What i will tell my daughters......

Dear Starbucks, Cookie & Hero,

A week before Christmas in 2018 three men broke into our flat in London at 11:45am whilst we were home. They kicked in the front door to the block, and then kicked in our front door in order to get into our flat. They wanted to steal our things before Christmas. I was in the kitchen with you, eating our lunch when it happened. I will never forget the moment of fear as I opened our door to the outer hall and had to peer around it worried about the unknown, or how loud I shouted when I saw them. I was scared, very scared, but also because you were all home I know I was also very strong.

However, this was not a story of fear and danger, it is really a story of feeling close of God, and blessings. Although these people broke into our house, I feel no hate towards them, just relief that it happened in the best way possible.

We moved our Tuesday morning bible study to Wednesday for the first time ever. When these men burst in, I had two friends with me, but you also had friends with you. We had enough hands to call the police, stand guard at the broken door and still encourage you to eat your cucumber. You were distracted enough by your friends presence, that even though you heard me shout HELP the loudest I have ever shouted, several times, and that my friends fumbled around for a phone and asked for the police on 999, you were easily sold on the story that I had got excited and started shouting, and broken the door by shutting it badly in my excitement, and that my friends had got a little edgy as they had never seen me excited before (very believable as I have one constant mode suitable for nearly all occasions).

Stopping you from knowing that people had entered our flat by force to take our stuff was all that mattered to me, you were too young to become aware that there are people out to use force against others, or that there are people driven by so much desperation, anger, fear or despair that they begin to not see the others they are hurting by their actions. I am sure you will experience this soon enough, but I want you to dwell in Love and light and community first, so you can appreciate and learn from the contrast.

I found myself afterwards justifying why they were wrong to 'pick on us', we only have one secondhand TV, 2 broken laptops and an I-pad with a crack across the screen; they should have rung on the door bell to see if we were home; we don't live in a fancy looking flat we are obviously not rich. Like there should be a code of conduct for robbers, and some people should not be targeted (by proxy this would mean that some people should be targeted!?!) I've revised this now, and really the code should be, don't burgle people if they are in, and to be fair to them, they ran away when they realised I was. So I'm ok with that. (that and I got a new massive lock for the front door).

I am clear that I think God has been telling us to leave London for the sake of specifically you Starbucks, and this was cemented by this experience and how I thought it would effect you emotionally if you found out. It's been a long time coming, our move to Norwich, but these little things along the way have been moving us practically and emotionally, ready for the change.

When I look back on this incident now, all I can see is God's love. That I had friends home with me that day, that I didn't see clearly the faces of the people involved and so don't think they clearly saw me either, that it was easy to fix within a day, that they took nothing despite having been past my bookcase where my keys to a fairly fancy car sit. It was the most unpersonal event that it could be, and I am healing quickly.

Also its not until you experience events like this that you find out how strong, loved and protected you are. Often as a Christian I find God seemingly far away (is he floating on the clouds?) but right now I know he is right beside me, I felt it as I shouted my heart out. I hope that you girls will realise sometime how much I love you, but more importantly I hope you will find this inner strength, this gut wrenching knowledge that there is a God who loves you beyond your closest understanding standing there with you in all the moments you need him.

Also kiddos, its ok to lie sometimes. ;)

I love you all, Mum.

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

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'!

Not the best parent

Dont tell Xss about this post, but sometimes i am not always right. Sometime his parenting is better than mine. Often in fact.

This evening i was going out to my sewing course and they hadn't finished their dinner. I kissed them goodbye at the table and walked down the hall to put on my shoes. Xss allowed them both to get down from the table and come down to the front door where it was cold. Cookie had barely any clothes on (its a stage) and neither had eaten their veg. I was obviously against this idea.

As they came, wearing matching PJ's they had just located in the Christmas boxes, they begun making noises like walrus'. The walked in a line, and they found it very funny. three members of my family wearing the same clothes, walking in a line making walrus noises and laughing.

I am not always right. I did not agree with this joyous moment happening, but it has created a memory i will never forget.

Before dinner shots.