Posts by Isabel Hitchings
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I used to lurk on a message board called something like "Titus 2" as an exercise in seeing how strong my stomach was. The definition of "wife" there was to maintain a perfect home, be modest and submissive in every way, "serve" ones husband, bear child after child and homeschool the lot of them. The forum for teenage girls was particularly upsetting.
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I don't really see being a wife (or life-partner or whatever it is I'm identifying as) and being a mother as truly separate roles - it's all just being-part-of-a-family. And the main difference between mothering and fathering in our household is that I'm rather better at lactating than he is.
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It's not okay to beat a flounder.
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When I was in 6/7th form we had a German exchange student come to live with us for a year. Her mother kept sending her recipes for desserts to make for us and tiramisu became one of her specialties. due to a partner with an egg allergy I haven't had it in years though.
She also made an amazing cinnamon and brandy ice-cream which was utterly delicious and also semi-lethal. I wonder if we still have the recipe for that?
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So, what sort of an idiot do you have to be to dress your three-year-old in his best and newest shirt and then let him eat dark red cherries?
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I've found that a good stretch of grass is better for my kids letting off steam than a playground usually. The Paddock in Cheviot and The Store at Kekerengu both have outdoor tables and lots of running space.
Also fun this time last year was travelling with a newly toilet-trained two-year-old who had great fun discovering exactly how fast Daddy could stop the car at a cry of "I need to wee on the grass" whilst consistently failing to produce.
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I have an acquaintance* who believes she and her husband model responsible drinking by never drinking at all.
It's fine to model not drinking as a valid choice but seems counter-productive to model that as the only way to handle alcohol. Worse still, I suspect, are the people who imbibe but only after the children have gone to bed. Surely a recipe for teaching children that drinking is most appropriately done on the sly.
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My oldest really doesn't like strong flavours so giving him a sip of my wine or coffee was enough to put him off so much as asking again. I tried the same trick with my younger son and he really likes those "grown-up" tastes and will keep trying to sneak sips of whatever I am drinking.
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Until I was three we had a big white Austin with red leather seats. I don't recall ever going anywhere in it but do remember playing in it. When it broke down we couldn't afford to get it fixed so my Dad converted my car seat to a bike seat and we were carless for the few years.
Sometimes we went away with a friend of my parents'. He had a big blue station wagon (holden kingswood?). I was invariably horribly, horribly carsick. I once threw up in my orange toweling sunhat and, to this day cannot see that kind of hat without smelling puke in a hot car.
Eventually we got a 1954 (I think), grey, Morris Minor. It was painfully slow but thoroughly reliable. So old it didn't need seatbelts and had the funny indicators that stick out the sides. Driving from Nelson to Christchurch was a two day trip and, in order to fit the camping gear in, I had to sit on a huge wobbly pile of bedding. I don't remember puking on that trip but I probably did. I've never loved another car like I loved that one.
When I first moved to Christchurch i though the last part of the trip, through the plains was the most boring thing in the world and tried to schedule my journeys so I did that bit in the dark. Now, though, that road is my home straight and looking across the fields to those low, starkly shadowed hills can put a lump in my throat.
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Randomly picking a thread to derail, we have a new Doctor.
Who looks pretty much how I'd imagine David Tennant's scruffy younger brother would.