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!

Want a List?

Things that have gone wrong today:

Android tablet dropped in the toilet (thanks baby).

Chocolate spread *everywhere*, and a one year old eating it with a spoon.

Flooded bathroom. Leaky kitchen ceiling. Every towel in the house soaked.

Baby taking her nappy off to poop on the floor.

Gave up on the soup I'd planned for lunch and made toast. Burned eight slices.

A whole lot of herbs and spices poured out in wonderful sensory play.

The muddiest children I have ever seen after an hour making mud pies.

Mobile phone dropped in the cat's water bowl.

Re-skeined all the tangled cotton threads. An hour later found them unwound again.

Baby covered in pink paint. Where the frack did she get pink paint?

The last bit of garam marsala I had managed to rescue from the chaos, tipped into the sink by Roo - also, coriander added to the fruit I had stewing in the slow cooker. Tea was going to be curry, followed by stewed fruit.

Ten kiwi skins picked up from all over the house.

And that's not even mentioning the laundry pile of epic proportions... I give up!









It's OK, I just about retained my sense of humour. They had a wonderfully happy day. Me, not so much, but at least I was calm enough (or resigned enough?) not to do my very good and rather terrifying impression of a raving lunatic.

Tomorrow is another day, right?

Right?

Week on the Edge

1. Painting experiments
2. Fireworks
3. Knitting and reading
4. Mantle
5. Tired
6. Sparklers
7. Park

Late, and not one a day, again. The weeks are sort of flying by right now. I'm elated and our days are beautiful. I'm struggling and our days are chaotic. Both statements are equally true.

We are on the cusp of winter. Talia is wearing hats (finally)! We are seeing a lot of our friends. Life feels full, full of activity, full of meaning, full of creativity, full of each other (sometimes maybe even too full).

Tales of the week in knitting projects!

Yarn Along day, yippee! :) So, crafting...

I finished Talia's Versa with an added pocket of my own design. I couldn't love it any more, I'm just totally delighted with it. I used my hand dyed dk for the contrast and it worked fine even on the 5mm needles (yay for squishy merino fluff!) and I love how it works with that popping mint green of the Colinette.  I made a little alien bunny creature for the pocket, because how could I not?

Before I cast on the Versa I also made myself a cowl, a very simple pattern and easy to memorise, and it came along quickly and used exactly one skein of Colinette Prism. So that's my Ally Pally festival yarn almost totally used up now (I have two things left, one for something newborn-y for a certain baby Violet, and one for a squishy hat for myself because I only have ONE hat and I need options).

I made a third Versa this week too, but didn't get pictures, a next-size-up lilac sparkle one for the teeny squish who had the first. I actually do love this pattern, and it works up so quickly and nicely every time. It's very economical on the yarn too.

As for reading, well we've been given an old second hand tablet and it's a revelation in the realm of reading in the dark without disturbing hubby. I've read the entirety of the Finley Jayne short story (which fulfilled its promise of annoyingly juvenile language, because of course 18th century young ladies described themselves as "pissed" and went on about men's arses in polite company *sigh*) and also C S Lewis's The Great Divorce (sublime to the ridiculous, I know). Jenna and I just finished the Percy Jackson series and started on The Deathly Hallows (since she had put it off for a while knowing she'd find the increase in violence harder going). I have to say I'm somewhat relieved to be back reading Harry Potter again. :)

I'm feeling in the mood to do some more spinning this week, maybe. It could be an excuse to evade the laundry mountain, of course. ;)

Joining in with Ginny and friends to share our weekly yarn-y goodness.

Some Snippets of late Autumn

1. Arctic expeditions ;)
2. Play dough
3. Sausages
4. A new skirt
5. Autumn sky
6. Park
7. Birthday Versa vest

Ha, yes, very late with the seven days, I know. These are last week's photographs, and not exactly one a day, it's been a bit like that... I'm feeling warm, happy, blessed, busy, creative, and inspired. Life is good. :)

All Hallows Eve

Outside my window the fire pit is burning low in the darkness of our garden. The faint pop of distant fireworks indicate that elsewhere the parties of tonight are continuing.

I am thankful for friends, hot soup, poetry, and the earthy smoke-smell on the baby's skin.

In the kitchen the remains of our seasonal supper are in evidence: half a loaf of pumpkin bread, some sausage soup (minestrone with beans, sausage, and paprika), and an empty cocoa pan.

I am wearing the orange, purple, brown and red hippy patchwork skirt with a plain leaf-green vest tshirt and an orange jersey cardigan with huge pockets.

I am creating another lilac Versa vest and some winter season table fairies in blue felt. I just finished a stunning Versa for Tilly's birthday in the bright green Colinette Art (Popsicle colourway). :)

I am reading The Great Divorce, C S Lewis's parable about heaven and hell.

I am looking forward to more crisp Autumn days, fireworks, my birthday (end of November), and so many small things in between.

Around the house... baby is sleeping in my arms, wrapped in a white blanket my friend's nana crocheted for Jenna many years ago. The kitchen had mud tracked across the floor from our garden happenings earlier. Jenna is snuggled up on the sofa with baby and I, enjoying the quiet once sisters are sleeping.

A favourite quote for today: Nothing is certain, only the certain spring.

A peek into my day:

The Weekend we Survived

Blurry photographs of a weekend that feels just like that. A blur of sleepless nights and changes of sheets and cuddling of hot sticky miserable baby. When sickness hits, I just have to slow down and take things as they come, one step at a time.

(There is always still that part of me that declares, "I don't WANT to!" and pitches an internal fit at the forces that conspire to have me scrubbing the bathroom floor *again*.)

I am working on giving graciously even when I feel like stomping my feet and saying, "It's not fair!" And when there is a moment to offer something fun to the other children, I pull out old wrapping paper and marker pens. 

Morgan felts a flower brooch.

I even knit, a little bit. And rejoice at every glimpse of recovery, and the old sparkle in Talia's eyes. I can't tell if I'm getting better at offering the best of me to my precious family, or if I'm just more resigned, but this weekend was bearable.

Now nobody else is allowed to get ill just yet, mmkay? I think I'm at my capacity for patient niceness.

Yarn Along after internet-less-ness

Morgan's Christmas hat is flying off my needles this week. It's my handspun, requested by her before I was even through spinning it. Progress picture was my blissful respite of mama conversation and hot cups of tea during sling meet at soft play. :)

I also got a birthday crown knitted up for a friend.


And while the internet was down, I finished the Mortal Instruments series and I have a bone to pick with authors who finish a book on the more ludicrous kind of cliff hanger so you wonder if they just decided that their story was too long, "may as well make it into two books and get paid more!" Grr. Also, I read both The Last Runaway and The Shining Girls (both really wonderful and much more interesting than I expected them to be).


I'm much less productive when I have an internet connection. ;)

Joining in again for a weekly roundup of knitting and reading with Ginny and friends.

Daybook in a tangle of bracelet kits

Outside my window the roof tops are slick grey-brown and the hedges are glistening with raindrops and the last few webs of the harvest spiders. The garden is swamp-like. We are not venturing out today.

I am thinking that I didn't have nearly enough sleep this week. Month. Year. Lifetime. I am hitting that point in toddlerhood where I can't remember when I last woke up naturally at the end of a night's sleep, rather than in the middle of the night when someone is out of bed.

I am thankful for mint tea.

In the kitchen I haven't cleared up from teatime, but we had Thai green curry with rice. It's the first time the children have all eaten yellow peppers and not complained about them. Baby licked her plate clean, repeating "spicy, SPICY!" over and over - I don't think it was a complaint, either, just a fun new word.

Earlier we had hot cross buns straight out of the oven for our lunch. It was the perfect comfort food for today.

I am wearing pjs: teal trousers and a soft blue long sleeved tshirt with buttons at the front that don't unbutton. I remember buying it as a nursing shirt when my second born came along and being annoyed at not having checked it more carefully! 

I am creating a soft chunky lacy cowl for myself, using that Toscanna Colinette Prism I bought at the knitting and stitching show. Or at least, I will be, once I find the right size knitting needle in my shamefully tangled knitting bag. I did just cast off Morgan's Christmas hat (handspun from art batts, so a very simple textured knit), and I spent the morning pattern editing and laying out graphics and creating listings for some more little knitting kits.

I am going to the museum session on Friday, again, hopefully? That's about it as far as planning goes. It's going to be a chilled home-based week. I might be stir crazy by Thursday but I just don't have the energy for planning anything extra.

I am hoping to get the time to do some batch-cooking tomorrow so that there are easy options in the freezer. I am working my way back towards being more organised with food ingredients and getting the most out of staples.

I am looking forward to the entertainment and chaos of drying yarn club skeins indoors as October turns to rain.

Around the house: Talia is sitting on the arm of the sofa, glitter in her hair and a not-at-all-sleepy cheeky expression on her face. She has two little wooden figures in her hands, small animals. The only one I can see is a goat. They appear to be talking to each other. "Morga, Roo-an, Mor-ga, Roo-an," they say. There is a basket of spilled building blocks spread across some of the living room. And the odd popped kernal of corn that escaped my earlier brief effort to clear them up.

The two biggest girls have been to their Church club tonight, and just poured in through the front door laughing and talking. Neither appears to be wearing their coat any more. I daily find their coats on the floor under the pegs in the hall, and wonder how much harder it is to hang the things up; Jenna's new winter coat is brown tweed, with ruffles, and she just adores it - still, it ends up on the floor just like the ratty blue rain mac she equally disregards!

I am pondering chocolate cake. I feel the need to bake a cake right now. So far, it's the kind of week where cake is absolutely essential.

Some of my favourite things... rainbow puzzles. And popcorn (even if there *is* still a lot of it on the floor). And my Dad coming to the rescue when the week goes badly. And doll houses in which an octopus is having tea with a Sylvanian mouse and Little Red Riding Hood.

A peek into my day...

Seven Days, ordinary life in pictures

1. Coming home from the park in the dark after meeting new friends
2. Blackcurrant tea and peanut butter cake from The Cake Hole
3. Doctor Who Club
4. Treetops silk
5. Pony playground by Rowan
6. Another show
7. Pumpkins for Autumn displays