. Taking Rowan home felt so strange because he seemed so delicate and precious but we had to just take him out into the world. All the first time parenting things like baby car seats and nappies. We changed him on a towel on the floor in front of the old oil heater in our loungeroom bedroom. And he did struggle getting on the nipple and staying on and sucking so it was weeks of stress and vacuum pumps and eventually we just starting using bottles and he finally got a full belly and slept so that was a relief.  I found my new dad role was bobbing the baby at odd hours of the night and day and that’s just how it was with babies for the next several years..

Little Rowan such a funny delightful kid. Bashful, silly cute guy, we have fewer videos and things as we still had only a crummy old early digital camera back then. And i wasn’t writing so many things down back then in the ‘family diary’.  But we just became a little family overnight, it’s funny how it happens. Rose threw herself into the farm, planting orchards and acquiring ducks. We kept working on the house gradually making all the bedrooms habitable, moving out of the lounge. Paying my cousin Gordon to put a new roof on. Making it nice. Rose’s family came out to visit and they loved Australia and we had holidays down at the coast, and they had a big road trip out west. My job was sometimes making me busy, early starts, but I was progressing pretty fast and we had enough money for things. When Rowan was 18m old we went back to the UK to visit all our old friends and all the places that had so recently been home.. but I remember the global financial crisis was just happening and there was a feeling that things were quickly getting tougher over there, so we were happy to return to our Australian retreat. We had another holiday before Rowan was two up to Thursday island to visit Tim and Anna – wonderful heat and fish and mangos and colours.

Eliza came along just when we were thinking that we might be ready for another baby.. Rowan was three and it gets a bit easier around then. And everything about Eliza’s arrival did feel kind of easy. We had Rose’s sister Dan visiting and had a glass and a half of champagne for Christmas eve.  A couple of hours later around midnight and Rose’s contractions started.. having waited a long time for anything to progress last time around I dozed off but about 2.30 Rose knew that it was soon so we jumped in the car (whispering to Dan what was happening) and headed in in that very old Nissan Skyline – I could hardly remember how to operate the heating fans, those funny nerves you get as the Dad when you know you’re pretty much obsolete. Kangaroos were sprawled sleeping on the road around Fernleigh along with wisps of mist. Not a single other car on the road. We got to the hospital and had to buzz to be let in by the night warden. Then rode up in the lift – Rose having contractions all the way, felt like any one of them could be the one – finally into the ward and Eliza was born in about 15 minutes, the obstetrician Peter Davis only arriving in a Hawaiian shirt at the last minute. So Eliza was our christmas present.  I drove home to tell everyone – walked in next door where Evie was staying they expected ‘merry christmas’ instead it was ‘baby’s born!’.  Back in the hospital Rowan walking around with his new christmas present – Buzz Lightyear – and brief visit from mum and nana on the way to the family christmas at John and Ann’s. We had the whole ward to ourselves it felt like. Eliza was given a little knitted baby hat in red and white santa colours. And yes she was an easy baby from the start – hardly cried when she was born or in the days afterward, suckled easily. Our ‘buddha baby’ seemed content to be born.

Rowan had to get used to his new sister and he did a great job. Rose went into full on mum mode – so many things are harder when baby naps and the toddler sees the opportunity to get mum to himself. Ziggy resigned himself to an outdoor life away from the bustle. But because we knew what to do with babies it was all just a lot easier the second time around. Eliza was constantly making us laugh, she was a snuffly cute little baby and soon a hilarious little girl. Rose was in Burra mum’s groups by then so we were getting to know all the other families around and there were kids of Rowan and Eliza’s age. Lots of visiting them over the next few years before slowly they all moved out of Burra for various reasons. Rose took on some administrative work at a Queanbeyan childcare and was thinking of going into teaching (didn’t want to be a public servant like me – and fair enough, also the teaching holidays meant family holidays were easier). Life on the farm was all ducks and cats and playing in the garden and with all the trainsets and soft toys and bugs and lizards and everything else you could imagine. Surrounded by nature. Still working on the house and garden most weekends. A few family holidays down the coast or to Sydney (where Eliza grabbed whale thark from the shelf at Australian Museum).

Rose was just about to start uni when Meredith came along, our ‘elf gift’ child. We had both just got our wisdom teeth done, were living in the smaller corner bedroom at the time for some reason. I don’t think we had really contemplated a third child but we embraced the situation with happy resignation. Meredith’s pregnancy was the hardest for Rose simply because we weren’t young parents any more. The heat of that last month of January was difficult. Fortunately the contractions began during the day so we left Rowan and Eliza with Dan again I think and after a longish labour Meredith was born in the bath in the birthing suite – a water birth! The midwife seemed very happy about how it had all gone, it was her first water baby. Rose was more exhausted than I’ve ever seen her, she did it all without drugs again. But we knew the routine and went straight into baby parenting again. Meredith had problems with reflux which meant she also didn’t settle very easily and I did a lot of late night bobbing to the lemon jelly CD that I’d bobbed all the babies to. We got her onto solids fairly early on the advice of Brendan’s dad and that helped a lot. I seem to remember that she liked settling on me just as Rowan had done (whereas Eliza always seemed to prefer her own bed).

So little mischiefy Meredith joined the fray. Meredith had to find a place in between her older brother and sister, her own little nook. Eliza had to manage not being the littlest any more. Rowan could actually help with things – and with three, there is a step up in the chaos level. There’s a sense as a parent that you are outnumbered and you can’t ever be on top of everything. But you sort of just go with the flow and it all works out. The kids bring themselves up in a way. Fortunately they all got on really well – Eliza and Meredith have in fact been the firmest friends for their whole childhood so far. Eliza has this fantastic imaginative play and she included Meredith in all her games, all the dolly games, big dolls for years, then those crazy omg dolls and barbies and everything else. Endless games – funny though now Eliza suddenly stopped playing doll games a couple of years ago and Meredith did too. The computers took over – now, really, they play those doll games in roblox.  Meredith does seem to have a taste for dark things, but she’s also very sensitive. We had to put her in childcare more than the others because Rose wanted to get on with study and then teaching work. So it was two or three days a week for Meredith since she was 6m. It was a good centre on the whole – Katharine became like a second mum – and i went part time to do more parenting (which i loved, honestly i’d be happy as a full time stay at home dad). But i do feel it’s a bit of a shame that we had to put little M in childcare more than the other two. But it was a good centre, ‘cubby house on campus’, at the ANU where i was studying for my undergraduate. I just spotted it one day walking past and went in to ask if they had a place (for Eliza first, but that was only for six months or so). Meredith also came along to some of my lectures, i remember bottle feeding her at the back of a philosophy class. The other kids came along to uni too from time to time and everyone made them welcome.

Anyway by this time a lot of the farm projects – the vineyard, the orchard, the ducks, the veggie patch – were dying or dead or just hadn’t really gone as well as Rose had hoped, and with Rowan fast approaching high school years we had to decide what to do about schooling, because the Queanbeyan high schools weren’t too good. At least, that was my experience. And Rose had had enough of Burra. When we’d first arrived we thought we might move down to Melbourne but because Rose got pregnant so quickly it was impractical to leave the support network and free housing at Burra so of course we stayed – and enjoyed it – but now we were kind of stuck in a part of Australia that we hadn’t really chosen. I looked into moving up to Queensland and actually applied for a job up there but didn’t get it. And we looked at moving back to the UK – somewhere like Exeter – but teacher’s wages were worse there and then Brexit and everything happened. Then finally Rose got a job at Telopea straight out of uni which was just such an ideal school with all those frenchies, so that pretty much settled it that we would stay in Canberra. We bit the bullet and found a place to rent on Scott Street in Narrabundah and that was that – we uprooted everyone from their nice Isabella St primary school and the farm and moved into a little boxy house in town. That first night we sat on the back step and ate take away pizzas, a city family all of a sudden. It was more of a wrench than I’d expected – of the kids Eliza I think found it hardest – although you can never really predict all the consequences of things like that. It still made good sense and now they are all in Canberra schools which are pretty good. I didn’t manage the change very well at all and I’m back out here on the farm, but that’s another story for another day.  Today I just wanted to write down something about those first early years with the kids, the fullest and happiest of my life.