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

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.

 

 

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)

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!

15/52 GO OU'SIDE

The weather has been more pleasant of late and the three of you are so happy that you are getting to (in the words of Teeny) go ou'side much more now.


Another of Daddy's funny photos

D's Selfie



Are you watching me Mommy?

12/52 ISTANBUL

Twice I have spent hours writing an open letter to Julia, Ville, Ruskin, Matti, Anton and Neve to express my heartfelt gratitude and thanks for their wonderful hospitality, love and friendship which allowed Teeny and I to visit them in Istanbul recently.  Unfortunately Blogger has decided that saving said blog post was not on its list of priorities and now, as hard as I try, the words will just not come as they did before and I know myself well enough to know that if I do not publish a post about our trip soon it will stay in my drafts folder forever.  So here is my very condensed down, but equally as thankful post on our wonderfully enriching trip to Istanbul. 

 

Julia, Ville, Ruskin, Matti, Anton and Neve please know that my lack of words in this post does not reflect a lack of appreciation, rather the opposite; I feel that today whatever I write could never reflect my gratitude or admiration for you all. 

 

Crazy Hands

With Matt-iii

With Ru-kin

A word from the wise

Topkapi Palace

Beautiful Neve

Sunset Fishing

Patisserie de Pera

With Du-li-a

A view from Galata Tower

Home for the week

(For anybody who would like to see much better photographs of our trip they can be found on Julia's very gorgeous Flickr page)

6/52 TOGETHER

I miss your babyhoods so much.  I miss the endless breastfeeding and you wanting to just snuggle up on my lap for hours and not being able to move from the sofa.  I miss watching the sun come up after a sleepless night and long daytime naps; your wrinkly rolls of chub and toothless gums.  It makes me sad to think that sometimes those memories will not be so fresh in my mind, but we are making new memories all of the time. Memories of the relationships between the three of you growing; the way you cuddle up on the sofa together and the way Teeny calls A and D from the bottom of the stairs and can't quite pronounce the 's' at the end of his sister's name.  I love the way our beautiful girl mothers her little brother (even if the fear of her breaking his arms because of the way she tries to lift and guide him makes me feel a little sick at times).  The way the three of you play together with our big boy's castle and his desperation to teach his little brother all of the things he knows. Our littlest always sucking in his cheeks accompanying his needs to kiss everybody special to him before he leaves the room and his repetition of the word "cud-tle" to those very people he adores so much. 

 

These tiny moments in amongst the chaos are what makes my heart sing every day. 

 

Thank you my little loves.

 

xxx

 

The best big sister

Riding home from school

Colouring Together
 

5/52

Logan's Birthday Party

Grandad's bodywarmer

I want to be just like my brother

Sunday Afternoon Snuggles

Quick kiss