We can pretend June didn't happen, right?

Today has been the first day in a couple of weeks that I haven't feel generally overwhelmed. In fact, it has been one of those golden home educating days when everyone is happily engaged in doing interesting and impressive looking stuff all day, the siblings are all eager to help each other out, I get the satisfaction of hearing them chatter interestingly and knowledgeably, and generally feel like Not a Shit Parent.

In fact, they even made tea with minimal supervision; beetroot and mushroom pizza, broadbean risotto, and steamed artichokes with butter and balsamic vinegar. For saying there were actual tears about me having served the wrong kind of sausages a couple of days ago (they were in a parcel of food my brother kindly gave us), I was tempted to wonder aloud if these were really my children. Alas, the audience for my sarcasm is usually unimpressed at best.

I've spent years trying to compel wonderful days to keep happening, at first by working out ways to control their behaviour, and later by working on controlling mine, and now I've reached a place of relative peace (or perhaps capitulation). All of my best choices, and all of my best moments right now, are the ones in which I go with the flow and welcome the moment I'm in.

I'm not sure I'm a natural at this. Any of it. Ending days feeling bruised by life and not sure any more whether I'm a good parent if I'm feeling particularly honest. Yeah, it's been a tough couple of weeks.

Today I saw a glimpse of balance and joyful ordinary and it was good. I also barely remembered to take any pictures, but the evidence is largely in my newfound sense of peace anyway.