A few days in pictures

A woodland picture by Jenna. She was really upset by having accidentally made one of the flowers and one of the toadstools upside down!


Some beeswax modelling, a tortoise that became Morgan's favorite thing for nearly two days, and a snail by Jenna with conker shell.



Under the sea scene (Jenna telling stories again). I made her a tiny little wax baby and she immediately gave it a shell bed and a tiny scrap of felt for a blanket, and started singing about it sailing along under the sea. I didn't dare try to record the story, as when she notices me engaged in such teacherish activity she either stops altogether or starts making characters die etc in the hopes of getting a really good reaction from me. ;)


Rolled beeswax candles, totally made by Jenna who would not let me help. *sniff* I made the little gnome person though, and the cat ran off with it about ten minutes later. She likes the season table a LOT, and is often sitting in the middle of it chewing on something precious. I might have to move the entire thing, but nowhere is inacessible to a cat... For some reason the cat also eats elastic. And as an extention of that, hair bands.


Some peg knitting; a flower crown. Peaceful work for when I'm lying on the sofa feeling miserable.


A lovely woodland walk, with collecting bags. Jenna collects seeds and pretty leaves. Morgan grabs hands full of what I can only describe as compost. :) I made a leaf crown for Jenna (from one of the new books - Earthwise) and when it broke she hung it in a tree "so everyone can enjoy it when they come here".





Little windows made with tissue paper and collected leaves.


Lavender from the garden drying in my living room.


One of two parcels from wonderful friends. The cookies, though delicious, were less photogenic. Huge grateful hugs to Gina and Joxy for bringing some extra smiles to my week.

Something that I can't get out of my head

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
Utters itself. So a woman will lift
Her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
At the minim sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
Enters our hearts, that small familiar pain.
Then a man will stand stock still, hearing his youth
In the distant latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now, Grade 1 piano scales
Console the lodger looking out across
A Midlands town, then dusk and someone calls
A child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside: Inside the radio's prayer
Rockall, Malin, Dogger, Finisterre

[Carol Anne Duffy]

Lookie what I have!

Yes, I have my parcel from Myriad. :D



Beeswax sheets for candle making (the house smells gorgeous - finally, a smell that doesn't make me feel ill), beeswax plasticine (about twice the size packet I thought it would be), a blue gnome house for the winter season table, and two ostheimer pieces.

This time last year I would have said that the Ostheimer things were about the only items in Myriad that I wouldn't want. I just didn't see the appeal. But as Jenna has gotten older and our toy priorities have got more and more simple and natural, they started to make more sense. Our farm animals are an odd bunch. We have some very garish totally flat wooden chickens. Some fairly simple and fairly bright, toddler type, wooden farm animals. A felt horse and some felt pigs that I made myself. And two lightly coloured rustic-ly carved Ostheimer horses.

When I decided we were going to get the horses, I was still unconvinced. But Jenna really really wanted horses and I was unwilling to resort to plastic (especially pink plastic). But as soon as I saw the horses, I confess I fell in love with them. And started plotting to afford maybe one or two of the forest animals too, and maybe a couple of fairy tale figures (one of Jenna's favorite games is re-enacting elaborate and sometimes totally invented fairy tales which she tells with deft skill and a real feel for the language of myth and legend). So today, we added to our toy baskets a sweet little fox and a frog prince. :)

It seems strange (even to me) that as a family with so little spare money we should find spending around £12 on just two small wooden figures to be a good use of our resources. Then again we have spent around £50 on Christmas presents for both girls including filling stockings and buying new clothes. Because we make and get second hand the majority, and don't go for quantity except as far as pairs of socks are concerned. And £12 could be one little Dora the Explorer beanie, or a Night Garden umberella, right?

Yeah, I'm not trying to make sense. ;) I'm rapturously delighted with the little fox, and want to get back to sniffing my candle kit.

Just to let you know

DH cleaned the fridge out this morning and I opened it for the first time all week without being sick. He is a star, and has text me twice today just to tell me I'm beautiful and he loves me. Even when I'm sick and moany and don't do anything around the house. He didn't add that last bit.

My books arrived from Amazon and I spent a happy hour or so looking for ideas and enjoying immersing myself in something wholy positive. If you don't have them already, Families Festivals and Food and Earthwise are ESSENTIAL! :)

Royal Flipping Mail is holding my Myriad parcel because they don't have the sense to leave it with my neighbour who is ALWAYS in and FREQUENTLY takes in parcels for me from other places (including, once, the biggest sack of chicken feed I've ever seen). *sigh*

I spent an hour on the park with the children too and was presented with about ten more conkers from Jenna and an "own" (aka stone) from Morgan.

Some of the playsilks came with us to visit a family we know who own pretty much every bit of plastic known to mankind. It was ten minutes of Sarah Hell until the kids got bored of pressing buttons and guess what they played with for the next hour and a half? :D (smug grin)

Joxy is sending me cookies. What more can I say? And other amazing people are sharing their fantastic handicrafts with me courtesy of the GP Lets scheme. I'm totally spoilt.

On the problem blogging right now

I'm not accusing you of being fairweather friends or anything, but nobody wants to hear about vomit. Seriously, the urge to talk about how miserable I am and how bloody frustrating it is, has to be weighed all the time against that time when friends have to say, "Stop, I can't stand it any more! No more sick!" Oh it will happen, and already has with some of those who have never been there.

But ignoring all the "I hate being pregnant"s and only showing you my lovely children and the things they're up to, it just feels fake. Yup, I need another pity party. You are by no means obliged to respond. ;)

On the other hand, the children are rather photogenic.











And please pretend you can't see how dirty my house is. *sigh* That's another thing about being ill... :(

The Season Table (again) and other crafty things

Yet another incarnation of the season table.



After the solstice, with the sun packed away until spring and all sorts of goodies from our swap. There have been a lot of harvest-y things going on around here lately, and lots of craft with leaves and seeds and similar. I'm feeling very much like if I keep having lazy days with the children and not finding activities, for all I believe in free play, we will drive each other up the wall.



Jenna's Seed Mobile. Made yesterday from lots of her collected items.



And, inspired by Claire and her lovely family, a sweet little bracelet made for Morgan by Jenna - who wants it to be a Christmas present so insisted on hiding it away every time her sister came near when crafting! It's from a loo roll middle, suitably trimmed down, and wound around with some lovely green wool. :)

I'm one happy mummy

OK so I'm still sick, and Jenna is still a bit sensitive (though she told me this morning that she only wants to go to school if Morgan can go with her and be in her class lol) but I'm happy. For a reason that really marks me out as a terrible consumerist (though wait and see what I bought before you judge too harshly). ;)

I just ordered Earthwise, Festivals Family and Food, Instead of Education, and The Children's Year. And then I went on Myriad and got a beeswax candle kit, some modelling wax, and the Ostheimer Frog Prince.

As I say, I'm one happy mummy. :) I can't wait to start a whole long list of new autumn activities that we're planning, and I'm really excited to read some inspiring new books full of things to do with my precious, wonderful, unique children. First thing on Jenna's list of things she wants to do, driftwood and seed mobiles. But not before driving the cocoon babies around the living room in a "car" aka the bottom half of a broken egg box. :D

Jenna was crying last night

Oh my, this is just so hard to deal with. :( She has somehow been convinced by various things people have said to her lately that the reason I won't put her in school is that she's too stupid. She told me that all of her friends are clever enough to go, and asked me why I don't think she's ready.

The problem is, I don't think any of them are ready. I think the school system expects rote learning and unconnected skill-learning long before such things have anything to do with the real lives, actual needs, and genuine wishes of almost any child. OK those things are going to be actively destructive to a minority in my opinion, but helpful to none! These kids are three, four, five. I don't want to get carried away with what's wrong with school because there's no way I think it's all wrong or that less-than-perfect isn't necessary for some families. I just, at a basic level, see school as at best neutral for these tinies, and at worst discouraging and harmful to their own ways of exploring things.

That's not easy philosophy to break down for a small sobbing child.

And I can't say all that anyway, even if for no other reason than that she has to rub along with schooled children from time to time (and therefore would realise that they don't all actively hate it or wouldn't say so because they want to fit in and please parents - and would also probably offend those same parents by quoting me at my most frustrated).

She may go to school at some point, she may remain unschooled, she may choose to engage with some form of part time or group schooling, or be involved in private schools that we know where she would have more control over hours and subjects. She's FOUR! Where's the rush? My priorities for her are just totally nothing to do with number recognition and phonetics and other hoop-jumping exercises for children who aren't actually even showing reading readiness half of the time.

Asides from which, she's reading a lot of words already and recognising common letter groupings, she knows lots of numbers and guesses at bigger ones (eleventy-four was a recent guess for 104). She uses those wonderful logical guesses in her speech, and regularly uses words like "blurred" and "visible" and "inappropriate" (which I can't spell reliably). She can assemble a symetrical mandala pattern and play board games and tile games meant for age 7+. Asking her to sit and recite "ah ah ah ant" with matching sign is just downright bloody patronising.

I didn't say any of that.

So I just validated that she is feeling discouraged and like I don't trust her, and that she is sad not to be like everyone else (another big thing that came up, and I have no idea how to deal with).

Then I told her that I believe she is smart enough to learn anything she will ever need to learn, when she really wants to learn it for her own reasons, and that nobody has a right to tell her what she ought to know and when. And nobody who will think less of her for not learning what and when other people do. I told her that she alone is Jenna, and she will never ever be a failure to me. And then I just held her while she sobbed.

Reasons to smile while I've been ill

Lots of pictures of the last three weeks...


A new family member - Izzy.


A tree house built by two beautiful girls.


Jenna's farm animals - notice the piglets suckling!


Autumn season table, just before the solstice.


One Big Sleeping Jenna.



Morgan's room, newly painted by me in one hour while the girls were out.


Season Table swap items from a lovely Green Parent, what a wonderful reason to smile!


Morgan nursing... after she and Jenna spent an afternoon colouring each other in!


Beautiful girlies.

One Perfect Day (right after holiday)

Those holiday pictures (finally)

Not in order I'm afraid!