Mother.

I have had this new cushion in the works for a little while but I thought today was probably the day to tell you about it. Today is Busy's first day of school. I dropped her off this morning and felt those mother pains you get in your heart.  As I was leaving the classroom I was unable to speak to the teacher  as I knew I would cry. I can proudly declare I did not cry in front of Busy- but once we were away from the classroom I bawled, in fact truth be told I am crying now looking at that picture below. I have had some lovely lovely text messages/ tweets  today from friends near and far.  Thank you- you know who you are. 

So obviously I have spent a lot of time today thinking about being a mother and what that means.  I wanted to acknowledge being a mother as not just something a woman does after she has given birth. I suppose I have chosen to look at mothering like this  because I am adopted and have always felt I only have one mother. The one who loved me every day, and still does, the one that was there every day when I got home from school. The one who wiped my tears and read me stories in bed at night.

  So I decided to celebrate what it is to mother. There are probably many more words and I had lots of lists but this is what I finally decided on. 

I also had some help from bloggy friends with this one , I cannot remember who helped or who I asked but I remember getting a few replies from my call out so for those of you who did offer some words THANK YOU and I am so sorry if I haven't said thank you personally! 

What do you think?

In the shop here as usual. 

 Thank you to the two people who pointed out the missing comma, I have looked at this a hundred times and not noticed it! Annoying!! 

So these ones are not for sale however there will be some soon WITH COMMAS!!!

How can I be expected to work under theses conditions:

I cannot even begin to express the pain I went through to get a certain almost 5 year old to pose nicely for  these pictures. There was hurrumphing ....

 and whining on a biblical scale. 


There was face pulling and squinting and complaining of sun in eyes and I am tired and blah blah blah ....

It was only when I told her to say poo poo head and bum bum face and all those other words she finds HILARIOUS that she finally started smiling and laughing

Then we got the winner:

Available in the shop of course. 

Big School.

source

Busy started kindergarten orientation today, getting ready for starting school early next year. The parents went into the hall and the principal and a few teachers talked about the school. The children went into the classroom and made things and sang songs and generally had  2 hours of fun!

However, I,  cannot stop crying. I fought hard the whole 2 hours to stop from crying- I kept welling up and then later on this afternoon when I was alone in the car I cried, my heart feels like it will break in two.

I am not ready for her to go to school but I know she is ready and wants to. I know she has to go but I am barely coping.

Thank you Curlypops.

Today it is really hot and Busy wanted to 'make something". I have long admired the beautiful fabric flowers in Curlypops header so we decided to make some for ourselves. ..a very papery child like version of them anyway.

Thanks Cam, for the inspiration.

She IS only 4.

Busy started ballet lessons on Saturday morning. A family friend who dances was very excited when we  told her the week before and  she gave Busy a special tutu her Oma ( German grandma) had made her when she was 4.  Busy's eye lit up like fireworks when she saw it we had to try it on immediately. She of course wore it to her first lesson.

At the end I was taken aside and it was explained to me"little girls are to wear either light blue or pink leotards, a simple plain ballet skirt and ballet slippers. Their hair is to be in a bun." 

I just looked at the teacher and said, by way of explanation  "She is 4."

( in my head thinking all kinds of LIGHTEN UP BALLET TEACHER type phrases)

I think she looks magnificent and really what she lacks in coordination she makes up for in Frou Frou!

Don't forget to enter my Clean and Green  giveaway

Four

Someone is Four today. We had a party on the weekend and I made Busy a new party dress. I sent some matching fabric over to the very talented Jennie at a Little Vintage and asked her to make a beautiful Busy doll. (Jennie has JUST moved across the ditch from New Zealand to Australia - Yay for us!!)  This is what she made us!

We love her so much, Busy is especially thrilled over the matching dress- AND the silver shoes just like hers ( YAY!!)

There was a whole lot of excitement about the prospect of chocolate cake covered in rarely ever consumed lollies!

It was a very quiet little party, 3 little buddies and a parent each. And an afternoon of kite flying at the park. She was "Princess Busy" for the whole day.

FOUR! Where does the time go.

Painted fingers

We spent some time painting the other day, even though it was raining it was still nice to be outide the house on the front deck .

I love taking pictures of her while she is making things. She really concentrates and thinks carefully about the colours she will choose. And I love this picture of her, so sweet but a bit cheeky too.

Dumb Idea.

A while ago I thought it would be a great idea to enrol Busy into a Kindy gym class after her swimming lessons on Tuesday mornings. ( I can hear those  more experienced mums groaning already at my clearly amateur parenting skills) The reason for doing them straight after the other is that it is a 60km+ round trip to the largest nearby town where both lessons are, and also where I work, so to try to lesson the trips I thought I would do them on the same day. To try to burn less fossil fuels. To try to make my life easier. A few people said " wow that is a lot" but I reasoned she runs around at the park for longer than both lessons put together and if she is tired then that is Ok we can just hang at home for the rest of the day. 

What I didn't factor in was the other type of tired 3 and a half year olds experience. Listening- to- instruction- fatigue.  For the now fourth week in a row she has lost it (as in screaming)  about 10 minutes before the end. This week she was inconsolable. I realised ( after having forked out the cash for the whole term) that it is all just too much.

So we farewelled Kindy gym in the car today and we both agreed it was too much and after swimming next week would just go home and read some books.

I don't know what I was thinking and now feel really bad that I didn't realise sooner she was loosing it because she was tired not mucking up...

Racked. With. Guilt.

So today I am asking:

 What Dumb Mum Thing have you done lately or ever?

Chest swells, lip quivers

Today,  at swimming lessons Busy jumped in the pool and swam underwater. I got tears in my eyes.  My lip quivered, my chest swelled. I was so proud I felt exhilarated. She was very excited too and so proud she came out of the pool and said  "I am ready for the big girls class because now I can jump in with my gobbles on".  As I write I can hear Chef pretending to be a crocodile while Busy is in the bath and she is squealing with laughter.  I must  make special note of these moments when life is sweet.

Speaking of lip quivering have you read this post? Blimey I cried just reading about little Indi.  I promised Cam I would write a post tonight as poor Cam is stuck in a not very nice place- so go and say hello to her and send her hugs and love...

Oh-oh...

It would appear, that last week at daycare, Busy, after having a little "accident" decided to dispose of the evidence by flushing said undies and shorts down the toilet*. She managed, quite skilfully I think to block the entire sewerage system of the street causing plumbers and sewerage workers to attend to fix the problem at midnight on Thursday night.

I tell you the girl has initiative!

A-hem

Bulls-eye sticker available from justmyluck

* we discovered this as her daycarer had turned her house upside down looking for the pants and this morning I asked Busy to show me where she put them she said "I putted dem in dere pointing inside toilet) and pressed button. " so that explains the sewrage issues on Thursday night.....