Or at least, so I am told. I have no idea where this week has gone; surely yesterday was Monday, yet somehow, five days have elapsed and it’s Friday again. Five first-thing-in-the-morning feeds, five shared bagels, five mid-morning cups of camomile tea, five standing-up-while-holding-Mama’s-hand sessions, five Mama-attempts-to-create-the-perfect-baby-snack no-sugar cookies, and five now-she’s-asleep-I-really-should-put-her-down moments. At least.

And talking of the quickness with which time flies, which we weren’t, exactly where has the year gone since the witchling arrived? Surely last week I was still pregnant…? Yet somehow, the buttercups in the field across the lane are out again – and especially glorious this year; I keep meaning to put up a pic because they look so fab – and it’s nearly June, and the weather is warming, and they’re harvesting the fields around Earthenhouse, and… and… and the tiny daughter will be one on Monday. June 1st. Monday. MONDAY. How? How is this possible? 

I’ve been thinking a lot as her birthday approaches. It’s such a time of changes for us. Quercus will be working part-time from next Thursday so that he can look after the witchling while I go back to work for five mornings a week (which is of course the most enormous change in itself). This weekend, while Quercus continues to recover from his horrible throat infection thingy, we are painting the kitchen; from drab bare plaster and a decidedly work-in-progress look, we’re going to move to crimson distemper on one wall (breathable for the cob wall we’ve lime-rendered) and cream one the others. We’ve got a plan for the kitchen Quercus is going to build, and we think we know where the wood – oak, obviously, given his, er, name – is coming from. We’ve planted things in the garden, albeit in the only tiny corner which isn’t covered in building chaos, and they’re coming up – beans, courgettes, taters and some herbs, as well as the Jerusalem artichokes which, let’s face it, are going to come up whether we like it or not (they have actually grown through the spoil heap, which is nearly solid clay, which is about ten feet thick above where they were planted the year before last).

Things are changing, growing.

Especially the tiny daughter. She is delighting in more and more flavours and textures – everything from fish, fruits, baked beans to velvet and wooden spoons! – and her favourite thing du jour is to stand up while holding on to a thumb or two; she isn’t very interested in crawling, but clearly wants to walk. Her hair is growing apace; very fine, very fair, from a distance nearly invisible, but the curls remind me of my mother, and we wonder if it’s from her or from Quercus (whose hair is… a little wild). She laughs when I throw her up in the air, and she giggles as we dance an impromptu tango across the kitchen. She talks to herself as she settles down to sleep, and she sleeps for increasingly long periods, prompting me to savour the midnight feeds, at whatever time they happen. How is it that things can be so happy, and yet still remind one of the transience of life? 

Anyway, let us not allow the morbid to prevail; of course, at least part of what I’m thinking at the moment is gloat-worthy, as I survey the haul of presents which we’ve got lined up for the tiny daughter – the corduroy owl I made back in the darkness of the winter, a stacking wooden lighthouse, a pull-along Fresian cow (wooden again), possibly a knitted vest (if I finish in time!), and, possibly best of all, a set of wooden animals which Quercus has made for her, consisting of an elephant, a warthog and a, well, er, a Moomin. They are delightful; I drew him some simple silhouettes and he cut, sanded and waxed them (using a beeswax-based balm I made a few weeks back; I’ve been meaning to post the recipe, come to think of it, as it’s the good stuff (best hissed in a drug baron voice, that last bit), and works well on everything from post-shave soreness to, well, yes, your everyday wooden animal needs).  So, all that’s left is for me to decide on which sort of cake says ‘I’m one today!’ best. Any suggestions, anyone? Preferably of a non-dairy nature?