Playful

1. Finding her reading to herself melts my heart, especially as she refused to read or write when she left school, 2. Air dry clay feathers, 3. Nature journaling, 4. Dry feathers

I've been consciously incorporating the word 'playful' into our days lately. Surprising the children as we go about our day to day by calling out "race you to the trampoline!" then playing 'crack the egg' with them until we are all just in fits of giggles. Or, having running races with the little ones from the veggie patch to the chicken run and back again. Or, stopping what we are doing to announce 'let's dance!' and playing dance music on Spotify as we sway, stomp and twirl around the living room. 

I found a beautiful book about feathers at the library after we had been sketching feathers in our nature journals. We flicked through its pages one morning as we snuggled on the couch and I suggested we add more information to our journal pages. No one was particularly interested and wandered off to do their own things. I happily labelled my feathers on my own, not wishing to resort to coercion to have the children join me. Does it really matter if they don't know the parts of a feather? I hadn't known them until that moment, but now they suddenly fascinated me, as did learning that there are only six types of feathers. 

Later, as I washed the dishes I had another thought - let's MAKE feathers. I turned to Pinterest and found a tutorial on air dry clay feathers and invited the children to make them with me. You can see Cohen's (9 years) feather at the top of the plate picture. Emerson's (6 years) feather didn't survive the creative clay play that continued after the feather making. While Oscar (3 years) rolled, poked and cut his clay happily before squishing it in his fist, dropping the triangular result on the table and announcing he had made a mountain.

Later, when I asked the children their favourite parts of the day, these were the things they remembered.

Here's to making time to play. xx

Knitting

1 & 2. Learning to knit, 3. Fresh flowers, 4. A seed pod explosion on our nature table.

There was a quiet moment this afternoon when chores and work were done. When Dada was out with the younger two and Master Eight and myself were home alone. In that moment I suggested I teach him to knit.

With bamboo needles and cotton yarn in hand, I took him through the steps, which he followed in an uncertain and wonky fashion. Knitting is a great way to deepen patience. By both practising the gentle art of knitting, and by teaching it. But with patience and perseverance, we continued. His ambitions flowed forth. Perhaps he will make a scarf for teddy? And then a scarf for himself? And then he wants to learn more stitches, and perhaps a cable pattern? And when he is older he will knit for his own family. His thoughts ran away with him as I picked up his dropped stitches.

I sat beside him and working on my blanket, reassured him that it wasn't a race. That one knits for pleasure as much as for the finished product and by concentrating on every single stitch he would end up with something he was proud of.

Needless to say, I was proud already.

October Days

1. Jacaranda flower carpet, 2. Kinetic sand toddler play, 3. Air dry clay bowls made by Miss Five and Master Three as Christmas gifts - still to be painted, though Mama is loving them all white, 4. Blueberries taking a teasingly long time to ripen

The days have just rolled by lately. The blur of school holidays, the return to school and finding our rhythm again, working in my business. There have been many full days, but even more beautiful moments. You know the ones you want to hold tight to? And you find yourself wishing you could take a photo with your heart, to truly remember how it felt as you stroked your toddler's hair while reading him a story. Or listened to your daughter's joyful story about her morning of riding and grooming miniature horses. Or the pride you felt that brought you to tears when she overcame her fear of swimming and got in the pool. Or the other hundreds of little moments that make the sulking, squabbling and ignoring bearable. Still, this Mama's heart is already pretty full with all my love for my three little/big people.

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PS: I brought home six chickens yesterday! They are settling in now and quite shy. No doubt there will be many photos of them gracing my blog soon. xx