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Keeping the family together?
Its hard with a growing and changing family to touch base with everyone everyday. Really hard. In our family even when everyone is together it can be difficult! It can get very noisy!
One way that we really try to achieve that is by making it a priority to eat together as a family at least once a day.
With ever demanding schedules that isnt always possible but it is, for us, something we try to do as often as we can.
Sometimes in our house mealtimes can feel like a bit of a lesson in manners and other times, because we still have young kids it can feel a bit of a battle ground and whilst those are not always the most pleasurable of experiences it is still part of the make up and chaos of family life and i think the kids still learn the value of being with each other for a short amount of time. Re-connecting and sharing the highs and lows of our day.
Generally each person gets to share their ‘high/low’ and for the little kids it can be something as profound as ‘i had a packet of chocolate buttons!’ But it is all part of our family dialogue and that is what is so important to me. Everybody round the same table being family together.
Mealtimes are not only just about immediate family or even just family. We are lucky to have some fabulous friends and we have had many shared mealtimes when the number of kids runs away into double figures and our families mix together in a symphony of noise!
We had half term this week just gone and my parents were visiting. We decided to meet them on their way here at Ikea for some tea. A favourite for our kids, good value food and a relaxed, kid friendly environment. It is really popular with families and you can see why. My kids get their food and then help themselves to drink and other bits. Makes them all feel so grown up. Then of course there is the obligatory trip around the store to pick up those ‘essentials’ 😉
*partnered post*
be courageous and brave.
I discovered a blog a little while ago and was inspired by a linky that i discovered. In a nutshell and there is a link here so you can go read about it yourself. But basically it is about connecting a song or some music with an image. This rings so many bells with me. Music is something that is so much part of my life, i listen to music all the time and i am one of those people who can watch a series of images or a video without music and not feel a thing but add a soundtrack or some poignantly worded lyrics and i will be moved to the next week and blubbing into a tissue.
I had stumbled across this blog just when her suggested song for inspiration was a song by Rod Stewart called Forever Young.
Kind of a advice type of song to his son it would seem and it made me think of the crossroads that my son is at right now..leafing through iphoto (does anyone use that still?) where i used to store my images i discovered this image
This is my little boy just before he started school. He is just 4 in this picture, it was the summer before his first year in reception. So little we knew back then, the years of school runs, parents evenings, nativity plays were all alien to us. I miss those days of innocence sometimes. When we were his world and the influence of the outside was so minimal. When the thought of an afternoon watching trains was the best treat EVER and when he still spoke with a southern accent and not a northern one!! 😉
Things have changed so much. His hair is no longer those tight curls. He won’t let it grow long enough to find out. 😉 But there is still so much of what is real about him in this image that is evident in the young man he is becoming. He is still pretty open about whats going on with him, he is a heart on his sleeve kind of guy and i hope that doesn’t change that much. Im not naive though and i know it will to some element.
We were speaking to him about the secondary school choices recently as we have been since before the end of his last term in year 5, his face suddenly crumpled and he looked so young and unsure. I guess he was just overwhelmed with the responsibility of it all.
He is still so young and whilst we can’t protect him from the future, we can help to arm him with ways to deal with the things that are to come and be behind him every step.
The words in the song are a little cheesey but the ones that resound with me..are these in particular. 🙂
“May you grow to be proud,
dignified and true.
And do unto others
As you’d have done to you.
Be courageous and be brave
-Forever Young (Rod Stewart)
#silentsunday #socialpix #365
Dear Strictly Come Dancing.
So you are back.
Breezing in again with your every day 30 minute titbits on bbc2 and feature length version on saturdays and sundays. Scattering crystals, dymante and godays (WHAT) all over the place. Consuming my time and sucking my interest without any concern for anything else that might be important in my life.
Its brief though, our affair. You presence in my world is brief. I can live with it.
But..i have to say…
this time…you have kind of really irritated me.
What is it with the celebrities that are not really new to dance? The ones that oh..what is that…trained in classical ballet?
what. is. with. that. *stares*
I dont want to see a lovely ex- injured ballerina doing her perfect ‘armography’ I want to see bumbling beginners who make me feel like maybe i could chuck a few salsa moves.
Is it me though or is there just more of these pre-prepped ballroom and latin dancers appearing as ‘beginner’ celebrities..declaring with wide eyes and feigning innocence with their ‘oh i havent danced since i was about 5!’
My daughters ‘do’ ballet and have done since they were about 4, which is only a couple of years…
now..they can probably pick up some salsa moves quicker than my husband for example who has had no dance training AT ALL.
So..im thinking that if you have studied classical ballet until you are 17 then you are going to be a few notches up the rung of progression to professional ballroom dancer?
hmmmmm.
What i love about SCD is that someone like a rugby player/tv presenter or whatever stumble into the show kicking their dance partner in the shins in the first couple of weeks and then transform into a argentine tango king or queen!
Thats what we want to see. Not stage school pros who just weren’t ‘good’ enough dancers to go pro.
If you could just bear that in mind next time that would be great.
Not going to hurt to have a few more Ben Cohen types in the line up either. 😉
lots love,
a fan.
