Christmas Time

A very merry Christmas... yes, it really was!  Okay, a couple of slightly less than festive moments, but you can't expect any family to spend all day together without incident
(can you?!).

It was a low key kind of day, just the four of us, but as a result there was minimal stress.  We played lots of games, watched some films, had a lovely meal, ate mountains of chocolates, sweets  and biscuits and went out for some fresh sea air, exercise and to test out Tom's new bicycle from Santa. 

Dishwasher died and so everybody has been getting a chance to get up close and personal with the dishes!

Our christmas parcel, in the onesie from Aunty Cath

2011 has been a year of mixed blessings.  Steve being made redundant towards the beginning of the year was awful and was accompanied by rather a lot of anger towards the company, although most of  it, it must be said, came from me!  I was furious that someone who had worked so hard and who had sacrificed a lot of his family life for the sake of work, should be treated so shoddily by said work.  And, okay, it wasn't a great thing to happen in these uncertain times, but it has had some wonderful consequences.  It meant that Steve was released from the soul sapping drudgery of doing, day after interminable day, a job that he had come to hate.  He has been able to spend time with Sam and Tom in way that wasn't possible before, taking them to school, picking them up, attending so of the many school related activities.  Its been wonderful for him and also wonderful for the boys.  

Trying to recreate a picture with Sam, but Tom wanted in!



We don't know what 2012 holds, all the predictions and forecasts are not hopeful for the economy picking up, but we will get through it as a family, one way or another. 

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Where is heaven

I've been a bit of a grump lately, partly just because times are hard at the moment for all kinds of reasons, but also because my 39 year old body is falling to bits.  I woke up 2 weeks ago with a stiff neck, I figured I had "slept funny" (as you do) and it would loosen up over a couple of days.  It didn't.  It has got increasingly more painful until I have a central point of pain in my left shoulder that radiates up my neck and down my shoulder and hurts me all the time!  Boo and hiss.  Paracetamol, ibuprofen, heat packs and ibuprofen gel... all to no avail.  So add that to zipwire injury in my right shoulder, osteoarthritis in my right hip, 2 swollen painful fingers and not to forget diabetes and hypothyroidism - now I don't want to sound like I'm complaining, but come on!!!!!


So, yes, a bit on the grumpy side!


Which is not to say that the infectious spirit of Christmas hasn't infiltrated grump central!  With Sam having joined school's glee club, the house has been filled Christmas songs, with Winter wonderland and Rocking Around the Christmas Tree being particular favourites with my two boys.  It's great watching them bop about, knee slides along the dining room floor, air guitar and thumbs for saxophone's!  The Christmas decorations are all up - well, not all, because we are not having our Christmas party this year there are some bits that haven't gone up. 

Christmas Tree!

But the trees look beautiful - I've mostly let the boys put all the decorations on the tree themselves (I say tree but of course I  mean trees plural, as we always have the birthday tree in the living room, for Steve's birthday on the 26th), just moving where they put more than one per branch! 

Birthday Tree!

They've done a great job, now if Tom would just stop trying to remove all the decorations and see how they were put together, it will be perfect!

Mom's gorgeous hessian nativity that she made for us, pride of place!

Talking about Tom, he has come up with some more Tomism's which have amused me.  We were reading a book about a girl called Daisy and I commented that I liked the name and if I had a baby girl I would call her Daisy.  He sat up and spoke with great enthusiasm


"I know what I would call my baby, when I have a baby"


"What would you call your baby my darling?"


"I would call her Mrs Ford" (after his nursery teacher)


I laughed, "you can't call a baby by a title and her surname, you have to call her by her first name"


"okay, I will call her Mrs Lindsay Ford"


"do you mean Lindsay Card"


"no, Mrs Lindsay Ford!", most emphatically.


When I was putting Tom to bed last night, after he had had his book and had his song, and I was cuddling him in, he was procrastinating, as ever and asked if he could jump on my tummy,  I said that he couldn't, because it would hurt me.  He replied


"but your tummy is big and fat, like Daddy Pig's, and he doesn't get hurt".


Mortification is an understatement.  Needless to say, the diet started immediately!


But Tom related stories are not always light hearted.  Tonight when I was putting my little trouble maker to bed, I ended up very upset, tears coursing down my face.  We were at song time stage of our bedtime routine and I said shall I sing Amazing Grace?   I don't know why I said Amazing Grace - I had meant to say Away in a Manager as that is what they have been practising at Nursery for their Christmas Performance. But little dude was quite taken by the title and asked for Amazing Grace.  I started robustly enough, but by the time I got to "saved a wretch like me"  tears were slipping down my cheeks and my voice was broken.  Amazing Grace was a song that my Dad loved, and that we sang at his memorial service.  My Dad has been gone 4 years this coming January and I cannot believe how easily the tears still come.  People tell you that time heals all wounds, well, I'm still waiting.

Tom obviously noticed that Mummy was upset and asked why, I brushed it off, told him the song made me sad and brightly, brittlely, asked if he would like Away in a Manger instead.  He would, so I launched into a rousing rendition and was just tucking him in, covering him in kisses and finishing up when, he (as is his wont) began procrastinating     

" where is heaven that Jesus wants to take us to?"


"Heaven is where you go when you die"


"I want to got to heaven now"


"no, going to heaven means not being with mummy anymore, it means not seeing your family anymore, it is not your time to go to heaven now"  and, being so emotional already, I was, by this time crying again.  And so I started saying things that were more about me my sadness, than about him.


"Grandpa is in heaven, mummy will never, ever see Grandpa again and that makes mummy very sad".  More tears, so NOT about my little boy and his desire not to go to bed, SO about me and my own, still raw, grief.  He started asking about Grandpa, saying he wanted to see Grandpa, me telling him he would not be able to.  And all I could say, all that was left for me to say, was that I could show him pictures and tell him everything I know about the Grandpa that he never got to meet.