I started writing this down so I wouldn't forget it
I'm a writer in Melbourne, mother to two children who are currently four and eighteen months. For nine years I worked in-house at a communications team, wrote other people's words very well, and answered email in the car park before daycare pickup. After my second was born I didn't go back. I freelance now — fewer meetings, more mornings, a smaller income and a much quieter house.
The Soft Hours began as a note on my phone. I kept typing single lines at the end of hard days: the soup we ate again, the way my daughter said "hold my hand" like it was one word, the exact colour of the wall at five o'clock in winter. I was terrified of losing those things. Everyone told me the days blur, and they were right, and I wanted a record that wasn't a highlight reel.
So this is that record, made public. Not a brand, not a curated life — a working journal of the ordinary hours, kept by someone still in the middle of them. If you're up at four in the morning reading this on your phone with a baby on you, I've been there this week too.
At home in Melbourne, the only ten minutes of that particular Tuesday that were quiet.
To make a careful record of slow motherhood — the meals, the rooms, and the small good days — so that ordinary family life feels like something worth paying attention to rather than something to optimise.
What we cover
Slow food, honestly
Meals that repeat well, snacks that take five minutes, and the small kitchen habits that hold a week together.
Rooms for real family life
Nurseries and shared bedrooms, storage that survives a toddler, and the ten-minute resets that actually stick.
Essays on early motherhood
The fog of the first year, going back to work, and the ordinary hours nobody writes down.
Things worth keeping
The few pieces of gear, kitchen tools, and books we've used long enough to recommend without hesitating.