Me according to Jenna (age almost 12)

Remember the interviews I did with the children a couple of years ago? (Eventually I might manage a link but my computer brain isn't up to much today *edited to add those are now at the bottom of the page!). I messaged it to Jenna again and she filled it in independently.

1. What is something Mummy always says to you?
I love you.

2. What makes Mummy happy?
The sea.

3. What makes Mummy sad?
Fighting.

4. How does Mummy make you laugh?
Bad puns.

5. What was Mummy like as a child?
Like me!

6. How old is Mummy?
31?

7. How tall is Mummy?
Erm?

8. What is Mummy's favourite thing to do?
Talk to her friends. Steal Torin.

9. What does Mummy do when you're not here?
Work or watch Star Trek.

10. If Mummy becomes famous what will it be for?
Singing.

11. What is Mummy really good at?
Singing.

12. What is Mummy not very good at?
I've been sitting here for ages and I have no idea.

13. What is Mummy's job?
Selling her dyed and knitted things.

14. What makes you proud of Mummy?
She's so strong. 💗

15. What is Mummy's favourite food?
Easter cake!

16. What do you and Mummy do together?
Watch science and stuff YouTube.

17. How are you and Mummy the same?
We both like lots of the same things.

18. If your Mummy was a cartoon character who would she be?
Nanny Plum

19. How are you and Mummy different?
She doesn't like How I Met Your Mother. 😮

20. How do you know Mummy loves you?
She needs to work on her poker face.

21. What does Mummy like best about Daddy?
Lots of things?

22. Where is Mummy's favourite place to go?
Anywhere with a beach.

(This is the face of a child whose mother just landed them in Grantham rather than home, by means of getting everyone on the wrong train.)

Previous interviews;
Jenna age 4 (Facebook notes)
Jenna age 7, Morgan age 5, Rowan age 3 (Carried Family blog)
Jenna age 8 (Facebook notes)

Week in Pictures when it's properly Summery

1. Lego, the best thing to hide inside with when it's too hot to function outside
2. Connor and Rowan at the nature pond
3. "I drawed on my bus!"
4. Ice cream, flowers, and paddling in grandma's garden
5. Bug house decorating
6. My two littles aren't so little
7. Mosaic making
8. Rowan being a bear (and I really can't get her to take that t-shirt off this week!)

Hiding under the blanket

We lost our sweet friend, P, a year ago today. Depression killed her, and at the time I had been well for months. Losing her felt like it would kill me, for a while. God, that sounds so self absorbed. She was a beautiful person, and I was hit by how much poorer the world was for her loss. My honest first reaction was to bargain, why her and not me? She was needed more!

I get to be weird and self-absorbed here, right?

Missing her feels like powerful waves, and today my life raft is just reading the sorrow and love of all the others she touched. If I'm swimming rather than drowning it's because I'm not alone.

A couple of weeks after she died, my marriage almost fell apart again. We'd been there before, the damaged trust and blame and words that can't be unspoken, and I was already hurting too much to stay and fight so I ran again, for a couple of days anyway. It helped. Somehow time passed and we worked things out. Not how I expected, but solidly and eventually happily.

Through it all I often thought of what P would say. Mostly she'd have laughed, probably, and said "fuck" a lot, and recommended eating all the chocolate, and sent me music when words didn't do it all justice.

A little later on I read a blog post with the words "no love is ever wasted" and I thought that would have been something she'd say, too. Maybe she'd say it to me now, wondering if she knew that we loved her - and love her now, and wish she was here.

I'm hiding under your blanket today, P. Maybe I'll stay here for a day or two.

Weekending: Everyone Exhibition opening and other things

This weekend's shenanigans were mainly museum-based. Derby Everyone opened at Derby Museum and Art Gallery. Rowan and Morgan, Jenna, and I all have pieces in the gallery. Several of our extended family and friends also have art on display. So of course we had to be there as soon as possible once the museum opened for the day.

You might get a picture of my piece another day, because *whispers* it was accidentally hung upside down, which the museum staff were so mortified about I felt guilty for telling them (so English, in fact so English I only let them know because my children couldn't stop laughing and teasing me about it). To be fair, it's abstract, and the staff had hundreds of submissions to contend with over a two day period!

Anyhow, if you're in Derby and want to find mine it's in the hallway now correctly oriented. *subsides into another fit of giggles about it*

After museum number one, we had lunch and watched a series of excellent street performances before heading to museum number two for the all-day board games at the Silk Mill. Rowan and Connor helped operate the giant laser. The Ratman failed to eat us all in a round of Betrayal at House on the Hill. I made sleeve progress on Talia's circle coat.

Sunday was mainly about finding the missing bedroom floors to regain the children's play spaces, and baking bread again. Guests arrived to camp in our living room on their way to HECY, and their smallest one did a little happy dance when she was reminded that they are taking Jenna with them. It's going to be an odd week!

Seven-ish Days of Excellent Things (that happened in between sibling squabbles and disasters)

1. Floor picnic
2. Simon Starling's work at Nottingham Contemporary with friends
3. Hello, Torin <3
4. Board games with friends (again)
5. In the brook
6. Tiny toys
7. Rabbits on the verge

Boating

Last year we were super-lucky to be offered a free holiday with our children's honourary grandparent (the father of Jenna's friend Jeremy). We spent a week on a canal boat, and surprisingly didn't get rained on much, and more surprisingly didn't feel too cooped up together, and it was lovely.

A few weeks ago, he bought his own boat. We've helped a bit getting it ready; Morgan re-blacked the fireplace almost completely independently (she's fascinated by all things boat and has been learning how the engine and steering works now she has got the hang of operating locks). Last weekend we got to take it out on the water with them on a little adventure. :)

Yarn Along - Polkadot and Dominion

This week I had to set aside Jenna's Hogwarts Express as the tiny cables are tricky and need my full concentration. I've switched to a Polkadot for Talia, who picked out the yarn herself. Big yarn, big needles, speedy progress. Just what I needed!

I've started reading Dominion by C.J.Sansom but it hasn't pulled me in just yet. I loved the Shardlake books though so I'm willing to give it a fair chance.

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.

Seven days of visitors, the light table, and peopleyness

1. Picnic with friends
2. Laundry, through one of Talia's ICAD cards
3. Magnetic toys
4. Rows of patterns
5. Yes we has these out every day this week I think!
6. Reading in the rose bush in the rain
7. Family birthday party water fight

(We've had guests all week, in fact sometimes three or four different sets of guests at a time. Mainly my week has been a round of mealtimes and lots and lots of picking up tiny pieces spilled from the light table. Also sleeping on the airbed, and sneaking minutes here and there to create art cards.)

At one o'clock in the morning

It's the middle of the night , right now, and I'm sitting in the dark bedroom of my two youngest children, feeling like I'm floating in a little bubble of nocturnal aloneness and knowing that many many other parents are also awake at precisely this moment. Rocking, singing, shushing.

It has been a while since I saw 1am for reasons not related to staying up late giggling over board games and shenanigans with close friends. Last night I got caught up in an excellent book and looked at the time at midnight when Talia inexplicably knocked on the bedroom door. She usually climbs into bed with us when she wakes in the morning, quiet as a mouse and not caring in the least whether she was invited. Midnight waking is so unusual now. Talia knocking on a door almost unheard of.

I didn't answer, hoping she'd just decide to go back to bed. Fifteen minutes later I heard feet on the stairs and decided I'd better go and see what was going on. Rowan and Talia were both sitting down there wrapped in blankets and looking grumpy.

So here I am. I've sung about fifteen rounds of Ong Tal Sam (Rowan's favourite) and then about half of the folk songs I know (leaving out the particularly death-y or overly lively ones), and now I'm sitting here silently willing two small figures to be still enough to risk trying to take myself back to bed.

I'm not sure why I'm documenting it except to say that I can't remember the last time I did this. I can't remember the last time I nursed a baby to sleep or coslept all night (it must be over a year ago as Talia has been weaned for a year). Many sleepless nights, many repetitions of soothing and shushing, quelling my own impatience (or sometimes, futilely, not).

I spent some time with some mums of very little ones earlier, and remembered the baby days and especially participating in numerous semi-exhausted conversations about sleep. Numerous blog posts. How obsessed with sleep I was, documenting it or speculating about it or complaining about it or just dreaming of it; even when cosleeping was going smoothly and easily and I was getting more rest than those frustrating and impossible other Times (which I often didn't dare to talk about in many places lest someone tell me to "just" solve it by immediately sleep training or weaning) - I think I recall a lot of self-whining-censorship. And even so, the "sleep" tag on my old blog was of epic proportions.

Several things are incredibly, suddenly, easier since Talia weaned. I feel like my identity and purpose shifted without my permission, without being prepared or considering the cost. I am glad for a different set of freedoms and responsibilities and potential. At the same time, I don't feel I have adjusted completely yet.

Not that change usually has the courtesy to await my preferences.

(I think I lost the thread of my own thoughts, here. I blame the time, and leave it unedited in solidarity with fellow sleep deprived parents. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.)

Fourteen days of these four wildlings

1. Noisy noise is a little kid experimenting joyfully!
2. Rowan's new-to-us Minecraft t-shirt
3. Sunshiney garden breakfast picnic
4. Talia loves her cat, even though the cat is still an absolutely unsociable ratbag
5. Whale
6. Birmingham trip on the train, Jenna recognised this sculpture (Iron Man by Anthony Gormley)
7. Electrical safety inspection necessitated a temporary bedroom move-around session

(We've actually been really quite busy, but I tend not to take as many pictures when I'm especially anxious and the inspection was stressful; a combination of the council landlords having overstepped their remit before, knowing that we can be judged for having so many children/the children being educated at home/being messy, and the stress of having a stranger in the house all day. It's over now, and I'm starting to settle back to normal and get my anxiety back under control!)

In which I set new standards for behaving like a dork in public...

Last night I had the most incredible inspiring experiences. I met one of my all time literary idols and got to shake her by the hand and tell her how much her poetry has meant to me over the years.

Carol Ann Duffy was at Derby Cathedral , opening the book festival with her wonderful poetry reading (and musical performances by Jon Sampson who was also spellbinding). I went alone; I booked myself a ticket in January, part of my newfound confidence in doing things solely for myself.

Afterwards I queued up in the line for book signings, and explained earnestly to the person asking what dedications we wanted I didn't have anything for her to sign, I just wanted to thank her for a poem.

"Prayer" has been stuck firmly in my head for more than half of my life. It has carried me through some desperately wordless times. Her words have profoundly touched me and helped me come to terms with a sort of reverent faithlessness and faith-filled prayerlessness.

She grasped my hand, and I welled up with tears. Aaand then tripped over her table.

Fangirling level: incoherent babbling. It was certainly a memorable end to the night... When I recounted the tale to Jenna she put her head in her hands and then gave me a sarcastic round of applause.

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.