There is always one and it is always Roma! I am sure there have been many many posts where that phrase is used and I cannot see a time when that won’t be the case.However, it is also one of those things that make me smile. A part of what makes our family ours, the idiosyncrasies that we accept in each other, as much as Evas fake smile and need to please, Eddy’s hatred of taking these shots every single month or my obsession with having them no matter what!
These were taken yesterday which was Mothers Day and a simple day spent at a National Trust property (naturally), we had walked around for a few hours by this time, it was bit cold as we were fooled by the sunshine and woefully unprepared for the bracing wind without scarves and hats. So really I don’t blame her for the grumpy face but all in all it was a lovely relaxed day exploring together and treating them to a book from the second hand book shop (Eva got Charles Dickens Great Expectations and Roma a pocket book about nature!) Just exactly what we needed to end the month.
We have spent March watching signs of spring appear, admiring the blossom on the trees and daffodils popping up through the soil all the while wearing sandals and short sleeves some days and needing boots and thick coats on others. Anyway enough weather chat, it has been a busy and relaxed month, one of usual family highs and lows but one I do think might have been a turning point in lots of ways.
Eva has loved feeling a little better after starting the month at home still with what seemed like vertigo and attending more medical appointments that I care to ever repeat. Touch all the wood I can find we are not only through the worst of it but saying goodbye to all the ear troubles of the past few years for good. She is also loving planning her new woodland/nature inspired bedroom which I hope to finish soon, returning to school for World Book Day, Crazy Hair day for Comic Relief (that’s a new one on me but she was happy when I made her hair into a doughnut), welcoming me to have Mothers Day lunch with her in school, attending her first ever ballet and tap class (which she adored) and bringing all the teenage sass into the house. Ok maybe she isn’t loving that, or at least I hope she isn’t because we certainly aren’t. Why are 8 year olds so brutal?
Other than feeling poorly herself (I think I will actually whoop if we get through a whole month without at least one of us being poorly) Roma has loved attending nursery one more morning a week, copying Eva with a crazy hair doughnut, deciding she wants to learn to ride her bike without stabilisers (we’re not quite there yet but she is super willing and determined) and feeling and looking far too grown up as she looks forward to school.
Eddy has been working away a lot, sometimes in sunny Spain (poor thing), training for a Wolf Run he is doing in a few weeks and booking our trip to France in the summer. He is working there for a month and has taken a week off after so we can have some time exploring on the way back which we’re really looking forward to. Let the planning commence!
I have enjoyed our new cordless vacuum (I bet you wish you were as rock and roll as me) spring cleaning and organising everything in sight (I even cleaned every inch of the inside of my car, I honestly don’t know who I am anymore, Dysons change lives people), spending evenings on the sofa drinking red wine and marvelling at my new MacBook Pro which I am using in a cafe right now and I have to say, akin to the cordless Dyson, it is a life changer. Hopefully it is going to make for a more productive blogging life. I am aware I’ve said that before, I am going to try anyway!
I have also loved reading travel magazines, seeing all the hand made cards the children made for Mothers Day and strangely being Mum taxi. As much as it is a time sap I feel very privileged to be the one to take them here there and everywhere, it’s one of those things that make me really feel like a Mum (does anyone else have those moments?) It makes me feel like I hope they know I am always there for them, even if it is taken for granted sometimes, that is exactly how it should be, them just knowing without doubt that I am always there.
I have not been feeling 100% myself this month truth be told with one thing and another but I am leaving it behind as a positive thing. The overwhelming feeling I would like the children, and us, to feel in our family is that of calm and contentment, that they can be unapologetically themselves and I have to say I don’t think we always achieve that so I am doing my best to bring it back. Yep, I’m going soft, letting things go and sitting back more. That will make everyone happier right?! It’s all too easy to get into a habit of just going through the motions of life isn’t it? Of being irritated, tired, overworked and only talking logistics and I want to make a conscious effort not to get in a rut we can no longer get out of and before we know it all the children remember are those tense moments, those feelings of being busy and it breaks my heart to think that would be the case.
So this is our family in March, not always calm and happy but always trying to be.
xx
