Rainy day. Clingy toddler. Tired, melancholy Mummy.

I lolled on the bed, camera in hand, toddler romping around the room most of the day. Isn’t she lovely, still?

The shoes are some vintage baby shoes I found a while back, Ivish tries to stuff her chubby little feet into them to no avail.

I could open your door and find you standing there. Just like this.
One year ago.

Today I’m thinking I must just be meant for photographing. How do I know this?
Because, at Too Early O’clock this morning, I stumbled into her room, expecting nothing more than the usual muttering from me and instructions from the bright eyed one to not forget blankie on the way out. Instead, I took one look and knew i had to run and get the camera. With sleepy eyes, I managed to capture her first few moments of the day.

It’s these things that I desperately want to remember when we leave here. “Home” is not enough to call this place we have dwelled for eight years. I couldn’t begin to describe how I feel when I look back, nor when look forward.

So, here she is, totally and utterly scrumptious even with bed hair.

Showing off her beloved blankie..actually I don’t know if it’s actually the tag she’s infatuated with and that the blanket just happens to be attached to it? In any case, blankie goes everywhere – she is my only baby to have ever had a comfort anything so it’s a novelty to us to see her so attached to it! Lets see how I feel when she wants to cart it to school.

I asked her to play peekaboo through the cot so I could get this:

But she kept thinking I meant this:

How cute is this bambi singlet?

A little later, still with her beloved.

Really, I know I’ve exceeded my Ivish quota for the month. I do realise she’s taken pride of place on just about every post in recent times but how can she not? She’s just too cute and still young enough to trick into doing things in front of the camera. I promise come November I have more than enough shoots to push Miss Ivy off her pedestal. For today though, here she is in all her kneesock glory. I have an unashamed obsession for kneesocks. So just add Ivy and I’m smitten.

And a sample of the attitude that seems to be showing itself a little more frequently by the day.

I’m still surrounded by boxes. The man in a van will take them away tomorrow. I have sent a lot of furniture off to auction but had to pull a few things out last minute as the memories were just too hard to part with. Packing has been harder than expected. Every single thing that goes into a box is one less thing I can look at and remember.

So, not wanting to write as bleak as I feel today, I’ll just indulge in the music element of my post . Tracey sent me a beautiful CD for Ava’s birthday and it was included – I was a huge Nick fan back in the day so was thrilled to find him there. Thankyou, sweet girl. Love love love this song.

On any given day, I pull my camera out for a variety of reasons. To capture the happy moments, of course, but also to distract, to de-stress, to just escape my thoughts for five minutes. I have a million billion photos of Ivy and many of them are simply because I wanted to think about nothing but light for a brief moment in time. Here are this weeks moments of escape.

In this one, she’s just spotted some ants and wondered what on Earth they were.
Proofed some old images yesterday – my nephew Bass – the spunky little man that he is..
And here is Ivy and I a few months back, playing in Mason’s room..He took the photos! I know I look tired but I love that we look so happy.