My pre-Christmas time ♥

Hello everyone! Hope you're having a nice pre-Christmas! For as long as I can remember, Christmas time has been a time of sickness, not just for little ones but for us too. This week I have been fighting with all my power against an ear infection and finding it quite difficult to keep focus on my blog. However, today was a better day and I managed to use my birthday voucher (my birthday was back in September!) and was 'escorted' by one of my very good friends to the nail shop. I had a back massage, a foot massage, mani and pedi and even managed to have my eyebrows waxed! Check me out getting some 'me time' again! 

My husband is usually always happy to let me go whenever the opportunity comes but today he was a bit stroppy because "we have so much to do!"... yes, he's right, like all practical men he knows exactly how much needs to be done and how long it will take to do it... Well, needless to say I won!

Dixie also felt very festive today and wanted to go shopping with baubles for earrings. Again, my husband wasn't to keen on the idea...but needless to say she won too!!!

As always, I took pictures of this. I love documenting my children's experiments with the surrounding world. It almost feels like an ongoing collaboration... As with my soon to be featured 'cut out' project, in these images I was very attracted to the 'other subject' - the one that you didn't focus on at first. In this case it's me in the photographs rather than my beautiful Dixie, who has been severely cropped out. 

'The other subject' was an important detail for me. I tend to record my children's life all of the time by taking photos - all their little achievements and creative moments. But this time I can see myself behind the lens. Roles -subject and artist (mother and daughter)are merged within the context of the photos. My memories become hers and her memories become mines.

Now, it's almost 12 o'clock and I am really tired. I'm looking at the pictures I've taken today of my groomed nails and I can't help but thinking 'how long will they last?'... Whilst I was cooking dinner tonight I repeatedly checked them, making sure they still looked pretty and tidy. Tomorrow I will probably already have forgotten and in less than 48 hours I won't even care any more. That's because I know they won't last. The reality is such that I cannot be that careful. I am a full on mother of three who cooks 3 times a day from scratch, I have 2 children in nappies and a 6 year old who's devoted to craft activities. So what are the chances?

This is what my nails look like tonight; Sunday 22nd of December 2013 at 11:46.

I'm planning on keeping a diary to record all the 'accidents' my nails are about to encounter ... Come back in a few days time and find out what happened!

In the mean time Merry Christmas to you all!

Lots of love 

Amy xx

Amy Dignam 2013 ©

Sleeping ♥

Sleeping is a good memory of mine. I think that when I took these photos back in 2005 I'd somehow foreseen into the future. As I come across these today I couldn't help but thinking what a easy life I had back then. I mean, what did I do all day? Yes, I had a job but still. 

At the end of the day instead of coming straight home I would go to the gym or meet Mike or some friends for a drink and then maybe end up going for a meal in some or other restaurant. I would watch movies I planned to and not just random ordinary and dull films that happen to be on telly. 

Life has changed indeed and looking at these pictures 8 years on I can't help but feel they were made to tease me in the future...the future that is happening now. 

If I could say one thing to myself back then would probably be "Sleep Amy, sleep, sleep and then sleep some more!"

Amy Dignam 2005 ©

It's Christmas time ♥

Yes, it is! I must say though that my excitement about Christmas died during the late '90s and early noughties, around the time I decided to leave my country and come to the UK.  My decision, although thoroughly thought out was also based on my survival instinct.

Back then things weren't great for me and I knew I had to do something drastic. My mum was the only person I truly loved and I just wanted to be with her. As paradoxical this might sound, I decided the only way to be able to cope with the things life was throwing at me was to leave her instead. Our hearts broke but we both knew that for life to continue this was a step that needed to be taken.

I have never met anyone as courageous as my mother and you'll often see me writing about her. I sometimes ask myself if I would ever have the courage to let one of my children go as she did with me. 

I was a complicated person but she "got me". As a matter of fact, coming to London saved my life and indeed changed it for the better too - and I only have my mum to thank.

For me Christmas doesn't bring back many childhood memories, in fact only a few come to mind. But the feeling of happiness during my early years definitely emerges and now, after many years of glossing over Christmas, I can finally start enjoying it again...albeit through the eyes of my children.

The build up is by far the best thing about Christmas. The countdown on the various advent calendars scattered around the house, the secret talks between me and my husband Mike about the choice of presents, the shopping, the hiding and the night before when we get going on the wrapping over a glass or two of port. A great deal of preparation and labour goes into my Christmas these days but the happiness always outways the fatigue.

I'm usually late sending my Christmas cards too, but not this year. Not sure what came over me... but today it's only the 12th of December and my cards are in the post box ready to be delivered. This year Dixie designed the card and this is what it looks like:

I also made a little celebratory installation this Christmas.  Too often I get sucked into my own universe thinking about the chaos in my life and forgetting that in the end, my life is not that bad at all. It's not very often I take the opportunity to pause and appreciate it (Although I think I do, I don't!). So this week I got to reflecting upon it.

"Unmade Christmas Tree" is a work made out of clothes belonging to me and my family, randomly layered one at the top of the other to form the shape of a Christmas tree. However uncool and unpopular, I decided to use the Christmas tree shape. It makes sense to me right now as for many, Christmas is indeed a time of reflection and a collective memory. 

In this work I try to create order by placing and balancing the clothes - in the same way as I try to arrange and control my everyday life. One on top of the other, a bit wobbly and precarious, each item supports the next just as we try to do day after day.

This pile of clothes in the shape of a Christmas tree symbolises the passage of time and the mourning (in advance) of my children's passing childhood and my most precious moments. 

Amy Dignam 2013 ©  

Today I washed my hair ♥

Some of you might think 'big deal!'... And you're right! In my life at the moment even finding the time to wash my hair is difficult, and when that moment comes it is indeed a 'big deal'!

I started writing this blog with the intention of collecting and channelling my creativity but as expected, my busy schedule doesn't allow me to post everyday. However, in future I will try harder to regularly publish modest posts amongst the very long, important ones
so as to remain faithful to my original concept of this 'Five a Day' blog.

Today I'm beginning a 'lighthearted' series of posts which will hopefully continue whenever something small but nonetheless relevant occurs.

The images below were taken today. One of my friends came by to baby sit the children for a couple of hours so that I could take care of a few things around the house. I carelessly decided to gloss over all the house work that needed doing and took a long bath instead. I loved it and I needed it! 

'Today I washed my hair' is the first in a series of pictures documenting how simple everyday rituals can become of great significance when you can't do them as often as you used to... and so rewarding when you get them back.

If any of my friends are reading this come and give me a hug tomorrow and get lost in the fragrant smell of my rainforest flowers hair!

Amy Dignam 2013 ©

Daily Bread ♥

After my third child was born I struggled. I never thought I could get postnatal depression. I never really thought of it as a real condition. I know how this must sound; mothers often talk about postnatal depression, but back then it was almost like 'I was listening but not hearing'. The information would become so distorted that by the end I wasn't really sure what to make of it. So for me, everything I understood of postnatal depression came as a 'Chinese whisper'. 

To be perfectly honest, I never read much about it either but, being around so many mothers, I knew of a few who'd had it. Now looking back I never fully realised what they were going through. 

My very first experience of being a mother was all about partying with family and friends and feeling joy and relief at not being dead after giving birth. The immense love I felt for this little baby surpassed everything else. Why would anyone feel down after giving birth to their child? I really couldn't comprehend it.

Even today after having experienced postnatal depression myself, I still don't quite understand what happened. All I know is I was struggling to get to the end of the day. As people would say 'I wasn't coping'. I wasn't coping with the amount of work, the constant attention required of me and the complete annulment of my own self. In the future I will post a few photos taken during my very low days, but today I'm going to share with you the bread work. 

That's how it all started. Angry Eyebrows at breakfast.

I wasn't even trying to make my children eat. It just happened and now I have a collection of different bread emoticons. However, this is the one I feel represented me the most. Don't ask me why I was angry, I wouldn't be able to give you a straightforward answer. I guess that at times I felt like life was unfair and as I struggled through my day I was constantly reminded of it. Angry Eyebrows picture is my personal mental note not to take life too seriously, to relax and just enjoy what comes and goes. 

This is what happened next:

I felt lonely. My husband working so hard and me back home spending the days with 3 little children... As much as you love them and would do anything for them you still need your space! I gave myself such a hard time thinking I was being difficult and should have got a grip. But in retrospect I think that essentially I couldn't accept being human. It was only human to feel the way I felt. I know that now.

These painted slices of bread talk about my frustrations during those days. Many have random words written on them - words that were part of the thoughts polluting my brain. It's difficult to pin point exactly what or when things went wrong. I just opened my eyes one day and there I was, without a choice left facing this illness. I guess that painting my children, and other random things I related to at that time, occupied my mind and somehow liberated it for a short while. Depression is just a stop on the way to acceptance and I think in my case painting bread sat somewhere between point A and point B.

My third child is now 1 year old and all those feelings have somehow gone. Of course I get my down days but I don't feel 'chronic' as I did last year. We still don't know what causes postnatal depression but one thing is sure, so much is expected from us as mothers; from our choice of birth to the way we feed our children, we often start this new journey being made to feel we've already failed. These days so much more is understood of our children and their world that it's difficult for us to tick all the boxes... 

Things could have gone worse but luckily I managed to surface. I knew I was getting better when this work happened, it's called 'Seeing it through'.

© Amy Dignam 2013