Category Archives: LearnerMother

On life being precious

LearnerMother, Sadness, , ,

My friend’s life changed for ever on Friday, in a matter of seconds, with no warning. Her partner lost his life in an accident, an awful, tragic accident.

I cannot begin to comprehend what all this feels like. To wake up, to begin a normal day, to be glad it’s Friday with the weekend practically started. To wonder whether to eat in or out. To chat about maybe seeing a film. To have no idea, not one inkling, that in a matter of hours, everything will be horribly different, for ever.

My heart goes out to her. I wish with all my soul that I could change this, just rewind and erase, take away her pain. I wish that there was something I could do to make her feel better, and I hope that in time there will be. But right at this point, I don’t see how anything could make anything any better, and I don’t imagine she does, either.

This whole thing is a stark reminder of how precious life is. How it can be snatched away in a matter of minutes. How I mostly take it for granted. I am as guilty as the next person of feeling sorry for myself, of allowing myself to get bogged down with the day to day stresses, of not realising how lucky I am. I am reminded, this weekend, of how it is easy to forget what’s really important in life, and I promise to try harder – much, much harder, to remember.

Lovely lady, we are both thinking of you, and we are here for you whenever and however you need. X x x

On being right here, right now

Family, LearnerMother, , , , ,

Earlier in the week, I wrote about how sad I was that my youngest is starting nursery school. Not so much the separation – he has been in childcare for a couple of years so that I could work, so we are well used to that. No, more the fact that him starting proper nursery feels like the passing of yet another stage of our family life, and the realisation that they are all growing up faster than I can get my head around.

What’s worse, there seem to be whole chunks of their babyhoods that I just cannot remember. I know the last eight years have happened as there is photographic evidence of varying quality, but I’m extremely sketchy on the details. Whether this is a normal side effect of motherhood, or age related, or early onset marble loss, who knows, but I’ve decided to do something about it and list five things that I’m loving about my kids right here, right now, and then revisit a couple of times a year. So here goes!

One – they are good company! It is just lovely, and fascinating too, getting to know them as they develop their personalities and opinions. I love the fact that as they get bigger, our conversations are getting bigger too. It’s refreshing to realise that you’ve just spent a whole hour chatting to your kids without a single interjection of ‘please can you share nicely’, ‘don’t forget to say thank you’, ‘no, I do not want you to poke my tummy with a toy umbrella so you can see if there is a baby growing’. I used to look forward to Thursday nights because the Husband works and therefore I could get the kids to bed and I could go to bed right afterwards…now I look forward to them as a chance to have some chilled out time chatting with the big ones about anything and everything.

Two – doing things together. I need to be more alert to the opportunities for this. For example, I was getting ready to go out for a run on holiday (miracles do in fact take place, here in Wales) and my biggest boy asked if he could come along. I wanted to do a reasonable distance so it was on the tip of my tongue to say no – then I realised that he could easily manage it on his bike, so he put his helmet on and off we went – he even did us a mid-run selfie! We’re going to do this more often, and he’s also asked if he can try out running one day with me too, so who knows I might actually get a running buddy out of it!

IMG_2346

 

Three – they have, very recently, started playing imaginary games together for decent periods of time. By decent, I mean a couple of hours, so enough time for me to give the house a quick once over. If I wanted to. Which I obviously never do (I’ve got LearnerMother to play with, after all). But it’s good to know that I could clean, if an emergency arose. And more than that, it’s lovely to listen to them all. (I thought I should stick that in, I mean this post is supposed to be about what I’m enjoying about my kids and I’m not sure that enjoying the fact that they leave me alone in peace and quiet is quite in the spirit of it.)

Four – I love watching them help each other. It makes me so happy when I see the big ones showing the littlest how to do something – and they are much more patient than I am! This week they have been especially lovely – the youngest does not approve at all of nursery school, but I’ve overheard several (unprompted) conversations between them where the big ones have made a real effort to reassure and encourage him. And it’s not just helping each other – they have a great memory for items on the shopping list that I’ve invariably left on the table; they can get iPlayer and Lovefilm through the Wii, AND they pick up the windfall apples for 20p a time – bargainatious exploitation it may be but I reckon can just about live with it.

Five – reading together. I know I am not supposed to say this, but this has not been a non-stop unadulterated joy. I’ve always done it, and the kids have always enjoyed it, but after the 7684th reading of the Hungry Caterpillar (yep, my kids know what they like, and they like what they know) the shine does wear off a bit. Recently however, reading to them has become a whole lot more fun – they’ve started to get into the idea of having a chapter a night of a longer book, and even the littlest will sit and listen. We recently finished Five on a Treasure Island, and I’ve just started on A Little Princess with my girl – she is absolutely entranced, not only by the story, but about the fact that she is reading a book that I loved too at her age.

IMG_2844

 

So there you have it – five things I’m loving about my kids right now.

What about you? What are you loving, right here, right now, about your family?

On feeling bereft

Family, LearnerMother, School, , ,

I have just dropped my littlest boy at ysgol feithrin/nursery school for the first time. I was not expecting this to feel so weird. Yesterday I was all excited for him, and also if I am honest relishing the fact that our mornings will be much easier from now on, because they’ll all be dropped at the same place. But then last night at some point he arrived in our bed, and when I woke up this morning there was his baby face next to me, all flushed with sleep and my first thought was ‘I’m not ready for this’.

I don’t know whether he picked up on my thoughts but when he woke up, he announced that he wasn’t going to school with his brother and sister yet and he’d go when he was four instead, and even though my lovely big ones were so excited for him, helping him put on his uniform and telling him they’d wave if they saw him on the yard at playtime he still wasn’t happy. He grumbled through the obligatory ‘kids in their uniform at the front door’ picture and then was unusually quiet all the way to school.

Luckily as soon as he went inside and saw all the toys and the Ty Bach Twt and the water play he was as happy as anything; he gave me a kiss and ran off and, even though the parents had been told they could stay for a bit, I decided to leave because he seemed confident and comfortable. But of course the minute I got out of the door I had a bit of a panic – Should I have stayed? What if he wondered why all the other mums and dads were there and I wasn’t? What if he thought I had left him FOR EVER? So I hung round outside the gates pretending to chat to my friend but actually craning my neck to see if I could see him for a bit, before taking myself and my neuroses to task and heading off. And now here I am, not able to concentrate on what I’m supposed to be reading for work and counting the minutes till I pick him up.

This is COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS BEHAVIOUR on my part. He’s actually been going to nursery for two or three days a week for two years already, and he regularly goes for sleepovers at my Mum’s, so I really don’t know what this is all about. What’s more, he definitely needs to be at ysgol feithrin – as the youngest of three and also relatively old in his year group, he is more than ready for some structure and learning. I don’t know. I think it is partly the uniform thing – seeing him in his little yellow teeshirt and blue sweater just made me feel as if I had lost my baby, for ever. And instead of making the most of the fact that I have a couple of hours to get stuck into something constructive, I am sitting here looking my watch and wondering how soon I can decently arrive at the school to pick him up and spirit him home again.

I should be relishing the fact that family life is settling down and getting easier as they get bigger. I should be enjoying the (usually) unbroken nights. I should be looking forward to all the new stages that we will discover and enjoy as they grow older. But right now, try as I might, I can’t find a way to do that. I’m too sad for the days that have already gone, unappreciated and too fast. My babies are not babies any more.

15863_230339789545_4442903_n