Wild child

We've taken full advantage of the last few lovely days.

It's been a blast; with hours in the park, backyard and any other available piece of grass.

Drawing outdoors

 Having a rest mid-walk

Adventures

Short-lived tennis career

Having a pretend sleep after all the fresh air

What does your spring look like?

When people ask you...

"What is it that you do all day?"

"Do you not get bored?"

"How does it get you that long to get into town?"

"Does your husband not mind if the house isn't clean?"

This. No. This is why. Ha ha ha.

Building project

"I see another tree! Bump!"

Stopping to check that her shoes are still there

Spring

Stones make a brilliant sound

Some more flowers (or "sniff, sniff", as they are scientifically known as...)

Shadows provided entertainment every few metres

They clap and dance when you do, you know...

We made some dinner

And ate some too!

Captain's baby joins her at the table too. Her baby acts very similarly to Captain herself, by needing to be picked up several times through the meal, hugged, calmed and nursed.

She does this with great gentleness and patience, but doesn't appear to follow BLW with her baba, which we must have a chat about...

In addition to this we

had an imaginary tea party (mama had some real cake too)

did the food shopping and carried it home (although Captain boobed and slept through this part)

sang songs

read a few books

watched Rio

did some dancing

helped Mr. Buttons with his homework

got the fire going

hung the washing outside to celebrate the sunshine (my inserts thank me!)

fed an uncle (I made the food, Captain fed it to him)

Now we are tired, but happy.

She is sensible and asleep.

I need coffee.

Technical fault

We've been in the darkness, but now we're back!

My laptop crashed.

This meant no pictures.

No Skype for Captain and Grandad.

No blogging.

But we've bought some big girl pants. This is how well that has been going.

Meanwhile, Captain has abandoned her high chair and now sits at the table like the rest of us.

This has made a huge difference for the better. She is much happier with this arrangement and actually likes sitting down for meals now.

She has also started walking most of the way into town.

This helps with the "leap of doom" or the 18 month leap, as some call it. At 19 months she has about hundred words, is learning new ones on a daily basis and stringing two together. "Looool youuu" and "bye mamma!" are big hits especially.

Since the last post, I've managed to stay awake for a whole movie* (once) and am still alive.

That's good, right?

*The Survivalist, in case anyone needs movie night ideas...

Happy Sunday!

I had a lovely weekend of all things baby.
On Friday I went to a local homebirth event, where a few midwives and homebirth mamas told their stories. Homebirth is something I might never get the chance to experience, but a girl can dream, right? It is something I am very interested in, and was delighted to hear all the beautiful birth stories and meet some lovely mothers and babies.

On Saturday I got to host my first Nappuchino, or a cloth nappy meet up. I was all prepared, had our local demo kit with me and the "Why use cloth" -leaflets on the table. In the end two moms turned up and both already used cloth. As they were also regulars at our meets, we just chatted for hours about babies, birth, wraps, breastfeeding and a little bit about cloth too, to honour the theme of the morning. Poor demo kit with all its beautiful fluffiness just sat there, abandoned. Ah well, I still consider my first hosting a great success!

Afterwards we had a meal with Hubby's family, so it was also a weekend of less cooking for me.
I may or may not be typing this as Hubby is on a trip to pick up pizza for us. (The Captain is asleep, and had a dinner of freshly made rosti, so my laziness is well-deserved...)

Barney

I quite like the stormy weather we're having at the moment.

It's lovely snuggling up on the sofa in front of the fire and listening to the wind and rain.
It's great to be able to meet a friend for coffee and chat for three hours, because your little one is happy to be out of the house and meeting other toddlers.
It's heartwarming, that Captain Milkbeard picked her own umbrella for the first time and keeps pointing at Peppa Pig on it mid-walk, when nothing more interesting is around.

I also have a very full clothes horse and nappies drying on every available surface. Sheets in varying degrees of dryness hanging on the banister and over the doors. Every chair is doing double duty. Oh, did I forget to mention the nappies and inserts everywhere?
My mornings are a frantic struggle to find enough dry stuff to keep me going through the day. Evenings are reserved for mom edition of Operation. One wrong move and I'm set back for a week of washing. I think my brain is protecting itself by forgetting this and focusing on all the positives.

Excuse me, I'll have to go make another coffee and look disapprovingly at the weather bullying my poor abandoned washing line.

Hi

I haven't written as much as a postcard in months.
Meal plans give me writer's block.
I can barely remember what language I'm meant to use most days.
There, that's the hard part out of the way. The curse of the blank page broken.

I'm a mom to my little lady, Captain Milkbeard. She is sixteen months and doesn't need coffee to have enough energy to power a small village. I need lots of coffee to power a medium-sized mama.
I am a wife to my Hubby. I have been that for two years now.
I am also a stepmom to Buddy, who is eight.
That is my little family, who keep me busy. I love them dearly and try to keep them alive by feeding them plenty. So far it has worked quite well. (We won't talk about the dark times, when I left Hubby alone with Buddy and travelled out of the country without leaving a freezer stash. Those stories are for much later stages and not for the delicate.)

Becoming a mother changed me from a strange creature with a tendency to depression into a strange, incredibly happy - though very tired- hippy. I found my way into attachment parenting accidentally, and was delighted to find it and my village.
I breastfeed, co-sleep, babywear, do baby-led weaning and cloth diaper. I also do elimination communication, but in a very relaxed (read: lazy) way.

I love photography. I used to model, but don't want to curb my cravings for anything that is a) a carb b) covered in chocolate c) ideally both. This means I finally bought a camera and now take pictures of the kids. And food. And kids covered in food. Did I mention my life revolves around kids and food?
I love books, but find it hard to focus in reading lately. It might have something to do with having kids.
I love cooking and baking. Luckily. You will see plenty of evidence of this in weeks to come, I'm sure.
I love supporting other mamas. I have been lucky to have amazing women supporting me, and I'm trying to repay this by training to become a breastfeeding counsellor.

That is a little bit about me, I hope to meet other mamas, share stories and grow my little village even more.