A gentle weekend

This weekend despite still feel rough as... Well, lets leave it as rough shall we! ;-) I have made an effort for Amelia-Rose's sake to get up and appear 'normal mum'. It didn't start too great as Friday night my insomnia kicked in and I got absolutely no sleep! It did mean though that by 7.30am my over tired hyper energy had kicked in and I decided to make hot cross buns! 'Normal' for me involves baking!

They were a real hit with everyone from my year old nephew to my husband!

Whilst I was waiting for the hot cross buns to prove I showed Amelia-Rose how to make a boat out of an egg box (thanks pinterest) and later when my nephews came over I showed my older nephew (age 3!) how to do it too.

Tony took Amelia-Rose to the local museum which is her favourite outing in our town. It closes in the winter and she really misses it! It's a shame because I think she would love to do that on her birthday! It's a good museum but it is fairly small, that doesn't bother Amelia-Rose though! The fact that it's free means she gets to go whenever she asks as long we we have a free day. Another local museum she love is the dinosaur museum but that's fairly pricey for what it is and is a 20 minute car ride away meaning they can't just pop in.

Today Amelia-Rose and I spent most the morning playing (for some of the time we had frustrating fun with her aqua beads!) then Tony took her to the supermarket to get a few bits then she went to church with my parents.

The last time I went to church was when I was embarassingly ended up doubled over in agony and being taken out by paramedics on a stretcher and started my two weeks in hospital. It will take a while to rebuild my confidence to go back.

In the evening we cleaned out our stick insects. We had them before but they all died. They only have a life span of 12 months and I got them to teach Amelia-Rose about the life cycle. You can't really get emotionally attached to a stick insect even if you are five. I had them as a teenager so know all about them. When they had all eventually died (they died over the course of a few months) I emptied the tank but left some eggs on the bottom thinking I would give it a proper clean out when I put the fish in there. Never in a million years did I think they would hatch!

A few weeks later when I was dusting I noticed 5 tiny baby insects in there with their eggs still attached!! We couldn't believe it! We put some privet in leaving the remaining eggs and the next time we looked there was 7, then 10!

Yesterday I noticed oddly there was a moth inside!! Today we cleaned them out all together and released the moth outside. We all had our jobs, I took the insects out and passed them to Amelia-Rose who put them in a tub and Tony watched the tub. They are quick little gits when they want to be! As I was taking the leafs out I found the moth's cacoon that we have saved so she can take it into school. We counted a staggering 18 insects!! All various sizes!

As the weather has been so.beautiful and my tulips are all in full bloom I took a turn about the garden (as Jane Austen characters would say! ) and plenty of beautiful albeit slightly abstract in some cases photos of the tulips.

I was excited to see some green shoots and buds on my apple tree. I bought it in October from the local garden centre when it was full of delicious apples. The poor thing is still in the pot I bought it in but Tony hasn't the time to get it in the ground. I don't bland him at all, with the amount he has on his plate it would be harsh of me to be cross about it! It's just a shame. I did get a quote from a guy but it felt a bit steep for our budget! Perhaps a local who reads my blog might like to come and dig it a hole ;-) ;-)

I'll put all the relevant pictures from the weekend below. All in all bar the insomnia and still feeling so horribly full and comfortable it's been a nice weekend. This week is operation Easter! Hopefully crafts galore! I had wanted to make Amelia-Rose an Easter countdown but I haven't been well enough. This week as we are in the spirit I am hoping to make it this week ready for next year.

Singing sunshine and sundays

What wonderful weather we have been blessed with this weekend. It truly feels like spring has sprung!

I love spring, it's such a joyful season. Is there another time of the year when we are surrounded by new life bursting into bloom all around us? I think not. Of course summer is wonderful, long hours spent in the garden with a hot sun beating down on your skin but spring is something else. It always reminds me to be grateful to live in such a beautiful part of the world (something I am very aware I take advantage of).

We live just 2 miles from the sea and went to 'see the sea' Saturday and Sunday this weekend. Amelia-Rose had her first paddle in the water which she was thrilled about. Of course she got absolutely soaked but three things that never bother me as a parent are water, mud and paint.

Water dries, paint washes off as does mud. Obviously I wouldn't be thrilled if Amelia-Rose walked mud or paint all over the carpet and through the house but if it's on her it's fine by me! I love that I have a daughter who loves getting messy and isn't precious about staying neat and tidy. The way I see it she has the rest of her life to be neat and tidy (if she so desires!) these are the messy years.

I have some wonderful photos of her absolutely plastered in paint when she was three. I left her alone whilst I went to the loo and she decided she was going to 'do her make up' with the paints. The outcome was hilarious!

So lent is upon us once more and as always rather then giving something up I have taken something on. For me personally the battle is allowing myself time to do things that make me feel good.

Like almost every mother on the face of the planet I always put my free time into playing with Amelia-Rose but when she's at school I tend to fill the day with non essential 'stuff' or if I'm having a bad flare up I take the time to physically rest.

This lent I have set myself three goals. Two are reading on is practical.

My eye sight makes it very hard to concentrate on reading which is tough because I adore reading. We aren't 100% sure what is going on with my vision but everything is always slightly out of focus and it gets a lot worse when I am tired (to the point that I literally can't see straight, I couldn't read a word on the page even if I tried really hard to focus on it.)

 I am waiting to see a specialist as the optician said it wasn't actually my vision as such so it can't be corrected with glasses, in his opinion it is a muscular problem which of course would link in directly with the hypermobility syndrome.

Anyway to get any reading done I have to do it during the day so I am going to make sure I make time to do it.

I have chosen two books that I both think have something to offer me at the moment. 'Raising your spirited child' which discusses children that are 'more'. More sensitive to taste, touch, sound and emotions, mature for their age, very creative and intelligent. They can all be great personality traits but they do have a downside for the child that just feels 'more'.  The author refers to them as a  spirited child. For example, if Amelia-Rose is done wrong by another child and the other child won't say sorry she gets more upset about the injustice of not getting an apology then whatever was done to her. It's 'more' !

The other book is the prayer studying guide to the book 'The power of the praying parent'. Amelia-Rose is suffering with a bit of separation anxiety when she's dropped off to school at the minute and I'm doing everything I can to reassure her in a practical sense but it dawned on me that I haven't actually prayed about it. I thought if I did the work book it would discipline me enough to really think about the areas where Amelia-Rose might need prayer in her life at the moment.

The third and final up take is to try to do a bit of sewing everyday on my machine, or at least a couple of days a week for the simple fact that it makes me really happy! I bought some fabulous fabrics last year and I still haven't used it. I make Amelia-Rose skirts and with summer coming I would like to make some new ones. She has grown so much since last summer anything I made last year is going to look like a mini skirt!

I made myself an awesome camper van skirt last year and would like to make myself a few new skirts too. With the HMS induced trouble I am having with my digestion I have lost over stone since this time last year so will need a new summer wardrobe myself. I can't remember if I wrote about what's going on with my tummy at the minute? Around June last year certain foods started making me be sick but before Christmas I started being sick after most meals. There isn't an obvious pattern to it, I thought at first maybe I had developed a food intolerance but it didn't matter what I took out of my diet it didn't stop.

I did some research and it turns out that this kind of thing can happen to HMS sufferers. The consultant explained it to me that when you swallow (which is now very uncomfortable at best and very painful at worst) there comes a point when your muscles aren't strong enough anymore to keep pulling the food down so it comes back up. On very bad days just drinking water can feel like I have swallowed a whole apple and sometimes it feels like it has got stuck, that I hate. It's quite frightening. I have figured out 'safe foods' such as a bagel dipped in oat milk or tea and soy yoghurt. Cracker bread goes down and stays down too but things like potatoes, pasta and rice are really sporadic, sometimes they do sometimes they don't.

It's the reason I am juicing at home. It's the best way to get maximum nutrition into my body! Plus they taste amazing! My husband makes the best juices! We use the same ingredients but his always taste that bit better!

We are off to London again this week at the end of the week. We're going to take Amelia-Rose with us this time. I think it will do her a lot of good to see what actually happens on a day that we go to London. I wonder if in her head she is making it much bigger then it actually is which is maybe the reason she is getting upset going into school at the moment. I think we need to normalise it for her. Of course it will also help her to see the hospital before I go in for my operation in May.

Steve and I did an open air set at a event to celebrate International World Woman's day yesterday. It was absolutely brilliant! The sun was shining, the crowd were great and two of the musicians that played on the album and performed for us at the album launch spontaneously joined us! I will be posting some videos on YouTube this week sometime hopefully. If you want to hear some tracks off the album now though go check out  https://soundcloud.com/songbird-unexpected. Singing and performing makes me soul shine. It made me feel so good yesterday!

Right, that's it! I am off to bed. It's been a wonderful weekend and a good night sleep tonight would just be the cherry on top!

 

 

The day Hello Kitty came to party

So the past 2 weeks have been all about my daughter's fifth birthday party! This year she asked for a Hello Kitty theme and asked that everything was PINK!

Up until about 2 months ago my daughter hasn't liked 'Pink', proudly telling people she is not a 'pinkish' girl so this new pink stage has been a bit of a revelation to us all.

I love birthdays, I always have. When I was a little girl I would stretch my birth'day' as long as I could! Just a day? Oh no! Lets go for the whole weekend!

Something that I am really having to work on is setting myself new realistic physical expectations. I have always been very proud of my make it yourself attitude and it meant for the first three years as a wife and mother our meals were from scratch and my daughter and I made most the gifts that we gave. I loved the lifestyle. Of course, when I became disabled things had to change and it's possibly the thing I struggle with the most. It makes me feel completely inadequate!

My husband now does a lot of the cooking because it is difficult for me to prepare food and I really miss it. I will raise the blood pressure of feminists around the world now but we had a very traditional marriage. I was the home keeper and my husband was the bread winner. I was very fortunate that even before my illness my husband has always been hands on with house work on his days off  (helping out where he could) but cooking was always my territory.

I take great pride in cooking nice meals for the people I love. As a little girl I use to plan elaborate menus and invite all of my extended family over for 'dinner parties'. For me cooking is about love, so you can imagine how difficult I have found it to let that go. (This is one of the things we have addressed with the occupational therapists. How to enable me to be able to cook completely independently again. Hoora!!)

Rationally I can say to myself 'All they need is your love and your time' and yet the fact that I can't 'do' as much as I use to is still a very sore wound for me. I am aware of it though which I think is positive and I am working on it. At least I've identified the sore spot!


It's not a great personality trait having your self worth (for want of a better phrase!) caught up in what you can physically do for other people but A; Before the disability I had no idea because I was able to give as much of myself as I wanted! and B; I do know now and it's explained a lot of past experiences to me and I fully intend upon growing as a person knowing this is within me. I guess it's all part of being kind to myself. (See previous blog!)

Urgh, I feel like this is sounding like I am a real downer on myself and it isn't meant to at all! I am not a self loathing person, I just, I feel my best when I am helping someone. I like to give to people and I suppose, what I am trying to explain is that it's only since I have become disabled that I've realised that that want to give to other people all the time is a bit wrapped up with how I see myself. In terms of being a useful human being etc. Man I have gone WAY off subject...

Getting back to the party...
 Pre party as I looked at the food I had prepared and the decorations I had bought I simply thought "I haven't done enough" but when I saw how beautiful the hall looked and how happy my daughter was I was able to appreciate my hard work. (And the hard work of others. It wouldn't have been made possible without my amazing family and two friends who actually put all the decorations up for me!)

I also did something that I have never done before. I put myself in my wheelchair. Going in my wheelchair is normally only an option because I simply cannot do what it is I need to do without it (like being out in public in a non mobility scooter friendly place) but on this occasion I decided the best place for me to be was indeed in my wheelchair. Call it self preservation. I knew, if I didn't put my butt in that chair I would have over done it and the only person that pays for me over doing it is me. Well, in a physical sense anyway.


After the party I had a long soak in the bath and when I was reflecting upon the day it occurred to me that it was the first time I had felt comfortable in my wheelchair. Normally I HATE being in my wheelchair. The first time I went out in it I had a panic attack (after 6 years of not having one!) and it near enough broke my heart to see the reflection in shop windows of a woman sat in a wheelchair but here we are, 22 months later and I actually felt like 'me'. I was relaxed and I enjoyed myself. It was a HUGE victory. Huge. And even now a few days on it still feels pretty darn good.

I am so good at putting on the 'I cope with this so well' face but in this case I actually really did! It was such a fun party! I didn't feel like I was putting on a show or a brave face at all. I just genuinely had a blast.

I set up four tables each with a different activity on so the children were spilt into groups and then with an adult helper moved their way around the various activities so that everyone got a turn at everything and we weren't left with children running wildly around the room!

Table one was the toilet roll game! Using toilet roll you make yourself (or a nominated person in your team) an outfit to wear. The children had an absolute BLAST and we will definitely be doing this again! Even the mums couldn't resist getting involved!

Table two was the tray memory game. You place various items on a tray and cover it with a tea towel. You then do a sneaky swipe and remove something from the tray and the children have to guess what it is that is missing. This was another great hit and engaged the children far more then I thought it would! I would say this is a game to reserve for school age children. There were a few pre-schoolers at the party who did enjoy it but I think it was because they were integrated with the older children.

Next stop was the pin the bow on the Hello Kitty which we set up on the wall. I drew her and cut the bow out myself because you can't buy one anywhere but it was worth it. The children loved it and did great at waiting their turn. As they were in groups of 4-5 they didn't have to wait long.


Table three  I put out a tray of pens and some cardboard bunting and all the children got to decorate a bunting triangle. My original idea was that I would then string them up and put them up in my daughter's bedroom but most the children wanted to take them home which was absolutely fine. It was nice they had something they were proud of.

Table four was the age old, can't go wrong with it, works every time, biscuit decorating. Icing sugar, various sprinkles, a biscuit and a spoon. Job done. This never fails to delight children!


Pass the parcel is my daughters favourite party game and she asked that it be the first thing we did so I actually prepared two. One for the beginning and one for the end. The first one had a chocolate coin between each layer and the second as little toys that my husband and daughter had bought. For an nice added touch I put them in sweet little cellophane bags that had birthday balloons on so it was almost like they got a little present.

We did party boxes rather then party bags at the end of the party. I prefer boxes because I think they are more likely to be used again and again by the children where as party bags tend to go straight in the bin. We tied a helium balloon to every box so every child left with a party box, a balloon and I also made some biscuits that I put into Hello Kitty food bags. It felt like a great party.

I made the topper and was almost finished when I popped into the kitchen...

Just minutes later my daughter came in and said 'Look Mumma I drew on the mouth!'

So, yes she doesn't look like a Hello Kitty topper but she is a beautiful cat that my daughter

helped with!

                                          Cake pops without the sticks

                                  Marshmallows dipped in pink crystal sprinkles

                                           Cupcakes

                                         Meringues shaped like a 5

                                          Cones with chocolate coins in

                                    The table

                                 Hello Kitty Bow straws (I stuck the bows on)

                                         Food table

                                          Hall decorations

                                           How to rescue a helium balloon!

                                          We served strawberry milk to drink

                   Happy faces and bows on the bananas to make them more 'a peeling' ;-)

A few weeks before the party we tried to find a nice party dress but couldn't find one that my daughter really liked and she asked if I could make her a tutu. I used pink and lilac net with a very large pink flower button on the front. For the top half I bought a pink leotard (She also does gym and tap so it will get plenty of use!) and a Hello Kitty iron on patch for the centre! Job done! She also has a hello kitty birthday badge on here!

Blessings x