Happy Birthday Smurf!!!!

My little man turned 4 today, and I'm not quite sure how it happened.  I'm sure someone has done something to that time space continuum thingy that they talk about in "Back to the Future" and speeded up the years.

It seems like only yesterday we were bringing him home from the hospital, brand new and dependant on us for everything, now he is so independent its sometimes scary, he now longer needs mummy or daddy to do so many things for him.

I am so proud of the happy, thoughtful and kind little boy he is becoming and the new things he learns everyday, but I must admit sometimes I long to hold that brand new little life in my arms again.

So happy birthday Smurf, love you millions!!!

The Gallery - Holidays

This week Tara over at Sticky Fingers has challenged us to post pictures of a favorite holiday.  Holidays are great, who doesn't love some time spent relaxing, in the sun with your favorite people?

The picture I have chosen is from the first holiday abroad that we took smurf on, he was 14 months old and we took him to Cancun, and had a fantastic time, smurf loved it, but surprisingly the picture is not of smurf( I know I thought you might be sick of pictures of my child) or even of my or the other half, it is in fact of an absolutely perfect sunset on the lagoon, its just perfect.

Cant wait to see the pictures that everyone else chooses its so nice to be nosey and take a peek at everyone else's holidays.  Go on over and be nosey too!!!!!

Wanting & Missing

Some posts are more difficult to write than others, some just seem to write themselves, others area fight to put into words.  This is one of those, I want to write it, but I just cant seem to find the words.

Two weeks ago I woke up feeling really awful, hot sweaty and with horrible pains in my tummy, lucky for me my other half happened to be at home and he suggested we take a quick trip to A & E, he was sure it sounded like my appendix.  I was pretty sure the staff at A& E were going to be sick of the sight of me, since smurf had been there twice the week before with a broken wrist, but the pain was really so bad that I was willing to risk it.  We dropped smurf off at my mums and drove to our local hospital, which was surprisingly empty at 6.30am, so we were seen pretty quickly.

The nurse asked a few questions had a feel at my tummy and then asked if there was a chance that I may be pregnant, and my answer was honestly no, I had no symptoms of pregnancy, no morning sickness, nothing , but she decided to take a test just to be on the safe side.  When it came back positive I am not sure who was more surprised me or my other half but as she said the words I just knew instantly that there was something wrong.  It didn't feel like it had when I was pregnant with smurf or when I had been pregnant before, I was worried immediately about the fact that I had been drinking a couple of times over the previous couple of weeks.  The nurse was really lovely and tried to reassure us that it was probably nothing and that every pregnancy felt different,but she was going to send us to the early pregnancy unit so they could take some bloods for hormone levels and perhaps an internal scan (that really is as bad as it sounds).

In the unit we were seen by  doctor who took some blood and also performed the internal scan, he was very straight forward and quite abrupt, said although my levels were up they were not as high as they should be with a normal pregnancy and he was really not able to see anything conclusive on the scan, he would get someone else to look at it later in the day and possible get me to come back the next morning for more bloods to check the hormone levels again.  That was it we were sent home, still in a lot of pain, told to take paracetamols and rest.

Hubby and I went home and I went back to bed, unable to sleep as the pain really was pretty bad, we had probably been home about4 hours when the hospital called asking us to come back, which we did. My bloods were taken again and I was then seen by a sonographer who did another internal scan, she had only just started when she was able to confirm to us that there was an ectopic pregnancy there and that she would get a doctor to come and speak to us.  At this point I did start to cry, I had been telling myself that there was something wrong, but when it was actually confirmed I just felt awful.  I had not known I was pregnant but the moment I knew that I couldn't have the baby that I didn't even know was there I was devastated.

The doctor explained to us that I needed surgery and they needed to do it as soon as possible, I was actually in surgery within 3 hours, but by the time I got to theater the pregnancy had ruptured and it was a bit touch and go for a little while, I was pretty ill and in hospital for 4 days, which is why I haven't been around for a while.

I had previously resigned myself to not having anymore children because of a few problems I have, but in that little while between being told I was pregnant and being told that it was not a "viable pregnancy", I must admit I had started to hope a little bit to hold a tiny little baby again, I know its not to be but its amazing how much you can miss something you didn't even know you wanted.

I know I am lucky to have one beautiful, healthy child and I am thankful for that.

Its taken me a little while to be feeling up to blogging but I know getting this out will be good.  I'm sorry I didn't get to make it to "cybermummy", I just didn't feel up to it, but I hope threes another and I get the chance to meet you all then.

If you suffer or have suffered and ectopic pregnancy The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust offer lots of help and information, you can find them here www.ectopic.org.uk.

Writing Workshop - A Poem

I am going to post this before I have the chance to change my mind, the last time I wrote any poetry was at junior school, and it was probably as terrible as this one is but hey ho the prompt spoke to me.

So here it is my entry for this weeks brilliant writing workshop held by Josie at Sleep is for the weak.  I chose prompt number five - Time.

Time

They say it heals

I’m not so sure

It speeds away so fast its blinding

It creeps along so slow its painful

It drags you forward and leaves you breathless

Making memories of what is past

Leaving behind another life

Taking you to a new horizon

Building a history and new beginnings

Life's little clock

Always ticking.



Go on over and see the other much more brilliant entries that have been posted by some brilliant bloggers.

Lazy Morning Cuddles

I love lazy weekend mornings, because I work and my other half works away during the week, mornings are always a real rush for Smurf and I, we both have to be ready and out the door by 8.00am. I drop Smurf off at his grannies on my way to work and then I spend the next 5 hours dealing with HR issues.

But Saturdays are different, Saturday mornings are all about Smurf climbing into our bed and us all spending half an hour watching cartoons and drinking tea and eating toast in bed, they are all about spending time together as a family.

I love those special moments, when Smurf is still all sleepy and cuddly, when I can pretend that he is not growing like a weed and will soon not want the cuddles and kisses from his mummy and daddy.

Isn't it funny that before we moved into this house that we now live in, which was around January, Smurf would not sleep in his own bed for a whole night, and I despaired about ever having a full nights sleep, now he quite happily sleeps all night in his own bed without complaint and I yearn for those sleepy cuddles...some people are never happy.!!

A Late Gallery Entry - Still Life

This week Tara gave us the prompt of "Still Life" for the gallery.

I am late this week. smurf and I have both been ill so my apologies for the delay.  My entry is photos I took of some flower my other half bought me a few weeks ago, well technically I bought them I just used his money, anyway the colour was just so beautiful I found my camera just leaped into my hand and these are 2 of the results beautiful pink roses and tulips.

Go on over and have a look at what everyone else take on "still life" is.

Plum Baby Give Away

If you read my blog regularly you will know that I received and reviewed some Plum-Baby biscuits just the other week, the folks over at Plum Baby have given me one months supply of baby food, nibbles and treats to give to one lucky reader, so that someone else can give their organic range a try.

Plum Baby is all about real food for babies and not just baby food and all the products are made with the highest quality organic ingredients. They offer babies a taste of what's to come and are full of nutrients and nothing artificial.

The prize includes: breakfast cereals and muesli's, savoury pots, sweet pouches, yummy spelt biscuits and sauces worth £75.00 and the winner will receive the pack most appropriate for their babies age.

To enter, simply go to the Plum Baby newsletter (http://www.plum-baby.co.uk/plum-mums/plum-mums-sign-up) and sign up using the code "Ramblings of a mum on the run" - a winner will be picked at random in 7 days time.

Check out www.Plum-Baby.co.uk and discover more yummy products from the Plum Kitchen.

The Gallery - A Self Portrait

Tara Cain over at the Gallery really threw us a curve ball this week, with her prompt, but here I will let her explain because she does it better than I would.

"The theme is actually inspired by Laura at Are We Nearly There Yet Mummy who wrote something that really touched me a few weeks ago and I want to 'celebrate' it through The Gallery.


On tenterhooks yet?


She wrote about photographs of her mum, who died when Laura was just 9.
For someone who has been voted in the Funnest Blog category of The MADS, she sure made me catch my breath with that post!
She wrote: "Luckily I have photos, quite a few in fact. I don’t just look at the photos, I pore over them I wonder what she was thinking, doing, wearing … just any glimpse of anything that makes me feel a bit closer to her.
Now that I am a mother they mean even more to me . . . "


Well, I'm going someway to help redress that balance today.
Imagine in years to come, your children looking back over photographs of their childhood. Are you in it? Are you always behind the camera?
Our photographs are the story of our lives, and even if you aren't a parent you need to be in it.
I know many many people hate pictures of themselves - myself included - so if you don't want to post one to your blog just think about what I've said and start making that change.
And if you do want to put one on your blog, then GREAT.
Get creative, and show us all who you are.


So, this week's theme is: Self portrait."

OK so there you go there is the explanation for our prompt, it really got me thinking, mainly because I never have my picture taken, I just don't, its against the rules, strictly forbidden.  And this is because I hate looking at myself, for all different sorts of reasons, mainly I just am not happy with what I see and for this reason I assume that no one else will want to see it either, so I am always, always the one behind the camera.

But the prompt and the post that inspired it had me thinking about what smurf sees when he looks at me,    I know he just sees his mummy, I think he either does not see the flaws I do or maybe they are just not relevant to him.  So for that reason I took some self portraits today,  I am not ready to put them on the photo shelf we have yet, but I fully intend to be in front of the camera a lot more, for no other reason than I want my son to have the memories to look back on of all the fun and love that we shared, when time has stolen the event those photos will mean it can never steal the memory.

So thanks to Tara and Laura for showing me how selfish I was being and for giving me the opportunity to change it.

I cant wait to see the face behind the blog, go on over and have a look for yourself.

And I will post mine before I have a chance to change my mind.

Moody Mummy

Do you ever have days when you feel like a negative, moody mummy?  I have been having a whole weekend of that, I feel like I have spent the whole of the weekend telling smurf 'No" or "don't do that' or 'come here'.  I can hear myself but cant stop the words coming out of my mouth, and then end up feeling really bad that I am being so negative about everything he wants to do.

I know that some of the things I seemed to be telling him off for were for his own good, either because he was going to hurt himself or be in danger, but I dislike being that way and I don't want him to think I am always on his case.

One of the things that I have found myself telling him off for this weekend is for not holding my hand when we are out somewhere and wanting to wander off, this drives me to distraction, I know he is trying to excerpt his Independence, but it terrifies me that he may get lost or wander away too far from me, and he is so sincere when he promises that he is going to hold my hand, and gullible fool that I am I always give him the benefit of the doubt and believe him, and every time he ends up saying "mummy I can walk by myself".  Is it just a thing that toddlers go through or something that needs to be nipped in the bud, I really don't know.

Smurf is not a naughty child , he is generally really good, so it must just be that mummy had much less patience this weekend, hopefully the rest of the week will be better and we will have a much more moan free week.

Plum Baby Review

The lovely people over at Plum-Baby asked me if Smurf and I would like to try out some of the snack foods they had developed recently.

I had used some Plum products when Smurf was really little, as they were organic which we liked and they were handy if we were on the move.

Like many of you I thought that Plum only made foods for babies, so I was really surprised when they told me that they also made snacks and biscuits that would be suitable for Smurf.

We received a lovely box filled with a range of the biscuits that Plum make and Smurf wanted to try them right away.
The first snack we tried were the "Milky Moons" which are flavoured with Chamomile and Vanilla, I felt that these were a little hard and to be honest Smurf was not really taken with them, however it did not put him off trying the other snacks.

We tried also the "Spelt Fingers" with Apple and also with Pomegranate, these come in handy little packs of two, which make them great for popping in your bag when on the go.  These went down much better with Smurf, especially the apple ones which were a firm favorite.

The final cookies we tried were "Oat Rounds" with orange oil and ginger, these were a firm favorite, and I will have to go out and buy some of these as smurf really took a shine to them.

All of the smacks are of course made with organic ingredients, contain no preservatives and are 100% natural, they are all sweetened with spelt syrup and are certified by Organic Farmers & Growers.

All in all I think these make a great slip in your bag smack for babies and toddlers, and if you would like to find out more about the range of products that Plum-Baby produce then there web site www.plum-baby.co.uk , has lots of information about their range and the heritage grains that they use in these super snacks.

The Gallery - Men!!

OK The Gallery this week is all about the men in your life, quite an easy task for me since I am going to go down the obvious route and just go with pictures of my hubby, my smurf and my dad..and I might just throw in a little curve ball for good measure.

This is my gorgeous hubby( I may be slightly biased) taken on holiday in possibly the most boring place on earth.  Lanzarote, its all just a little too dull for me.











Smurf and his daddy enjoying an afternoons painting,

I was left to tidy up the mess...typical.

My dad and smurf, they are the best of friends, and have a liking for matching hats.  My dads as great a grandad as he was a dad, Smurf is a lucky boy, he has a fab daddy too.










Smurf, my little treasure, having fun on the beach.

And finally just a little bit of indulgence on my part, the men I spend most of my Saturday afternoons with.   Liverpool FC.
This was taken one day last season.











Can't wait to see everyone elses' men, hop on over to Tara at Sticky Fingers and check it out

Is It The Same Child?

Today Mr. and myself went to a parent teacher conference at smurfs nursery, which he attends for 5 afternoon sessions a week, each one 2.5 hours long.

The teacher who is apparently smurfs "core" worker (whatever that means) proceeded to tell Mr and I about a child, and after 10 minutes I honestly thought she had got us mixed up with some other parents, the child she was describing bore absolutely no resemblance to the happy, confident little boy that I know, she actually went as far as describe my child as "verging on timid".  It was very difficult to get a ward in edge ways with 'core worker' as she was talking twenty to the dozen about this alien child, when we did finally manage to contribute to the conversation by telling her that it was very strange for us to hear this as the child that we know, is full of fun, imagination and a very individual independent personality, who does have a gentle temperament.  'Core workers' explanation for this was not the fact that she has only been at the nursery in question for 3 months or the fact that my child is only 3 years old, her explanation is that smurf is an only child, and apparently according to her beliefs only children always have issues.

I could see the steam practically start pouring from Mr's ears by this time and thought it best to draw the conversation to an end after telling her that we had no concerns about smurf or his development and that maybe we could review it again in a couple of months.

I left the nursery feeling like we had well and truly been castigated for dooming smurf to a life as an only child and that it was impacting on his emotional development, that and the fact that 'core worker' kept telling us that as mother of 3 boys she was well aware of how they could behave.

My confidence in the nursery has been knocked a little, which is a real shame because it is attached to a lovely village school and the other 2 teachers are lovely, and it seems to be full of well behaved polite children who always look like that are having fun when we drop smurf off and pick him up.

Both myself and my husband have siblings, and indeed smurf has a stepbrother who admittedly is a lot older and has not lived with us since smurf was born, so it would be interesting to get some other opinions on being an only child

The one where I have a moan and feel sorry for myself sort of

I have been having a really crap week this week, mostly I must admit caused by work and not home issues, the issues at work are really boring an are mostly about being really busy and having to carry someone who is not pulling their own weight, and I will sort them out I am just picking my moment.

Because of the issues at work I am finding it hard not having Mr W home, I don't have him to whinge at or to take over some of the responsibilities with smurf just to give me a bit of time of.

In all honesty the fact that my other half works away 3 weeks out of 4 has never really been an issue for me before and I know its only getting to me now because of the other issues, but it did get me wondering about people who have to cope on their own all the time,without any help.  I am lucky although Mr W is not at home I do have my family close by and they are a great help, but there are some mums and dads out there who have no one else to turn to for a bit of support, this is one of the reasons I think blogging and twitter can offer a bit of help and advise or just somewhere to have a rant and moan if that is what you need.

So hurray for blogging and the power of twitter

The Gallery - Portraits

My blog has been getting sadly neglected the last couple of week due to being super busy at work (poor excuse I know).  However I always try to make time to stop by for The Gallery by the lovely Tara Cain at Sticky Fingers, cause I just love it.

This week Tara gave us the theme of portraits, and being the self indulgent type of mother that I am and thinking, like we all do that my child is too cute for words, I have decided to go with a few shots of smurf at different stages of his 3 years.

Smurf as a very small baby, makes me very broody

He is about 4 months old here I think, aren't the cute when they are asleep?

These are two of my most favorite recent shots of smurf, I could just squeeze those cheeks to pieces.

This one is smurf and his daddy catching 40 winks, its a hard life!!

As usual I cant wait to see the pictures everyone else has chosen this week, happy snapping!!!

A Trio of Sins

This week Tara over at Sticky Fingers gave us a great prompt for The Gallery, it was The 7 Deadly Sins...dum dum dum(cue dramatic music for effect).

I really wanted to go with the whole gamut of sins and get the whole 7 in there, but alas  year end and month end falling in the same week at work put paid to that, so here for your delectation are a little trio of sins thanks mainly to smurf and a camera obsesed mother (thats me)

Sin No. 1

Sloth - This is smurf flat out while his dad and I drink wine in the portugese sunshine...happy days.

Sin No. 2

Wrath - The face of a toddler who has just been told no ice cream for breakfast, even if the american kids at the next table are eating bowlsful of the stuff.

Sin No. 3

Pride - This sin is all mine, this is me with smurf just getting ready to leave grannies on his very first day of proper nursery.










Go on over to The Gallery and take a look at all the other entries for this week, and if you haven't already why dont you join in?

Say Hello - Wave Goodbye

I was pregnant, everyone in my family was very excited, this was a child they had never expected to see, I was not really one of those women who craved a child so my parent and grandparents had resigned themselves to not having a grandchild or great-granchild supplied by me and my other half, but here I was  pregnant and everyone as so looking forward to meeting the bump when he finally made his appearance.

My grandad was probably the most excited, a father of girls and the grandfather to girls he was practically vibrating with excitement at meeting his great grandson, he just could not wait. We were living in the midlands at the time and my grandparents were in Scotland but we would make frequent trips up to see them and they down to see us, they were both fit and healthy or so I thought.  

So when I was 29 weeks pregnant we found out that my grandad had lung cancer, and my heart broke.  In his usual style grandad took the whole thing in his stride and was determined that he was going to beat this and be fine, I only wished I was as optimistic.  Perhaps it was my hormones and being pregnant but I felt a terrible sense of dread that my wonderful grandad was not going to get to meet my son.

We visited and grandad seemed to be okay for about 3 weeks after his diagnosis, he constantly talked about taking smurf fishing when he was old enough and sharing with him his love of carpentry and working with wood, taking him to football games and on seaside walks and we agreed with him that they would have great fun together doing all those things and more, but we knew by this time and I think maybe deep down he did too that it was going to be a miracle if any of that happened.

My grandad only lasted 7 weeks after his diagnosis, we held his funeral when I was 36 weeks pregnant and smurf and Grandad Phil never got to meet one another, they would have been great friends I am sure, and we often talk about how grandad would have reacted to things smurf does and I can actually picture them together if i close my eyes.

We did manage to say our goodbyes and he left me with a love of the countryside and football that I will pass on to smurf for him.  

Although I had to say goodbye to a wonderful part of my life I got to say hello to another wonderful part too, I just wish they could have got to say hello to each other.

This post was written as part of the writing workshop over at Sleep is for the Weak, I chose prompt 5 recount the story of  a meeting or a parting

JOY - The Gallery

Only just got back from holiday and was promptly ill as soon as we got back, so I have not had time to blog, although I have some posts just bursting t be written.  However I wanted to post for Tara Cain - The Gallery because I absolutely love the concept and love taking part.

This week the prompt that Tara gave us is "Joy", I knew what picture i wanted to use straight away because the look on the faces of my two men just says joy to me...joy at being together and joy at what they are doing...they both love merry go rounds.  So I give you "Joy"

Normal Service Will Resume Shortly & The Gallery

We are on holiday this week so I wont be posting except to submit my entry for the gallery by the lovely Tara Cain.

I have really struggled with my entry this week, I mean ugly is subjective isn't it.  The picture I have chosen is a picture like that...I find the subject ugly with a capital UG, but my husband and smurf would have one in the back garden as a pet if they could get away with it.

This is a picture of a what it lovingly refered to by my hubby(who is english) as a highland coo (otherwise known as highland cattle), he loves them, this one was taken at an animal park we took smurf to last summer, it was pretty warm as is evident by all the flies  surrounding the ugly beast.

I cant wait to see how everyone else interpretted this prompt, its a belter.

                           

Writing Workshop - Why do I do it?

This post is for the wonderful writing workshop that Josie over at Sleep is for the Weak runs, this week I have gone with prompt number 4. Share a time when you felt a deep sense of rejection.

Its inspired by a terrible relationship I had in my early 20's.

If you haven't checked out Josie's fab writing workshop yet, you really need to stop by and check out all the great entries that are there every week.

Why do I do it?

Why do I keep letting you make me feel like this, worthless, unloved, stupid, rejected.

All it takes are your words, your actions, weapons you use to chip away everyday at the self esteem I try so hard to guard, behind a wall you tear down for amusement.

I tell myself I will stop it, stop allowing you the power to hurt me, stop caring, stop listening.

I promise myself I will close my ears to your words, turn my head, walk away, run fast, never look back.

But I don't , I stay, I wait for your crumbs, your careless throwaway specks of hope, the tiny fragments of who I thought you were, they are few and infrequent, but they keep me here, knowing I can't change you, but hoping I can change myself, hoping that finally your rejections will light the spark fuel the tiny ember  curled up  and hiding, the dry shell of the funny, vibrant, friendly girl I was.

I'm in there somewhere under all the rubble,under the wreckage off what I thought we had.

And soon I can feel it, your burning rejections will ignite the fragile shell of me and I 'll light up again.

The Gallery - Outside My Front Door

This weeks' prompt for  The Gallery by Tara Cain was "Outside our front door".  Well although the picture I have chosen is not literally outside my front door it is just across the road, so I am going to go with it anyway, since I have to go out the front door (or the back door) to get there  The picture is the beach and harbour at Pettycur Bay, it was taken quite early one morning as smurf and I were going for a welly splash on the beach, welly splashing is one of our favorite pastimes and we love this beach to do it because it has loads of tide pools.

Oh i So Would!!!!!

I have been tagged by the very funny Pippa over at A Mothers Ramblings with a rather erm adult themed meme, which goes by the strange title of "Plastic Joy Award" (keep reading it really is not as bad as it sounds). The premise of the meme is that you have to name 5 fictional characters that you would like to do some mattress dancing with, so without further ado...here goes.

1) Edward Cullen - I know, I know, he is waayyyyyy to young, but I so love the tortured, damaged soul type, aside from the fact that I would be taking my life in my hands, I think it would be a great partnership...me sally sunshine...him black and brooding.( can i just add for the record here that I first discovered Edward before the films....pre Robert Pattinson)But here's a picture of Rob just for the sheer hell of it.






2) Woody from Toy Story, well the reason for this one is really simple...I have a thing about cowboys, think it comes from spending some time on a horse ranch, I just love how they call you Mame and tip there hat to you, and that gangly cowboy walk that Woody has down to  a tee.

3) Mr Darcy, its the dark brooding thing again, the tortured soul (can you see a theme going on here?) I have had a thing for Mr Darcy since I was around 13, which was when I first read Pride & Prejudice, I have read it may times since then, and seen the various films, and I have never lost my fascination with Darcy. The fact that I am going to illustrate this with a picture of a wet Colin Firth as Darcy is just sheer coincidence.

4) Wolverine from the X-Men not sure what it is about Wolverine that draws me to him, think is the difficult character again ( at least that's my story).  Although I am sure the razor sharp claws might get in the way a bit, so possibly not a straightforward get together

5) And last but never least Seeley Booth from Bones, I mean whats not to love, he is just about perfect, I really don't have to say to much about him, just look at the picture!!!




So there you go my 5 fictional characters, believe me I could have gone on all night, i mean theres still Carlyle Cullen , Mr Shuester, Indiana Jones...my list is endless.

But the brief was for 5 so 5 I have given you, now I just have to tag  other bloggers so here goes.

1. Claire  over at cheshire mum

2. Amy over at and 1 more means 4

3. Carole over at New Mummy

The Gallery -Me

A bit of a late entry for The Gallery by Tara at Stickyfingers this week.

I like a lot of this weeks entrant's struggled with my entry, being as how I am usually the one taking the pictures, and hate when it is the other way round and I am the subject.

So with all of that in mind i have chosen the picture below.....its me and the beach which I love and my little boy who is one of the things that make me me..I even managed to find one of me with a camera in my hand.

Strangers? - But Everybody Loves Me.

We have been having the stranger chat recently, it was prompted by smurf trying to strike up a conversation with some random bloke on the train, the poor bloke was trying his best to ignore the very persistent small child trying to engage him in mindless chatter about Spiderman, he was obviously uncomfortable being singled out for attention, smurf was oblivious to the discomfort and just kept on trying to get some sort of reaction.

After we got off the train I tried to explain to smurf that he shouldn't just talk to people that he didn't know, because not everyone was friendly and nice and some people didn't want to talk to children they didn't know, he looked at me with a completely bemused look on his face and said "but mummy everybody loves me".

I suppose children do find it hard to understand, because they are usually surrounded by love from all the people that do know them, it must be easy for them to assume that everyone will treat them with the same love and kindness. Also what exactly constitutes a stranger, smurf tends to think that after the first hello the person stops being a stranger.

I terrifies me that someone would take advantage of the fact children are so trusting and although I want to make smurf aware of this I don't want to stifle his natural friendliness and curiosity about people or frighten him into not wanting to interact with people.

Would be really interested in anyone else's ideas on broaching the stranger subject?

The Gallery - Week 3 - Choose Your Colour

Week Three of The Gallery over at Sticky Fingers, the theme this week is colour and I cant wait to see where everybody goes with that one.

My choice this week is a photo I took a couple of weeks ago, one one of the rare sunny days we have had recently, its at the beach about 15 minutes from our house and one of smurfs favourite places.


So the colour this picture represents to me is "Silver", the sea look like a huge still shiny silver mirror and I like it a lot.

Thanks Mum

Since it's Mothers Day today I wanted to post a little thanks you to my mum.

Seeing all the mothers day cards and things advertised at the moment made me start thinking about all the things my mum does for smurf and me and my other half that make our lives easier. I think I have mentioned before that my other half works away from home and because of this I depend on my family for a lot of help with smurf, it was one of the main reasons for our recent house move (5 minutes now from granny, smurf is in heaven).

My mum is one of those people who is only happy when she is doing something for someone, since she retired she has not slowed down at all in fact I think she does more now than she did when she was working.

Smurf is my mum's favourite person, she just absolutely loves to spend time with him and the feeling is clearly mutual. Smurf spends mornings with my mum in the week when I am at work and then goes to a lovely local school nursery 5 minutes walk from mums house in the afternoons. I am finished work in time to pick him up .

I know I can ring my mum up at any time and she will be there for me and smurf, no matter what it is we need, and I know this makes me lucky, lucky that my mum lives close, lucky that she doesn't mind helping us out an lucky that she is still here and active enough to keep up with a very energetic three year old.

I do tell my mum thanks all the time and do when I can do nice things for her too, but you can never show or say how much you appreciate someones help to many times, so I just wanted to say Thanks mum we really appreciate everything you do for us.

The Gallery - 2

Another week and another great prompt from Tara over at Sticky Fingers for her great feature The Gallery. This week Tara has gone with the theme of numbers, interpret this as you may.

I am going to go with the number 2 for my picture and coincidentally it is for two reasons this picture fits the bill. The photo is of my little boy when he was 2 and also the fact that there are 2 of them in the picture, the boy and a goat. Since this picture was taken our little boy has lovingly been referred to by his dad as "Goatboy", due to the fact he spent 30 minutes chasing this goat around a muddy french field to give it a huggle, which is what he calls a cuddle, by the time the goat had been huggled smurf was knee deep in mud and had to be forceably stripped to his nappy before being allowed in the car, he did have a great time with the goat though

Splash - The Gallery

Tara over at Sticky Fingers has started a wonderful new feature that is a way to check out some great photos taken by all the wonderful mummy (& daddy) bloggers out there. The idea is that each week Tara will give us a prompt and we then either go and take a great photo or we use one we already have.

Well as someone who has a Nikon in my hand at e

very opportunity I couldn't wait to join in. If you haven't had a look yet get on over to Tara's blog and join in.

The prompt for this week is "Beauty", and I thought for quite a while about what I could put forward as an entry. My first thought was of course going with a picture of my little Smurf, but there are loads of pictures of him on my blog already so I started to have a look through the pictures I already have.

I choose this one.

I love this picture, it was taken in Portugal, we were having a wonderful day at the water park, watching the dolphins, enjoying the pools and gardens and the rides and attractions. The photo for me just sums up the really splashing fun we had and when I look at it I always instantly remember us laughing at the dolphins. So for me the beauty in this picture is not only the animals, which are most certainly beautiful, but also the memory that the photo holds for me.

Missing You Issues

We have been having major issues this week with the smurf missing his daddy. I think I have mentioned before in my posts that my other half works away for sometimes 3 weeks at a time, and although smurf is a real daddies boy and always misses him for some reason this time it has been worse than normal.

From crying when we dropped daddy at the airport it has progressed to crying for him everyday at some point during the day or evening. Whenever I reprimand him for anything he crys and says he misses daddy, makes me feel like a complete horror.

Yesterday we were picking up some clothes that had been left over from staying at my mums and smurf happened to notice his dads rugby shirt was among it, he immediately made a lunge for it and would not give it up come hell or high water, to the point of throwing a hissy fit when I tried to retrieve it from him, he actually cuddled the shirt all afternoon and ended up going to sleep cuddling it.

I know that my other half has to work away sometimes and I know smurf will (hopefully) get used to it and it will become easier for him (I hope), but he crys like his heart will break and it makes me want to join in out of sympathy.

At the moment we will just have to try our best to find ways to make it easier for smurf to cope when his daddy is not there.

Bad Mummy Moment

Tonight has been an evening of feeling like a really terrible mummy. I came home from work stressed, due to having had a horrible day of dealing with disciplinary meetings, so was not in the best of moods.

Smurf was being really good, chatty and smiley, but I was really preoccupied , talking on the phone and trying to fix my laptop and really giving him my full attention.

He managed in one sentence to make me feel like a horrible mother "mummy, I want you to come off the phone, cause I love you".....mummy fail!!!!

Try it Tuesday (or) Very Late for Make it Monday

I posted this recipe a week or so ago and then Liz over at Living with Kids asked for some post to put together a little dinner party to get the message out there about The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, including Global Patron Sarah Brown , who are asking people around the world to wear white and hold a dinner party in March to celebrate the 100Th year of International Women’s Day, which is on the 8Th March.

This was intended as a "Make it Monday" post, but thanks to the trouble I am having with my Internet connection at the moment its didn't quite make it so I am going to go with a "Try it Tuesday", (see what I did there)

I made this cheesecake at the weekend as it is one of my hubbies favorites and thought I could share the recipe by adding it here and giving everyone a chance to try it out as an alternative to pancakes.

Ingredients for a 9-inch cheesecake:


100g/3½oz unsalted butter
250g/8¾oz biscuits such as Digestives, Hobnobs, Oaties. Crushed.
450g/1lb Cream cheese such as Philadelphia

Couple of slugs of Baileys Irish cream (other cream liqueur's are available) about 100ml

3½oz icing sugar
200ml/10½oz double cream
60g/2oz chocolate (milk or plain, as you prefer)

Method



Gently melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the crushed biscuits and mix until the butter has been absorbed.

Remove from the heat and, while still warm, press the mixture (using the back of a spoon) into the bottom of a lined 23cm/9inch spring form tin or loose bottom flan tin.


Leave to set for one hour in the fridge.
While it is chilling, grate the chocolate.


In a bowl, whip the cream until it forms soft peaks.
In a separate bowl, beat the cream cheese until it is soft. Beat in the icing sugar and a (generous) shot of Baileys.


Fold in the whipped cream and three-quarters of the chocolate.
When the mixture is smooth, spread it evenly onto the biscuit base.


Refrigerate and allow to set for at least two hours. If you can bear to leave it overnight, so much the better.


You can either sprinkle the remaining grated chocolate over the top for a simple finish or do something a bit more elaborate if you prefer and then just remove from the tin and get stuck in

Apologies

I have been a terrible blogger for the last couple of months, and now that it looks like things are going to be back on a more even keel I will apologise for my crapness.

We have been moving house which was where most of the problems arose, not sure what made me think that moving with a toddler and while hubby is working away was going to mean no disruption to normal service....how wrong was I???

We are now in our new house, still with only sporadic Internet access(thanks for that SKY), and still missing 3 doors for the new fitted kitchen...( thanks for that Magnet!!!)

However Smurf loves his new house, he has settled in really well and much to our surprise is sleeping all night in his own bed, this is practically unheard of, previously he would always make his way into our bed if he woke in the night, but since the move and the introduction of a train bed, he now seems content to stay in his room, in his bed....bonus.

So hopefully normal service will now resume and I can actually get back to blogging, I have ideas for posts scribbled everywhere, now I just need SKY to get their act together and give me the Internet access I need to post them.

Favourite Photo & Wordless Wednesday all rolled into One

Wordless Wednesday - There's no fun like snow fun