It’s the lack of eggs that give it away. The leaves turning my garden orange, yellow and brown. Being unable to do the school run without a coat. How on earth is it almost October already? My children are all windswept hair and ruddy cheeks, bottomless pits. Little fridges. I barely have time to unpack the food shopping before they’ve consumed it like little bacteria.

So, what’s new with me? The Life Craft is on hiatus for now and I have enjoyed over a month away from work. A much needed break, I’m still finding myself so bone-crushingly exhausted that I struggle to get out of bed in the morning. The new incarnation will help with this. Shorter hours, less pressure. That kind of thing. I’ve been trying to fill my life with colour and cheer instead of my usual brown and black, hoping that the colour will increase my joy.

I’ve become a Blipper. Yes, me! I know my photography leaves a lot to be desired but I’m reliably assured that the best way to get better at something is to keep doing it. I’ve been doing some voluntary art workshops with the kids’ new school, I’m hoping it’ll help me make new friends in the community I’ve dropped into. How sad am I?

I’ve made new connections with family I didn’t know I had, ditched some toxic friend & family relationships which were causing me pain, celebrated my gorgeous and funny children and thanked God every day for blessing me with Bob. Many people say to me, “I don’t know how he puts up with you” and genuinely, I don’t either. I must have hidden talents or something.

Anyway. Speaking of colour and things that bring me joy, I was emailed recently by the DotComGiftShop and asked if I’d review a lunchbox on my blog. A lunchbox?! I mean, how do you review a lunchbox? “Yes, this magnificent specimen of plasticity is unique amongst sandwich carriers” – not really likely to capture the imagination now, is it. But I had a little look at the range and actually, the design really tickled me (One, Two, Three, Four). I picked number one:-

It’s really brightening my day! With four children all at school & nursery, a significant portion of my day is spent lovingly creating scrumptious and healthy boxes of nutrition for my little darlings. I try not to give them sandwiches every day, and I’ve discovered that this box is the perfect size for two wraps, an apple, a banana, a bag of cheese cubes and a frube. It’s not a standard huge lunchbox that holds the entirety of your larder but for primary school kids it’s perfect. And for big kids like me, it holds enough pasta salad to share at the park with the one you’re blessed with. Ask me how I know

Anyway, as usual I have a lunchbox to give away for one of you lucky lot. To enter, simply leave a comment with your favourite Autumn activity. Make sure you have an email address for me to contact – I’ll close this on the 29th September at 12noon.

I was not paid for this entry, but I was provided with a lunchbox to review and keep.

First off, a bit of back story. You lot will probably already know (or have worked out) that I was super young when I had Findlay. I was 18 when I fell pregnant with him and 19 when he was born. I’d lived independantly from my parents for three years by that point. On the day that I moved into my first flat on my own, the van with EVERYTHING I HAVE EVER OWNED IN MY LIFE was stolen so I literally had the clothes on my back. Hopefully this will give you a bit of an idea as to how sparse my flat was pre-babies.

Then I fell pregnant. I was one of those stupid new Mums to be who got sucked into buying baby-sized furniture. I spent an embarrassing sum of money on a baby sized wardrobe (which was barely used), a baby sized chest of drawers which was EXORBITANTLY priced because it was for a baby and various other bits of nonsense. Most of which was never used of course. I like to think that I’ve wised up a little since then and certainly with none of my brood really at the baby stage anymore I’m managing to clear out the worst offenders (like the microwave steriliser which has to be the singularly most irritating item in my house).

But – and there’s always a but, isn’t there? – I have four kids. FOUR. I also have a severely dyslexic husband who by nature is extremely untidy. I myself am a renowned hoarder (until very recently I had every single card given to Findlay since the day he was born. I showed him, he laughed at me, we recycled the lot). The single biggest problem facing my dream clutter-free home?

The Grandparents.

Again I’m sure I’ve touched on this before but my kids have a ridiculous number of grandparents – even allowing for the two they lost in December/January. They have Gran & Grampa Davie (my Mum & StepDad), Papa & Nana Lesley (my Dad & StepMum), Gran & Grampa (Bob’s parents), Gran & Grampa v2 (Bob’s paternal Grandparents) and Granny & Grampa (Findlay’s Dad’s parents, who act as grandparents to all four). Each of these sets of Grandparents are doting, loving, indulgent grandparents who just LOVE to buy noisy plastic crap for my kids. Therein lies the rub.

I love that my kids have such a huge family because it’s a real asset to their development, you know the whole “it takes a village to raise a child” thing. They definitely have that village, and that village could pretty much open it’s very own Toys R Us-sized retail operation. Before Christmas, Bob & I swapped bedrooms with the girls and gave them our absolutely massive loft conversion bedroom because their room was becoming a health and safety hazard with toys, books and clothes strewn from one end of the room to the other. In hindsight it may have made more sense to swap with the boys who currently have floor-to-ceiling stacked toyboxes lining an entire wall of their room. Toyboxes that they simply can’t access because there is too much to choose from and to me, that is a huge waste.

My mindset here probably doesn’t help either. Bob & I are pretty Skint Eastwood right now because it’s still the first year for the business and every time I think about getting rid of some of the excess I start totting up in my head how much has been spent on the kids. Every birthday, each child gets a small present from each of the grandparents who don’t want them to feel left out. A lovely gesture, sure! But Jesus Christ it’s more clutter.

The problem here for me is twofold. Firstly, I can never buy the kids something ultra special because they have absolutely everything a child could want. I HATE this. I was brought up in a fairly comfortable manner, there was nothing that we wanted for as children but I still did my paper round and had a Saturday job so that I could save up for a nice stereo. Findlay – at not even 10 years old – owns more tech than I do, none of which has been purchased by us. It’s so difficult to teach a child the value of money when there is nothing at all they want for. I think it does a child good to know that sometimes they have to wait for something they want. Am I wrong?

The second problem is the pressing issue though. Boxes of children’s clothes & toys have overspilled into our bedroom, the living room and the box room that serves as a landing to the girls bedroom. The box room is actually floor to ceiling. I am SO FED UP with all this stuff and feel completely powerless to do anything about it. I’m mortified in case a visitor unexpectedly turns up at my front door. I hide! In two weeks, Erica celebrates her 4th birthday. Two weeks after that, Greer celebrates her 2nd birthday and three weeks after that, Findlay turns 10. Six weeks, three birthdays, mountains of tat.

What am I going to do with it all?!

Coulter’s Candy a penny a lump,
That’s the stuff to make you jump
and if you jump you’re sure to fall
Okay dokey that’s it all

Poor wee Jeannie she’s awfy awfy thin,
A bag of bones wrapped up in skin,
Now she’s gettin’ a wee double chin
and all from Coulter’s Candy

This is a song that was sung to me as a baby by my Nana and my Mum. Now, I tend to change the last verse to Poor wee Greery because she absolutely loved this song when she was a tiny. It fits her well now, I think.

I had an absolute ball yesterday with my wee bawbees. Although I’m a self-proclaimed loather of the soft play, a new centre has opened up in our home town and I thought it would be a great idea to take Nairn, Erica & Greer once the former two were out of nursery. Off we trotted and I was actually pleasantly surprised – it wasn’t roasting hot, the food was palatable and it was an airy big venue with plenty of staff around. Score!

Alas, these places are built for rambunctious fearless preschoolers rather than somewhat shy toddlers and so Greer didn’t feel too safe marching off herself. What this meant was that *hand to brow* I had to sacrifice my coffee-drinking heat-reading “Mummy time” to essentially push her by the bum up ladders and down chutes. You know what? I had a braw time. Nairn had made a wee friend so he was off bombing around the place and Erica lives on her own planet most of the time anyway so she occasionally bellowed, “HIYA MUM!” as she zoomed past me.

It was a very interesting period of observance for me. Watching the kids in a mostly uninhibited manner as they interacted with other kids of the same age meant that I could see where their confidences (and lack of therein) lie. Nairn was quite happy to play himself until someone else engaged him. Erica was playing with pretty much every child in the place with no exclusivity. Greer just wanted to climb up the chute to the annoyance of the queue at the top.

Anyway. As I’ve mentioned here before, my kids have a habit of turning into puce-coloured sweat beasts at these kind of places so I went to get them a drink. Big mistake. Huge. Colossal. The cafe area is nowhere near the softplay area in this joint so I was outwith the kids’ eyelines and I genuinely didn’t for a minute think it would make a difference to them. Standing in the queue at the cafe I heard this:

“Eh, could the parent of the wee ginger – well, we’re no’ sure if it’s a boy or a girl – come and get it from reception where it’s crying?”

Poor G! She had on green & pink trousers as well, my God. She was probably crying because this guy had lifted her and taken her away from the chute!

All’s well that ends well though. The kids had a brilliant time, I got to reconnect a little with Mummy tasks – which I haven’t really been doing lately – and they were so exhausted that they all spend late afternoon like this.

At 9.30pm last night, the police turned up at my home to tell me that this story about a man dying in a house fire was my father.

We had a very strange relationship given that he gave me up for adoption when I was a baby and we didn’t get back in touch until I was an adult, but as I am his only child it has fallen to me to take care of everything now. The whole situation is so desperately sad and his death is just a horrible tragedy.

I don’t really know what else to say.

My Nana’s funeral was on Friday and as emotionally charged as it would have been anyway, my lovely sister Stephanie – at 15 days overdue – went into labour before the funeral. She sat through the funeral having contractions, came back to the social function celebrating Nana’s life and eventually took herself off to hospital. Nana’s funeral was at 11am. Baby Blake was born at 10.07pm.

With his Mummy

With his Daddy

and with his favourite Auntie Vonnie

Blake’s arrival has been an intensely emotional experience and I didn’t even give birth to him! To have picked that day to be born, it feels almost divine. Almost as if someone had a hand in it?

Welcome to the world, baby Blake. You have no idea how much we needed to meet you.

I wanted this post to be about the gorgeous sweater I’ve just finished for Greer, but I have to preface it with the devastating news that my gorgeous, funny, delightfully acerbic and inspirational Nana passed away peacefully in her sleep earlier this week. Without her, I would be a completely different personality and the shop would never have come into existence. I am not sure that I can find the words to do her justice but suffice to say that she was a magnificent woman who overcame many adversities to raise a happy, healthy family and live a good life. I am going to miss her so very much.

What I can do is to continue to exercise the skills she taught me and to pass them on to my own children, so in every stitch I knit I know that she will still be with me.

I finally finished this sweater using the Owlet pattern by Kate Davies (Ravelry pattern link here), knitting with Rowan Pure Aran in Cedar. My Ravelry page for it is here.

I have to say that although I like the way this sweater looks, I’m really not keen on the fit. This is a clingy, tight sweater and even though I lengthened the arms and body significantly I don’t feel that the style is one that suits Greer. I prefer sweaters to be quite loose and baggy so I think when I knit this for Erica, I’ll go up 2-3 sizes and simply shorten the arms & body. That said, Greer loves this sweater and I barely had it off the needles before she demanded it on and promptly fell asleep in it. A great compliment, I think. If and when I get it back off her, I may apply the buttons as eyes but I think I like it as it is. What do you think?

I stare at this face (when he’s oblivious) at any given opportunity. It’s like watching a butterfly emerge from a chrysalis, all of a sudden I can see my adult son where a baby was oh so very recently. How did this happen? How is it possible that my tiny small son is so big that he can’t quite fit around my body – in that way that only toddlers can – for a hug anymore?

I tend to think of my kids in stages that I can remember. I think of Nairn as the 4 year old me, having a birthday party at home in our new house. I think of Erica as the 3 year old me on holiday in Newcastle, on a fairground ride with my Mum where her red shoes fell from her feet to the ground as we squealed in excitement and fear. I think of Findlay and remember my excitement at reaching my first decade. I remember going to boarding school when I was only months older than he is now. I think of my own social awkwardness which I feel has never really gone away and I worry about the same in him.

I shouldn’t worry though, should I? Findlay is a very sociable and friendly boy with a multitude of testosterone-fuelled excitable and adventurous pals who tumble to my front door like puppies. And when this door-chapping stopped, that was when I had to make the hardest decision I’ve been presented with in terms of my child’s long term happiness.

In August when we got the shop, I couldn’t see how Findlay could stay at his school. I couldn’t visualise us opening the shop – 20 miles away – at 9am when I anticipated both Bob and I to be at the shop. With this in mind and knowing that Findlay’s school was suffering from a lack of funding as well as potential closure, I moved Findlay to a new school.

New School is in a very affluent area of the city and I foresaw a thriving, bustling, multicultural environment where the arts & sport were celebrated and where my child would grow long hair and new friendships. It didn’t quite work like that and at Findlay’s parents evening I was dismayed to be told that my exceedingly smart bookworm child wasn’t up here *waves hands at head height* and wasn’t down here *waves hands at waist height*, but that he was settling fine here *waves hands at chest height*. My stomach lurched. Findlay has always performed near the top of his class and that’s not a boast – I don’t expect him to be the cleverest child in the world and GOD KNOWS when I was his age I loathed school and barely made an effort. But to have such a drastic leap down the way really worried me and that, coupled with reading a comparison between Glasgow schools and Lanarkshire schools league tables made me think.

I have made a huge mistake.

It was quite a relief, then when he decided two weeks ago that he wanted to return to his old school. He presented a reasoned, well-considered argument which I could find no fault with and I presented the same argument to his Dad. Then, we approached his old school who agreed to have him back.

So this week, the puppies have been back at the door and Findlay is a much happier camper. He has a lot of work to catch up on since his new school had been working on the topic he covered last year and thus the topic he’s doing now is one he is completely unfamiliar with, but he is happy. I’m happy he’s happy.

Thanks ever so much for all the messages of support about my Nana. She has made a full-circle recovery and while she is still very ill, the imminent danger has passed.
The Johnson’s giveaway is now closed and I will blog about the winners tomorrow.
The Vosene giveaway is still open.