It’s Monday night and we’re on our third day back at Hollands Wood for our second camping trip of the summer. It’s 19:00 & Nixie is already sound asleep and i’m cuddled up next to her, finally having some time to relax and reflect until Kevin gets here from work which should be around 20:15.

The past couple of days have been quite tough, neither of us have felt very peaceful, and we weren’t flowing together whatsoever. There’s nothing i hate more than when we feel disconnected. We were both in a weird place.

Nixie has been on an emotional rollercoaster, there’s been lots of tears, frustrations and big intense emotions but also a lot moments of pure joy in between but she’s definitely not been herself. Her last molars have been coming in and she hasn’t had the happiest belly which i’m sure has been playing a role in her state of being.  She’s been in that place where anything and everything you do is completely the wrong thing and only made her more upset.  And to top it off I wasn’t in the best of places dealing with a persistent headache verging on a migraine that had been with me since fri evening (which has now finally eased off)  which made me feel tired, drained, stressed and not very patient which I know only added more tension between us. It’s been one of those times where i really needed to focus on taking deep breaths so that I wouldn’t react angrily towards her. Days like that for me are the worst and I feel like a horrible mom and become  filled with guilt just for feeling irritated...

Before Nixie came into our lives I detested campsites, and only ever wild camped but I have had a complete change of heart, this place is so great for her even though it comes with its own set of challenges! , it’s like a mini festival without the music. Everyone is kind and sweet and we’ve all had some great human moments, there’s such a great atmosphere, everyone is happy and carefree and it’s really lovely meeting people from all over the place! Although don’t get me wrong, I still love wild camping and can’t wait to do some more of that with Nixie too, but due to our current situation this is the only campsite we can go to where Kevin is still able to commute to work. it would actually probably be a lot easier of an experience to wild camp than a campsite but just because something brings with its challenges doesn’t make it not worth doing!

Since she’s been here there’s been non-stop excitement, the campsite is pretty full so there’s more people here than last time to capture her attention and she’s already made so many new friends, she’s the most social little girl! There’s this one group of older girls who Nixie has been completely besotted with, and they are so incredibly sweet with her always including her in their games and making her their centre of attention. She’s also made friends with a couple of sisters who she loves to run around with and also a group of boys who were playing in the fields, she just somehow gets herself involved in other people's activities, it’s truly impressive, she is super confident. But she’s not yet able to break away when she needs to and gets herself overly giddy and tired, she can get overwhelmed when there's too much going on and she’s the type of person that needs more downtime. And I think that is one of the challenges of being here and which added to the time needed for her to feel settled.

But thankfully Nixie and I have finally found our rhythm and restored connection. It’s been such a long day and it’s taken us a long time to get into a new shared rhythm but finally we’ve found that special space. We started our day with just hanging around our campsite, it’s what Nixie wanted but after a while of her socialising and being in other people’s space and not yet being able to be aware of when she’s overstaying her welcome I needed to put her into the backpack and head out to the woods and she was not happy about it at all, she was so angry with me because all she wanted to do was to continue playing with all of the new people she had just met. At one point she even ran as fast as she could with such intent towards this amazing little vw van and actually took her shoes off and just climbed right in as this couple were busy eating their lunch!! Luckily they were super lovely and entertained her but I had to forcibly take her away and it was after this instance that I realised it was time to change scenery!

I decided to go this one part of the woods that had a tree swing in it last time which she absolutely loved but sadly it was no longer there. I laid out a blanket and we sort of had a picnic, she still didn't seem that interested in being in the woods, but eventually I could feel her begin to shift and we started collecting moss. There was a cow that had made me feel uneasy as we past him so I had taken ourselves away from the area he was in but then while we were sitting down the cow comes rushing towards us! I had to actually chase it off with a stick, me heart hasn’t pounded like that in a long time! And it’s the first time I’ve ever had anything like that happen, not feeling very relaxed in that spot, I packed up our stuff and put her back in the backpack and left the area to head over to one of the cycling paths a bit further away in which you had to go through a gate to get to and she seemed to actually enjoy this little bit of drama because she was giggling away! once we made it to the new area, I let her walk and encouraged her to be expedition leader and finally we were finding our flow, she was letting go and enjoying herself and our surroundings, and all of a sudden I had a realisation that she needs help sometimes to reconnect to nature, she needs help to slow down and create a shift in herself, I bet all the tension I had been feeling the week before also affected her, it's like we've been in a similar reactive state of being and it's up to me to restore balance. We had a beautiful time in the woods, she found an area she really liked and we played there for hours, it was beautiful, we had a nursing session just before and it was really nice, I felt our connection being restored and felt the love surrounding us again. She was in awe of the leaves above us and it was a beautiful moment to see. Oh and a funny thing she did today was put her shoes on the wrong feet, she knew 100% what she was doing but was adamant that was the way she was going to wear them getting super angry when I tried getting her to wear them on the right feet, she was obviously experimenting with something, at one point I tried putting my sandals on the wrong feet and she got so mad at me making me put them back the right way! I would really love to be able to experience what goes on in her mind firsthand!

When we returned to our tent she was happy and content, she allowed me to boil water and get her food ready while she waited in the tent (i hate that she has to be in the tent but it’s the only way i’m able to get anything done without her running off!). After dinner we read her animal encyclopedia and played with one of her puzzles that I brought with us. She's being  the sweetest little girl; I've been getting hugs, cuddles and kisses, and we even snuggled while looking at today's photos, and now she’s peacefully asleep, there were no tears and no stress.