Happy Christmas Everyone

You can't tell but ive been on another photography course. This taught me how to use the mannual mode on my camera, but really it highlighted to me that i can struggle to get 'the photo' of out girls that i want because they are crap models. Really. Starbucks pulls an odd painful impression of someone trying to smile as soon as she sees the camera, and Cookie will never look directly at the camera, and if she does then she screws her eyes up so tight you cant see them. If you add to this the fact that i dont take my camera out with me when alone as i cant keep an eye on 3 kids and a valuble camera at the same time, and if i do, i usually have a split second to get the shot before someone falls, needs a warning about stepping in dog poo or the buggy is about to roll off and hit a stranger. Thats why i dont have good photos. (camera phone? - shush).

Anyway, here is my Christmas attempt:

see what i've done here to disguise the smiles...

 

Recent trivia

Starbucks said to us tonight, 'Guess how many types of mango there are?'
Taking into consideration her recent scholarly advances I took a punt, 'three?'
She confirmed I was correct; interested I asked what these three types were.
'Mango smoothie, dried mango and mango the fruit'.

More questions than answers

I've become worried that I've got busy living. I am comfortable, and have every single thing i could possibly need. I do not know hardship. I do not know pain.

I spend my time reading, watching TV, cleaning my warm flat, amusing myself and my children.
I write short magnetic messages on the fridge knowing that at random moments Starbucks will read them.
i iron Xss's shirts in the hope that lonely people in the city will know that he is loved (and professional)
I pick up Cookie and throw her in the air to make her laugh
I rock, rock, rock Hero to sleep in a baby carrier around the house, then try to tenderly sit down with her still asleep to drink a warm cup of tea and read my book for book club. Compromising relaxed shoulder muscles for a stolen read.
I clean the oven with WD40 to make it shine.
I go to toddler groups and chat.
I drink tea.
I wear the same two sets of clothes continually so i don't have to think about what to wear.
We drive a tiny, old car which we cant hear the radio in when its going fast.
I went to a bible study the other night without Hero, and i drove home in the chill of the autumn night singing along to blink 182, really singing.

But is this it.Should i be happy with this, or am i missing something. Is this the huberis of the young, to think that there is always something greater; that we should aspire to leave our mark on the world?

When i imagine our grandparents generation, with their reduced world-mobility, their community being a local one (with no virtual far fetching section apart from through mail and newspapers), they seem like they had a smaller mission, the one i have now, to be happy. To go to the butchers, to wash the clothes.

But perhaps i am doing them a misjustice, and this is the true downfall of my generation, to believe that small and local and discreet, cannot equal life changing. Making your mark on the world does not have to mean starting your own charity, or creating an organic recycled material; marks can be made on individual people through individual moments.

I hope one day that i will adopt a couple of kids, and that part of my life now is a waiting game, preparing for them to come and a future i do not know. I try be myself when i meet others, offering them happiness, a laugh and love, but is this too fleeting? Do i need to house a homeless person just to prove to myself that i am making the world a better place. This would not be enough, I'd become used to this and be happy and perhaps complacent again.

Can i genuinely consider my children my projects, investing in them as a way of changing the future. DO WE NEED CHANGE AT ALL??/

In a world where everyone seems to be needing something more, is it ok to be happy? And if i am happy, do i need to then help others find their happiness?

Does life have to be any more complicated than smelling a sleeping baby's warm head?

Starbucks and XSS showing us simple

Cookie is free!

Week Four: Norfolk

4.1

4.2

 4.3

 4.4

4.5

 4.6

4.7

Week Two

2.1

 2.2

 2.3

 2.4

 2.5

 2.6

 2.7

'Can we play Dear God?'

Almost every meal time Cookie asks, 'can we play 'Dear God'?' This is our prompt for grace. A time to say thank you for the innumerable blessings in our lives. If nothing less than to humble oursevles to the reaslisation that sitting around a table, in a house, eating a meal is a gift. Often Xss or I will choose a moment in the day we enjoyed to thank God for, the kids will choose the meal or something special that they got. Starbucks has progressed in her social development to a stage where she gives me attitude about anything i challenge her on. She knows it winds me up, and it does. I try not to, but on occasion i go from calm to SWEATY STRESSY GESTICULATOR in split second.

This evening Stabucks' answer to what are you thankful for was, 'I am thankful that i still love mummy even though she shouts at me and hurts me'. I've never hurt her, but i wanted to hurt her then. haha.

Week One:

I am such a sucker for believing the photos on Instagram, and the posts of facebook. They make me feel like i am missing out, doing something different and wrong in my life, and ultimaltly push me to feel unsatisfied. I've tried to remedy this by unfollowing people who's posts make me feel this way (its irrelivant if they have some sort of agenda or not) and i've put my phone on silent so i am much less aware of the world around me. (Ok so some people cant be unreachable by phone so i chose the do not disturb setting and only allow the contacts that i feel are worthy enough to be able to wake me up from a nap- thats the criteria). Anywho, i have made a commitment to myself to take a REAL photo of my kids each day of the summer holidays. Because its the real times that bring me comfort and happiness. A day out in legoland is great (well im conditioned to think so), but the bread and butter of my memories of three young children will be much more....... A4. Lets see.

1.1

 1.2

1.3

 1.4

1.5

 1.6

 1.7

forced reflections.

One reason I haven't posted much over the past year is that part of my paid work has involved reflecting, which is essentially what I do here. In hiensight my greatest reflection is that I felt obliged during this reflecting to fulfill expectations from my supervisor and reflect what she wanted me to else risk losing my job. It got to the stage where in my evaluations of how I felt emotionally I had to change what I felt to what she thought I felt, as that was the answer she obviously wanted me to give. I like to be true to myself, it's a value I hold very dear, but at the same time my work is very much tied up with a lot of other stuff now, like my decision to return to employment and not stay home with my kids to work for £1 an hour because it would facilitate the future job that I wanted. Tough choice, be true to myself in reflective work logs and potentially lose or delay the future I was aiming for, or lie and keep my non-work related aims and all other ethics in tact?

Anyway, I digress, I just wanted to say that 'I'm back'.

I am now free to vainly over think everything I think and feel. Yippee.

Although I'll soon be too tired to think or feel anything thanks to my nights spent with Hero.

Food offerings

With baby number three has come new blessings. We've changed churches and have been offered a 'meals rota' to help us out. Because I now have several children (more than a handful in many respects), if someone offers to cook me dinner I'm not going to turn them down!

So far we have been the beneficiaries of:
Chicken, potato and ham hock bake
Roast chicken and potato tray bake with pavlova
Chicken & chorizo pot pie
Vegetarian lasagne
Chicken, chorizo & chickpea stew
Shepherds pie and cheesecake
Beef stew
Thai green curry
Chicken tikka curry, rice & ice cream
Meat lasagne
Salmon & potato tray bake
Beef pie
Sausage cassarole & rice

And
A massive pear cake
A massive carrot cake
A massive box of Ferrero Rocher

Along with numerous bags/boxes of chocolate, cartons of juice, gifts for the kids etc.

When there are two parents at home, and dinner is precooked for you looking after 3 kids is totally manageable. Xss returns to work soon, and I'll have to cook dinner soon...... gulp.

Ps it's so loving and confidence inspiring receiving meals that I am now uber keen to repay the favour. Just need to find a killer reciepes,  oh and a heavily pregnant woman! I'm on the look out.

We found a Hero

Introducing baby Hero! (before heated arguments breakout again as to whether this is a legitimate and non abusive name for a baby girl, this is only her nickname). (Although thats not to say what we replace it with wont be just as different).We are delighted to announce that baby Hero has arrived, safe and well. Ironically despite the planned section, it was the most panicked and rushed at the end. Baby Hero is here; No brilliant photo of her first breath though.

Cookie is delighted with her, continually highlighting her 'little toes!' or each fart with delight. Starbucks is also happy but old enough to have experienced what 2 year old sisters are like which may well be tempering her joy appropriately.

 In the words of Spike Milligan, 'You can't leave that lying there.''It's not a lion its a baby'. Not a bad view to be born to.

 Blending in with the furniture already.

 

Protective? or scared to touch her?

It's likely that forever more, its a majority rule. If the other two look good the photo will be selected, even if its your birth and you look like a victorian portrait of the dead. Cookie, Hero & Starbucks

Rules to visiting prision

One of the merits of being a social worker is experiencing aspects of other peoples lives that I wouldnt normally encounter. Last year i got to go to court several times to support teenagers caught up in trouble, and i also got to visit a prision.

Some of the novelty of this was the whole new set of social rules that this dictates. Assumably people regularly visiting get used to these and know them not as a list. However, for my first visit this list was odd. More interesting is to try and guess the reasons behind these rules. Without further ado here is the dress code:

• no uniforms (except school uniforms, or police officers on legal visits)
• no ponchos
• no baseball caps
• no florescent tops
• no sunglasses
• no cuff links
• no watches
• no chains that assemble key chains
• skirts, dresses and shorts must be no higher than just above the knee
• no crop tops or see through clothing which reveal the stomach

and my favourites

• only one pair of trousers to be worn at any one time 
• All clothing to be worn as intended to be worn.

As a legal visitor i was also obliged to adhere to the following:

• No more than 2 pens
• no spiral back pads 
• no bull dog clips
• Laptop with prior written agreement
• no phone.

It was an interesting time. It helped that i really liked the lad we were visiting. 

Starbucks is too old (5)

 fairy on the tube

 

Kickboxer at home

As much as i want her to be a figher, she shows little interest in anything other than getting other people to adhere to rules, telling her sister to do things and board games. Oh and writting/drawing/sticking on millions of pieces of paper all at the same time.

 Starbucks looking smug as she knows the power of 'the birthday'!