Silent Snowy Sunday...

Little Amy... Finger and Toes

So my photography course is progressing and an old friend waaayyyyyy back in my primary school days (love Facebook) kindly got in touch and offered her littlest up for photography experiments. My favourite thing we accomplished were these fingers and toes shots...

Thank you Louise and Amy :D 

A "Good Eater"?

Tonight Euna screamed bloody murder at one of her favourite meals, homemade tomato sauce and baby pasta. She did it last week too and I had put it down as a one-off. Now I'm thinking...

What the hell?

I want her to love food. I want her to experiment with food. I want her to visit a place and be excited to try a local dish. Food is one of life's greatest pleasures and I want her to open herself to it. Also before that I want us, as a family, to be open to it.

I don't want to be banished to McDonalds and Pizza Hut for the next 18 years just to please the kids. I want us to eat out as a family in local restaurants/pubs/cafes and find new food we love together.

So we started with "baby led weaning", 100% seduced by Gill Rapley's promise that we could make meal times enjoyable, food playtime. Is it working? Yes. I guess. I think so. She eats food. I don't really have a lot to compare it to?

Here are the "rules"I'm writing for us to get us all in to good habits...

1) Where ever and whenever possible we eat the same meal as a family.

2) We take her to eat out as regularly as we can find time and money. 

3) If she does not like something, she can fill up on fruit. She will not be cooked a second dinner.

4) I will keep offering her new foods. Aim for 2 new things a week. She doesn't have to finish it, she just has to try it.

5) Be flexible with these rules and do not allow them to dictate the success or failure of a mealtime. That's when food starts to become political. Food is fun, food is fun, food is fun. 

Some eating out fun...

Still enjoying January walks...

Fresh air induced snoozing...

I am quite sure our journey to becoming a "good eater" is only just beginning, the first step is recognising this is important to us and how we raise our children. Lessons will come later. 

I'm quite sure Lesson 1 will be "do not set rules, you only set yourself up..." but it's a process.

Big Words on Tiny Ears

My parenting style changes every day. Some days I think to myself there is no style, no technique, no fad, just love. Be myself, be comfortable, create a peaceful environment and love her in it. Strip it back and just go with my instincts.

Other days I'm dynamic Mum. Book Mum. Gina Mum. Rapley Mum. Jo Frost Mum.

I like being easily influenced. I like letting too many influences in. It's flexibility. It's being absorbent and experiencing life around you. There's something young and naive about having that much faith in everything and I love it. I don't want to be a cynic.

Today I'm "an-article-my-friend-Jane-found-in-the-Telegraph-Mum". Crudely summarised the article talked about the differences between girls and boys. Boys are power focused. Raising boys is about managing their relationship to power. Girls are about vulnerability and seeking acceptance. Apparently raising girls is about managing their want for approval and ensuring that they do not define themselves by approval from others.

Interesting. Often we (Steve and I) have commented to each other that Euna seems to mostly learn by accident. She does something by random chance and consolidates that knowledge when we praise her. For example she learnt to clap in the bath. I was pouring a trickle of water from a jug on to her belly, she tried to catch the water and executed an accidental clap. I praised her, clapped along, clapped along and now if I say "clap hands!" she claps.

So of my survey of one, The Telegraph has hit the nail on the head.

The article then talked about banning the word "good". Instead use other adjectives such as clever, strong, creative, loving etc. "YOU'RE SUCH A GENEROUS GIRL!" "THAT'S SO SMART! WELL DONE!" and so on.

I have clear memories of my parents debating about how, as parents, they should respond to me crying. Was I being silly and oversensitive? Or was I being empathetic and caring? My Dad (I see now with my baby as the eternal push-over) perceived me as empathetic. I was praised for it. I am now a very sensitive soul. I've bought homeless people dinner. I SOB at soap operas, game shows, charity appeals, pixar animations. I like that about myself. I see it as a strength. Now, am I like that because I was praised for it? Would I have always been like that but the variable is whether or not I'd grow to like it about myself? Should someone have toughened me up? All debatable.

Like with so many discussions I have with myself regarding parenting I loop back around to the time old nature versus nurture conundrum.

However, what I do not want is too much of an emphasis on obedience. I want her to be gentle because she is loving, not because I told her. Thoughtful because she enjoys exercising her clever mind, not because her teacher will be cross if she doesn't. Funny because she likes expressing wit, not because her friends laugh. I want her to be wonderful things independently.

So whilst I'm talking to her I will definitely be throwing in a wider vocabulary of praising words. She is strong and clever and brave and affectionate and she will be praised more specifically for it. The pinch of salt taking comes in the form of not damning myself when a "good girl" slips out.

Lessons

Her ears are tiny, so words are big.

I want to be a thoughtful parent so I'll think, but I want to be a relaxed parent so I'll forgive myself at the same time.

If you Pintrest it there are million inspirational "10 Things to Tell Your Child Everyday" esc links to feel fuzzy reading and get your broader positive reinforcement vocal started... I started a board for you guys.

Limbo Land. I hate it here.

I don't feel easy on my bones today. Prickly. Irritable. Disconnected. Fidgety.

I'm a problem solver. I trouble-shoot and then fix. Even if I don't successfully resolve the situation, my solace is in the act of trying.

I am always happier in the process. On the journey. Mid-point. I never hang around the start line for anything too long, I just like to get on. I'm never really fussed even about the goal. I always like the process, the doing, the work.

One of my favourite films when I was a teenager was Robin Hood Prince of Thieves and my favourite scene is the montage of when Robin Hood, Little John and all the people in the woods are building their village, making weapons and learning to fight. It always struck me as the happiest sequence of moments. People living, thriving, creating, learning.

The problem is right now everything I am in is temporary. My situation (living and other) is temporary and I can't start what I need to be doing to get to where I'm going. I'm waiting on other things.

Limbo land. I hate it here.

Everything in me starts to feel a little bit sharper and I have to make sure I am not seeking conflict just to give myself a project. Must breathe. Exist.

(Excuse the cryptic edge to this post... Whilst I would happily shine light of every nook and cranny of my life on here, I have to draw boundaries for other people's sake (ie. husband). I can't share all, but maybe sharing the mood rather than the situation makes it more relatable?)

Lesson

Patience. Must become more comfortable with being patient. Right now some levels of inactivity are being forced on me but that should not mean I have to feel irritable with it. It's necessary stagnancy, chill out in it.

January activity continues... Walk walk walk...

Wordless Wednesday Walk...

Just incase January gets a little too January-ey... Remember Spring won't be long... Enjoy the white sky coma...

Co-Hosting Lena B's Tuesday 10... My Life in 10 Photos!

Exceptionally excited to of been asked to co-host this week with Lena B for her Tuesday 10. Lena B hosts two blogs Lena B Actually and Lena B Photography... Basically these two blogs highlight that she is not only a killer professional photographer but also a seasoned blogging dynamo... Cue a doe-eyed and very flattered Charlie... *Sigh*.

Here we go Tuesday 10... My Life in 10 Photographs... Very fitting to start the new year off with a fresh introduction to all my new wonderful followers and readers (*drops to knees and hails you all... thank you thank you thank you!*)

1) First there was us. There was this day. He's Steve. Whatever's going on with me, it's with him too. For the record this is my favourite picture of me EVER. In about three seconds I will look to my right and see that despite the odds and the miserable morning we will have glorious SUN on our October wedding day. I will walk out the door into it, be served a glass of champagne and right before everyone follows us out into the sunny English gardens there will be a minute where it's just us, married and we'll breath sigh of "WE DID IT!!!". 

2) Pregnancy. Me/Us pregnant. A time that changed it all. Changed my perspective on everything. Big things shrunk and small things grew.

 3) HOLY GRANOLA! A BABY! Euna Irene. I didn't even attempt to find my favourite photo. This post would never get published if I did and I think I would implode in the process, but I love this one.

 4) This is one of my favourite ever pictures and I have Mr Rawles of The Life of Mummy Rawles to thank. It's us at Euna's blessing. My Dad on the left. This photo represents how my family is big and involved and supportive. My family make their own tea when they visit. How my husband really is loved by my parents. That's awesome. It shapes my life most days.

 5) Before I was a Mum, I was an Aunt. To these 3. They're a big part of my life. My sister being a Mum is a big part of my life. She's my trail blazer. 

 6) (Now we get to a bit more of ME) Bia Hoi Corner in Hanoi. I love travel. I LOVE this photo and this evening was probably one of the happiest of my life. The beer in Hanoi is made fresh and lasts a little over 24 hours. So at 5pm, to get rid of the beer, vendors set up beer kegs and plastic chairs and people gather to drink and be merry. The beer is 5p a glass and bars close when the kegs run dry in an hour or 3. We'd been in Vietnam only 24 hours and it was a wonderful trip. In 20 minutes we meet a French couple and get DRUNK and test the theory that because the beer has no preservatives you can't get hungover... That theory is wrong.  

 7) Taking pictures. This is the happiest I can be away from my family. I am not trained and in the grand scheme of things I am little over average in ability. But I love it. I love it so much I don't need to be motivated by being good at it and I have never felt like that about anything. I want to DO this. I want to be a photographer. (First time I've written that down.) 

 8) Friends. This is my closest and oldest friend. I didn't know how much I loved her and how indestructible our friendship was until our lives completely changed and we STAYED just as close. That's friendship. There is no convenience in our friendship now but it works without any work. If you can ever say the same about a friend count that blessing every day.

 9) 18 months ago there would have been a picture of me dancing on here. Today there is this. It's my proudest crafting project to date. I have not replaced dancing with sewing but I have realised that I NEED to be creative in some capacity at all times. I believe everyone NEEDS to be creative whether they know it or not. Counsellors and psychotherapists all over the globe would sit unattended and landfill sites would burst with out of date meds if everyone was creative. You are an artist.

 10) Walking. "What do you want to do today Charlie?" I want to walk. I always want to walk. Field, forest, town, city. Whatever. I want to walk it. I do my best thinking when I walk on my own and I do my best talking when I walk in company. The air. The smells. The happy endorphins that spin around your body as you feel your body in USE. It's not exercise, it's therapy. (And this is my favourite picture of me and her together.)

So there you go... If you hung around long enough you now probably know me better than a lot of people in my real life. How great is blogging?

Thank you Lena B! :D

NOW GO LINK UP YOUR LIFE IN 10 PHOTOGRAPHS!!!!

Note: Photographs 1 & 2 were taken by the very talented Katherine Peachey at Peachey Photography.

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