About Me
"They were changed for ever, these women - changed by everyday transcendence that had lived through. She saw them stealing glances at their children on the grass or in the hall, rationing their gaze, hoping not to wear away the miracle by too much looking; but she did not mind that her own exultation was not unique; it reassured her to think that anyone might feel as she did."*
I'm Nat, a collector of everyday miracles.
I'm a forty something working mama living in Wellington, New Zealand. My family comes from Gibraltar, and I have lived on several continents.
That officially makes me good at packing a suitcase.
This site used to be called The Maybe Diaries, and began in 2008 as a way to stop me going insane while my ex husband and I were trying (and failing) to start a family.
In 2009 we had our son Alfie, and our daughters Esme in 2011 and Olive in 2013. None of them were born the way I had hoped. None of them were fed in the way I had hoped and there started my real life lesson in what it means to be a parent.
Becoming a mama has been my biggest adventure and mostly that’s what I share on this blog. Part of that adventure is joyous and wondrous, part of the journey is dark and full of struggle; like the time I nearly died from heart failure.
When I started out I was a pretty mainstream, conservative, traditional mama. I was all about the sleep training and the nursery and the whizzy pushchairs.
Then I had a child and nothing felt quite as it should and I spent a long time trying to work out what was wrong with how we were parenting until I heard a lady speak and it changed my whole view of what a parent could be.
And so I took my lifelong compulsion to tilt at windmills and wrote.
There is a whole section of this site dedicated to my views on various parenting topics: I share my own journey in the hope that other parents might read my words and feel less alone if they are having similar crazy thoughts.
That way, we can all be a little crazy together.
Another section of this site talks about how I have nursed my daughters with the help of a Supplemental Nursing System, not because I'm some kind of crazy FEEDALLTHEBABIES type lady but because very few people know what an SNS is, and fewer still have much experience using one. I kinda feel like that gives me a moral responsibility to share what I know.
The rest of the site is given over to sharing the “amusing antics” of my offspring.
Reread that last sentence but this time imagine me doing air quotes with a really sarcastic look on my face; the antics are THAT amusing.
We moved to New Zealand as a family of five in 2013, however as of late 2018 we became a family of 4+1 on any given day. My ex husband and I share care of the children, which is a journey for all of us, and while I may touch on my experiences of this transition, if you're here looking for juicy gossip, I'm afraid you've come to the wrong place.
If you are in to things like attachment parenting, unlearning, baby wearing, co sleeping, and various other shades of crunchiness, stick around, we can swap ideas.
If you're not, stick around anyway.
And if you feel compelled to contact me to voice your concern that I am on my way to weaving my own hemp knickers (and you may have a point) then you can email me at wondrouslyother@gmail.com
If you make hemp knickers and want to advertise with me, you can feel free to email me too!
* Human Traces by Sebastian Faulks