Autumn Season Table

Ah, my favourite time of year. :) Talia carded the wool for the little bonfire, and Jenna picked the crab apple. A dear friend sent the teasel hedgehog a couple of years ago (and felted the wool bowl) - another friend sent *giant* pine cones, and another made the felt leaves. So many happy reminders of friendship, and so many reflections of the world outside our windows.

Busy List for Autumn

(With apologies for the rubbish picture!)

Book Sharing Monday: The Little Yellow Leaf

Yes! A book sharing post! After, well, probably a couple of years? Anyhow, NEW AUTUMN BOOKS. This is pretty much my favourite story book in the entire house right now! The Little Yellow Leaf by Carin Berger.




"Not Ready, thought the Little Yellow Leaf as a heavy harvest moon bloomed amber in the starry sky."


Stunning collage illustrations. Hypnotically beautiful words, sweet simple story. Nice colours, gorgeous design, perfect layout. Cosy Autumn picture book reading. :)

Circle Time on Mama's Bed

Rainbows and cuteness. Could they be any lovelier? Jenna has been persuading the little ones to have a Circle Time with her almost every day, lately. They do a different set of songs every day, but they have particular favourites.

"Mix the batter, stir the batter, shake some flour in
Mix the batter, stir the batter, pop it in a tin
Sprinkle on the raisins, put it in to bake
Open up the oven, and out comes CAKE!"

Talia loves, "Wind the Bobbin Up." Just like her sisters adored repeating it over and over at a similar age. Everything changes, nothing changes, the same joys come back around. :)

A quick and easy silk project (that *anyone* can dye)

Eek, folks might start thinking I'm actually *reliable* or something... ;) Yes, just a couple of days later, and I am providing the tutorial I suggested I "might" get around to!

Suitable for anyone over the age of about one year (ie any toddler who can pour liquids from one container to another can do it - even if they spill), and you can use your own tablewear. The only thing you will need to buy specially is an undyed silk scarf from a craft store or online specialist (I recommend rainbowsilks.co.uk). Oh, and food colouring, if you are like me and have a cupboard full of baking ingredients up to and including freeze-dried raspberries and edible glitter but never seem to have any food dyes...

Set up: One small cereal bowl. One small glass. Two shot glasses or small ramekins or similar. White vinegar. Food colouring in two primary colours (these MUST NOT be "natural" food colouring, as many will not work as dye - alternatively you could use half a sachet of kool-aid in place of each food colouring, dilute sparingly with water). You will also need either a standard saucepan or a microwave to set your colour.


Put vinegar into the cup, and food colouring in the shot glasses.

First, take your silk and shake it out by a corner to see how big it is. This one is 90 by 90cm. (Yes, I borrowed this kid, she isn't one of mine!)

Then scrunch it up into a tiny ball and push it down into the bowl. It won't fit!

Let your child add the small cup full of vinegar to the silk and push down with their fingers until the whole silk is wet.


Add a teeny bit of water or vinegar to dilute the food colouring in the shot glasses if you want. The less you add, the more concentrated the colour you will get, but the more mottled the silk will be because the water helps it spread out. Give these to your small assistant to pour wherever they like (hopefully mainly on the silk).


Take your bowl to the microwave and count to sixty as it cooks. Alternatively, lift the disk of silk very carefully into a clean pan and cook for about two minutes (don't let it dry out or it will burn)!


Tip the silk into the sink and run a little cold water onto it before touching (it will be hot!) and rinse. Hang out to dry. Tadaa!


NOTES: this tutorial produces generally light-coloured mottled silks; the more food colouring you use, the brighter you will get! I recommend primary colours because it is impossible to use only two and still get brown, and my children are experts at mixing brown (paint, dye, you name it). Gel food colourings give brighter shades than liquid but either are fine, just remember to dilute your gel. Silks will be colourfast, but not lightfast in the long term, so avoid lengthy exposure to bright sunlight (or simply re-dye every year until your silk wears out)!

Remember to keep silk play away from open flame, and supervise children when playing as a tightly knotted silk is a strangulation risk. Use silks for dance, dressing up, running around in summer breezes, setting up story scenes and landscapes for creative play, doll blankets, bandages when playing hospitals/vets, and seasonal displays. (And you will most likely think up many more uses, too.)

A note of (probably unnecessary) clarification to my Waldorf readers

(This post will make almost no sense to you if you are not an avid consumer of parenting philosophies. Feel free to move along if you prefer not to hear the usual parcel of philosophical rambling and self-examination! It isn't compulsory to enjoy this kind of thing.)

Somewhere in the last two years, I have stopped calling myself a Waldorf-inspired Unschooler, and started calling myself a Radical Unschooler.

(Oh yes, I still believe there is value in labels - that there is use in finding the clearest most precise words to describe our interests, preferences, fascinations, and philosophies. Dissecting words and meanings and ideals has been part of my path, and helpful to me. If you want to know my perspective, I can offer a shorthand version in the form of a "label". If you want to know whether the jar in your hand contains strawberry jam or spicy tomato chutney, better read the label!)

Why did I drop the "Waldorf Inspired"? Am I still living a Waldorf-inspired life? Will you find a kindred spirit, a companion on the journey, or relevant ideas here if you DO consider yourself a Waldorf parent? It's complicated, sort of, and maybe. ;)

I was always a bit of a Waldorf-sceptic. Some of the philosophy strikes me as nuttier than the average fruitcake (sorry), and the guy himself was genuinely ahead of his time in some ways and a genuine ignorant arse in other ways (no, I'm not sorry). Even the ways in which he was ahead of his time are now frequently behind *this* actual time. Children have not changed all that much, but our understanding of them in terms of their capabilities and personhood has changed; and the world for which we are helping them prepare has changed beyond the imaginings of the very best of us a hundered years ago. I am not, and have never been, a follower of Steiner or of anthrosophy.

I owned all the Steiner schooling books though - in spite of not being interested in perfectly replicating Waldorf-at-home. To be fair, I did actually even buy a Waldorf curriculum and offer it - but my eldest was not interested and I was already more unschooly than Waldorfy. I was not prepared to push, control, or coerce. We had, and have, main lesson books - the children were, and are, free to use them as they wish to. There was, and is, a lot in Waldorf to love. The asethetic is, I believe, what draws so many people - and it's still a huge inspiration to my own arts and crafts. I truly love the physical beauty and simplicity in Waldorf-inspired art and design. It soothes my eyes and speaks to my soul.

There is also a lot of fear; and control, the eventual result of too much fear.

For the first few years of Jenna's life I was keen to be "in control" of the usual suspects as far as thinking was concerned - food, television, computer gaming ("educational" use would be allowed), bedtimes, clothing. I wanted a soft, sweet, simple life for her. Wooden toys, no branded or character clothing, minimal television. I wanted, I suppose, my own childhood over again. Nothing that jarred my personal sensibilities. And it worked, because for a very long time she didn't *want* anything outside of that. I heard other people suggesting that perhaps she wouldn't always have values and preferences that were so in line with mine, and I knew it intellectually but also felt that I needed to simply cross that bridge when we came to it.

I read a lot of gentle parenting advice and very gradually started to see a strong thread of "this is a nice way to force your child do what they will neither want to do of their own accord OR eventually learn to do without being taught". This pushed me back to the (more radical) unschooling boards, which I had previously read with an air of "are you freaking kidding me?!" When I occasionally came across radical unschooling, I felt genuinely pissed off. It jarred, at a deep level. Whilst also pulling me back to look, again and again.

The bridge, when it came, I almost didn't even notice. It came by stealth, and Jenna and I had almost a year of quiet warfare. She wanted more independance of movement, make-up, clothes I didn't believe were appropriate. It was sooner than I expected, and so I missed what it was I was facing - rebellion against my "nice" control. So, about two years ago, I was facing a choice. Which principle was more important to me? Which fears had a genuine basis and which were figments of too much reading? Would I honour my own thoughts about what was safe and suitable and pleasing above hers, and where would I draw the line?

When something makes me feel ragingly angry for no reason I can identify, it's usually something I truly *need* to properly explore and understand. I had already had the experience with elimination communication (nappy free baby): from "NO WAY" - to feeling strangely annoyed and picked on by the EXISTANCE of such a thing - to feeling like I couldn't get it out of my head until I tried it - to fully living it and thinking "no way - it works!" So when I started feeling like every radical unschooling thing I read was poking holes in me and deliberately insulting everything I believed, I shortcut the process and started cautiously saying "yes" more often. And more often.

My relationship with Jenna stopped being adversarial very quickly. She's still the child I'm most likely to get into an, ahem, argument with. We're very alike in personality, and both very stubborn, articulate, vocal, strong-minded, and passionate. Only, three years ago, we argued like parent and child (with me certain that I could force her to do what I wanted if it came to that, and her determined to resist me on principle because she was so determined not to be forced to do anything EVER). The irony! I started off trying to replicate exactly the parts of my childhood that I loved, and ended up also replicating the parts that I hated.

Now, we argue more rarely - more like best friends who wind each other up or strongly disagree sometimes, but neither feels they have the casting vote and neither feels oppressed by the difference of opinion. In case you're wondering, it's like that with Morgan too (and she's just as stubborn, albeit more quietly so). My parenting world has subtly shifted from being concerned with how best to pass on my values and bring up my children in a way that will produce perfectly moulded adults, to being concerned with how best to allow my children to develop their own values (and trusting that if mine do actually have value, they will be adopted without force).

So that's how I changed my mind, one yes at a time. I still love the feel of Waldorf - it's like a heart-pull to something that is wholly beautiful in its own way - but I'm intellectually convinced, and further convinced by experience, that for me and for these children control and coercion don't work (even "nice" coercion). I'm still constantly learning and knowing I can be a better facilitator, kinder, softer, sweeter, balance everyone's needs better, come to true consensus more often and more easily. I'm still evaluating on a case-by-case basis when, and whether, it is ever acceptable to control or coerce another human being. It is a thoughtful, involved, inventive, pragmatic, disturbing, and important question. I don't imagine I will ever have arrived at some perfect-parenting destination.

So, I feel that I have stepped out of a camp I enjoyed holidaying in but that was not quite home. The gilded cage still confined with lists of rules and should nots and oughts. Since it seems disingenuous to imply that I still consider my philosophy to be in line with Waldorf, and a lie by ommission to just drop mention of it without a word, I'm oversharing (again). I still love people in all camps and none, and love to hear their stories. I still find inspiration and much to interest me in some Waldorf resources. I may even still talk about Waldorfy things sometimes. :) I hope you still feel welcome here whatever your label, or lack thereof! Let's start again:

Hi. I'm an attachment parenting, radical unschooling, liberal, non-denominational Christian, pacifist, anarchist-leaning, imperfect, messy human being. Nice to meet you. Stay a while and share a story, a step on your journey, a cup of tea (or beverage of choice, dear Mormon friends and tea-haters alike), and a snapshot of beautiful ordinary life.

Signs of Spring in the Bluebell Woods

The blackthorn is in flower and the bluebell leaves are showing through. Leaves are budding, slowly and softly the green is creeping back. Catkins swing in the breeze. One drop of rain, two drops, then stillness again. The banks are slick with thick dark mud, and the ponds are without a single ripple to disturb the murky grey-green.

Rowan tells me that there are no unicorns in these woods, only fairies and pixies. She tells me that when she slept over at grandma's house, she looked out in the middle of the night and saw a fairy flying by her window. She said it looked at her and then flew off back to the woods. She skips and dances as she tells her stories, one memory or event merging into the next, like a robin's song of lilting enthusiasm at the world and everything in it.

Talia holds Ashleigh's hand for a while, before flinging herself at my knees and barring my way with raised arms. Muddy shoe prints on my grey dress. Sleepy weight of her in my arms as she rubs her eyes and dangles her dusty leaf-embellished mittens against my cheek. I kiss the curl at the nape of her neck, and a little further on try to distract her with drawing in the mud with a stick so that my arms can recover.

Rowan pokes a big branch into a swampy puddle and informs me laughingly that there are no alligators in there. Jenna and Morgan are up a tree, escaping from a minotaur. I gather handfuls of discarded hats and mittens. I holler back to them to remember to bring their coats and cardigans when they come to catch up, since all of their outerwear is now hanging in the bushes.

We meet up with my mum, and Talia flings her arms out in greeting to the dog. "Come me, come me Loo-shee!" The dampness in the air, and the brief glimpses of blue in the white-grey sky, foretell the coming blossoming of Spring.

A Seventh Birthday

Nobody even woke up until after 8am, and Morgan pretty much grinned from wake-up until sleep (except when a camera was pointed at her, of course). Everything was just the most wonderful thing ever. She is just so contented and easily pleased! Her birthday gift from us was a sweet little doll from Ladybird Doll Studio - Ponyo. And it was love at first sight.





Morgan chose Italian for dinner, and of course Ponyo had to have some too.



Right outside the restaurant was the winter ice rink on the market square, and Martin and I did that silent parental conversation over the table, eyes only; yes she'd love it! - have we got enough money? - maybe, shall I go check now while they're busy eating? - go go go - YES we can do it today! - shall we tell her? - no, wait til after the meal!



They were so surprised! :) It's tricky standing up on the ice, though.





I've never seen a bunch of children so darn happy to be falling over so many times!

And, well, cake. (She asked for a victoria sponge with real cream, and glitter on top. So that's exactly and precisely what she got. And a bright blue candle in the shape of a number seven.) By the way, this is an accurate depiction of Morgan's expression pretty much all day...



"Best birthday ever", apparently. :)

Magical Learning Moments

We are finding reasons to get outside *almost* every day. Particularly memorable was last weekend's jaunt up to the giant star chart, in the pouring rain. Martin and I hunched defensively against the freezing wetness, while the children danced and sang and spun.


We read an assortment of Hindu stories and made rangoli patterns out of coloured rice, lentils, and sugar last week. The children are fascinated with Diwali (and in fact, many festivals belonging to other faiths), but this year I have spent Autumn dashing from one of their interests to another, facilitating and supporting, and have offered very little in the way of ideas and suggestions myself. As a result I almost completely missed Diwali this year, it was a good job there were related activities at the Museum stay and play sessions!


The girls are playing on Minecraft quite a bit (some days an hour, other days several hours, the occasional rare day with no time at all). Jenna made colourful Octonauts for Rowan. They do very sweetly take turns and also often play cooperatively. (Unfortunately they also "cooperated" in creating a great deal of mayhem last week, which at least they did duly help me tidy up over the past couple of days.) :/

Jenna heard a reference to William Blake's The Tyger in a program I was watching whilst knitting away, and I ended up putting my project down and looking up Blake artwork and poetry for a while. She put a couple of favourites in her Main Lesson Book - and didn't freak out when all the little sisters did some liberal helping. :)

Talia is keen to do whatever the others are doing at all times. Distractions in the forms of Poisson Rouge android apps and threading beads have come in handy this week. She is also talking a lot, she has just so many words.


Remembrance day came and went, marked by Jenna with poppies in her Main Lesson Book. She seems to be back to wanting to fill these lovely big journals with interesting things, always of her own choosing and in her own preferred style. It does make me smile a little, how very much like how I imagined the books would be used, and yet so different.


This week there have been songs about three dimensional shapes, drawing around objects on squared paper to work out their area, dressing up as Tudors, weaving, baking cookies, writing about the Solar system, the elements song, a board game about survival scenarios, matching games, Venn diagrams with string and objects, dressing up as My Little Pony characters, speculating about life on other planets, Poirot, den building, and designing what Christmas decorations we're going to make when we get some more felt. Funny how much wonder and creativity and discovery can come out of a week of relative utter chaos!

Toys Re-evaluated

So, rather a long time ago, I wrote a post about Waldorf toys. How I love and value the open-ended properties of simple natural playthings. And already, even then, I knew that some day compromises of some sort would come. What I didn't know then is how very joyful those compromises would be, and how easy it would be to say "yes" to something that I categorically didn't like but would find endless joy in through the eyes of a child. :)




My second child is now the age my first child was when I wrote that lot of shoulds and oughts. You may have noticed I've chucked out a lot of answers I thought I had, along with some of the hard edges of judgement and expertise (I hope). So here's a re-write of sorts.

The foundation of our playthings are still collected nature (pine cones, shells, stones, sticks), wooden stacking arches, naturally shaped wooden blocks and geometric blocks, play silks, and simple animal and people figures.


Those are the things that are played with every day, and that I would recommend as a basic kit for creative play. Also Lego, still a regular fixture. But other things to. The things that spoke to these kidlets of mine, and which we bought over the last year or so as and when they asked (and as and when we saw things we knew they would love).


I don't appeal to my personal dislike of plastic or my own choices about protecting the environment any more to refuse to buy the plastic toys my children love. They have genuine choices, with the money that I treat as belonging to all of us equally. I don't consider what I allow or don't allow all that much any more at all. I choose generosity, and saying yes. I want to follow the joy.

So, we have Moshi Monsters, and My Little Ponies, and Sylvanians, and Octonauts (I joke that those Sylvanians were the gateway drug). And they live in baskets with our Waldorf-sanctioned wooden toys. And it is all good.

Autumning (and trying to look up)

Usually when I feel low, I walk through my life absent - just about responding to the people around me but feeling so disconnected and empty. The depression creeps back not in misery, but in not-bothered-ness. For all I get better at avoiding anxiety triggers, for all I get better at carrying on with the daily care-of-self and care-of-others, I still don't have any answer, any magic fix for avoiding the slide into depression.

It helps to look to the small perfect moments of beauty in the ordinary. Experience true wonder, look at the awesome world. It helps to remember to take deep breaths, eat good food, drink plenty of water. It helps sometimes to honour the tiredness, the sadness, the grey fog, and write it down, and just *not* go out, and *not* care if the kitchen is a mess, because that's what you need right now.

It helps, sometimes, to fake it - to do happy things and fun things and creative things even though I don't feel it, to push through the fog to do the things that usually lift me. It's not magic, though.

It isn't like you can tell yourself, "today I will be positive, and the black pit of despair will take the hint and go away, because I don't have any *reason* to feel this way and I know that my life is really actually precious and amazing, so I will just DETERMINE not to feel like crap!" Well, you can. But honestly, if you can wish yourself out of depression, you weren't depressed. Positive thinking is a great thing, and so is going through the motions because other people don't stop needing you, the children don't stop needing me to be mummy (and more than that, to be their resource, their facilitator, their bringer-in-of-interesting-things).

My life is amazing and beautiful and I have every reason to be thankful. My children are bright and healthy and precious, and they need me. If it were possible to beat depression by sheer force of will, anyone who has ever argued with me would tell you it would have no chance. It doesn't work like that. But believe me, I'm fighting anyway, with everything I've got. I don't have time to sink back there again, my children don't have an infinite childhood, and I'd much much rather we spent these precious years dancing around the living room and cutting butterfly shapes out of the turning Autumn leaves and colouring in fractal patterns.

So yesterday, we danced. We played music LOUDLY and raced toy cars and ate biscuits with chocolate spread. I didn't want to, but I made myself. And for a while, that was enough. It will be enough today, too.

As if to prove me wrong...

This is my yesterday in pictures. I couldn't make it up.

And isn't that life with children, really, the crux of it? One minute you're explaining why glue sticks are not for eating and mopping up yet another spill and wondering how your life came to be this series of thankless chores. The next minute you're actually laughing at yourself because the whole flipping niceness of sitting on the park discussing ladybirds is too twee to describe without sounding overly smug.

Parenthood catches me, in every good moment that raw earth-ed-ness, in every bad moment the beauty. It's both. All mixed up together. When I can laugh about having such a bad day, I know it will mend. :)

Sibling Games

The children have "trained" Talia. She loves being allowed to join in their games, and willingly plays the parts assigned to her. Before she could walk, someone only needed to say "sit" and she would transform into puppy-mode, barking, fetching things thrown for her (in her mouth) and pretending to wag her tail. Now she has added baby to the list of roles she is well versed in.

She fake-cries for them to pick her up (which is either disturbing or hilarious, I can't quite decide which). When I voiced that thought, Jenna said, "Mum, it's a great thing. She knows that when babies cry, they get picked up and loved, no matter what."


(Off topic, in the babywearing picture of Jenna and Tali, look at the lovely Waldorf-y toy shelves in the background and you can play a game of spot-the-GUP!)

Seven Days - more ordinary beauty, and lots of rainbows

1. Babywearing and sibling hand holding
2. Roving and silks
3. Art for my kitchen from Daisy Cottage Designs
4. Gorgeous veg!
5. Art by Jenna, Rowan, Talia, and Morgan
7. Lammas Season Table
8. Fruitfulness