what a difference a year makes

I took a long, unintended sabbatical from writing and blogging.

Life, as it does, got much too far ahead of me. Funny, thing, though - as I think back, I have trouble remembering what went on that had me so busy.

Raising, playing with, making a home for and loving my kids has been the most time-consuming and draining-yet-gratifying thing I have been doing lately. Rigby, my smart and charming daughter, is now THREE and Sebastian, my clever and curious son, is FIVE (and a half!). No longer tiny and incoherent, my children are now incredibly engaging and self-sufficient.

I suppose the other thing that kept me busy was preparing to move from Vancouver, BC to London, England. Kind-of a big deal. The process was all kids of difficult and uncertain - Andrew (aka, my husband), had been working on the Vancouver 2010 Olympic games and was offered a short-term position here in London, in essence to see if he and his team would come over semi-permanently or be replaced by locals. The decision was not made until very late - so I spent a lot of time packing, unpacking, repacking, wondering, wishing, hoping and missing Andrew. We also moved to the basement suite of our rental house to save some money.

When we finally got here, our expectations were a wee bit overblown. Andrew had not been parenting for nearly six months and I had gotten into some unfortunate habits being alone with the kids (like screaming at the top of my lungs). So, we adults had/have some serious learning and re-learning to do. The kids were also so excited to move here, and the reality of living in a  flat (no yard), in a new city (no friends), during the winter (no sun) has taken a toll. One month and a bit in, however, and some of our original excitement is returning.

We are incredibly lucky to know another home-learning family nearby and to have other wonderful adult friends a short walk away.

On the subject of home-learning, I am still on the fence a little - I have not sent either child to preschool and we have subscribed to to idea of unstructured, child-led learning. If you look at my children and their various interests and skills, this is obviously something that works for us. BUT - here's where I sit on the fence, school could be a great place to make friends AND would give me some child-free time.

We will see.