July 11

Everything has completely shifted and Nixie is finally settled. It’s 19:00 and she’s peacefully asleep and i have some time to write. We’ve had a great morning, got up7:00 & she woke up in such a good mood, there were no tears, I was even able to make coffee! Last time we were here I enjoyed walking into town to the bakery in Brockenhurst for breakfast and to get a latte but this time i’m not in the mood at all, I just want to take it easy and slow. I’m feeling a strong aversion of going anywhere near a place with cars and people!

She rode in the backpack while I walked us to a place in the woods away from the hustle and bustle of the campsite and she was completely happy with the arrangement. Once she got out she immediately started exploring our surroundings and wanting to walk holding my hand, she's especially drawn to the giant ferns at the moment, loving to run through them, they are so big though and once she’s in them you can barely see her! I had found the most beautiful tree that was covered in moss which created the perfect place for me to sit while she nursed. Whenever we nurse in the woods it feels so magical our connection feels so deep, and she was completely at ease. Afterwards we collected some more moss for our collection and she really gets into it, taking the job very seriously inspecting each piece of moss and choosing just the right one to put in our treasure bag that i had brought with us.  

We continued to explore. The forest was pretty wet, still damp from the morning dew and as we were making our way through some more ferns we came across a little frog!! It was so incredible to see her face of pure excitement and joy at seeing her first real life frog, she recognized it as a frog from her book & after a while of me holding it (she didn’t want to get too close to it) she pointed to a direction and said ‘There! Frog Free!’ it was the sweetest thing so I put it down on a log and it hopped away and as i did so the excitement in her voice with the best grin to accompany it, as she shouted ’Yay! Yay!!!’ made my heart go all kinds of mushy.

I had a moment when we were out in the woods where  my whole body became infused with the most incredible energy and i felt so  happy and fulfilled, a feeling that everything in my life previously had brought me into this one moment where everything made sense and i felt such an intense overflowing love for everything. I cherish these times with Nixie in the woods, the woods bring her into such a state of peace, where I can see that she becomes so vibrant and alive. She's such a little explorer & she's getting really good at balancing on logs, really learning about her own boundaries and limits, it’s amazing to see, I never stop her, I always allow her to explore and push herself because I believe that she needs to figure out her own limits that it’s a part of her learning to trust herself. But of course if I feel something is too dangerous i’ll step in but that doesn’t happen very often.  We had come across this fallen tree that was the perfect thickness and height for her to really be able to climb on without me feeling worried about anything at all and on this tree were these little black bubbly knobby things (i’m sure there’s a proper name for it but i don’t know what it is) and she was so determined to get to them even though they were a bit out of her reach but i watched her find her footing and slowly make her way forward until a branch got in her way and that was when she asked for my help. I helped her sit down in a place where she could reach them and she spent the next 20 minutes studying them and picking them, she called them her “bubble treasure”.

After a while we had some snacks and then she wanted to go back into the backpack for the walk back, I could feel that she was getting ready to have a nap and once back we snuggled in bed under the blankets and read her animal encyclopedia, nursed some more, then she wanted some other food and then back to some more reading and then just like that she fell asleep.

it has been raining on and off all day but only little showers and in this type of weather the woods are the best place to be because it provides so much shelter. But after she awoke from her nap the sky had turned dark and the sky was no longer giving us little showers but instead full on heavy buckets of rain and she had no desire to go outside whatsoever. A part of me wanted to make her go outside because i thought it could have been a fun adventure but she was adamant on not wanting anything to do with it so we just stayed in the tent for the rest of the day but it ended up being so perfect, she was happy, i was happy, the time somehow went by so fast. The rain seemed to relax her and she just wanted to cuddle and lay in bed snuggled up with her book and listening to the pitter patter of the rain hitting the tent. We just really enjoyed being together and sharing so much laughter, i think an afternoon in was exactly what we needed. It’s like night and day from a couple of days ago!!