So, with about two days’ notice, the aged parent came to visit. He does this, from time to time – calls up, says he’d really like to come and see us because it’s a long time until our next agreed meet-up (which normally doesn’t come to pass anyway), and are we free tomorrow? Usually we are; we don’t live the sort of life which means lots of time away from home, or with the zillions of social engagements on which he seems to thrive (or at least not the sort which doesn’t involve friends good enough to be shuffled about informally timing-wise). And then he appears, sprinkles take-away food about the place for a bit, stays for something between twelve and thirty-six hours, appears bemused by the small girl (sometimes benignly, sometimes with hints that I need to take a firmer line), before Something Comes Up At Home, and he departs, usually at least four hours before he’d said he’d leave.

Today is no exception; minor irritation is added by the fact that he hadn’t said goodbye to the small girl, and she thinks he might be there to meet her when playschool finishes at lunchtime.

Why do I expect anything from this man? When will I learn that, set against the apparently never-ending demands of his new family, I come a very firm second? (This time, his wife is not well [something which appears, in itself, to be never-ending; the woman is as clear a case of neurasthenia as I have ever seen] and his step-daughter is having yet another attempt at anorexia. I say ‘attempt’ because it seems that this happens each and every time that the light of parental affection swings from her even slightly; both his step-children seem to be utterly set on having the ENTIRE WORLD revolve around them, FOREVER; should this fail to be the case, there will be Dire Consequences.)

Yes, I’m feeling petty and childish about this – hiding it well, non?

Just once, though, it would have been nice if he could have done what he’d said he would, and just be here, just for a bit, just for long enough to get used to him being here, just to get past the bit where I feel I’m on show, and I feel nervous, and I worry what he thinks. I should know by now that it’s genuinely daft to have any expectations of him at all, that all plans are subject to change, that any agreements are superceded by things about which I don’t even know until it’s a done deal. I should also know that the constant ill health of this new family of his seems to mean a constant on-standby approach on his part, despite the fact that I would have been told to get a grip or something similar had I been similarly inclined.

I think he does mean to make an effort; he comes here, after all. But he just falls short every time. It was lovely that he came; it was lovely that he brought a toy for the small girl, and took the time to play with her, showing her how to use it. It was lovely that they went out together yesterday, and she talked to him and showed him around and so on. But it would also have been lovely if he’d waited the 90 minutes needed to say goodbye to her when she finishes at lunchtime, and if his scuttling back home didn’t feel as if it might be tinged with relief at having ticked the ‘visit daughter’ box.

I’m really rubbish at this whole ‘you can’t change other people’ bit, you know.

Bright sunshine here this morning, and the small girl is out for the day with Quercus, meaning it’s just me and the smallest in the house at the moment. Oh, and a large bar of chocolate. (Any guesses how many of those things will still be true by, say, lunchtime?)

This morning’s thoughts:
- Why, oh why, are some woven wraps (which is to say baby slings) so very, very expensive? I have been coveting a Girasol ‘Earthy Rainbow’ wrap for about, well, a year or so now, and I have yet to see one sell – even secondhand – for less than £70. £70! If there was a way to capitalise numbers, I would be doing it, so emphatic is my astonishment.

- I have made seven gallons of wine in the last week. Nothing like displacement activity to galvanise one, eh?

- Why is it only when I have no money that I see lots of things I would love to buy? Here are some of my current lusts:

- This coming weekend, Quercus and the small girl are off to visit Quercus’s mother. This means a weekend sort-of to myself – being with one child feels like walking on air, ease-wise! So, I am trying to plan activities other than, well, vegging on the sofa while streaming Gilmore Girls. So far, I am mainly thinking of attempting to sort out my dreads, which have gone from being pretty much what I wanted to being loopy, bumpy and generally chaotic. Trouble is, I never get the chance to fidget at them as one is supposed to in the early days, really, so there are tangles, and loose hair, and odd ends, and general Stuff Which Requires Maintenance. Ho. I’ve actually been contemplating brushing them out and starting again, it’s that bad, but then I sort of flag a bit when thinking of the work involved. And then I just tie them up and, well, forget all about them. Ahem.

- Pyewacket is still missing. She’s been gone two weeks now. I fear she is not coming back, and I miss her sososo much. She is a most unusual cat; there is something distinctly familiar-like about her, in that she appears and disappears in mildly disturbing ways, and she doesn’t behave like a cat but rather like some sort of aristocrat, possibly of French extraction. I have always thought that she might actually be the current incarnation of either Bast, or of the original Pyewacket, a seventeenth century witch’s familiar. I hope she finds her way home, I really do.

- I have a copy of ‘Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day’ or something similar en route. I am stupidly excited by this (though sceptical about the titular claim). This may mean sourdough attempts again…

- Why does the world apparently not include liquorice shampoo any more? I used to get a solid one from Lush, but – surprise, surprise – as with all the things I actually like there, they’ve stopped making it.

- Did I mention the sunshine here? There is actually a chance that today’s nappy wash might dry. (They are lavender-coloured bamboo numbers, since you ask, and while I am not a coochy-coo sort of person, I must admit that a certain small backside does look rather fetching in them.)

- A commenter asked about my children’s nameless state here, and why it’s OK to post pictures of them but not their name. Quercus answered this in the comments: pictures aren’t easily Googled, while names really, really are, particularly as three out of four of us have unusual names which would be easy to find online if we used them. I am contemplating blog names, though, for ease of identification, as ‘small’ and ‘smallest’ are easy to confuse when you’re half-asleep…

- Why did I only just find out that Super Birkis come in red with cats?

Today is the autumn equinox, and we have spent the afternoon picking blackberries in the warmth of unexpected sunshine, with the drone of tractors ploughing the field behind our house. It never ceases to amaze me, the difference that a bit of sunshine can make, coupled with achieving a few things, albeit small things. Somehow, quietly, this week has turned around: there are now seven gallons of wine fermenting on the back of the counters, their quiet glugging a fascination to the smallest member of the Earthenhousehold, and two pints of crabapple cordial are sitting in the fridge, accompanied by a pint of sloe and apple. Apple crumbles have been baked, and pounds and pounds of apples, crabapples, sloes and blackberries have been picked. Pictures have been drawn on the chalkboard, messages have been left for small people using magnetic letters on the fridge, paintings have been done, play-dough snails have been made. Nappies have been washed, dried in the clever north wind and brought in smelling of woodsmoke. The chimney has been swept in preparation for the colder days to come, and the wood shelter is fully stacked.

I breathe out.

Yesterday evening, Quercus went to a rehearsal of the orchestra he plays for, and really enjoyed it. His orchestra is playing Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’, which he loves.

Yesterday evening, I did very little beyond knitting a few more rows of the small girl’s winter cardigan (a beautiful berry-coloured wool which was part of the stash of wool I inherited from my mother, thus giving me an extra sense of autumnal nostalgia as I use it).

Yesterday evening, my elder girl was asleep at seven o’clock, having been friendly, chatty and helpful all afternoon.

Yesterday evening, my younger girl, stil so very little, was asleep not long after, having slept deeply and restfully three times during the day, in her basket on the counter in the kitchen (she may not have been born in the kitchen, which is where I thought I’d labour, but she is certainly spending most of her time in there!); she stayed fast asleep until just gone midnight, her first stretch of five hours.

The wheel turns, and with it, life moves on.

Ohhhhhhhhhh, I so want to be that smug picture of maternal contentment, cuddling two idyllic blonde children close to me while wearing something ridiculously goddess-like and oozing a generosity of spirit which would Kofi Annan look mean.

Instead, I am sitting on the sofa, my pyjama bottoms not even having made it on after a very rushed bath, attempting not to cry because of the gruesome day we have just had.

The short version: the small girl is being a complete trout to Quercus, ignoring everything he says or doing the exact opposite (today: several fits were thrown, including the getting-out-of-the-car fit, the walking-on-my-own fit, the Mama-must-hold-my-hand fit, and finally, my personal favourite, the running-away-near-traffic fit) while insisting on my presence nearly all the time and screaming at anything which doesn’t suit her, whether it be dinner, her clothes, or just the colour of the sky. Meanwhile, the tiny girl has slept for about twenty minutes today (ominously familiar), despite slings, rocking, feeding, walks, drives and being left to it, and is now thoroughly overwrought, as she was yesterday, having done similarly.

We have no plans for dinner beyond the realisation that probably eating some would be a good idea. The kitchen is reasonably chaos-free after I blitzed it today while Quercus was out for fit number one with the small girl, and the house isn’t too bad overall, but we are struggling, frankly, and I have no idea how to get the tiny girl sorted, given that she is resisting even my most determined attempts to settle her.

This is a bit shit, really. I am thinking things like ‘this too shall pass’, while feeling horribly depressed at the idea of bedtime, as that merely means the start of the night shift. I’m not getting to catch up on sleep at all, really, because the tiny girl isn’t sleeping long enough for me to sleep, so I’m losing about three hours of sleep a night and not catching up. I know this doesn’t help, but I can’t find a way out of it at the moment. On top of this, Quercus is having trouble sleeping (he’s downstairs at nights these days), and I am worried that he’s depressed, basically (he has a few north-wind tendencies normally, and has been taking anti-depressants for the last eighteen months or so). He’s tireder than I am, which makes no sense considering he’s getting more sleep and I’m even taking both children so that he can ‘catch up’ while wondering how this can be, yet still he’s tired, and we’re both pretty fed up. I feel – probably unfairly – like I’m carrying us all, while getting bugger-all break and bugger-all sleep, and someone is nearly always shouting or screaming at me, grabbing me or clambering all over me.

On top of this, cheese seems to make a grumpy baby grumpier, and Pyewacket has been missing for over a week.

I feel utterly crap even posting this because generally I don’t talk about his being depressed, and I don’t talk about the crap things here really because for the most part, I prefer this blog to be upbeat, a cheery space which might ask how you’re doing rather than bending your ear about all things cruddy. But for once, this is where I’m at, and I need to vent about it.

And so, dear reader, how are you?

So far this month, I haz mostly bin:

:: getting to know our second-born

:: marvelling at pumpkins ripening unseen under vast swathes of foliage

:: trying to work out just how the devil my dreadlocks, never particularly tidy, have achieved this level of chaos, almost without me noticing, and wondering if they will ever reach equilibrium (without a lot of attention, something for which I haven’t really got time at the moment)

:: painting doors outside in the early September sunshine (which is to say that I have been, er, facilitating said painting by relieving Quercus of the care of small children. Ahem.)

:: discovering (and this one is no laughing matter) that I am married to a poncho-wearer. Ye gods. And you think you know someone…

And you?

Still here. Still delighted. Quite tired, though, and struggling to find time for the ol’ interwebs. Back shortly, though. With added crabapple jelly and just a smidgin of quince wine. Oh, and the odd predictable baby pic, probably.

How are you all?