BLAKESLEY HALL

I've not blogged in a long time; work and school are mainly to blame, but I refuse to dwell on how little I've blogged over the last year.

Today is Good Friday so no school and no work for any of us and an ideal opportunity for A&D, who went to Blakesley Hall on a school trip, to play tour guide to Daddy on his first visit there.  It was also the perfect opportunity for me to dust my camera off and take some photos for a quick blog post.

As a bit of background Blakesley Hall is one of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery's heritage sites.  It is a Tudor House with lovely grounds and a gem of a place.  Lucky for us it is only a ten minute drive away from home.  There are often activities for kids going on in the school holidays for next to no money and it's a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours. 

Our visit today was very impromptu, but A&D had renewed enthusiasm for it since they had been on a school trip a month or so ago and they had so much fun retelling all of the things they had learned from their guide on that trip that I wish we had planned it better and gone earlier.

Here are a few snap shots of our lovely afternoon adventure.

On the Gilbertstone

Learning about Tom, Frank & May

WW1 Dress Up

WW1 Dress Up

Writing a letter, quill in hand

The Entrance

Watching the film about Tom, Frank & May

NEW PROFILE

So I really should have updated my Blogger profile a long time ago given that our youngest son is nearly 3 and he is not even mentioned in it.  So it is done now, but I wanted to keep a note somewhere of how I saw myself when I first started this blog.

"This Woman's Work is, amongst other things, as a full time mommy to twins, part time twilight legal secretary and volunteer breastfeeding peer supporter. My greatest achievement is my family and for now I feel like I am doing ok at this wife and mommy lark, although my feelings on that do waiver from time to time. I dream of being a domestic goddess and of being able to take amazing photos, but both are a slow work in progress...let's see where I end up."

BITTERSWEET

Teeny's First Feed
Photo courtesy of Karen Pooler

 

Breastfeeding Beyond Infancy
Photograph courtesy of my lovely friend Julia

I remember it vividly, it was the summer of 2007 and 18 months before our twins arrived, talking about how I didn’t want to breastfeed any babies that we had; if I’m honest I was 25 and blinded by the sexualisation of women’s breasts in today’s society, but at the time I didn’t realise that.

 

So let’s fast forward three children later to now and I am pretty sure that our littlest has weaned so, with no plans to add any more children to our family, my journey as a breastfeeding mama is complete after having spent four of the last six years breastfeeding; our twins for 15 months and the littlest for 2 years 7½ months.

 

I am sat here trying to write down how I feel about the end of this journey and yet I don’t really know.  It is a whole mix of emotions.  Were somebody to ask me that question then of course my immediate answer would be sad.  Sad that this journey with Teeny is over, sad that a breastfeed no longer makes everything in his world better; I could have a list as long as my arm of why it makes me sad, but the most heart wrenching thing is that I will never ever breastfeed another baby ever again.  At this moment in time that thought makes me feel sick in the pit of my stomach.

 

However when I spend a little more time pondering on how this time in my life makes me feel there are a whole host of other emotions wrapped up with this sadness.  I don’t say this very often, but I am so proud at having exclusively breastfed all three of our children for as long as they’ve wanted.  They are two particular times that are very prominent in my memory and those are my belief in my instinct, my body and our daughter that despite a 12% weight loss at day five there was no need to bow to the pressure to top her up with formula and then there is my post two year wobble with Teeny when, for a while, I wasn’t even sure how I felt about our continuing journey because breastfeeding past infancy/ natural term breastfeeding are not without their own challenges. 

 

Then of course I feel completely blessed; blessed to have had straight forward births, no medical complications and the best support from my husband, our families and the overwhelming majority of midwives and health visitors who cared for us which made our breastfeeding journey possible.

 

I’m also full of excitement; excited to watch Teeny grow and to get to know the boy and man he is set to become.  We have so many more milestones to reach together and we are just at a cross roads at the moment, not a dead end.  

 

Then of course I am excited about the journey that having been a breastfeeding mama continues to take me on; I might be at the end of my own breastfeeding journey, but as a salaried and volunteer NHS breastfeeding peer supporter and vice chair of our local hospital’s MSLC I have the huge privilege of being able to support families at the start of their journey into breastfeeding and parenthood.   This is just the beginning of another journey for me and at the moment I am unsure of the destination, but I hope it will be as long and fulfilling as my own breastfeeding journey with many a twist and turn along the way and without being a breastfeeding mama I would never have taken this amazing path in life.

 

Finally and importantly I feel immense gratitude for my babies who were the catalyst for an amazing journey that continues despite those babies no longer being breastfed and of course I am grateful to everybody who has encouraged, supported, empowered, educated and reached out to me throughout this journey and even to those who have judged or criticised because those judgements and criticisms only serve to make me more determined to be the change.

 

 

21/52 WOOLACOMBE 2014

 

20/52 BLACK AND WHITE OUTDOOR FUN

 

19/52 BUBBLES

18/52 FRIENDS, FERRIS WHEELS & FORESTS

I am so thankful for having some lovely family time this week. 

 

It makes my heart sing to hear you play together in the garden during the evenings I have to work and, because of the continued pleasant weather, you have been able to do more of it this week.

We were then very blessed over the weekend to be able share with friends the dedication of their son to their Church and God.  We are not religious, but our friends have a strong faith and it was lovely to see the happiness it brought to them and the love and support that they have from the other members of their Church.

 

We made the most of the bank holiday and our season tickets to Drayton Manor with a cheeky trip their and then to top of our week I was invited to join our twins on their school trip to the Lickey Hills which we all really enjoyed.  Whilst there we shopped, enjoyed the park, had lunch and went on a lovely walk with the ranger, Penny who had done some pond dipping and showed us newts, we made nests using pegs as a bird would use their beaks, walked through an orchard and spotted fairy doors (to name just a few things).

 

How lucky we are to have had such fun in seven very short days.

I wanna be like you hoo hoo

Shirt & Tie

Sailing Away

Sweet Sleep

Dedicated

Scooter lessons from Daddy

Ferris Wheel

School Trip - Lickey Hills - Making Nests (D)

School Trip - Lickey Hills - Making Nests (A)

17/52 MORE EASTER HOLIDAY FUN

Milking the Cow
 

Farmer D
 

Egg Decorating
 

More Egg Decorating
 

Growing Cress
 

Cuddling Chicks
(Photo courtesy of Becketts Farm)

Dance Rosette Day

Dinosaur D

TEENY AT TWO

How did my baby, the youngest of our three children, get to be two?  How is it possible that these two years feel like they have passed in the blink of an eye, yet we have made so many memories and learned so many lessons that it is hard to remember life without you. 

 

You are such a sweet natured boy; don't get me wrong over the last few weeks you have developed the ability to throw a half hearted tantrum where you lay yourself gently on the floor and scream loudly, but you are such an affectionate and sociable child with a cheeky glint in your eye and a smile that could melt a thousand hearts.  You love nothing more than to snuggle up with somebody you love for a good cuddle and when I say snuggle up I mean get yourself as close as you can to us and then nuzzle as far as you possibly can to us and I love that so much.

 

You are much more inquisitive than your brother and sister were at this age, possibly because they always had each other to play with and so didn't feel the need to be climbing onto and getting into all of the places that you love to.  You on the other hand seem to believe that you are invincible and think nothing of climbing onto the living room window ledge, the television bench or the tray of your highchair.  You never want to  hold my hand while we walk and are always keen to run off.

 

This year you have started nursery, learned to walk (at 15 months), talk (in small sentences by 20 months), sailed to the Isle of Wight, flown to Istanbul and forged beautiful relationships with some very special people along the way and that is just to mention a few.  I am so sad to see my one year old disappear further and further in the distance, but excited to see all of the things my two year old is going to bring to us over the next year.

 

Just as a bit of fun us to look back on when you are older I think if you were able to list some of things you love right now it would go something like this:- 

• A-lan-issssssss (Alanis) and Daaan-taaayyy (Danté) - the amount of love you have for your brother and sister is just completely unmeasurable.
• Food - I seriously don't know where you put everything you eat.  You really love fruit like gape, stor-bee, o-winge and nana (grape, strawberry orange and banana).
• Domas a' Perr-see (Thomas and Percy from Thomas the Tank Engine)
• 'appy (The song Happy by Pharrell)
• Peppa (Peppa Pig)
• Tis-soo (Dear Zoo)
• Whip whip (German Whip by Meridian Dan - So funny that my two year old boy loves Grime)
• Cud-dleeeeeee (cuddle)
• 'winkle 'winkle (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)
• Row Row (Row row row your boat)
• Go ou'side (Going outside to play)
• Booby (A sleepy time breastfeed)

Happy 2nd birthday my sweet boy.

 

Love always.

16/52 EASTER HOLIDAYS 2014

This week I have really enjoyed having you at home with me during the day and we have been so lucky to have spent lots of time in the sunshine with friends.  We went to Shirley Park, enjoyed African dancers and other fun activities at The Bridge with the Parfitts, saw the animals at Sheldon Country Park with the Edwards and took your scooters to Brueton Park and Malvern Park with Daddy.  I hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as I did.

 

Making Music

Anything you can do I can do better!

Tunnel Vision

Face Painting

Easter crafting with friends

Sheldon Country Park

Scaling new heights

Stuck up a tree

Riding your trike.

Sun, sand, but no sea.

Rope Climbing

I love you!