When Frances was three months old I wrote blithely that I was enjoying the fact that she was better at sleeping than her brother, and I could do magical things like put her down when she was drowsy and she would fall asleep. How sweetly innocent I was. Frances is now almost six months old and is what I would classify as “a bloody terrible sleeper”. Her brother started off awful at sleeping and gradually got better, with occasional months-long reversions. She started off quite decently, and has gradually become worse and worse. I didn’t think babies were supposed to work like that. I am quite affronted.

At the moment during the night she usually sleeps for a couple of two hour stretches (or on special occasions, longer), and then wakes up hourly the rest of the time. “Maybe you should try co-sleeping,” said a well-meaning helpful person. Ha ha, helpful person, she sleeps like that while I am co-sleeping. And I am mostly getting enough sleep. I’m functioning, I’m getting things done, I’m mostly keeping my temper with the inevitable frustrations of parenting a four-year-old. I’m still enjoying being at home with a baby. But god, I miss long stretches of sleep and sleeping in my own bed. I try not to think about how much I miss it because it makes me irritable. Like geez, is it really so hard to sleep that you have to wake up every hour to have a small comforting snack? I know you can sleep for longer because you used to.

For daytime naps I put her to sleep in a baby carrier so that she sleeps for longer. As I type this she is strapped to my front, snoozing restlessly, her warm sweaty head making my shirt damp. It was quite snuggly and pleasant wearing her in the cooler months, but the weather very swiftly changed from “barely winter” to “fuck spring, we’re moving directly to summer” and now she sleeps and sweats. I need to stop wearing her at some point before the end of the year, because she will start at a family daycare in January when I return to work. I don’t want “strange exotic napping in a cot” to be another thing for her to adjust to when she starts – but every day when I think “I should really start putting her down in the cot to nap”, I am too reluctant to lose those precious moments of productive time I get with putting her in the carrier.

The one benefit of having your second child sleep like crap is that you don’t dwell on it in the same obsessive way that you do with your first. I spent a lot of pointless hours trying to come up with reasons for why Edward slept badly and worrying that he would never improve. While I do record Frances’ sleeping patterns I don’t spend my time mentally gnawing on the problem in the same way I did with Edward. (Yes, I know I have now written several detailed paragraphs about it which may suggest that I don’t entirely let it go. This, incidentally, is why it’s hard to answer “so what have you been up to?” queries from people who aren’t currently taking care of young kids. “Oh, you know, thinking in vast and boring detail about my child’s sleeping habits and writing down how many times I get woken up each night.” They tend to smile at you in a rather fixed manner, I can’t imagine why.)

While I hung out washing this morning and raked leaves on Sunday morning, the husband built this incinerator from an old drum we got from a friend’s property, and some other scrap metal he picked up somewhere. Our house is surrounded by tall eucalypts that spend all year dropping leaves, twigs and sometimes quite large branches, and the preponderance of this dry material means that large bonfires aren’t a sensible idea. Hence the need for an incinerator.

We burnt a pile of leaves and declared the incinerator a success. I hope that all the washing won’t smell like smoke as a result – I like the smell of fresh wood smoke, but not stale on clothes.

The chooks are much less wary around me when I walk out to Chickendome to deliver potato peelings, wilted lettuce and apple cores – they move away from me when I open the door, but cautiously trot up when I scatter the vegetable scraps on the ground. They haven’t been let out yet – I think I’m going to wait another week, until they’re more comfortable with me and I can be a bit more confident that they’ll make their way back to Chickendome at dusk. My mother has advised me to hand feed them some sesame seeds, which are apparently the equivalent of chocolate cake to chicken-kind and will inspire their eternal love and devotion. And perhaps some eggs.

I only read 71 books in 2010, which is heaps less than previous years (135 books in 2009, 183 in 2008 and 173 in 2007). I think part of the reason for this is I downloaded more things to watch on my iPod, so that commuting time was spent watching things rather than reading. Shocking! Something to rectify this year.

Best Short Story Collection

Well, to be honest I don’t read all that many collections of short stories; I did read a number of short stories prior to Aussie Con 4 so that I could vote for the Hugos, but not that many collections of stories. However, my favourite was definitely Peter Carey’s War Crimes– it was a nice surprise. I hadn’t realised that Peter Carey wrote speculative fiction, and the battered volume of War Stories I borrowed contained so many fantastic and disturbing stories.

Best Newly Discovered Classic

The classics I discover are always as audio books – I find older books much easier to read that way, as I’m not tempted to skim over lengthy descriptive passages. And this year it was Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier’s fabulously chilling gothic tale, with its abrupt and disturbing ending.

Best Non-Fiction

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, which is hardly a unique choice – but a wonderfully written, confronting and inspirational read all the same. I particularly liked the chapters that discussed Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm, and saw that he spoke in Brisbane last year – there’s a couple of blog posts with summaries about his Australian trip.

Best Dystopia & Best Kick in the Guts Ending

No contest – Feed by Mira Grant. Fast paced political thriller with zombies, it kept me up at nights. And god, that ending.

Best New Author

I bought Karen Healey’s Guardian of the Dead at Aussie Con 4 because I saw her speak and thought she was great, and had previously read her very funny blog. I find that book purchases like that generally turn out very well, and this one did – an urban fantasy steeped in Maori mythology, it was marvellous.

And to look out for in 2011?

Well, I have some presents to read – A S Byatt’s The Children’s Book among them – and I’m looking forward to the publication of Mira Grant’s Deadline, Tansy Rayner Robert’s Shattered City, Karen Healey’s The Shattering, Holly Black’s Red Glove, and Kristin Cashore’s Bitterblue. Among many others I’m sure to discover in the coming months.

December 7 – Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

The desire for community is a consistent theme in my life – it exists somewhat uneasily with my other desire to be a hermit.

The husband took some photos of goats recently – in each photo, a different goat is staring suspiciously directly into the camera. I do like goats, and if they weren’t so destructive I would be tempted to get some. There’s a property we drive past each morning that has a big goat herd (for slaughter, I presume, as they don’t seem to have dairy facilities), and they are usually being let out as we’re going past, trotting eagerly down towards their paddock next to the river.

I often think about the idea of living on a large property with a group of other people – some who would work outside the property, and some who would work on the property – growing vegetables and fruit, raising cows and goats and making cheese. Those who work outside make the money for everyone, and the ones who work on the property provide the food – or at least some it. I have this entirely selfish desire to stay in my current job and get provided with home-grown food and be able to hang out with goats, without doing things I dislike, ie. actual farm work.

Unfortunately, I think communes – which this scenario basically is – are a little hard to manage; finding the right mix of people, and dealing with the difficulties of only certain people earning money which they then share with the community. But nevertheless I think it is an idea which will always appeal to me.

December 10 – Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out?

How on earth can you judge your own decisions as wise? Your decisions are what they are. I don’t think I have ever thought back on a decision and decided it was unwise – what would be the point? And so equally, I don’t see how I can declare my decisions wise.

(For Reverb10)