The Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd was on my home patch today.

He rocked up to a popular shopping precinct and was greeted by a throng of media (I was one of them) and locals (I was also one of them) who were snapping away with their mobile phones and thrusting their kids forward for the PM to meet.

It’s not every day you get to see your leader up close and personal.

One of my regular questions to these devoted couples is “what are your secrets to a successful marriage?”.

I am always waiting with my breath held for a nugget of advice that is so amazing that it will change my life but to be honest, the replies from these couples are simple (they admit as much that there is no complicated formula) and ones that many of us have heard before. Here are some examples:

1. Don’t let the sun go down on an argument.

2. Love each other.

3. Be kind to each other.

Seems so simple but I have failed on all three counts (and endless other marriage-enriching strategies) at times. I have been married eight years in October this year and I think that is a really long time! It has flown by as well, which is as startling as the fact I have sustained a relationship for this long! (My one other significant and  long-ish relationship was ballsed up by me being incredibly selfish, impulsive and confused in the way that defines some people’s early twenties.)

I have gone to bed completely enraged with my husband and have woken up with sleep not quietening the rage. I have been very unkind to him and have definitely had times where love has definitely had nothing to do with the relationship.

That’s normal, or so I have been told.

But on this Valentine’s Day we have our two daughters as a reminder that we are very blessed. I also have a partner who is on the same page as  me on things like movie tastes (He thought Mission: Impossible II was crap. Ditto Love, Actually…apart from the bit when Emma Thompson’s character receives the Joni Mitchell CD and plays ‘Both Sides Now’) and reads and watches as much news as I do.  (We were watching BBC World News the other night with a cup of tea… not sexy or exciting but perfectly enjoyable!) We have a similar sense of humour too. Some of this seems so superficial as I write but I find it comforting to be on a similar wavelength.

Post-It note: Kindness. Love. Sort out arguments promptly.

1. I found the news that Brangelina is allegedly breaking up to be a mood-lifter. Nothing like a celeb break-up to lift the spirits!

2. We were at the playground and a little girl and my daughter (similar ages) were climbing on the equipment. Little girl looked down to her mum, pointed at my daughter and said, “I can climb up this but THAT girl can’t”. I smiled and ignored the comment in the way parents do but in my head I thought “Yeah, but you look like a sour-faced little whiner, kid!”.

3. I ate the lollies from the party bags my kids received from a 4th birthday party.

4. My husband was accepted into a Bachelor of Nursing course starting in five weeks. I am proud but my immediate (selfish) reaction was:

“My life will be hell for the next two years, what with him working and studying! Why couldn’t he be like most people and do a job he hates, or even doesn’t really like and put up with it until retirement? Then he can take up golf or something.”.

5. I deleted my husband and daughter’s tv shows from the Foxtel iQ box to make more room for my stuff (that I never find time to watch!) and said, “the three-year-old must have switched off the power point and the recordings failed”.

1. Go to bed earlier. I find that I stay up really late because that is when the kids are asleep and I can get some stuff done (mainly watching shows I have taped on my Foxtel iQ). I like to call it “me” time. However, this backfires the next day because I can be crabby and a bad mummy. (I cave in and put on cBeebies or Nick Jr. See resolution number 2.)

2. Watch less television. I love TV. I love watching it, reading about tv shows and circling stuff in my Foxtel guide. The other night my husband said, “If the interest rates go up more we may have to get rid of the Foxtel”. I told him to wash his mouth out and NEVER speak of it again. I will scrimp on other things but don’t mess with my TV! However, I need to be more discerning with my viewing. Quality over quantity. No more news broadcasts in languages I don’t understand or shows about bridezillas, stupidest criminals or anything with “whisperer” in the title.

I let my eldest daughter watch TV (she is nearly four) and I am also going to try to limit her viewing. At the moment she would watch an hour in the morning and an hour (maybe a little more…) in the afternoon. I would like have her watch only one hour a day but seriously, when would I be able to cook dinner, tidy up or surf the internet in peace without my High Definition friend?

3. Remove makeup and wash face before bed. How else am I going to get the benefits of the Dermalogica products I buy and more importantly, justify the money I shell out on them?

4. Stop taking my husband for granted. I have a great husband. I really do. Everything he does is for us. But am I happy? Of course not! I am cursed with  Billy Idolism. I want “more, more, more”. When I complained the other day that we weren’t going out enough and doing fun-filled activities as a family he looked up from the bathroom floor (he was re-grouting) and said, “would you rather a slob who sits on the couch drinking and playing video games?”. No, I wouldn’t. Thank you for the reminder.

5. Watch Ingmar Bergman’s Silence of God Trilogy that has been taped on my iQ for months. (This contradicts resolution No. 2 but it’s art, eh?). You never know when you’ll be at a gathering where Swedish cinema will be discussed?

6. Lose 10 kilos and tone up. As much as I didn’t want to have this as a resolution, the post-baby belly and bingo wings (flabby arms) have to go. Fact.

What are your resolutions?

I'll admit, I'm not great with making things look pretty...

I hurriedly remembered to get this organised before my three-and-a-half-year-old went to bed. (She went early tonight. My husband and I are still drunk on the power of, “We can still call Santa’s elves and tell them to tell him not visit tonight…”.) It is the first time we have left snacks out for Santa…awww!

A peanut butter and banana muffin for Santa (recipe from Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld) and a starting-to-get-limp carrot for a reindeer.

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas and if you don’t celebrate it, I wish you a great holiday.

I have two young daughters and am very interested in the apparent sexualisation of young girls through media images and advertising.

My husband and I are careful about what is watched on TV, the clothes that we buy for them (No slogans like “It’s all about me” or “I’m a princess in training” etc.) and how we parent them. I read books and I talk to other parents and I can be a bit, well, paranoid.

But when it comes to the toys and colour of clothing my daughter favours, I have become less intense. We have always had a mixture of toys – dolls, cars, musical instruments, animals etc.-  but at the moment, my three-year-old is very drawn to “pink toys”  like Disney Princesses and My Little Pony and she loves looking after her dolls.

I’m not so worried about this but according to a British campaign called PinkStinks, by purchasing pink toys and allowing my daughter to indulge in things pink, I could be damaging her body image and self esteem.

Obviously, PinkStinks is not saying that the colour should be banned or anything extreme like that but its name is very provocative. PinkStinks says one of its aims is to “challenge the ‘culture of pink’, which is based on beauty over brains..”.

I disagree with PinkStinks’s current campaign against  Early Learning Centre (UK chain of toy stores) because it offers “passive beauty-centred products and and a website where the search facility groups toys by gender…” . ELC offers many choices of toys (we shopped there often when living in London) and yes, it has “pinkified” toys that may not have needed gender specification but is it really that bad?

I have bought some pink toys because they are cute and I think my daughter will enjoy them. But I also buy her Lego and matchbox cars.

The other day I was in Kmart and all my three-year-old wanted to do was look at the make up and twist the tester lipsticks up and down.  I don’t let her play with makeup at home (real or fake) but she does watch me when I put it on and wants me to pretend to put it on her.

There’s much that I like about the sentiment behind PinkStinks, especially its push to celebrate women who are inspirational in ways other than the fact they can look good, appear on reality TV or marry a sportsperson (we’ve all seen how that can backfire in recent weeks… just ask Mrs Tiger Woods!)

I loathe much of celebrity culture but I also work as a journalist and realise that celebrity has always intrigued people, including me (think of celebs like Elizabeth Taylor and scandals involving Lana Turner and Fatty Arbuckle. Newspapers covered these rabidly many, many years ago).

At my daughter’s daycare centre – a fabulous community-run place – the most popular activity for weeks with girls – and boys – was hairdressers. Parents were asked to donate empty bottles of shampoo and hair items because the children were really engaged in the role-play and creating different hairstyles.

Is it pink that really stinks or, is it worse to deny that many girls, at some stages of their lives, are going to want to “conform” to gender stereotypes and play mummies and makeup?

I would be more focused on letting kids be kids and enjoying childhood, rather than an obsession with keeping girls away from products and activities deemed “girlie”.

I’m sure that the people behind the Pink Ribbon campaign that has been raising awareness of breast cancer since 1991 don’t think the colour pink – and its feminine associations – stinks.

“It’s doesn’t look good mum. It doesn’t look cool!” she said.

She is three-and-a-half years old.

Once I got over the shock that she didn’t like something I had picked out for her to wear, I was disturbed by the fact that she had an opinion on what her clothes looked like…and used the words “not cool”.

Does this mean I have failed to shield her from media images of women that promote the s-xualisation of girls and makes them grow up far too quickly?

She certainly doesn’t get any fashion sense from me. I am no yummy mummy who looks put-together when I leave the house.  I’m not one of those mums profiled in magazines who slip into their Citizens of Humanity jeans, French Sole ballet flats and organic designer cotton tee and zip out the door.

If I am lucky I put some mascara and blush on, have remembered to wipe off baby spew from my top, put on deodorant and clean my teeth.

A particularly stylish day for me is when I have jeans on with a tee that is long enough to cover the sight of the open zipper. (I am still wearing my maternity cargo pants and my baby is now five months old.) My shoes are from Target (on sale) and tees from Kmart.

I am no fashionista.

So I am perplexed as to where my daughter gets this concept of “cool” from. Is it from daycare? TV? I am already freaking out that she’ll grow up too quickly, despite our best efforts to keep everything age appropriate. (My husband thinks most little girls’ clothing is too grown up!)

I’m also wondering how old she will be when I become embarrassing or “uncool”.

Probably next year.