That familiar masthead on the paper accompanying your pot of tea.

Finding the local dairy brand at Woolies.

Lunchtime runs by the river in a tank top on account of the warm winter sun (on any day except today).

And coffee runs up the road with Toddler SSG on his Smart Trike.

Steve’s still has the best coffee this end of the ‘burb, by the way.  Which works out brilliantly because they’re the closest cafe to home.  On Saturdays, the ladies who brunch deliberate whether to share a plate of the house crisps or the cheeseboard with their post walk flat whites, their immaculately blow dried bobs bowed down in thought as they try to recall who of the party has lactose intolerance and whether this would affect the selection of the cheeses.  Lunchtime regulars who come in for their Saturday pint banter with the barman about whether they should be good about their fish and chips order or throw caution to the wind and get the battered fillet of ling.

It’s that Second Winter of a toddler’s life that’s the reality slap for working mothers.  The seemingly endless cycle of bugs and teething with the added complexity of toddler tantrums.  The meticulously choreographed schedule you had for getting to work and then the one for what happens the moment you walk through the door in the evening grind to a halt in the Second Winter.

Breakfast assumes a Days Of Our Lives level of melodrama as tears are shed over not being able to lift up blankie (because most of it has been sat on in the clamber to get onto an adult dining chair) and then when it appears that the sultanas on offer today are too ugly to be eaten.  Nappy change time is devastating for the fact that …. I don’t really know, it just is.  It hasn’t been a day in a toddler’s life until they end up prostrate on the floor at least once before lunch.  Only to suddenly change tack and have those tears turn to chuckles.

We love stainless steel plates at SSG Manor.  Most major food groups tend to stick to the plate even if you turn it upside down as you try to eat as you walk.

The second winter has seen my stoop to some new lows in ‘encouraging oral fluids’.  Seriously, encouraging world peace is a much less challenging proposition.  Squeezy yoghurt is a fluid in my book.  Eating salty rice crackers and rice cakes have the added benefit of creating a thirst for water and strawberry jelly, that’s basically water as well.

Fortunately, though, there’s always a break in the weather of the second winter.  The cackling, belly shaking chuckles return as do the interpretive dance moves that involve a lot of stomping with the occasional flourish of arms.  And the fart noise game.  You have no idea how many times I’ve ‘farted’ today.