Dear Seasoned Mummies…I need your help.

Dear Seasoned Mummies…I need your help.

Posted January 30th, 2013 in Family.

In 6 short sleeps my baby girl starts school.

I’ve got so many emotions and thoughts rattling around my exhausted body that I can’t begin to make head nor tail of them.

I am still not sure how the time has flown so fast. Where does it go???

On the one hand I know she is ready (and I know I am ready!)

On the other hand, I am not sure I am ready for 5 days week. In fact, I am completely freaking out about it.

Surely she is still only two and a half. Surely?!?

I can’t allow my brain to go where it wants to go – have I done enough for her? been enough for her? given her enough of me? I know I haven’t been perfect, but I’ve done my best and I love her to pieces. I hope and pray that it’s been enough.

I look at this baby face and I know that it’s too late to go back, nothing can be re-done…all we have is now.

And now, she’s my big girl. and a gorgeous one at that.

She has grown up so much these holidays that it takes my breath away.

I am really going to miss her.

5 days a week seems like a LOT at the moment, though I would happily go for 2-3 days (as I think would she).

So please Mummies, I need your help.

I’m looking for suggestions about different family traditions you have yourself or know of for both the start of school generally and starting school for the first time.

I would like to start next week with something special, something we can build on – another brick in the foundation of our family life – and I love some suggestions on what that could be!

thanks in advance,

love from a very tired mummy.

Incoming search terms:

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The Things Childhoods Are Made Of…..

Posted January 4th, 2013 in Family.

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The way she loves…

Posted December 30th, 2012 in Family.

Need I say more?

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Christmas At Our Place…

Posted December 28th, 2012 in Family.

Was a lot of fun….

And then they crashed…

How was it at your place?

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On Siblings and Celebrating Family

Posted September 1st, 2012 in Family.

This is one of my favourite photos.

It was taken only a couple of hours after Little Bear was born.

Can you see the joy and pride on Bliss’s face?

I loved this moment. This photo now sits on my desk and melts my heart every day.

When you are pregnant with your second child people will tell you to buy presents for the first born so that they don’t feel left out. It sounded like good advice to us and we know it’s been really helpful for many friends so we went along with it….as did the rest of my family. The number of presents in that hospital room just for Bliss would have made any reasonable person think it was Christmas!

It turned out, she couldn’t have cared less about those presents…her brother was her present.

She had raced into the hospital room, jumped right over me and put her head right into the crib where Bear was lying and said “Hello little baby, I love you.”

And that was it.

She was in love with him and almost 2 years later is still besotted with him. Little Bear is terribly spoilt…mostly by his big sister who gives him whatever he wants, forgives him almost anything and even when he bit her on the bottom the other day(!) declared protectively ”It’s OK Mummy, it didn’t hurt.”

This photo is of her holding him for the first time. The other photos I have from that day, of him being held by other family members, all involve Bliss too – she just had to be touching him the whole time. Noone else could hold him without her holding him..or part of him…too.

These are the precious moments…the ones that are distinct to a time and season in our life as a family and they are moments I want to celebrate, to cherish and to weave into the fabric of the sense of family and connection the kids have. These moments are true, they are beautiful and they will always be ours…if we remember them.

What stories or moments in your life or family do you celebrate? What does it mean for you to do this?

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Life Rule #4786: Take More Photos (on a real camera and not the iPhone)

Posted August 20th, 2012 in Family.

I am lucky to have some wonderful photographer friends in my life – Chris from Chris Allsop Photography I have featured on this blog several times before and Heather from TeaCup Ballet has been inspiring me with her pics on Facebook and her blog recently too. (Hint: if you love family/child photography then you should definitely be onto these folk on their blogs and Facebook!)

I was so inspired this afternoon after Heather took some pics of her gorgeous Master 4 that I grabbed my camera (a Canon EOS 450D for those wondering) and we hit the park and then bath…

it’s a shame that one is over exposed…I think it’s a bit better in b&w…

It’s easy to be put off by the beautiful photos other people today – I’m glad today I let it inspire me rather than shy away from capturing these moments…my boy is moving into toddler hood far too swiftly for my liking!

When was the last time you grabbed a camera that wasn’t part of your phone and snapped away? What inspires you to capture the moment?

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