Another trip to B&Q beckons this morning!
I've got loads of sewing to be getting on with over the next few weeks, and having now moved my machines downstairs I might actually get some done. I can't work upstairs with Ernest under my feet, it's too cramped and dangerous. So my sewing desk is now our computer desk, and our computer desk is now my sewing desk downstairs.
I'm also getting my needles out to start knitting the lovely "Ernest" gansey in the latest edition of The Knitter Magazine. The very talented, Caroline designed it and named it after my Ernest, so I absolutely have to knit it up.
I've been having a tidy up around the blog too,some people may have noticed that my freebie pattern links down there on the left had stopped working, that's all fixed now, but let me know if you still have any problems.
I've also added some of my free patterns to Patternspot a great new site with lots of patterns ready to download. (And if you've used one of my freebies and want to leave me a review on the site, I'd be super happy.)
And because I can't possibly have a blog post without a photo, here are India and Ernest sharing a new game of peepo!
***
Twenty Two months and five days.
I miss her.
I think of her a million times a day, I'm still half expecting her to come back to me.I still can't quite grasp that forever is forever.
I'm heartbroken.
That's the bare bones of it, but that's not everything.
Mostly it's a good life, Woody and the children anchor me to this life, and there is joy,pure joy. Not something I ever thought there could be again.
"The deeper sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain."
Kahlil Gibran
I remember reading these words on the blog of a friend shortly after Florence died, and another friend reminded me of them again recently. As time goes by they have more and more meaning.
What I've come to realise lately is that there will always be good days and bad days. I will always miss her, my grief for her will always be a part of me, just as my love for her is.
There will always be unexpected triggers in my daily life, but these days they don't always make me cry, sometimes I can smile.
A sunbeam will prompt me to whisper "Is that you love?" and I might feel a moment of warmth.
I feel her with me, so much so, that I'm baffled when others don't see her. Walking to school with the boys, she's there toddling along beside me. In the evenings as I snuggle Ernest down to sleep, I can imagine her lying right there with us, or lately toddling off to the garden with Woody to say goodnight to the chickens.
Yesterday, Woody and I took the boys out to an aquarium for the day. The girls were at school. We felt very strange with just three children with us, but at the same time, it was nice to do something with just the boys.
And then my eye catches a little girl in the cafe, about two years old, her wisps of wavy hair pinned back from her eyes, holding on to her Daddy's hand, and waving to the fish....it's a kick in the guts...she's missing.
Just moments later, another little girl, this time in a wheelchair, severely disabled, her Daddy showing her some little toys from the gift shop, and I feel like the universe is forcing me to see that I don't know what I'm missing. Had Florence survived would that be her life? We'll never know.
Forever is forever, and we'll never know why. We'll never know why her lungs filled with blood and not air. Why she had to leave us....
Damn! I wanted to write something hopeful for those finding their way here soon after their losses, and here I am heading down that same pathway, the one I've gone over and over a million times.
It's complicated this life without her, sometimes I feel there are shadows of myself in different lives, all stemming back to 22nd July 2009. There is a huge part of me still there, willing her to live, hoping for a different outcome, and then I'm here. I see a different me in the mirror, an older, darker, sadder me.
I just miss her. x
This is my favourite spot lately. I'm often found chatting to the hens, but then so is everyone else. One thing for sure is, they wont get lonely!
I will get some sewing done soon hopefully!
I'm partly wanting you to vote for selfish reasons, cos I want to see a babyloss blogger win an award, but mostly because Merry is a wonderful woman, with a great blog and she deserves a little bit of sunshine.
Muriel, Cleo and Erica, our chickens. Erica (above) is posing for you!
I've had a frantically busy busy busy weekend, with Eden's cheerleading competition yesterday, and today I was at a chicken keeping course, and brought home our new girls.
Muriel and Erica.
Erica and Cleo
They are settling in to their new home.
They are not quite ready to lay, but will be soon. I'm very fond of them already, I think we all are.
I spotted this platter in the window of my local charity shop the other day, but the price tag was rather high at £5, so I left it to think about it, telling myself if it was still there by today then it was obviously meant to come home with me.
I spose at least the £5 went to a good cause.
....Elizabeth McCracken, An Exact Replica Of a Figment Of My Imagination.
Most days I guess this is just how it is, today was one of those days. One of those busy days, with too much to do, too much to think about and a deadline to keep, but I still decided to make jam, having never made it before, but reluctant to throw out perfectly good (if a little past it's best) fruit that no one was willing to eat.
I chucked some chopped plums and apples into a pan.
Added rather a lot of sugar.
Left it bubbling away.
And ta da!! Jam!
Angus named it Plapple Jam (Plum and Apple), and the children each made a label.
It was loud, and busy, and chaotic, and fun, ....and she was missing x
I have tried, but it's impossible to get a really good shot of this new romper suit on a very busy baby, who will not sit still for more than a second at a time
Still, at least in this shot you can see the gorgeous squidgeyness of Ernest's thighs, which is why I designed the romper in the first place.
This is the first draft of a new pattern I designed with the aid of my new pattern drafting software.
Usually I draft patterns from a basic block with help from the rather fab Aldrich books, and information gleaned haphazardly over the years, but I thought drafting software might save me some time, a precious commodoty around here, so I asked for the software for my birthday.
I did have some reservations, the purist in me thought drafting software was kinda cheating, but actually it's pretty good, and I'm certain once I get the hang of all I can do with it, will be just as creative as all the tracing and graph paper efforts are.
I haven't figured out the pattern piece alterations part yet, so I designed a general shape, and did my usual designing by cutting up the pattern pieces from the basic garment shape, so this romper is half CAD designed, and half scissors, tape measure and pencil designed....am I making any sense?
Probably not, lets just say I'm not a techy!
As a first draft I'm pretty pleased with this design. There are some alterations I'm going to make. More length in the body and more poof in the bodice. I might even hand smock the next one.
This little bundle is the news I was waiting on all weekend. Eric arrived safely skinside at 3 this morning.
Mummy and Daddy are doing great.
Waiting with my heart pounding in my chest for news from someone I love.
Distraction is needed, a little sewing....
And preperation for chickens...
Thank you everyone for your thoughtful comments on yesterdays post, they mean more to me than you probably know. x
Florence feels distant to me lately, it's as though she's just out of sight, a glimmer of her in the corner of my eye in a sunbeam,but when I try to find her she's gone.
Maybe I'm starting to accept she is gone? Maybe I've always thought she might be coming back?
I'm not at all sure of anything, except I think this current numbness may well be temporary. I certainly hope so, because I don't want to feel this way forever, I think I prefer the constant tears to this.
A wise person said to me recently that everything I'm feeling is normal, that maybe some of my grief was put on hold while I prepared for Ernest's birth, and again while I dealt with all of his feeding issues.
I think that's certainly possible.
Life doesn't stand still though, each time I think I might be catching up with the now, dragging myself kicking and screaming from July 2009, I find that life is still moving on.
Ernest is 9 months now, he's moving on to older babyhood. He's crawling and pulling himself up, and developing a sense of humour. He loves his Daddy and puts his arms out to him as soon as he's home from work. He's just so alive and wonderful.
I was shopping in the supermarket a week ago. I'd left Woody and the older children arguing over a dessert for dinner, and gone to find shampoo, with Ernest tucked in the sling.
An elderly lady approached us, and commented on what a beautiful baby Ernest is. She asked me if he was my first, and I replied no, that he was my sixth. She asked me if I was catholic, I'm not, but she said she was, though only had one child, then she corrected herself and said she had three, but she had lost two. My heart skipped a beat, and I wanted to say I understood, and my baby was gone too, but she did what I try to do, and she moved the conversation on before I had the chance. I guess she'd had a lot more practice than me.
We chatted for a while, and as we parted she said how much she'd enjoyed chatting, and that Ernest was far too much of an old fashioned name for such a beautiful baby.
I know I'll almost probably never see her again, I know it was just a random polite chat in the supermarket, but I feel guilty that I didn't validate her lost children, I didn't even say I was sorry.
I told her, I'd enjoyed our chat too, and I hoped she'd have a nice evening. I hope she did.
And this is how it is, a million small things,but there's no happy ending, no neatly tied up package. I think maybe I've been waiting for a time when all the grief is done and I'm just accepting.
She's been gone 21 months, and I'm still struggling with forever.
I'll always grieve, maybe sometimes harder than others, maybe accepting that is what I need to do.
I've been archiving all my posts about Florence, slowly going through them. I want to protect those thoughts, put them somewhere safe. I want to put Florence somewhere safe, a pocket inside my heart.
Like many babyloss mamas who blog I feel like a stuck record. Going through my older posts I realise I've repeated myself even more than I suspected I had. I don't know how much longer I can go on doing that here in this space, and still feel I'm keeping Florence safe.
My recent experiences have taught me, that outside of my bubble, actually the *vast majority don't give a shit, and want me to STFU already. To most people Florence was not a person, but "just a baby", and I'm all cured now having Ernest here.
Some people might even think I'm not grateful for what I do have, that I'm wallowing...it has been suggested.
I'm not going to remove my posts from this blog, I'm just putting them somewhere safe too, and pondering what to do next.
*I'm very aware that some of what I'm saying here might hurt and upset those of you reading that do give a shit, and do understand, that's not my intention at all. You are not included in that "vast majority".
I realised what was happening, but it's hard to stop that cycle of stress once it begins. I tried dropping my shoulders, deep breathing, leaving the pump on flutter sucking for longer than usual, positive visualisations, and the milk would flow...eventually.
I'm still pumping enough for Ernest, but my buffer of being a couple of bottles ahead of his needs has gone, and I've had to dip into our freezer stash. while our freezer stash is huge, I'm not really happy with the situation as it is.
Maybe I'm unrealistic, but I want to provide breastmilk for Ernest for as long as possible. My long term goal is two years, which when you consider I would have aimed to breastfeed him for at least three or four years, is still quite a compromise on my ideals.
So, I'm power pumping*, eating porridge for breakfast and back on the motherlove supplements.
And as if that wasn't enough of a time drain, I decided this morning was the perfect time to spring clean my bedroom, and move several pieces of furniture too.
I'm now sat amidst total chaos, with an overtired teething (almost two teeth just breaking through!) baby who is nap refusing...sigh. x
* Power Pumping is mimicking a growth spurt by pumping very frequently, thereby telling the brain that you need to make more milk. Some women set up the pump and simply pump for ten minutes or so every time they pass,(obviously within reason), others pump to a tighter schedule than usual. I'm currently pumping every two hours,(ordinarily I pump every 3/4 hours, and can leave it 5 hours so long as I make up the time later) and will do probably at least until tomorrow. It usually takes a couple of days for my body to get the message I need to make more milk, but everyone is different.
I became a Mother, Woody became a Father, we became a family.
India is 15 today.
We had lunch in the garden
Under the bunting
Happy Birthday India.
Anyway, after my last post, I had a few requests for Woody's leek and cheese quiche recipe. He's a very instinctive cook, and it took a little nagging to get him to write it down, and lets just say it's not exactly a wordy recipe, but here it is for those who asked.
Leek and potato quiche
shortcrust pastry blind baked in a 26cm quiche dish
6 eggs
approx 100-150ml cream
1 leek chopped and sweated in butter
approx 6 new potatoes boiled and diced
approx 150-200 grams grated Gruyère cheese
salt and pepper
lightly whisk eggs and cream then add all other ingredients and pour into pastry case.
Bake at 180 C for approx 45 mins
Yesterday was my birthday, and I decided I wanted to see Morcambe. Actually, I quite fancied afternoon tea at the recently refurbished, art deco Midland Hotel, but the reality of afternoon tea in a nice hotel with five children in tow put paid to that idea, and we took along our usual birthday picnic.
Daddy's excellent leek and potato quiche, with a mug of hot tea from a kiosk on the sea front, eaten of course in the car in the rain!
After the picnic, we donned wellies and raincoats for a play in Happy Mount Park.
The sun did decide to shine eventually, for the obligatory photos with Eric.
We couldn't resist one of Eric and Ernie..
Ernest even got his first play on a beach. (wearing his new Mummy made reversable dungarees.)
And you know something? I had a pretty good day. x
Ernest is on the move, and busy busy busy.
Busy babies need dungarees.
That should do for a start.
Lighting my candle for Florence this evening, and adding a candle for Freddie.x
