Violet is 5!
Today is monumental for me because Violet, my youngest, has turned 5, the official age to start school. I have been parenting preschoolers for over 11 years. I started drawing comics in 2003 when Otto was a baby, and here is one from when he was about 6 months old: 
(In case you’re wondering what the difficult Booker Prize winner was, it was DBC Pierre’s Vernon God Little, which I don’t remember enjoying very much.)
And here is a comic I drew about Violet when she was seven months old:
It was quite good that Violet’s birthday was today, because it distracted me from the NZ Post book awards announcement. I was hoping in a vain and ridiculously optimistic way to make the fiction shortlist, even though The Luminaries would be on it, and there wouldn’t be any chance of winning, but I didn’t. I was in fine company – I could’ve sworn that Elizabeth Knox’s brilliant Wake would been on there, and what about Tracy Farr’s wonderful The Lives and Loves of Lena Gaunt? She made the Australian shortlist, but not ours. Where was Dylan Horrocks’ Incomplete Works? What about Fiona Kidman, Pip Adam, Craig Cliff and Tina Makereti? Actually it was a bloody good year for NZ books, and I have to confess that I was pleased that Tina Makereti’s book wasn’t on the shortlist, because I am reading Where The Rekohu Bone Sings now and thoroughly enjoying it, and I might’ve felt too jealous to finish it. Awards are weird. They are a great way to promote NZ literature, but they exclude so many. The books that made the cut are great – but so are the ones that didn’t.
LET ME BE FRANK 
I was surprised that some books (Pip’s especially) weren’t on the fiction list (and Amy Brown’s for poetry), but then that’s awards (I feel self-consciously aware that a different set of judges and books last year could have knocked my book off the list!). There are so many wonderful books out at the moment that I want a long list before the short list.
Also, happy birthday Violet!
Happy birthday to Violet and congratulations to you for surviving the pre-school trenches. I love the comic of V at seven months, particularly the face in the breastfeeding pic and the way it sums up the peculiar mixture of contentment and resentment (or maybe that’s just me). And awards, smwards. Those things are always rigged (unless you win one!)
Yes! Contentment/resentment describes it perfectly.
And what about Kerry Donovan Brown’s ‘Lamplighter’?
Your children are so fortunate to have their history recorded in words and drawings!
I have that on my bookshelf – I have to read it, I hear it’s very good.