Reaching For The Light Supersized and Iron in the Blood

The sun is shining, the hips and haws are out and there is iron in my blood.

I realise there should always be iron in one's blood, but it transpired the reason I was struggling to cope with even the basics of our lives was that I had too little. I don't yet feel like The Iron Woman, but the house is less of a midden, some paperwork has been achieved, my current commission is progressing (more of that later) and I am here, reporting my emergence to all you kind souls who were so lovely after my last post. There is still some way to go, as this morning there was a moment of Mama-fail when there were no clean 'Wednesday' socks. Pickle has such high standards!

The school wheel is turning again and this year Pickle is balancing beautifully in its centrifugal spin, skipping up a reading scheme (a relief for me too) and generally benefitting from the calmer, more focussed atmosphere. She was particular about having 'proper shirts' (no comfy airtek for this girl) 'with wrist buttons'. See what I mean about standards? I'm tempted to buy her cufflinks for Christmas - they will blow her mind!

You can't tell from that picture, but Pickle's beautiful ponytail...

has become a beautiful squirel tail.

She is very happy about this and brushing her hair is a much happier time for us both.

Having felt so grim all during the holiday and only taken Pickle on daytrips (which were brilliant) and a few days at my parents' (which were also good), I was sad we hadn't managed a real holiday while it's just the two of us. That's the only reason I can come up with for why I agreed to go camping whilst pregnant in September. I'm very glad I did. We went as part of a gang of families from Pickle's class and my lovely friends put up and took down our big bell tent (which I currently can't even lift) and we totally lucked out on the weather, so a delightful weekend was had by all.

My sand angel found innovative new ways to become filthy

while I admired the view of blue sky and other people in really cold water.

 The children were very proud of the crab they found

and at the end of each day Pickle and I snuggled up and did lots of this:

Chagford has been temporarily renamed Chaiford for the Bangra finale to Chagford's famous film festival. An Indian/Bangladeshi restaurant has serendipitously just opened and their stall scented the Square and made me miss India. Pickle and her best friend (and fiancee) had had a sleepover at ours the night before and been mostly awake since 4:00am, so we didn't drag them round stalls for too long. We took them to the park and then to the pub for chips where our young friend smashed his apple juice bottle so spectacularly that the waitress smashed a tray of hot chocolates. We haven't been back. Bellies finally full of chips and children placated with hot chocolates and relay wees (why can't they all go at once?), we staggered blindly into the sun for the Bhangra flashmob and amazing elephant, which lead the procession.

And during all of that, in half hour bursts while I was confident I wouldn't vomit and Pickle was alseep and I had enough concentration, I have been slowly Reaching Towards The Light again. Someone saw one of my greeting cards and wanted the original, but it has long sold. So she commissioned me to do the same (I gave her the speech about how it will never come out exactly the same), but bigger. It's still not finished, but the Light is in sight. I had planned to take a smooth series of photos, but you will see I have forgotten for patches of time.

More greenery needs to shoot up and those flowers are no good to the bees without nectared centres, but it will be done soon and brightening a new family home, which pleases me very much.

Meanwhile, my new family member is growing apace (as am I). Lots of reassuring kicks and an anomaly scan in only a couple of weeks. Pickle and I can't possibly wait to find out if she will have a brother or sister. The citizens of Chagford are making their guesses. Add yours here if you have a hunch. I do, but I'm not telling...

Trying Again

I am trying again. I am busy injecting myself, taking pills and supplements, drinking herbs and changing patches in a second attempt at creating a baby. (This is how you do it, yes?) IVF is perhaps not for the sane-hearted. You really have to want this so badly you are prepared to put yourself (and, in my case, the five-year-old I live with) through a brief menopause (waking up thinking, Why is my house so damn HOT?), then extreme PMT (be warned: this is where I am now, although mostly I'm just weeping rather than shouting) and all manner of undignified scans (although I love seeing my amazing insides on the screen). So, some time in the first half of March one of my snow babies (frozen embryos) will be brought home to my womb, hopefully to snuggle in safe and sound (which is what didn't happen last time). After the transfer is the epic two-week wait until I can do a pregnancy test.

It is a good time to be making a baby. The flowers are coming out; we have had a couple of days of strong sun; long-tailed tits are eating fatballs outside my window; a red admiral is against the pane; and my friends are having babies, just to prove it really can be done and Pickle wasn't some kind of fluke.

Not a fluke, but still a miracle which dazzles me every day. And so many days... Pickle is five now. Five whole years. We went to a puppet show at the theatre with one of her friends and had a little party at our house, with games and balloons and party food and the splendid diplodocus cake her Gappy had made with her (to Pickle's design).

Her actual birthday was a school day, so we stopped on the way home for hot chocolate, then a lot of present opening.

I hadn't expected Pickle to be at school on her birthday because I didn't think she would be going back after half term. She began in January, then quickly became really ill and missed the bit when her friends who'd started with her became confident. She hated it and was miserable for a long time. Holding to my belief that she would love school if she could get over this first insecurity, while constantly wondering if I was just putting her through hell for no reason, has been the hardest thing, apart from getting us through without Thomas, that I have done as a parent. There is such a strong desire to make her happy and I could have done that so easily. I could have quit at any moment and decided she wouldn't go to school. Pickle would have been delighted and I would have been very relieved. I came very close so many times, but held my nerve. I had seriously thought about home schooling, at least for the first few years, but her school has allowed me and other parents to send our children part-time. Pickle goes three days a week and enjoys it. She often doesn't want to get out of bed and she hates to be rushed getting ready, but she is full of good things when she comes home and is proud of what she is learning.

We do some home schooling still, but I'm happy if that happens in an informal way and trips out definitely count. Recently we went to The Eden Project with friends. The girls loved dressing up.

I failed to interest Pickle in some great sculpture.

We saw lots of wonderful plants and listenend to an accordian-playing storyteller with a beautiful throne.

In the tropical biome, the children took their tops off and discovered they could cool themselves by slathering cold mud over their bellies. They looked wonderfully feral but my camera couldn't withstand the humidity so no pictures.

So, my girl is now five. I am walking a very wobbly hormonal tightrope. A month from now I may be pregnant. Thank heavens for spring!

Mr Right Has Been Found!

Change is coming. Already there are touches of lemon yellow weaving the greens and the children are full to bursting with blackberries and apples and all good things. Pickle and I have only a few more days of moochy mornings in dressing gowns, reading stories on the sofa between sips of coffee (just me, obviously) and making hazy plans for the rest of the day, typically including the park, the garden, a friend, an icelolly and a thwarted request to have pasta again for tea.

In the mainstream way of things, Pickle would be starting proper school on Monday! I'm very glad she won't be, although I think she would cope fine. Instead, she'll do another term at her lovely Montessori nursery, then start school part-time in January. Although I am feeling increasingly confident about my ability to homeschool without losing the last shreds of my mind, I know I'll appreciate being able to work more. I have been adding to my Etsy shop in the evenings. Here is a drawing by Thomas which I have titled Contemplation. I think it is a fantasy drawing of a different type - actually where he would like to be, taking some time to let his mind drift on a beautiful hill, with a spot of archaeology when he feels like moving. And always the joke is on the humans - the magpie, unseen, removing the best find of the day.

During the days, Pickle and I have been making the most of our time together. We visited a donkey sanctuary with some friends and I enjoyed, as I always do, seeing Thomas's gentleness in Pickle when she is with animals. Here she is grooming a lovely rescued donkey called Rodney. (She later speculated that he might have been pregnant.)

Chagford has had its annual Show. It's been a big farming thing for aeons with proper 'best veg' competitions which are taken absolutely seriously and Dartmoor bluefaced and greyfaced sheep winning beauty contests, but it has expanded into a funfair and art/craft event as well, with heavy horse and bird of prey displays, vintage steam-powered tractors and the like. I tried to photograph the sea eagle as it flew over us, but failed, sorry. Walking across one of the fields we found a teepee and crawled inside. There, Pickle was shown how to light a fire. She knows the theory from me and from Forest School, but this is the first time anyone's given her a bundle of dried grass and a striker and the time to try again and again and again until this happened:

I have read about the different ways mums and dads parent and I try to do some of both, which mostly means being less risk-averse than I would naturally be. This is the only explanation I have for taking Pickle on this:

We were so scared! And so excited! Pickle wisely opted to spend the time we were halted at the highest point with her eyes shut and her face buried in my chest. I wisely opted to hold on to the bar and to her tighter than I remember holding on to anything else ever. The best bit for me was watching Pickle's adrenaline rush afterwards. She really felt brave and that she had done a very Big Girl Thing - and so did I.

Danger and excitement followed us home. A friend gave Pickle a big egg. We put it in water and Pickle ran downstairs as soon as she woke every day to check the progress of the cracks ... what would come out? This came out:

A stegasaur! It is now right out of its egg and still growing! We are very relieved it is not a carnivore.

Keeping with our dinosaur theme, we have also made these:

We were very proud.

We have been to the Aesop musical put on by the older children round about. I had a bag full of shushing food, but needed none. Pickle was rapt for the whole performance and has said she wants to take part when she's old enough. Chagford Carnival has whirled past and Pickle was very much a part of that. We were in the square all day watching innocent children being drilled through the middle, or having knives juggled over their prone bodies. We watched the unicycling fire juggler play dodge-the-bunting. Pickle was first up for every dancing opportunity - we even did some morris dancing because Thomas would have loved that. Pickle bounced on the castle, had her face painted like a dog and was entranced again by songs from the musical. There were bands and locals singing and playing divinely and squiggly tail things on sticks which went viral within five minutes of the arrival of the curt cart man. Then there was the parade. We got ourselves seats on the graveyard wall and cheered as all the fantastic creations danced, chased, swam, sang, played, rode and toddled past. They were all amazing, but the one I will show you is the Save Our Library gang. What you can't tell from this photo is that a certain Tilly-walker is the dormouse.

So, these have been our happenings since last time, but what of Mr Right? Well, I know which city he is lives in, his hair and eye colour, his height and his weight. That is all. And on the strength of that I have selected him to be the donor dude for my next child. If this sounds like a flimsy foundation for faith, let me tell you a little story about an omen which came my way.

Some weeks ago a man appeared in my garden as I was hanging my pants on the line and beseeched me to buy into his charity lottery. No, I said, I already do the Air Ambulance lottery and that is all I can afford. Have you ever won? he asked. More people win with ours. No... But it's not really about that. I won't switch.

A letter arrived from the Air Ambulance Lottery. Sorry to trouble you. Mr Hine has won some money. We see he is deceased and have no next of kin contact.

I phoned the number. Yes, we can re-issue the cheque in your name. Hang on, I'll find out how much it was...

I am on hold, hoping it's the big £100 win, but knowing I'll be grateful for a tenner.

...Ah yes. Mr Hine has won one thousand and three hundred pounds. 

At this point I start crying and telling the poor woman this couldn't be better timing because I really need the money.

The cheque duly arrives and the bank clerk takes it like this is a normal amount of money for me to pay in. It is a huge sum for me; nothing like what the IVF will cost, but a big help.

Then I am sent my Blind Date info about all the men I might like to mix genetics with and plump for Mr Birmingham. And THEN it transpires that if this all comes off in the first go, I can now cover the costs without borrowing. Thomas may yet, against apparently insurmountable odds, be able to give me the baby we wanted to make together.And if that isn't an omen then nothing is. Which may well be the case. But for me it feels like a blessing from Thomas on this new child and a sign from the universe that I am making good decisions. It feels like there is a real chance that my dreams will come true: that I can complete my family and no-one else need get very ill or die. We can simply live happily ever after.