Week in Pictures, again, sort of

1. A solitary walk around the block just for breathing room
2. Date night I See Rivers and Newton Faulkner (*squeee*)
3. Knitting in a pool of sunshine at my mum's house
4. Night time visits again
5. Talia found some new "piano-words".
6. Blue sky

Yarn Along - Sockhead(s)

Knitting: I finished my Sockhead, and had just enough left of the rainbow tie dye blank to attempt a tiny one for my smallest bean. I don't know if it will be slouchy, but it will just fit her. That's yarn economy for ya.

Reading: Weeell I'm still bitting and bobbing really, but I did read a couple of good entertaining Agatha Christie-esque Sherlock fanfics today. Neither of which I'm going to link to, on the grounds that they're incomplete (rather than, say, for example, that you might all look at me differently if I admit to shipping Mystrade). If you have no idea what that means, I would caution you against feeling the need to find out. Though of course, if you have a teen or tween in the house you probably already speak fandom to some extent or another. I could pretend that it's Jenna's fault, but she sadly got most of her embarrassing internet speak from me.

Just, okay, go back to looking at the pretty knitting now, thankyouplease?

Birthdaying: Rowan is seven

I think my head is perpetually stuck at around four years ago. I find it hard to remember that it's actually four and a half years since Talia was born, that Jenna now wears black eyeliner, that Morgan has lilac hair, and that Rowan is not a little chatty toddler following me around asking for "up". But nope, Rowan's seventh birthday arrived and I had that little half-mournful reality check.

The decorations change, but the fact of the birthday breakfast table remains. I almost forgot to set one up for her until she informed me firmly that she wanted pink and purple candles, and "science things". She's forever rearranging these water molecules, which they built a couple of months ago, to show me water vapour, water, ice, and back again.

I have no problem at all with getting a request for my favourite cake as a birthday cake... (Nigella's Easter Nest cake.) All she wanted to do for the day was go to the kitty cafe, which we ruled out on the grounds of it being so very expensive, but then I had an order for some playsilks so...

We also ended up with a meltdown because she wanted to see her best friend and we had somehow managed not to anticipate that. Getting back home involved some frayed tempers and an exhausted birthday child whose dreams hadn't quite perfectly lived up to her high expectations. When we got home it was to a parcel of science toys and a message from her best friend to say we would be welcome to visit, which cheered her right up.

(Yes, that's Morgan with the magnets, because all of the pictures of Rowan came out as one bright rainbow blur!)

Writing this I'm having another moment... Seven! My little thirdborn parcel of excited bounce and sweet empathy! Seven journeys around the sun. Seven years of hugging it out and listening to jokes that don't have a punch line (okay, only four years of that latter). Several years of soft breathy squealing over all animals and small things. Seven years of Rowan.

Some recent things

I know, I know. They grew. So so much.

On starting over

I have form in the whole backtracking, mind-changing game. I mean, if you followed the old blog you've also followed bad decisions, flaky flip-flopping, philosophical about-turns, public apologies for being an arse and especially for being an Overly Certain or otherwise preachy arse. That blog was the story of a LOT of years, and all of those years contained small children and flurries of perfectionism, research, and then realising the actual children I had didn't fit my expectations At All.

So, why start over? Why a brand new fresh blog?

Um, I like lists. If you've never met me before, you'll soon catch on. I LOVE a list. I have to-do lists freaking everywhere (and most often they are abandoned after two or three items get ticked off - you were warned about the disorganised bit). Yeah, let's start as we mean to go on, eh?

- The LONG hiatus. Going back to writing on Carried Family would encourage me to put pressure on myself to catch everything up, and likely cause anyone still following that feed to get sick of hearing me whine about it and/or post massive picture-heavy epistles.

- I have no idea if anyone not immediately connected via Facebook remembers who I am any more anyhow. (NOT fishing for sympathy, it's totally okay not to care!)

- The Carried Family name feels like an odd fit now that my youngest child is not breastfeeding any more, no longer likes to ride in slings, and rarely even asks for a hip carry. These guys grew a lot. I'm still attachment parent-ish, but my children are past the cosy carrying-close co-sleeping days.

- When I started writing there was nothing out there on the internet about attachment parenting with more than one child. I had been told by a number of people that I wouldn't be able to do all that "hippy stuff" with a secondborn or I'd have to neglect my first. I wanted to put out there what it was like day to day actually living out my principles. Now not only is there absolutely vast amounts out there about attachment parenting and attachment parenting a handful of children, but I'm likely to be talking about totally different things to the life I was journalling about back then. My audience may well be different. Who knows?

- Although I'm not ashamed of having changed my mind (over and over, on many subjects) and absolutely will have times when I want to do a complete about turn on something I believe strongly right now, I feel like I've changed a lot in the last couple of years especially. Maybe it's my recently *vastly* improved mental health, but I'm emotionally ready for a new space. (Do feel that you have my permission to go and find embarassing posts I wrote way back when to ridicule me with if and when I'm being particularly strident about something, though. I won't be removing or revising anything. I didn't then and I won't now, I'd rather leave it all as a reminder to myself to be a little more humble.)

- If people don't actively want to read I'd rather drop off their feeds quietly. My voice is here because blogging made me so many wonerful connections, helped me learn about myself and my values, and allowed me to reassure parents with younger children than mine that the chaos *absolutely* continues but it does get less intensively consuming.

I am planning to stop philosophising about writing, now, truly. Here, have a picture of the children instead.

Yarn Along - miles of stocking stitch and some childishness

For some reason I am totally wiped out and exhausted today, so it is definitely a knitting and reading day. All of the children seem to be doing similarly too. Jenna has Neverwhere. Morgan has Matilda. Rowan has Minecraft on the laptop. Talia os snuggled up next to me with a huge book of Star Wars technical drawings. And I'm sitting here alternating chapters of Earth X with a couple of rows of the Sockhead hat.

My autocorrect doesn't like me typing "Sockhead" and I have to keep correcting its correction, which is causing childish sniggering here. I'm easily amused when tired.

After knitting 2:2 ribbing until I was sick of it, I am now going to knit the slightly more soothing stocking stitch until I start to hate this hat. I mean, the goal is "love in every stitch" but sometimes vague loathing of the project is just as helpful, an easy target for mild frustration that I can whine about and notice my own ridiculousness. Doing the small things with love. Patience. Impatient muttering. Persistence. One of those.

I'm pretty sure when I finish this I will choose something with the same sort of mind-numbing characteristics, because I need all the car knitting and projects that otherwise don't require my full attention.

There's similar logic in the graphic novels too. That and poetry and fanfiction are where I'm at for interruptibility and emotional energy. I'm taking my self care in snippets. :)

Weekending

When last minute adventures present themselves, we tend to not take long to decide. Impulsive or flexible? At least this time I remembered to pack water and snacks. Miraculously the generalised anxiety (and infrequent panic attacks), which have been an on-off issue since Talia was born four years ago, weren't an issue. 

All day. With four children. In London. Even when a stranger shoved Rowan, on the underground. (Another guy kindly stopped to see if we were okay and completely restored my faith in humanity.)

The Natural History Museum was as wonderful as ever, especially the Investigations lab where it was difficult to drag Rowan away from examining all of the fantastic handling artifacts. We'd have stayed longer if we hadn't run out of snacks, because everyone was ready for lunch by then (3pm)!

What a day! It's about a three hour drive to get to the best tube station for us to park at, and then at the end of the day of course the same again to get home, so as daytrips go it was an exhausting one. Nice to know we can do it now that the children are older.

Then yesterday, a change of pace. Sunshine. Park. Friends. Food. Bliss! (And early nights all round.)

It's been a while, folks

Sometimes there isn't a right time. Sometimes there's no right place to start. I've thought about starting to write again so so many times, in the midst of the chaos (or the beauty) or in a quiet moment of peace (or exhaustion). There's nothing extraordinary about today. Here I am, surrounded by journals and projects and children, the vivid colours and astonishing disorder that is my home, and I'm sitting down to say something.

Not a big, articulate, important something. Just a hello. Perhaps only to myself.

Maybe I'm honestly evading starting to pick up toys and clutter and papers to make space for hosting Doctor Who Club tomorrow. Maybe I'm connecting this ordinary moment to so many other ordinary moments occuring right now, and that common familiar sensation of the present and its very mundane precious existence.

Here I am.