Pretty pretty

With apologies to Tangled Creations (she owns the buttons, I took the picture) how happy-making are these??

I would never have the patience nor the OCD to sort these boxes out but am utterly taken by the hypnotic colours.

Summer Fruits Meringue Pie

Nothing quite like beckoning on the lackadaisical harbingers of sunshine with an out-of-season triumph from Domestic Goddess…

Lack of hazlenuts (and a fussy Boy) resulted in a basic (though sweetened) shortcrust base in this recipe

Frozen summer fruits replaced Redcurrants

 

Deep enamel pie dish replaced shallow flan dish, resulting in a soggy setting fruit layer

Nonetheless, the recipe tasted DELIRIOUSLY of summer and will definitely be wheeled out on future occasions.

Possibly even in the right season in future…

This ranked as one of the ‘far too scary to countenance attempting’ recipes in HTBADG and now that I have managed to tick it off the list, I will be working my way through the book over the course of my year of maternity leave. Something tells me this ‘baby weight’ may be a while in shifting…

Apples and flowers

Received wisdom is lovely and EXTREMELY useful in parenthood.

Advice, systems and methods are slowly getting the Tillster into some form of sleeping routine… in as much as when we are able to get her to GIVE UP ALREADY and stop absorbing EVERY MINUTE DETAIL of the world, she sleeps. For hours. And it’s bliss.

And I can be creative…

Apple and peanut muffins

And a knitted baby headband with crochet flower with button details

Have cut out my first little dress to make for her – a pinafore in navy and cream ticking with ric rac trim… Pictures to follow…

The older she gets, the more engaging her awake time and the more reliable her sleeping time. Utter heaven.

Smiles and jumpers

Wowser, I know I'm biased but what a little smile! Tilly has been practicing her smiling muscles for a few weeks now but has only just certainly demonstrated that she smiles when she is happy and not just when her bowels are squirming! We haven't quite had laughs yet, but it's great to have her little beam at the end of a long day of damp muslins and warming bottles.

I was told by another similarly-addled parent that the smile is the gift that Mother Nature gives you at 6 weeks to get you through the next few months. By a month and a half in, you are desperate for any interraction and recognition. This is the means by which children don't get left out with the dustbin but worm themselves into their parents' hearts.

I can testify that that certainly was required in this house!!

Good to see the sweater in action too. Thought I'd better get it on her while it was still nippy outside as Spring seemed just around the corner...And then it went from 8degrees and sunny to sleet and snow and 1degree again.

Come back, bluebells! I'm ready to run through fields and skip in the blossom.

Things they don’t tell you in Home Economics

Well this has been an extraordinary time. I have achieved more and achieved less in so many different ways than I had ever thought possible. I have kept my sanity (barely) after 8 weeks of anxiety, hormones, drug-addled hysteria and aching EVERYTHING threatened to rip it from me without a ‘by your leave’. I have managed to shower most days and be dressed before 1pm most of the time.

I wrestled with breastfeeding, I wrestled a wide variety of absorbent things, I wrestled with babygroes, I wrestled with the guilt of failing to breastfeed, I wrestled with laundry, baby, muslin and bottle at 4am. I have begun to come to terms with the road traffic accident that is giving birth and remain in awe of the achievement that my body went through, with me the unwilling passenger along for the ride.

I have started to look at the little snarfling creature lying in the moses basket, from which I once addled my own mother, as a little person who I created. She borrowed me for a little while to grow and develop, and I’m going to help her out doing some more growing and developing for a little while longer. She’s not mine so much as my responsibility, which is a distinction I’m getting my head around.

I haven’t picked up needles in ANY form (knitting, crochet, hand or machine) for over 8 weeks and boy am I starting to really miss it. However, I did grab a mini-moment to allow my creative juices to flow (well trickle) into action to welcome the arrivals of the other babies from the local antenatal classes.

I am learning to allow someone else to dictate the pace at which I stumble through my days and I fear this will be good for me. I’m choosing what to do in the rare moments that she sleeps and that choice is fascinating to me each time: I am writing this post, I am drinking hot chocolate, I am going to read this magazine and I am making these flapjacks.

I am a mummy. And she and I will understand what that means a little bit more clearly every day.

Lovely Etsy

Paper & Sparkles are a lovely online shop that I can't recommend highly enough.

Tilly can be seen modelling this season's bespoke line in baby hairbands... My doesn't the little lady look pretty today??

Thanks so much to Dawn for making the custom ordering process so easy!