Boboville…!

Meeting up with a friend from School in a couple of weeks.. we were great friends and spent lots of time together between the ages of 11 and 15.

I loved going to her house cos her parents were super liberal and relaxed (as opposed to super uptight and over worrying Nut folks that I had) and we used to get up to mischief I’m sure.

I remember being outraged one day when my mum refused to let us go shopping to Nottingham because we wouldn’t be safe (YAWN!!) when only the week before we’d been there alone staying at Hannah’s house. We were 13.

There is no way that I would let Rowan or Ella go shopping with one friend in Nottingham now at 13 years old. It’s a crazy place!

Bless my parents for being so misunderstood when I was utterly outraged

So – I was going about my business on Facebook the other week and suddenly saw I got poked by Hannah. I was so pleased as I had actively looked for her a few times and was disappointed she wasn’t on there…

So – I find out, she has a blog and Flickr and we have ended up interested in so many of the same things.. amazing we have lived so close for years and didn’t know.

Bit disappointing really.

So anyway – pay a visit to Boboville (I shall also be adding her to my blogroll) and enjoy …. we are meeting up in the second week of February and I shall happily post piccies of the day

yay!

Well if you liked that.. you’ll love this!!

The other day… we not only ventured into the world of Banana Bread… but also Lemon and Poppy Seed Muffins…

Rowan is venturing into the world of bakery .. and to be fair.. she’s pretty good!!

Combine 16oz of flour, 6oz of caster sugar, 1 tablespoon of baking powder a pinch of salt and sift well together.

Make a well in the center and place 2 beaten eggs, 1/4 cup of oil, 4 tablespoons of melted butter – one tsp of lemon juice, 1 tsp of honey, 1 tsp of vanilla and 1 tsp of lemon extract and then add 2 tablespoons of poppy seeds.

Blend with a fork and don’t OVERMIX!!

Mix all the ingredients gently and smile for the camera!

Spoon the mixture gently in muffin cases…

….

Bake in the oven for 25 minutes at 180 centigrade… makes 12!!

These are the finished Rowan Lemon and Poppy Seed Muffins…

She was very proud… they were amazingly big and splurged a bit onto one another.. but it certainly didn’t interfere with the flavour!!

Puuuuuurple…….

Puuuuuurple……., originally uploaded by Little Nut Tree.

Decorating… oh what fun…

The front room was white and purple and now it’s going to be different…

I never ever remember to take before and after shots.. Ever!

So I am amazed that this is actually making a post..

I return!

Well.. what a lovely weekend.

I shall catch you up in a nutshell.. it’s what nuts do best

Ran to Boots Friday afternoon to get last minute baby supplies for our weekend away and spotted little Easter treats for the girls. Picked up five for The Girls and one for Rowan.

Faux Pas as obviously Amelie cannot eat chocolate. She was so good when she said ‘Oh is this something that I can eat?’ Suddenly it dawned on me and I felt awful. I explained that I was an idiot of the highest proportions and that I would go out in the morning and get her something that she could have and that I had picked them up without thinking.

I asked her if she could forgive me and in typical loving Amelie style she said ‘Of course I forgive you because I love you’ *Heart melts*.. What a beautiful little girl..

So.. Rich arrived and all the girls got to play and harass him to within an inch of his conscious state. He had been to an awards do on Friday night and gone to bed at about 2am I think. Got up at 7am and immediately got on a train to Loughborough. I think he did sleep all the way.. but he still looked pretty shit!!

Sorry Rich.. but you did!! hehe

Uuuuuummm…. All the girls got on brilliantly for 98% of the time. There were several Rowan-related reported incidents that I spent quite a great deal of the weekend explaining that they could deal with. We tried…

How would you deal with this if it were Josie?
I don’t mind at all if you need to tell Rowan off..
If she’s being naughty then you have my authority to make sure she behaves.. Honestly it’s absolutely fine..

I think by the end I may have lost interest somewhat.. and resorted to ‘Fran/Maddy/Amelie, how old are you? OK. How old is Rowan? OK. *Hug/kiss* Do you think you could possibly sort out the fact that she keeps running of with your shoes without having to tell me? (Very sweet though!)

I think they were worried that they couldn’t intervene in the same way with Rowan as they can with Joey.. but it only took a few well placed tellings off from me (for Rowan), for the girls to see they were welcome to take charge

Rowan is at the most irritating stage of childhood I think hope beg & plead with anyone that she is going to be for a while. She is gratingly stubborn. Stubborn to the point where she would rather go without the present that Granny bought them all from the shop on Saturday than say thank you! I mean please, how ridiculous!?

Rowan was guilty of many things this weekend (TRUST ME!!) but reportedly naughtily slamming a door whilst simultaneously sitting on the computer chair playing space junkie… wasn’t one of them.

However… pouring the begged for Fruit Shoot into Grampty’s shoes was! She only said sorry when she was at the side of her bed faced with the reality of a nap if she didn’t! My daughter honestly!

Saturday evening was lovely – we drank wine, laughed, relaxed … looked at photos.. giggled and got drunk! I went to bed far too late both nights but bizarrely both my children decided this weekend was the time when they would both sleep in till 7.30am both days!! YAY

There is so much more to this but my best mate has phoned so I can’t type and talk at the same time!!!

OK.. I have to show you something

You may think I’m becoming obsessed.. maybe I am..

I thought yesterday’s candidate with ‘dirty nursery rhymes’ was a touch disturbing… but this… this is quite revolting…

But it’s also made me think that it must be YOU, OTJ…. who else would be looking for this kind of information..?

Or maybe it was me..?

On the other hand – YAY Burps Liberty!! Making Internet searches!!! You must be getting famous!!!

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Why?

This is one of my posts that’s ‘on my list’. I have been thinking about this for ages now really. I have a whole list of things that I want to blog about and never seem to get round to, but recently a lot of people started writing about why..

Why are we blogging? What started it off and why do we keep going? What makes us sit down and share… and why don’t we feel embarrassed to share so openly and honestly?

I have never been a person that I thought would be open to sharing in this way. I have never been good at sharing anyway and I never feel comfortable really when I’m being ‘up close and personal’ with others.

Well that’s not entirely true..

I love to listen to others and I happily counsel. I love to hug and support and console but have never really been one for sharing. Not sharing my stuff..

Well I say never, but probably not since I got burned. I was always very trusting of people and two bad relationships with shitty knob-heads got me all paranoid about who I should trust. Who I could trust, when I should trust and when I shouldn’t keep my mouth shut and when I should keep my head down and get on with it.

I have learned to rely on myself for a lot of emotional stuff and I tend to be the one that questions my own actions whilst I over analyse things (because I’m not that great at sharing my stuff).

Those two relationships took something quite vital from me really. They took my ability to trust even when I have no reason not to trust. Funnily though, they have not really taken away my ‘ever charming’ gullibility even if they have added somewhat to my suspicious nature.

Bizarre the little flaws and contradictions in my personality.

I accidentally found my sister’s blog toward the end of last year. I may have said this before…

I was doing a Google search for ‘Bottled Cherry Angel’. A book she had when we were younger, based loosely on the Peter Pan story..

I had loved it as a girl and couldn’t remember who wrote it. BigN and I were talking about the book, and I just couldn’t adequately describe the storyline so I wanted to read him the blurb.

Anyway.. The fourth link down was Read Merrily, Patch of Puddles. I followed the link because I was sure that had to be something to do with my sister..
It was ….. and I found her blog. Quite by accident.

I knew it existed and I had known for sometime. I had never been to find it, not because I didn’t want to .. I just hadn’t. I didn’t really know what blogs were and it never occurred to me to look.

What I read on her pages that evening, made me cry. I was stunned and sorry.

I didn’t know my sister.

The sister I thought I knew was not the woman that was writing these words. I knew she had had a tough year last year. Of course I knew things had happened in her personal life but I didn’t really know her.

But what hurt more though.. was that I thought I did.

I resolved there and then that I had to get to know her better.

I asked her how to start a blog and thought that this would be how I would do it.
Get to know her.
I would join in an interest and make an effort to have something in common.

A common ground. A starting place.

To extend and develop a relationship that was severely stunted and probably still only about as complex as it was when we were thirteen and fifteen.

In other words.. not much more complicated than the odd hello and occasionally falling out over things I can’t even remember, really.

So. I became the Little Nut Tree.
The name came from my dad’s nickname for Rowan, Peanut. I had been Peanut Crunch when I was little because I went brown so quickly and tanned quite deeply. LNT just popped into my head.. it was either that or ‘Bunch of Nuts’!!

So I started this blog …. and I started without really having a direction or an idea of what I was doing or why I was doing it. But as I have continued, I realise this is actually something I really enjoy doing.

I can see that my style is growing and that I have developed my own little ‘way’.

I look forward to blogging when I’m at work. Sometimes I log on at work to see if I have any new visitors, or new comments. Look at my world map and see if anyone has come from a new, exciting place.

I am totally enjoying sharing my feelings and being myself. Unconditionally.

An extremely weird and unexpected revelation for me.

I am caring. I am honest. Dippy. Thoughtful. Ridiculous. Childish. Mature. Devoted. Protective. Argumentative. Defensive. Loving. Quiet. Loud. Dieting. Self conscious. Self deprecating sometimes. Loony(ish). Insecure…

All of these with an un-shifting annoying desire to be right but a constant need to apologise if I suspect (or know) that I’m wrong.

I just love that on this blog, I can be all of this and more. People can read about me and can read ‘me’ almost. People that don’t even know me… know me.

And if someone says something back to me… something that inspires or provokes me… I can answer at my own pace in my own style and with utter honesty.

So…..

I enjoy feeling connected to people. I have been alone for such a long time.I want to explain that. Because obviously I am not alone.

At university I had great girlfriends. I enjoyed my time there immensely and always felt a security in my world there and knew that I could confide if I needed to.
And actually without my great friend, Audrey, I would never have made it through the shit boyfriend scenario half as sanely as I managed to in the end.

She listened to me go on and on (ad nauseum) when really all other sane people on the planet had left me to witter away. And quite rightly so. I bored myself in the end!

But sharing with and confiding in Audrey was easy. She was older than I was, about 7 years older I think. We had a grown-up and sturdy relationship built on trust and honesty and I knew that whatever was said to her never went any further.

Not only that but she listened. Properly listened. Listened and advised. No matter what we were doing or what else was going on, if you needed to talk to Audrey – you got her attention. 100%.

I like to make sure now, that I do that for others. I learned from her. It is invaluable to be there for others when you are needed. To be trusted and to know that you are trusted. But more than that. To be trustworthy.

And I am. And it’s never too much trouble for me to be there for someone.

But one thing I am missing since I moved away and started the new life with BN in a new place and had a new job and a new city and new everything.. was that connection.

I was incredibly lonely when we first moved here. I have never been without friends. Ever.

I am the girl that is the first to talk in a room full of people that don’t know each other. I make friends quickly.

Not because I am particularly self confident or outgoing though. But because I want to make others feel at ease.

In fact, in situations where I am unlikely to know anyone I am incredibly lacking in confidence .. (Branch Manager meetings for new regions, for example, where I could turn up and know no-one) ..

I like to break the ice and see others relax because I know how hard it is to be somewhere where you feel like you don’t fit in.

I just like to take care of others.

Also.. I have to admit.. I am a genuine loudmouth on occasion.

But I was missing that for a long time when we moved here and I haven’t totally found it yet.

I haven’t found a best mate. A BFF. Someone I can always talk to. About everything.

BN is of course my best friend. I tell him everything. Unequivocal honesty is the absolute key to our relationship. I am never afraid to tell him anything and I know that I will never keep anything from him.

And.. for the first time in my life, I know I have the person that treats me in the same regard.

Am I greedy for wanting more than one person though? I want more. I want more than BN. I want a girlfriend. Near me. Not one in Exeter or Norwich. But here.

But there is nothing quite like the opinion of girlfriends. You need girlfriends and in my opinion, humble as it is, you need more than one. You need a few.

I miss the laughing over who may or may not have bought a sex toy (you know who you are ), I miss the talking into the night over who loves who and what happened next in the saga of Sarah and her new boyfriend of the moment..

I am missing a connection.

And what I believe I am starting to tap in to… is this weirdly surreal but real, forcefield of friends and just ‘people’ who want to interact with you.

Are willing to interact with you … no matter what you talk about and no matter what time you feel like talking, there will be someone out there who can give you that comment… that well timed reach out into the unknown (known?) … to make you feel better or to let you know that you are not alone with whatever it is that you think or feel.

There have been a few things lately where I have felt wildly grateful for having a blog or for reading others. I tell BN stuff, but he may have his opinion and I have mine and sometimes it’s just what you need to get that last few thoughts.

Thoughts that can cement whether you act or you wait. Thoughts that can make you feel secure in your opinion or doubt your chosen course of action.

Sometimes it’s just good to get things out there.

Whether you are agreed with .. or disagreed with. Argued with, shouted down or supported.

It’s that connection that counts.

I have found one person so far that I would truly call a friend. She may be on the other side of the planet. But I would never have found her if not for the world of Flickr and Blogging.

And I am looking for more friends I suppose.

So….

Here is my answer.

It’s the connection.

I blog for the connection. I have found a connection.
And at this time I can’t see a reason why I would want to stop.

Fear.

I’ve been thinking about this post for a while. Since reading this and then this…. but totally cemented by reading an email from a dear friend that caused me to really think about a) a way to make her feel better but b) really looking inside myself and try to get to the bottom of what I think and why I think it.

About life. The universe and everything. The bit afterwards. If there is.

The email started like this…

When Rowan was born I developed this fear of falling down stairs.. weird but true..

Even now – I’m almost convinced that I’ve had this weird kind of premonition that I’m going to die falling down the stairs.. well an accident at least.. maybe death is a little extreme!!

Whenever I’m coming down stairs I always kind of half imagine or dread that I’m going to catch my heel in my trouser leg or step wrongly and slip.. and I don’t even have to have a child in my arms to be worried about it.

Surely if you’ve been reading for a while – you’ll have already understood that I’m a bit loony… these are just some of the mental thoughts that flitter and skitter through my mind on a daily basis..

I’m very consequence oriented. If I’m making a choice, I’m always thinking about what that choice means.

What will happen if I do that?

This could happen. That could be bad. Well I won’t do it then.

I think mostly this approach saves me quite a lot because (although it sounds ridiculously impossible like I’m oxymoronic) but I’m actually also pretty impulsive, particularly when a situation appeals to my protective/defensive streak toward my loved ones or even my extended family of staff.

So, being consequence conscious often means I am able to save myself from making a complete tit of myself or even getting myself into a trouble… whether work or home related..

It’s the same kind of thing that’s stopped me from driving for years. I just can’t think of being in control of a car without thinking that I could kill someone. Probably sounds ridiculous to most people I’m sure..

Extending from this, is the other thing I have …. this total full on proper irrational fear of death.

Total fear.

Not… oh dear one day I’m going to die, ah well…. but

I can’t actually think about death without having to practically verbally or physically stop myself from thinking about it when I start to panic.

I’ve always thought that it’s probably because I don’t believe in anything after life.

I don’t believe in a God – I don’t believe in an afterlife. I can’t explain why and I certainly don’t judge or mock those that do.. I just don’t.

The trouble is then, that when I think about the fact that one day I will die.. I have nothing to fall back on.

No buffer, no safety zone.

No ‘I’ll be looking down on you’ or ‘I’ll be waiting’ ..”I’ll be back..’ No fluffy white cloud to sleep on.. … … just nothing.

I kind of believe that people live on in the memories of others. That’s how we keep people alive … by keeping them remembered. And talked about. And loved. Cherished. Laughed about.. Fondly ..

But when I think about death… I start to feel my heart rate rise and I can feel utter panic rising.

One day I won’t be here.

I’ll leave my family…. my beautiful girls, my soul mate and maybe my brother and sister etc. etc. and that’s it.

No coming back from that. I can’t watch. I can’t observe, I can’t reminisce.

I’m just.. not.

How can I protect if I’m not here?

Most times when I accidentally find myself on that train of thought.. I feel scared. I have to literally say to myself, ’stop thinking about that.’.. and push it out of my brain.
Spiraling thoughts that you have to physically control …

I remember this thing from university once where we were learning about adrenaline. It’s the worst hormone, it gives you that ‘pit falling out of your stomach feeling’ that makes your heart skip a beat and your palms sweaty while you feel the colour draining from your face as nervousness and trepidation rises like cold water..

But.. I remember this one thing. (we were talking about phobias) they were saying that some treatments and therapists believe in shock therapy to treat phobias and that shoving someone into close proximity with their irrational fear (and thus proving that nothing happened to them) was a great way of treating someone’s irrational fear.

The reason being that even if you were shit scared. Like the most scared you’ve ever been in your life – in a shedful of spiders, you had to calm down eventually.

Adrenaline is a hormone. It runs out. Its effect wears off and it’s physically impossible to remain at that heightened sense of fear for any extended length of time.

Even with adrenalin coursing through your body…

You have to calm down. It’s inevitable.

The anxiety has to go away because your body can’t sustain it for long even if your brain wanted it to.

So what I need is someone to come along and shove me in a big shed with Death and then I’ll be fine!!

It’s been a bit of a work day..

Work has been pretty frustrating and annoying today… troubles with people seem to be the only thing that makes my job harder than it should be!

I actually need to talk about it and get it all off my chest but I guess I’ll bore BN with that later

BN took Ella to the doctors today after all of this stupid stupid chest infection and coughing and vomiting that I have just had enough of.

I need sleep apart from anything else. It is getting a bit beyond a joke.. It’s like having a newborn baby again the amount Ella’s waking up and it’s all with this coughing malarkey …. and I’m trying to work 10 hour days every day… (violins play in the background.. )

Aaaaanny-waaaaaayy…

She has a bad throat infection and has stronger antibiotics this time (rather than stupid stupid Amoxycillin that never ever works!!)..

Also … finally the girls have some eczema treatment and have been given slightly stronger cream to see if it helps with these annoying dry, itchy rashes on their faces.

So… I am ever hopeful that the sleep situation gets better because seriously.. if I don’t get a full night’s sleep soon……  I may cry…

mee maw mee maw…

OK.. it wasn’t quite blue flashing lights but last night was my first late night trip to A&E with Ella coughing and choking with this darn chest infection.

Both girls have had it for weeks and it finally seemed like it was going and then suddenly yesterday she got it back (as did Rowan).

So, yes. More sleepless nights, yet more leaping out of bed with a second’s notice to come to the aid of the choking babe..

It doesn’t exactly make for restful nights…

But last night.. Ella seemed a little distressed and brought herself round from deep sleep around 10.30 and that’s just not like her anymore.

I decided to go up and give her some more medication as she had been sick earlier on at bedtime..

By the time I got up there she was pretty upset and was kind of alternating between a very harsh, barking cough – croup like, with gagging and choking on presumably whatever was streaming down her throat …

Poor little Ella.

It was not nice and I felt incredibly sorry for her. She started to get very upset and I decided that because she didn’t seem to be catching her breath well that I would take her to A&E.

This was of course 10 minutes after I had managed to give her Neurofen (before she had got upset…)

So 15 minutes later – in front of the doctor at the local hospital and Ella… well Ella was blowing raspberries and laughing every time he tried to listen to her chest..

Very amusing .. yes.

‘She seems fine’

‘Yes’ I said, ’she does doesn’t she..’

Kids.

We have come away with antibiotics for her and a warning that ‘it’s probably viral so these won’t do much…’

Bah.

Whatever.

ALL mum’s know that as long as they think they’re getting something that’s special .. it works!

AND there doesn’t seem to be an age limit on that before it starts!!

Fab day today

Ahh… fab day.

Work went well.. all going swimmingly there and got home to see Rowan in a great mood and Ella really tired – she was in bed by 7.15 which is not much earlier than normal but still .. after a long day at work I only feel a little bad to say it was nice to put her down that bit earlier and spend some proper time with Rowan.

Sat eating a family tea and was able to pay 100% attention to Rowan rather than having to occupy Ella as we ate.

It was good.

Where’s the catch?

Well.

The only slight drawback is that Ella is still waking up early hours of the morning and needing attention and assistance to get back to sleep. Weird because after tea, bath, bottle she gets put to bed and goes to sleep alone with no issue.

She’s not hungry, we’re not feeding her at 4am and she’ll go back to sleep if she’s cuddled – usually after about 40 minutes.
She never really cries so much as that if I try to put her down – she implies that would end up with crying and because it’s 4-5am and Rowan is asleep in the next room, I am slightly restricted in how loud I can let her get!!

Plus there’s that whole thing of ‘if I cuddle her she goes to sleep quicker than if I don’t’. I have weaned myself off just picking her up and taking her to bed. She’s asleep in seconds (which is great because I’m knackered!) then but invariably I can’t stay awake and then I end up putting her back to bed about an hour later when I ‘come-to’ with loss of feeling in my right arm!!!

This would be fine except I get the impression she started to wake up ready for the bed cuddle with me. And clearly, that’s just not the objective!

Well, not as far as I’m concerned anyway!

So that’s stopped. Two nights ago, I just cuddled her on the edge of the bed, and last night she didn’t wake till 5am which is over an hour later than the pattern of the last week and was asleep by 5.40. I like to think this is because I was stricter on how I dealt with her.

I can’t see that anything I’m doing is actually getting any results. It seems I can influence it slightly but it never actually manages to get her to sleep through till 7.

Frustrating because I know she can do it. If she doesn’t sleep through till 7 (which she *does* do about twice a week) then when she’s gone back to sleep, she never wakes up till 8ish. Even then she tends not to want food for half an hour or so.

Definitely not hungry.

So.

Again.

Any suggestions?

I could protect the whole world. If I could just stop crying.

I’ve been thinking about this post for a while. Ever since someone replied to me

‘So….. you keep crying at everything..? Do you think you may be depressed?’

I seem to have developed an inability to refrain from tears at any given moment that involves a remote link to sadness or happiness in any degree. I’ll cry at the news, sure, the news is sad sometimes. Sometimes its happy. That also makes me cry.

Not strange you think.

I’ll cry at a good drama on TV, or a good movie.

‘Sure. Don’t we all?’ I hear you mutter back to your screens.

But.

I have started crying at adverts. X factor for god’s sake. It’s now a running joke at my house.

I’ll cry when I’m just trying to tell someone that sad story that made me cry in the first place!!

I didn’t even watch X factor further than the audition episodes which make me cringe . But I did catch up with the final episode – just to see who won – when they announced Leona’s name – I could have burst into little sobs. For her though.

The kind of welling that you know you could allow to turn into a good 10 second cry – out of happiness. Pride almost. I was thinking if she were mine.. I don’t even know the girl. Hadn’t even watched the series. But I was proud of her. Proud of her humble acceptance of the result and how shocked she looked.

But anyway. This post is not about X factor.

(I restrained it to a little ‘wah-huh’ and then pulled myself together )

So I have resolved to think about this behaviour. To try and understand it. Dig into my brain and try to understand this reduction to tears at sometimes the slightest thing.
It’s never great wracking, heaving sobs you understand, but not just a tear to the eye either.

I have always had this tendency to be a little over emotional. Sensitive. Over sensitive I suppose I have to admit. So I have wondered if I just have this heightened ability to empathise. I have always found it incredibly easy to read thoughts so to speak – to put myself in someone’s place and imagine what I would be feeling if I were them.

I can be quite snappy. Quick. Sharp even, sometimes. I also always had the tendency, as a child, to cry when I was at the extreme of any emotion. For example, if I got really angry, it would provoke tears. In domesticky situations I still do cry sometimes. (It’s not the same if I were to get angry at work. That’s different and doesn’t have the same effect).

It can be very frustrating though. Especially if it’s not the true representation of the emotion that you’re feeling.
I remember having a full blown shouting argument with one of my parents when I was about 13 or 14 and I was so angry that tears just started.

‘Don’t cry’ they shouted ‘it’s so annoying’…

‘Oh, to have the choice’ I thought.

It’s just not that simple for me. So maybe I just cry now because I have always cried. Whatever the emotion. It just seems that these days, post children, the instances of tears are just a lot more frequent. Does that indicate depression? Or am I just tired?

Kids are very draining. I am constantly tired. When you have small kids you are working 7 days a week. Forever. They are never quiet. They are repetitive. It can be like having the worst kind of repetitive, mind-numbing job you can think of. And then having it talk to you as well. Saying the same thing over and over again. Whilst hitting you on the head with a rubber hammer.

SO. Am I just knackered? Could that make you well up at every snippet of sad, bad or happy news, story or TV show?

But that comment keeps coming back to me. The word depression filters through to me every now and then.

So now I have started to think, ‘am I just thinking depression because I am thinking about it? Or does it keep coming back to me because it’s only a matter of time before I admit it?’

I mean talk about over analysing!

Since having children, my ability to remove almost any person from the role of ‘child’ is almost zero. I look at sad news stories like this and I am instantly thinking ‘if that were my child..If anyone ever did anything to my child…’. and I well up.

Stories of starving infants in the 3rd World, reports of murder victims, abuse, neglect, accidents whatever. I’m there with my tissues

That comment filters through again. Am I depressed? Or is it normal to think maternal thoughts toward any person that looks like they need them?

I know I am unlikely to be alone when I say that since having my children, my realities have shifted. My world isn’t just about me. It’s about my girls.

I want to keep my girls safe at my side. Always.

Protect them. Keep them from harm. Keep harm away from them.

So maybe the reason I am moved to tears at so many things that move me is because any person that has something happen to them is someone’s child. Not just an infant child but any child. A grown child. An adult. Through fault or neglect or abuse or from just not being in the right place at the right time.

There was a news story that hit the headlines at New Year about a poor couple whose daughter was killed by dogs at the pub they lived in in Leicestershire.
How would you ever get over not being in the right place at the right time? They left her for a minute and then she was gone.

So I suppose, tears at sad events are pity but could it be they are also relief to an extent?

I am sensible. I have been sensible in my life. Fairly. I know that the lessons I have learned from ‘don’t talk to strangers’, ‘drugs can kill’ to ‘don’t walk home alone in the dark’ are things that I have got from my parents, my friends, my TV, magazines, books … But where will my girls get these lessons from and will they be listening?

Will they be sensible?

Will they be as sensible as me? Will they say no to experimenting with drugs and avoid being dead on the dancefloor? Will they realise I’m not just being a killjoy when I won’t let them into town at night at 15 years old or will they sneak out and go with their friends anyway? Like I did.

My mum was a worrier when I was younger, still is now in actual fact. She worried just that touch too much and I rebelled ever so slightly. Not masses. I smoked. I smoked some things I shouldn’t have. But I never ever took drugs. Because no matter how much I wanted to be me and I wanted to dictate my own life and not be ruled (yawn ) I understood, even then, that the worrying was not unfounded.

So I was a cautious rebel I suppose.

I watched the news. Sometimes. I knew that drugs did kill. I knew that walking home alone could get you killed. Even walking home with your boyfriend could get you killed.

So how do I protect my children? How do you protect anyone?
I read a blog before Christmas about a 33 year old woman that died suddenly from a cancerous tumour in her foot that she didn’t even know she had. It stayed with me for weeks and to be honest, I still think about her now. I didn’t even know her but I think about her mum and her family. How terribly sad it was for them to have lost their daughter, their sister.

When I think about it though I am usually thinking what if that were my child?

Her mother couldn’t do anything. There was no being in the right place at the right time. It was out of her hands. You would think that by the time they get to 33, you aren’t quite in that same role anymore. But I can see now (infuriatingly ) that my mum was so right when she used to say I was her little baby – when I was 18,19, 20 and so on.

Of course I was.

I suppose that this is what this post is really about. This is what I have concluded. Having thought about this comment for a couple of months now, I have been writing this post and turning the comment over and over and coming back to writing this again and again, trying to make sense of what I want to say. (Hence its rambling process ).
I think it’s this.

When will my girls stop being my babies?

Never.

So. Am I depressed? Or is it just normal to face every day, once you have people to protect, with such a feeling of luck that you are managing to get through each day and keep them in one piece?

Am I just daft that most things make me cry or should I just laugh at the fact I can even well up at how cute the little girl is in the Persil advert pretending to be a penguin…?

You tell me.

money money. Fake money and credit cards.

Every now and then, my finances get me down. We don’t have lots of cash. Far from it. I’ve just been on maternity leave (notoriously low in the monetary offerings!) and now we are suffering.

I have got to the point where I know that even what I get paid at the end of this month won’t even begin to give me enough to live on until the end of next month. Albeit, I get paid the last Friday of every month so March is a *long* month – but it can get frightening.

I am vowing this year to take care of my finances and I vowed to get rid of the credit cards and to start living on what I actually earn but I think I am so far beyond what I actually earn sometimes that I’m not sure where to start..

I am a reasonably intelligent woman and I’m not so thick that I have spiraled into debt that I’m not able to control. I only have 3 credit cards. It’s just that the amount of credit that is on them means the payments have to come straight back off them in order for us to be able to live at the moment.

Scary

I have a couple of bank accounts and I used to be able to effectively save in one and move money around in order to keep things going if it got a bit short in the other – but all this has come to a stop over the last 6 months due to maternity leave and no substantial regular wage.

I need my p60 at the end of the financial year in order to re-mortgage, which I can do but it’ll mean probably losing the rest of the equity in our house. I can’t re-mortgage before that because I only have payslips that show statutory maternity pay. (not much)

As far as I recall – they are really only interested in your last three months payslips.

So – I wish I could have someone to come and take away all the worry (and the debt)

So what do I do? Anybody a financial advisor out there?

Second day back

It was easier to leave the girls this morning.. but that could be because I was in a mad rush to get to the factory on time to check in 100 staff.

It’s never straight forward. Ever.

It turns out that the person I thought may cause me problems at work may not be a problem. She was ‘you’re my manager, I’ll do whatever you want me to do..’

I can get on board with that.

But seriously, she seems fine and we cleared the air about stuff that had happened in my absence and it all seems fine. So far.

Non work things today…? erm….

No. Not really. I went to work at 8. I left work at 6 and got home about 6.30pm. It went straight into teatime, bathtime, bedtime so I hardly saw Rowan. It’s a bit hard to take really cos I well remember getting back from work all last year and seeing all these changes in her that I was missing every day. I’m so jealous that I don’t get to stay at home.

But then I do love my job so it’s so hard.

I think if I ever have a third child, the condition will be that I stay at home for a while so I get to see all this stuff I have missed out on so far.

It was heartbreaking for me last year whenever Rowan fell over or hurt herself, she would run to Big for the cuddle. It had me in tears plenty of times. Which is silly I suppose looking back.

But it feels pretty real at the time.

Things are so busy there at the moment that watching my hours is going to be hard. I’ve already done 20 hours this week and I’ve only been back 2 days. I’m not saying I’m superwoman, far from it. But the job I’m doing is only supposed to be 37.5 hours a week…

I’d like to see the person that manages that!!

Anyway. I’m off to bed. I’m knackered. Ella was up at 5.20 this morning and she hasn’t drunk half the bedtime feed tonight that she usually manages. JOY!!!

I dread to think. She’s been much harder to settle through than Rowan was.. I think.. It’s hard to recall totally accurately I spose but I’m sure Rowan was sleeping 7 till 7 by 6 months and Ella still religiously needs her top up of milk about 8.30-9.30. I’ll do a proper post on this actually – maybe at the weekend and get some advice from you guys out there..

Any tips on getting babies through the night in the meantime??

Protected: well. well. well. part w

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