Category Archives: Family

Right here, right now – my girl-in-the-middle

Family, LearnerMother,

Next up in my ‘right here, right now’ posts – my lovely little girl in the middle, who is a ray of sunshine in all our lives.

Nearly seven years have seen her change from a very fun, but extremely high-maintenance baby, to a happy, thoughtful and kind hearted little girl. I am loving every minute I spend with her, and I’m so, SO proud of the way she thinks carefully about the effect her actions have on others. It’s rare for her to be unkind but she is on occasion provoked by one of her brothers, and her instantaneous sharp put-down is always followed soon after by an effort to be extra kind to whichever of them has (usually deservedly) been on the receiving end.

My girl is a determined little soul, and once she has decided to do something, she won’t stop until she has mastered it – my goodness, that girl is a tryer! She decided to learn to read this time last year (note, SHE decided!) and watching her progress over the last 12 months has left me astounded at her ability to put her mind to something and master it absolutely. I wrote recently about her learning to ride a bike – once again, she made the decision and that was it, she was NOT going to leave the park unless it was on two wheels. This is an aspect of her personality that we are seeing more and more of as she develops, and I’m really looking forward to seeing where it takes her.

What’s lovely is that despite her determination and the high standards she sets herself, my girl is still so happy and so ready to embrace life and all the fun it offers. If we’re in the house, she is constantly singing her heart out – and if we’re out and about, she doesn’t walk to places, she skips and dances her way to them! Despite this giving me occasional blood pressure when she skips a bit too close to oncoming traffic, it actually makes my heart leap to see such a happiness in her soul.

This stage seems extra special to me, because I feel as if it’s the last few months we will have of her being a truly ‘little’ girl. Right now, she knows every word to every song on her One Direction album – but doesn’t have a clue as to the names of the band or indeed what they look like. She chooses her clothes because she likes them, rather than because she is aware of any trends or fashion; and though she loves Dr Who, she’ll happily watch Octonauts or Tree Foo Tom with her little brother. I wonder how long this lovely stage of innocence will last – I suspect that moving up to the Juniors in September will bring some changes and that’s something that makes me really quite sad. But at the same time, I’m very excited to see what life will bring to my girl in the middle – or more accurately, what she will bring to life.

My girl in the middle. We’re all lucky to have you, in so many ways, and though you don’t know it yet, the world will be a better place with you in it.

 

Quiet beach moments

 

I’m linking up with Magic Moments over at The Olivers Madhouse – there’s a bunch of posts over there full of happiness and joy, pop over and have a look!

Right here, right now – my littlest boy

Family, LearnerMother,

Back in September last year I wrote a post called ‘What I love about my kids right now’, trying to capture them as they were at that moment in time, so that I’d have something to look back on on my fast approaching dotage. It’s a theme I was planning to revisit every six months or so, and it’s a measure of how fast their childhood is slipping away that I’m pretty much a month late…but over the next three weeks I’ll be doing a ‘right here, right now’ post for each of them in turn.

Staring with the youngest – my baby. My lovely, happy, bonus baby, now a very opinionated 4 year old. I can’t get away with calling him a baby within earshot any more, because ‘4 is actually nearly grownup you know, Mummy’. But I can still, just, get away with pretending he’s still a baby when he crawls in for early morning cuddles with me. He still carries the chubby cwtchiness of a toddler for a few moments before he is fully awake, and I cling on to those moments with all my heart. Until he prises open my eyes and asks me for the millionth time why I won’t download Minecraft on my phone, or or if it is a weekend day (this to establish if the high sugar cereals are coming out for breakfast) or why I won’t get up RIGHT NOW to play jigsaws, or make pancakes, or tell the rain to stop.

Once up, he’s on the go non-stop, grabbing life with both hands. Everything is a race or a competition – the people of Canton are no doubt used to my apologetic smile as he whizzes past them on his scooter, yelling ‘Lo-SER’. Sorry about that. He loves playing board games of any sort, and holds his own pretty well with his big brother and sister – he’s not yet a graceful loser himself, but we’re working on that…

He sings away unselfconsciously until he realises someone is listening, then he’ll turn on what he thinks is the charm and start substituting various key words for other, more scatalogical ones…I try not to laugh at this but sometimes it’s tricky! He is absolutely delighted with his ability to burp on cue (thank his big brother and sister for this) and he’s also a great fan of ‘pardon me for being so rude, it was not me it was my food, it came up here to say hello, and now it’s gone back down below’ – several months after someone taught him this, the charm has apparently not worn off. For him, anyway…

Something lovely that’s happening at the moment is that he’s really grateful for totally random things. Yesterday he said ‘I’m so pleased I’ve got knees, Mummy, because they help me run fast’. Today it was ‘We’re really lucky towels were invented Mummy, because they get me warm and dry super-quickly after my bath’. It is a joy (and sometimes a lesson well taught) to share my life with someone who seems programmed to see the best in everything, and to be thankful for it.

My lovely, beautiful bonus baby. It’s my turn to be grateful for you, for bringing so much joy into our lives.

LearnerMother 

I’m linking up with Magic Moments over at The Olivers Madhouse – there’s a bunch of posts over there full of happiness and joy, pop over and have a look!

Who’d get married on April Fool’s Day?

Family, Other Stories,

When ModernMummy put out the call for guest bloggers to write about their wedding day, I jumped at the chance, as I’ve been meaning to try and commit some of our memories into writing since we tied the knot. I even have a lovely notebook all ready for our wedding anecdotes to be wittily yet tenderly recorded for us to read together in later life.

The notebook has been waiting for 12 sometimes rocky  happy years now, though I do take it out and look at it fondly every now and then, as I promise myself that yes, this will be the year I get around to it. One day, when life is less chaotic, I will – in the meantime I’m grabbing the excuse to get some memories down in writing before my kids lose all my marbles for me!

So. April Fool’s Day 2002 was the date, and the location was Cesky Krumlov, a tiny town in the South Bohemia region, in the Czech Republic. We chose Cesky Krumlov because it was where we had had some of our favourite times as a couple, and because it was such a beautiful location – though there were other places on the shortlist, none of them ticked both of those boxes for both of us. Here’s a couple of pictures, courtesy of Krumlov.org and Czechtourism.com – aaaah even I’d forgotten how lovely Krumlov is!

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Luckily for us, back in 2002 cheap flights were actually cheap, and that meant that most of our family and friends could make the trip over, and luckier still, we have some amazing Czech friends who were a massive help in getting things organised – you can see one of them here, along with my best friend and bridesmaid, at Prague airport making sure we didn’t lose anyone!

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We were due to get married on Easter Monday (also April Fool’s Day, though let’s not dwell on that) – but most people arrived on the Saturday, in time for a party in one of the bars in Krumlov. I am so glad we arranged this as it meant that we had a chance to properly see all our friends and family before the whirlwind of the day itself – though it must be said that there were more than a few sore heads the next day. No matter, everyone spent the day relaxing and enjoying the sunshine that had just that week decided to make an appearance after several weeks of snow…lucky, huh!

We’d chosen to get married in the Hotel Ruže, a traditional Czech hotel right in the centre of the town, and most of the wedding party stayed there too. During the morning, my best friend helped me get ready and did my hair for me, while my sisters buzzed around picking up flowers, rounding up stray guests and generally being great…and then suddenly it was time!

Here’s my sisters patiently waiting for me outside the ceremony, followed by the Husband and his best man waiting patiently inside…

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And here I am coming down the stairs with my Dad and my best friend – a bit overwhelmed at this point!

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And here we both are! This was taken towards the end of the ceremony, and as you can see from the look of intense concentration, the Husband was trying VERY hard not to drop the ring!

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Luckily, the ring went on without any mishaps, which meant we could both heave a huge sigh of relief, and have our first drink as a Married Couple!

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There was the obligatory long drawn put photocall at this point – ModernMummy has not given me permission to bore all her readers silly so I shall refrain from posting them here…oh alright, maybe just one!

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Needless to say that by the time we went in to sit down for the meal I was absolutely starving, in fact kind of too hungry to eat anything at all. I have to say it did feel kind of weird being on the ‘top table’ – although I am sure they weren’t, it felt like everyone was looking at me. Actually, they probably were at this point, when the waiters played out an old Czech tradition of sharing a giant napkin for our first meal…apparently it’s supposed to ensure a long and happy life!

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Another Czech wedding day tradition is that at some point during the celebrations, the bride is kidnapped and whisked away to a secret spot, and the groom is obliged to go and seek her out…here I am being spirited away! It was never really clear what would happen to me if the Husband didn’t find me, but luckily he did – not before I’d knocked back a double espresso and filled my face with cake in the ‘secret’ pub I was hidden in!

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Once the caffeine and sugar had kicked in, we returned back to the hotel for the bit I had been dreading – the First Dance. We had wanted the Wannadies – You and Me, Always, And For Ever but we are both absolute muppets at dancing and we knew we wouldn’t be able to pull that one off, so in the end we went for another favourite of ours, Pulp’s  ‘Something Changed’ as our very first dance (ever, and our last, come to think of it).

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From here on in, the photos get less clear and more wonky, and I am not at all sure that I would be thanked for posting them here! So here’s one to finish off – we’re watching some fireworks, and as you can see the pressure of being a bride for a day has taken its toll and I have reverted to my usual stance – pint in one hand!

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Thank you for reading – I hope you’ve enjoyed my wedding story –  and if you’d like to hear more about my life now feel free to drop by at learnermother.co.uk. (you should be warned that twelve years on, there’s a lot more ranting and a lot less glamour!)

This post first appeared on the fab ModernMummy.co.uk, and I’m linking up with Magic Moments over at The Oliver’s Madhouse too – pop over and read some more cockle-warmers by clicking the badge!