White Butterfly

Here little list of things which have been flitting in and out of my thoughts (In no order)

• Daughter 2 will be 1 soon
• Daughter 1 will be 6 soon
• Christmas - Is not a concern this year (nice)
• I'm happy to have members of my family back in real contact
• Some members of my immediate family are being a bit fucking stupid*
• Mr M - as usual is being good, that's nice
• Work is great, like really great.
• I miss blogging, I feel like I need to make more time for it
• Need to find more time
• Time
• When is my blog/was my blog a year old?
• I am making a very conscious effort to move home, which panics me a touch
• I really like chicken crisps

So that is literally what is on my mind at the moment, it's pretty trivial stuff. 

* The family stuff gets better in parts and worse in others, but that's the thing about family, it's a often large group of people who sometimes don't have much in common. We have things in common, things like disagreeing what others of us are doing, things like sticking our opinion into things which clearly have nothing to do with us, and never will have. Things like flesh and bone.

It's not all bad, I'm not anti-family. I just often sit back and consider the very, very tangled web in which I am a part of.

Secrets.

Each indivdual within a family group will have personal secrets, each couple will have, each family and even within all that; each child, and perhaps even variations between grandparents and granchildren, sister-in-law to brother-in-law.
I'm a keeper of secrets, I have secrets from every family member I speak to. I hold on to them, the thing about secrets is they are a Pandora's box. Once it's open, once they are out, you can't ever take them back you can never close the lid. They are safer where they are.

But, sometimes it's what left at the end that counts...

I've chosen to have Hope depicted as a White Butterfly in this instance.

An almost 6 year old's view on Child Abuse.

Before I go any further, this isn't a sponsored post, I'm not trying to get deeper look into the work done by the Child Abuse Charities. I'm just going to share my almost 6 year old's view.

Now that has been cleared up, I'll get down to the point of the post.

This morning, while having a normal chat about fairy dust, Eldest clocked on to - and understood a NSPCC advert.

She understood it.

 

This one. 

 

For a minute her face falls, I mean actually falls. Her eye has a funny look, one that I can't place. I have never seen it before. I don't know if you have had that moment, it almost stops your heart from beating. The split second where you don't know, for the first time what your child is thinking. 

She turns to me, slowly, I'd go as far as to describe it as distressed. 

 

She looks me right in the face, and her way with words is pretty typical of her age group. So I will go for the word-for-word version.

 

'If those nasty peoples beat they babies up and throw they babies down the stairs, well, why don't we beat them nasty people up and throw them down the stairs, and then love all the babies?'

 

I'm stunned, I don't know why it happens, I don't know what to say. What the fuck do I say?

 

So I begin to explain that some people might not love their babies, but is it wrong? I mean, do they love them at some point? So I stop. Then I try a different tactic, I say that sometimes bad things happen in the world. Wait, no I've just gone into generic and cliché mode. I refuse, I refuse to do that. Maybe I try to address the bit about us throwing the 'nasty people' down the stairs.

 

'Eldest, we can't just beat up nasty people and throw them down the stairs, it's wrong for us to do that, it would make us as bad as the people who hurt the babies.' - Me

 

'Yes, but we can never be that bad, people who hurt babies are the worst.'- Her

Hum, this is not the time to tell her that there are worse things in the world. Are their worse things in the world? Oh good lord, I'm now embroiled in a situation I hadn't anticipated for today.

 

'It's good that we can try and raise money to help them, though. Isn't it?' - Me

'No.' - Her

'What do you mean no?' - Me, actually confused.

'Mommy, money doesn't make you happy, it doesn't stop a boo boo. It doesn't make you not beat up babies.' - With such conviction, bordering on anger.

Is she right? I'm beginning to doubt all the times I've donated money. She is almost 6 and seems to have said something to unexpected I have no idea, not a clue, not one fucking iota of explanation for her.

'Okay, so what would you do?'

 

'I would go to all they houses, take the babies away, 'cause they don't love them, and you have to love babies, you just have to. I would give the babies to the nice people who don't have babies because their stuff won't work right, like the ladies who have the jections (IVF). They would love them babies. Then with all they baddies mom and dads, I would make a big hole and put them in it. Then they will never get out, they will be dirty like they made the babies and lonely and sad like the babies...erm... but afore I put them in the hole, I would punch them with all my strongness, so they know how it hurts'.

 

I would love to say that I had a reply, that I had something ready to say but I didn't. Instead I hugged her. 

So my question, dearest wonderful readers is this - 

How would you have explained the situation? What do you think of her views?

DKL Toy Review

The lovely people over at DKL sent us some amazing toys for review.

I knew for sure which item I wanted, I was hoping so hard for the Hama beads, I had them when I was little, I remember sitting for hours making shapes. I didn't even realise they were still around! So when they arrived on the doorstep I was already excited! 

 So first up, obviously one of the most fun parts is box opening!

 We received, Pony World Hama Beads & Chubby Cater. Both girls were very excited as you can see. We tend to stick to wooden toys, so the Chunky Cater was right up our street. It is rather fabulous quality, sturdy and interesting. I was trying to get a picture where a small hand wasn't grabbing it. It was impossible, so if you will please excuse the excitement, there are tiny hands everywhere!

Wonderworld - Chubby Cater

The Chubby Cater is incredibly sturdy and really colourful. The pully handle really encourages Mojo to pull him along while she is trying to toddle, or use him as travelling around the house friend when she is crawling. The body can roll in multiple ways, this was fantastic because all too often she can get frustrated with a toy that rolls over and then needs to be dragged along rather than rolls. Genius.

In fact, when I tried to take a photo without her in it, this is what happened....

It is an absolutely lovely product, so simple. I would totally recommend it, Mojo is not easily pleased.

Hama Beads - Pony World

On to the Hama Beads, I have to admit this might just be my favourite. Only because I remember having them when I was younger. I loved them. So does Eldest. It was nice for her to test something she hadn't ever played with before, nothing even similar to be honest.

So here we go.

If you've ever had these you will remember sitting placing the tiny beads onto the pin board, then waiting for your Mom to iron them together for you. This time I was the Mom! These are really simple and fun.

Firstly you do the making of the shape, animal or house. There is so much room for imagination, even with a shaped pin board.

So as it's Pony World, we made a pony! Above you can see just a small sample of the beads, there are loads, you could make an equine farm. Eldest is kindly showing you how you put the beads on the board.

 Above we have the beginning and the final product. She loved it. Eldest, as she does, decided that as it was 'her world of pony' that they could be any colour she liked. I supported the decision for multicoloured pony. They take about 30 seconds to iron together, but she had spent an age playing with them till she liked it best. Yet again another simple and satisfying product.

Overall we loved these products. They were entertaining and enjoyable for everyone. (unless you were Mojo when I tried to take a photo of Chubby Cater without her). If you are looking for some Christmas inspiration I'd highly recommend checking them out. They are fantastic quality.

You can reach DKL in a few ways via their Website , Twitter and Facebook. Or you can check here for where to buy - Buy Here

DKL Toys

We received these products free of charge to review.
P.S DKL were a delight to deal with and  I would highly recommend their customer service.

Silent Sunday

Sex.

I'm going to talk about sex. I love sex.

If you are easily offended by swearing, vaginas, gin, fat or strech-marks, two things - I'm surprised you're on this blog, secondly I should leave if I were you. Sometimes, I offend myself. 

 Obviously, most of us had sex before we had children, else the babies wouldn't be here. Most of us also have sex after the baby or babies. But why does it seem to turn into something rushed? Something squeezed in between being busy parents, working all hours and house keeping.Or does it get put on a back burner?

Reasons we should have more sex (without making more babies) :

1. It's fun - if you do it right
2. It's exercise, you know, instead of the gym
3. You can feel truly sexy, because if that person is having sex with you they clearly like you enough to do it.
4. There is actually a calorie list, so like, it's healthy - Kinda like point 2, except it's good for your heart to. There are studies and everything.
5. Emotional wellbeing. I'm putting it in there (read that as you will).
6. I believe, unlike most things in life it is to be indulged in.
7. It can be romantic, hot, fast, slow, beautiful and mind blowing.
8. You can, for between 30 seconds to 3hours, be entangle in something on most occasions you don't have to clean up after
9. It's like a stress ball. Give it a minute and you may begin to feel lightly relieved. 
10. It's relaxing, well, you know when it is all over and done with? That bit, where you can sleep like a dog. Out-cold.
11. There are few things, as people that we have the ability to do. Orgasm is one of them. That is a reason. It might be more like 5 reasons if you have a really good tag team partner on your side.
12. Orgasm. (I felt it needed another point)

Healthy, happy, fun, orgasm, relaxing, orgasm. You know, that isn't a bad list, is it?
Maybe not as good as my Gin list, but it's like a close second.

Obviously, those of us pregnant or with newlings in our midst have recently made 'the beast with two backs'. Was this to make the babies or to make the sex? Do you currently find time in your very busy days to keep having sex? Do you manage to have it as much as you like? Do you suppress your own urges? Do you have sex, when maybe you don't really feel like it or can't be bothered? What does sex mean to you?

WHAT THE HELL. A lot to think about. I'm not going to answer these things, they are for you. You think about them. You can feel free to share your own opinions in the comments box, and no I won't blame you if you don't. It's personal, right?

How about the 'How long should you wait after birth?'. Some women take a very long to resume the sexing. There have been a few times limits on it, the minimum being 3-6 weeks as I've read. Well, at three weeks personally I was leaking like a dairy cow - no dice. That is not to say that, if I had felt up to it, I wouldn't have fancied a bit. I like a bit. I'd really say that, when you are ready, go ahead and hop on. Go slow. enjoy it.

I have heard one or two people mention stretch-marks, but last time I checked, no one had sex with your stretch-marks. But yes, as you wish, you feel changed. This change has come about by choosing (in most cases) to have a child, you made that choice, your body will change, because that is the shit that happens. Does this mean you are incapable? Nope, 'fraid not. I have some (stretch-marks), I have plenty, not just from having the children. Cause, like, I got fat. In all honestly, if your partner still wants to nail you after all that vaginal trauma, stretchy belly, leaky boobs and black bags under eyes - Who, quite frankly, the fuck are you to tell him/her what he/she does and doesn't find attractive??

If it's hurty, obviously that is different.

So yeah, that is my view on the sex thing. It might not be to your taste, but thats the thing about sex, everyone is different.

Just in case you are a bit confused about my take on it. I found a picture.