Easter Break 2014 - Part One

The best part of not being up to date with your blog is finding draft posts from a few weeks back and suddenly being freshly awashed with happy experiences. How those boys of mine have grown and how much fun we all had over the easter break even though it felt at the time like we hadn't done very much. Remembering the time that I came down to breakfast to find my little man cosy underneath one of the chairs clutching his current favourite stick, I mean 'sword'! Our post football cafe date. His saturday morning role play as a policeman issuing a firm warning, best 'warning' face ever. The afternoon that he took off his t-shirt so that he could feel the sun on his back and drew some of the things that he had spotted on our adventures the day before. I get happy goosebumps when I see his writing and those drawings and the look of concentration on his face. The picture of me looking like my older sister Ali alongside my eldest looking like my Grandma Peppermint. Oh and how that eldest of mine loves to come and find me when I'm lying on my bed reading and wants to hang out and tell me stuff, it's one of the rare times that I remember to try and take pictures of us together. And how, when you live in a small house with three boys, you might find yourself retreating to a place of quiet for a time of solitude. However, they come looking. They ask what you're up to. They put debris from the garden in your bed and when they snuggle up close they smell  like a mix of dog and pond (except hubby, he smells good!). Anyway, before you know it they've turfed you out of bed but you almost don't mind because … well, because of the silliness and their smiles. What it is to have a grandma that keeps an eye out for the fishing nets that two boys have said they 'really really want' and the blessing that you feel to know that she didn't think twice about catching two buses to seek them out. The excitement of blue sky and the perfect weather for testing those fishing nets out, for spotting newts and fresh water shrimp and lots of pond life. Being thankful for the memory of sitting amongst daisies and resting in the sun, for ice creams in the garden and for feeling pleased that for once I remembered to buy ice cream cones, 'grandma always remembers' apparently! Special moments like the one where I gazed into my eldests eyes whilst we chatted in my bed even though it was a sunny day and we should really have been outside. Those mornings when he's a little unsettled and he comes into our bed and curls up next to us like a lil' puppy dog. Those freckles upon my eldest boy's nose that make my soul sing. Those freckles on my hubby's arms that almost glow against the white sheets, so familiar that it makes me get a lump in my throat in that way that you sometimes do involuntarily when things make you happy. Their freckles are some of my favourite things. And seeing them asleep together in bed like that, I can't quite believe its been nearly six years since we brought that boy home and that lil' puppy dog would sleep happily on his daddy's chest. Time flies! 

Easter Break

Lazy mornings, endless games, mostly with the tiniest of marbles that end up catapulted from one side of the room to the other or up and down or along stairs using the simplest man made contraptions from separate parts of unused toys. Races from sitting room to bedroom with regular shouts of 'red card' blurted out to mother, mostly ignored I might add. Breakfast and second breakfasts and third before we manage to find our way out of the front door, not before a few meltdowns, mostly mine urging three very easily distracted males out into the sunshine (if we're lucky) before she disappears. Fresh air, food, fighting mostly in that order and set to repeat with late afternoons for unwinding or being wound up depending on who and where and what. Cosy times in my bed with just one of them allowed for some time out with mama, nuzzling their nest of hair into my bosom reminding me of when I was a girl and did the same with my mum. How I loved how she would fuss with my face or hair whilst I picked up the faint smell of onions on her hands which bothered me enough to identify its source but not enough to risk her stopping her tender display. I wonder all the time what memories I am imprinting on these boys of mine? Apart from the softness of my 'big fat belly' which my littlest one likes to speak of regularly. On good days it makes me laugh as he jiggle jiggles it around, wrinkling his little nose up in deep laughter. On bad I scold him somewhat or show him a serious enough sadness in that way that only mothers can, in return he showers me with love. You know that deep kind, the kind that when you think of it out of the blue it gives you goose bumps. 

Time spent admiring the youngest member of our family, my sweet nephew and the boys second boy cousin. Watching as his hair sprouts and waiting expectantly for the famous family curls, listening as he makes that special satisfied sound as he takes in each gulp of milk from his bottle, looking in disbelief at his ample delicious baby thighs that you just cant help but squeeze. Looking on with admiration seeing that eldest boy of mine tenderly playing with this little one of ours, pure joy. Catching my big sister literally pinching herself watching the scene unfold, reminding herself that this little one is hers and that she is a mama now and seeing her glow, literally glow.

Remembering the excitement as a child when days were unscheduled, unusual, when things for one reason or another didn't go to plan for your parents and knowing that the result meant staying an extra hour at your granny's house or travelling back home in the car in the dark instead of daylight or going to bed much later than usual, not having to have a shower or bath before bed or eating fast food. Funnily enough that's exactly what happened recently and my boys punched their fists in the air in celebration of mama's failure meaning a fish and chips lunch after all. Seeing these two boys excited at: having to catch the bus into the city, the video pieces in the gas hall gallery (particularly the one where the windows of an old building get smashed with stones, from the inside) and in particular at watching their daddy perform live music for the first time. The look of pride on my first borns face is one that I'll never forget, my heart exploded and I'll forever be picking up and admiring the pretty, pretty pieces of that I am sure!  

Trips back to our favourite places because ... well because we still love them so. Time changes, weather changes, each of us going through our constant changes but somehow these cycles, these re-visits make time stand still and we cherish that! And when the sky stayed blue on our canalside picnic, we *'sailed off through night and day and in and out of weeks to where the wild things are'. Once there, we smiled our biggest smiles and *'roared our terrible roars' and all was well with the world!

* Extract from Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

It has been quiet and I rather like that

Christmas has been a quiet affair for the family and I this year, dare I say it has been slightly understated even.  After waking up in our own beds and opening presents and watching those lovely little faces lighting up with excitement and pottering for a couple of hours on christmas morning, we headed over to my mums - a half hour drive away and enjoyed the luxury of sitting around chatting/watching tv/playing games with the kids whilst mum prepared us christmas lunch. We stayed overnight and even mine and mothers traditional scrabble game didn't take place. This was partly because I forgot to take it and for nostalgias sake it simply must be played on the scrabble board game that Grandma Peppermint passed down to me, and partly because I fell asleep whilst mum was watching Downton Abbey. There's something about returning to the home where I spent my teenage years that makes me regress ever so slightly, it's strange. I find myself lying on the settee in a way that I never would anywhere else, I fall asleep almost against my will, I even feel a simultaneous freedom and restless just like I did all those years ago growing up in that house, that area. 

We headed back to our neck of the woods on boxing day in need of lots of fresh air and good walking which we had been hindered to do in the quantity we desired because of dreadful drizzly weather. We have since given up waiting for dry spells and have been enjoying many walks, squelching our way through mud and layers and layers of autumn leaves, although both mine and hubby's converse are very angry with us for the ill treatment. We always see those families with the waterproofs with hoods, the fancy knee high wellies/walking boots and they used to raise a smile in me but now as I see the bitch slapped converse weeping in a corner, I wanna be the hooded, wellied family that you suspect all bear a slogan necklace that reads 'Always prepared' beneath their waterproofs! Being outdoors, just the four of us, has definitely been a highlight of the festive period, simple and plain, straightforward and easy. But then hubby and I are self confessed grinches and were it not for those lovely boys of ours, we would more than likely just repeat one of our favourite christmas's - just the two of us, wine, good food, on the sofa under the duvet, watching a great box set (one pre-kids x'mas it was Northern Exposure another post kids x'mas it was The Wire) ... Bliss! 

It is of course always wonderful to see nieces and nephews and little ones, this self confessed grinch cannot help but have a heart that skippety skips with gladness at seeing them ... but the grown ups I could pass on! Only kidding! My heart also skipped a few beats when my boys first front tooth finally came out a few days ago!!! I love, love the photos I took ... there's nothing better than a boy with his big hair tied back looking all vulnerable and little in his pj's!

Finally, I am aware that 2013 is not far away and I am pondering what my word for the year might be. I have some thoughts about what 'Nurture' (my chosen word for 2012) meant now that I'm reflecting on it, it didn't quite surface or embed in my life in the ways that I had planned but I think some fruit has been yielded none the less. I feel a great peace after finally getting my inspiration wall up, it helps me so much with clarity about work that I would like to make and also helps me to divvy up projects - something that I have really been struggling with. On and off but for many years, I have meant some serious 'making' business once that Louise Bourgeios portrait has gone up on my wall. I think it's just around the corner ... perhaps, maybe, definitely.