Project 355 week4

Another week, another load of illness chez egg. What can you do eh? Pesky kids. Still cute though (just as well). Poor Bigger has been complaining since Wednesday that he has tonsilitis. Only yesterday did I get round to looking at his tonsils. Ah...white spots. That would explain the fever you were running on Friday night then? Bad mummy. But honestly, does that gap-toothed grin look like the grin of a poorly child to you?

Thankfully, we discovered the joy of old toys this week. A simple train-set, put away in the shed to make way for shiny new toys has brought hours of delight (some shared even).

And then there's Mrs Goggins...

I want to live in a village with a real life Mrs Goggins. She'd teach me to crochet, chastise me for indulging in internet shopping (och, it's all these parcels yer getting - it's too much for Pat to cope with on his wee push bike) and I'd bake her cakes like this one:

I think I need a Mrs Goggins in my life. If only to save me from eating all the cake...

What makes a childhood special?

50% of the reasoning behind our Great Escape Plan is the desire to give the boys a better childhood. So I was intrigued to stumble across this thread on Mumsnet. It got me thinking about what I want to give my boys as a childhood...what really does make a childhood special?

Now, it's funny, because looking back, I always found my mum a bit distant. During my childhood I often felt she was off somewhere else in her head. I'm guessing that losing 3 babies shortly before or after their birth would do that to you. It wasn't until I was in my teens that my mum became my best friend. Mind you, I was terror between the ages of 2 and 5 apparently and utterly horrid to my mum (so she tells me). But I always felt loved.

My dad on the other hand was my hero. He could do no wrong. He was fun, full of plans, always ready to go on an adventure. I really did hero-worship him. Oh and I was a daddies girl. (see above - poor mum)

So what things did my parents do to give me such a lovely childhood?

I think the biggest gift was freedom. They trusted me to roam within an agreed area during the hours of daylight, to stay safe and be sensible. I never came to any harm. I rode my bike, played hide & seek and helped organise giant games of rounders with other children from the neighbourhood. I remember it as very idyllic. Verging on the boring it was so nondescript, but idyllic all the same (rose tinted glasses anyone?).

The 2nd greatest gift my parents gave to me was a love of books. As soon as I could read independently my mum introduced me to Enid Blyton and The Famous Five. I rattled through them, then The Secret Seven, then Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators. I forever had my nose in a book. But then in my early teens I discovered Sweet Valley High and my dad intervened. These books were fine, for now and again, but there was a whole library bursting at the seems with amazing authors - why was I wasting my time with teen trash? I was to ditch The Sweet Valley High Twins and their quest for romance and find something more worthy to read. That advice opened up the world of The Classics to me and I fell in love with Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights,  and many other painfully romantic books. A rose by any other name...

Holidays were few and far between. I can only really remember two. One was a camping trip in tents and the other was in a camper van. We just didn't have the money for 'proper' holidays. Not that we cared. Nobody really did 'foreign holidays'.

Summers instead were spent fruit picking, jam making, dashing to the beach during the one week of warmth Scottish summers afforded us and just pottering around really. We ate Angel Delight, Mum was forever chasing out from under her feet. We baked cakes, I learnt to peel potatoes, we played with squeezy washing up liquid bottles and chalk.

My childhood really was unremarkable. But I felt loved, secure, safe. My parents rarely fell out (they're about to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary). We never had family dramas or any kind of crisis I can remember.

That's probably why I remember it so fondly now. It was just bog-standard, run of the mill, normal. It almost bored me to tears, but I knew no different and had a world of literature to escape to. Not that I needed to escape as such. Just wished I could go to school at Mallory Towers. But it was a lovely simple childhood, protected from sadness or trauma, with two normal, healthy parents.

Thanks mum and dad. I hope I can give my boys some of the same.

Just bairns themselves on their wedding day, but wonderful parents all the same (but mum, seriously, how much hairspray?)

Balancing differences

Tonight I came home from work feeling relieved. Elated that my working week was finished and looking forward to 3 days at home, pottering, baking, playing. A wee happy tune may have been whistled. I almost skipped up the path.

The nanny was released from duties. Quick tidy up. 2 boys bathed, stories, bed. Done.

But then husband wanted to talk about our great escape. He was looking for reassurance that we're doing the right thing, making sure I didn't have any nagging doubts and wanting me to dispel the nagging doubts he had.

But I just don't work that way. Once I make a decision, that's it. Sometimes it can take me a while to make the decision, but once it's made, there's very little that can un-make it. If I have any niggling doubts, I find solutions. I don't just leave them hanging, like loose threads.

Husband on the other hand, worries those loose threads until they threaten to unravel...I began to feel distinctly 'stabby'. Prickly. Cactus like. I'm pretty sure I visibly bristled.

Poor husband. Sensibly, he backed off. Poor, poor husband.

It's funny that we're so different on the decision-making front. But I guess that's where we balance each other out. I'd be happy to charge ahead, figuring out solutions to problems as I go, putting my trust in my own abilities, crossing my fingers and knowing that we'll get there in the end.

Husband likes to have everything sorted out, organised, planned for before it all goes tits up. He likes to have a contingency plan for every eventuality and know exactly where things could go wrong.

It drives me nuts. But between us, we find a happy medium. I'm the confidence, the driving force, the dreamer. He's the obsessive planner, the steady hand, the feet planted firmly on solid ground.

By gum, I love that man.

I'll soothe his worries later. I know, he knows we're doing the right thing. But I also know we'll get there in the end.

Craving this view: Sunset at the beach in December. Chilly but gorgeous.

"When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision. “ The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho


"when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho

Women, we need to get together

Can you imagine being denied the opportunity to go to school? Just because you were female?

Or what about not knowing whether you would survive pregnancy, never mind childbirth?


But the sad, desperate truth is that two-thirds of all children denied school are girls and every minute a woman with no medical care dies in pregnancy or childbirth.


These are the situations thousands of women living in poverty find themselves in. Of the 1.3 billon people living in poverty worldwide, more than two-thirds of them are women and girls. But Oxfam is hoping to help change that.

Last Tuesday I was privileged to attend the launch of Oxfam's Get Together initiative to find out how I could help women build a better future for themselves. I went along with some lovely Mumsnet bloggers (@pantswithnames, @hackneydoula, @TheLazyGirlBlog and @EleanorMills). But what could we do to help women in poverty?

The answer was beautifully simple; Host an event on International Women's Day and raise money with friends. That's it. No months of training for a marathon, no jumping out of planes (although these are both valid ways to raise money, just not my cup of tea...but tea on the other hand, with cake...now you're talking!). All Oxfam are asking is that we celebrate International Women's Day on the 8th March by getting together with our girlfriends and finding a way to raise some cash at the same time. Any excuse for a girlie get together!

The Mumsnet Bloggers with Carrie Loughton (Mumsnet co-founder) and the captivating Eleanor Mills in the centre. Picture courtesy of Oxfam.

It was a pretty cool evening, I can tell you. Surrounded by strong women, it was difficult not to feel empowered and inspired. And the amazing thing is, you don't need to raise thousands of pounds to make a real difference.

Oxfam's Get Together ambassador, the luminous Lauren Laverne.
Photo courtesy of Oxfam.

Just £46 will fund training for 1 midwife in Ghana. £46 to save the lives of pregnant women and their children. Surely a wee bake sale could raise that? Sell 46 cupcakes to your work colleagues at £1 each and that will ensure that a woman survives to gaze into the eyes of her new born child. Or stick some extra chocolate sprinkles and a dash of glitter on your cupcakes and sell them for £2 each. Even better.

£135 trains 5 teachers in Mali who can teach over 250 girls and provide a whole generation with skills to work their way out of poverty. Invite 15 friends round for some wine and pampering, each donate £9 each and that's the lives of 250 girls changed. Amazing.

Grace Dent and Caitlin Moran (we talked pubic hair!*) added some strong female oomph to the proceedings.
Photo courtesy of Oxfam.

So, on March 8th I'm going to host my own Get Together. I'm hoping my lovely, inspirational, amazing, beautiful (yes, I'm sucking up...) yoga teacher Rozy (@InJoyYoga) will lend her yoga teaching talent to the event, leading us in sun salutations to celebrate International Women's Day. Rozy has this innovative approach to post-natal yoga that sees each session ending with tea and cake, a format that I'm hoping to steal emulate for my Get Together. I'm hoping we can raise enough money to train 5 teachers and a couple of midwives.

Please help us by hosting your own Get Together. If I haven't inspired you, then take a look at this video and see if that does the trick:

Then get yourself over to the Oxfam website and sign up for your own Get Together party pack. There's balloons and everything! 

You too could help women build a better future for themselves.

*this only makes sense if you've read her book. Otherwise yes, I agree, it does sound a bit bonkers.

I 'm part of the Mumsnet Blogging Network, a group of parent bloggers picked by Mumsnet to review products, services, events and brands. I was not paid to attend this event, but simply asked to spread the word. 

Project 366 week 3

Are we already 3 weeks in to January? Crazy. Which is exactly what the past week has been...

The week started with some insane work/childcare juggling. Mr Potato-head came to the rescue as did Twister. Thankfully, both were able to transcend a 4 year age gap and kept 4 children happily amused long enough to cook their dinner. Phew.

Tuesday night was the launch of Oxfam's Get Together initiative for International Women's Day (more about that later when the lovely girls at Oxfam email me some decent pics - my iphone camera was woefully inadequate at capturing all the beautiful people). But I will tell you this: I met Caitlin Moran. We talked about pubic hair (this only makes sense if you've read her book, which I recommend all women do - it's snort tea out your nose hilarious). I gabbled at her. A lot. She was very lovely about it. 

 Then work turn into a crazy crap storm of a week and the photo above and the two below are pretty much symbolic of the amount of quality time I got to spend with the boys. Nada. While they were awake anyway...

I do love how they look almost identical when asleep...sweet, adorable, gorgeous boys.

So we ended the week the best way we knew how: with copious amounts of baking. Mostly lemon drizzle cake (guaranteed sunshine in every bite) and double chocolate cookies from the lovely Mary Berry's Baking Bible.

I think I've almost eaten enough lemon drizzle cake to erase the crapness of last week. Hmm, best go and have another piece, just to make sure.

What do you do...

...when after a month of on and off illness your lovely nanny suffers a family bereavement and is too upset to work?

...when you can't take any time off work to look after your own children because your job hangs by a thread?

...when you feel like the universe is conspiring against you?

...when you've got so much work to do you work late into the night, every night, just to keep your head above water?

...when you realise you've only spent about 2 hours each day with your children?

...when the laundry basket is so full, it's almost overflowed into the washing machine, set the programme and washed itself?

You open a bottle of wine, download episode 3 of Sherlock onto your Desktop iPlayer and forget about it all until Monday, that's what!

Happy weekend everyone.

Oh to be back in Egypt...

Here's looking at you kid

This post is for week 87 of The Gallery, over at Tara's place:

Both my boys have beautiful blue eyes, inherited from their dad. Great big puppy dog eyes that have me running round in circles. Boy, do they know exactly how to use those eyes to their maximum heart tugging effect.

 Bigger sometimes likes to complement his eyes by sticking out his tongue. Odd child. Still cute though (luckily for him).

 Even a mucky face can't detract (much) from those sparkling peepers.

 But sometimes, we have to hide their superpowers beneath some achingly cool shades.

 

Even the eyelashes can slay you at 40 paces. Sadly, to get eyelashes like these, I have to pay for the privilege. Le sigh.

 

Someone pass me the wrinkle cream please? No, not the tube, the giant vat of industrial strength stuff please. Cheers. 

Sunday night musings...

Sometimes, webcams with the in-laws leave me feeling terribly homesick.

Sundays at home with an overtired 5 year old and an energetic 17 month old are both wonderful and horrendous in equal measure.

Feeling like your fate is sealed and people are just waiting for you to slip up sucks.

Knowing people think badly of you, also sucks.

I'm questioning tonight whether I really have the energy to turn it all around.

But in the pit of my stomach I know I must.

Wish me luck lovely readers, I think we're in for a bumpy ride.

Project 366 week 2

Week 2 of January in photos. A bit of allotment love, a bit of spiced bun love.

Plotting

So 2011 was the year of the neglected allotment.

But 2012, I declare, will be the year of allotment bounty!

We managed to pop down to our little half plot over the weekend for a spot of plotting, planning and surveying. Husband even managed to go back during nap-time for some impromptu weeding.

But now we need to get organised and plan out properly what we're going to grow this year, rather than hastily chucking seeds in the general direction of the soil and hoping for the best.

So, on my wish list this year (and coincidentally in my seed stash):

Cauliflower they just look so lovely and neat in a veg patch and I'm rather partial to cauliflower cheese.

Peas great for the boys to eat straight from the pod, which keeps them occupied while I tend to other crops.

Sweetpeas of course.

Snapdragons for filling the house with gorgeousness. I'm giddy about growing flowers for the first time and looking forward to a summer full of fragrant blooms.

Calendula (marigolds) to brighten up the edges of the beds and attract pest-eating bugs.

Potatoes without a doubt one of my favourite crops to grow. They might not be very glam, but nothing, nothing I say, beats tucking in to a glorious baked potato grown on the allotment. Or a lovely, light salad of new potatoes. It's like digging for treasure when you dig these babies up!

Courgettes because we love courgette & brie soup and the plants fill a naked bed within weeks. But this year I'm going to limit myself to 2 plants. Courgette glut is getting boring.

Rhubarb we already have some rhubarb on the plot, but last year was the first year I managed to get hold of some muck to feed it with, so I'm hoping we'll have enough for a good hearty crumble in a couple of weeks.

Sweetcorn last year's crop failed spectacularly due to simple neglect. Those golden ears of corn need a good, regular soaking if they're going to swell into something delicious.

Herbs this year I'm going to try and establish a permanent herb bed. We have fennel already, so I'd like to add some rosemary, thyme, mint and oregano if I can. Probably pop them in next to the rhubarb then it's one less bed to worry about.

Raspberries will this year be the year our fruit canes bear fruit? Please let it be.

I've really no excuse this year. We finally have a shed, so there's no more carting tools between garden and plot and we have a lovely red wheelbarrow because...well, just because...oh yes, because you never know when there's going to be a wheelbarrow emergency or an impromptu wheelbarrow race. *cough*

Anyone else jumping on the allotment wheelbarrow bandwagon this year?

Being the baby

On Christmas eve my baby finally decided it was time to get up and walk. At one day short of 17 months he was a bit behind the rest of his little friends, some of whom had been walking upright for at least 6 months.

Be he's a stubborn wee thing and nothing could convince him to take those first steps until he was good and ready. So we left him to it and waited.

But now that he's suddenly all two legs limbs good, four legs limbs bad, we had a bit of a realisation...

All this time, possibly due to the lack of perpendicular motion, I've kept him safely in the 'baby' box in my head. Of course, he'll always be my baby. But at the same age, his older brother was most definitely not a baby in my mind. He was a little boy, a toddler, a little person. Babyhood seemed far behind him.

So, is it a symptom of being the younger brother that kept my baby 'the baby' for longer?

Or was it just reaching the walking milestone a bit later?

Is he forever destined to be 'the baby' of the family? Mollycoddled and excused for minor indiscretions due to his position as the youngest member of the family?

Maybe it's because I know there will be no more babies. Am I clinging on to every last moment of babyhood because of this? Maybe I am. But in a world where children grow up so fast, is that such a terrible thing?

I can remember willing his bigger brother on to every next milestone, doing everything in my power to encourage rolling over, sitting up, independent feeding. But with my youngest...meh. I know he'll achieve these milestones in his own good time (his own good time, nobody else's).

What I do know is, there will be no putting this 'baby' in the corner if he doesn't want to be there. He might be blonde on the outside, but my word, he's a fiery redhead inside. The Viking is strong in this one.

Blonde exterior, Viking interior. He's a warrior for sure.

Regrets

We've had some sad news this weekend. My Granda, my dad's dad, died on Thursday night.

I didn't know him very well and this is probably my greatest regret. He lived a 4 hour drive away, which isn't that far in the grand scheme of things, but was a journey we only ever embarked upon about once a year. I have very few memories of him sadly.

But now my Granda's widow is breaking her heart 600 miles away, I regret we're not closer, both in geography and emotionally. Even though we never called my Granda's 2nd wife Granny (she was far too glamourous for that), she has a special place in my heart. She nursed my Granda through many an illness, put up with a lot of grumpiness from him and helped him learn to walk again after his double amputation last year. And she adored him. Despite the gruffness, despite the shouting, despite the frustration, she loved him with every fibre of her being. He was a very difficult man to live with, but she stuck with him. And I think that's what upsets me the most. That a lovely, caring, beautiful woman I care for has lost her soulmate.

I regret that I cannot be there for her. To hold her hand, look over old photos and remember the man she loved.

366 days of photos - week 1

In an effort to pay more attention to the little things, the small moments, the normally unremarkable, I'm taking part in the 366 photo a day project using my iphone camera. They're not the most inspiring of photos, but everyone has to start somewhere. So here's what the first week of 2012 looked like through my iphone camera:

Missing

January 3rd 2012. First day back at work. 

Christmas day, a fading memory. A morning commute, boringly predictable.

Tonight, I breathed deeply and held both my boys close. I'd missed them. 

The gentle curve of their cheeks.

The soft bloom of their lips.

The musicality of their giggles.

The eyelashes surrounding those deep blue pools of unconditional love.

A day away from them was just what I needed to remind me how special they are. And knowing I was coming home to them, was just what I needed to get me through that first day back at work.

My gorgeous boys, my babies.