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. :)

Less Than Shiny

This is that kind of week. The kind of week where I really would be taking pictures of my soul-crushingly-huge laundry pile, only I am lacking the energy to go find the camera. No, really.

The kind of week where the baby takes a nap at six in the evening, and I just *can't* bring myself to wake her, even though leaving her to sleep means she is still running up and down the living room at two o'clock in the morning.

The kind of week where it doesn't occur to me to just offer a cuddle to the overwhelmed and obnoxious four year old until she is howling and kicking out. All she needs is me, all she needs is time, all she needs is a lap to snuggle in to while she feels so out of sorts. She falls asleep in my arms, sobbing.

The kind of week where I have to rip back my knitting six times because I can't count even the simplest decreases.

The kind of week when an entire uneaten portion of milky cereal gets knocked over and I stand there ranting about WHY IS IT SO HARD TO PICK UP YOUR OWN DAMN BOWL and then burst into tears as three shocked children scramble to mop up the spill and I feel the wash of guilt.

The kind of week where I feel alone with the constant-ness of caring for children. Because it doesn't stop, and they need and I need, and just a little more sleep would make such a difference. I'm regretting my former smug-ness about her easy baby sleeping-through-the-night-ness. The ordinary, beautiful, wonderful things about this rainbow life are still there, still real, and I am still seeking out the magical moments. And yet I am tired. And so the colours look a little more grey.

Daybook in the midst of pattern testing and being surprisingly housewifely

Outside my window the sky is uniformly cloudy grey-white and luminous. There is the smell of rain in the air. The garden is damp underfoot, and especially muddy where the baby upended the small salad beds in a deliciously happy game of mud pies (all four children unsurprisingly needed a bath after that afternoon).

The willow tree has that droopingly grey look it gets as the world turns towards Autumn. Being outside is delightful, achingly delicious, and my eyes find magic everywhere. Every street corner here has fruit to be foraged or beautiful leaves turning to gold, sycamore spinners on the ground like gifts from the sky, lime and linden crisp and crunchy to wade through.

I am thinking in stitch counts and gauge, carefully checking sizing. I never imagined I would willingly seek out maths puzzles, but this play with colour and stitch and the pure joy of creating has me sitting here in pattern development with papers and notes strewn across my lap.

I am thankful for the incredible variety of lovely people in my life right now, the conversations that have fed and sustained me this week, the awesome way in which women can lift each other up and encourage each other. I am so touched to see people rally together to uphold the hurting ones and give selflessly to each other. Oh the unexpected way real community creeps up on me and surrounds me with amazing friends!

In the kitchen Morgan has made cupcakes again, and is sitting at the table drawing pictures and waiting for the timer to go off so that she can check on them. She even does all the clean-up. Sweet little serious Morgan! :)

I also have a big bowl of chopped veggies ready for a warming Autumn stew, to go in to slow cook after the cakes come out. It's one of those organised and efficient sorts of days, much to my surprise. The living areas are all actually clean and tidy. I have to point this out as a temporary situation of which I am justifiable proud. ;)

I am wearing a soft slouchy grey dress with a bright teal vest over the top. I am wearing dresses a lot right now, and not feeling self-concious of the soft round mama-belly, happy in my skin.

I am creating Autumn fairies (still) - I had to re-work the heads after a disaster with the felting of fairy hair. I'm also working on Leafy hats, checking that my pattern works up proportionally in all sizes.

I am wearing a soft slouchy grey dress with a bright teal vest over the top. I am wearing dresses a lot right now, and not feeling self-concious of the soft round mama-belly, happy in my skin.

I am looking forward to a new living room carpet. I always said we'd wait til the smallest was definitely past any more little accidents, but I'm pretty sick of the ground in patchiness of the (nearly ten year old) carpet we have. So when we were offered a suitably sized (and impeccably clean) piece a relative is getting rid of, we said, "YES PLEASE!" (Yes, that loudly.)

Around the house: the cardboard boxes our food shop arrived in have been turned into a car and a dog kennel, which the baby is sitting inside on her rainbow patchwork knitted blanket. Rowan is sitting licking out the bowl of chocolate cake mixture. Jenna is lounging in the arm chair playing with some little tufts of merino.

The rest of the house really is the same old story. Laundry is never ending. :)


A favourite quote for today: "You don't need to break your bad habits. Leave the old habit to wither. Don't try to break it. Move to making better choices so that what you used to do and used to think will be left in the "choices I don't consider anymore" category." Sandra Dodd (Just Add Light and Stir)


Some of my favourite things: knitting with my own handspun, children in bright colours, teeny tiny stitches on felt, dumplings in vegetable stew, foraged plums, skeining rainbows, bunting, and stacks of library books.

A peek into my day:






Simple Woman's Daybook

Seven Days - turning to Autumn

1. Art time
2. Jam delivery from my mum
3. Rosh Hashanah
4. Umbrella
5. Sleepy
6. Party fun
7. Morgan's choice of date with mama

A little placeholder post with museum pictures...

Not-back-to-school week has been:
New Year festival with apples and honey,
saying, "NO pleeease don't put that worm in the shower with me, it needs to go back outside where it can be happy in the soil!"
and discussing what it means to be a girl,
what it means to be a boy.

Walking, foraging, enjoying the cool nip of Autumn in the air.

Painting and drawing,
reading and reading and
reading.
More Ancient Greek myths,
more insects,
and writing the odd letter or two.

Number lines,
My Little Pony houses,
refusing to wear a coat
and walking in the rain.

Museum trips and colour mixing and
talking about vision and
talking a lot in general and
using the spinning wheel and
creating dressing up costumes.

It has been full. And really, it has been absolutely the same in everything except the fine detail. Not-back-to-school means our lives go right on as if school didn't exist, as if our Summer holidays and our Autumn-ing were just one and the same. As they are, in a way.

Yarn Along - Low Tide

Finished! :)




Beautiful beautiful Low Tide, blocked, with tiny shell buttons, and off to a dear friend.

And I'm reading Charlie Bone and the Time Twister, because I rather enjoyed the first in the series and I'm a sucker for a series with unanswered questions. I like me some junior fantasy fiction. :) I'm reading Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth with Jenna now, and she's reading Coraline on her own. How time flies, eh?

Joining in with Ginny and friends to share Yarn-ie goodness. :)

No, really, it could only happen to us...

Yesterday started out as one of those absolutely perfect days. We walked to town and picked up crazy half-price art supplies (oh how we love September for stocking up on art supplies) and when I asked what the girls wanted to do about lunch they all voted for sushi on the park. So we did.



We took the opportunity to pick some elderberries, which we carried home in my cardigan, and turned into chocolate elderberry cake (yum). Unfortunately the day went downhill from there. I went out to top up the electric key, which glitched, preventing me from topping it up. No electric means no phone means no frantic call to the energy supplier to help me sort it out.

I couldn't run any more laundry, but we invited some friends over, did some watercolour painting, played in the garden. We had to wait to sort out the power until Martin got home from work, at which point he had to charge his phone up at my brother's house before we could sort out the electricity.

Then we finally got to admire the shiny new car! And it is, very shiny. Hey, kids, it's late but why don't we go for a night time walk somewhere? We all pile in and head out towards some of our favourite places to walk in the Derbyshire country side.

And Morgan didn't tell anyone she was feeling travel sick. And spewed all over the brand new car.

Seriously. I swear these things only happen to us.

Martin and I looked at each other with that "and this is why we can't have nice things" look.

Going with the theme of making the best of the ludicrously unhelpful, we thanked heaven that I'd packed spare clothes, drank our tea in a nice dark interesting verge, and had a little explore in the dark before heading home to bed.

Darley Park Concert

Getting there was stressful. They were all quite tired already, though at least the two smallest had been persuaded to take a nap in the afternoon. Then wrangling them all into warm outer clothing ready for the chill of the night air. Finally getting to the park and winding our way through the crowds to find friends was such a relief.

This was a year of firsts. Without a car we had thought it might be our first year not to go, with late night buses not being the best fun with so many small children.

Instead it was the first year I didn't breastfeed during the concert. The first year I didn't have even a momentary blank terror when a child makes a run for it through the thousands of concert-goers. The first year I bought sweets in our picnic (and bought more than half home, too). The first year I've had a one year old there who didn't cry at the fireworks (in fact, the first year in six that none of the children were even momentarily afraid of the loud bangs). The first year we haven't ended up sitting next to a large group drinking and smoking. The first year I haven't had to apologise profusely for a knocked-over drink or stepped-on picnic when the children played and danced.

So yes. We go home at almost eleven o'clock, and the children were still up bright and early this morning. But it was the best concert on the park ever.

Week in Pictures - perfect, ordinary, beautiful days

1. Giggles
2. Oatmeal cookies
3. Juice
4. Gymnastics
5. Building
6. Small who likes the vibration of the washing machine (love my weird kids)
7. Heading to feed the ducks

Not one per day, but a view into the crazy busy beautiful week we have had. :)

Simple Daybook with blackberry yarn, hair cuts, and avoiding cleaning the kitchen

Outside my window the garden is strewn with toys. The children have had painting set up on the raised pallet area, watercolours and an olive jar of grey paint-water. One of the little stools from the living area is out there, upturned. The potatoes and apples are ready to harvest any time now. Calendula is flowering, golden bright in the raised beds.

I am thinking how wonderful it is to be made a hot cup of tea by a sweet daughter. :)

I am thankful for healthy strong children, this husband who really sees me, friends who encourage and share the crazy ups and downs.

In the kitchen... um... this is where others share the fresh bread rising and the plans for dinner, right? My kitchen is strewn with plates (which is my next task for the day, honest!) and there appear to be sweets on the floor. I handed the girls a packet of mints this morning in bribery of the "just eat these and stop whining about there being no more dried mango PLEASE" variety. They didn't eat the sweets so much as tip them out and leave them there. Another job to add to the list.

I am wearing purple and black goth/hippy dress again. Brown/purple/orange headscarf. A bracelet of bright yellow handspun that my six year old tied around my wrist this morning.

I am creating Autumn fairies, tiny stitches in wool felt forming little bodies - a leaf fairy, a blackberry fairy, slowly appearing. I just cast off a baby cardigan, a ribbed beanie, and that gorgeous Low Tide (which I can now finish off with the gorgeous tiny shell buttons the post-person just brought). I just finished plying some blackberry-bush coloured aran weight 2-ply. :)

I am going out for lunch with a dear friend, and without my entourage of small children. This is a rare and precious occurrence. I usually return refreshed and missing the rowdy chaotic little wild ones!

I am wondering when the dear Mister will get back from helping my mum take recycling to the tip. He's been gone a while and I could do with a hand to clear the kitchen up. Of course, right now I am not in fact clearing the kitchen up at all, only writing about it. ;)

I am looking forward to becoming car owners again some time next week, and being able to travel the extra distance to some very favourite historical sites, wilderness, and friends.

Some favourite things: pixie hair on the four year old (even sibling inflicted ones *sigh*), eldest re-reading The Odyssey, frilly dresses and the little people who dance around in them, rainbow candles on the mantle, a handful of hazelnuts, and sharp fresh apples from our tree.

A few plans for the rest of the week: a fourth birthday party to attend, not-back-to-school day, and sending off yarn to an actual real life shop which will be stocking my hand dye. :)

A peek into my day...







Simple Woman's Daybook

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!)

Belated Yarn Along - Soul Sisters and Handspun Babies

Low Tide for my dear Soul Sister, Sue. I wish I could photograph this as well as it deserves, the pattern is just perfect (although I didn't knit it up perfectly, I know it's just right for the recipient and will entirely suit her). :) I dyed the yarn just for this project, sea-green with blue flecks.

Needing something instant-satisfaction-y after all that stocking stitch (and all those short rows for the sweet cap sleeves), I took a skein of my handspun art yarn...

And made most of a crazy bright Shrug Bug for a rainbow bean who is still a bump.


I am very much not reading anything this week, unless you count the odd article here and there, too much busy-ness to do. :)

Joining in with Ginny's Yarn Along.

Portraits at the Park

Sisters in the sun, on a peaceful afternoon on the park.







Talia decided to do without clothes, and stripped them all off after a few minutes. I really am often struggling with her strong minded-ness these days. These girls of mine, all pulling and pushing, all determined and strong and brave. Sometimes it scares me, loving them all, trying to be with them - kindly, thoughtfully, joyfully, generously. These ages and stages have their perfect, peaceful, beautiful moments, and their trials! I wouldn't trade it for anything. Except maybe all of this plus a full night's sleep. ;)