Carried Family

Candlemass

2012-02-01T14:56:00.008Z

Thus times do shift, thus times do shift
Each thing its time doth hold
New things succeed, new things succeed
As former things grow old

Chinese New Year

2012-02-01T10:21:00.009Z

Fun as usual. And as usual, I couldn't get a picture of them all together for the life of me. ;)

Fuzzy baby in a kimono slept through most of it.

Lion dancing, giant dragon puppet, feasting, burning our new year prayers, and I manage just a couple of blurry pictures.

These times of family and celebration and looking forwards are so precious to me at this cold dark time of year.

A Month

2012-01-30T09:36:00.096Z

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

2012-01-29T21:36:00.000Z

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!

2012-01-22T16:24:00.001Z

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

2012-01-18T12:08:00.000Z

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!

2012-01-14T12:00:00.000Z

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!)

2012-01-01T11:03:00.002Z

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]

Year in Pictures

2011-12-31T08:34:00.081Z

2011 has been, at times, bloody hard work, and I have wondered how we would live through it all. But wow. What a lot of beauty and wonder, and sweetest grace. This year has been amazing.

What can I say? Nothing at all would make sense of it, or explain just how grateful I am for the myriad mercies large and small. Beauty from ashes.

Love and light for the coming year - and may we find grace in every moment of it.

Christmassing

2011-12-29T09:19:00.043Z

Christmas eve. Jenna is Mary in the Nativity at my mum's church. Tali sleeps snuggly and happy on Ashleigh. We wish Emma a happy birthday, and sing carols, and open a couple of early presents at mum's house.

At home the girls have their new Christmas PJs, and hang their stockings, and somehow collapse into bed after one more reading of The Night Before Christmas and one more song.

(And would you believe we didn't hear a single further peep out of them until 8.30am?! :) Madness!)

All day long I say, "She isn't a toy, she's a person!" And, "We don't take TURNS of her, she gets to be where she wants to be!" So then, when she's happy on someone else, I have to resist the urge to snatch her back and say, "She's mine, it's my turn, I want a hug!"

We don't open presents until late afternoon, because there is enough excitement with stockings and visitors and Christmas dinner, but Rowan has her trike from Great Grandma purely because of the logistics of hiding something like that. Christmas dinner is wonderful, and very peaceful for the sheer number of children attending. Martin cooks it all, because I am cuddled up with Talia - again. :)

There are rather more presents than I think are necessary. Family are hard to reign in, excited at the birth of a precious grandchild, and some of them to be here in the UK at all, and I really can't tell any of them off. They do choose wonderful gifts, and the children are so joyfully grateful for everything. Only I now I have to find space for everything! So much for simplicity, eh?

After presents, and a quiet couple of hours playing, we watch The Gruffalo's Child (which Rowan falls asleep in front of) and Dr Who (which Morgan falls asleep in front of) and all head to bed. Jenna is still wearing her two favourite presents, days later: an amber pendant, and a bright green skirt. :)

And all in all, it is a couple of very very happy easy days.

Random Sharing

2011-12-28T12:41:00.000Z

I did some crochet last week, my first post-birth crafting, to make a hat actually small enough for a newborn. I *had* small enough hats, but it turns out either Morgan or Roo stretched them all. So I crocheted a really tiny lace hat in lime green. The midwives came and signed us off (without any argument at all about not weighing her, which was really lovely) and were shocked that I appear to be able to crochet and breastfeed at the same time. Yay for multi-tasking. ;)

I made a batch of this (candy cane bark beloved of many other bloggers) for presents, and am going to have to make more because it's just too nice. Be warned. But other parts of last week were just plain stressful. I seem to have come down from the birthing high. I ache more than I did at one day post-partum, but mostly, I am so so tired! I threatened to cancel Christmas at one point (or more likely, a few times), but I'm glad I didn't, because Christmas was a peaceful oasis in the stormy sea of random new-mama tears and exhaustion, and fits of shouting at the children for running around like a pack of rabid monkeys. It isn't all pretty and peaceful, not all the time anyway!

Martin actually had one night just before Christmas when he didn't finish work until nearly midnight. I will skate neatly over how badly that went. Honestly, not pretty AT ALL. But eventually they all fell asleep, Rowan sobbing, on my feet on the sofa, at 10pm... Oh and *since* Christmas, less working, but oh also so so much less sleeping. Colic. Poor poor tiny Tali, poor poor mama, I HATE colic. I want to swear about it, but I doubt it would help.

Crochet, though. Crochet is good. And baby cuddles. And family days. (Save the swearing for 9pm tonight when Tali has stomach pains...) :S

Christmas is upon us...

2011-12-23T09:17:00.007Z

And we're not ready, not how I thought we would be, but that's OK.

The Jesse Tree isn't complete, and that's OK too.

The house is chaotic, messy, but warm and sparkling and filled with joy and the random singing of carols instigated all day long by the two biggest children!

More babymooning

2011-12-22T17:17:00.003Z

Argh these days are just so good! The main frustration in them is that there is not enough time for sitting and staring, in spite of my fierce protection of that time... There are so many things that still need doing, mainly feeding us, even if I do have so much made ahead. Martin has been working long hours.

I have lots of volunteers to take Talia for a minute, but I want to just hold her myself. Yesterday morning I was so tired I went back to bed leaving her peacefully sleeping on her daddy... And I felt physically bereft. Almost sick with missing her. Trying to respect that feeling in myself *and* still do anything else, ack: not easy.

The others are lovely busy little things. So much creative play, again, as the weather keeps them more contained and the garden is so so wet. Jenna went for a sleepover with friends and was reluctant to leave Talia, they are all still loving new baby-ness.

Special hugs to Kim, Kirsty, and Claire, who sent beautiful beautiful soft blankets just right for such a cold first week with a soft velvety new person. :)

Morgan just beams, for hours at a time, at all of us. Wow. She has a really special serenity that I am feeling really close to right now.

Jenna has such an amazing affinity with Talia's needs - she takes the baby's nappy off and cues her, and she's always right, I can't believe it! Tali is wearing nappies pretty full time because she likes to be warmly dressed. But still we are taking her to the toilet and catching so often, without any effort. This is what I want, to just be WITH her, listen to her, watch her, respect her - not to push myself or get hung up on what we're doing right, or wrong, or could do differently.

I'm finding Martin working to be hard hard hard. But mostly, I'm just in a really good place right now with everything. Did I mention that I was expecting to fall apart? ;) Yay! I'm so happy!

Shortest Day

2011-12-22T13:15:00.000Z

Like the moon on the face of dark waters
like the spirit hovering over the deep
like a seed needing the dark to grow into the light
like the darkest hour coming just before the dawn
like new life ready within the womb
may God's face shine upon me as I wait in hope for the returning light
in the dusky daylight hours of this solstice day.

(Prayer from The Celtic Wheel of the Year by Tess Ward.)

Woolies

2011-12-21T08:26:00.005Z

Hand knits and babies, just made for each other. I'm not even picking up any crafting right at this moment, but who can take their eyes off the baby long enough? ;) Still, I am taking great pleasure in wrapping her up in the lovingly made softness. The first baby I have knitted for myself, too.

She is literally wearing love, every day. The coat Nadia knitted for Rowan. Booties a lovely friend made for Morgan. A vest I knitted for her before a pregnancy test even acknowledged her existence. Socks that my beautiful friend sat knitting in the sunshine at the Green Parent meet when yet more loved wise women blessed my growing bump and shared their deep hearts with us.

Tali much prefers to be fully dressed, even when the house is warm, even though she doesn't much like the process of *getting* dressed.

I am snuggling her wrapped in my birthday shawl. :)

And every time I gently pull on something from the basket of stitch-by-stitch hand made things, I smile, a deep contented smile. And wrap her in the love other people had for her, for us, for her sisters, for a baby they didn't even know, for a baby who grew up long ago, for a small person they imagined warming as they knitted.

(See these crazy sparkly socks, with silver in them? Another gift from Ashleigh, using scraps of very expensive luxury yarn! How very Christmassy they feel! And reading... Jenna and I have recently been reading together a *lot*. I am very much enjoying introducing her to Pratchett right now, starting with The Wee Free Men.)

Perfect

2011-12-19T08:33:00.002Z

Rowan put this flower in Tali's hair. Loved and treasured, snuggled and held, kissed and kissed and kissed, by every one of us.

There is nothing quite like these newborn days. I am holding on to every second, being present, right here. I hope it will always be so easy to stay in these second by second precious moments. :)

Advent-ing

2011-12-18T16:32:00.000Z

We took a walk today, to the woods for holly and ivy and clear cool fresh air. For muddy boots and golden leaves and bare branches and running and shouting children and perfect peaceful nature.

Bundle! Oh I love carrying her close to my heart, and she loves to be wrapped, and it's all so easy. Why was I expecting everything the worst? Things are GOOD. :)

Season Table, fourth week in advent and overflowing with celebration. :)

Wrapped up warm.

And the days burn down, down to the longest nights, and on to Christmas. We are all so happy, and having a joyous peaceful advent. :)

More Talia Pictures

2011-12-17T09:23:00.001Z

Yeah, I know. :)

She's irresistible. The little hamster cheeks when she's snuggled up tight are quite something.

FOUR! My goodness, they are all so beautiful.

The top of her head may just be my favourite thing. No wait, those toes. No, the little fingers. Her skinny legs. No, the fuzz on her shoulders. Oh never mind, her velveteen head is very lovely.

Hello wide awake eyes in the early morning light!

Hello little delicate hand.

So very loved, baby.

Every moment is a gift.

Babymoon

2011-12-16T10:10:00.000Z

I am literally still bouncing. At that stage where my mum thinks I'm a danger to myself, because I could just do ANYTHING and feel invincible! Look at this baby, though! How could I not be on a ridiculous high, drinking her in, breathing her, kissing her velvety softness all day long? I'm drunk on baby. :)

All day I hear a constant refrain of "can I hold her?" "It's MY turn!" "You held her last, it's not fair!" "I neeeed to hold my sister, she wants ME." They actually came to blows over her on the second day and then all of them were crying, heartbroken than I'd whisked her to safety (and that they'd hurt each other). Honestly. It's chaos. In a sweet way, I suppose: they all want to touch her every second of every day.

She loves to be with them, and is soothed by them more easily than by me most of the time. They sing to her. That picture after the birth where I'm nursing her and all three big girls are sitting beside us? They were singing. Talia listens intently with wide wide black eyes. Jenna found a jingly bell yesterday, and Talia's surprised intent little face went so still as she listened for that interesting sound. She has music right in her soul.

I am so surprised at myself, feeling so laid back about everything. Talia cries. A lot. Little mewly kitteny noises. Not screaming unhappy, just telling me; the world is strange, I'm not sure about this, I forgot where the milk is, my tummy is uncomfortable, what the heck is that cold feeling, help me free my hand from my blanket!

When Rowan cried, I used to feel it as accusation - You are Failing, Why Can't You Meet My Needs Properly, Bad Mama. Any time someone else had to soothe her even for a moment it physically hurt me. With Talia, right now, I hear her crying and she's talking to me, and sometimes all she needs is to be heard - the world is strange and I'm not quite at home here yet, hold me and hear me and be present - and we're OK.

One afternoon the midwives came and it was just me plus four girls, and the three bigger ones were leaping on and off the furniture fake-laughing pretending to be Fae, and I didn't even feel the need to apologise for the chaos, I just laughed and said, "Tell me, I'll adjust to this soon, right?"

What else, what else? Talia likes to be held *tightly*, have her feet held, and her head stroked. Odd, these little things, noticed and remembered. How different and the same this baby is, what is universal, what is familiar from her siblings, and what is just her. Wow. I catch myself thinking, I can do this, I *know* this mothering, deep down in my bones. Not at all like how I've been emotionally this past six months or so.

I'm not staying in, babymooning, and nothing else. I thought I would want to, this time, but I just can't, I need the air and to be available for the others too - and the easiest way for that to happen is popping Tali in a sling (the first time I put her in one she sighed deeply and went right to sleep for two hours) and heading outside. Still, we have time, precious time. Hours and hours of gazing and nursing and feeling utterly in love.

Oh, and she let her cord go during the night. I wondered, then, if we'd kept her placenta attached, what would be the same and different. Would she have minded more or less? She seemed to be really uncomfortable for a while, and then cried inconsolably for a minute or two, and I noticed when she was calm that she was cord-less. It seems so soon, all so quick, everything passing.

I have so much to tell! But living it is taking a lot of attention. ;) I put words around these things, I *need* to put words around these things, the urge is so strong I sit with my journal propped on her head...

Life is amazing and wonderful. I might get around to feeling tired next week. I just can't fit it in right now!

A Birth Story

2011-12-13T19:22:00.002Z

So, Talia's journey to my arms should probably begin on Monday afternoon, with my blood pressure being up (again). Now since it normally takes a heck of a lot to raise my blood pressure at all, off I headed to pregnancy day assessment for blood tests and more blood pressure monitoring.

The wait was *long* - I crocheted Morgan's Christmas hat in the waiting room - but the long sit down and a nice cuppa did the trick and I had a set of normal results. But on the way home I was feeling very achey and tight, and upset about the traditional hospital stressyness about us being post dates. I said to myself, I am just bloody well going to HAVE this baby already, and I want to wake up in labour tonight. But I dared not get my hopes up too much when I headed to bed still feeling strange and tight.

At 3.30am I woke up with a start and felt a little pop, and leaped out of bed to grab a towel. I still ached oddly, but just felt niggly and happy that my waters had broken, and went back to bed to get some more sleep. Martin got up, cleared the living room floor, and then came back to bed too. We both dozed a little. After a couple of hours I was out of bed again, feeling pressure coming and going with enough regularity to think I wouldn't be waiting days for things to start up for real. I belly-danced around the living room for a half hour, listening to folky music and swaying my hips, wow it felt so good to quietly labour away on my own.

Eventually I phoned the midwife, knowing my own midwife was on call til 8am and wanting there to be every chance of her being able to stay with me and skip her clinic that day! Then I woke Martin up, again, and had to tell him yet again that I didn't need him to leap out of bed to rescue me. ;) He was so sweet, and just stroked my shoulders a bit and told me over and over how happy he was.

I was feeling the need to concentrate more over time, although I'm sure these rushes were fairly irregular they were definitely getting stronger and longer and I was feeling more and more centred and calm and inside-myself-spacey. I still felt really sleepy, actually, totally comfortable sitting on my heels contracting away.

Rowan woke and came in, to chat to us all and sit in my mum's arms, and then her sisters joined us. As I progressed further I was less and less aware of where they were and what they were doing, but Rowan stayed around for almost the whole birthing, and all of them spent a lot of time quietly watching me and affectionately stroking me as they passed.

I have no idea when it was that I said I thought I'd want the pool soon. But oh my goodness, that pool just refused to get to temperature, and very soon I was feeling panicky and my mind was all over the place. I was going from calm visualisation in one long hard contraction to total messy whining in the next, I can't, I don't want to, I'm not ready, come back tomorrow. Jenna stroked my hair and told me I was about to have a baby, while I pressed my forehead into the sofa and whined through a long hard transition. Oh GOD please let me push soon, I said, a moment before someone said the pool was ready.

The midwife wanted to hear how baby's heart rates were doing, but I just shook my head, thinking, I can't talk, no talking, I can't move, don't make me move. My legs felt like jelly and I could feel just how low baby's head was sitting, and although I longed to be in the water I didn't think I'd make it in without falling down.

Two pairs of hands helped me in, and suddenly everything was *fine* and I felt blissy and magical again. And pushy. Oh my goodness, already? I felt ready. A few long sensations of pressure swept over me and I found myself singing, LOUD long low notes filling the room. The thought passed through my mind that I might be worrying the children, but I let it go, the sound felt raw and good and beautiful. I had always tried before to be a nice sweet quiet birther, and never ever felt like yelling and screaming, but this baby taught me that THIS is my grove in transition. I need to SING it out. My breathing steadied, I felt primal and strong and ready, and could feel the room just full of presences supporting and upholding me (having the children there was AWESOME).

Then came, seriously, two short HARD low-pressure-y contractions, in I felt almost no sensation of pushing (conscious or otherwise) but was very very aware of the feeling of baby's head sliding down. During the second contraction there, with my still singing, almost growling the low note, I had a moment of "the head will slide back" and I thought NO WAY, you are being born NOW, and gave a tiny push. And then there was a whole, small, soft body in the water, in my hands, up onto my chest, bright pink and round and so so tiny. Baby was just born. Just, like that. I felt like I didn't even work for it!

I said, "Baby! Baby baby baby! We did it! I SANG you out!" The second midwife gasped, "She's beautiful," and then asked excitedly, "What did you have? Boy or girl?!" Martin said, "We had a baby, that's all that matters." The cord was looped (tangled) all around baby, and I had to perform a little human tetris to untangle, at which point we saw that she was a perfect little fourth daughter. I nearly dunked her at least once she had the cord in such a mess! (Later the second midwife said as soon as she saw the face she though girl, she was just so dainty and pretty.)

Oh she was so pink, and so tiny, and so loud - she really did not stop mewling for half an hour (until her sisters held her, and then she went to sleep right on Rowan's lap).

I was overwhelmed with instant love. I looked at Martin and said, "I was so wrong, I love her, I am ready, I can do four, it is all so worth it for her." All of the girls had their hands in the water the second she was out, trying to touch any part of her they could reach. None of them can stop just *touching* her.

Talia Willow was born at 9am, 13th of December, and she is just loveliness. She lotus birthed, but much later in the day Martin noticed that she was distressed any time her cord touched any part of her skin. He felt she was disturbed by this familiar part of her world being cold and still rather than pulsing and living and warm. We decided that we would cut her cord, and since we did so she is much calmer. It felt totally right to leave it, but then totally right when we came to the point of deciding to separate her from her placenta: our ultimate goal of meeting her need as an individual, we all feel we totally honoured. :)

And so, we are babymooning, blissfully, gazing at her and drinking her in. Our little Talia Willow.

Birthing Day

2011-12-13T14:18:00.002Z

Birthdaying

2011-12-12T09:44:00.001Z

A little celebratory photo fest in honour of my FIVE year old. :) Birthday table set ready for the morning...

Last picture of Morgan at age four. Yes, still the penguin. He is still her baby, after all these years, and I can't see him ever being set aside for a prettier doll.

First picture of my beaming five year old, so proud!

Presents...

The knitted vest is so beautiful on her, I can't believe I made it, but then I can't believe I birthed and raised this sweet girl! The latter is the bigger miracle. Where does the time go? How on earth did we get here? Life is just TOO amazing.

Candles and morning time joys.

Cake for breakfast. She asked for a paper Chinese dragon for her birthday, and a rainbow cake, and I tried, I really did.

She's such a very grateful person, so simply delighted with any little thing anyone does for her, she would never complain about my pathetic paper dragon or wonky birthday cake tasting rather more of food colouring than anything else (and the food colouring in itself a sign of a rather more laid back frame of mind than in previous years lol). She was just THRILLED. With everything. All day.

The magic of a Christingle service. Truly, Morgan's eyes reflect every bit of light the world offers her. She astounds me.

We had pizza with family, in Morgan's favourite restaurant, where the children get to watch the pizza being made. I just can't believe how unhurried and wonderful today has been. Something of Morgan's self, washing over all of us, such a gift to be her mama. :)

Morgan

2011-12-11T08:12:00.019Z

Oh my quirky crazy funny pixie child. How I wish I could see inside your head sometimes. I truly have no idea, none at all, what you are thinking. Those moments when you stare and stare and I wonder what those blue eyes see. Those sudden sunny smiles. Your cackle of glee over the smallest thing. You are just perfect.

Did you know my very first online journal entry was your birth story? Five years and I still remember the magic of lifting your body from the pool and cradling you, so overwhelmed with loving you it didn't even occur to me to wonder if you were a girl or a boy! Your wet slippery tiny self, all vernixy and soft, cradled to my chest... You were purest joy to me. You still are.

Blossoming. Absolutely blossoming. Each year coming more into your own. I don't know how to describe you, how to find the words. I don't know how to put words around my hopes and dreams for you. Just keep right on being yourself. Precious bright unique carefree steady serene innocent girl.

Happy happy happiest birthday to you, little one. xxx

Tenth Full Moon

2011-12-10T19:37:00.001Z

And here we still are! Well I suppose that's about right for me. Baby arriving tonight would *still* be my earliest by a few days, though in some ways this year has flown by in other ways I feel like I have been pregnant forever. Certainly I have never been in so much pain for so long at the end of pregnancy: it adds a certain something to the looking-forwards-to-baby.

Minnow is such a lovely round teeny bump, all baby, and all kinds of weird shapes as the little wriggler stretched and rolls around inside of me. Rowan comes and kisses my bump several times a day and says, "Good baby. Lovely baby. Get born, baby." Sometimes she adds the more selfish, "And bring my milk back!" Ha!

We are all a little bit on edge to tell the truth. I am so sick of my random crying fits, and so sick of worrying about how much longer I may have to wait with Christmas approaching and Morgan's birthday just tomorrow, with three other children who need me and currently barely able to walk to the end of the road, with all this "other stuff" - still. I am struggling to see the baby at the end of it all, struggling to remember why I was willing to go through pregnancy again. I am so done with it, so very finished with pregnancy.

Baby is clearly happy and comfortable. So we wait you out, little one, trusting that you know when it is your time. But, for the record, I have no objections to tonight...

Picture Assortment

2011-12-10T09:56:00.000Z

Well, a little more than the usual ups and downs, but still hanging in there. It could be much worse. I can't help feeling it could also be much easier! Ah well. This week has had its moments!

Rowan has been struggling to sleep. She wakes in the middle of the night, takes herself to the toilet, and then gets scared of the dark and freaks out. So she has been cosleeping again mostly, and huggling my neck in the dark, and oh how I have loved having her there so soft and warm and sweet-smelling. Though I'm not sure how I'm going to handle her still needing this when the baby arrives! It's not a very big bed! This picture with Martin is her at midnight one night having come back down to find us. Little squiggle!

And here she is again, giggling, showing her stripes from that naughty cat.

My bread failed to rise this week, I guess my kitchen is even colder than usual, but it still tasted good.

I finished knitting my birthday shawl and it's beautiful, but of course this is the best picture I managed to get in two days of trying, my camera hates the low light levels right now...

Husband bought me flowers. Definitely cheered me up a great deal after a long couple of days!

And I had a couple of hours totally to myself yesterday, as a friend came and took my girlies out for the afternoon. It gave me time to breathe, and to actually really miss them, and it was very good. :)

What a week!

2011-12-09T11:34:00.000Z

This week:
The tumble dryer broke...
The children broke Rowan's bed jumping on it...
Rowan poured an entire bottle of floor cleaner all over the bathroom...
My heating went out because British Gas accidentally removed our emergency credit allowance...
Rowan had her eye scratched by the cat...
My favourite maternity top has a big hole in it...
The children took all the clean laundry off the radiators and got it dirty before it was even dry...
Rowan broke our toilet seat...
And I didn't have a baby yet.

It's going to get better from here. It pretty much has to!

Winter Stories

2011-12-08T09:00:00.002Z

Yeah, I'm sure you've all seen my stack of winter/Christmas books before, but hey. :) I pulled them all out at the start of December, and randomly decided to take pictures of my favourites the other day (don't ask - my husband did, and I had no sensible answer for him either). :)

I loved Lucy and Tom's Christmas when I was little. Now it is regarded with similar affection by my children. Everything changes. Nothing changes. :)

Father and Son is my favourite of the nativity stories we have. Such a beautiful book. But again, I'm fairly sure I've raved about it before so I'll spare you. ;)

Winter is just such a perfect time for a big basket of picture books! I plan to be cuddling up for the next few weeks and pretty much avoiding any other duties but nursing and reading stories!

Advent-y Stuff (and pregnant whining)

2011-12-07T18:50:00.000Z

Feeling very tired and achey today, so words aren't coming easily. I don't know. I keep having flashes of panic about getting further and further overdue, simply because of Christmas coming and everything *else* - if I could just go hide out somewhere and not be needed for the next month, I could probably happily wait this baby out. Too many different (conflicting) needs. And I need more sleep. And to just have the baby already. *whine*

Wintery activities and Advent things... Well this week *is* feeling a bit more, not organised exactly, but perhaps flowy. I feel less like I'm pushing uphill when I suggest doing something other than watching cartoons. We did stuff this week. Together. And I didn't do so much nagging or shouting or other horrible communicating.

The second week in Advent on our Season Table. Jesse Tree in progress (still very much behind but ah well)!

Home made play dough for ornaments. Well, it never made it that far, but great fun was had by three small girls anyway.

Christmas card made by Jenna.

Making bird seed cakes for feathered garden visitors.

Biscuits just made for horrendously coloured icing and sprinkles. ;)

Laundry drying in the living room. (I know, not so very seasonal, but the dryer is broken and I am speculating about how I will manage to keep enough towels clean and dry on standby for a water birth when the girls currently take a bath a day together!)

Night time walks.

Look at that moon! I am full and round and *ready*. Soon. Right? Right?!?

Soon?

2011-12-05T17:21:00.000Z

I would so love to have a baby tonight. It feels like a great night for a birthing. Don't you think so? :)

I am feeling much more laid back now we are past due, as always. Baby is so calm and happy, stretching out the occasional little foot (to be told firmly that my ribs are out of bounds and if it wants to stretch like that it had better make its mind up to come out of there!), and growing rounder daily. I saw the midwife today. She has a feeling it won't be long. I don't feel I know for sure I might not have a baby today - or tomorrow - or in *weeks*. I am having a fair amount of brown show, and back ache, but on the other hand I don't think these contractions are building up, just hanging around reminding me it's nearly time, so nearly.

Everything is ready - except me, still swinging wildly from "I'm not even sure I want a baby any more" to "I want to hold this sweet tiny baby nowwww" to "perhaps I'm confusing baby so much it will just stay in there *forever*"! There is food in the house, and rescue remedy, and essential oils, and waterproof sheeting, and dead sea salts, and "quiet" activities for siblings. Martin is working few hours this week, enough to live off, but not so many that I feel time pressure from him having to likely work within days of the birth.

Yeah, today would be good. :)

Still Here

2011-12-03T15:06:00.000Z

Still waiting. Second batch of brownies baked today. Lots more knitting. Late night sewing. A quick half-hour recording job for a phone system, bringing in desperately needed food money (Martin's hours are right down to below benefits income level). More nesting. Advent activities. Contractions every evening that go nowhere.

We are on the threshold.

More Ordinary Days

2011-12-01T17:58:00.000Z

Uh-huh, they look sweet... Bickering little monkeys all three today, but I can't help grin at the chaos when I look back at pictures like this...

The girls decorated our tree, and for the first year *ever* I didn't follow them around redecorating (I guess Morgan finally grew out of wanting to hang all the green baubles together, and all the pink ones along the bottom in a row)!

Minnow is getting fatter, on the chocolate brownies I made for the midwives (optimistically) - the brownies are all eaten, and the midwives have no reason to come calling as yet! Ah well, more batches of brownies will be made in short order, no doubt. My henna is only just fading.

Birthing beads strung! I have been feeling the need to get productive, clean the oven, sew in ends on Christmas knits, clear the back of the sofa of junk and replace it with a neat pile of towels and baby blankets...

Friends have stopped by, helped eat brownies (and grapes), taken short walks with us... And others have taken my phone calls when I am thoroughly impatient with waiting!

"I'm hungry" is a constant whine around here. From me too, unfortunately (and that blumin cat ate my lunch today - argh!). There isn't much food left and Martin gets paid tomorrow! Dry cereal it is. I had emergency money set aside to buy milk, but Jenna found (and spent) it. *sigh*

Random play with vinegar and bicarb, while I cleaned the oven with the same minus food colourings. Jenna stood besides me in the kitchen this morning and washed all our breakfast things while I worked away at surfaces and hob plates. Brilliant help!

Girls and bikes. Morgan would only push hers, in the end, a bit too wobbly still to brave riding *all* the way around the block. She's getting there, though.

It's rather cold now, in spite of the clothing you see these hot blooded little ones wearing. The heating is on in the evenings now, and I am hiding out in knitwear.

And I finally finished the Petal Vest, not for a baby in the end due to my sizing mistakes, but perfectly Morgan sized in time for her birthday. Better pictures at some later date, I'm sure.

Waiting, waiting...

Marking the days

2011-11-29T13:28:00.000Z

Counting down, first of all, these last few days (or weeks) of being Five Plus Bump. Impatience (mostly due to baby being engaged and my hips being correspondingly painful) battling with enjoyment of this moment right here and now. And add in just a tiny dash of "am I ready"?!

Counting down the days until my sweet Morgan has completed her fifth dance around the sun. How and when did she get so grown up? Something subtle but astonishing has changed in her lately, so that even relative strangers comment on it. The library security guard: Gosh, hasn't this one started to bloom? The guy in the wholefoods shop: It seems like barely last week she didn't say a word, and now look at her!

Oh it's so true. She is suddenly tall, she is speaking up in public and standing up for herself and her likes and dislikes, she is starting to read and write, she goes off on her own to Sunday School and for sleepovers: what happened to this soft little baby creature?!

Counting down, as Advent is upon us, these weeks of celebration and sharing and warmth, marking the turning of the year, celebrating the birth of the Christ... As we do throughout the year, just, at this time of year, with a few extra little traditions backing us up - and how can I not enjoy the little old fashioned English play of words in Son/Sun? :)

Ordinary extraordinary days. How can I possible capture it all? This is my everyday. Right now.

Puzzles and snack times and afternoon naps.

Stacks of drawing and writing, plans and games, heaps of lego tipped out on my bed and abandoned, time for knitting away in the quiet moments.

A toddler in a storage box. This is my life! :)

Waiting outside Martin's work in the rain. Children running in to Church on Sunday morning. Season table for the first week of Advent.

It seems irresistibly bright today, and real, and precious, and immediate. This strange wonderful ordinary life. I am so blessed to be here.

27

2011-11-24T11:48:00.001Z

What did I desperately want to do on my birthday? In spite of clicky hips and h.e.a.v.y bump? Walk on the moors. And I did. And it was beautiful.

It's so desolately perfect up there with the whistling winds and the acres of amber bracken and browning heather... Even with the children running around it is a lonely place.

Something in it and something in me were in tune, and I cried a great deal, mostly over feeling just so utterly inadequate and unprepared to be a mother (again; or even of these three perfectly beautiful independent feisty human girls). When did I start becoming morose about birthdays, and still feeling so very young and wondering what, exactly, I have done with these years so far and if it was the Best and Perfect thing...

OK I'm feeling better today, and able to see the silly pregnancy hormones for what they are, and hold my family close and see them as blessings and myself as a blessing to them. :)

I made myself chicken curry for tea (tough luck, non-curry-eating family, you can have rice!) and had baklava instead of birthday cake, and pondered how to spend the book token from my Dad. And the years go on, and I am 27, and soon I will be 27 with four children. It's impossibly hard to imagine, and some days it's hard hard work just now to even get there. But it's pretty beautiful, too.

And who knew? My cat loves curry sauce almost as much as she loves broccoli and melon!

Sometimes it's like this...

2011-11-22T20:49:00.001Z

Here are my two bigger daughters, playing PlayStation Lego StarWars, in the utter chaos of our living room.

And here is the result of some more insane nesting. It beats the crazy hormonal crying, anyway.

I have to say, it's feeling like a long week again. My hips are getting very uncomfortable and I feel very done with being pregnant already, in spite of logically knowing it is likely to be several more weeks.

There are definite highlights. The children are so wild and happy and beautiful. I am loving having a bump for all the discomforts (and yet again, the return of the sickness). And we are getting out and about, enjoying these precious days before newborn-ness takes over (as it must, soon).

My henna is still bright. Beautiful decorated bump!

I am trying to remember how grateful I am to be here, now. Impatience keeps on creeping in, and of course tiredness, and time seems to be passing so slowly. But there is a lot to be thankful for. :)

Blessing

2011-11-22T20:42:00.000Z

A gathering of friends to celebrate me! And this little one growing bigger and stronger day by day. And our rapidly approaching meeting earthside. :)

Henna, of course.

And silk painting, hangings for on my walls right now and for playthings once baby has use for them.

Beads for my birthing necklace.

And just being surrounded by love. :)

Bump

2011-11-16T18:22:00.000Z

This is me, walking away from our hospital appointment with a HUGE grin on my face and a spring in my step. Yes, that placenta hasn't just shifted a little bit as I've expanded, it has moved one heck of a lot and is a good 5cm away causing NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER!!! Minnow also obliged by turning head down just so that the consultants could get to see a lot of hair and had a tricky job checking thoroughly for placental blood vessels around that *engaged* head. :)

The consultant was so sweet and encouraging, and looked at the screen a good long while with the midwife sonographer, and then said she wasn't 100% sure about what she was seeing, and looking back at my notes. Then she ran for a colleague, who came in wearing her coat and bag clearly ready to go home, and the second consultant also looked from notes to screen, and said something like "can't even be called a previa at all" and my heart gave a little skip.

When she said "5cm from the os" and wrote it down on my notes, and said, "it's tricky to see around this head!" I just had to check, we're really definitely not breech any more, really? Yay! The second consultant congratulated me roundly, said it was most unusual but wonderful news for us, and went off home with a smile. And I went out of the room in just such a daze.

Thankyou, a million times, to all of you who have prayed for us and sent us your best wishes. Oh, baby bump, clever baby, thankyou for co-operating and oh I am so so glad all is so very well with you. I felt some strong tugging and scrabbling this week and wondered if you were helping us along a little, and you certainly got yourself turned around nicely in time for the scan today! It's so great to know we will meet you when you are ready and in your own way after your own labour (and mine). You wonderful little thing!

Reading and, um, starting some more knitting!

2011-11-16T12:46:00.007Z

Borrowed more of the Temeraire books, and read them all in a couple of days. The distraction is welcome! Knitting, going slowly at first with the Faraway So Close shawl, since I am needing to master new methods of working increases. The yarn is GORGEOUS. I treated myself to Manos Del Uruguay silk blend for my birthday (next week) and am actually knitting something for me! :)

We'll be off to the hospital soon. I'm trying not to keep going over possibilities in my head, right now. One way or another, I'll have more firm news, so very soon.

Gifts

2011-11-15T15:37:00.001Z

Finished baby gift for my sister in law's little one. Tim and Nusa's tiny daughter has finally been born, and I finished knitting for her just in time. :)

A sweet kind thoughtful wonderful gift from a kind Green Parent mama. Minnow can't possibly love it as much as I do, please please thank your DH for his beautiful handwork, and thankyou for your kind thoughts.

The greatest gift of all, right now, baby still growing and doing fine, no bleeding or other emergency; a healthy pregnancy and every possible hope of good news from the consultant tomorrow.

Leaves and Sky

2011-11-11T12:51:00.001Z

The sound of many many birds chirping away in the trees above us. A little chattering two year old telling us how much she loves the birds, and will they not come and sit on her hand please?

Games and sweet laughter, yelling and running up and down, climbing and swinging. My beautiful girls, brimming over with life and joy.

A neat tiny round baby bump, so close to meeting us, so close. Sweet little one, how I have loved these Autumn days of carrying you warmly inside.

The colours of the leaves, above, below, around. Crispness of gold and bronze, and the beautiful reds and yellows, shapes against the grey-white of the sky.

Smell of damp moss, nourished earth, and woodsmoke coming off the allotments. Cool grey-green smells speaking of renewal out of these endings.

Black branches, woodsmoke, bright leaves, cool grey chill of Winter's approach. The world is holding its breath.

Today is a day made for joy. For holding close. For warmth. Today is a day to get outside in the cold fresh dampness, and come alive.

Ninth Moon

2011-11-10T09:54:00.004Z

Everything I expected about probably giving birth after our tenth full moon is still up in the air, turned on its head; I might be birthing this baby any day, or next week, the predictability (for me) of going overdue and birthing practically on my own are really the tiniest of outside chances.

Baby is so active and happy. I am still feeling relaxed about whatever happens. I just wish I knew now, wish I could tell. Will my expanding curve of belly have carried that placenta far enough? Will this baby turn now? (I have felt it try several times, but it seems to get its legs wedged and then give up!) Will I come away next week with a date to have this baby in my arms, or more wait-and-see? (As much as I would prefer the freedom to go back to wait-and-see, I dread most of all an ambiguous situation in which I'm advocating for a different approach to the hospital and nobody knows for certain which would be best.)

I am as tired and uncomfortable as is usual for this stage. Somehow I have gone from feeling barely pregnant to being well aware of how big I suddenly am and how the baby is inclined to prop itself with an elbow or sit itself on my bladder! Oh precious little one, keep wriggling and getting fatter, grow strong and healthy. Be ready, when we meet, be ready.

This week is dragging by.

Knitting/Reading

2011-11-09T17:36:00.001Z

Not much on the go for me at the moment except knitting. That and watching junky sci-fi on TV any chance I get (pretty good as a combination activity but requiring of children being otherwise engaged unless I want them to have nightmares).

Today I started working on a simple vest for my neice, who was due this week and isn't showing any sign of appearing yet. I was knitting that petal lace for her, but it turned out far too big and I have somewhat lost momentum now I don't actually *have* to do a billion loooong rows of stockinette (why do I keep on taking projects that require so much of it?)! The reading on display I am halfway through reading aloud with Jenna. There is something special about sharing my own childhood favourites. <3For myself I'm actually pretty much only reading snatches of this. My birthday present from hubby.
A much wanted *tiny* cute little Transetto edition of the King James Bible. I don't really have one go-to translation I use for study, just prefer to have a selection to refer to, but I do like the old-fashioned poetic KJV and NKJV for straight reading. I also like this for being simple - no fuss on the page, nobody telling me how I ought to read it, just pages of text with unobtrusive numbering.

Oh, and for good measure, a finished project... Unfortunately my camera doesn't like taking pictures in artificial light and I can't be bothered to mess about with settings, so it's a bit overexposed - the colours are the lovely lovely pure wool I put up pictures of a week or so ago - but here's Minnow's Spiral Blanket. :)

Just needs a bit of light blocking and a couple more ends sewing in. I do have a BIG pile of projects that "just" need ends sewing in...

The living room floor is barely visible under toys today, and I feel as if I could happily just sleep for a week. The laundry isn't yet piling up again, though, and the emergency hospital bag is packed and ready to go. I ordered myself some very lovely yarn today to make a shawl actually for me. The children are running amok. But in a happy kind of way, generally. And I had porridge with Autumn berries for breakfast, yorkshire pudding and gravy for lunch, and am about to make stew and dumplings for tea. Warming late-autumn joys. Really, Minnow is happy and kicking away, so what more could I want?

More Happy Things

2011-11-05T12:20:00.000Z

Hedgehog bread. :)

Carved pumpkins.

Millionaire's shortbread (mmm).

Little pirates in the living room. (Playing together without arguing for a while!)

And knitting for baby.

So many small joys. :)

Jenna dreamed last night...

2011-11-04T09:54:00.000Z

...about our baby's birth - that a little girl arrived safely for us at home, and that she got to hold the baby for ages afterwards. She was smiling at Jenna talking to her - she said, "the baby could understand me". *heart*

If you haven't already heard, what's going on medically right now is that we're on high alert for bleeding, and are likely to be meeting our baby rather earlier and more medically assisted than we had hoped. So Jenna's dream is a big deal to me this morning. I feel hopeful; that placenta will move, that baby will turn, we will be OK.

And since the medical team are so supportive and not rushing to push us to decisions (the consultant will see me to re-scan and discuss elective cesarean birthing when I am already 38 weeks pregnant, which is amazing in the circumstances). I am being listened to about what I believe my body considers term. I have a midwife who will support me to birth at home if at all possible, and a whole team at the hospital who have told me it is their job to help me birth normally and without intervention in the hospital if that is our best option.

I'm still feeling calm and philosophical. All will be well, no matter what. (Though I didn't sleep terribly well last night, and ended up coming downstairs to sort a mammoth pile of laundry before I could stop running over everything that might change in the next two weeks in my head!)

I Chose Relationship

2011-11-03T09:35:00.003Z

I chose relationship - over first time obedience. I chose love (the kind freely given for no merit other than *being*) - over control. I chose co-operation over being the boss. I chose joy and freedom and grace over mistrust and regulations and punishment.

Sometimes, I doubt my ability to live up to those choices. Sometimes I wish I had first time obedience, and the ability to pull out the "because I said so" parental red card, and just *not* have a discussion about what needs to happen next.

But I chose. I chose relationship. And that's what I got.

I got a seven year old who forgives me as readily as she sometimes stomps off upstairs declaring how unfair I am, who notices when I have a down day and comes to tell me she thinks I'm doing just great. Who defends her little sisters when they don't have the words.

I got this four year old who says, "I know!" and giggles, and snuggles into my shoulder when I say, "I love you." Who comes to me with every hurt. Who tells me, "That wasn't nice, mummy" when my tone of voice is off or when I intervene too roughly to separate warring children.

I got a two year old who indignantly tells me not to shout, and who tells me, "I'm really crying, I am still so sad," in her most articulate way, when I'm keen to hurry along the process and have her stop crying... I got her sunshine, got every last moment of unhurried babyhood, every cuddle that I could have traded for a lie-in - the cuddle always won.

When I just want to squash them all, or trade them in for cats, I wish I could remember these things. They are confident and loving and true to themselves. They are open with me, and tell me when I'm messing up, they forgive my temper and help me deal with it.

I couldn't, really, have chosen anything better.

Siblings

2011-11-03T08:48:00.000Z

All week, I've been trying (and failing) to write this post. I still don't think I have anything constructive to say, though, so no wisdom to offer. Just a bit of real-life frustration.

All three of them, in similar ways, are driving me up the wall. They bicker non-stop at the moment, especially in the afternoon (quiet times and regular snacks notwithstanding). They really act like they hate each other!

Jenna bosses and is horribly sarcastic (ouch, did I teach her that?) - Morgan whines about *everything* the others do - Rowan gets right up and yells in people's faces, and responds to anything she doesn't like by hitting (or threatening to). *sigh*

I go back and forth between being philosophical about it (they're learning ways of relating that *don't* work, it's normal, they'll get through it just like I got through various patches of wishing I was an only child) and being just so damn frustrated! I can say the psychologically correct things, I can rescript them all day long, I can separate them when it gets too much for me, but ARGH there are times when I Just. Hate. It.

Please please please stop fighting! I feel like everything is broken when you're all so unhappy!

End of rant. ;)

More Autumning

2011-11-01T10:16:00.001Z

A lovely time with friends on the park.

"I'll catch you, Morgan!"

Jenna up as high as she could climb.

Feeding the ducks.

Jenna climbing again!

Halloween supper, stuffed peppers (ours had vegetable rice inside).

And yarn, lovely lovely yarn, a rainbow of pure wool for the last few Christmas and baby knitting and crochet projects.

Nope

2011-11-01T10:03:00.005Z

It's not allowed to be November already. No way.

By ovulation, my due date would be the first of December! We're taking the later date for a good reason lol, my other babies have been born around 42-43 weeks. But seriously. Seriously. It can't be November now, just can't.

I'm in serious denial. It's shocking to think how close this baby is to being born, when I'm still so comfortable and pregnancy is still so (relatively) easy. Low blood pressure is the worst of it right now, and drinking a whole lot of water is helping with that already.

Where the heck has this year gone, though? I'm not ready for it to be Winter, I'm not ready for it to be approaching Christmas, I'm not ready for another baby!! Waaaa!

Weekending

2011-10-31T09:23:00.001Z

We spent the weekend in Hull with friends, at their housewarming/Halloween party and generally enjoying a bit of a catch up. Oh how I missed this lovely lady.

Anyhow, Halloween-ing and Lorraine's delicious baking. The children helped with the icing. ;)

And three little Witchlings ready for a party. Rowan has *not* in fact got over her sheer blind terror at people in masks. Dave's wonderful work colleagues and friends were so sweet about it, and took off their masks for her. Well, she was hiding in the living room refusing to say hi to them at that point, a pitiful little quivering ball of frightened two year old hiding in my arms.

She warmed up to everyone after that, and was soon telling anyone who would listen, "Look, I has got a costume too! Look a- my pretty dress, has spots on it, has a bow on it!"

Jenna stayed up til the early hours, bossing the adults around and playing Rock Band (she sang Bohemian Rhapsody all by herself and knew all the words). *proud* The next day we cleaned up after the party, played a dance game for a bit, and then went off for a lovely walk on the beach.

The weather was surprisingly mild and the beach was beautiful.

Beach art Mermaid.

I love the sea. I need to breathe the salt air, and watch the waves.

I feel so much better, more centered and peaceful. I've been cared for by friends, chatted, been Sarah-myself not just Sarah-mama, had moments of alone beachcombing, related to the children somewhat more calmly now we're all feeling better, and generally had quite a holiday for saying it was barely two days. :)

Autumn Season Table

2011-10-29T09:19:00.004+01:00

How quickly we are heading into Winter again!

Edited Highlights

2011-10-28T09:27:00.000+01:00

The bits of our week that didn't involve tears...

Garden games, and den building. Trains... Really the majority of our time spent cuddled up watching endless cartoons (Jenna), nursing (Roo), eating (the bottomless pit of a four year old), and reading (me). But, you know, there were bits of the week I did want to document. Sometimes I feel like no matter how often, and how authentically, I blog - it just always ends up being the very narrowly edited highlights.

A normal amount of mess and chaos. Why do the wellies (and Rowan's shed PJ top) live on my living room floor? Shouty mama omitted from all these updates as ever lol: although I have been very tired and very fed up and not the nicest mama in the world, I *have* lost my voice... So, not shouty, much, but only because I can't. :S

Jenna's map of Ancient Greece. The only thing we've done on Story of the World in weeks and weeks, but who cares? I'm proud. :)

We made cakes too. And candles.

Just as they are getting back to normal I am at my most ill. So today, well, mostly colouring sheets again lol. Thanks, Pinterest, for leading me to Barb's Galaxy.

I don't know, sometimes I don't know how we got through the week, or how we'll get through the next one. I don't want things to be like this. I want the world in my photographs, the one where we did stuff and enjoyed the world and look like we actually want to spend time together. :(

Late Knitting and Reading again

2011-10-27T11:33:00.000+01:00

Reading: Atlantis. Ack. It was cheap for a reason. One of those thrillers where the author is really passionate about a particular obscure area of expertise and so spends most of the novel trying to explain it to the reader by means of having the characters engage in those ridiculous stilted conversations (you know, the ones where a group of professional divers keep telling each other what all their techy-jargon acronyms stand for). Ah well, I wasn't expecting much from it, but I really did need something non-demanding to read!

Knitting: improvised rainbow star dishcloth. I'm a bit in love with this. I might have to make a lot more of them...

Babies, all getting better today but still coughing terribly. I have no voice and am more flu-y than ever though. Narnia DVD, toast for dinner, more honey and lemon, some encouragement to the children to play outside when they want to make noise, and a lot of activity sheets are in order I think!

With Daddy

2011-10-26T10:24:00.001+01:00

A walk to the woods for two recovering bigger girls while me and Roo stay wrapped in our blankets.

Martin tells me Jenna is reading a note left from the fairies, here.

I'm feeling just a little bit stir crazy, myself, but their chests do sound so much worse in the cold and I'm still struggling to stay upright for very long. Short trips with Daddy are about our limit right now! *sigh* Well, he took some beautiful pictures of my precious daughters, anyhow. They cheered me up a bit. :)

Still poorly!

2011-10-25T13:17:00.000+01:00

Ohhh yes indeedy.

Three coughing hot-to-the-touch sleepy beans *still*.

And I set the pattern for our week by passing out yesterday waiting for my lunch. :S The doctors said they could fit me in the same day, and I have a novel one to add to the list of reasons I'm crap at pregnancy; low blood volume, low blood pressure. Take it easy, drink lots of water, carry on my embarrassing pregnancy tradition of randomly sitting on the floor at regular intervals when out and about. Argh.

I'm going now, before I get really whiney. :(

Projects, Ordinary Life, Mayhem, Magic, and Other Stuff

2011-10-22T09:17:00.003+01:00

Yeah, I know, another week of no news from me and then a big catch up all in one go. Partly I'm just not getting around to uploading pictures at the moment, and partly I'm hiding out (stressed, tired, ill, etc). Sorry, I miss you all, and I will try to visit your blogs soon and leave some love!

I don't want to wish away these last weeks of pregnancy. In some ways the baby coming very soon is the least stressful thing of all.

Other things get me down: like toddlers waking in the middle of the night and disturbing each others' sleep; siblings arguing over every little thing from sun up to sun down; children (and me) coming down with a cold and hiding under blankets for large portions of time; workmen coming and going inspecting the loft and finishing off in the boiler cupboard (don't ask); food not stretching as far as it ought; to-do lists just getting longer; friends ill and struggling and all kinds of other unfixable things...

Anyhow, the other stuff. I like to think the good bits are the "real" stuff, and everything else is just temporary distraction. Endlessly optimistic? Moi?

The castle was left behind after an entire crowd of small children visited to play with Jenna for an hour. They were a bit taken aback by the wooden toys for a few minutes! I love left-behind scenes like this, though, finding all the little characters and wondering what stories were created and lived by them (largely missed by me at the time, in the chaos).

Morgan has been playing a lot with the magnetic mosaics Emma bought us years ago in a charity shop. I couldn't believe it when I saw her carefully and accurately copying a design from the package insert. Gosh she really is growing up, isn't she?

The contents of a Waldorf swap from the other side of the world. <3
Rowan with the trains, another neglected toy getting a lot of play recently.

My bump again. Harder to forget there's a baby in there now! On that front, all is well. Baby is very very low, head down and behaving beautifully. Wiggling around, but not making me feel nearly so bruised as the others did by now!

Big girl, poorly, playing on Poisson Rouge.

Batch cooking egg muffins for lots of hungry people. (Thankyou, Pinterest!)

Morgie-sweetness, colouring Mandalas again.

And Jenna, very nearly beating me at Carcassone.

Letter writing station. I must credit Pinterest for the idea again! Nice to get behind my sewing machine for once though. :) Jenna, gratifyingly, is so so delighted with it.

Morgan tracing over her name with water on the chalkboard. She has recently been in a real development spurt, drawing people with bodies and incredible detail, starting to be able to balance more easily on play equipment, and to trace lines when she colours in or tries to copy Jenna.

Two very sweet little people, loving sisters (snarky comment omitted) and smiling in the sunshine.

Always good to remind myself that we are doing something, here, on days when I don't see any "result" I can point to to justify my existence, and my patience is close to zero, and I long to just sleep for a week and hand over responsibility to the nearest adult. *shifty*

No, it's not that bad. Look at those three little smiling faces...

Catch-up: Autumn Walks

2011-10-21T09:15:00.026+01:00

When Ashleigh was around, we took another lovely long walk around Attenborough. I foolishly looked at the weather before we set off and thought it would clear up. I grabbed a bag of spare clothes, thought about towels, and decided that would be daft (after all, nobody is going to end up in the lakes, ha ha)...

Tree climbing. Jenna wearing her new-to-us duffel coat. Sam getting stuck in (and stuck) too, just because.

Chasing and feeding the birds. More on this later.

And here is Morgan, cold, because in spite of my predictions, she ended up in the lakes. *sigh* It *would* be Morgan. She waded in looking at shells, until the water swamped her wellies and she was wet up to her knees. Back to the car. No spare trousers for Morgan, and the tights I threw in don't fit her. Ah well.

She wanted to walk, anyhow, so off we went. Had our picnic in the cold rain, to the endless surprise of a stream of wet passers by.

And halfway round? Connor chased a duck right into another lake and got soaked too. His very good waterproofs did their job, and thankfully he was neither particularly cold or particularly worried (he nearly gave his mama a heart attack though, and she got very wet fetching him out)!

My awesome friends all made it such a great (wet cold) day out. :) Thankyou Ashleigh, Sam, Kev, and of course Emma and Connor too. :)

Knitting/Reading

2011-10-20T08:34:00.014+01:00

So, here you go. Late as always! Knitting: still that petal baby vest for my sister in law (due, um, any day). As you can see, I'm only halfway through the lace collar, but making faster progress now it's easier to handle the work. :)

Reading: Temeraire by Naomi Novik. Napoleon plus dragons. I picked up a load of fantasy and science fiction from the library last week, as feeling so tired I'm a little slower on the crafting. It's a while since I read anything totally new to me, and its good to find something a little different. (I would be making faster progress on the book without the near-constant requests for more Harry Potter by a certain enthralled seven year old...)
I finished Jenna's Christmas mittens and sewed in all the ends last week. :) I made up the pattern to fit her, and they'll be just perfect! Lovely rainbow-ness.

Secret of Kells

2011-10-19T08:56:00.000+01:00

We watched this yesterday with a School Film Week showing, and we all loved it; I can't say quite how much we loved it.

The animation and style is a little like Totoro, but the content much older (not as scary as Spirited Away, but some violence and a fairly disturbing monster) and the backgrounds are full of gorgeous Celtic knotwork. It was right on target for Jenna, and really resonated with her. Nope, can't resist, I have to show you (Pangur Ban is the name of the cat):

Jenna sat here this morning learning the Gaelic poem Aisling the Fae sings;

You must go where I can not,

Pangur Ban Pangur Ban,

Nil sa saol seo ach ceo,

Is ni bheimid beo,

ach seal beag gearr.

Pangur Ban Pangur Ban,

Nil sa saol seo ach ceo,

Is ni bheimid beo,

ach seal beag gearr.

It translates, "all in life is mist, we are only a fog, and we are in this world but a short sharp while". Hauntingly beautiful. :)

Eighth full moon

2011-10-11T13:41:00.001+01:00

Yes, less than one full moon off being signed off for home birth. Two full moons off birthing, most likely. Maybe more, maybe less. Bump is still neat and tucked in, but has dropped down, there are shoulders sitting right at the front in the middle LOW down and making my hips click. Contractions are bugging me in the evenings. I am light headed to the point of fainting a lot of the time (chronically low blood sugar). I feel so happy to be at this point already, to have had such a relatively blissful pregnancy, and to be cradling this lovely bump right now.

I want to blog about pregnancy and joy and real earthy whole experiences: baby pushing my ribs, talking with it in the cold early morning, wrapping up warm and walking and walking in the Autumn leaves, how it always moves most for Jenna, and refuses utterly to kick Morgan or my mum... I want to journal about this baby and I, how easy and connected I feel, the sweet calm spirit this baby seems to project...

Instead this space could well become a journal of my current stress and anxiety, and how bone-achingly tired I am. Everything else, I could deal with, without this ticking clock of my body telling me how close I am to greeting yet another person who will need me. And I would feel totally prepared to give myself over to newborn-ness and mothering four, were it not for everything else. Can't my babymoon start now?!

Another few days

2011-10-05T18:30:00.000+01:00

Well, the weeks somehow are just flying by. This week I have been feeling a bit down, and a bit overwhelmed. Ashleigh, with her usual impeccable timing, has been in Derby all week and we have done gossip and tea and companionable knitting and somehow that really does make things so much better. :)

The girls had friends staying all of last weekend - nine of us in this small house! - and that was fabulous. We had a bonfire, ate jelly beans, watched Harry Potter, and baked bread together.

The five little girls wrote a play and performed it, painted themselves with ashes from the fire pit, climbed the willow tree, and all went to Sunday School together (which Jenna's friend declared to be JUST like real school haha). They ate roughly hourly, but at least went to bed at reasonable hours and slept like little angels! :)

This week, well. We have walked miles and miles. Been to the library. Gone swimming, and eaten out with Ashleigh (who also took poor Rowan shopping for shoes as she has outgrown her last pair and had been temporarily demoted to booties until Martin's pay comes through)!

The girls have drawn around Morgan and painted the cardboard as Franken-Morgie for the theme park ride they are designing.

They have tried to make their own mud bricks (again) and read a whole host of different stories (my voice is giving out)!

I have made cream cake. And knitted. Did I mention the knitting?

And cried a fair bit too. The hormones are just *crazy* right now. But, I have friends, and cake, and knitting, and a wonderful wonderful family. The current set of disasters and concerns will pass, in time. (Though, speaking of time, it is speeding by so fast we are only two months from welcoming our baby!)

(I know this is weeks in a row now but I can't share finished projects right now: spoilers! Shh! But this is what I'm about to start knitting with, some of the beautiful hand-dye merino we did months ago. It's a baby gift for my sister in law Nusha, whose baby *might* just be named Arwen. *grins*)

These Days

2011-10-03T09:57:00.000+01:00

A snail keeps getting into my house. There are often snail trails by the front door first thing in the morning. Since our letterbox is the finger-eating-evil kind and the door has a tight seal around it, I have no idea how this little visitor is getting in. Unless the cat brought it in?

I doubt this, since our cat has given up all killer tendancies apart from occasionally biting our hands when we're petting her. She prefers broccoli to chicken. I have no idea why. I keep telling her that cats CAN'T be vegetarian, and feeding her raw scraps of whatever meat I cook, but really the thing that makes her happiest is cooked broccoli.

Jenna gets really fed up with her siblings at the moment. She's excited about the baby on the way, and she often says how glad she is not to be away from them all day every day, but she resents the way the current pair follow her around when she wants time alone. We make sure she gets chance to read in her room, or build with her lego spread out over the bed in our room - we're trying to teach the littles that if the door is closed that means they're not invited.

Remember all the nesting and the tidy clean house? Well there are more of us living here and there are just random huge piles of things. We have a lack of storage, and a lack of anywhere to put any more storage. I keep telling myself that this will get better when we can move the children's bedrooms around (when we know whether to decorate the bigger room for Jenna and Morgan's tastes, or the smaller, depending on the gender of the new sibling - they have been promised a paint job either way once we know where they're likely to sleep).

Honestly, I just *cannot* be bothered to pick up all the shoes again. I wish it were possible to persuade the girls that they live neatly on the shoe rack, but they don't believe me - they think shoes *like* to live in a big heap by the door. And when the slings or the cardigans fall down on top of the pile, there seems little point fighting it, even if the front door no longer opens properly. This, I reckon, officially makes me a terrible house keeper.

There is always something baking around here right now. I don't seem at all drawn to sweet stuff, it's just that baking feels really good at this point. I'm trying to use the urge to stock the freezer with actual practical meals for December. :)

The veg garden isn't growing anything much currently. I can't bring myself to count the failed leeks, which aren't even spring onion sized. I planted some winter veg, but the cat and the four year old conspired to dig them up - the former thinking that my veg bed would make a great litter tray now it's denuded of huge vegetable plants, and the four year old wanting to see if the optimistically planted radishes were ready yet (they weren't)!

Rowan wakes up with this halo of blonde fuzz. And she wakes up talking. A little unsquashable bubble. Half of the time I'm either too tired or she is just babbling nonsense, but it sounds to me like pure craziness that comes out of her mouth in the morning. She chatters away about what she dreamed last night, and randow questions like, "what's a bug?" Followed by "why?" Utterly irresistable.

Martin is working lots of shifts this week. I'm being eased in gently in a way because lots of friends are around. :)

I think this post sounds like a whine. I don't *feel* whiney. Just kind of distracted, and tired, and with that urge to record some of those strange little things so soon forgotten as normal moved on - and on again - and something passes completely before I even get around to putting words to it.

(Except for the car, I AM whiney about the car. It just cost us half of our food money for the week, bloody thing. It seems to be broken as often as it's working! *sigh* Ah well, at least there's a chance there will be some savings to fall back on by the end of the year, now that there is actual pay coming in!)

Sign of a Good Day

2011-10-01T15:59:00.000+01:00

Grubby little busy toddler feet. :)

Shouts of Joy

2011-09-29T08:17:00.002+01:00

It is Yom Teruah (also known as Rosh Hashanah) today. (Please feel free to skip this post if you wish to avoid my faith/festival musings!)

An extra candle lighting, for us, last night. And other traditions like starting the day with apples dipped in honey (for a sweet new year), braiding round challah (representing the crown of heaven, or the circle of the year if you follow less traditional interpretations) and casting bread into water (representing throwing away our past wrongdoing for a fresh start - which I am never one to pass up the chance for marking)!

Most importantly, hearing the Shofar being blown as a wake-up call to our souls - that and following the ongoing biblical instruction to make a loud joyful noise to the Lord. :) (That, I think, we can do!) The traditional focus of the Days of Awe following Yom Teruah is putting right our affairs and rededicating to holiness in the following year. Without minimising those themes I want the children to mostly take away the message that we are loved and covered by God's grace. So I tend to emphasise rather more the sweetness of God's gifts and our surety in Christ than a prolonged inward focus on our deeds and actions.

Shana Tovah, friends, and a year filled with sweetness to you all whatever new year dates you keep. Although I don't really personally consider Yom Teruah a new year as such (any more), as always I like to keep plenty of new years in my festival calendar! Greedy, I guess. ;)

Everyday Ramblings

2011-09-28T16:23:00.004+01:00

Today has been one of those days when most of my plans go out of the window. When we are really all so contentedly dancing to our own rhythm it doesn't matter that there doesn't seem to be a coherant pattern.

See, this is where I *really* don't look like Waldorf - these days just don't worry me at all. Hey kids, we're going to gather for circle now! No thanks mum, we're going to play shops and dress up as flamenco dancers. OK kids, as you were. (Rowan always obliges by coming and singing with me, anyhow!)

Today also really didn't look like homeschool. Nobody deliberately set out to do a craft or a learning activity. No books were out at any point except for Glitter Kitty (sigh!), Where is That Cat, my NKJ Bible, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and a Star Wars graphic novel. Certainly no text books or lesson plans or worksheets in sight.

Morgan did some watercolour and salt painting in her journal. I did watercolours and oil pastels in mine. Jenna made a camp in the back garden. I hung laundry on the line, and sat in the shade of my willow tree a while, and made apple sauce (turning half of it into Stollen). All three girls played in the sand pit. Jenna fell off the top of the swing frame and hurt her head.

I spent about an hour just mucking about on Pinterest. I nursed Rowan twice. Morgan and Rowan fell out over a cracker and had to be physically separated before Morgan broke Rowan's ribs (girls can be vicious). I looked up how to braid round challah on youtube and the girls all came and watched several sets of instructions and then the entertainment of watching mama try to get it right.

Martin and I drank about a zillion cups of tea. Emma and Connor got clay out and my children joined in. Rowan and Connor decided that the shells were money and set up a shop with the till again. Jenna and Morgan watched Finding Nemo. Emma started crocheting a shrug. I made chutney. Connor wore Morgan's discarded dress for quite some time even though it tripped him up a bit.

To me, sometimes, this looks like doing nothing. Right now, with the afternoon shadows on the wall and the laundry dry and away and the wonderful smell of baking fresh from the oven, it feels just heavenly. :)

Autumn Colour

2011-09-26T08:21:00.001+01:00

Lots of Autumny crafting to share, and generally me loving Autumn and Autumny things. :) I hear it's meant to be another year for early snow, so I'm getting in LOTS of this lovely season in a short space of time just in case!

Acorn cup floating candles. We stood the caps in modelling clay to keep them upright. Pouring was a bit tricky, not one for tinies especially with such small acorn caps! We want to find some bigger ones for next time.

Leafy garland, easy sewing in lovely colours. So effective for such little work.

Autumn coloured giant window star, made by Jenna and I one afternoon.

Bread, sitting in the sun, in the rainbow light from a crystal hung in my kitchen window.
More of Jenna's handwork, a broach she made for a friend. So sweet! Isn't her stitching neat now?

Night time walks, wrapped up warm, "look, snails!"

Damson and apple jelly. Mmmm...

A bit on the giant side, because neither of us are very experienced needle felters, but yet more Jenna handwork - the orange acorn. I couldn't find any brown wool, and she got tired of it after a while, so it will probably be one to come back to if we want it smaller and more tightly felted!

Wax dipped leaves, made with Aoife after school one day.

More leaves, a stitched journal, sent for the mama love swap.

Acorn collecting on the park.

We have had such an odd couple of weeks. I'm still feeling really well, and not so panicky-rushed, but gosh I do sometimes wonder if I will ever get to that lull, some kind of steady place where I can catch my breath! I'm burying myself in crafting, keeping up with the children where possible, and taking as much time for journalling and locking myself in the bathroom as I dare. In some ways, that side of things is only going to get worse - for the best of reasons - as Martin finally has a job. :)

Weekend Festival-going

2011-09-25T10:01:00.001+01:00

Yay for the city of Derby, putting on a whole festival in honour of Connor's second birthday. ;) Friday Fire Garden walking (and trying not to get annoyed with the OTT health and safety people warning us where the fire was lol).

Sleepy spellbound Roo, who eventually fell asleep on Kev's shoulders.

Birthday table.

In town: Giant lobster, Troll's Kitchen, crafts and performers and people dressed as giant green insects. Rowan was very brave - from a distance - but her hands turned white gripping so tightly to my tshirt. She kept asking where the lobster had gone, though, she adored it!

The dragon was operated by lots of different wheels and levers and all the children helped. Rowan kept saying, "I want to say hello to the BE-A-OOOtiful dragon!" When we got close, it roared, and suddenly she was pulling away from me saying, "Want to move away from the beautiful dragon, want to move AWAY from the beautiful dragon!!"

We met up with my mum and Nareman (who had bought us jam tarts), and later my dad and middle brother (who bought us drinks).

In the evening there were giant fish.

And fireworks! We had been telling the children there *might not* be fireworks. When they started up, Rowan declared proudly, "I TELLED you there would be fireworks." :)

Plenty of magic for four little people and their grown-ups! :)

Michaelmas

2011-09-23T19:26:00.003+01:00

We're doing Michaelmas a little early this year, so that it's out of the way before we begin to prepare for the High Holy Days beginning next week. Added bonus, it means I get to share things in advance of the actual day for those of you who might want to borrow some ideas. ;) Here's last year's Michaelmas Post.

(Jenna has told me today that she thinks the dragon she is fighting right now is when she gets cross with her sisters and does unkind things to make them sad.)

This year, the day before Michaelmas, there will be a lantern parade in a nearby village, so the girls are each making a lantern (by the same papier mache method as last year) to hang a torch inside for the parade. I'm hoping to find my leaf skeletons from last year to put in the last layer of paper. :)

We ran out of glue, so I made my own. Flour and sugar (3:1), water to make a paste, and a large dash each of salt and vinegar in the hopes of keeping it from moulding, cooked in a pan.

Dragon bread is being made for Connor's birthday tomorrow. So I'll be back to add a picture of that. :) And anything else I've forgotten!

Edited with: Yes, this was the best picture I got of all three girls with their lanterns! Never mind, eh? We hung tiny torches inside them, and they glowed beautifully. And the dragon bread didn't end up happening at all this year, but I suppose we can't have it all. Instead, my lovely brother gave us money to have Chinese for Connor's birthday tea! Well, I can't really complain about that, can I?

Also edited to add: if you do Waldorf watercolour paintings (or would like to) you may like this Michaelmas watercolour I found recently. :) http://bobbinsandbrambles.blogspot.com/2010/09/michaelmas-watercolordragon-painting.html

Warmth on a Grey Day

2011-09-22T13:37:00.001+01:00

On a chilly lovely grey breezy day, it feels like the perfect time for blustery walks and kites and crafting and baking.

No-bake fudge flapjack cookies.

350g sugar, 115g butter, 120ml milk, 3tbsp cocoa (combined in saucepan and boiled for one minute)
100g nut butter, 1tsp vanilla, 270g oats (stirred in, then dollops of mixture onto greaseproof paper to set)

And some knitting: a babywearing coat panel for Minnow and I to snuggle in, come winter. I'm largely making it up as I go along, but it shouldn't be too complicated.

Today my day started with doing my first ever morning school run (I'm helping out Aoife and Roisin's mummy and daddy this week), followed by picking up peanut butter and milk from the local shops (with Jenna in welly boots and PJs, and Rowan with bare feet). This afternoon I'll be doing our third afternoon school run; though this is the only day I'll be dropping them off and picking them up again. It feels so strange! Other parents with children the same age as mine do the school run All The Time, and I'm a complete novice. Gosh, what a lot of time it takes out of the day when I really think about it, and what a lot of restrictions it puts on what else we can do. But Aoife and Roisin's company is well worth the strange induction to the world of keeping normal school hours. :)

Cuddled up on the sofa, three sisters in harmony (at the moment I would have to add "for once" for the sake of honesty)... And I'm about to have a cuppa and get on with my knitting before the school run. :)

More Bump Pictures

2011-09-20T08:30:00.001+01:00

Minnow and Me. Feeling good. :)

(Excuse the colour issues in the pictures: they were overexposed, taken right by the window, and I am no use with photo editing software.)

Foresting and so on

2011-09-19T13:50:00.000+01:00

Over the weekend we spent a fabulous few hours at the Forest Festival at Elvaston Castle, and ACK I am really kicking myself for not taking the camera because it was such an amazing blissful day (except that I am so seriously tired out after more than an hour on my feet right now lol). Bump is aching today! But it has been aching a lot because baby keeps turning itself back to breech and then going head down again, and I feel like I'm being beaten up.

The children spent about an hour awed by a Green Man who was singing his own invented folk songs and telling stories and teaching about the plants and trees around us. We had a long chat to him later on in the day, and he was so enthusiastic to see the children getting dirty and playing in the leaves and eating handfuls of wild food. :) There was one hilarious moment when Emma and I were both talking to him, and Connor ran to Martin, and the poor guy was clearly getting an interesting impression of our living arrangements. Emma and I had the giggles for ages on the way home about Martin's hareem. ;)

A bushcraft expert helped us work out why we have never yet been successful with our fire steel (it isn't us, it's actually defective) and gifted us a suitable replacement part with which Jenna is happily making fires today. :) And next to him, a couple of women had a brick oven and a fire pit and were baking. Jenna did the washing up for them, and helped for nearly an hour with the baking. She made a delicious pizza, which we helped to eat. Everyone was just so friendly.

I met a blog reader (I love bumping into people) and a lady who has had to give up babywearing and took away a list of links to slings for back carries and for the Green Parent. A family stopped and watched me wrapping Rowan on my back and applauded when I was done. I'm not sure if they thought I was with one of the stalls!

Both of the big girls were given disks of wood to burn designs into, though Morgan burnt her thumb too, and made necklaces. Rowan spent a lot of time looking like a little woodland pixie, toddling around with a large collie dog belonging to one of the council forrestry guys. Oscar was such a friendly (and obedient) dog, and my tiny blonde tot took great pleasure in ordering him around, cuddling him, and throwing sticks for him.

Jenna has asked sweetly if she can please please please get a dog "for Rowan". Martin and I had agreed that if we were going to have another baby this year, we'd wait to get a dog, but now Martin keeps joking about getting a collie like Oscar "to round up all the kids". Border collies have always been my absolute favourite dogs. I just don't think I could commit to giving it enough exercise until a while after baby is here. Plus, the cat would probably see that as the last straw, and move out!

Anyhow, what else? There were yurts, and tipis, and great shelters attached to vans like ours (I kept thinking, ooh, interesting camping potential!) and lots of fascination traditional tools and skill demonstrations. Emma and I considered building a human-powered lathe, as it seems a shame not to harness the children's vast amount of running-up-and-down-shrieking-for-no-obvious-reason energy! Morgan wore herself out jumping up and down on it to help the guy who was making himself an axe handle.

I drooled over some beautiful wood carving (mostly the benches) with semi-precious stones inset into the natural cracks in the reclaimed pieces. Emma steered me away from the huge display of wickerwork, being as how I have difficulty resisting a good basket, and didn't have any money with me at all. I took business cards. Well, you never know lol.

:) :) :)

Mama's Handbag

2011-09-17T08:33:00.000+01:00

Well I guess it is an old truism that you can find out a lot about a woman by the contents of her handbag! What do you think my bag says about me? ;)

Inventory:
- knitting pattern, shopping list
- two library leaflets for events, toddler rhyme book, two foraging books
- leather booties, two pairs of children's sunglasses
- knitting project (Morgan's winter hat)
- first aid kit: essential oils, home made arnica balm, homeopathic remedy, lipbalm
- a discarded child's bracelet
- a scarf
- art journal, gratitude journal, neocolours
- (children's journals are often in here too but they all used them this morning)
- oat crackers
- children's sunhats, Roo's warm hat
- keys, fire steel, scissors, safety pins
- pack-down shopping bag and a couple of produce bags
- phone, brolly, wallet
- hairbrush, bobble, rosewater spray
- full outfits for two youngest and clean socks for eldest
- arm/leg warmers x2 pairs, gloves x3 pairs
- Morgan's stripy cardi (the others both wore theirs this morning)

What goes with you on your travels? Do you pack light or go prepared? Are you carrying clothes for more than one season right now? :)

Knitting

2011-09-16T08:46:00.003+01:00

Awesome overjoyed happy-dance crafty mama brag on my knitting success follows: ;)

Looook! I finished Jenna's dress, and it has LACE (and jogless stripes, and kitchener stitch, and I did actual maths to adapt/invent the pattern)! It just needs blocking, especially to stop the hem rolling.

She loves it.

(And I finished Morgan's hat, too. She hates it. She says it itches. It does NOT itch. But anyhow, the hat fits both of the others so it won't go to waste, and I shall dutifully set about knitting her a hat without a chin strap. *sigh*)

Arboretum

2011-09-15T08:41:00.000+01:00

We took a tree walk yesterday, and did bark rubbings, and collected leaves. Well, *I* did bark rubbings, the children were busy playing in the fallen leaves and running up and down the banks! Jenna did help me to identify the trees I was taking rubbings from though, and they all collected lots of interesting seeds and seed cases.

Rowan loves ponds and fountains!

Serious-faced little Morgan finding leaves to do leaf rubbings with.

Art work in one of the old buildings on the park. We really wanted to know what had been going on there, it looked fascinating!

Play area time.

It's still summer-warm here right now, just a little chill in the air in the mornings, but I'm knitting as fast as I can go to finish hats and vests and other warm outerwear. Jenna's dress should be done today, just one more line of grafting to go. And I finished Morgan's hat! Pictures to follow soon. :)

Shining

2011-09-14T08:58:00.002+01:00

This was Jenna last night, arm in arm with her friend Aoife. They were both absolutely luminous. Glowing, bubbling over with joy. Two friends who truly compliment each other's personalities, who reflect each other's glory. Jenna is just a little more thoughtful around Aoife, Aoife just a little more courageous around Jenna. They are such a pair!

I was taking Jenna to see A Midsummer Night's Dream in a local Village, an open air production (and unbelievable ticket prices, £7 for me and free for children!!) but Aoife and Jenna did *not* want to be parted after their playdate in the afternoon... So I took them both.

And I'm so glad I did. They both beamed ear to ear through the whole thing. (I think my favourite moment was when Jenna bent close to Aoife and whispered excitedly, "Oh, I get it, she should be with him and she should be with him, but the wrong one got the love potion!" - Or maybe it was the moment Aoife gave Jenna her coat, because Jenna's coat was thinner and she had started shivering on the damp grass? SO SWEET!)

The production was magical. The company has set it in the 1920s, with awesome costumes, some very very funny jazz dance, and fabulous music. The garden was hung with lanterns. And it was VERY energetic - Puck leapt over a few flower beds, and sat in the audience a fair few times! The girls were very keen on Puck! Right at the end the cast moved the audience down into a courtyard for the finale, and Puck appeared sat right on the rooftops to give half of his closing speach. Pure magic.

Jenna was crying when it ended, she was so overwhelmed with the entire evening. She rushed to thank the cast, and was so determined to speak to them she walked right into the house they were staying in (the grounds of which was where the production took place). Aoife wasn't sure whether to follow, but the cast all stopped and chatted to this delighted glowing enthusiastic seven year old, and Aoife was soon drawn in. The conversation they had with the cast was just too sweet, I wonder whether those five actors know that their welcome and gentleness has so inspired my daughter she can talk of little else today.

And we so nearly didn't get in, they has just closed the doors when we got there but a sister of one of the cast heard us at the gate and let us through - to sit right on the grass stage area where the poor actors nearly tripped over us several times! Every single person involved with the production was so so kind and generous-hearted. They created pure magic for us last night.

I think they might have a prospective cast member in a few years, if pure determination and seven year old passion are indications! My Jenna, she is still shining.

Seventh Moon

2011-09-14T08:36:00.000+01:00

I am feeling SO GOOD right now. When did this happen? Where did it come from? How long will it last? I have never had this energy rush and warm fuzzy pregnant glowing feeling before. We're going to have a BABY! :) :) :)

Bump is small and neat, I'm so tall I hide them well ;) and I get a lot of shocked expressions when people ask when I'm due and they do the mental calculation - woah, December isn't that long, where's all the baby? Answer: head down already, neatly tucked right down in my pelvis, feet up by my ribs, and usually body turned to my right hand side. :)

Somehow all those previous babies have given me the experience to know right where baby is this time. It took a lot to work it out even last time with Rowan. This time, I just know.

The lists of names are still driving me crazy. I think I may have run out of girl names. *blushes* Or maybe this baby has another idea I just haven't been able to listen for yet? Either way, I'm feeling a bit insecure about naming this baby. A boy's name just "chose itself" months ago: maybe that means we're having a boy? Or maybe it just means we have another contrary girl. ;) Morgan named herself, after all, a name I didn't even like at the time - and Rowan, I just KNEW at twenty weeks and nothing would shake me from it - even Jenna, I changed my mind in labour and was frantic in case hubby didn't agree! (He would have agreed to anything at that point lol.)

Other than that, I'm feeling pretty amazing. Contented, even. Oh baby mine, baby mine, you are yourself already and defying my every expectation!

Colour

2011-09-12T13:15:00.000+01:00

Hawthorn yellow and Koolaid purple yarns side by side on the line.

Children at play.

Treasure!

Final stripe being knitted on Jenna's Koolaid dress.

Birthing art.

Harvest bounty (some of it turned right away into gorgeously crimson pear and damson crumble).

And my first lace, for the yoke of that rainbow tunic.

Such a colourful weekend of Autumn-ness, friends, food, and crafting.

Ordinary

2011-09-09T18:12:00.000+01:00

This, for us, is a huge great wonderful feeling of relief. I'm still sick (yes, I know!) but I'm not *feeling* sick, and for the first time in so long I'm really feeling like myself again. I'm feeling lively and passionate and playful and joyful. I'm able to get up in the morning and get things done and plan fun activities. I have ME back.

(Wet on wet colour mixing with Jenna - we drew our apple trees in red and blue, and the colours changed on the yellow background.)

What's most reassuring of all, though, isn't the feeling good. It's that as soon as I started getting back to normal - AS SOON as I started back to my normal rhythms and activities - everything slipped back into place. It took a month to establish daily and weekly rhythms that suited us all the first time around. And after less than a year of living like that it all came to a halt - for nearly five months. It just gives me faith that no matter what the hiatus or interruption, no matter if I'm out of action again at some point, it isn't the end of everything that went before.

(Ashleigh is in Derby again! I have missed her so much since our lovely little holiday together.)

(Our first conkers of the season!)

Fireworks

2011-09-08T17:26:00.001+01:00

A couple of nights ago we were at the classical concert on Darley Park, a staple of my childhood Autumns. We always wrap the children up warmly, take umbrellas and hot chocolate and a huge picnic, and never remember to charge the camera up enough to take many pictures.

We get cold and wet, sitting on the park in the pitch dark, juggling children and spilled drinks and lost shoes (Morgan again) and "can you pass me some more" requests... And then we watch the fireworks. Magic.

Did I mention how much I love Autumn? :)

Autumn Rhythm

2011-09-07T17:50:00.003+01:00

We're kind of almost back into the swing of things here (bar builders and electricians and plumbers popping back in to fix something or other and fit the new timer for the heating and patch up the landing floor and so on). Funny how quickly we can slip back into our old normal, and how it has clicked for the children.

I have one planned activity for each day, a craft I'd like to try or a daily-rhythm activity. Mondays that's either a trip to the Library or, if the children don't want to go that day, a new story to tell. Tuesdays it's handwork, so usually some kind of craft I have planned (sometimes a choice of a couple of things). Wednesdays are wash days, so either a fibre-related handwork project or just helping sort laundry (I love, now, that two of them can reach to hang their own clothes!). Thursday is our baking day, so bread, and sometimes cake or something else sweet. Friday is our painting day, and cleaning/decorating for the Sabbath.

Today the main thing I had planned was to go to the park on our morning walk to collect hawthorn to dye some yarn for a special project. :) We found literally tons of elderberries again, so had to bring a lot back to make jelly with...

...though of course we ate some fresh right off the bush as well!

On the walk back we found gorgeous leaves. Morgan made a fairy garden in a puddle.

I made a garland for the newly-Autumnal Season Table.

Here is the wool in the dye bath!

(For the interested yarnies, we had broken hawthorn twigs with leaves and haws and all into smallish pieces, soaked them for a couple of hours (meant to do this longer but was impatient), then boiled them in a pot for about twenty minutes (maybe more, I didn't time it, but it had reduced a LOT). We strained the yucky brown plant bits out, and added alum to mordant (about 2tbsp to I reckon about a litre of fluid), before putting our pre-soaked skein of yarn in the pot. We heated it *very gently* for about twenty minutes, taking it off the heat any time it started to bubble, and left it until completely stone cold to rinse. It's a lovely pale warm yellow, I hope the colour stays lightfast!)

"First Day"

2011-09-06T18:22:00.001+01:00

Today's the first day back at school around here. That would have made it, in another life, Jenna's first day in the big school, and Morgan's first day of infants.

Instead, we woke up on our living room floor after an adventurous (stormy) night of camping, the tent leaking, and so on. This picture was taken just before I got up at half past six in the morning.

We had porridge and green smoothie, before circle time (interrupted by the builders knocking at the door) and a blustery walk...

To soft play for the day, in order to stay out from under the contractors' feet while they took our house to pieces.

Thankfully they got everything done, and the house can now gradually return to normal (but with hot water on demand!) albeit with large new patches of peeling wallpaper in the living room. I suppose that clinches the deal as far as me wanting to redecorate goes!

For us, the schools going back means everything and nothing. Mostly, it means that all our favourite places are going to be nice and empty again. :) For me personally, it has given me the impetus to leap back into some of the daily rituals and rhythms that enrich our lives so much.

For Jenna, it means she has insisted on another folder of handwriting sheets, but continues to have all the time in the world for climbing and creativity and just being free to persue her interests. For Morgan, it means that life goes on in its usual sweet way. I am SO grateful that she doesn't have to start school this year (or, really, any year). She is one child I can say is just NOT ready for any kind of academics. And that's just fine. :)

Home educating is, well, it's treating us wonderfully. The afternoon energy dip is hard for me: without a break from being around other people. We each have things we need to work on this year, and the usual parcel of self-doubt (well, Jenna and I have that anyway). But I can't sum up all that it means to us to be together and able to live out what is most important to us. Here's to another crazy joyful messy wonderful frustrating exciting ordinary year. :)

Assortment

2011-09-03T19:09:00.005+01:00

I just had a scary thought, organising pictures and finding myself starting a folder for September on our laptop... Two more new folders, and the one after will have new baby pictures in it. I'm in my seventh month. Where is the year going?!

This babyness is so big-girl-ness and people other than me understand her endless chatter about pretty much all the things that pass through her two year old brain. She loves foraging for berries, and chasing pidgeons and ducks and squirrels and basically any wild creature that comes too close.

Martin is still looking for work. Yet more rejections. Places seem to be interviewing literally hundereds of people - it feels like hard slog for him right now. My nesting has dropped off a bit and the surface of the big dining table is still not in sight (but my kitchen is very clean)! Our long-term guests are still here, and the house still feels manic.

We are getting outside a lot. We all need it.

I'm still making myself push on with Jenna's Autumn dress. I was bored of stockinette stitch after about row ten, but ah well, it's worth it because I know how much she will love it (and love wearing the wool that she dyed herself). :)

I feel more... settled... more like myself, since we got home from our trip. Less spinning-out-of-control, more energy for the people and activities I love. Pregnancy insomnia is irritating me - and I think I'm too much of a cynic for the hypnotherapy to work, I keep arguing with the helpful suggestions. ;)

I am however getting a bit caught up in the September Home-schooly planning thing - because all those lovely and useful Waldorf-y rhythms so easily give way to the easy slow pace of summer and the days pacing themselves with being outside and following our internal clocks. Now we're heading towards the cold months again I have got to get some healthy habits back, lest the darker shorter days leave me feeling all adrift again.

Jenna, too, has been feeling the change. Yesterday she asked for "proper school work" (meaning the neglected Story of the World) because her friends are starting back to school and it stings a little still, that voice telling her she is missing out.

She has a lot of questions now, the serious kind, about what school would be like if she started next year. Part of me wants to keep telling her, "maybe the year after" but I do think for the first time that she is actually ready to make that choice if that's where she feels called. Things are just so good for her at home, though. Even with siblings crowding. She just devours books (she is finally reading past picture book stage) and loves being free to run outside whenever she likes. :)

Where do the years go? The months, the days? They change before my eyes, these three people I am responsible to. And who is guiding who? Increasingly I feel I have not unlearned nearly enough to be useful to them. The shouting habit is a hard one to kill, for starters. Time to work on inner growth, time to slow into a quieter rhythm, time to find our way through the festival markers. And prepare for the one big change we know is coming this Winter!

Sea Air

2011-09-02T10:44:00.007+01:00

I often get homesick for the sea. I have never lived on the coast, but still. Something about the salt air and the breezes and the miles and miles of horizon.

Jenna got a try of Ashleigh's spinning wheel, though I didn't because every time the children saw it after this they wanted to stand on the peddle!

The beaches called to us.

In Ashleigh's tiny flat the children were kept reasonably occupied with making art (to stop them stomping around on the ceiling of the people living below)!

And they slept cuddled up in a little nest in the corner! :)

This beach was more touristy, but the children adored the flat expanse of sea for swimming in and the soft powdery sand for playing with. (My camera didn't like the sand so much, and has been on the blink ever since so I have fewer pictures!)

I waded right in til my dress was bundled up round my waist, and wished I'd had any spare clothes with me to actually swim! It was cold, but magical and so so beautiful.

The National Trust provided yet more beautiful places to visit.

And on our last day we did some fossil hunting and I found two tiny incomplete fossils. :) On the way home we met with some Green Parent friends.

Our entire week was truly perfect. Oh so perfect. I feel refreshed and inspired.

Home

2011-09-01T21:41:00.000+01:00

Treasures from Somerset and Dorset.

Utter total chaos (but hey, holiday washing caught up with already)!

And my favourite favourite places right here. :)

Morgan's beloved Baby returned home from his own little adventure too - he got left in a tiny visitor centre on the coast at Charmouth. The volunteers kindly posted him home to us! And sweet lovely Amber sent Minnow this teeny vest I had so admired from another Etsy shop!

Holiday pictures at some point soon when I've gone through them all. Oh such a lovely break and so many memories... :)

Marshmallow Building

2011-08-31T10:00:00.000+01:00

(I left this to autopost while I'm on holiday. And blogger didn't bother lol.)

This was the first thing we got to tick off our Autumn-Winter busy-list. :) See all the fun we have planned this "term"?

Our little break was wonderfully refreshing and peaceful and inspiring. :) Thankyou so much for having us, Ashleigh.

Other Goings On

2011-08-26T08:09:00.031+01:00

There has been a lot of painting going on around here.

Lots and lots of painting.

We are just about keeping up with the washing, nappies and towels and goodness there are so many of us right now it's a wonderment we are all eating so well and wearing clean clothes! :)

Jenna:

Morgan:

Little Roo:

We have made pizza and taken nice walks and one of us has had terrible pregnancy insomnia... *sigh*

Oh, and we did dyeing of hair with chalk dust. Which was very dusty, even when wet. But quite good fun!

And drying of the rose petals from Jenna's birthday.

And polishing off of leftover birthday cake.

We have had gifts from talented Mamas.

Emma may have found a house (please pray that everything goes smoothly and that she and her little family all continue to stay safe and grow healthy).

We have made cards and birthday gifts for family. Recieved by now!

I made crab apple jelly.

The children made marshmallow animal sculptures and ate the marshmallows when they were done (probably with some unexpectedly crunchy bits lol).

Aw and I snapped a blurry picture of Rowan wearing "her" birthing necklace. *melt*

And, basically, things have been pretty busy (as usual). I feel like I'm juggling like crazy and waiting for everything to fall down around me, to be honest. But, look, life is just SO beautiful, I can't fret too much about those feelings of impending doom. It might never happen, right? ;)

Taking a couple of days off, here, and looking forwards to walking by the sea and knitting with my lovely Ashleigh. So Emma and Connor have the run of the place for a while. :) See you all next week!

Calke Abbey

2011-08-24T19:02:00.015+01:00

Yesterday we spent a good chunk of the day in one of our favourite places.

The grounds of Calke Abbey are just *astounding* and no matter how much time we spend here we never quite get to explore it all.

(Yes, in the past week, we have already nearly broken even on our yearly National Trust membership, which helps me feel a good deal better about renewing it in spite of it basically coming out of the food bills!)

Jenna: "I found my very own rainforest!"

Morgan: "Is this Totoro's tree?"

Rowan: "Mumma, Dadda, LOOK, I found a helicopter flutterby!" Um, a what? Oh, a DRAGONFLY!

The Dragon Tree.

They played with some sweet five and six year old boys who were running around with huge water pistols. "I shot your head off! I shot your head off again! I'm going to shoot your head off!"
Jenna just drily retorted, "We must have an awful lot of heads."

She asked if they wanted to play a different game, and insisted on being a princess rescued from a high tower.
"I don't want to rescue you." Said one little knight.
"That's not very chivalrous!" Laughed his mother.

A few moments later Jenna was climbing again and the little knight rejoined the game, "But you'd better not need rescuing again!" hehehe

Baby Minnow Bump is having a growth spurt I reckon. This is me picking crab apples. Yay, crab apples! Yay, Autumn!

Sweet big sisters holding hands in the long grasses.

The estates had worn Roo out by this point. Poor little legs!

Time for a sit down and a snuggle.

Look! A ladybird!

"I don't like da grasses all in mine face!"

After a little rest stop and refuel she played on the swings for an hour with Daddy, while I took the bigger ones around the house and stables. One of the staff in the stables took a shine to the girls and kept her dress-up activity open for an extra half hour just for them. We were so touched! And Jenna decided to help her tidy and pack away, which touched this mama's heart especially.

Birthdaying with my Jenna

2011-08-24T12:31:00.000+01:00

Preparations the night before.

That "one last" picture of our Six Year Old. Oh the stealer-away-of-children - TIME! They are rushing away from me into the future before my very eyes. :)

Presents in the morning - and great joy at finding that mama has finally allowed nail polish (Piggy Paint!).

Finding the birthday breakfast table set with lit candles and beautiful things.

A birthday dinner - and a Cola Float!

And a nice walk (including a trip to the Museum of Childhood - which was fun but overcrowded as usual during school holidays).

All in all it was a wonderful wonderful day. In spite of Rowan breaking one of Jenna's presents in the first hour of the day (oops). The children all got totally tired out - but not as tired as I am! The birthday girl felt loved and celebrated, which is the main thing after all. :)

Firstborn Daughter

2011-08-23T07:47:00.022+01:00

You grin shyly at me when I tell you how admired you are, long-limbed dancer, strong tempest creature, quick-witted perfectionist, Wild Thing. It's the only time you ever appear shy. The first into every new situation, talk talk talking to everyone you meet everywhere we go, we are never at a loss for your input and opinions!

I pray for your blossoming knowledge and your spiritual wisdom - may you always seek truth and value kindness - may you always be as willing to question and as quick to puzzle out the hard answers. I pray for your relationships with others, for your wonderful assertiveness tempered with sweetest joyful giving graceful authentic love. I pray for deepest peace on the disquiet of your growing, the deepest knowledge of the love that surrounds and protects you, and confidence to approach new paths and next steps.

We believe in you.

Follow your inner compass, and do not doubt where you are going. Your future will be full of such great things I can't express or even see; nor would I dare to try to conform them to my expectations. Nobody can limit you. Always dream, and always be so bold with who you are and how you take on living your life. Your words are words of power, and the act of your living is making ripples in the still waters of everyone who crosses your path. Firey change-maker woman!

My daughter, my friend, I love you.

Breathe

2011-08-22T14:06:00.000+01:00

Took a walk. Sat and painted.

Ate handfuls of fresh ripe elderberries.

Skinned one pair of little knees.

Failed to find the required stillness or simplicity. But it was a nice walk anyway.

Jenna's Party

2011-08-20T19:41:00.000+01:00

So, the birthday party went beautifully. Lots of family, and Jenna got everything she wanted from her day - even down to the party food which she planned!

And the birthday cake specified months ago. Her smile couldn't have been bigger.

I'm pretty tired out, even though my three pixies are still going strong. There is just so much going on right now, I can't even begin to put words around it. Looking forwards to celebrating this big girl's Seventh year some more though.

Time for Jenna

2011-08-19T13:25:00.000+01:00

This afternoon the little ones are out, and Jenna and I have some time together just for us. I have had a couple of days of getting special little moments with this daughter of mine. She has needed some space, and we have been sneaking moments away from the crowds. This birthday feels so big, to her and to me.

Last week when she was frazzled and tired out with the toddlers I took her into the garden and set her up some painting - having quietly replaced the used up watercolour blocks in her painting kit. I took her a hot chocolate out there, and watched her working. Magical.

Today we are putting on puppet shows with the beautiful theatre kit she recieved in the mail (thankyou, sweet lovely Denise, it is SO like you to think of her!) and looking on the computer for new activities to try out.

Oh, and we are also eating the last of the Cinnamon Rolls I made yesterday. Yum!

Time alone with any of them is such a rare rare thing. There are, after all, usually many *other* ways to celebrate their unique specialness to us. I feel pretty glad that right now, as Jenna is telling me how badly she needs some time without her siblings around her, that we have found a way to give her that occasionally!

End of Summer

2011-08-17T18:43:00.000+01:00

(Sorry, yes, I know, you Summer-loving peoples are sad, but I LOVE AUTUMN!) A little chill in the air yesterday, first outing of the wooly clothes.

Smelling the last of the Summer's roses. This garden has such gorgeous smelling rose bushes, we always have to stop here a while when we walk this way.

Honest-to-goodness fallen golden leaves.

We found piles and piles of lime and linden fallen last week, and crunched through them in delight. I can barely believe the *actual leaves* are falling already! Yay, Autumn crafts!!

The children rampaged around in the bushes. The mamas (and daddies) had a lovely Sling Meet.

By this afternoon I was tired and grumpy, we had to head into town to meet family (my brother's birthday) and it was just as horrible a place as I remembered to be with little people. So I was exhausted by the time we got home. To make up for grumpiness I did make some easy chocolate cookies.

Cookies made everything better. And I'm feeling more baking coming on, too. The blackberries are ripe, and I want blackberry cinnamon cake! :)

Blessings

2011-08-15T14:53:00.003+01:00

Counting the ordinary sunlit moments of joy, today. Roses and brickwork.

The patterns of tree bark.

Celebrating nature, all around us.

Playtimes.

Quiet times.

Growing daughters.

Little tired ones.

Red shoes. And what they represent - abundantly met needs.

Corners - and our gratitude pinned up on the wall to remind us of all the small joys.

Time to journal, conteplate and create.

And apples on the apple tree.

All of life, a prayer.

Nature's Cathedral

2011-08-14T16:25:00.001+01:00

I have always taken pictures looking up at trees, since I was first allowed to hold a camera. These giants awe me, and I find a quiet and prayerfulness here I rarely feel in busy stressful times.

I need to pray. I need to be refilled. Today, I got that space, here, under the trees.

6th Moon

2011-08-13T09:40:00.002+01:00

This is the sixth full moon of my pregnancy. I expect to move towards birthing after the tenth full moon, if my other babies are anything to go by. Woah - SIX OF TEN! I feel so full, on the one hand, so close to birthing. On the other hand, I can barely believe that there will be a baby at all - so how can I be so far gone?

Honestly, there is a lot of anxiety floating around me right now, mostly centred around my usual pregnant dreams of baby loss. In half of the dreams I have had about birthing, this pregnancy, the baby has been born still. I think I just feel too restless and stressed about external things to really feel secure or even come to a quiet knowing that "all will be well". I already want to retreat into solitude, I am done with busy.

Minnow has turned itself around a lot this past couple of weeks - I think mostly baby is back to back and head up, and I have hardly as much bump to show for it as I did at three months!

Toddlers 1 - Newspaper 0

2011-08-12T08:56:00.000+01:00

The Neverending Playdate

2011-08-11T10:01:00.000+01:00

Sudden empathy with all those who have twins or children very close in age... It is the endless play-date in my house right now. You know, the kind of day when you realise pretty quickly that your toddler is *going* to keep wacking and/or clawing their little friend, and the only thing for it is for everyone to go home, in spite of how much fun the mamas are having or how much the toddlers actually like each other's company. Only we all live here!

One evening the respective mamas had threatened to either shut one toddler in the kitchen, or drop the other out of the window. Martin ended up throwing one on his back and one on his front, and taking them both out for a walk. A friend asked if they didn't keep grabbing at one another over his shoulders. "Nope," he replied stoically, "they were *just* out of each other's eyeline..."

The daft thing is, they ask for each other about a zillion times a day. Connor actually wakes up shouting, "where Ro-ro?!" Rowan goes to bed unwillingly, wailing for Connor. But they are toddlers, with all that implies about property rights and personal boundaries. Us mamas are literally BEAMING with gratitude and relief that after a week they appear to be stomping and yelling at each other more often than shoving and kicking.

I thought I was pretty acomplished at toddler wrangling. *sigh* I was very wrong. I used to desperately want twins - and now I'm pretty nervous about the prospect of hearing two little heartbeats in there next week (what if?) - two toddlers at the same time is fabulous and hilarious but it is The Most Exhausting Thing I Have Ever Done. Bar nothing.

The mamas who do this all day every day? They get a huge round of applause from me today. Well done you. Please tell me - how do you do it? Emma and I could do with your survival tips.

I wrecked Jenna's hair! :(

2011-08-08T19:05:00.000+01:00

A few times this week she has been upset that her hair gets so tangled, but she detests brushing it. I suggested that I could cut it shorter for her and that would make it easier to brush, and she said NO WAY but obviously it planted a seed because this morning she absolutely insisted that I HAD to cut her hair RIGHT that very moment, and she HATES tangles, you know, little wild thing girl determination and hyperbole.

Well she *could not* sit still. I say this as a mama who has chased two year olds around carefully snipping little curls, and who has held still the head of the *most* distractible four year old ever seen. But Jenna? Let me tell you this, nobody can flick their hair around like a nearly-seven-year-old girl!

It ended up much much shorter than she wanted (or than I wanted, come to that!) and she hated it. We had hysterics for nearly an hour, "I can never leave the house again", "I want you to cancel my birthday" hysterics.

Actually, she looks beautiful. And so grown up; you can see better her pointed little chin and slender neck, and she looks taller somehow, such a willowy little beauty of a child.

By this evening she had told me that she has changed her mind, and she loves her new hair after all. "It's easier to put my necklace on now, and no tangles!" She said. "And everyone will think I look cool." *evil laugh* Well, I suppose, along with hair flicking, some concept of cool was inevitable some day...

In other news, she stood up to a bully at soft play today, and defended a child who was being hurt. I was totally impressed with how she spoke to the boy who was hurling abuse at them - and how half an hour later she marched up to him and invited him to play with them as long as he could be kind to the other children! What a mature, capable, graceful, generous young woman she is growing into!

Picnic on the Park

2011-08-07T15:30:00.000+01:00

We took our lunch over to the corner park today. We're all pretty shattered, due to toddlers getting up early (again), and a couple of worse days sickness-wise, but we needed a walk badly. The fresh air was lovely. It's still so warm and muggy here, but better than it has been.

Jenna lost her first tooth yesterday, and she's so proud of this gap! She confessed that she was anxious about looking funny to start with, but now she thinks she just looks grown up. (See the dark circles? When Martin went in to comfort Roo, he found Jenna with her arms wrapped around her wakeful baby sister, talking soothingly to her.)

Martin is fed up this week. Selling the car, and the stress of trying to find a reliable replacement, added on to the fact that there is *nothing* on the jobs front right now... No calls back or letters from any of the recent load of interviews, and no new offers of interviews, it is so frustrating and he's feeling quite disheartened about it all. He spent a long time crawling up and down the hill with children on his back anyhow, generous to a fault, and is now about ready to fall asleep in the laundry he's folding off the line!

OK yes, slightly obsessed...

2011-08-05T17:49:00.000+01:00

Baby knitting is taking over.

In between taking pictures of Rowan in her favourite spot in the house right now - sitting on top of my kitchen bin (?!)...

There's always another project to cast on. Really simple stuff.

Normal play continues.

I even have time and inclination this week to knit something for someone OTHER than bump.

And the mess increases... Though not to the point where it can't be set to rights in an hour or so...

There is an air of calm-before-the-storm here. The hot muggy weather is often keeping us indoors. In the lull, I knit.

A brief Day-in-the-life

2011-08-05T10:14:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I had to make a quick list. My big kids were cracking me up with their games and antics. So after adding to the list through the day, I thought I'd share...

This is a list of stuff my kids used to educate themselves yesterday. And this is just the stuff I actually saw on the occasion we were in the same rooms!

- Grimm's complete fairy tales
- Floor puppets
- A number line
- Bandages
- Playsilks
- A magician's cape, a bowl, and a toy sheep
- Paper and sharpies
- The alphabet song
- A ukulele
- A Google images search
- Some optical illusions
- Baking ingredients and the oven
- An empty brick trolley
- An episode of Cadfael
- Abba lyrics

Really, what can I add to that?