3/52

Right, I'm finished playing catch up now, phewf! I am really enjoying taking time to get to actually take pictures. I don't have a fancy phone camera so don't often taken photos of the random little things. This project is encouraging/forcing me to get the camera out more and document these growing critters.

A portrait of my daughter, once a week, every week, in 2014 - Elanor

This week our new friends gave us their first egg and you take great delight in being the one to collect it. Also to eat it. Dippy egg is definitely a firm favourite!

A portrait of my daughter, once a week, every week, in 2014 - Maggie

Every time we're out in the garden you pick beans to eat. You try and feed them to the chickens, to your sister, to me...to anyone who;ll take them. You love the raw beans!

joining in with Jodi at practising simplicity

thoughts on smacking...

I realize this may be a tad controversial but seeing as I have a tiiiiiiny readership and I need to get some thoughts out of my head I'm going to go for it...

Was on facebook (aka. demon timesucker) and a "friend" asked about what to do with her 2 year old with and attitude problem. The number of people who responded telling her to give her daughter a whack disturbed me. I really felt like saying "bro, that is illegal for a reason!"...but I didn't. Instead I wrote about how I deal with my children in difficult moments then felt like a giant hippy for trying to relate to my children as small people and acknowledge their feelings. I do realize that sometimes children go feral, I know this, for a fact but I often find that distraction/being taken to a quiet place for a chat/a cuddle/being let loose outside works for us more than I could ever imagine a smack doing. I'm not saying people who smack their children are all "bad parents", more like good parents with a bad idea? Disclaimer: I am also in no way claiming to be the perfect parent. At. All.

It got me to thinking though if these adults who regularly smack their children for breaking rules would be so happy to be bent over the bonnet of their car and spanked whenever they got pulled over for speeding. Or whether they think that people who break the law should be flogged instead of being given "time out" in prison. Hey, maybe I'm making assumptions... maybe these people are all law abiding folk, apart from the smacking thing.

I find it strange that people would be against physical punishment in schools, yet happily smack their children to "teach them a lesson" at home. I know most would say we're just talking about a tap on the bum but hitting is hitting man! And don't even start me on the madness of hitting your child as a punishment for them having hit someone else.

A hug doesn't fix everything, but it is a pretty good place to start.

2/52

Let use pretend that the first week of the year didn't happen. It almost doesn't count...you know, every one is still in holiday mode and...yeah. Week 2 - 

A portrait of my daughter, once a week, every week, in 2014. - Elanor

This is how you can be found for a lot of your day - concentrating furiously on colouring in or drawing a picture. You get annoyed when Maggie tries to join you, until we get her her own paper. Then you sit quietly and enjoy the crayons on the page. 

A portrait of my daughter, once a week, every week, in 2014 - Maggie

You were intensely excited that your big sis was going to join you on the "trampalium". You'd been hounding for a while, bouncing up and down around the house, pointing out the window and saying "bunst, bunst!"...finally it happened...joy!

joining in with Jodi at practising simplicity

chuckles...

I was looking back through old posts from 2012 and found the ones about the no-cry sleep solution. As you can tell from my almost forgetting that it ever happened, it didn't go too well. And here we are...at almost 2 years old, waking every two hours in the night for a boob. It doesn't bother me all that much - I've become used to functioning on such little sleep, mostly - but baby number 3 is never going to come along with such frequent night nursings. Not so much the finding the time or being too tired for the party but more the physiological luteal phase/cycle related things...
And so, we've turned to Dr Jay Gordon's changing sleep patterns in the family bed. By all accounts it seems to be gentle but also effective. We'll see.
I think, before we disliked the frequent waking but not so much that we were willing to make it worse to make it better. Now we're ready. We're ready to get her back to sleep in other ways and while it may take longer (and be louder) at first *hopefully* after that it'll get better. Right?
The basic gist as I understand it is for 3 nights, between 11pm and 6am, you give them a short feed but take them off before they're asleep and just cuddle until they are. The next 3 nights you miss out the feeding part and just go straight to the cuddling (this is the part I am DREADING). Then the next 4 nights you talk and touch/rub/pat but as minimal as possible.
I really want to continue feeding during the day and outside those 7 hours so this seems to be a good plan for us at the moment.
I am nervous but hopeful and prepared to be even more exhausted for the next little while.

new year...

With the new year I am thinking about returning to this place, if only to join in with the 52 weeks project over at practising simplicity (I'm well aware that I'm two weeks behind!). I think it would be good for me to document, mainly for myself, these girls as they grow.

Goals in this household for 2014 -
simplify (everything)
we started out well, having a huge clean out on boxing day. We have had another one since and four trips to the Sallies later (who could believe it!) we are feeling a lot lighter.

get better at what I do (sewing-wise)
In 2013 I started selling my little foxes at markets and on facebook. This year I plan to add a few things to the repertoire and to hone my skills. I also want to sew as much as possible (as time allows) for the girls.
Here's my facebook page - cuttapea

intentional time with each girl
The days fly by and this year I want to make a real effort to spend time with the girls as individuals. Because Maggie still feeds quite heavily it is easy for me to steal moments with her but Elanor proves more tricky...I guess that's what happens as the bigger one becomes more and more independent and needs you to do less and less for them? So, intentionally making time for each.

intentional adult time
not that kind of adult time! There seems to be very little time in our day for talking uninterrupted, pottering in the garden, spending time nourishing each other. Trite, but this year we are planning to have a "date" a month - go out for fro yo, take a walk...nothing too crazy (read, expensive) as well as trying to take a moment each day to reconnect.

finish my LLL leadership
I was recently asked if I'd like to work towards becoming a La Leche League leader and jumped at the chance! I plan to finish it all before the end of this year. That's the plan anyway...

more sleep
always! Maggie is a shocker so...there is no plan on how to help her sleep longer/more but...

keep gardening
this is more the husband guy's domain than mine but I'm learning a lot and loving it. We are working towards being able to provide (mostly) for ourselves, one day. Also, I just bought 3 chickens - Marjorie, Unicorn-sparkle and Buttercup.

So, come at us 2014! Let's see what happens...

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all the cool kids are doing it, or so I hear.

x

OMFG!!!! Check this out ya'll....

Stella over at the golden adventures is running a MAD giveaway. Enter! Or don't, 'cos I want to win. I need to win!! To say I like foxes is indeed an understatement...I have one tattooed on me arm for goodness sake! In my house, on my clothings, I make them...I LOVE FOXES.
Enough babbling...sorry.
I am going to go and make a cuppa and calm down now.
SQQQQQQUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!