Sometimes I feel like the woman who knew too much about parenting. This is not to say that I know how to parent better than the next person, I have just read a lot of stuff, too much stuff, about toilet training, building self esteem, discipline, good nutrition and so forth. I do think it is a good move to seek parenting advice, but beware - it will open you up to a lifetime of guilt. Right now I am eating a walnut and ginger biscuit and I am feeling guilty. Guilty because I breastfeed and in eating those nuts I possibly expose my son to the risk of developing a tree nut allergy (now here is something I recently learned - peanuts are not tree nuts, they are legumes). I'm not sure that the link is proven, but all the same, who wants to risk giving their child potentially fatal tree nut allergy?

There is a balancing act we all do - the trade off, the momentary lapse where we can't be arsed being super-mum. Today's lapse is this biscuit (and ones that will follow). Yesterday's lapse was giving the three year old a gentle shove (after he had pushed his little brother over for the 3045th time in his short life) to teach the toddler that being pushed may not hurt, but it hurts feelings. This is against all parenting advice out there. Your kids need to trust you and see you as above petty things like that. But, I thought, feelings are such an abstract concept for a kid to understand. So, without anger, I gave him a calculated push, with one hand behind him to catch him. It didn't seem like much - but the wounded look on that delicate face broke my heart - he was so hurt. I apologised, hugged him, and said "See, pushing hurts feelings". Now I realise, he didn't need that lesson at three. He needs it when he can understand the concept of feelings better, and I won't need to push him to teach him that by then. Right now all he needs to know is that he isn't allowed to push.

See? A lifetime of guilt awaits.

One of hundreds of things that I am trying to be conscious of (remembering that I had a poor role model in parenting) is my reaction to creepy crawlies. They are called that for a good reason - they crawl around like bloody creepy things. Iggy and I have a long standing insect agreement. I will deal with the Wetas. He deals with everything else. I thought this was fair. Weta are the ugliest critters you could imagine, but they also don't come indoors a lot, so there are less to deal with. But Iggy drew the short straw. I think the last time I dealt with a Weta in the house was 1998. Since then there have been hundreds of other little creatures come our way, including cockroaches the size of small rodents, rodents the size of small cats, and a large, brown and hairy huntsman spider in our Sydney years.

Again, I digress. Since the three year old came on the scene, I have been the spider's friend and the bugs buddy - so determined I have been not to give him a complex about insects. But then out of the blue yesterday he had a big freak out about a daddy long legs spider. He was convinced that it was on him (I suspect he had a bit of cobweb on him) and wouldn't put his legs on the ground. Bless his little Bob the Builder acrylic socks - he really is a chip off the old block.