Dear Bandit

Bandit Heeler Brisbane Queensland  Australia Dear Bandit, I loved reading your letter about exercise. We don't get enough of it with small crazy people running around us, that's for sure! Most of my exercise consists of carrying Littles here and there on my shoulders - the "Good seat", she calls it. And, Bandit, that used to be easier! She's getting taller and I'm getting shorter. You're very right that it is important to exercise to stay healthy, but I'm not sure it's healthy to be worrying about your weight. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's an unhealthy attitude, especially when we show it in front of our kids. My advice would be to throw those scales away! They're not helping anyone. So if you're exercising because you want to be fit and healthy, good on you. But if it's because society is telling you that you're not an attractive shape, then society can just bugger off! I'm actually a bit worried about raising a daugh...

Bandit Heeler Brisbane Queensland Australia Dear Bandit, I enjoyed reading your letter about Bluey's visit from the Tooth Fairy. I don't know the exchange-rate, but I'm surprised someone sold her a toffee apple for five dollars - sounds to me like she got ripped off! Well, our big news is... Littles lost a tooth! This freaked me out more than a little because I was expecting it to be at least a year until this started happening. Coming to terms with the fact that my baby isn't a baby is always hard, but when irrefutable biological facts start weighing in on the argument, it's truly infuriating! Perhaps that's why it's so popular to infantilise children by presenting the Tooth Fairy as fact rather than a game. It's an outright rebellion against their growing up! I noticed it was wobbly when she was eating chopped up apple with peanut butter dip, and complained there was a bit of apple skin stuck between her teeth. Nothing unusual about that, so I went to ...

Bandit Heeler Brisbane Queensland Australia Dear Bandit, I really enjoyed reading your letter about playing Pirates in the park. Even though having kids does give us the excuse we've been longing for to make an arse of ourselves in public, it can be hard. Well done for being an awesome blue whale. I found myself at the park with Littles on the way home from nursery. She was content to play with a boy who used to go to her nursery, but is now at school, so I got to sit on a bench and relax for a bit. Unfortunately she had something of a mini-fall-out that was a little bit my fault. The boy went to the toilet, and Littles came to me complaining that she had no one to play with, and I made the mistake of suggesting that she played with another friend I had spotted nearby. She fell into a state of deep contemplation, considering carefully whether it was worth the small spark of courage that would be needed. The first friend returned, and Littles informed him bluntly, "I actually w...

Bandit Heeler Brisbane Queensland Australia Dear Bandit, I really enjoyed reading your letter about Bluey's first steps, and the photo you enclosed was just adorable! It got me thinking about transitions, because Littles has just had a big one. Maybe the biggest this side of 12. She is weaned. Or, I should say, she and Beloved are weaned; it's always weird how people talk about it like a solo act! They both did it. She's four, which is on the old side for mainstream society, but on the young for the give-birth-in-the-woods hippies that populate parenting forums (by the way, tell Indy's mum I said hi.) So Beloved is getting judged from both sides, and has already encountered some people online forcefully advising her to re-lactate at all costs! This is a transition which differs from all the others, in two key respects. First of all, it sucks. When you move from nappies to potty, then potty to toilet, you gain independence. You get to use the toilet all by yourself, and ...