gifts...

 My daughter is a gift...she made us all pancakes on Saturday morning :-)

 My son Benny is a gift... he can become a robot using only sellotape :-)

 My son Joa is a gift....he's simply Joa :-)

 drawing is a gift... tribes of people

 (made slightly more difficult with completely sellotaped hands)

 of course one has chicken pox

 baking together is a gift....

 of course one has chicken pox

 the gift of finding my nose and his forehead fit like a jigsaw...perfect.

 A gift of 'armadillo gloves' from Rebe for Benny

About a month ago as part of my counselling and 'Laura' journey I wrote this poem...

I have a shield in my chest

solid heavy hammered

into it's thick smooth shape

of pewter or of lead

I found it quite by accident 

last Tuesday

when I was looking for something

else

I don't know where it came from

I think perhaps I borrowed it

or stole it

or even made it myself

I have it to protect me

to stop pain from piercing

only it doesn't work like that

Andy took the kids to the school bazaar today and Rebe picked this out for me and bought it with her pocket money...

 a gift from her

it's as if she knew

The Magic Faraway Tree

Before I start here I just wanted to say a heart felt thank you to all of you! I received so many comments, here, via email and on facebook about my last post. It was incredibly touching and empowering to receive so much support and love and to hear so many stories of similar struggles. Thank you :-)

About a month ago we borrowed Enid Blyton's The Enchanted Wood on CD from the library, and it has grabbed our hearts and imagination  Benny in particular spends his quiet times during the day with a cup of hot squash listening to the adventures of Joe, Beth and Franny and the Faraway Tree. 

We thought that it would be fun to make our own Faraway Tree...

Benny very carefully made ladders and doors using lolly sticks and lashings of PVA glue

With some (aherm) assistance I drew out a tree shape on some poster paper...

 Benny mixed us a gorgeous rich brown colour

 and we painted the trunk (the floor, the radiator, the walls, our socks...)

 A few days later (yes! we managed to keep the picture stuck to the floor, untrodden on for more than a day...I couldn't believe it!) we used potatoes to print on green leaf shapes and we used more glue to stick on some beautiful fallen leaves that we had gather from Andy's garden. We also stuck on Benny's doors and ladder and a squirrel Rebe had made at school.

I have to say it looks wonderful growing there in our kitchen and reminds me of my bedroom when I was a teenager. I had a good half-dozen such painted trees around the walls (although that was influenced by my love of the Where the Wild Things Are)
Finally I want to announce that the winner of the copy of Lucy Pearce's wonderful book Moods of Motherhood is Elizabeth who said:
 Oh Laura this post spoke directly from your heart to mine.
Being a mom changes and molds me in each and every moment of life. For me there is nothing else on this earth that has or will have to incrediable power to do that. Sometimes the constant changing and molding hurts so badly and some times it feels like my first morning stretch so very good.

If you email me your address I will get it sent off to you :-) (laura.whalen@yahoo.ie)

and then all of a sudden he can draw...

One of those brilliant things: yesterday all his drawings were pretty much scribbles and today he was drawing. Real,  recognisable things.

 He's so excited

 and oh so very proud!

 He has discovered Enid Blyton's 'The Enchanted Wood', we borrowed it a couple of weeks ago on audio book from the library and Benny is in love. His drawings today were all about the Enchanted Wood

the Magic Faraway Tree

Silky the Fairy

Joe, Franny and Beth's car

Mother

Franny

Beth and Joe

 Of course Joa is not to be left out of such amazing discoveries...

I am so happy for Benny, he has been much slower finding his abililty to hold a pencil and to draw shapes. Don't get me wrong he has really been enjoying 'the art of scribbling'; the movement on the paper, the change of colour from white to whatever, the quickness, feeling and expression. Round and round, zig zags, long strokes. But to find this control is something new for Benny and I think he likes it :-)

she just oozes creativity

this little girl of mine...

On Thursday morning Rebe awoke wanting to make something. She thought for a while then decided on a teddy. I showed her how to draw a pattern onto paper, explained a little what she would need to do and I gave her a big piece of brown felt that I had inherited from my neighbour and off she went...

 All by herself she made this bear!

 She drew out the pattern and cut out the pieces. She hand stitched every single seam, the face she embroidered with cotton thread. The she stuffed each little piece with sheep's wool. I helped her with the button joints as they require a big long sharp needle, but other than that she made him and is oh so very proud. He is still between names, possibly chocolate button, possibly Joe. I think he is amazing. Rebe is only 7! She joked today that soon she will be able to sew a whole house!

Yesterday we had visitors, the little boy of the family is a very good friend of Rebe's and when she heard he was coming to visit she took herself off quietly to make him a present, and this is what she made...

 A diary. There is a 'T' embroidered in the top left hand corner (the friend's initial)

 Inside a sweet little pad of paper and a pencil in a holder...

And this morning she was still in the crafting groove and asked me to help her make her bear some clothes. Again I helped draw out the patterns and told her what to sew first. She did all the rest apart from the casing for the elastic on the wee trousers which we did on the machine:

He breaks my heart with his sweetness!

 But she is not the only creative one in the house. Do you see that big pile of shoes behind the bear?
Benny made them!

 Yes, he makes shoes, a proper little elf!

 It seems pretty straight forward: you get a wooden sword, slot it into the radiator, turn a nearly finished shoe upside down and pop it on and hammer away for a good while with a wooden saucepan from the play kitchen until it is done...

 Oh what creative little people I live with!

prayer flags and a painting tip

Last night, as I was putting them to bed, the kids asked me if they could paint in the morning. To be completely honest we don't paint very often here because of reasons like this. 

  I talked it over with a friend of mine last night on the phone and she suggested the wonderful idea of a bucket of warm soapy water placed outside and a towel. A place for the kids to go straight away after painting, we called it a 'worst of it off' bucket and it worked brilliantly!  

The kids really enjoyed the painting. I set it up for them before they started (if you have small people you will know that often with painting you haven't even finished setting it up and they have already painted 8 pictures, their hands, face and tummy, the walls, chairs, table and on their way to the bathroom walked paint all through the house)

I also gave Joa his own paint and water and brushes, keeping him away from the older kids' stuff so that they could keep their colours a little less like this:

One small thing I omitted to note was that we had, in fact, completely run out of paper. But what a happy accident that was. I tore up an old bed sheet that I had gotten for Rebe to embroider on and we used that instead.

 The paintings turned out beautifully! The fabric took the paint much better than paper does, the colours smeared less and yet were strong and vibrant.

 In fact the more we painted the more they reminded me of prayer flags. So that's what we made them in to. I wrote some simple wishes and prayers onto some of the kids paintings and I strung them up onto a line in the breeze.

 I love the idea of this autumn wind blowing our prayers for hope, joy and peace over this beautiful landscape.

Perhaps when you feel the wind on your face you will sense a little bit of friendship blowing on it from Under Rainbows :-)