A Visit from Tom Petty

Tom Petty is a musical legend, known in the earlier years of his career as a founding member of the Travelling Wilburys, and the more recent years for the truly amazing pub-anthem 'Free Falling' which was made famous for having Tom Cruise butcher it in his usual scenery-chewing way.

One of his other well known songs is 'Walls', an amazing (very manly) breakup song. The opening two lines of this song are 'Some days are diamonds. Some days are rocks.' Well, my afternoon so was so rocking bad this afternoon, I could've rocking sworn Tom was here in Labrador singing his rocking heart out.

I'd already had one of those days at work where the more you look, the more problems you find so you just stop looking, stuff your hands in your pockets, whistle quietly and walk away. But I'm lucky enough to finish at 3 pm and it was a lovely afternoon so I rushed to the daycare centre, picked up the little master, then home for the dog and a change of clothes, and then down to the beach for a swim.

Little master decided he wanted to ride the rocking swings, but we had the rocking dog with us and so began a five minute stand off with the little master standing by the swing chanting 'My swing' over and over until I finally caved and went over and picked him up and carried him to the sand and tried to get him interested in playing with the rocking dog. Naturally, this caused him to throw a rocking tantrum screaming in my ear all the way.

Over the next fifteen minutes he calmed down, but then as soon as he settled into playing with something and I turned to throw the ball for the dog, he would get up and run back toward the swings, thinking he'd fooled me. After the third time I pack every body up, put them back in the rocking car and drove them all home again.

And then the rocking dog threw up in the back of the rocking car.

So we get home and I get the dog and the little master our of the car and get the hose to wash out the back of the car. However, while I was getting the hose, little master decided he was going to climb into the back of the car, of course climbing through all the rocking vomit on the way. Being an inventive fellow I got him out of the car and hit his hands and feet with the hose. He thought this was hilarious so with no small amount of grim pleasure I then chased him around the front yard with the hose for a while. And then it was dinner time.

Dinner was a can of spaghetti that got thrown all over the rocking kitchen. All over. Next was shower time. Where little master managed to rub soap in his eyes while I was trying to wash the spaghetti sauce off his forehead, cheeks, neck, stomach, arms, legs and hands. And so began the fourth round of screaming for the afternoon. The interesting part was that I got experience the best acoustics in the house: our 1m by 1m glass and tile shower recess amplified and reverberated the little master's screaming so well it penetrated my head to such a degree that it felt like I was screaming. Maybe I was.

However, the next ten minutes were lovely. We got out of the shower, dried off, put on a nappy, then one on little master too, and then decided to sit for a few minutes and catch some 'Million Dollar Minute' on Channel 7. The little master climbed up into my lap and we proceeded to high five every time the guy on the tele got a correct answer. Then he grunted and took a rocking great deuce, right in my lap.

So back into the little master's room for another nappy change and that's when his Mum came home. She asked if she could have some time with him, and I got the rock out of there.

And back to the kitchen. You'd forgotten about the spaghetti everywhere hadn't you! I thanked the dog for helping with the clean up and as little master's Mum was now home, I had to then break out the mop and bucket and not just rely on my Boxer's giant tongue. Little master's Mum thankfully took over the rest of the night time routine and I sat down to relax. Before realising that all of the dishes were dirty and I'd have to wash up before I could cook.

So I sat down at the computer with a bowl of canned soup and started writing. You're welcome.

Six months in a leaky.... office??

Hi everyone,

It's been a long time since I last wrote, so let me start with an apology. I'm sorry.

As you know, I found myself unemployed when the university I was working for decided to close its campus in my city and I became a stay-at-home Dad. End result: I decided to finish of a Masters of Environmental Management degree that I started the last time I was in this situation at the start of 2010. In short, I've been spending every available moment either taking care of Evan, working two days a week at the local Tafe, or chained to my desk in my home office completing my latest distance university degree. As a result, after spending so much time sitting down and writing, my blog was forced to take a back seat as in what little spare time I did have, I was busting to get out of the office and away from the computer. And for this, I apologise.

However, while I was spending my 20+ hours per week studying up about Environmental Management, something did strike me as being particularly pertinent to parenting. Whilst studying about the evolution of the environmental movement, I learned about the rise of trading schemes in the 1980's across Europe and the U.S. This was to do with trading carbon and other pollutants. Essentially, carbon trading schemes and others were developed as a response to the realisation that people tend to only really care about things that affect their hip pockets. At its heart, the concept of a carbon trading scheme is an attempt to economically rationalise a commodity that previously had no value.

Market-based environmentalism can be directly linked to parenting. Prior to having a child, sleep was a given: you could expect that you could go to sleep whenever you wanted, sleep the whole way through, and wake up only when you needed to. Most nights, for a newly married pre-child couple, this would also lead to 'special cuddles'. It was a given. However, once the child arrives it quickly becomes apparent that this is no longer the case. Sleep, and other assorted benefits, very quickly find themselves to be tradeable commodities. For example, you and your partner will find yourselves making deals such as 'If you let me sleep tonight, I'll let you sleep the whole weekend'. And as for 'special cuddles', well that becomes tradeable too. If you haven't already had this conversation, here's a sneak peak: 'If we can just sleep tonight then I'll X your Y with my Z next Wednesday', or 'Alright, but you have to do all the work and we go to sleep right after'. And don't kid yourselves Dads-to-be, you'll be saying this too. Am I right Dads?

The heart of the matter is that sleep becomes the most precious commodity in the household. It isn't always a child which can cause this shift in household economies. A significant change of lifestyle can do the same thing. For us, it was living and working in South Korea. Despite negotiating prior to signing an employment contract, and it being included in said contract, we were put onto split shifts. We were teaching English, and taught from 6am til 10am and then again from 5pm til 9pm. Not only was the energy level required for 8 face-to-face teaching hours in one day huge, the paperwork and marking was also proportionately higher. Also, depending on the time of day it could take up to an hour to get to and from work. The split shifts meant that this energy output had to be maintained relying only on naps between these shifts. As a result, sleep became a very, very precious commodity in our household and thus the household economy suffered a major shift, with stress and conflict suddenly arising from something that had previously not even been on the radar.

So what is the answer to this conundrum? This humble blogger doesn't have the answer. A tradeable carbon market was proposed in Australia by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and it cost not only him his job, but his entire party the leadership. And this was thirty years after they first appeared in Europe meaning that we had plenty of history to learn from with regard to making sure we did it right.

What I do know is that now when my wife tells me 'You were wonderful last night honey', she's actually thanking me for getting up through the night with the baby and then letting her sleep in in the morning!

Cheers,

Ben