Oh my my, but there are so many parenting traps I didn’t anticipate! So many potential things to do ‘wrong’, ways to mess up your kid without even noticing, layers and layers of judgement about your parenting style if you buy into that (I do not). But if there’s one thing I’m certain I do well as a parent, it’s be a family. Let me explain… (more…)
I wrote this last night and then got interrupted by Arty refusing to go to sleep… The rest still holds true, though!
And then today, my kids were unbelievably cute. Both of them, all day. (more…)
We’ve been in the trenches lately. It’s been a tough two weeks of not enough sleep, two clingy kids (teething, sickness and developmental leaps) and intense work pressure. Life has been hard.
But then… (more…)
Ella is cutting a tooth, so we woke up a lot last night. I’m pretty tired and a little fuzzy, but I’m also in the midst of a huge work project, so as soon as I dropped Arty at school I knuckled down to work. And then…
A few weeks ago, we went on our annual pilgrimage to Durban: two weeks in midwinter to my hometown that never experiences winter. It was beautiful! Warm! Balmy! The ocean was like bathwater, even on a supposedly ‘cold’ day…
I’ve been listening to TED talks in the car lately – what an amazing way to make driving a pleasure – and found this one the other day. It’s by the lead singer of OK Go, the band who are famous for having the best, most surprising videos. He’s talking about where they come up with the ideas and the answer is – most of the time – by playing! What fun. Also: How to find a wonderful idea may be the best title for a talk ever.
Oh, the internet! You funny beast. Look what you turned up today, that I had completely forgotten about – a trio of interviews that I thought were helpful and even maybe a little bit inspiring…
I know most people wouldn’t describe their day jobs as beautiful, but I really think there’s something rather wonderful about content strategy. This may be because there’s nothing that saddens me more than people speaking in tongues and pretending it’s English – you know, paragraphs and paragraphs of marketing speak that you can’t actually understand no matter how slowly you read it. Similarly, it is a rare and precious joy to read a website or blog or get an email that sounds like a human has written it.
It’s been an exhausting week. Ella has had German measles and fluid trapped behind her ear – a double whammy, as the doctor said – so she’s been super grumpy and not sleeping well. Poor poppet. I am not used to a grumpy baby! I feel like the whole week has been a single note plucked on a guitar: ‘sick baby, sick baby, sick baby’. Alternated with ‘I’m so tired, I’m so tired, I’m so tired.’ But aren’t we all walking around with a recurring thought on repeat?
I’ve just finished the most remarkable book, and read a beautiful essay, and a lovely blog post. And they’re all saying the same thing: let’s find joy in the everyday. Because really, what’s the other option? Hanging on for a big break, or something epic to happen, or a holiday? No thanks!