So much for the Continuum Concept **

** I jest. ;)

Yesterday started with a jolt, at half past four I was woken by Martin's alarm and felt Talia's arms around me with profound gratitude. The alarm had interrupted a horrifically graphic dream about my two oldest children dying in an accident, and it took hours to stop feeling sick.

Our day was perfectly ordinary and pleasant. Nothing out of the usual run of things. My anxiety gradually steadied and I got on with laundry, and stories, and meals, and gardening, and discussions about snails and Shakespeare.

At teatime, Talia asked for mushrooms with her chilli and stood on her stool to help cook them. I went off to put the books back on their shelves while Martin supervised. I heard Rowan and Talia downstairs shouting at each other and then screaming. Not sibling screaming, pain screaming. Because Talia had put her hand on the pan whilst yelling at her sister.

Martin held her under lukewarm running water, Martin hugged and comforted her, Martin wrapped her hand in a cold cloth and took her to A&E. Anxiety doesn't paralyse me any more, and I was right there comforting and making sure she had a change of clothes in a bag, popping a cloth in the freezer for the car journey. But I'm not needed in the same way any more. Daddy is the parent who most often is wanted for cuddles. Funny how quickly that happened once she weaned last year!

(Rowan kindly rubbed that in a bit at bedtime when she told me that she wanted to wait up until Daddy got home because, "he's better"!)

The little hand is blistered but will be fine. Today I'm cuddling and playing (and getting a load of laundry away, hopefully) and ignoring the fluttering of my heart that says, "you can't protect them, not by keeping them away from all danger, not by carefully and attentively showing them how things work and supporting them exploring, YOU CAN'T PROTECT THEM ENTIRELY.” Shut up, anxiety. No, really. I'm doing my best.

Four is a lot of children, though

Last year I had a few months of not feeling broody. It was the first time in my adult life I hadn't actively wanted a baby. It definitely made life easier.

The broodiness came back. Honestly, if I had more resources I think I could easily be one of those people who just keeps having another newborn every 2 years or so indefinitely. It's not that my hands aren't pretty damn full already, it's just that my rational brain points and laughs at how desperately my heart loves the idea of raising a house full of small people.

I wanted a fourth child intensely, could vividly see another person in this family of ours, and she is amazing. On the worst of days when I think I was probably never cut out for having kids I still don't regret having her. I was a pretty good mum of three. Sometimes I'm a pretty rubbish mum of four, albeit one who tries really hard and is making better choices all the freaking time.

Partly the broodiness is absolutely that I basically feel like a really competent, loving, awesome mum of babies. I can meet my own (stupidly high) expectations of what it means to be a perfect parent. Once they start getting bigger I question myself a lot more, and life is far less straightforwardly prioritised.

If that reasoning sounds incredibly selfish then, yeah. I don't know if there are non selfish reasons for having children really, given the state of the world. I'd like to think my children will maybe make the world a better place, but however I raise them I'm certain that's not entirely within my control (and probably shouldn't be). Hey, ask me in twenty years time how I did.

My love for my kids will still be pushing me to the only answer I can imagine giving: they were worth it. Love was worth it.

I wish I had five. I'm glad I don't.

The path we took to get here matters too, maybe

There's a little park near us that we really like. One route to this park is all main roads and busy crossings. The other is behind the post office and along a shady green walk by the railway bridge. Guess which we prefer?

Yesterday was one of those days when getting the necessary adulting done felt all uphill. The children took two hours of assistance, cajoling, and then tearful pleading on the verge of hysteria, to get their shoes on.

It didn't have to go that way. It didn't even start that way. One choice leads to another leads to another. Another occasion where I only realised I was heading for overwhelm when I was almost tipped over the edge.

The day got so much better from there, from that moment of, "I can't, but I have to," and taking time to calm myself.

I would like to tell myself, it would be easier to think, that the overall niceness of the day is the only thing that matters. I think it's probably all that the kids remember of today after all. I think it's more complex than that, though, and less convenient. The path matters. The moments matter. The habits of choosing matter.

Writing it out like this is odd. It helps me to process. It also often means the overall tone is distorted by my need to work through the small frustrations and mistakes. Maybe I don't dwell enough on the overall lovely and interesting and good facets of mothering?

We spotted five different species of butterfly. We talked about train tracks and railways. We had a picnic under a tree. We talked about nature, and fairness, and books that we're reading, and how to tell what kind of metal something is made from, and what defines classification of materials.

Maybe that's the part that really matters most after all?

Warrior face

I want to whine: about being tired and juggling Martin's early shifts with evening plans for theatre trips, about being broody and yet not wanting another baby at the same time, about trying to juggle all the business administration, about being so very needed.

But I'm so very needed. And today is so very precious, and feels far too heavy to waste on complaining about having to be an adult. (Maybe I'll whine later, when I've kicked today's behind.)

I need to warrior up, first.

(Art and work progress shots just because everything is better with rainbows. Even tired-mumma-big-girl-pants rallying cries.)

Seven days of mainly staying in, and some art galleries

1. Broken swing frame still the best outdoor toy
2. Helping tidy the garden with friends
3. Morgan plus giant dandelion
4. Simon Starling sculptures at the Nottingham Contemporary
5. Train tracks and babysitting
6. Happy Sushi hat
7. Grandad bought Thorntons ice creams

Sometimes, I just want to create art

I want to do all the things, no matter how tired I am, no matter what work I have on or how the kids are or what size of laundry mountain is piled up waiting for my attention. During last week I woke up with a jolt at five in the morning with an entire artwork planned out in my head. I could picture it so vividly I ended up getting up to sketch ideas quickly before I lost the sense of urgency.

I can still see it in my mind's eye, so clear and simple.

A week later I've started, every couple of days adding a layer, and am at the stage of hating it and questioning why I think I'm an artist anyway (and considering throwing it away and starting over). Only the knowledge of having been through this process before is keeping me from taking a tub of gesso to the canvas and using it for something else.

I'm in the tired, introverted days of my monthly cycle. I found myself wishing, a couple of days ago, that I could send the children off somewhere for a couple of days so that I could just make something. Instead, I took them on the train to Nottingham to tour the art galleries, and then spent an entire day building train tracks and winding the crank handle on the giant tape measure for a small child to pull it out again. And giving myself over to being overwhelmed and present and not flinching from it was enough. It was enough.

Both the laundry and the art will wait. They will. Some days they have to.

Today I'm taking my brush to the canvas again. It's okay if it sucks. Tomorrow it might be just what I thought it would be. This is where I am, today. Beautiful mess. Vibrant chaos. Colourful disarray. Mothering as art. Art as mothering. Documenting the whirl of it, the essential hurry-up-and-wait of it, the beauty and the soul of being here now.

**Exhibits pictured: La Source (demi-teinte) by Simon Starling (part of his exhibition at the Nottingham Contemporary); Mother and son by Sam Rose, and below that, Nesting by Jessica Paige Greig (both part of Artist as Mother as Artist at the ncn Lace Market Gallery).**

Portrait of a (quirky, beautiful) nine year old

(Since I haven't been writing regularly, I keep wanting to write about what the children are like right now. I have a bit of a "where to start" dilemma, but I'm going with it and starting anywhere.)

So, Morgan Anne, nine years old and so tall and calm and stubborn. The least like me in personality in many ways, but still just as quirky as you ever were.

You have entirely your own sense of style. Sort of floral punk, mainly. You layer things seemingly at random. When you asked for your undercut just before Christmas my hands shook shaving it for you as you laughed and said, "It's only hair, it will grow if I don't like it." When I catch you stroking your "fuzzy baby hair" behind your ear it always makes me grin.

If I have to listen to every Pentatonix song over and over forever I will try to rejoice in it with you, but I am always up for part singing (and dancing with you). You always did like to repeat the same stories and songs over and over. You can shimmy perfectly (how?) and can copy almost any style of dance. You are such an excellent mimic.

I wish I could give you the kind of ordered and beautiful nest you would like. I'm a bit disorganised, you may have noticed, and easily distracted from housekeeping. I'm grateful that you enjoy setting things right and are so willing to help when I ask. If that lasts I will be pleasantly surprised, but right now it's one of the things I honestly appreciate. I am trying to keep on top of the chaos, I really am.

Your calm and patience awes me. Every baby we know instantly takes to you and considers you a safe easy person. You don't get up in their faces (perhaps because you appreciate your own space) and you rarely get scary-loud when you're excited.

You rarely dig your heels in but when you do we all know that whatever it is will happen your way. You're so happy in your own little bubble you don't bother about what's going on around you. Honestly, that makes it still absolutely terrifying for me near roads and at the swimming pool, but it makes life easier when there is wrangling over who gets which ice cream or where to go for a walk.

I remember when you were a baby, you testing the radiator temperature by putting a hand on it, and then shouting at it furiously when it was hot, before trying again, as though you could change the fact of it by sheer determination. I still see that baby in you sometimes!

Right now you're sitting in front of me wearing shortie pyjamas and your dark amber necklace. We re-dyed the ends of your hair bright purple a few days ago and it falls just past your shoulders. Your pointed little pixie face is calm and you are just starting to get darker summer freckles across your nose.

I think, "I don't hug you enough," and "when did you get so tall," and, "how did you get lipstick on your shoulder?"

Weird kid. I love you.

Seven Days of flowing nicely

I'm in a happy place of doing and being and feeling right now. The kids are just as bickery as last week, and the house is just as much of a mess, but it feels different. Intentional. Comfortable. Light.

It's hard to say why. I'm more on top of work, less on top of finances, creating more, reading more, doing more fun stuff with the kids. I'm probably sleeping more, that would explain a lot. Overthinking aside, it's a really good place to be in.

1. Rainy walk
2. Arcade machine prizes at home-ed bowling session
3. Jenna loving on baby Torin
4. Home made fried mozzarella
5. Dorkiest Morgan picture ever <3
6. Evidence of tidying, a kitchen window sill
7. Eurovision night sleepover s'mores dip especially for the pair of joyfully sarcastic eleven year olds

Basically, I have no idea what I'm doing

This is no secret, I'm sure. But some days I really don't have a clue.

In the past day (we'll liberally call it one day, it's a bit more than twenty four hours), I have:
- discovered that my green procion dye is in fact turquoise blue (or somehow failed to make the yellow fix properly, one or the other!)
- had to reknit an entire hat because I cast on the wrong number of stitches
- taken half an hour of wrangling with an automatic checkout because it didn't like my canvas bags or the fact that I was purchasing three cucumbers, I'm not sure which)
- forgotten to eat until 3pm
- overpaid for an undyed yarn order because I added the subtotal without tax to the total including VAT...

I completely am a responsible mother and business owner, honestly. Completely.

Seven Days of busy, lovely, and at the end of my tether

The past few days have been a lesson in patience to say the least (interspersed with fun and celebration, because the sublime to the ridiculous is sort of a speciality around here). In particular, we've had a birthday, seen a lot of friends, and supported Jenna to make a police report about some children who attacked her on the park. Maybe next week will be calmer. Or perhaps not.

I would like to think of myself as the kind of person who can put up a weekly post about normal daily life at maybe even the same time each week or even using the same format, but the evidence is somewhat against me here.

It has maybe been less dramatic than my words imply, and less pretty than my pictures suggest. Imagine, then, something a little less than frantic and a little more than serene with a lot more ups and downs than I can list.

1. Torin has the yawns, I have broodiness, Emma makes lovely babies
2. Moveable alphabet
3. Babysitting A, and Escher lizard puzzle love
4. Bubble tea
5. Bluebells
6. Talia taking pictures of the sunset with my mum
7. A again, plus trains
8. Walking to the polling station
9. Sharing chips with friends at the Arboretum
10. When did her feet start to reach the floor?
11. When Jeremy visits, everybody has to see what he's doing at all times

This one and I

Probably everyone reading at this point have known this fella here through my writing for many years. He's not very articulate or very tech-inclined, so you've seen from my perspective as we adjust to parenting, heard my words as we hurt each other and come close to splitting up, seen through my eyes his reactions to our losses, and known what I share of our happy, silly, domestic, affectionate, ridiculous lives.

It's his birthday today and all I have to say is this:
Thanks, Martin. You're a good man and a kind one. You make me smile every day, and I'm outrageously grateful for everything. Happy Birthday, love.

Storms

We got back from a week's holiday at the weekend. Holiday was sparkly and wonderful in spite of half of us being knocked out for at least twenty four hours each by flu. The weather was wildly changeable and the ocean was healing and vast and perfect. I've been feeling slightly flat about being home again (and had a big row with Jenna a couple of days ago that still has me feeling guilty and strange) so, well I'd really rather be back on holiday right now.

I'm not good at letting things go. I'm still on edge and really, it should have been a little thing we just talked through and got over. I have been doing really well at staying calm when hormonal explosions occur, but my reserves were pretty low. Martin grabbed me to stop me from hitting her. That has never, ever, happened before and I'm glad I have such a gentle, aware, kind co-parent in him.

I was going to keep that explanation vague and get on to talking about the sparkly wonderful happenings, but then I just couldn't perpetuate that myth of me being a perfect, together parent who never messes it all up and then feels sick about it all week.

Jenna is really rather gracious about me having screamed in her face for the first time in years. I'm extending the same grace over the names she called me for turning off music nobody seemed to be listening to, which (in combination with a breakup and not enough sleep) caused the mutual temper tantrum in the first place...

We pick up and do things differently. Next time I'll do better, one choice at a time.

I'd really like to run back to the sea again.