Seven Days: sweet new year

1. Talia.
2. Jenna on her way to sling meet with her baby in one of my slings.
3. "Fairyland."
4. Hat knitting.
5. Cress (though Morgan keeps telling me with some irritation that it is GRASS).
6. Ruby cuteness.  "Oh, Rowan, looks like you shared your cold with the baby - how kind!"  "Yep, I shared my chocolate with her too!"
7. City.

Rufford Country Park

We met up with some Green Parent mama friends today.  It was an incredibly joyful spur-of-the-moment change of plans, and a fabulous (but rainy) park day.

Baby ate everyone else's picnics - and a bit of soil too.  People on parks often come up to me to helpfully tell me that my baby is eating dirt.  Thank you, yes, I know.  If she finds a cigarette butt, I want to know about that, but a bit of dirt not so much.  She won't eat much, it doesn't taste good!  :)

Jenna and Emily renewed their friendship, and the whole pack of wild children ran around barefoot in the rain without their coats.  If this makes me a bad Waldorf mama, so be it!  Talia won't keep her hat on, either.

Sand and sticks and soaking wet children.  Fresh air and sculpture and wooden play frames.  Laughter and "me too" stories to our hearts' content!  (I am *not* the only mama with embarrassing public toilet stories!)  One very contented Rowan who was loved and carried around by a certain sweet gentle big boy.

Happy mama, happy daddy, happy wild ones.  :)

Weekending: park and pets

Ash came on Saturday, she heard that hubby was working all day so she offered to pay for a taxi to take us all to the arboretum (taxi means I can take masses of bags of stuff and not have to come home because one child is too hot/cold/wet/bored/hungry/thirsty).  I packed towels and swim gear for the water park too.


It was gorgeous all day, sunny and bright and breezy and fresh and SO GREEN.











On Sunday, Tali had been up all night so Martin made the executive decision to let sleeping mamas lie. I didn't wake til 10am, to a suspiciously quiet house.  They were all downstairs watching Mythbusters! Too late for Church, we instead headed for the pet store to get Jenna the promised fishies.  Talia was very suspicious about the Chinchillas...


Then Chad park for the traditional Sunday afternoon play time (and chips from the community cafe).  It was a much greyer day, still bakingly hot most of the time we were out, but heading towards rainy by the early evening.






Talia adores being flung around and put on the play equipment by her siblings.  Her laugh is just perfect.




And Jenna's new pets are safely installed.  Thanks to Ashleigh for the wonderful birthday present (the great big tank!).  They are called Rosemary and Lily.  I don't know why.  The children keep trying to get them to come when called.

Welcome, welcome, to another week.  So many plans and a to-do list that won't stop growing, and hardly any energy to do it all, but we're all still here.  :)

Half a Year

Isn't it just impossible?

Six months.  Six whole months since I birthed her.  It feels like no time at all.

She chews and licks, seriously, everything.  Here she is eating my knee.  Why, baby, why?

And the camera cord.  Not helpful.

She love love loves swimming.

And she sucks her thumb.

I cast on a half-birthday present for her.  As if I didn't have enough on the go.  Well, I still maintain that cute baby in hand knits is just the most adorable thing ever.  Though my heart breaks a little at the thought of how fast she is outgrowing things!

Oh, that hole in the pattern?  Yeah, she ate that too...

Camp GP

Home for a few precious, stormy, sunny, ridiculously beautiful, communal days.
And this was home in the daytimes, when the rain poured down (and down).
We cooked communal meals on Joxy's tripod over the fire pit, or huddled inside on several little gas stoves, and everything was shared and delicious. I must have buttered three entire loaves for "starving" children, running around in the cold giving them even more appetite than usual.
Apart from regular feeding, the children really didn't want our input. They had friends, and freedom, and wild open spaces, and the shelter when it was too hot or too cold for them.
Milk-blissed baby slept wonderfully, snuggled in the crook of my elbow, with her little sock-hat on her head to keep her warm.



In the bitterly cold downpour of Sunday, we huddled in the car for a while, until I could feel my feet again. There was talk of going home in the morning, though none of us wanted to. And still the rain went on. My husband went to the nearest shop to try to get some wellies for me.
Life was better with warm feet.
Wroxeter Roman playground ;) kept our spirits up. Though I lost my children and ended up crying and shouting by turns when I found them in the gift shop opening sweeties. I had been waiting outside the toilets for them to come out!





What's the time Mr Wolf?

Jacqui's birthday and SUN!

When she wasn't sleeping, Tali crawled around the group scavenging food.  Baby face down in a plate of noodles, om nom nom.  What can you do with a baby like that?

We all hate saying goodbye. It's far too final a word to say to such dear dear friends and soul sisters. It has even taken me longer to post, because I knew I'd just sit here wanting to come back.
(Sleepy Morgan is chirpy and sweet. Sleepy Rowan is pouty and cross!)
Civilisation has its perks. Warm dry beds, and baths, for example. But in my mind there is nothing half so civilised and civilising than sitting around eating a leisurely shared meal with friends. In a field, with the horse flies biting and the storm kettle refusing to light, and all.

Plan, what plan?

I thought I knew how this week would be. Another round of library, park, swimming, maybe museum, maybe a ramble somewhere wild, food shop, Church... Somehow the sun just leaves me feeling so different, *everything* is different.
It isn't that we haven't done those normal weekly things...  Though we have taken a couple of spontaneous jaunts - I thin the biggest difference is that I am at that tipping point of spending more time outside than in.

Artisan bakery in town = ciabatta and olives for snack on Monday, followed by the first of the English strawberries we could find = everyone is happy.
The first day of summery weather did that magical and awful thing of showing up every messy corner and dirty floor and fingermarked window. So I cleaned the heck out of my house and was unbearable for at least 24 hours in my panic to Make the House Nice. My problem (well, one of my problems) is that I am utterly all or nothing. So when I clean up, that's all I can do, and I'm a horrible person to live with until it's done. The kids can either have a pretty tidy clean lovely house, or a mama who plays with them and makes things and sets up fun crafts, but apparently not both. Fine. Back to the latter, then. I give in!

The house might not get quite so bad so fast if we're all outdoors most of the day, anyway.
Yeesss, that *is* my kitchen when it's clean. Don't ask about when it isn't. Anything beyond the most basic cleaning is a rarity. And I can't decide whether I'm mostly looking forwards to getting rid of the horrid old stained units or if I'm mostly terrified of having to empty every single thing out of there for a few days...  :S  On the other hand, we actually built the clothes storage for the children that they have been needing for about six months (and that we bought over two months ago).

Main Lesson Book with Morgan just isn't going, right now. She has so many things she'd rather do. As usual, I am struggling to let go whilst at the same time knowing that her instincts are way less socially conformed than mine and I can TRUST her.
I am feeling drawn back to spontaneity.  It is, after all, what comes most naturally to me.  Planning is out of my usual mode of operation - and although a little bit helps things run more smoothly, a lot just stresses us all out.

Mud pies are far more interesting than adult-planned lesson time. I know, I know. Relax, mama! At least *mud* doesn't worry me!
 
Nor, apparently; sharpie body art, bare feet in the garden, or small children helping out with the fire...
The meal plan has gone out of the window too. We'd rather eat fresh cool simple food, and food cooked out of doors.

Swimming was followed by the rest of the day in the shade of a tree on the park, just sitting.
And all the rest of it, every ordinary extraordinary thing...

The normal is absolutely transformed and renewed with a break from the torrential rain.