6am

It's 6am and my alarm went off half an hour ago.  My husband's been up since 5am but it's the first rains of autumn  here, and the sky is a glorious, miserable gray.  There's a steady drizzle and we are all revelling in the lightness of the air and the smell of wet earth after the scorching summer that only Australia's west coast knows.

I get up to make breakfast for my kids - my daughter is up but my son has made an excuse of waiting for me to appear with his breakfast before he fully wakes.  I understand, although there are many parents who would scold me for my indulgence.  I make warm porridge with honey and banana and I bring it in to where my kids are.  I love doing this.  My mother, a single parent of three children after my father left, brought me hot cocoa on winter mornings so I could sip it in bed before I rose.  When I was pregnant with our daughter, my husband started the tradition of making me peppermint tea and strips of toast with Vegemite and bringing it in to bed for me so my stomach could settle from the morning sickness before I got up.

Now, after 12 years of teaching full-time and leaving the brekky preparation for my husband to do, I am loving getting up and doing this myself for my kids and sometimes, if I'm up early enough, for my husband.  It's an act of pure love, pure selflessness - except I get pleasure from it and the comfort it ultimatley brings.  So there must be something in it for me. They may take it for granted; they may think all mothers do this for their children; they may even take advantage of my mothering or, please no, resent me for my coddling!  But, a coddled egg is a beautiful thing and a gourmet's delight.  And I hope, when my own children have children, they coddle their teenagers - because teenagers need more love, not less.  They need more time, not less.  They need to know that their tantrums and door-slamming and harsh, bitter words shouted at their mother (a fact of life that cannot be denied) are all forgiven and forgotten by the next hour.  And that I indeed love them mercilessly and will not apologise for that.

And that the very next morning, there I will be, at their door, with steaming bowls of porridge in winter and fruit and juice in summer.  Day by day.  Relentless.