GETTING READY - HERE COMES 6

You still wanted the dress with the frills and the flowers, the pink of parties and little girls. You span around to see if your skirt swirl was worthy of your party. You grinned and my Mummy's heart whispered ... remember this!

We were heading out to your 6th birthday party, we had matching boots and matching smiles. Just how could you have reached 6 years old so quickly? I used my camera as a pause button, to try and capture the fleeting moments that fly past and leap in years, rushing at your face, always travelling at top speed and yelling!

Childhood years fly past...the days are long but the years are short! Click goes the shutter to capture you at 6 so full of frilly pink smiles and love. Poppy I love you to the moon and back always xxxx

WAKING UP TO NEW HOPE!

Go see some awesome happenings over at my orphan advocacy blog today! If you have never visited before it would make my day for you to pop on over and say hi! xxxxxx

POLLY THE DOLLY

I wanted to sew a doll this week, I started and Poppy was fascinated. She hovered, she watched and she started her own sewing project alongside me as the doll began to take shape.

Can I name her Mummy? she asked. Of course I said yes and Polly The Dolly was born. But then more than that, my Poppy began to weave Polly's story and I sat transfixed and listened as her imagination flowed. 

She is only young Mummy but that's OK she has an older sister (called Jessica) who carries her around when she gets tired. She is tired all the time Mummy, you need to give her a sleepy face and make her yawn. She sings lullabies to herself all the time you see and that makes her tired. She sleeps most of the time but when she isn't asleep she likes to eat porridge. She loves porridge so much.....and sleeping! 

And so Polly The Dolly is born and her story told. She needs a pillow still and a spoon for the porridge but she is almost complete. She will soon belong to her Mummy who birthed her through childhood's imagination...my beautiful Poppy who turns 6 tomorrow! She doesn't know Polly is hers yet, even though she asked many times for her and has cuddled her at every stage of the making. It's a surprise birthday present. 

To my beautiful daughter, you have thrilled me for six years with your soul and I feel so blessed to have you in my life. Six years of so much love...happy birthday my beautiful child xxxxx

DIGGING IN THE DIRT - TRYING TO ACCEPT THE DARKER SIDE OF THIS PATH

Sometimes being a mum of a child with SMS makes me feel like life has picked me up and repeatedly smashed me into a window! I know Tilly feels like this as well...it's like we both have SMS, we both end up a bit smashed and squished against the glass! Yesterday was a day like that, yesterday was crap!

A mum once wrote about her life as an SMS mummy that some days all she could do was tie a rope to the end of her daughter and their life together and just try to hold on! This sums it up so brilliantly, this makes me smile, we regularly get dangled from ropes here.

And yesterday, when things got too crap to bear and the world felt black and over -challenged and awful and just desperate, my angel needed me the most and I wasn't there for her! I snapped, I screamed and I lost my mind as life dug me so deep in challenge I just couldn't do it any more. 

My husband tag-teamed with me, it's funny how a woman loosing her mind often gets the men running!

Children were ushered away, Tilly was taken to a soft padded room to calm down and me, the crazy mama who the neighbours whisper about, well I dug the garden and cried and then felt like I'd failed my children! But it's tough sometimes and I fail and dig the garden and try not to feel. I dug the garden for 3 hours, the garden looks bloody fantastic but my heart feels a little bit broken. Poppy crept out with her violin as I dug and played behind me to cheer me up! A sad figure following me around playing Twinkle Twinkle...I couldn't look up, I couldn't even speak...it just felt tragic!

Being a mama of a special-needs child sometimes sets us up to fail, I am beginning to accept that sometimes this happens. It's an acceptance of the darker side of this path I am on and it's a hard one to face up to. It is sometimes too much, I will sometimes not be up to it...I need to get over it and get on with it, even knowing this!

So sometimes you will find me shovelling dirt and crying but I shovel love back in in equal measure...that is all I can do. Later I told Poppy I had loved her playing even though I hadn't said, I told Tilly I adored her and I was sorry. I told my little girl I saw her kindness as she stood there bow in hand, I told my big girl how she was my world. She ran to me and hugged me...she checked my hands were clean first after all that digging though, always adding an ounce of hysterical into every poignant moment!

And this morning the garden is still looking like a new place and Tilly came to me and looked me straight in the eyes with such sadness, saying, 'I am sorry I was silly Mummy but I try really hard!' Be still my broken mama's heart, now to start afresh on this new day!

To all you special mama's out there being asked on a daily basis to do too much I wanted to send hugs and love after my meltdown and say we always have this, we always have a new day to try again...oh and the rope to hold onto! x

SHINY T TUESDAY - VINTAGE FLOWERS AND ROBOTS

If you had told me a few months ago I would be doing 'what I wore' posts on my blog I would have laughed very loudly! But I am so glad I started this Shiny T Tuesday adventure, it's good for the soul.

This week I am wearing one of my new vintage dresses. Well ebay said it was vintage...1980's Dorothy Perkins vintage? Just when did the 80's become vintage, making me, an 80's child, vintage as well? Anyway, pondering aside, I like the flowers especially when they are teamed with robots. Check out the irregular choice robot print boots! I LOVE THESE BOOTS!

And so I swirled in my vintage flowers and robots and revelled in the fact I am doing these posts. It wasn't all plain sailing and twirling dresses though...the nerd within is a hard beast to quell. There were many moments the beast appeared!

Like the moment I tried to do sexy posing against the wall and lost my balance and nearly went through the cheap stud-wall! I am seriously not kidding, I nearly put a hole in the friggin wall! Or how about when I had to stop to check if I had torn my jeans with high kicks, or perhaps the fact I didn't remove the sticker from the bottom of the boots I wanted to feature!

Or try the fact the kids photo-bomb me weekly and I have to stop to look for blue cars and buses or the fact I notice mid-spin that the mirrors have been covered with sticky hand-prints...just what is that...oh and there's a bus Busby...yes mummy will look?

Or try this out-take on for size...

You see the nerdy beast within likes to play and to be honest it makes me smile! I think I'm going to send her an open invite to this party.

All my love from Shiny T Tuesday...permission to polish granted!

This post linked to Patti for Visible Monday and Mingle Monday. 

STILLS WITHIN CHAOS - A WEEKLY COLLECTION

1- My art blog is no more, I decided to combine it all here at The Flight Platform, so some serious blog maintenance has taken up my time this week.  Did you spot the new pages under the header with my art and also the new 'Meet Team George' page that was so out of date? Go check it out if you get a second, I am so excited to get more art in this space.
2- At the Sea-Life Centre in Birmingham.
3- 4d movie attire.
4- New vintage dresses.
5- Gazing at marble runs at the Mad Museum.
6- Running under pink blossom.
7- The same again but this time white.
8- Soaking up days at home with my little boy....my last baby!

Joining in with The Stills Project...go and say hi to the beautiful Emily over at The Beetle Shack for this weekly series. 

SIA - THE BIG FISH AND THE MINNOW

The style imitating art challenge this time around was all in your face colour...just how I like it! The reds, the pinks and oooo that blue....simply delicious! I had just the vintage 1970's dress for the job...hey I even had pink tights and red boots!

From Flotsam, by David Wiesner 
Watercolor on paper, 2007 

But before I could even say 'tripod up', I was photo-bombed! Busby stood in front of the lens grinning! Look Mummy, it's taking pictures of me...pulling 100 faces...look Mummy pose like this...pulling 100 poses...look Mummy come get in the picture! It would seem the big fish was getting squeezed out from the get-go by the little minnow... but doesn't that just fit the artwork as well! I had to laugh and embrace the minnow-moment, after all who wants to be a big fish swimming alone?

 

So we pulled fishy faces...

non-fishy faces....

we cuddled and we laughed!

 

And I even grabbed a few pictures alone whilst my minnow was climbing on the windowsill to count buses passing by...but not too many before the cuddles began again.

This little pond I live in isn't made for big fish to swim alone...and I wouldn't want it any other way.

Linking in with the hosts of 'Style Imitating Art'  Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey and Jess at Animated Cardigan. Also Patti for Visible Monday and Mingle Monday.