All posts by LearnerMother

On small steps with my biggest boy

Family, LearnerMother, , ,

IMG_0568

One of my clearest memories from having my firstborn was how utterly perplexed he seemed to be with the world in which he found himself.

Completely exhausted from labour, and terrified that I would fall asleep and suffocate him, I had put him in the little crib thing next to me and held my breath, expecting a roar of protest. Well the roar never came – and in fact, he continued to be the most placid baby I’d ever come across. But in place of the roar, was a little face looking around so confused, so worried almost, that I wished I could have popped him safely back inside me for a few more weeks till he felt ready to face us all.

That sense of not being in the right place has stayed with my biggest boy. Even in his happiest moments, he has never been completely carefree. He worries about all sorts of things – most of all about whether anyone likes him. Achingly like me as a child, he is desperate to fit in and be one of the gang, but doesn’t really know how to do it. When I watch him on the school yard in the mornings, I have sometimes felt physical pain in my gut for him as I see him approach groups only to be ignored – and then to start acting the fool to get attention, and of course isolating himself further. In the past I’ve been pretty pro-active about organising playdates for him, but over the last year or so – at his request – these have tapered off.

But just these last few weeks it feels as if there is a small, but significant change in the air. He seems more confident in himself, and his thoughts and feelings. He is definitely playing more with a wider group of friends in the playground, and in the last 2 weeks has had playdates with 2 different friends – at his instigation! – and has invited another friend to sleep over on the last day of term. He’s stayed off the ‘concern list’ all year at school, and his teacher said again at parents evening how far he has come this year.

None of that really matters to me – I would slay dragons for him as he is, however he is. But seeing him grow into himself a little, and become more comfortable in his own skin, is a lovely way to start the Spring, for all of us – but most of all for him. Looking forward to more small steps, my biggest boy! x

Linking up to Magic Moments – why not link up too?


On number cuddles

Family, LearnerMother, , , , ,

IMG_0714

Me: ‘How many cuddles do you want tonight?’

The 3yo: ‘Three. I want three.’

Me: ‘Ok – ready – one, two, three’ (each accompanied by a squeezy cuddle)

The 3yo: ‘Now I want three in Raeg’ (yn Gymraeg/in Welsh)

Me: ‘ok, wyt ti’n barod? Un, dau, tri’ (each accompanied by, er, a Welsh squeezy cuddle)

The 3yo: ‘Can I have my kiss please’

Me: kiss

The 3yo ‘Can you get out of my bed now, I want to go to sleep’*

Number cuddles are exactly the sort of thing that I want to keep this blog for. Those special little things that come into being, nobody knows how, and are then part of life until, one day, you suddenly realise that it’s been quite a while since number cuddles made an appearance, and sure enough, if you mention them to your child you’ll get a withering look and a ‘no Mum, I grew out of that a LONG time ago’.

And then, unless something pops up to remind you, those little traditions disappear into the ether of family living. So I’m going to try and record them here – and one day, when they’ve all grown up and I’m wondering where the years have gone, I’ll be able to look back and remember the lovely little things that were part of our life.

🙂

*yep, that’s what he says – no messing with him – when he says cuddle time is over, it’s over!

I’m linking up with The Oliver’s Madhouse lovely Magic Moments – pop along and have a read, it’ll warm your cockles!


On who made my pants

Reviews, Social enterprise, , , , ,

Yes indeed, this post is about who made my pants. Why? Because it’s an important question, that’s why. And it’s not only my pants (or yours) – the question could equally be – Who made my jeans? Who made my phone? Who made my milk? For 99.999% of the stuff I own, I don’t have a clue who made it. The supply chain for most of the stuff we tell ourselves we can’t live without is so vast that it is impossible to discover who, actually, did make the vast majority of it. But one thing we can all be pretty sure of – it’s not the folk that made our stuff, that benefit from us having bought it.

This bothers me. I would consider myself to be a reasonably ethical purchaser, yet really and truly, I know that pretty much every day, I’m lining some corporate fucker’s pockets, at the expense of the people who are squashed into an anonymous, frightened heap at the bottom of the supply chain. It bothers me – but I feel powerless to do anything real about it. So I muddle on, trying to do the best I can, and trying not to listen too much to the guilty voices in my head.

Well – luckily for the world, there are some amazing people out there, who don’t just ‘muddle on.’ And one of those amazing people is Becky. Becky set up a company called Who Made Your Pants back in 2008. In a nutshell, Who Made Your Pants exists to create work for women who would otherwise not have any, and, of course, to make luscious pants! Have a look – they really are lovely. And best of all, they come with a little tag attached that tells you who actually did make your pants!

I’m not going to shy away from the fact that the cheapest pair of pants these ladies make is priced at £12.50. Admittedly, my first reaction was ‘£12.50? That’s more than I spend on pants in a YEAR!’ (sad, but true – I must confess to being an M&S 5-packer for most of my born days). But then I got to thinking. If it costs £12.50 to produce a pair of pants, from remaindered lace that would otherwise end up in a skip, for a social enterprise that is not set up to make a profit, then what are the REAL costs of my bargain 5-packs, made who knows where in who knows what conditions? And once the thought had formed itself, I really couldn’t hide from it. So now, my pants drawer is being slowly but surely replenished so that eventually, every day I will know that at least ONE item I wear is making a real difference.

I wasn’t really planning on posting details of my (half now lovely, half still crap, old and holey) pants drawer on the blog, but in honour of Red Nose Day, Becky and the team are giving £5 to Comic Relief for every pair of these ravishing red pants  bought by midnight tomorrow night – and I figured it might just be the excuse you need to treat yourself! 🙂

November 2014 – I’m joining this post up with Sam’s linky ‘The Truth About’ – click below for more truthful tales!

And then the fun began...