(I really love our Nativity set. Here is the not so traditional ‘villager bringing bread’.)

Even when I was a university student, my mother would buy my sister and I chocolate advent calendars and post them to wherever we were (which makes it sound like we were half a world away – we weren’t. We were a train ride away in London in my case, and Edinburgh for my sister. but anyway…) It was a lovely, thoughtful gesture and it meant a lot to me, especially when I was battling deadlines and crowds of christmas shoppers in my retail job.

Now I’m a parent of two small children I’m trying to work out how I want to celebrate the run up to christmas. There are lots of great ideas in the craft/parenting blogging community.

Thing is, we live in a small house and we’re still trying to find homes for all our stuff. I don’t want more stuff.

So this year we’re going to decorate the house, bit by tiny bit. FB we be slowly building up the decorations on the wooden christmas tree (another thoughtful advent gift from my mum when I was in my early twenties – it sat on my dest in the games company in the insane run up to christmas 2003…) and he and LR will be helping me find good homes to show off a picked decoration for the house each day. Starting with the christmas gnomes, which hang off the internal doorknobs.

I wanted to make an advent candle log – I tried to get it do last advent too! – but we went to see family at the weekend and so it didn’t happen. We still have the first sunday’s candle, but on a plate, and that’s ok. That’s just how we’re doing this year. Even as a non-religous family it’s lovely to count the passing of time in this way. Or at least it is for me. And hopefully for everyone else too.

In conclusion – No to more stuff! Yes to enjoying our decorations even more!

Happy Advent!

We’ve been in the house for over a year now but there is still not enough storage and the room that is going to be the children’s room still has a lot of boxes and things that need to be re-homed in it (our room is an attic! FB announced – which is true. Even though it’s only the first floor next to our room.)

So there is lots of *stuff* about the place, and – as a dear friend pointed out to me – ‘You’re happy to live with piles!’ which is sort of true. Though I’m not sure I’m happy about it really. Resigned maybe? Unable to do the work necessary to make the storage we need to clear some of the pile? Too time poor right now, with two small children? Lacking in man(person)power?

Regardless the hotspots have to be cleared for all our sanities. This is the first one. Sometimes I go sit on the bed and look at it.

It makes me feel better.

But hey…

…don’t for a second think everything is perfect.

(On the chair – shirt that needs to go away, jumper that need to be finished, jumper that needs to be cut up and made into trousers, top that needs mending, pillowcase with wool handknits that need washing inside. Play mirror that needs putting back in the toy basket.)

We went on our first lantern walk with FB’s preschool nursery.

It was lovely.

In the same way that I have an enduring love of the Big Butt Baby Pants Pattern by Made By Rae, and I will make them again and again, until my kids get too old (the same can also be said for the trouser pattern in Growing Up Sew Liberated by Meg McElwee), I have the same strength of love for Kitschycoo‘s Tunic Pattern.

I have made 5 so far.

AND I’M GOING TO KEEP GOING!

The latest one has Heather Ross Far Far Away Part 3 Snow White for the main body and some lovely chicken feet fabric for the sleeves and the yoke.

I’d love to tell you that the matching up on the side was intentional, but to be honest it was a very lucky fluke. Go universe!

Dwarfs!

And yes I wish I had ironed it before I took photos but things are BUSY around here and that wasn’t going to happen.  Next time. (Maybe)

I made another one while I was at the sewing machine, out of some cute japanese needle cord I bought a couple of years ago, covered in ladybirds and four leave clovers. But, as you can see LR wore it yesterday and is super wiggly now that she can walk. But you get the idea.

In other news, there will be a big shop update this week, once everything is dry/labelled/photographed.

Also there is another Waldorf doll to show you. \o/

This is a bit late, due to (what is probably) teething, and therefore a couple of work-filled nights. That’s ok though, it’s all part of the deal.

LR’s birth – which I can’t believe was a year ago! – was such a complimentary experience to FB’s that I can’t believe it actually happened that way. FB’s birth was full of labouring while being told by every medical person that saw me that I wasn’t labouring at all, (that. ha ha! maybe I didn’t have a cervix!) a possible preeclampsia diagnosis that turned out to be a massive bladder infection (that was stopping the labour actually working), being induced without being told that there was a 47% chance of that turning into a c-section, and a horrible horrible night having been induced where I was basically told to shut up and stop making a fuss, while – at the same time – it says in my notes ‘shit! she needs drugs and needs to be monitored because she really might rupture.’

In comparison the birth itself was pretty straight forward – on the drip I dilated quicker than expected, and got to crowning (after two hours! of pushing) before needing a kiwi ventouse to get FB out that last bit. I lost a load of blood, but both he and I were ok.

It didn’t put me off having babies. I see now that I just squashed it all down and got on with working out how to parent a baby who wasn’t feeding very well and who needed me to pump around the clock for the first few weeks.  And after that, I got on with working out what our life was going to be like.

I didn’t think about it again really – not properly – until I got pregnant again. And then I thought about it a lot. And was very upset and angry and did. not. want. that. to. happen. again.

I met Liz at the only local sling meet I ever went to. And – though it’s corny – I remember talking to her, and just really wanting her to be my midwife. She made me laugh and she took me seriously and she said that she would go through my notes with me and work out what had probably happened. I was worried that my body just didn’t work. What I found out was that my body had worked better than anyone should have expected it to. It wasn’t broken, it was actually properly awesome.

Paying for a private midwife wasn’t something I had thought about before, and we don’t have a lot of money. But we sacrificed and family helped out and then Liz was our midwife and I felt like I had done something I really needed to do.

LR was born at home – all 10lb 1oz of her. Unlike with her brother, where I didn’t get to sleep for the four or five days I had contractions, I got a good nights sleep before she arrived. I laboured at home, putting out washing, checking my email, and pacing and swaying through the rushes. FB went to play at his best buddies house, and W was called back from work and I got on with actually having this baby. It wasn’t easy – I laboured in water after a while, and that was great, but there was a cervical lip slowing things down so a chunk of time was spent not trying to push. I remember saying at one point – ‘these women who push their babies out in two pushes can f**k off!’ and the second midwife – Sarah – replying ‘Sorry, some of us have to really work for it!’

I went all around the house – literally – to have this baby. I turned my giant body 180 degrees (again literally) while crowning to make sure her shoulders didn’t get stuck.  In the photo of us that evening I look like a warrior. It was – like FB’s birth before it – the hardest thing I have ever done and afterwards I felt completely at peace.

Now she’s one we really don’t have a baby in the house. We have a little girl who loves pulling the power and network cables from my laptop. Who loves her jar lids and knows where they are kept. Who tolerates her brother wanting everything she’s playing with.

I didn’t know how much having them would change me. I didn’t know how having her would change me, having been reformed by the birth of her brother.

I’m grateful for Liz, the opportunities not taken so that we could have her in our lives. And for my girl. And her brother.