The Mothers in My Blood - Sunday's Share

Women know
The way to rear up children (to be just)
They know a simple, merry, tender knack
Of tying sashes, fitting baby shoes,
And stringing pretty words that make no sense,
And kissing full sense into empty words.
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I am the mother of 4 children. Really 5. I cannot forget that first baby that we lost through miscarriage. 
I am enjoying a day of doing absolutely nothing. No breakfasts, lunches or dinners to make. No housework. No pooey nappies to change. No schoolwork. I'm being very lazy, enjoying the sunshine, and I have a very good husband!

I am not really one to make too much of these celebration days - but today I was thinking about all the mother's in my direct family line who have given birth, fed, raised, loved, corrected, cleaned, educated, cared for, worried over, prayed for, sacrificed for,and hopefully have been ultimately proud of their offspring that have grown from these tiny little souls, in a nurturing home, and have gone out into the world and made their own families and their own tiny little souls to carry on their legacies.

I was thinking that as I have had a bit of an obsession lately for family history, today would be a good day to honour those women who have given so much; who I am like; their sacrifices, their pleasure, their joys, for me to be here in this place today, with these four children that I have - carrying on the age-old traditions, the age-old privilege of motherhood.

 Grandmothers and roses are much the same. Each are God's masterpieces with different names.
-- Author Unknown

A History of the Women in my Life

Emma Fielder - 3 children

Sarah Ann Weavers

Martha Anne Grammer -2 children

Martha Anne Weavers - 7 children

Shona Joyce Brown - 3 children

Eliza Rabbits -2 chldren

Elizabeth Clarke

Tahupare

Wharetutu - 10 children

Elizabeth Ann Newton - 10 children

Isabella Wybrow - 10 children

Thomasina Rosie - 5 children

Eleanor Foley - 2 children

Susan Spencer - 3 children

A little pictorial collection of my mother, grandmothers, and my great and great-great grandmothers.