So, we’ve decided to try some new tactics with the witchling and our current sleep deficit. In about three weeks, Quercus will be taking a month of unpaid leave from his job, hoping to break the back of the work left to do on the extension. In the lead-up to this time, we’re going to try to get the witchling sleeping more in her cot, by our bed, and less on one of us. We’re hoping that the softly, softly approach will pay off; neither of us is willing to leave her to cry (call us fools if you like; we don’t really care, and, frankly and quite wankily, I feel we have to do what our hearts tell us to some extent – how can something which feels so very wrong be the right thing?), but today Quercus succeeded in getting her to sleep for nearly an hour in the cot, having rocked her to sleep. This is progress from her only falling asleep while I feed her, so I am heartened, despite all the ‘useful’ advice that Quercus’s mother, who came to visit this weekend, gave us about ‘having to sort out this night-time stuff’. (An aside: what is it that makes the parent/child relationship so tricky when one has the temerity to increase one’s own numbers and reproduce?) And yes, I am still plagued with self-doubt – I can never quite decide if it is selfish to want some time to myself during the evenings, or if it’s a necessary part of being a mother, in order to still be me. If that makes sense. Part of me thinks that the witchling will be this little, this tiny, this full of needs on an immediate and intense scale, for so short a time that I should just go with it, and if she is with me twenty-four hours a day, then so be it. But then, Quercus and I decided to have a child because we wanted to add to our family, and our family began with just us, him and me, being together, so surely it’s important to continue making time for our relationship as partners, as well as parents, too?

In other news, we went to a NCT sale we went to yesterday, which means that we now have clothes for probably most of the next six months for a grand total of £22. £22. I mean – ! That’s only slightly more than a week’s child allowance. And there is rather a lot of velvetness involved, which is, of course, a good thing. And, of course, having the witchling about is clearly a good excuse for the knitting of very tiny pretty hats, and the purchase of ridiculously pretty wool (in affordably small quantities). Like this:

I still can’t knit in circles, though, dammit. Well, in truth, I haven’t really tried. I keep muttering things about double-pointed needles and whatnot, but I haven’t actually sat down and tried. However, this winter… I will, I will, I will, to quote the lovely Mrs. Doyle. The witchling and I spent a happy half-hour in the lane outside the witchery this afternoon, picking the last of the blackberries. The weekend weather has been gorgeous – bright sunshine, and, despite chillier evenings, warmth more fitted to late August. About time, I think, on the quiet, given the wash-out summer we had.

Oh, and while I’m thinking about it, do you, dear and much-esteemed reader, think it would be useful if I were to use categories and tags for writing here? So that recipes, for example, would be easier to find than they were at my old place? I’m seriously considering it, and I’m hoping to work out how to PDF the archives I’ve got, and stick ‘em up somewhere in my no-matter-how-long-I-stare-at-the-fucker-it-still-won’t-go-bold-for-headings sidebar.