I’m mum to two beautiful little boys and home is North Queensland.  In 2021, I was spending most afternoons in our backyard with my son Eddie enduring what is known as Witching Hour – If you know, YOU KNOW. 

It was during these afternoons that I unintentionally wrote my first children’s book – My Mum Wets Her Plants. I say unintentional as the words in my book are almost exactly what I would say to my son as we distracted ourselves from the ‘afternoon crankies’ by tending to our garden.

For many months, it was either through reading books or being outside that helped get us through Witching Hour relatively unscathed. 

SO, after some time – I thought I’d combine these two tactics and create our very own picture book that we could one day read together! I started writing down our garden chats and reached out to local authors and illustrators to learn about the process of creating a book.

Two and half years later these backyard chats were published into what is the first of hopefully many; Birchy’s Books.

And yes! We read our book together just like I imagined back in 2021. It is such a wonderful feeling to be able to do this and have my son reading along with me. I now love to encourage the people I meet who tell me ‘I’ve always wanted to publish a book’ to follow through on their ideas – one step at a time, you can do it, too!

Witching Hour and sleep deprivation during that first year of motherhood was challenging for me – particularly because, as a nurse who had worked night shifts – I THOUGHT I knew what it was to be tired (hahahaha, little did I know).

In the end, though – I’m grateful for those trying afternoons Eddie & I shared in his first year. For without them, I may never have come up with the (not so) crazy idea to turn our backyard chats into a beautiful book that so many families have now also enjoyed reading together.

My Mum Wets Her Plants children’s book – the silver-lining to my sleep deprivation. 

Thanks for being here and I hope you enjoy reading our little book.

Keep an eye out for more children’s picture books and keepsakes to come as I slowly action my ideas for Birchy’s Books in between moments of motherhood.

Courtney