Photo a day - January

Published on 13th of February 2024

This January has been... different. It should've been great, we had a trip planned for New Year, my brother was expected to visit with his family, Mara and Matteo have their birthdays in January too. It turned out not quite what we planned and expected. The trip to Sila had to be cut short because everyone got ill, which turned out to be Covid, which as a consequence affected also Mara's birthday and made the time with my brother and his family a bit less fun too. On the other hand, it felt like my body and my mind needed this slow time after busy and stressful December, there was a lot to reflect about, a lot of rest and quiet. It's ironic that Covid became the answer to this, oh well.

The January photos reflect this slow time too - we stayed at home or visited grandma's garden to collect oranges and to play, we baked and built pillow forts, planted bulbs for spring, read books and baked some more. Cookies and muffins are usually what I bake with kids, both easy and not requiring mixer, just spatulas and whisks. Mara is very happy about it, she loves the flour, to touch it, feel it go between her fingers, she's ok to do some stirring too or taste whatever we put in the muffins - chocolate, mashed bananas, some jam or frozen berries. But then she always goes back to playing with the flour. Usually both her and half of our dining room need to be vacuumed after this, there's flour everywhere, but it's fun and I don't mind the follow up cleaning.