A Heroic Year!

The baby is one. Big fat one. Accompanying this fact is a happier, more jovial baby who stays in her cot all night, can sleep in until 7am, and reliably eats chips and hot cross buns. I can therefore happily salute myself and feel like I've overcome the hardest year.

 Two keen sisters 'assisted' her in opening her presents. 

 Trying to touch the camera...

 The first birthday cake i've made which i haven't sworn at. I think coming the realisation that i am making these cakes FOR FUN, has helped me to realise, it should be fun!

Stunned by it's beauty. Or confused that we have found such a large beloved orange.

You can tell she is a third child by the amount of food on the wall behind her that we don't even try to clean off anymore. I'll do it all in one go when she is 5.

Celebrating Starbucks

Oh, i love a Caramel Coffee Frappaccino, and on a cold day, a caramel Macchiato, but more than these I love Starbucks. All 6 years of her.

I don't love playing, 'whats that beeping noise?' with her. But i do love that she is curious and caring (she is very aware that a beeping noise could be bad news for her, but also other people). I love that she told her teacher that she knows she is top of the class, despite the fact she is not. I love that she likes riding her bike with me, and that she enjoys putting her top trumps in point order more than she does playing them. Apparently your eldest child is 90% you. (So much so that i am embarrassed to speak to her teachers incase they find out).

How i grew to love my 'Mama' T-shirt

This time around i am REALLY struggling with the physical changes in my body post-natally. I am trying to learn to appreciate and value the beautiful thing which has grown and created 3 new human beings, and i am trying to see this as an honour and a gift. I know that it is. However, I feel like i should wear a badge which boasts that this body has grown 3 people; not because i want to gloat, or put others down, but actually issuing an apology, disguised as an excuse as to why (i feel) my body is now socially unacceptable.

I'm not sure if i am clear enough about the facts that i am EVERSO grateful that i have been able to have kids, and if i could choose between them and my body, I'd choose them (but society is screaming at me that i shouldn't have to choose). And i do appreciate that this is a petty issue. Tiny cosmetic differences i shouldn't even mention, but i just don't feel like the old me.

My only idea of how to recondition my mind to love my new look is to try to view my stretchmarks are tree trunk rings. signs of age, and strength and beauty. depth. unique to nature. My additional weight......? Perhaps i could get a tattoo to hide it all? Im less easy to blow over in the wind now. Really the only solution i feel there is is plastic surgery, but what is that telling my kids? A mum body is something to be fixed?

Part of my problem is that i feel uncomfortable with my own stereotype of overweight people, which was unconscious until today. On closer examination this does not apply to my friends, or really anyone i know, only the presumptions and stereotypes i place on the strangers i see on the street. Judgemental yes, honest yes.

I feel like overweight people in general are:
1) lazy
2) weak
3) eat too much
4) unhealthy
5) past their prime.

 However, when i thinking about individuals i actually know, they are excellent individuals not fitting of the above labels, but healthy and fit within a bigger body. So this is where i need to start for self acceptance. Get fit (this does not mean slim)! Don't be lazy, weak, and unhealthy - focus on changing these things and my size becomes irrelevant to me.

Must learn to dance in the rain.

Advent Adventures

As i added 'make peanut butter cup reindeers' on to the list of all the Christmas activities i wanted to do with my kids, I came to the rapid realisation that i am expressing to my children that the Christmas story is built around Santa, his reindeer, a massive feast and presents. I typically spend a lot of effort trying to get 'stuff' ready for the 25th December so everything is just right. All baked goods, a hot meal, cake etc are all perfectly consumable and not mouldy or stale (this i honestly think is an impossible feat in itself- how on earth is it done?) but also presents are bought and under the tree perfectly wrapped but also distrubuted to others in perfect timing, not to early - not too late, just right. Lets not even comment about Christmas cards (to make them more than a simple waste of paper i try to add a witty or meaningful comment to each).

I began to feel stressed with my list before i had even started. Too much to do, too little time, and all around 3 small children who will merrily and excitably ruin all the craft and baking activities with their over enthusiastic little hands who just cant resisit poking, picking, licking, insisiting on the wrong garish colours, or suddenly halting 10 minutes in leaving me to complete the 'fun' and add demands for a concurrent shopkins toptrumps game, or bum wipe. Argh. Thanks to the awesome book i am reading at the moment (Present over perfect by Shauna Neiqvist ) i was able to realise that this stress was ridiculous, i needed a new fun way. If you dont make life fun for yourself who will?? So i crossed off a lot of the list there and then, and took a new focus - almost a whole month of advent to enjoy with my kids to learn and explore the bible story of Jesus' birth in various ways. Instantly happier.

In the end this took on the form of 4 challenges a week (ok this was still took much, but at one stage i was set on one a day!), with part of the story acted out by myself and Xss every Friday night when they were unveiled.

Anyway, part of my commitment to this was to reuse the challenges next year so i dont have to do so much work next time. Withour further ado here are our challenges based around the 4 themes of the story i pulled out (i'm currently not anglican so no alliteration is involved)(oh my goodness my first Christian pun involved in my blog, may it never happen again):

God loves us:
Say your favourite thing about each member of our family
Spend time together doing something fun
Buy and wrap up presents for each other
Buy some food for the homeless

God uses normal people:
Have fun as a normal family together
Dress up and act out some of the story
Make a sheep cake
Take time to notice the everyday people in our lives and say 'Hi'

God wants everyone to know his love:
Sing some Christmas carols
Have some fun together
Make/Send some Christmas cards
Mention something to others about your Christian life this week

God is a God who serves (as well as a King)
Make some food for someone else
Do a random act of kindness
Help someone with a job of theirs today

It was fun, but i still have a lot of work to do on chilling out and doing even less. I've omitted to mention that i also tried to create an ever growing collage on the windows illustrating the story too. Oh, and tried to make it look effortless. The collage never got past cardboard Mary and Joseph arriving at a whiteboard drawn box full of wild animal stickers (the full inn!).

pokeable candle