Love!

Tonight I am reminded what young love feels like. It is Valentines day, these days the commercialism of the thing troubles me...not to mention the fact that me and my beloved have two love anniversaries to celebrate in March. But I am softened by my children sharing time with their current 'loves', Josh is in the kitchen making stir fry chicken sweet and sour from scratch with his girlfriend and Lorna spent ages on Saturday making 'love heart' cookies for Joey, who will be round after he has finished work. It refreshes me and reminds me to be less cynical, which has got to be a good thing yes?

I am fully immersed in my first antenatal course and all the planning, making and laminating that that seems to involve. I am aware that a lot of the practical stuff won't need to be repeated and the plans will need minor tweaks here and there as I do more courses, so this time around is probably the hardest. I'm really enjoying it, being with the fabulous people who are sharing a little bit of their journey to parenthood with me, is so exciting (I do contain as much of my 'cheesyness' as possible, honest! But it IS cool, I look back now wistfully at my motherhood journey....no regrets, I loved it every minute (even the long days and nights trying to figure out how to keep my dear son from crying!) I learned so much from them. I learned that my mama heart was infinitely full of love and kindness.

this is me with the children, many moons ago!

25th December 2010

Running...standing still

For the whole of this year so far I feel like I haven't stopped. After a slow paced snowy November and December, the holidays and the 'flu this has felt both shocking and good. Good to get my teeth into LIFE again, good to notice the mornings getting lighter, the evenings drawing out a little. Great to finally be testing out the skills and plans that I have been hatching and incubating for three long years by teaching my first antenatal course. Good that this has taken over my life so completely for the time being and great to be able to just go with that.

Today I have been luxuriating in nothingness...yes the bathroom needs cleaning, there is food shopping to be done and a million other minor, trivial things (which sort of do keep this family ticking over!)...but the impetus to get dressed wasn't there, instead I got back into bed and finished the book that I have been reading since the holidays



when I had finished the sun was shining and the sky was blue, across which the wind was ushering wispy white clouds....

I'm still ignoring 'life' hammering away at the door to be let back in, I'm going to write my blog, put new music on my iPod, print off the photos from the HOLIDAYS a MONTH ago!

I have been thinking about how precious LIFE is...and yet how pressing 'life' is...how do we strike a balance? How do we enjoy and suck every last morsel of pleasure out of LIFE whilst managing to do the shopping, laundry,cooking, washing up and the myriad other seemingly endless demands on our time? (answers on a postcard please!)

Sharing a couple of hours a week with some very special people who are embarking on a new and thoroughly exciting chapter in their lives...becoming parents...really makes me stop and think. I remember, more than twenty years done the line, how exciting yet terrifying that place is. To be on the cusp, not really knowing what to expect. I remember the early days which were full of magic, terror, and lots of special humdrum! Finding our way the three of us working out who we were and how we all fit together in this new thing called 'our family'. Later the joy of adding to that mix a couple more ingredients, shaking and jiggling to see how they fit in.

Nowadays of course it feels very different. I have always been aware of the my children as 'real people' with their own thoughts, ideas, feelings and big, big personalities. But now they are so very grown up there is absolutely no avoiding it. I marvel at them, I despair at them!

There is so much in my head and my heart right now....I would love to be able to grab it all and fling it at the page, much of it slips away like quicksilver to disappear or return whilst I am in the shower and have no way to pin it down...

Ah! well as I mentioned the sky is blue and the sun is out, so I can dare to dream that spring is round the corner. I remember eleven years ago (ELEVEN years where did that go?) when we first moved 'up North', after we had dropped the eldest two at school the youngest and I used to walk home spotting 'signs of spring'. I am missing that today....I might just have to put my coat and boots on and walk to the shops, surreptitiously looking for those signs (bulbs peeking through the earth, buds here and there on the tree...) for now though I will settle for the bunch of tulips that I bought the other day...

Ooh and it is Chinese New Year, so Xin Nian Kuai Le! Gung Hay Fat Choy! Happy New Year!

Wishing you all health and happiness.