Mad March Hair

Our dining room is one of my favourite rooms in the house.  It overlooks the garden at the back and the Crettel design windows and door open out onto a paved area in front of the lawn. Since being here we have changed the windows and the door to double glazed units which making the room feel warmer and more secure. The old windows and door were very draughty and required quite a bit of maintenance.  They have the same style though, And we were determined that the room should keep it's elegant feel and proportions, the door has a very simple white strip pattern detail that has art deco echoes.

We viewed the house virtually a year  ago now (already) and George the old man who had previously lived here must have loved this room too.  He had an armchair facing the garden and his radio and speakers were set up in the windows,  I like to imagine him sitting having a cup of tea and listening to radio 4 whilst watching the blackbirds and squirrels in the garden. He was 96 and had lived here for years on his own having lost his wife 20 years prior. They had no children.  It was George's niece and husband who sold us the house. They were a nice couple, they had their gardener tend to the garden while it was on the market and right up until we exchanged contracts. I was sorry not to meet them as only Mark met them when he went to meet them with his father at the house one time. The house was pretty much set back in time with Axminster carpets in each room.  A rather dark red patterned carpet in the dining room with a thick dusty underlay got ripped out a few weeks after we moved in, revealing a dark oak boarded floor.

The Retro Axminster carpet that encompassed most of the floor of the house.

Being pregnant when we moved in, the carpets harboured so much dust that I couldn't wait to see them go.  The flowery carpet in the living room ran through the entrance hall and up the stairs to the top landing. Together with a thick underlay it was heaven for dust mites but hell unfortunately for us and me my allergies.  So we (or rather Mark) ripped up all the carpets room by room revealing oak and pine wooden flooring. All the carpets went to the tip apart from one gem that we kept from what is to be Tallulah's nursery. We think it is an authentic 1930's carpet that was the stairwell runner and had been stitched together. We aim to clean it up and restore it as a stairwell runner.

The gorgeous 1930's carpet in what will be the nursery.

Spring it feels has arrived.  The days gallop by in a blur of play groups, coffee and fighting tiredness even more so in the last couple of weeks.  Tallulah has been waking more frequently at night, Sebas went through the same phase at this age, it's soo tiring. Sleep regression, very common when breast feeding, they become more alert during the day and don't concentrate so much on feeds so they want more at night. I googled mumsnet to help get some sanity on the situation as it could drive me mad some nights when all I want to do is sleep. There were threads and threads of comments of women in the same boat with their little ones. Reading mumsnet, it appears everything is in code, I went to look at the acronyms and was particularly tickled with some of them especially SWI - Shagging with Intent (trying to conceive), NAK - Nursing at Keyboard ( which a lot of us do), JFGI - Just F**king Google It, LTB - Leave The Bastard, ODFOD - Oh Do F**k Off Dear (the Dear on the end tickled me) MMTI - Makes My Teeth Itch and PITA - Pain In The Arse. We are very lucky in this generation  to have everything at our fingertips. It was a different story for our mothers back in the 1970s.  It can be quite isolating and lonely when it's just you and your bab(ies).

 It reminds me of last Winter on the cusp of Spring, Sebas was going to sleep at a reasonable hour for a change so Mark and I got into viewing some boxsets. We tucked in Sex and the City, which say no more every girl loves and my other half was happy to go along with it as a lot of men do. It was the episode when Miranda first becomes a mum and is struggling with soothing her little one. She bumps into a neighbour who is rather cold with her, but the neighbour sees her struggling and lends her a vibrating chair which works wonders in soothing the little guy. They come to an understanding and the neighbour makes a comment "none of your girlfriends have babies do they? So basically you're f**ked". Never a truer statement though. Unless you know others who have "been there" noone else really has a clue unless they've experienced too.  Unless you have a friend or know someone else you can talk who has a baby then you are very much on your own. It's hard work at the best of times but when you don't have someone giving you little tips or suggestions then it's even harder, but then again maybe some don't know what they're missing..

I've managed to find somewhere to take the little ones every week day morning to get us out of the house and let the worker work in peace if at all possible... Most days we manage to get out at a reasonable hour and get to the required play group/church hall so Sebastian can get stuck into his favourite car and yellow hard hat. Both their personalities are really coming out now, and despite Sebastian being boisterous, they really do love each other. They really capture my heart and mind as I watch them grow and unfold before my eyes.
Today on a sunny Sunday, after a spontaneous visit from friends and once he had woken fresh from his nap we took him to the park.  He didn't play on anything but found the greatest delight from racing around, about under and to the side of all the different climbing frames, slide and seesaw, chasing his shadow. So simple and yet he had the greatest fun and we had the greatest fun with him, hysterical giggles as we took it in turns to run and chase with him …

I finally cut Sebas' hair this month too. It had to be done. One night in the bath I seized my moment and took off a good 3 inches and he looks better for it.  It felt like the little baby was properly gone and the little boy had properly arrived.  Of course I've kept the hair and the curls I cut, it may not ever be that baby blond again or have that innocent curl so I'll keep a lock of it to go in my locket.
I finally got my hair cut too. It made me wonder about hair and how intuitive it can make us feel.  Can we really lose a sense of perception or strength by cutting our hair, a myth of course from biblical Samson references, but does that have undertones of truth about it?

I did find an article about American indians and why they kept their hair long, basically because they could sense their enemy coming up behind them to attack them. It gave them a sixth sense of intuition and perception so maybe there is some weight in it...?