:: the wildflowers we sowed this spring flowering

:: the size of those poppies

:: the fact that I’m not the only one who appreciates waist-high flowering bedlam

:: skies like this

:: small girl exhaustion after a happy morning at the village playschool (why is it more often called pre-school these days I wonder?)

:: having a garden to sow things in (today: leaf beet, amaranths, Italian parsley and basil)

:: having a lathed ceiling, complete with the first coat of lime plaster on it (though if it could see its way clear to bloody well drying now that would be good – it’s taken twice as long as we’d hoped courtesy of wet dank weather…)

:: having a bedroom which no longer looks like a construction project (it’s definitely back to being a room, even if it’s a room involving wet plaster and bare floorboards; let’s just hope the rest of the plaster coats dry more rapidly… We’re really down to the line here on timing – five weeks to go until this baby is due to arrive…)

:: beech woods and being able to actually walk a half-mile with the small girl, courtesy of a McTimoney chiropractor who (against my expectations, I confess) appears to have reversed to a large degree the SPD I’ve been feeling since week fifteen of this pregnancy

And finally,

:: the news that, contrary to the scare-mongering conference I had with an obstetric registrar who implied (as ever, it seems to me) that I am reckless and badly-informed in my plans to have this baby at home (and who told me that my midwife was very worried about my lack of growth and under-sized fundal height measurement), the baby who is actually in there, doing its thing, is now reckoned to be about 4lb 15oz, if ultrasound is anything to go by

:: the feeling that, unlike last time, where things like this would really have scared me, this is just box-ticking (a sentiment echoed by my supposedly very worried midwife).

And you?

(Format pinched shamelessly from Claire.)

Right now, I am:

• feeling profoundly grateful for the sanity which an afternoon with friends can bring.

• watching the dark grey storm clouds circle around as a north wind blows yet more rain our way; after stupidly long without any rain, really, at all, though, this feels nice, and I’ve always been a sweater person…

• summoning up the enthusiasm and concentration needed to finish a hat, which requires grafting instead of casting off, after hoarding the wool used for about, oh, five years.

• pleased with the planting we’ve managed in this, the first year of our garden’s existence. So far, perpetual spinach, rainbow chard, beans, courgettes, pumpkins large (lantern-style) and small (a particularly lovely variety called Hooligan, which produces small but supremely tasty fruit which work very well when roasted), tomatoes, basil, blackcurrants, strawberries, rhubarb, chicory, red cabbage and leeks. Most of these were something of a surprise; our beds are filled with manure, for the most part, and heavy clay, so we weren’t expecting too much this year, but the spinachy things seem to be doing pretty well, and for the rest, well, we’ll see.

• marvelling yet again at how fast second pregnancies go – this week marks thirty-three weeks of forty… More marvelling is also brought to you by the fact that I am still wearing ordinary jeans and, at least in large sweaters, could be just a greedy pie-eater when seen side-on.

• listening to the marvellous Gotan Project, and imagining future time spent buggering about in the south of France, of which I have very happy memories, from a time (shortly after my mother died) when I least looked for them. (For a few years after she died, the aged parent and I used to spend the better part of a month in the summer trolling around various parts of France. They were, against the odds, very happy days.)

• looking forward to the days to come, when we’re not all higgledy-piggledy in the midst of downstairs living, and can rediscover the joys of going upstairs to bed.

• thankful that the small girl’s room is now plastered, and we’re just waiting for the lime to go off before we can get on with the easy bit – three coats of limewash, with linseed oil added to help it not to dust, in a rather nice natural umber colour, courtesy of earth pigmentation.

• providing tea, cake, gratitude and a continuous line in terrible jokes and spectator-sport yawns for the people who have been kind enough to come and help us in our bid to get our bedroom ceiling re-lathed by Monday, no small feat. Should we succeed, the plasterer is booked for Monday morning, with Quercus labouring for him, and the idea is that the first coat of plaster will be done in that day. That’s ceiling only; lime plastering is not the rapid task which you may know from gypsum encounters, but hopefully we are treating the house with the sympathy it should have had previously, and this should mean improvements in the damp which has plagued it for years, and in the dust, which has become increasingly noticeable as the plasterwork has deteriorated. We’re looking at three coats of plaster where the building is back to the bare cob, and probably two for the rest, so it’s going to be a close run, but hopefully mid-July may see us limewashing our own room. This is an amazing thought.

And you?

You know how some days, life just feels rather shite-like, and you wish you could crawl under a sizeable rock and just stay there until everyone stops wanting something from you and it’s quiet and you can just do what you like, quietly, with alcohol and a gentle rocking motion? Yes, well, that has been a large portion of today, somehow. It started with a wet (big) bed and a child who thought this tremendous fun, and it ended with a shouty mama who just felt done: done with being patient, done with making light of it all, done with keeping it in perspective, whatever ‘it’ might be, done with being reasonable. So, there was shouting, and dramatic sweeping-out-of-roomness, and tears, and despair, and tiredness, and the constant wondering if we haven’t just done something completely insane and utterly defeating in deciding to prolong this particular brand of agony with another infant.

But.

After the tears were wiped away, and there had been an hour’s sleep in the big bed (which, only minutes before, had become forbidden territory ‘full stop!’), and some cake had been eaten, and some chai had been drunk, and some moaning had taken place, and some hugs had been given, the sun came out from the clouds and Quercus stopped looking at me as if I might bite at any moment.

Being a gentle parent, who listens without pestering, who gives space for my child to just be, who offers suggestions but not strictures, is something to which I aspire. As the child of a very consequences-driven father whose approach was almost Victorian, I know only too well how that set-up works, and it’s not something I want for our family, or for myself as a parent. I don’t want my child to do as I ask because he/she/it is afraid of me, but because they can see that I’m being reasonable, and that the chances are that I wouldn’t ask otherwise. I want he/she/it to feel able to talk to me, without thinking I’ll jump on them, and without worrying that I’ll belittle their feelings, be they ever so daft in nature. I prefer to wait those few extra minutes while the small girl finishes what she’s doing, rather than expecting her to hop to it when I command her to do so. I prefer to reason with her, and point out the pros and cons of various choices rather than just issuing directives. I value co-operation, and talking, and listening, and dwelling on the positive.

For the most part, I think I do OK, but sometimes, the anger that wells up in me scares even me. This pregnancy has certainly made life interesting. I worry about this. (Astonishing, no?) I feel that the second baby is getting a very second-rate experience – no hours of meditation spent imagining positive birth situations, no pregnancy yoga classes, no active birth sessions – and that the small girl is copping the flak of my flaring hormones and resulting bad moods. I am grumpy because the pelvic girdle pain, while manageable, is a constant presence these days, and somehow, in the space of only a few months, has assumed such a confident aspect that I can’t really remember a time when I didn’t feel like this. (I should add that I’m seeing a McTimoney chiropractor who has made me wonder if there might be room for it to improve; after the second session, I had nearly an hour of pain-free pottering in the garden, which was like sunshine after a thunderstorm.) And I snap because I’m grumpy, even though I know that doing so will only make the situation worse, will push buttons that I – and everyone else! – would really rather not push, meaning that the crying will last longer, the demands will escalate, the crisis will blacken, for lo! the Armageddon is nigh, and it is Mama-shaped.

At the moment, two things are making me work very hard. The first is broken nights, which continue to be the majority for us. The small girl has never been particularly consistent in her sleep patterns, and while sometimes I am zen about this, and can see that when she’s fourteen I’ll probably be using a pitch-fork to get her out of her pit, these days are proving extra-challenging. It doesn’t help that, despite his best efforts, Quercus remains generally unacceptable at night. It is me who must tuck the quilt in, administer that last kiss, move that hot-water bottle, or reposition the squirrel, and Quercus entering the room only seems to enrage the beast, causing screaming so horrendous that it just doesn’t seem worth it to even go there, really. We have had sessions where we switched for a few weeks, enduring the screaming in a bid to get to the other side and there find sleep nirvana, but as the time goes by and we are floored by the need for sleep and the knowledge that having only one parent on night-duty 100% of the time is just not workable, bit by bit, I end up going in at night and then before you know it, we’re back at square one, and Night-time Daddy Is Evil. I become generous in my sleep-drunk state – having had unbroken nights, I forget the frustrations, and muster myself to respond, and then we end up in the same cycle once again.

I don’t know how this will work when the new baby appears in August, and, to be honest, I tremble slightly to think of it. Things must – and will – change, somehow, but I had so hoped that they would simply have shifted by now, that more nights than not would be unbroken.

The second thing that is causing me frustration is the wet knickers of woe. The small girl learned how to use the toilet with very little prompting at about twenty-eight months. It seemed very easy; there were a few puddles, but mostly she told us the deal and we helped and all was well with the world. Until about, oh, December of last year, when there were increasing puddles and no mention was made of impending disaster, until I found we were at four or five changes of clothes a day. It’s not that bad now by any means, but today’s bed-wetting incident, which took place ‘because I was busy’, is far from atypical, and just drives me absolutely bat-shit. I know that getting cross doesn’t help. I know that retreating to nappies is an option, though not one I’m keen to try. I know that this too shall pass.

But sometimes, I am SO READY FOR IT TO PASS ALREADY.

I think that I need to learn not to feel terrible about feeling terrible. I am cross, sometimes. I am unreasonable. I am bad-tempered, resentful and self-pitying. But then how is this girl to learn the strength of my love for her if she remains unaware that, at times, it is tempered by bloody hard work and the need to keep on keeping on? I hope that she sees my anger for what it is: a transitory reaction, part of the range of normal human emotions which must be dealt with, both as the recipient and as the, er, feeler.

It is not all bloody. It just does a good impression sometimes. And that is OK. This too shall pass.

(Random pictures to remind me of the good bits, incidentally.)

Right now, I am:

• dealing with the news, from our new vet, that Wixon, our four-year-old rescue cat, is probably going to lose an eye and most of his teeth due to a combination of the feline herpes and gingivitis, despite our previous vet assuring us that he wasn’t in pain and that his teeth, while not great, were not a major cause for concern just last month.

• contemplating the number of major organs which will need to be sold to foot the vet’s bill.

• worrying that our plasterer is going to need to pick up his now-three-weeks-to-plaster-the-small-girl’s-room pace, given that he has the landing and our bedroom, which currently has no ceiling, still to go (Quercus is reinstating the ceiling, I hasten to add, rather than the aforementioned plasterer).

• wondering if the small girl will sleep better tonight; two nights of very broken sleep followed by mornings starting with a six and a five have not helped the familial mood…

• triumphing over the grubby microwave with lemon juice and steam.

• realising that the oven, rather more significant in size and grub, is still to come…

• delighting in the wildflower meadow area we’ve created at the bottom of the garden; cornflowers, poppies, daisies, all jumbled together in a chaos of willowy grasses.

• marvelling that today marks thirty-two weeks of this pregnancy. Where did that time go? (And did it take my needle case with it? When you need a bodkin, nothing else will do, really, will it?)

• finishing the first knitted thing I’ve made this new child, a hat similar in style to the small girl’s Noro berry-coloured creation, which she’s worn for two winters so far. (Or, rather, I would be finishing it if I could find the sodding bodkin! This is what happens when the furniture from your downstairs fucks off to live in storage.)

• remembering, just about, to breathe.

Today is the small girl’s third birthday, and, as such, has consisted mostly of gingerish cake (by request; recipe to follow as it’s rather splendid and it’s been fucking ages since I actually bothered to post something foodish) and sand. She has a new Quercus-made sandpit which is rather splendid too, together with a felt play mat which I’ve been working on for about three weeks (my fingers have been needle-felted most effectively in that time, and I’ve also discovered that felting needles are quite good for tidying up dreadlocks) (because obviously neatness is your first consideration with dreads), a zillion wooden animals and a beautiful wolf puppet from her grandma, who has accompanied her to bed tonight. Not for her the Riding Hood end of the spectrum; oh no – she would rather have the wolf, and ‘a bad wolf! with teefs!’ at that.

I am feeling super-lucky, and really rather happy.

Oh, and tomorrow, more plasterwork will be happening in the small girl’s room. At this rate, there is a distinct risk that we may move back upstairs before the middle of July, at which point the house will seem ENORMOUS.