Laundry Fairies on a November Day

I think the curse has been lifted. That I was actually able to break the spell and, oh my gods, I am even enjoying November right now.



Being in the dark at 4 pm isn't so heavy now that we decorated all those lanterns, and lit all those candles in the kitchen.

I always have a mug of some hot drink by my side, while I'm knitting, sewing, blogging, etc... Often is 35% creme in hot water with a tablespoon of cocoa. Is there a name for that?

It's also my duty to start the wood fire in the morning. Love the 8 minutes of quietness in the basement by myself (and the spiders).

And I can now plan and start making winter solstice gift without being too much of a freak.



Mariann now understands the concept of cutting along a line. She did all the house by herself, again using lots of glue. She loves glue. With passion.

She now recognize her name, the syllable ma, and Papa taught her to read maman (mommy). There's a lot of motels on our way to the city, and passing by everyone of them she'll say "M like Mariann!!".

We got friends over today. We did some muffins and played and it's always fun to have them in our house. But Mariann skipped her nap, resulting of a horrid mealtime when Papa arrived. Really. She was so upset she felt asleep in my arms right about when the pasta were ready.

She's been pushing our limits lately and I've let Papa instore the "1,2,3...corner" thing. I don't like it one bit, but it works and saved me from going nuts many times. Now whenever she hits her brother or steal a toy from him, I just have to look at her and she goes in the spot on her own. She waits until I say okay, then she goes kissing her brother and saying she's sorry, without me asking. I usually don't leave her there for the whole 3 minutes, just the time Merrick has changed his mind.

When she yells and cries sitting in the corner, we know it's more likely not to calm her down, that she has a spill-over and will need us to ground herself. This might looks like spoiling, but I better like calming her in my arms then leaving her there alone with feelings that are frightening and hard to manage.

Same thing happens to Merrick is we miss the window time where he easily falls asleep. He gets so energetic, but also very grumpy. When this happens, when I try to breastfeed him but he's more interested by the door, Papa comes with us and lay down, sandwiching Merrick, and it really calms him down, and get him asleep in matter of minutes. But this is easily considered spoilage..."Why down you have a crib?? It would be much easier". Well, with did the crib thing with Mariann. It. Was. Not. Easier. And now, we have deep regrets that we did. But we didn't know better, and were told it was the thing to do. Never again.

We're constantly looking at ourselves, at what we do, how we raise our children, constantly asking ourselves if we do it right. I'm getting confident that indeed, we found the right path for us. It was right before our eyes.