Seven Days of Autumnal nesting type stuff, mainly

1: Board games early in the morning with a fuzzy headed Morgan wearing a Christmas jumper
2: Leaf lanterns
3: Lucy dog, here all week while my mum is in Estonia
4: Art Gallery with friends
5: Making leafman pictures
6: Sneaking out on my own for board games with Ash and Sam
7: Halloween party

Seven Days of flowing beautifully and also of grieving

1: New shoes for Tali
2: Board game cafe
3: Poetry and flapjack
4: Babysitting Joshua
5: Accidental matching Christmas jumpers
6: Giant Orbeez
7: Being sent bedtime pictures from these cuties
8: Goodbye meal with my brother's family (and being asked by my mum to send pictures right after Paul and I have been hiding sobbing in the kitchen!)

Exhaustion and Goodbyes

The second week in a fortnight of early shifts is always long and trying. This has been no exception. We're all tired. The day revolves so much around getting through ordinary tasks and ensuring everyone gets to bed on time. None of us are good at 6am starts and none of us settle easily to sleep at 7pm.

This week we're also slowly but surely saying goodbye to my brother and his lovely little family. Paul went to Estonia at seventeen. At twenty-one he married an Estonian (my sweet sister in law Maarja). They came back over here a year or so later, had a little boy here, my children's first cousin on my side of the family. Next week, 35 weeks pregnant, Maarja will fly back to Estonia with little Joshua and my mum to accompany them in case of a crisis. Paul and my dad will leave a day later to drive their furniture overland.

I completely support their reasons for going, but I'm going to miss them so much. It seems so bloody far now with children. It's beyond hard.

I'm also facing a lot of guilt over not having made the most of these few years we had together. All of this time around the corner from each other and we've taken it for granted. Family life is so busy and it's easy to not make time to physically show up and love the heck out of each other while geography isn't an issue.

I'm just wishing for more time.

A week of of warm ordinary (and a frustrating weekend)

1: New board game cafe on the way home from the library
2: Kitty wearing a mitten
3: Work day, pumpkin love
4: Park day

We had a great week. I'm definitely feeling like my mood is on the up and we're out and about a lot and doing a lot together every day. The weekend, though, has been long and trying. Dental check ups have led to a lot of crying and refusing to eat from Rowan because the dentist convinced her that eating sugar will make holes in her teeth. It took an hour to persuade her that it was okay to eat an apple today. Tali had an allergic reaction to something at the surgery and Martin had to take her to A&E. Her breathing remained normal and the swelling went down with antihistamines so that was all okay in the end.

Rowan's painful wobbly tooth came out today and she has been very grouchy too, poor thing. So, much snuggling on the sofa today, reading stories and arguing over Netflix choices. Still, all's well that ends well and they're all settling down now. More early shifts next week, and an early night will really help.

The genes are strong with this one

That's my mum on the left, age about thirteen.

Seven Days of extended holidaying

1: Talia fell asleep like this early on Monday evening
2: Chicken-whisperer Morgan
3: At my mum's house for tea, blue sky through her sycamore tree
4: Making friends
5: Another visit to the Stardisk (spot the Lego!)
6: Fox production line for a dear friend's due-December Peanut
7: Post-swim, wet hair, holding hands on the way back to the car

Martin had the entire week off, post-weekend-away, with our main aim being to pootle around at home a fair bit and get some household chores done to the point of me being less stressed out. At the start of last month when I was feeling quite down and under pressure, I asked Martin if he could take a day so we could work together and get on top of the house chaos. The next available day was this week, so he took the whole week off. Yes the house really was that bad. And a week hasn't improved it all that much. But I'll take what I can get. I'll miss this Mister next week.

In defence of friendship

I wrote this for my children when they were a wee bit smaller than they are now. And on the brink of teenage years aplenty I don't take a word of it back.

I have flipped out, lectured, and bullied my children. I have. I'm not the perfect sweet calm parenting guru, I'm a real messy impossible person. I have unrealistic expectations and selfishness and I honestly think modeling persistent, thoughtful effort is more important than modeling immaculate unruffled psychologically correct behaviour at all times anyway. I'm pretty sure my children are going to mess up, too, and I want them to know that they are not bad people or broken for not meeting some inhuman standard I've arbitrarily set myself. None of this musing is directed at parents who yell, fuck up, or aim for "good enough" because their resources are low.

But why, WHY, does our culture hold up a model of parenting based on disrespect and adult tantrum throwing as the best option we have? Why do we glorify the idea of the parent who stalks their child and harangues them "for their own good"? No! I want to move past my own ego, I want to strive for connection and mutual respect. Society is selling separation and distrust and I'm not buying.

I'm friends with my kids. Why wouldn't I be? I'm a good friend. They are fantastic people. We're friends. 

I'm also their facilitator and resource provider. I'm their negotiator when they lack the words, and their shield on the very rare occasion that they need protecting from something they can't handle or walk away from with a bit of gentle advice. I'm their coach when facing something tricky or new. I'm their tour guide when there are experiences I can bring their way. I'm their ambassador and translator when they need help learning social rules and cultural norms, or when there is danger of conflict escalating without an expert on hand.

I have no idea what I'm doing sometimes. I'm figuring it out as I go along like everyone else. I'm learning with my children.

The big promises I made here challenge the heck out of me. Today I wish this were a pithy little phrase I could write on my arm in biro, or get tattooed on my forehead. I need to remind myself what I'm aiming for every freaking day.

But I don't take it back. Not a word of it.

A Christian book recommendation, apropos of nothing

I was in such a rush to get out of the door for our weekend away with all the children's coats and so on, I managed to leave all my books at home.

Limited to what I'd managed to download onto my phone recently, I picked up Jesus Freak. It had been on my to-read list for a long time, but I had until now almost completely stopped reading Christian authors. (They frequently say the same conventional legalistic things in slightly different ways.) I did enjoy rather a lot of time just reading in the end, with extra hands and nice outdoor spaces keeping the children happy, so it was one of two books I completed in three days.

Goodness, this book. Both irreverent and holy. Confronting and comforting. I'm in awe, and think I'll have to read it again to let some of the thoughts it contains sink in; parables illustrated by stories of broken hurting people feeding and loving each other. I have found it challenging and disturbing, in the best possible way. Joyful earthy practical gospel.

Weekending: Rosliston

We were away this weekend, a couple of days in a tiny eco cabin in the woods with friends. Children underfoot and breaking bread, woodland walks and not nearly enough sleep to be properly restful.

And it was perfect. 

I had time to plan and write and read. I made informal feasts (feeding people is one of the ways of showing love which feels most natural to me). The sun came out and we basked in it, on the last day, accidentally picnicking in the middle of a science class and watching the children climb.

What more could we wish for?

Seven Days of interestingly random happenings

1: Carcassonne with Morgan
2: Slime Happens
3: A luminous sky
4: Apparently this is comfortable when you're four
5: Sometimes they play together marvellously
6: A new stage, here; at ten Morgan is now confident enough (having been reading easy novels for three years on her own) to read aloud!
7: Waiting for Martin to get home, with our little friend A