A Lesson

What i have learned .

For 5 weeks now i have been a single parent.

I have learned that i am stronger than i though i was, i have learned i can cope alone. I can raise the children, i can keep house and provide meals. I can have fun, they can have fun, WE can have fun.

I now know that if my marriage ended tomorrow i could cope as a single parent, i could manage all the commitments. I could still have me time and enjoy life.

I have learned that i do like being alone , i like being able to do what i want in the evenings and not having someone nagging me when i decide to go to sleep at 8pm . I like getting to sleep where i want and have no one telling me to get out the bath so they can pee.

I LOVE not having another grown adult to clean up after, less laundry and dishes to do. I love getting to make my bed first thing rather than waiting for hubby to drag himself out of bed then doing it.

I have learned i can be happy without a man.

I have also learned how lonely alone is, how evenings stretch ahead of me with no one to talk to. I have learned just how much i really love my husband and how much i want him in my life.

He is home now, it’s been the longest and quickest 5 weeks of my life. I hope the next 3 are the slowest

Sun Cream

Five star sun care from Wilkinson.

I feel like Wilkinson are my own little fairy god mothers. There i was sitting on an unexpected sunny day with 3 children and no sun cream. My eldest was upset and demanding i bought some NOW. Suddenly my door went and the post man bought a lovely package of sun creams for me to try .The children and i were very happy.

Wilkinson have recently re-launched there Wilko Suncare range with a maximum of five star rating to ensure protection from the sun’s harmful rays. The range includes over 30 products, have been dermatological tested and start from as little as £2.98

I received 3 products to test.

The first was the Wilko kids moisturising sun lotion – priced at £3.98 for 200ml. It was factor 50 and water resistant. It comes in a handy spray bottle and sprayed out as a lovely purple colour (which really impressed my girls, they both love purple). It spread easily but it did seem to take ages to soak into the skin. I felt the children looked very ghost like for the first 20 minutes or so. It smelled lovely and after it soaked in you could not tell they had any on, all 3 spent the day in the sun going in and out of water and the cream protected their skin 100%. I was impressed with it.

I also received the Moisturising sun lotion – prices at £2.98 for 200ml. It was factor 30 and also water resistant. I haven’t had a chance to test this in the sun yet but it smells nice and goes on great.

Lastly is the after sun lotion with tan maintainer. I loved this product, i came home red as a tomato from a day out and covered myself with it. It really felt great and took the heat from my burns. I used it a few times over the first few days and for the first time ever my burns did not peel but turned a lovely brown. It contains Aloe Vera and vitamin E and it really does work.

I am overall impressed with the Wilko’s range, it is easily as good as the other products available out there but for half the cost.

Now i only hope we have enough sunny days to get the use out of them.

Cup O' Tea

Umm still life? Ok i admit i had to google it , i know the term but was not 100% sure on the concept . Im still not sure i really get it but here is this weeks entry to the gallery

Its a whole load of tea (the cup is also full) . Around 2 1/2 pints there and its my way of chilling when the kids are not around. When the girls are at nursery and my boy sleeping i make a lot of tea and drink it all . Anyone want to send me a proper tea pot though ? My measuring jug does a terrible job of keeping it warm :)

My Escape

This week’s workshop was a do-it –yourself affair with a selection of words given which were to be turned into a prompt.

I used the word Escape and my prompt for this week “How do you escape? What takes you away from it all and lets you be you? “

I could choose the obvious answer for this, i love reading and my biggest pleasure in life is a hot bath and a good book and this has been the biggest escape for me for years. I go in and lock the door and can spend hours sometimes in my child free land.

The past maybe 18 months or so, i have developed another way to escape it all and that is computer games. Im not talking your big wow type games but your simple causal games. My favourites are anything in the Build-A-Lot or Farm Frenzy series but i have many others i enjoy , just now i am replaying Cake Mania 4 (i would of wrote this post an hour ago if i could stop playing that long) .

These games provide the perfect distractions from life and in these games i can achieve what i only dream about in real life (and no im not talking about building a farm or become a rental tycoon) but im talking about perfection. Im good at these games, i am methodical and don’t give up. A game to me is not completed till every level is done and i have achieved the highest award or score, if the game offers awards then i must have them all. I play a game obsessively and in most case complete in a few days. I start, i win, it’s over ...Life is simple in these games and follow rules. I am in control and no one can beat me.

In real life i have 3 young children, nothing is predictable and perfection is just laughable. Im never completely in control, the children sometimes run riot.

In these games i am god. What i want to happen, happens and if something goes wrong i can do it over.

It’s the perfect Escape from life...

Friendship

It is week 13 of The Gallery and this week was a nice and easy one, Tara asked for pictures of Friendship .

I could of chose many things for this topic , the relationship between my children is amazing and the obvious one to choose. I could choose my sister and i and even my parents . But there was only one friendship i really wanted to portray and that is the friendship between my 3 favorite girls.
Courtney (my niece) - Rebecca - Eilidh.
Courtney is now 7 and still an only child , she lives just a few minutes away and her and my daughters are the best of friends. I know my girls love there cousin and love her being around and im pretty sure Courtney feels the same. The may be family and all drawn together by blood but i like to think they all like each other to .

(And i also realised i have very little pictures of just the 3 of them, need to work on that )

Alone

Im lonely.


It’s been over 3 weeks since my husband went away, 3 long and lonely weeks.

The children are fine and i have discovered i can cope perfectly well with all 3 alone. We are keeping busy and the kids are distracted by the new kitty. From 6am to 6pm things are fine, once the kids are in bed i get sad.

I hate the freedom, i miss having someone to talk to. I miss having hubby come home and telling him everything the kids done that day. I miss having someone tell me i cannot go to bed yet as it is only 7 o’clock and i miss having a reason to keep the place clean.

I am becoming lazy; i am tired all the time. I cannot face anything, i don’t want to blog or tweet. I don’t want to do anything other than sleep the days away. Every day that ends means him coming home is closer.
I want him back, i want to be fighting with him and getting annoyed with his mess or not getting out of bed. I was cuddles and i want to watch Lost darn it.

I know i am lucky, i have something special with my husband and being away from him is not natural. But he will be back, life will become normal again .

I will just be lonely in the mean time.

I Don't Beleive

I don’t believe in god.

I do like the idea of religion; i respect and admire those who have it as part of their lives. I would love to raise my children in the community that church can bring, raising them to turn to god in there darkest times. Unfortunately it is not that easy, i cannot make myself feel something i don’t.

If there was a god he would not let the world be full of such pain and sorrow. I don’t care what you say; everything does NOT happen for a reason.

3 year olds don’t die.

3 year olds don’t spend half their life fighting a deadly disease only for it to come back again.

3 years old don’t die before seeing their 4th year or the long summer days turning into autumn once more.

Mothers should not watch their children waste away, 7 year olds should not deal with the upcoming death of a sibling.

I don’t believe, i cannot believe.

This 3 year old is a few weeks older than Eilidh, he went to nursery with my girls. He was better and alive and he was going to LIVE HIS LIFE.

Cancer never leaves, it just hides and when we are least expecting it - it comes back.

These parents are counting down the last days of their sons lives; he cannot walk or talk anymore. He is no longer 3 but frozen in time, he will not grow or change .He will not fall in love or become a parent. He will never attend school or play outside alone.

How is any of this fair?