Depression (for people who aren't actually depressed)

Just a couple of resources, links, articles, and ideas. I'm having a difficult time explaining that I'm not actually sad (or not always) and that platitudes aren't the same as support (or help) and that it's the simple little things that are so often eluding me in the grey fog. My words aren't sufficient, right now, I just end up sounding ungrateful or rude. Ack. Anyhow, I shall bring some more useful words to your attention:

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html
"...trying to use willpower to overcome the apathetic sort of sadness that accompanies depression is like a person with no arms trying to punch themselves until their hands grow back.  A fundamental component of the plan is missing and it isn't going to work."

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/depression-part-two.html
"And that's the most frustrating thing about depression. It isn't always something you can fight back against with hope. It isn't even something — it's nothing. And you can't combat nothing. You can't fill it up. You can't cover it. It's just there, pulling the meaning out of everything. That being the case, all the hopeful, proactive solutions start to sound completely insane in contrast to the scope of the problem.

It would be like having a bunch of dead fish, but no one around you will acknowledge that the fish are dead. Instead, they offer to help you look for the fish or try to help you figure out why they disappeared. "

http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexisnedd/things-nobody-tells-you-about-being-depressed

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/01/30/6-things-to-say-to-someone-with-depression-or-whos-depressed/

http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/blog/how-to-help-friend-with-depression-mental-illness

See, I even lack the energy to look around and see if there are any better links than the above, or seamlessly integrate them with my post. Just, yeah, all of that. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

Spontaneous

Spontaneous adventures are, um, tricky with four small children. It isn't exactly easy to get us all out of the door, let alone carrying everything we need to spend long out of the house. When I think of our freedom of movement, I remember the days of one (or two) children with slight wistfulness!

After booking our train tickets, I set a very early alarm, packed the change bag with spare clothes, sunglasses, hats, snacks, drinks, and phone. A bag of swim gear - and waterproof coats just in case. Then persuaded the children to bed with promises of a surprise in the morning. So it began, at six in the morning, with me as nervous as can be!

These guys *love* surprises, so when we were dropped at the station they had no idea where we were going - or even that we were getting on a train. *so much squeeing*

For over an hour I had excited children saying, "Train! Horse! Tree!" at everything we went past. Eventually, the train pulled in at Boston, and the children all shouted, "ASHLEIGH!" They had just, moments before, guessed that we were going to the sea and that Ash would be joining us ("are you *sure* you want me to tell you if your guess is right?" haha).



The day itself was beautiful - warm, peaceful, fun, interesting. Rowan did some stomping when Talia was asleep on the towel she wanted. The sound of the sea and snuggles with my sweet baby, sand in her hair, time to read a book. Tiny blackbirds hopped almost onto Morgan's foot, and squabbled over any chips we dropped. Ash found a crab shell for us to examine. Morgan got a bit invested in walking the route she had planned, when everyone else wanted to go a different way. I got annoyed with them all bickering and threatened no ice-cream if they wouldn't just come to a bloody agreement (fail) but I did get a sweet apology later after I had calmed down and said that of course we would still get ice cream.









Transferring sand from one spade to another was Talia's favourite game of the day!



Talia crawled around some sculptures and got completely filthy (I had to wash her in the station toilets). Our train home was cancelled and we ended up buying cheap bread rolls and sausages for our tea.

By the time we finally got on a train, the children were exhausted, and decided to sit under the table. Lucky us, we had the most crotchetty rude conductor ever, who got aggressive when asked to back up his assertion that my children would die if they didn't sit upright in their seats (and threatened to put us off the train if I let them leave their seats for any reason when I again calmly asked him for statistics): I'd like to think the other passengers might have also complained about him, because they then had to put up with Rowan screaming for an hour when I wouldn't let her get down rather than risk him actually putting us off). Pony-distraction to the rescue (ish).



When we got in I had a good cry on hubby, and then cuddled Roo to sleep (who had totally forgiven me, and chatted all evening about jumping in the sea and the little birds who ate Tali's dinner).

I'd do it all again in a heartbeat though. Well, maybe in a couple of months...

(slightly unwilling) Spring Clean

Landlord's inspection again. Tis a very good anxiety trigger, especially since they're the council and think that poor people can't look after themselves have a "greater duty of care". Ie they object to mess. And four kids produce a lot of mess.

Because I'm anxious and struggling with feeling overwhelmed at allowing someone into my home for the express purpose of judging me, I have been doing crazy things like cleaning door frames, organising the tops of the wardrobes, and going under the kids' beds to see what they've stashed under there in the month or so since I last pulled everything out. Anxious cleaning is a near miraculous thing. I can't actually remember the last time I cleaned inside the air vents (I probably never have in ten years in this house).



Parents who do not lift their sofas to look underneath? I understand. Folk who don't ever buy products to whiten their tile grout? I'm on the same page. Adults who have roughly their own weight in laundry to get through? I feel your pain. I am not naturally neat, and neither are any of my children (so far). I love our warm colourful welcoming friendly home, but I have plenty of little piles of junk that I don't even see on a day to day basis - I'm really rather clutter-blind.

Anyhow, two days to go, and the house is under control. A tiny part of me says, "It's nice, let's keep it like this!" - A bigger part says, "Yeah RIGHT!" - And the biggest part still says, "We're happy, healthy, and busy living our lives and learning and DOING things, and it's nobody elses's business if there is a pile of dishes on the sideboard or clothes on the floor." No part of me is going to manage to say that during the inspection, though. I might be rather cross about the whole rigmarole, but the anxiety is still in charge as far as challenging policy goes.



(And if you think this means that I have Done All the Laundry, then you have never seen the size of my laundry pile...)

Oh look! A tour around my almost-but-not-quite-tidy house (yes, my carpet is always that colour... this is as good as it gets around here, friends! If piles of dirty dishes, and general clutter offend you, look away now!):

More adventures, unschooling, and beautiful chaos

On Tuesday, Talia had her two year check. It was a bit twilight-zone-like. The health visitors are lovely, and enthusiastic about my sweet family, but Talia was really not sure about being in a play area without her sisters (she kept burying her face in me to hide from the other children, and taking me to the door to see if her sisters were still outside). Poor funny little fraggle.

We'd planned to head to Nottingham in the afternoon, maybe visit an art gallery or just take a wander around a less familiar place. We've never really taken the children in to Nottingham city centre before, only to specific places away from the shopping areas. Our first stop was lunch, followed by the market square where the children wanted to play in the fountains in spite of the freezing weather. We'd left their bag of spare clothes at home so we improvised a bit and spend a small amount in the Primark sale to make up suitable warm dry outfits they could change in to when they came out of the water!





As soon as they were dry and wrapped up warmly, the sun came out! They had such a wonderful time in the water, though, and it was another time I was so glad we could find a way to say "yes". Lots of people stopped to watch them play and laugh, and almost every single one smiled to see them.

We couldn't remember exactly how far away the art gallery we wanted to visit would be, and the children weren't wanting to walk far, so we visited The Token House (my favourite quirky little gift shop and fixture of my own childhood) where the children found hearts made from shells, beautiful boxes, reels of ribbon, soft fuzzy toy animals, a gorgeous map book, and rainbow egg cups. We rather wished we could afford to bring it all home with us!

Martin remembered how to get to the gallery from there, just around the corner, so off we went. There was an exhibition of paintings which was rather poop-themed, a giant latex alien-bug creature, some post-apocalyptic dioramas, a papier mache temple with a golden cat-goddess head inside, and an actual Cat Bus filled with squashy rainbow coloured cushions to sit on.



The beans were ready for another drink by then, so we relocated to the cafe inside Waterstones. After chocolate muffins and warm milk we washed hands, looked at a book about tropical fish and another about big cats, and went up and down the escalators (which have their mechanisms on display under glass).



Then back to the car, through the main shopping centre!

On our walk we found street musicians, and a lot of beautiful painted elephants. The children were particularly keen on one inspired by the rose window at York Minster, and I loved the one decorated in the style of Japanese lacquer-work. :) Morgan was interested in the artist's descriptions, and played hunt-the-signature. Rowan liked the brightest colours the best (she liked one painted all over with sweets, and one with iconic English birds and mammals).



Wednesday, we were all so tired we opted for the quietest day possible, which is never really all that quiet. The children spent a good couple of hours "duelling" (shouting Harry-Potter-accurate spells at each other brandishing knitting needles and chopsticks), and playing an elaborate game in which they were sneaking food from the house elves (ie my kitchen cupboards) and trying to get it past me and up the stairs as I in turn tried very hard not to see (or laugh at their antics).

Talia was so fascinated with her new melamine Elmer mug she insisted on almost hourly cups of tea (alternating between chamomile, peppermint, and english breakfast with milk and sugar!) and so tired from her very busy day that she breastfed and dozed quite a bit of the rest of the time.



The Sylvanians and the Ostheimer mummy and baby wolf shared the doll house nicely.



We painted. Had showers. Pretended to look after Pygmy Puffs. And watched Star Trek (TNG).





The house started off relatively tidy in the morning, and now beautiful evidence of life and living and learning is, well, overflowing somewhat. It took me hours yesterday afternoon to write this, with breaks to facilitate for children, and fetch snacks, and read stories, and hand over the laptop for Jenna to do some design work, and pick up the tired unhappy toddler again, and spell out a few words, and find a silver pen for Morgan. It's taking a good while this morning to edit.

This is what unschooling looks like, for us, right now, at these ages and stages. Lots of "yes". Lots of trying to keep up. Lots of running late. Lots of laughter and art and colour and snuggling on the sofa and watching the rain. :)

Getting in to town

More often than not these days we get a taxi in to town. I love the walk, but often find the thought of needing to keep all four of them safe walking along the main road rather terrifying. It's suddenly possible again though, as Talia has reached an age and stage where she will most often freeze when I ask her to, and the others very nearly always do. Marginally less terrifying, then.

Mine are the eclectically rainbow babies in hand knits and mittens on strings. :) They mostly choose their own outfits these days, and still my bright and cheerful weirdness predominates!

I read an article a while back that kind of stuck in my head and left me feeling quite guilty for hurrying them along. Well, now I'm happy to confidently assert: with four children pretty close in age, you are ALWAYS either trying to get someone to hurry up or trying to get someone to slow down - or both. In fact, once you get past two children walking confidently, unless you have highly compliant little ones (or maybe even then) you will be herding cats trying to get them to stay together. Well, that's how we walk in to town. It's like a concertina, as we spread out and draw back together again.



We dawdle at walls and other interesting things to climb. We spend time poking at moss and examining all the different kinds.



We debate stopping at the Arboretum on the way (but decide that we're all hungry, so we'd better keep going). We stop to look at some chipped paint on a wall for a good long while, because the four year old wants to. We run sticks along the railings. We also have to stop (still with our sticks) and poke something that looks like a giant orange poo for about twenty minutes (I think it was some kind of sand/cement stuff from the building works). We watch over the railway bridge for trains, and Rowan holds up a branch and pretends to be a tree.

And the entire time, I am head-counting and trying to keep everyone together, saying first one name then another, and playing the stop/go game. Hurry up, slow down, hurry up, slow down. It's not always pretty, or perfect. Sometimes I yell, have to grab a little one's hand before they step into the road, get stressed or whiny under the pressure of keeping everyone safe, or sing in the loudest and most undignified way to keep flagging spirits up as they get tired. It's not always pretty or perfect, but it's pretty much a good analogy for much of my parenting at the moment. We just about hang together, somehow. And that's pretty wonderful. :)

Some of my Week

At sling meet on Monday I was asked how home education works. I wasn't really sure how to answer such an open-ended question. I rushed out something about living as if school didn't exist, following interests, and not being sure if it's Always Summer Holidays, or Always Education, because we mostly play and muck around with things we like, and live life together, and find learning everywhere.

I tend to worry that either this sounds like no education at all (explaining some of the, "you must be brave," comments), or whether it sounds like I wait for "teachable moments" and pounce with a lesson (explaining the frequent, "I could never be that organised!").

It isn't like it can all be explained and categorised, either. Sometimes I find that they know things that weren't even on my radar as possibilities.

We "just live" and "just play" but really there is no "just" about it.



















Here the girls set about making Fimo beads after a Doctor Who Club craft required just a small amount from the packet. I didn't suggest using the left over bits, but they had clear ideas! One of the pendants they created is apparently "a key that can open any lock". (We also spent an afternoon getting utterly covered in PVA glue making some papier mache, but more about that another day.) And why yes indeed, my children *do* wear dressing up costumes more often than ordinary clothes...


Tree blocks, the day Jacqui and Rye arrived to spend the week. Blissful crafting time while the children played together wonderfully, and introduced Rye to Minecraft. I wish I'd referred to this photograph when trying to work out where in the general mess my other bobbin had got to! Ah well, I tracked it down in time to do lots of spinning the day our lovely guests headed home.


Leaf kicking, and leaf throwing, on the way to the park. Drifts of crisp golden brown. :) On the park the children ran laps of the courts (as usual), inspected the cheerful graffiti art panels, and took a closer look at the work going on to install a bike track. That should be fun, come Summer!


Isn't that just the iconic Autumn picture? Oh my pixie Morgan, there is such a wildness about her sometimes; the way she turns her face to the sun, and that fine windswept hair.


Poorly Morgie-girl! And more Minecraft for big sis who is pretty much alternating her time between that, writing plays, journalling, and playing endless Greek-Mythology-related imaginary games. She also made my very yummy chocolate and peanut butter birthday cake.

Things we learned from Minecraft tangents this week: how to find out how deep a mine is, and from there exploring xy graphs, decimal places, and minus numbers. She also planned and built monuments to the Greek pantheon in creative mode, causing much debate about whether this building material or that is more suitable to honour Hephaestus/Artemis/etc. She worked out that her structures were not identical in size and soon figured out plans for conformity using area and volume calculations I am sure I remember her declaring "too hard" a year ago. I'm not sure if Jenna is aware that she is learning maths by stealth playing this game. She has declared she hates maths since well-meaning relatives tried to coax her to add up and told her she "needs to learn maths". (Morgan, of course, views children's maths text books and workbooks in much the way Jenna does journals and novels.)

Rains, Trains, and Feeling Brave

A good friend arranges to meet up - a really great friend turns up to help you get to arranged meeting place when she hears you're having a hard morning! :)

This whole refusing-to-hibernate thing is working out giving us the strangest adventures this week. On this occasion the adventure was a brilliant fun afternoon on the park in a torrential downpour.





Emma even brought her crochet for me to photograph. Beautiful Emma and her beautiful arts and crafts.

It really did rain a LOT. The children absolutely refused offers to go home, and mine wouldn't even put coats on. By the time we did go home we were all rather cold and totally drenched. Talia fell in a puddle on the way back, and took off half of her clothes, so we kind of ran the last two streets with baby whimpering and the others starting to complain that they were wet. (I refrained from sarcasm. I just thought sarcastic things in my head about children who beg for five more minutes in a freaking thunderstorm only to complain about having been rained on.)



Isn't it a good job that home comes with practically unlimited supplies of hot tea? :)

On Friday I took all four children up into the High Peak by train, to visit a home-ed group who meet once a month. I'd been invited by a fellow unschooler, and assured that I would be made very welcome - first I just had to overcome my fear of taking these four wild ones on public transport long distances...

The travelling is OK, for me, actually. I joke about my kidlets being wild, but they are lovely friendly helpful travelling companions, and they really give me no cause to freak out and/or lay down rules. They are usually very considerate of other passengers, and tend if anything to fight much less in public than when cooped up at home. And yet transporting them gives me the biggest most horrible anxiety attacks, especially when coupled with any kind of time pressure. Trying to get them somewhere on time is my most common panic attack trigger. So it was a really big deal. Still, I was just Going to Do It and Not Freak Out.

Until I paid for our tickets, took the children through the barrier, and was told casually in passing by a guard, "You'll be changing at Sheffield."

I'll WHAT?

Wait a second, I'll be WHAT NOW?

I didn't say that. I must have been radiating about-to-have-a-meltdown though, because he kindly looked up the details and made sure I knew the platform for and name of the connecting train we'd be getting. I stood in that entrance way clutching our tickets feeling stricken. In sight of our actual train.

Honestly, I was terrified. If you've never suffered severe anxiety I'm not sure I can explain it. But I wanted to run. I wanted to gather my little chickies, and run home, and hide there quietly. I did NOT want to get on that train. I'd rather lose the money I'd spent on tickets than lose a child at a station somewhere (or lose my mind in the process of getting there). What if we missed our connection and had to traipse all the way home without making the meet? What if we got to the meet and missed our train home and were stranded for over an hour in the rain in the middle of nowhere and didn't get home until 9pm? All the worst case scenarios flashed through my head, a parade of failures and ways in which I was going to let these kids down and generally be the worst parent in the world.

I said, "OK kids, it's an adventure!" And we got on the train.



(Please excuse Roo with a mouth full of picnic!)

After a while, I start to breathe normally again. I keep saying, "We're fine. We're doing this, and we're fine. They're safe, I'm a great mama, and I'm looking out for them. We're having an adventure. Look how happy they are. We're fine."

They watch out of windows a lot.

Rowan: Look mumma! A horse all by himself, he is so sad!
Me: How do you know he's sad? He might be a really happy horse...
Rowan: Nope. He has a frowny face.

Other passengers react to these happy, curious, lively young people. Some chuckle at how Talia says, "MINE!" and holds out her hands for whatever her sisters have. Some wave back at Rowan as she greets them. Some chat with Jenna a while when she politely asks them if they know which station is next or what the name of their dog is or whether she may offer their baby a biscuit. None of my possible predicted Terrible Things comes to pass (not even the minor everyday ones like Talia trying to take all her clothes off, or Rowan making repetitive annoying four-year-old noises that might bother the other passengers). We arrived at the group totally unscathed.

And it was so worth it. Such a lovely friendly welcoming group, where I didn't even feel like the newbie, let alone the freak I occasionally feel at other social gatherings. ;) It was wonderful to see teenagers and parents hanging out together, affectionate, actually friends. It was wonderful to see the children running together in a pack, and stomping barefoot in puddles, and dancing, and watching the rain. It was wonderful to see families getting involved with their own children, and each other's - asking questions of the kids about known interests, and sharing news, treating each other kindly. I've never got that vibe from a large real life group before.



The return journey, although I didn't so much as know our connecting train's destination, was not so stress-inducing. I knew we'd done it before, and I was confident that I could keep it together. Changing trains again was, of course, a hurrying-across-the-station, carrying the barefooted baby, where-the-heck-are-the-toilets, rush. And then we were on the right train, and on the homeward straight, with a bag of chocolates in my bag for the children who were all hungry again.

Morgan, on the way home: "That train has FOUR cabbages, but this one only has two. [After some delighted laughter from Jenna and I...] Oh, carr-a-ges-es is too hard to say, I'll just say cabbages." :)



Talia fell asleep upright in her chair. The gentleman sitting next to her laughed and helped her get comfortable while I finished reading a story to Rowan, then I scooped up my small sleepy and cuddled her close all the way home. It would have been a perfectly blissful moment, were in not for the fact that Talia had fallen asleep with four chocolates in her mouth at once, and therefore drooled chocolate into my cleavage and all over the inside of the ring sling.

Picture the scene as we waited for our lift home. Me with chocolate baby drool all over me, sitting outside the station with three of my four children barefoot in the sunshine; I felt like a damn lioness.

What's Wrong with School?

Every now and again, someone asks me this question - occasionally in a defensive way, assuming that I will have criticism for their choice to use the school system as part of the education of their own children (I don't - you're you and I'm me, there's no judgement-of-motives coming from this quarter). Sometimes the question is phrased in terms of what the ideal school would or could look like. Sometimes it's curiosity - if I don't send my kids to school, I must think there's something seriously wrong with the system, right?

The primary reason we initially chose not to send our own children to school had nothing to do with any ideas about school. We just saw what was already working so well, and could not bring ourselves to change things without good cause. That good cause didn't materialise for us, so we kept on learning as we were. Jenna was a thriving, curious, interested, articulate, intelligent, sociable little four year old, and we enjoyed having her around so much and being available for her on pretty near a one-to-one basis. Why switch that up for school runs and teaching, unless we could see a benefit for our child or our family in doing so?

It wasn't what we had to fear from school, or thought was bad or wrong with it. Only about the good things we saw already happening in an arrangement where one parent or the other could be available to facilitate full time education in the world outside of school. Mostly so far that has been me, with my husband as the main wage earner, simply because I have frequently been breastfeeding younger siblings. We're not unschoolers out of a hatred of schools and schooling. We're choosing to follow what is good and joyful and working for us.

As Jenna has grown up we have become more sure that school is just not the ideal environment for her, though I've mentioned the compromises often enough (eg that as an extreme extravert it's often tricky to meet her social needs - although I doubt that school would solve that challenge entirely either). Importantly, given the choice, she has rarely had any interest in school. Apart from a brief phase of asking lots of questions about it aged around four to five, she has always stated clearly that she likes being educated outside of school. (When adults quiz her, she tells them that she doesn't want to go to school, because nobody should have to ask *permission* to go to the toilet. I honestly didn't teach her that answer! It came from a certain passionate and unconventional school teacher we know.)

While I do believe that unschooling is a great way to support children to follow the educational path uniquely suited to them, and I do believe it could work for any child, I don't believe it would work for every family. There are plenty of loving, involved families, with literate parents, who would not or could not choose to unschool because they are balancing a different set of family needs to those I am responsible for. There are also those children for whom school is vitally necessary because they *don't* have parents who could or would provide a healthy environment for learning at home.

(In times when I have struggled with depression, I have considered seriously whether our home environment is offering advantages over a school environment or not. This includes talking the situation and our feelings about it over with people outside of the family - one of the hallmarks of depression being that it lies, and the introspection attempted whilst under its influence is rather flawed. I want to state very strongly that parenting when depressed is especially hard work, and home-ed is not the cause, nor the problem, and I'm very grateful to have friends and family around me who don't treat it as such.)

There have been times when it has been a struggle (financially, emotionally) to make that work, and times when I have considered using schools to make our lives balance differently. We have never been on a large income, in fact we have frequently lived on less than benefits. No matter how often I've revisited, we've always ended up adjusting things somehow to make our nest better and more comfortable for everyone rather than opting in to the school system.

Lot of schools are bringing in many things I strongly support, and am pleased to see. Some are using outdoor classrooms, training to offer options like forest schools, and finding other ways to take lessons out of the classroom more often. Some school models I really admire choose to use project-based models. I think for the children and families who need to use the services of public schools, there are some creative and wonderful options.

I know this is a terrible analogy (please forgive me, it will have to serve), but although I don't personally use formula, I want it to be as good as humanly possible, and for the people involved in producing it to genuinely care about and be interested in the people using it, not as a target market to push something on but as real people with needs beyond the minimum that can be given. I feel the same about school. I want the curriculum to be more varied and children and parents to be respected more. If you see me complain about something I see in or about schools, it's not a criticism of *all* schools, of schooled children, or of parents who have children in school. It's just a desire for life to be as good as it can be for every child, for every family. If I'm criticising anything, it's the government wheels that too often grind along the same old tracks.

For me, for our family, I'm happy to be learning the way that we are, and I'm confident that we're making thoughtful choices for good reasons - even if there are *always* compromises. If you feel the same way about your different choices, I'm happy to celebrate with you. :)

Unschooling on a Low Tide day

Every time I record a busy-school-y-academic sort of day-in-the-life, I promise myself that I will write another on one of the other kinds of day. Not a bad day, nor a stressful one. Not an exceptional day, not a more (or less) "educational" day, just... a different kind of atmosphere, different priorities.

Today we meandered from one thing to another. We didn't have a plan, or a project. We didn't focus on a subject, or drag out a load of interesting reference books, or set up an activity. It's days like today that lead me, when people ask whether we have "school holidays" to joke that we're always on holiday. Well, we are!

We tidied up a bit and Rowan helped me clean the bathroom (she loves spraying the tiles with water). Morgan drew a clock face and explained to me how she knows what time it is (I had no idea she knew how to tell the time). We made smoothies and I froze the left overs in ice lolly pots - I'm fairly sure this is the first year we have managed to find an actual set of these from the previous year! Jenna played a new level on her playstation game, then decided to do some painting and took a watercolour box into the garden and left it out there. Meanwhile Morgan wanted muffins, so she and Roo helped me make some.

Morgan did some wool winding with me, and Jenna did some gymnastics on the almost-totally-broken swing frame. When she got fed up with that she came inside and helped me price up new swings for if (when) we get some of last year's tax back. Then she read one of her library books, one of those choose-your-ending mysteries, which she kept exclaiming was "really annoying" because she kept choosing options that led to stories she didn't like.

Rowan asked about a billion times if the ice lollies would be ready yet. Every time I said they weren't, she had to go and open the freezer and poke them to check.

My father in law and sister in law came over to borrow one of our car seats from in the attic for a visiting family member. They offered to take us out for lunch; the children voted for MacDonalds and I didn't moan or roll my eyes. ;) We got glared at a bit, as is fairly usual as a large family out and about during school hours. The children chatted to grandad non-stop, fed the baby their chips, and helped clear up when we were finished.

Morgan and Rowan pretended to be superheroes as we walked home.


Everyone then played in the garden for a couple of hours, mostly putting on a series of pantomimes using an old pallet as a stage. I picked up a whole bag worth of general rubbish from the patio area, broken plant pots and bits of tile (one blew off the roof last week), part of a chicken feed dispenser from years ago (I still miss having chickens), a few small toys missed in previous tidying sessions (all thankfully salvageable). We watched ants going to and from a small apple core for a few minutes.

I came in to start making tea, and when the children followed me a few minutes later they had painted each other's faces with green watercolour "to be Shrek's babies", so I bathed them before food. There was lively discussion about which soap they like best.

So: we tidied, played, read, chatted, smiled, and walked. And we were learning and exploring in just the way we needed to be. And it was good.

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.  :)

A Very Waldorf Home-y Post

I have been a crazy busy mama this week.  One of my regular solutions to feeling rubbish is to have a good clear-out of accumulated rubbish, sort the house out, make my spaces beautiful and useable.  It's the large-scale equivalent of banging pots and pans about in the kitchen after a row.  Whole Life scale wobbles require Whole House scale chaos.  So I came up with a plan.

You know all those times I've talked about Waldorf Perfect, and how I'm not and not even aiming for it?  Still not.  :)  Still Imperfect.  Still Complicated.  Still the rainbow mad-house overflowing with clothes and books and wellies and art projects.  Still resisting categorisation.

And when Martin came home from work one evening, he found that I'd done this to the hall way:

Yup, I Lazure painted our house.  In rainbow colours.  With murals of angels all up the stairs.  I know.  Believe me, I know.

Husband actually says he loves it.  (He says that after so many years here, the house feels like it's actually OURS!)  But his face was a picture, well, I'm guessing it was a shock...  I can imagine how it looked - rainbow hall, wife sitting on the top step with baby in arms, painting a mural, with paint in her hair (mine, not the baby's).  He's a very tolerant husband.





The Plan also included a whole day of indigo dyeing...  My mum took the three olders out for the day while we did that, though.  See: magic...  Still green...


And now it's blue!


We even dyed the gloves.


If I don't feel exactly cheery, I at least feel tired-in-a-good-way.  I have lovely organic yarn drying on my line, and some neglected areas of the house are clean and tidy and newly painted.  I have new pegs in the hall and the sling storage has been sorted out.  There are fresh flowers in my living room, the dining table is clear, most of the laundry is away, and there is new artwork on the walls.  I feel a little more... empty.  A bit less complicated and messy.


That's not perfect, but it's a good deal better.