A Month

Aha! Pictures! We had a one month birthday here, and weeks of activity and friends and time, and TWO winter cold/flu bugs, and work and play... I've been so busy. Let's play catch-up...


Aww, this baby. I adore her. And I adore squishy cotton nighties. What's not to love?

Random sticking and gluing. Rowan with dry skin. New tactic: offering regular massages with olive oil or sunflower oil, anything to keep her moisturised without stinging that painful skin (bonus - she giggles like crazy the whole time)!


The dolls house getting lots and lots of play. Oh how I love finding the remains of some little game, a wooden penguin in the bath tub, or a pixie in the cradle, or a monkey sitting on the roof! :)

Sisterly adorableness.

Um, and again. Yes they are pretty cute. Sorry, I did warn you I'd do this when I could put up pictures again!

Drawing on a giant paper postage bag. Well, why not?


This toddler pulls her hair in her sleep, teasing it into dreads, just like Jenna did. There is no combing out of these knots - nothing for it but to wash with tons of conditioner.

No idea why they were lying on the floor here. But they were happy!


Overloaded with cute yet? Baby bright eyes to gaze into.

Epiphany celebrations. I feel like we're getting back so kind of groove of doing things with *all* of the children. Time with each apart and together, age-appropriate interesting things to do, you know. Sometimes I think that school-at-home-organised would be easier, would give me more of this stuff and less of the argh-who-to-tend-to-first-quandry. But this is so much more me, and they are all thriving in their own individual ways.

Drawing around each other, random anatomy unschooling. They spent hours on this. I felt rather smug. ;)

And even drawing around tiny Tali. She wasn't all that impressed, but she didn't cry until they were done, bless her.

Lovely sleepy.

Jenna quiet games. It's sometimes really hard on her. She loves playing on her own, but doesn't like being alone. If she stays around us, the little ones try to join in. If she goes upstairs, she gets lonely. I remember being the oldest. It really sucks sometimes.

Winter season table.

Oh gosh isn't Connor such a handsome little boy?

Rowan with her teeny tiny bunny, playing house.

Yep, see, we really have been poorly. Hot sad coughing Morgan. :(

Me in the very very early morning. Things actually are still really good. There is the occasional horrible hour (or two) but actually no bad *days*. I keep saying that, over and over again, because it has totally surprised me. And from the number of times I get asked if I'm SURE I'm REALLY doing OK, everyone else finds it hard to believe too. Four is nowhere near as hard as I thought.

Morgan with a puzzle, feeling much better! Look at that wall behind; every room in the house has been drawn on at some point in the last seven years, and I have finally started to redecorate one room at a time. It's slow progress though, and no doubt the youngest will go through her own stage of trying a quick artistic scribble somewhere I'd rather she didn't... Good grief, I NEVER expected for things to be so normal that I could feed the new baby to sleep on the bed and go off to redecorate the children's rooms. But I have done just that. :)

Dolls house again.

Two little dicky birds!

Everyone loving on Talia. Yeah, they still actually fight over her. Yeah, she seems totally taken with all the fuss anyway. :)



Wrapping up warm. A fair few walks, but mostly short ones, as Rowan often bursts into tears saying she's cold even though she wears a huge number of layers.

"Baby is cold! I will give her a blanky!"

Last one for today, I promise! Talia asleep in an abandoned wrap. One of my very favourite slings (Girasol old rainbow). Gorgeous.

There. All the prettiest bits of the missing month, give or take a few special outings I'll share later. Phew.

For Denise

Remember this? Remember the lovely orange and pink flying off your needles nearly three years ago? :) :)

This lovely little one has grown and grown this month. But she still has lots of knits to fit!

(Nom nom eat that fist...)

More procrastinating and excuses!

Well here I still am, with posts in my head and scribbled in journals, and nothing to show for it. We have all been ill, silly coughy cold and flu type thing, typical winter stuff, and thoroughly fed up with it I am too. For the second time in my life I got a sufficient temperature to hallucinate and feel dizzy even when lying down. This is worth taking paracetamol for, if ever anything was. ;) Much better now!

Still coughing a lot though, so we're hanging out at home and I'm on Pinterest again (oops) and bloggers who deliver beautiful lacey trays of tea to *their* sick children are making me feel ever so slightly pathetic. Since my offerings consisted largely of fuzzy felt, sticker books, spoonfuls of honey for the coughs, a lot of junk TV, and instructions to stop whining because honestly I *can* hear you ask for water in a normal voice and I *am* about to give it to you and you didn't even have to wait. I'm not the nursey type of mama. Sorry kids. I try.

I don't even *have* pretty china to bring tea in, so there. And I am aware that I used my very own whiney voice just then.

I still can't find a way to get pictures onto this laptop, until I can borrow or beg a card reader adapty thingy from someone techy. Or buy one, maybe next week after I buy Jenna a new mattress as hers still smells slightly from the time someone wet the bed, and I've been promising that mattress for about a month. When I can get my pictures on here, you know I'm going to flood your news feeds. :) In fact, I have been ordered to by a couple of my friends who are most annoyed to hear that Tali has dared to grow in their absence.

Right, I'm about to feed this lot (minus one, because Jenna had a sleepover last night, the only one of us not to have been even slightly ill) and I promised Rowan I'd give her a massage "in a minute" half an hour ago and we're almost due Talia's nightly grump too. Ah well.

Internet

Three weeks offline hasn't felt as long as I expected it to. The connection is still a bit dodgy so don't worry if I don't appear regularly for a while, but we do have a working laptop which is nice for me being able to type my random journalling at least - somehow I find that the words flow easier in a medium I can edit as I go and not think about spelling and spacing until later. Much as I love my large collection of paper journals and pretty pens. ;)

Thankyou for missing me! It's such an honour and blessing to feel you looking out for us when we're absent for a while, people calling and texting, worrying about me even, thankyou for caring. :) I have had another busy week since typing out that quick message on my mum's laptop last week.

Big news of the week, Martin's position HAS been made permanent, so although we are still earning literally a benefit-level income, we are that bit more secure financially. This is more of a relief than I expected.

Oh I'm going to be terrible when I get photographs sorted out. Talia is already changing, it goes so fast, etc, read lots of feeling strange and mourning just a little and fearing just a little for all of the future things we can't control or even know...

Here is a little picture of right now for you.

Talia is nursing again, and hiccuping at the same time. She had a long long snuggly feed twenty minutes ago, came off with wind, howled SO LOUDLY for a few minutes, and is now back on and almost rolling her eyes with happiness. I think she might be heading towards sleep about now. From here I can see Jenna standing at the window in a pink sundress and a winter scarf. She is writing in her purple journal, and just asked me to spell "angel" and "fantastic" for her. She is holding a pendant up, now, silver spinning in the light, and smiling at it; she has made the necklace as a gift for a friend.

Morgan is sitting in the middle of the floor with a broken mobile phone. She is silent and her back is to me, so I can't tell what she's doing with it. Now she has jumped to her feet and run upstairs. I can hear Rowan up there, talking to an imaginary friend in her bedroom. She has been asking for a DVD, but Martin is sitting here next to me cleaning the disk because it's a bit scratched (Despicable Me, a favourite!) and for once she has gone off to play rather than waiting impatiently shouting "encouragement" until the world is arranged to her satisfaction.

Morgan comes running in with a pair of ancient clip on earrings I have been trying to turn into a bracelet. She wants to know what they are. Talia unlatches and pees all over the nappy held under her. I miss almost every single pee at the moment, but that's OK too, she's happy and clean and dry, I'm happy and laid back and connected. And it's all good.

Martin brings me a cup of tea and scoops Tali up, holding her under her tummy, face down, her very favourite way to be held after a feed. All three of the others, from the sound of it, are playing together in their new bedroom, I hear a wardrobe door open and close and the sound of someone jumping off the bunkbed ladder. We're going to finish that room later, moving furniture around again til it all fits.

Jenna is singing. Loudly. I can't quite make out the words. It sounds like we're going to be treated (subjected) to another Show. Now I understand just why my own mother avoided these at all costs, it's SO HARD to be an audience (without commenting or correcting or any stupid adult interferance)!

And here we are, and here it is, moment by moment, this lovely peculiar life.

PS: I use Napier's Starflower on Rowan's skin, which works about as well as the steroid creams for us, but is very expensive! It stings terribly when her skin is very dry though, putting anything on her at all becomes a huge battle, and I stress about the dilemma of leaving her to scratch herself raw or fighting her to put moisturiser on it... I still have no answer on that one apart from feeling guilty with either answer!

Still Alive!

No internet for TWO WEEKS, with a newborn baby and lots of pictures and stuff to share and things going around in my head I want to talk about and it's driving me crazy! I'm so sorry if anyone has been worrying about me (I can't even text, all out of phone credit and the car took up my spare money needing repairs again). I should have internet access again late tonight, if my Dad does indeed manage to bring me his old laptop, but if not, well you know I'm still here!

Let's see... We've been rock climbing. We've redecorated one room of the house and sorted out about four bookshelves and a million piles of paperwork and junk. We've registered Tali and she's now official ;) oh and we've had what Social Services are treating as a malicious referral (thanks a lot, neighbour). We've done school-y stuff, surprisingly, and unsurprisingly spent not nearly enough time out of doors. And I have discovered a hitherto unexpected level of competency in getting laundry done (admittedly with the considerable assistance of a new tumble dryer from Martin's sister Alison). I have also cleared up cat poop FOUR times. Bloody cat.

We are all SO well. Tali is growing like crazy. She doesn't fit newborn clothes any more. She is a lovely little pudding who smiles and chats all day long and sleeps all night and has already had her first cold. Rowan is night waking twice a night which is driving her poor daddy potty, has a big eczema flare up, but is taking yet more leaps in talking and sounds like a little adult. Morgan is still serene. Jenna is still feisty. I am feeling very human, and surprisingly capable.

And I'm so looking forwards to catching up with you all soon, and seeing what is going on in your worlds (and sharing baby pictures, of course!). xxx

Sunlight (a new year reminder!)

The Word

Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,

between "green thread"
and "broccoli" you find
that you have penciled "sunlight."

Resting on the page, the word
is as beautiful, it touches you
as if you had a friend

and sunlight were a present
he had sent you from some place distant
as this morning -- to cheer you up,

and to remind you that,
among your duties, pleasure
is a thing,

that also needs accomplishing
Do you remember?
that time and light are kinds

of love, and love
is no less practical
than a coffee grinder

or a safe spare tire?
Tomorrow you may be utterly
without a clue

but today you get a telegram,
from the heart in exile
proclaiming that the kingdom

still exists,
the king and queen alive,
still speaking to their children,

- to any one among them
who can find the time,
to sit out in the sun and listen.

[by Tony Hoagland]