Abi Smissen - Gold Coast Doula

I’m returning to our play space series with another room in our little house, the kitchen. The kitchen is actually my favourite room in the house, it gets so much light during the day, there’s actually room for everything we need and its the nicest rental kitchen we have certainly ever had. Saying this, I felt like it was fairly difficult to make child-friendly. We don’t have room (or money) for a learning tower, nor much space for child-accessible areas, but it’s surprised me just how much we could do when I shifted my thinking and worked on it a little…

Montessori, Play Spaces, WaldorfAbi Smissen25 January 2019home, gentle parenting, montessori, waldorf, child-led learning, yes spaces, play spacesComment

Celebrating the lunar eclipse.

On the 20th - 21st January - next week - the Earth will pass between the Sun and the Moon, blocking it’s reflections on the moon and causing a total lunar eclipse. As it does so, it will slowly turn to an orange-y red, a sight to behold, and what’s sometimes called a Blood Moon. Not only that but traditionally January’s full moon is called a “Wolf Moon”, which means this moon is being called a Super Blood Wolf Moon, such an exciting name to share with your little ones!

Honesty and transparency.

I found going back to work hard. Grappling with the idea that things weren’t going to be quite as imagined, pregnant delusions of just being at home with my daughter, getting by and budgeting weren’t going to cut it. So, I packed up Eilish and me in the car, a box full of baby led weaning for an entire two days, and went back to work.

Power to the Mother: Huma Qureshi

Power to the Mother is a series of interviews on the transformative and empowering experience of motherhood.

We welcome Power to the Mother into 2019 with an interview with Huma Qureshi, author, writer at Our Story Time, journalist, and mother to three. I love reading Huma’s weekly long reads, they speak of simple living and motherhood in the most beautiful ways. Her ability to get to the heart of divisive issues in the most simple and generous ways in nothing short of wonderful. Speaking here about the creativity within pregnancy and motherhood, and raising children with honesty and truth at heart, I hope you enjoy the beauty in Huma’s answers as much as I did.

Power to the MotherAbi Smissen10 January 2019power to the mother, birth experiences, birth, mindful parents, gentle parentingComment

Spaces for a one year old: Gifts she's loved.

I thought about sharing this post before Christmas, a mini gift guide of things a one year may like to play with in case you have one in your life. But then I decided that the may in that sentence was actually a little too vague for me. So I decided to wait, and have instead watched Eilish as she played with her newest toys in her collection, until I wrote this, gifts for a sixteen month old that are most definitely played with here anyway.

Waldorf, Play SpacesAbi Smissen6 January 2019gift ideas, home, waldorf, montessoriComment

2018: A year in reflections.

I sit here, last of the festive mince pies being consumed and washed down with a cup of tea in the quiet that can only be found after 10pm at night. Candles are lit, my husband is out for the night and upstairs my daughter slumbers, balled up into the corner of her cot in such a way that is so undeniably her. And to the left of me sits a notebook, brown and unassuming, started at the beginning of December; my hundredth reattempt at journaling (it will stick this time). A few days ago, the day after Boxing Day, I began scribbling notes and memories and words and dreams and ideas. Most of them were the thoughts and feelings that follow me, at the tail end of this year, of 2018. Some of them belong to my brown notebook alone, they are a little too raw even for me, but some, some I thought I would share, simply because it feels good to.

Mental Health, Instinctive ParentingAbi Smissen31 December 2018mindful parentsComment

Power to the Mother: Ashleigh Moir

For the last Power of the Mother interviews of 2018, I’m sharing with you a conversation with Ashleigh Moir. I first met Ashleigh through one of Eloise’s courses, and since then have had a kind of fascination with her. There’s something about her assured presence that seems hard won, and from her outdoor-living philosophy to her amazing support of women, her attitude is always inspiring and I feel lucky to have found her. Here we talk about unexpected motherhood, finding support and - of course - getting all that glorious fresh air.

Why feminism needs to find motherhood; a word on the fourth trimester.

Disempowered. Disempowered after the most empowering and awesomely primal experience one can ever go through. For nine months a body nurtured a living thing, grew it from tiniest seed to human. Small, tiny, perfect human. Then birthed a child - no matter how - birthed a child from their own body. And then. And then?

The fourth trimester, a term first coined in the early 70s, is centered upon the idea that a babies gestation period is actually around 12 months. Its surmised they need this (at least) three month acclimatisation period in order to truly enter the world; ejected from the womb three months too early, in order to thrive babies need nourishment whenever desired, comfort whenever needed and to sleep when tired. They need to acclimatise to this big, scary world they have been thrust into. But truly, if mothers are to meet these needs, they need the same.

Abi Smissen14 December 2018Comment