Steady Mom

and now for something completely different

Elijah's on the floor to my left, playing with Legos and a stuffed Winnie-the-Pooh. Trishna and Jonathan are in another room, watching a video. Steve is hauling suitcases out to the rental car, preparing to take a load to his parents' house.

And I am getting out of the work at the moment, with the excuse that "I need to write one last post!" (Wonderful how blogging comes in handy at times like these.)

We leave the cottage later today, having had a couldn't-be-better visit, and planning to return next time we venture as a family this way. But tomorrow something is happening that hasn't happened in a very. long. time.

Steve and I are going travelling. Together. Without children.

Want to hear the best bit?

(To Italy.)

I know, right?!

Eager grandparents have outings and excursions planned, I've loaded up the Netflix queue with videos for little people to enjoy, and I'm trying to decide which book to take along.

I'm also forcing myself to remain mostly unplugged during our four-day adventure, so no laptop is coming along, though my camera absolutely will be. Hoping for some lovely pics to share with you when we return.

See you next week!

If this post inspired you, you can share it by using one of the links below:

a weekend to remember

Last weekend was a beautifully busy one. We spent it with two sets of friends who we haven't seen for years. The last time I saw Neil and Lisa and their family, who now live in Cambridge, was the day almost eight years ago when I found out I was pregnant with Jonathan. (Steve wasn't with me at the time, so Lisa actually knew first, and we spent the day celebrating.)

This weekend we were fed, loved, and taken to see the sights. We explored Cambridge the best way possible--on a punt. This meant Steve got a good workout as he pushed us along the river Cam. Throw in a picnic and a ride on a double decker, and well, it couldn't get much better.

Yet it did! Because on our drive back to York, we stopped at Sherwood Forest. We walked the trail to the Major Oak, the 1,000-year-old tree said to be the meeting spot for Robin Hood and his Merry Men.

On the way back to the car, the kids insisted on checking out a short documentary about the hero that repeated back at the visitor centre. All three became completely engrossed in what ended up being a history of Sherwood Forest. So much so that we almost got trapped by the ranger who was locking up for the night!

Though the kids enjoyed spending the afternoon at Sherwood Forest, I'm not so sure they'd feel the same way about spending the night there. Our escape added a sense of adventure to the area, just what we needed to help this legend come alive.

“So passed the seasons then, so they pass now, and so they will pass in time to come, while we come and go like leaves of the tree that fall and are soon forgotten.”
~ Howard Pyle, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

the world of beatrix potter

"Isn't Beatrix Potter the whole reason we came to England?" Jonathan asked on the way. Well, no, not exactly. But his question probably goes to show just how much we've talked about this excursion for the last few months.

After a three hour drive to the Lake District, we had lunch at the Beatrix Potter tea room then headed over to explore the "attraction" (think the Disney of Beatrix Potter). From there, we made our way to the author's home, Hill Top. An unexpected short ferry ride in order to get there was probably the highlight of the trip in the kids' eyes.

Through multiple readings and plenty of discussion, these stories and characters have become part of our family culture in a small way. As a result, what I loved most about our day out was seeing how natural the experience seemed to the kids.

They strolled in and out of rooms in the home, noticed places in the house that matched illustrations in stories, and introduced themselves to tour guides. It was if they were expressing, "Of course we belong in Beatrix Potter's kitchen, why wouldn't we?" I love this expression of confidence in themselves and in their place in our family.

"I remember I used to half believe and wholly play with fairies when I was a child.
What heaven can be more real than to retain the spirit-world of childhood,
tempered and balanced by knowledge and common sense."
~ Beatrix Potter

If this post inspired you, you can share it by using one of the links below:

a British birthday

I now have a nine-year-old. Yes, nine--as in half way to a grown person. Incredible.

Can it get more special than to have your birthday happen when your family is on holiday in England? My girl got to spend the morning being pampered by her Nana, then it was back to Nana and Papa's house in the afternoon for a simple party with siblings and cousins. Just lovely.

We started Trishna's birthday off with an idea I gathered from Sally Clarkson. At breakfast, everyone in the family had a turn telling her what we love and value about her, then we prayed for her forthcoming year.

I think this will become a new birthday tradition for us--it's so powerful to speak out encouraging words little spirits long and need to hear.

"I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity."
~ Eleanor Roosevelt

If this post inspired you, you can share it by using one of the links below:

inside bronte country

Yesterday we drove up to visit Steve's brother, Rich, who lives in the midst of Bronte Country. Steve and Rich took the kids to a park while I toured the parsonage where Charlotte and Emily wrote their famous novels, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. I saw the dining table where they did their writing, and each night after dinner the three Bronte sisters walked around and around it--talking about the writing they had done that day.

Photography wasn't exactly allowed inside the home, but I couldn't help sneaking one photo of the kitchen. In this room young Charlotte, Emily, and their sister Anne often gathered to listen to stories made up by one of their servants.

The Bronte story isn't exactly a happy one--the village they lived in, Haworth, was one of the most unsanitary at the time. Almost half of children died before the age of six, and the average life expectancy was only 26 years old. Anne, Emily, and Charlotte all died before the age of 40.

Yet I was fascinated to learn that for much of their young lives, the girls were in fact homeschooled. Their father believed strongly in education and gave them lessons in literature, music, and the arts. Once he gave a set of wooden toy soldiers to the children. They spent years developing imaginative stories around these toy soldiers, and wrote them down in teeny, tiny books for the soldiers to "read." Is it any wonder, then, that their minds were able to nurture books that have been studied for centuries?

Before leaving Haworth and the Yorkshire moors, we had lunch at a traditional English pub. After telling the kids the Bronte story, I gave each of them a wooden toy soldier I bought at the museum shop--to hopefully inspire a little imagination of their own.

"Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within, as on the state of things without and around us."
~ Charlotte Bronte

If this post inspired you, you can share it by using one of the links below: