I’m a sucker for domestic art. I don’t do it very often – and I am entirely comfortable with time saving alternatives – but I love an opportunity to do something creative for my kids, given a comfortable timeframe, a practical plan, and a little breathing space.

The most common demonstrations of my domestic art skills in this house are costuming, and the provision of birthday cakes. Nothing fancy – sure, I once produced a hand-sewn Cleopatra costume for an Asterix party which was worn for all of 3 minutes, but I’m just as likely to run out to the shop to find a lion mask at a moment’s notice (give me a month and ebay, and I can dress you as ANYTHING, my darling, but a week’s notice? Aargh!). I’ve even been known to dress my kids up for occasions other than costume parties – like, for instance, my book launches.

This year, we knew with at least six months notice that Raeli wanted a Doctor Who party, and that she wanted to go as a lady Silurian, and my Mum was totally okay with making that costume, as long as it was confirmed as wanted 2 months before the party. 2 months before the party, Raeli changed her mind, and wanted to be River Song instead. We called the party ‘aliens and earthlings’ so as not to alienate the non Doctor Who watchers who were invited, and sort of forgot about the costume.

Meanwhile, I had a plan for Jem’s costume for the same party, which would be a TARDIS dress. Having seen all the gorgeous ones out there, I plotted to remix a plain denim dress, got the makings, and got very excited when I learned about the advances that have been made in T-Shirt Transfer technology.

Somehow, with less than a fortnight to go, we had not organised Raeli’s costume. Her more recent plans to be young Melody Pond ran aground when we checked that episode, and the kid was basically wearing a dress and a cardigan, which can not be made to look like a proper costume. Alarm bells rang. She was sent off with a stack of Doctor Who magazines to figure out what she wanted to look like.

She came back with bright, starry eyes, and the request for an astronaut costume.

Well, why the hell NOT? Of course, with a month’s notice, I could have just bought her a fabulous astronaut’s costume on eBay, claimed it was a birthday present, and washed my hands of it. But with less than two weeks to go…

The family pulled together. I shopped frantically on the hottest day of the summer so far, discovering that no toyshop in Hobart had ever considered that a kid might want to dress as an astronaut. I found a cheap, white police helmet with a visor in one shop, white gloves in another, a baggy white top at Big W, and hoped for the best.

My mother, op shopping queen, vanished mysteriously one afternoon and returned with oversized white trousers, a white belt, and a white skivvy. My honey refitted the helmet with a spare, larger visor he had begging, printed out NASA stickers, and made a few designs. My mother returned two days later with a strap-on box arrangement to make Raeli’s baggy whites look like a proper space suit.

MAGIC HAPPENED.

Meanwhile, that dress I had organised for Jem? Didn’t happen, and didn’t happen. I made the transfers, but faced with learning a new skill, I piked daily, until of course it was the night before the party. Technology got the better of me, I handed the iron to my honey (he’s a physicist, I’m sure it was better he do that one) and left the frock in his hands, while I… frosted a chocolate TARDIS.

Because, yes, for this party I was costuming (with my support team of wonders and miracles) AND baking Doctor Who themed cakes. Two of them.

There were no further cake disasters this morning, though I was so nervous that I revealed the cake to Raeli before sticking candles in and transporting it. She was delighted, luckily, and nothing horrible happened en route.

We dressed the girls up (I admitted at this point that I hadn’t tried Jemima’s dress on beforehand – oops! Luckily it fit) and took plenty of pics before we left for the party, because of course you never get a chance at the place itself.

We went to Kids Bizzz (yes, really 3 z’s) because it’s two minutes from our place, and we didn’t have energy for a big home-based party this year. I felt exhausted anyway by the time we arrived! It was lovely not to have to do anything, though, but pour drinks for the kids, co-ordinate the present opening, and pull out a cake at the end. Both girls had a ball – and Jem ran riot on the climbing equipment!

Over coffees, sharing costuming nightmare stories with our friends (whose son chose to be a Cyberman at 24 hours notice and oh boy did they rise to the challenge – even his sneakers were spray painted silver!), the theory was advanced that I had chosen to do the crazy costuming and elaborate cake baking because if I didn’t feel just a bit frazzled and challenged at the party, I might feel like… well, like I hadn’t done enough.

Heh, well it’s a THEORY. I certainly had no problem justifying buying Raeli a Wonder Woman costume last year when I knew we were saving money on a home-based party… but I also sure as hell would have bought her an astronaut suit if she’d given me notice. And then we wouldn’t have had the fun!

And, stressing over frosting dramas aside, it was fun. I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t fun. Oh, Raeli would have parties and costumes and cakes, sure, but the only time I tend to go the extra mile is when I’m inspired. When she had a fairy party, I bought plastic dolls and stuck them on a cake (which looked awesome, by the way!) and last year I did plenty of internet ordering. Also a valid choice.

But once Raeli’s requests dovetail with my own geeky interests, then… well, the occasion is worth not only rising to, but surpassing! Also, and here’s the gender thing, in a world where girls Raeli’s age (now SEVEN) are expected to like princesses and fairies and pretty much nothing else, when your daughter says she wants to dress up like an astronaut… well. Awesomeness like that is to be encouraged. Princesses and fairies can be awesome too, but they’re easy. When a nearly-seven-year-old moves beyond the mainstream to gaze into space, it’s something you want to encourage!

Jemima, I might add, indicated no particular interest in dressing as the TARDIS, but she was pleased enough when I told her she was, and happily showed off her dress to everyone at the party. It was a far more practical costume than Raeli’s, which of course was on her for a total of 5 minutes before she chucked off the hard bits and went to play.

Thank you, Gallifrey cosplayers, for showing me how it can be done!

I do love playing with domestic arts and crafts. The best thing about doing something extra special for birthdays is that it’s out of the ordinary, and you don’t have to feel obliged to repeat such glorious experiments. Believe it or not, this was the relaxed birthday year, when I was deliberately keeping things simple because we’re going away on holiday next week!

No idea what we’re in for next year, but I can promise you one thing – Raeli is already planning it, in that devious little head of hers. Birthdays require a LOT of planning, after all… and it’s only 12 months to the next one!

And the good thing about Domestic Art is – well, Raeli doesn’t care that I used packet cake mixes instead of baking from scratch, and Jem doesn’t care that her TARDIS dress started out as a second hand denim frock, and the knockabout astronaut costume that me, my honey and my Mum put together is as beloved and appreciated as one bought on ebay with a month’s notice would have been. And really, to be honest, if I’d put my foot down originally and said no costumes, they would have been happy enough on the day to put on ordinary play clothes, as long as they got to jump on the bouncy castle and slide on the slides, and so on.

But when you have small children, days and weeks and summer holidays and years just slip through your fingers like water. I don’t feel the need for my kids to grow up with memories of an epic childhood, but it feels good to occasionally put some Art into their lives, to balance out the days that I let them do nothing but watch TV in their pyjamas. If nothing else, it makes great photos to add to the annual albums we give out at Christmas…

Plus, Jem has a TARDIS frock now. Perfect for any occasion!

This is basically cake (two packet mixes swirled together so some is vanilla & some choc), cut to size & liberally spread with chocolate frosting. The windows and panel are made from roll-out white icing, the details from slices of a metre-long liquorice strap, and the fancy white writing parts from one of those squeezy writing icing things. All bought from the supermarket.

I had a near-disaster when I put gladwrap over the whole thing (having refrigerated the cake for some time I assumed all the icing was set – the frosting WAS but the writing sadly got smeared all over the place) so I recovered by putting a whole piece of liquorice strap over the mess, tidying up with a bit of spare chocolate frosting (always save the last spoonful just in case!!!) and re-writing the text.

It looks like a TARDIS, anyway! Imperfect, but delicious.

[and if anyone, not looking at anyone in particular, hon, thinks I was overreaching myself, I show further evidence that my goals in cakeitude are sensible, rational and achievable, unlike some people who take TARDIS-related cake art to EXTREMES - thanks to @greenspyders for the link]

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that this is Raeli’s second cake of the birthday season – I also made a gluten-and-dairy-free Time Vortex icecream cake for our weekly friends dinner last night, which consisted of mango and lemon sorbet swirled and refrozen in a silicon cake mould, with lolly dinosaurs, musk sticks and not-Lego Daleks stuck every which way into the swirl.

Imagine the kids faces (five of them) when I said “Every kid gets a Dalek.” The birthday girl was magnanimous in the sharing of mechanical monsters, and all 5 children (including the 2 year old Jem) played happily with them afterwards. No one tried to eat one. Happy ending!

Me: How about we watch that animated Batman movie you got for Christmas?
Him: Okay.
Daughter: Yay, Batman!

*family starts Batman Year One*

–Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham
–Lieutenant Gordon gets beaten up in street
–screen fills up with thugs and (underage) hookers

Me: Starting to think this film is not in fact appropriate for nearly-seven-year-olds
Him: Most definitely

*family examines DVD case*

Me & Him: Oh, crap, M Rated!

*lunge for DVD, turn it off*
*daughter wails with disappointment*
*we explain why M rated means not appropriate for nearly-seven-year-olds*
*we put on other animated Batman episode which is far more appropriate, with icecream to help daughter through the transition*

Me (guiltily): I think I just remembered that Batman: Year One was originally written by Frank Miller
Him: That explains a lot.

And this is why checking the film rating is sometimes not a bad idea, the end.

A home-made Adipose from Glammer to Raeli

And home-made cybermats!

I could say that we didn’t give Jemima the pirate hat because of Amy Pond… but it would be a lie.

Shortbread daleks! All now eaten.

And… well, yes. A fraction of the Doctor Whoness that invaded our household this year, as every member of the family received something along those lines. Things. Somethings. Many things.

This is not all the things.

I regret nothing.

Which is, you know, what they have been doing all along with Belville, a rather grim dystopia of pink cottages, ponies and jodphurs. Only now they’re going to do it in lavender and aqua! There’s a great critical article about the problematic nature of this line at the Mary Sue.

I have mixed feelings. From the Business Week article, it does look like Lego are working hard to look at what girls want and need out of toys, rather than just spraying pink on ponies and hurling it at them, machine-gun fashion. But while I agree that yes, my six year old would probably prefer to play with the LEGO Friends mini-figs that look like real girls instead of little yellow barrels with faces, I’m also concerned that as with Belville, this new line will be an excuse not to be as inclusive as they could be in the standard Lego sets.

Anyone who gets me started on the topic is well acquainted with my rant about how something like Harry Potter, a property that appeals equally to boys and girls, becomes horribly boy-heavy once it turns to Lego, and you have to buy hugely expensive sets to have girls like Ginny, Hermione and Luna included at all. This happens across the board – female characters are massively outnumbered by male in almost every Lego set going, and there are whole lines that feature no female characters at all, or one female character for every 8 or so men.

The Castle theme, I believe, has one damsel (which I’ve never seen on a toy shelf) and a whole bunch of male knights, guards, peasant farmers, etc. Because medieval history, totally for boys, am I right? (Even Merlin does better with female characters.) And yes, there are some very cute female characters (like Cleopatra!) in the current range of minifigs you can buy as Lego lucky dip, but I’ve never been able to bring myself to buy those for my daughter because again, so many more male characters than female, and I could spend a fortune trying to get her that damned Cleopatra. It’s not like she needs more boy minifigs.

My daughter, up until now, has dealt with this lissue by taking actual bricks with faces on and building them outrageous crinoline frocks which can be swapped between heads. I also bought her a bunch of not-Lego (some other brand) which is capable of producing fairy tale/princess type Lego (Girl’s Dream) which isn’t utterly revolting, though sadly the bricks don’t fit together as nicely as the “real” brand. On the other hand, they have sets with MORE THAN ONE GIRL IN THEM. The pink, though. Oh, the pink.

Our girls should have toy options other than ‘everything is pink’ and ‘all the characters are boys.’

The lack of female minifigs doesn’t just say that Lego doesn’t care about whether girls buy it or not. It also says that Lego thinks that boys should mostly play with boy characters. Which would come as news to a certain 8 year old boy I know, who was so annoyed that his enormous Atlantis Lego set came with only one female character that he made her the captain, to make up for it. And okay, maybe he’s not typical 8 year old boy, I accept that. (But oh, wouldn’t the world be a better place if he was?)

Toy makers have a responsibility. They do. And one of the most interesting pieces of child psychology in that article, which leapt out at me, is that according to their studies, girls (mostly) play in 1st person, and boys in 3rd person. Which suggests to me that you could have a better balance of male and female characters without it affecting the boys’ game play at all, or threatening their masculinity, or any of that jazz. You could chuck in a few more female submariners, knights, Star Wars characters, witches, ninjas, and so on. If boys don’t need specific idealised avatars in their play (as this article suggests the Lego psychologists believe) then surely it would be a good thing to encourage them to play with a variety of characters.

The girl characters don’t have to have pink princess dresses, or fairy wings. Lego has actually designed some great female adventure characters (Raeli has a female archaeologist that I bought for myself, before she was born). There just aren’t enough of them.

I worry about this new girl Lego line, not because they’re giving young girls a redesigned minifig with handbags and breast curves, but because it’s an excuse to make the LOOK ITS FOR BOYS Lego lines even more male heavy, and that not only makes the girls who like Harry Potter, Star Wars, Medieval Castles, Atlantis, Cities or just plain building shit with bricks feel completely excluded, but also works as yet another societal tool programming boys to believe that girls aren’t people.

But it’s not all doom and gloom out there. The new DC Super Heroes line of Lego has just been launched, to tie in with the upcoming Lego Batman 2 game. The first wave includes a set with Wonder Woman (packaged with Superman and Lex Luthor) and one with Catwoman (packaged with Batman). Yes, you heard me right. Lego with Wonder Woman, and Catwoman, and you don’t have to buy a set with 12 other (male) characters in order to get access to them.

I would have respected this whole “LEGO cares about girls” spiel a hell of a lot more if the interview in the Business Week article had mentioned that, as well as providing a new line with aqua bricks and yellow handbags and cocktail glasses in trendy swimming pools, they were also releasing freaking Wonder Woman Lego in traditional yellow blocky minifig shape.

Um yes, and the moral of the story is? My daughter is so getting Lego for her birthday. But not the kind with handbags.

I was still more than a year away from getting my PhD in Classics, and this was a much-needed breath of fresh air. It reminded me how much I love Roman history, and the women to be found there. It also, of course, gave me a chance to rail against some of the more frustrating aspects of studying Roman women, and highlight a whole bunch of my personal irritations.

In revisiting these posts, the temptation was to edit and rework them, though I decided to keep the series as an artefact in its own right. Then I changed my mind as soon as I saw the utterly tactless hash I had made of the Rape of the Sabine Women. So we have a mixture of posts exactly as they were, and posts I have tidied and reworked a little, for my own peace of mind. I have also included occasional commentary at the end of some chapters, when I really couldn’t help myself.

My eldest daughter Raeli (short for Aurelia, which becomes relevant in Part II) was fourteen months old when I wrote these posts. I hadn’t realised that until I scrolled past one of the old comments in which I describe my Dad watching I, Claudius while babysitting her in one room, while I finished my thesis in the other.

It’s probably a good thing I didn’t know then that it would be more than a year before the thesis finally was done, and I became Dr Tansy. Though maybe it would have helped if I had known that I would actually make it over the line! There were times when it seemed quite desperately uncertain.

Here it is, then, a time capsule within a time capsule, written with love and impertinence.

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Next: The Raptae (Rape of the Sabine women, Lucretia)

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The Matrons of Awesome series was originally posted on Livejournal (LJ user: cassiphone) in March 2006 for Women’s History Month.