Home. Though it won’t be for much longer. It’s bittersweet, because we have some wonderful relationships here, and yet, I met an old friend who asked about it today and I heard myself saying, I am so ready for the change. I am ready to give my kids a new start, and ready for new adventures, new spaces to explore, and new memories to be made.

Home after a day trip away. Home to boxes, home to play, home to our safe space of blankets and cuddles, and rest.

We said goodbye to H who drove back to work for the week, and I took the kids to the park; with promises of a stop of the pub for chips and some time at the playpark in the pub garden. Unfortunately, the garden area was shut for renovations and so I had the uncomfortable experience of breaking my promise to the kids – who didn’t want chips if they couldn’t slide and climb too – and consoling K, who’s just over 2 and a half years old now, and very vocal when he feels upset or let down. It wasn’t fun. Though heading back to the smaller park and getting snacks helped, it brought up conversations about being disappointed, feeling like things aren’t fair, and not understanding why we can’t always do what we want. Life lessons from a failed pub park outing… entirely unintentional but serving a purpose nonetheless.

Promises and kids are such an interesting topic. Bluey covers it so well in the promises episode, and though there’s lots of comedy, it really has struck a cord with my kids so when we talk about promises, they bring it up. That said, today was a bit different, because, bar K who was just upset, the older 2 understood that it wasn’t me breaking a promise on purpose, and that actually, it was a situation out of my control. A said to K afterwards, “I am sad too, I wanted to play there, but we can go another day” … and of course, coming from his sister, K understood that better than my attempts to explain or empathise with him. Kids do just get it don’t they?

P mostly just reverted into his game world, and the rest of the day went relatively smoothly actually, other than the increasingly late bedtime they have got comfortable with, that leaves me typing at 8 minutes to midnight! I don’t mind though, later bedtime means later waking, and I find they sleep more deeply like that, so though it isn’t always possible, I find it quite ideal. I’ll get up and have a while to myself in the morning, and my days always go better when I manage that! P is still up, watching The Green Planet as his way of calming to sleep. We haven’t had a lot of cuddles today because he’s been in his head playing contently, and though I don’t often just leave him to it entirely, today he’s given me the impression that he wanted some space. Tomorrow I’ll check back in a little deeper, and make sure we can do something together for a short while.

There’s often a kind of guilt surrounding that, when I leave him to play or don’t actively seek out time together; because I know I am stretched on time, and adding baby dragon will stretch us even further. Yet, the guilt has changed this past year… there is more grace and acceptance now. Perhaps as he’s got older, I feel more connected to him when we do play, and I adore listening to him tell me about things he knows to build his confidence. This morning he told me lots about Mount Kilimanjaro, after asking me to google what the word actually means. He has become fascinated with words recently, so I am curious to see where this leads. Either way, it was fun, and though we haven’t had lots of physical cuddly connection, we have had some. That’s enough today. I remind myself that what will be will be; and as I do, I look at my tattoo and think about how I didn’t realise just how powerful it would be when I chose it.

Anyway, for tonight that’s my snapshot of life. I have some plans to share intentions and dreams, and my birthing plan in the coming days; but I won’t make any promises, because if I learned anything today, it’s that sometimes things aren’t in my control.

I’ll see you tomorrow,

With love,

R x