Two things happened today that have focused my thoughts on how much we learn from trial and error. First, my daughter and her rocket. It took her ages to build. She glued two cardboard toilet paper rolls together, formed a
Tenderising: from resistance to acceptance
The drawers in my mother’s kitchen held many utensils, one of which was a large metal mallet with a squared end. Spiky and sharp on one end, blunt spikes on the other, this was my mother’s meat tenderiser. Tough, sinewy
A child-led life
Today I sat down at my computer ready to write. I stared at the blank screen, typed a few sentences and hit a brick wall. As I stared at my fingernails, waiting for inspiration, my eldest child (9 and home
Worry
Like most mothers, the majority of my energy is used for my children. Physically caring for them, wiping bottoms and noses, feeding babies, looking after the home, preparing meals, cleaning up after them– this is the hard manual graft of
Yes!
At the moment, “no” is my toddler’s favourite word, even to the point where you ask him, “Is your favourite word ‘no’?” To which his emphatic 2-year-old reply is… you guessed it! I have been noticing recently that I say ‘no’
Mine!
My children get into my things all the time. Nothing is off limits: bedroom drawers, my filing cupboard, paperwork for my Yoga classes, notebooks with writing ideas, my piano music books, the stack of books sitting on my bedside table,
What are your limits?
Have you ever seen a stone sheep enclosure on a hillside? When I first moved to this country I lived in Scotland and, driving along country roads, suddenly on a hillside would be a circular stone wall built in a
Flexibility
One thing that mothering certainly has done for me is to make me more flexible. Normally my youngest likes to have a nap around lunch time. He’ll ask to put on a nappy and ask to feed; we sit and
