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Here comes the sun! 

by with 4 Comments PersonalPhotographyUncategorized
After a rainy few days the sun decided to show his face at the end of this week, so we headed out to the park to meet up with friends and have a run around.  And Rhys hit a big milestone while we were there – he worked up the courage to go down the fireman’s pole!  He’d been building up to it for ages, and so badly wanted to do it, so he was really proud of himself when he managed it.  He must’ve done it about 20 times in a row once he’d mastered it!
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Nerys is so keen to keep up with the bigger kids, she gives me mini heart attacks now and again trying to do things she’s not quite ready to do!  I’m much more relaxed when she’s safe on the swings!
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Luckily for me she’ll sit quite happily on the swings for quite a while, before she gets bored of it and wants to get out and run around again.

I do love our local park and we spend a fair bit of time there when it’s dry.  The children have a good play at the playground, then we tend to wander over to the other side of the park where the duck pond is.  It’s a nice little routine that I think we’ll repeat many times this summer!

 

TWTWC
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Things my son has said

Things my son has said (that took us ages to decipher)

by with 12 Comments Family lifePersonal

Today, for your viewing pleasure, I give you 4 random things my son has said that took us ages to decipher.  These are words and phrases that he said repeatedly but that we just couldn’t for the life of us work out what he was actually trying to say, until we eventually had a light-bulb moment for each one.

Parents, you must have experienced the same thing with your kids?

Before I get into it, have a quick guess, would you know what ‘boor-head’ meant?  Would you know what he was trying to say when he kept calling Mater ‘Bissar car’?  Answers revealed below!

Things my son has said that took ages to decipher

Boor-head
I think this was the first one that really got us.  When Rhys was first starting to talk he would sit with his teddies and say what sounded like ‘boor-head’.  It took me months to work out he was trying to say ‘bumped his head’ and was playing ‘5 little monkeys’ with his teddies!

 

Pirate wikitar game

This is the latest.  Steve worked this one out just a few days ago, after weeks and weeks of Rhys talking about the ‘pirate wikitar game’.  They were browsing Amazon together, looking at all the angry birds toys (Rhys is ever so slightly into angry birds at the moment!) and they landed on a particular game.  The pirate pig attack game.  Ding ding ding, we have a winner!

 

Bissar car

For the longest time Rhys called Mater from the film Cars ‘Bissar car’.  I couldn’t for the life of me work out why.One day I was really trying to work it out and got as far as thinking that Cars was a Disney film, so maybe he was trying to say ‘disney car’, but that just didn’t quite work.  It was a while later that it dawned on me that Cars is actually a Disney PIXAR film!  Bissar car = Pixar car.

 

The ‘never again’ song
Oh man, this one drove us mad for months!

Rhys would sing a line from a song, the only words of which we could make out were ‘never again’.  We knew it was from a video he’d seen on youtube but could never find it.  Probably because we were always searching for the words ‘never again’.We finally got lucky when Steve caught the tune playing when Rhys was watching videos one day.  Dashing over, he managed to grab the phone before the video finished and finally, finally, we could work out what he’d been singing “Accidents will happen, NOW AND AGAIN”

I still sing random lyrics to the tune though, normally “hasta manana, never again”.  Drives Steve crazy!

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Encouraging children to be themselves

by with 14 Comments ParentingPersonalUncategorized

I’m a strong believer in allowing my children to be themselves.  Hell, not just allowing them to be, but actively encouraging them.  If my son wants to play with the dolls house then that’s great.  My daughter wants to push cars around and crash them into things?  More power to her!

As my son moves towards starting full time school I’m acutely aware of all the new pressures he’s being exposed to.  In the last few months he’s started talking about boys toys and girls toys.  We’ll see an advert for a toy and he’ll say to me “That’s for girls, isn’t it Mummy?”.  I do wonder where this has come from and find it slightly unnerving that he’s able to determine that a toy is for a girl, presumably just from the way it’s marketed.  My normal response is to tell him that anyone can play with the toy if they want to.  I would hate for him to miss out on discovering talents or interests just because the related toy or activity is ‘for girls’.

The thing is, since he’s started half days at nursery school he does seem to be learning about what is socially acceptable and may well already be feeling a bit of pressure from his classmates to play with certain toys.  I don’t want him to get teased or left out because he wants to play with a different toy, but, even more so, I don’t want him to hide his true interests just to fit in.

I want him to have the self-confidence to own his interests and his choices.  I’m hoping that by encouraging him to be himself at home, this confidence will grow.  I want him to trust that he is safe at home to play with whatever interests him, to watch the tv programs that he finds enjoyable, to wear whatever clothes he feels comfortable is, to express his feelings openly and to just be his true self.

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I really hope that providing this sort of ‘safe’ environment at home he’ll learn that it’s ok to be himself and I think this will have several benefits for him as he goes through life:

  • He’ll find friends, and later partners, who like him for who he really is.  Yes he can act differently to fit in with the ‘in crowd’, but he’ll never feel fully comfortable with them.  If he’s just himself he’ll attract people who he genuinely fits in with, who’ll understand him and love him quirks and all!

 

  • His self-esteem will grow even more.  It’s like a self-esteem circle – the higher his self-esteem, the more likely he is to be himself and attract friends who like him for who he is and knowing his real self is liked and appreciated will raise his self-esteem even more!  On the other hand, if he pretends to be something he’s not to try and fit in, he’ll feel like the true him isn’t worthy of knowing and so his self-esteem could potentially plummet.

 

  • He’ll be generally happier.  If he lives his life authentically, being true to himself, he’ll feel a sense of peace and happiness that will just elude him if he spends his days trying to be something he’s not.

I really feel that you have to spend the time to get to know the child you’ve been given.  They really are born with their own unique set of interests and their own personality.  It’s not up to us as parents to try and mould them into what we want; it’s our responsibility to embrace who they are at their core.  We have to let go of our own desires for them and realise that they are their own people with their own desires for their lives.

On a side note, my son isn’t gender non-conformist, but this article still spoke to me on so many levels about allowing our children to be themselves – 12 things every gender nonconforming child wants you to know.  Well worth a read.

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A bank holiday outing 

by with 6 Comments PersonalUncategorized
Over the last year or so I’ve had various people telling me that they’d taken their kids to ride on a miniature train at a place in Derwen Fawr, Swansea.  It sounded like so much fun and I knew Rhys would love it, so on bank holiday Monday we finally paid it a visit.
It’s such a random place!  From what I could see, when trying to find information about it online, they don’t advertise the place at all, they don’t seem to have their own website yet the whole of Swansea seems to know about it!  We were there not long after 11 and there was already a queue to ride the train.  There was a lovely, community atmosphere though, with children and parents milling about, chatting and drinking coffee from the little kiosk.

Rhys was so excited when he spotted the train, he kept running around trying to get a closer look at it.  He was fab though, as soon as I explained that the people standing in a line were actually queuing to ride the train he ran over and waited so patiently until it was our turn.

When we did get to climb on board, well, I think I was as excited as he was!  You sit astride this little steam train and go round the track at a pretty decent speed!  It even goes through two tunnels – so much fun!

I’m a bit gutted that I didn’t manage to get any photos of us actually on the train, but we all went on together and I just didn’t get the chance (well, I didn’t want to risk dropping the camera as we whizzed around!).

We’ll definitely be heading there again on the next bank holiday weekend though, so I’m sure I’ll get my chance to get some action shots then!

I’m linking this post up with the ordinary moments.

Things I want my children to say yes to

Things I want my children to say ‘yes’ to

by with 25 Comments Family lifeParentingPersonal

I wrote a post the other day inspired by Dave Cornthwaite’s message to ‘say yes more’.

It’s something I’m really thinking about a lot at the moment.

I’m quite a cautious person, and my natural immediate response to things outside of my comfort zone is to say ‘no’.  Which makes me quite sad.  As I get older I’m getting much more aware of the power of pushing out of that comfort zone and saying ‘yes’ to things.

And I really want my children to grow up with an awareness of how exciting and wonderful like can be if you say yes more.

5 things I want my children to say yes to (1)

 

These are the big things I want my children to say yes to:

New experiences

I don’t want my children to be afraid of trying new things and visiting new places.  I want them to say yes to new experiences, to be open to the idea that, yes, there’s a possibility they might not like it but there’s an equal possibility that they’ll absolutely love it!

 

New friends

I’m all for my children having a close little group of friends, I think it’s incredibly important for them to have people outside of the family that they can talk to and confide in.  But I don’t want them to limit their social interactions to their existing friends.

You never know what impact a person can have on your life; I want my children to be open to letting new people in.

 

Failure

This is a tricky one I know, but I really hope for my children that they can embrace the possibility of failure.

I want them to know that they don’t have to win everything, that it’s really ok if they fail at something.  A lot of the times that you learn the most about life and yourself is when you fail at something.

 

Being true to themselves

I know that it’s really hard when you’re a kid (and then a teenager) and you so badly just want to fit in, but I really want my children to say yes to being true to who they are.

I want them to own their quirks and embrace what makes them them.

 

Love

When it comes their way I want my children to say a huge ‘yes’ to love.

I want them to love with their whole hearts, openly and completely.  Yes they risk getting hurt that way, but it’s the only way to really love isn’t it?  Have a read of this quote that I wrote about recently – it sums up what I want to tell my children about love.

 

What things would you wish for your children to say a big ‘yes’ to?

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The alphabet project – T is for Tiny

by with 2 Comments PersonalPhotographyUncategorized
I’m still quite new to this whole blogging malarkey, and one of the things I’ve been really enjoying is finding and joining in with various linkys and blog hops.  I’ve been finding them really useful for giving some structure to my blog and for giving me some inspiration if I’m not quite sure what to blog about next!

I’d been thinking that I wanted to join in with some photography-based linkys so was really happy the other day when I came across PODcast who hosts a couple of different photography linkys every week.

So I’m jumping in with the alphabet project and making my peace with the fact that I’m starting at the letter T rather than A (which the perfectionist in me would prefer!).  The first word that came to mind that starts with T?  Tiny!

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Nerys is 15 months old today and far from tiny – she’s right at the top of the height and weight charts in her red book.  Which makes me a little bit nostalgic for when she looked like she did in this photo!  She was a month old when I took it and time has taken on that strange quality where it feels like so long ago that she was this tiny, but at the same time if feels like the past 14 months have flown by.

She is so busy and so entertaining these days; I’m absolutely loving this stage.  But I do miss those tiny baby days!

Say yes more

Say yes more!

by with 14 Comments PersonalQuotesUncategorized
Back when I was a student at Swansea Uni one of my best friend’s housemates was a guy called Dave who wrote for the student newspaper, the waterfront.  He used to create and write the advice column under the name Doctor Dave, and included a few ‘problems’ in there mocking my friend for her tendency to sleep a fair bit.  I didn’t really know the guy that well, but I do remember that he always struck me as interesting; he used to carry a notebook with him where he’d write down funny and interesting things that people said to him, I think to look back on when he needed inspiration for writing.

Turns out he’s become a really inspirational person himself, post-uni.  He turned his back on the ‘traditional’ career path and has instead built an amazing life for himself.  He’s a record-breaking adventurer who’s been all around the world using unconventional modes of transport – his first expedition was a 3618 mile skateboard trip from Perth to Brisbane.  He’s choosing to live life on his terms, choosing to ‘say yes more‘ and seeing where it leads him.

Say yes more 

I’m feeling a bit of a shift in my thinking at the moment and I’m convinced that, if you’re open to it, the Universe sends you what you need at the right time.

What I need at the moment is positivity, and hearing stories of people enjoying life, enjoying success on their own terms.  So when this article from Dave popped up on my Facebook news feed the other day it was just what I needed!  In the article he writes about his simple rules for getting started with making a new life for yourself.  If you’re in need of a bit of positivity and some motivation then you should really go and read it.  For now, I’ll leave you with my favourite rule:

If you’re really floundering, remove the safety net, then you HAVE to fly. And you can fly, you really can.

Sound advice Dr Dave, thank you!
Cuddle Fairy