I feel such bliss right now and feel completely enveloped in the most beautiful love. It's 19:00 and Nixie has just fallen asleep and I'm right beside her enjoying listening to her sweet little breath, and I can't help but think how since having a child how the littlest of things can bring me such comfort and bliss.

My day didn't start so good though, I was feeling incredibly tired and drained, I had wanted to go on a hike but just didn't have the energy to carry Nixie and deal with everything that a hike would entail. Times like these are when I really wish I had my driver’s license because then we could easily head out somewhere without it being such a big task! But that's already in the process of getting sorted, just need to be patient. I think our adventure from the other day really zapped my energy and the fact that I haven't been getting that much sleep for a while now plus it's also that time of the month and it's all catching up with me!

But it's incredible how the universe provides exactly what you need when you need it. I woke up to a message from my dear friend Elina, saying they (her & her kids Rad age 8 & Levana age 1) were around if we were free and that if we wanted to go somewhere she'd drive and come get us.The timing couldn't have been more perfect!

And it motivated me to get dressed and run some errands in town beforehand which felt like such an achievement! Ha! When I was pregnant I used to always roll my eyes a little at people when they'd go on and on about never sleeping again and how tired I was going to become but now I see differently, I know exactly what they meant! I've never known tiredness in the same way before Nixie came into our lives, it's a continuous cycle of losing sleep then trying to catch up to then feeling incredibly energized and feeling like you can do a million things at once with absolute ease to once again lose sleep & try to catch up again and again the cycle never seems to end! But I am getting better at dealing with it.

Anyways they picked us up at 13:00 and we headed towards rhinefield ornamental drive and parked at Blackwater and spent our time exploring the area around there. whenever I’m feeling a bit out of sorts I always seem to choose this area, the trees around here are just so magnificent and it always feels like you are entering a magical land. The first time me and Kevin ever drove through this area I just burst into tears, it was that beautiful to me. We had such a great few hours.  There's nothing I love more than catch ups in the woods with incredible soul-lifting-full-of-love friends while watching your children play together. Me and Elina met just this past spring at a forest school and funnily I knew we were gonna end up being friends when we first met. She's an incredible mama and I just adore her family. Her kids are wonderful to be around and Nixie loves to smother her youngest Levana with lots of hugs and kisses and if Rad would let her I think she'd do the same to him, ha! Being out in the sunny crisp autumn air felt so refreshing and so rejuvenating and with each breath I felt my peace returning.

 

 

There's something amazing that happens when younger children get to hang out with older children. I saw that so clearly today watching Nixie and Rad. First of all she was so happy to have him around, you could see it in her face in the way she looked at him. He was always on the lookout to find the best trees to climb and it made Nixie want to do the exact same thing. You could see her thinking “if he can do it so can I!” She's always climbed things but the way she was doing it today was on a different level, she watched him intently, and then mimicked his moves and began to test and challenge herself more than she had ever done, she was so confident, really pushing her limits and paying such attention to where she placed her hands and feet, she seemed so in control, in a way I hadn't seen before. Being around someone older but still a kid really inspires her to push herself, it inspires growth and expansion. I stood back and let her do her thing but there were moments when I really wanted to get her to stop, I had brief visions of her falling back and breaking her skull! Aahh! You know, those crazy mom fears that can creep in from time to time sometimes it can feel like you're really needing to engage willpower to not act on them!

Being out in the woods offer so many life lessons and today Nixie learned a little bit about death for the first time. It wasn't the first time she's come across a dead animal but it was the first time she's ever really had a reaction and where it really upset her. There was a dead squirrel in the middle of the road and as we were crossing she saw it and wanted to go to it. I tried to discourage her since it was in the middle of the road and not the safest place to be but she was relentless and wouldn't give up so I said OK but only if I carried her. It seemed to take her mind a little while to compute what she was seeing and after a little while she said she wanted to cuddle it. I told her she couldn't that he was no longer alive. Now I don't even know if she knows what that word means but I didn't know what else to say I tried to add phrases such as can no longer breathe & won't get up again. I carried her back in the woods to catch up with our friends but she just broke down in tears, and all she wanted to do was go back to the squirrel, she was inconsolable, she just kept saying she was sad and that she missed him and wanted to cuddle him and I just tried to comfort her as best I could allowing her to feel whatever she was feeling but I felt at a bit of a loss for words. I felt so sad for her. But in the life of a two year old nothing seems to ever last too long and soon she was off climbing more trees with Rad and then it was time to return home.

Nixie was in such a good place when we got home. We had dinner and I asked her if she had a good day and she said “Yeah-eah! good day!” It's the first time she's properly said, ‘good day’ & it felt like such an amazing moment. Once finished eating she pulled me upstairs with shoelaces and we had a bath together. She loves bathtime with me now that we started taking baths together again, she was being  so sweet and affectionate. We played a little game where she'd lie on my chest and I would move up and down in the water creating big waves and she loved it, each time she would just burst into laughter. We were so in sync, in our love bubble, completely connected and present and seeing each other completely and utterly, it felt like such a relief after a couple of challenging weeks,  with lots of ups and downs and with periods of not feeling very in sync with each other. Everything just felt good again.

After our bath it was time for bed and as soon as she's under the covers I always say, “now is the time for us to be able to relax all our muscles, to let go and rest, a time when our bodies become filled with love and re-energized” and she really responds to this and relaxes. At one point in time bedtime was a struggle and it dawned on me that it was because I was treating bedtime as something that happened to her rather than it being something amazing and something to look forward to. And tonight I was saying to her that, “the moon loves us, the stars love us, the trees love us, the sky loves us, the leaves love us, the dirt, the grass, the animals, the universe and the earth loves us” and suddenly she just blurted out, “the moon” as if in deep thought  and I asked her, “do you think the moon loves us?” And she said, “yeah!” in a very bold voice and then added, “earth wuvs us,” it was the sweetest thing, she had never said that before either. And then we cuddled until she fell asleep.

I feel like I've gone through an incredible shift today. Nixie really is my spiritual guide, somehow she always keeps me in check and she inspires me to continue to grow and to become the best version of myself that I can be.