28 Dec 2014 19 Comments
in Children Tags: children, Thin
We’re off on a family trip and I just got the Lil Princess changed…
She’s admiring herself in the mirror and says ” I like this dress!”
I enquired why..
“Because it makes me look thin!”
No no no no no!!!!
This is the society and time we live in, where a 6 year old is checking her figure out?! We certainly don’t discuss such issues at home…
The look on my face must have been enough…
“No, its because of the flowers mummy…”
Really?
19 Dec 2014 2 Comments
in Children Tags: growing up, kids, love, precious, scared
I don’t want to let go, I seriously can’t even consider it at the moment!
I mean, let go of my babies, and allow them to grow up!
This year Lil Man is in year 5 – aged between 9 and 10. We got letters about an after school club, and for the first time, there was the option to allow your child to leave the school premises alone, with parental permission, to go home. Not a big deal, right? No, no, no, huge, massive, enormous deal!!
I know I’m over protective about the kids, but you know, after struggles to have them, and knowing the way of the world nowadays, I feel like I can’t contemplate it yet! He’s lucky, ( or not, depends how you look at it!) I work at the school, and I’ll always be around to pick him and Lil Princess up, and if I can’t, his grandparents are available most of the time too. Well, I will until the end of next year, then he starts ‘BIG SCHOOL’!
Lil Man is just that, little. He’s a feisty chap, with a lot of emotions too. Being of small stature, he’s a possible target for being picked on, but he does manage to avert things by being the clown. He does have great friends who he sticks around with at school. If things happen, he’s still young enough to tell us, but it takes a while. But he’s also someone who is ready to defend himself too. These things worry me… What if he doesn’t have these same friends at his new school, to be a support network? What if he gets picked on by some bigger kids, walking to/from school? What if this happens and he gets in a fight?
I know, he can’t be wrapped up in cotton wool for ever, but I just can’t do it!
Ok, so I’ve got to the stage where in the mornings, I leave him in the playground so I can get set for work, and when he has his karate lessons, sometimes I don’t stay, but that’s about it! But then he gets a bit anxious when he knows I’m not around as well.
One of his previous teachers was worried about him having dyspraxia tendencies at one time… That wasn’t proved, but there is something there. I’m not sure what. Ok, so they say we’re all on ‘the spectrum’ somewhere, and I do think maybe there’s an element of truth about him too. He still has such an innocence about him, more so than a lot of his classmates. The innocence 9 year olds in my day all had. Nowadays kids are so advanced, and know so much… It all this technology they have access to that feeds their minds, giving them chances to see/read things they wouldn’t have had a chance to a few years back.
And this technology, and social media is probably a silent feeder for me and my anxieties too. You can’t turn a page in a newspaper, log into Facebook, or see the Internet home pages without reading something negative, about kidnappings, stabbings, murder, bullying, rape…
I’m pretty sure these things happened all those years ago, well we all know they did, look at the celebrity scandals that are being uncovered all the time from years gone by, and stories that are reported on nowadays. But the thing is, we weren’t aware of them constantly. Something hugely major would be in the national papers or on the news on TV, not everything. Now, you hear something, and within seconds, someone has written and posted about it, right or wrong, and the rumour mill starts up… Or the anxieties of parents like me are pumped up.
So excuse me if I don’t want to let go too soon. Things are scary out there. He’s a precious lil boy and I want to give him the right life skills, but I don’t know when to start! And as for Lil Princess… Well she’s 6 going on 16 and wants to do everything her big brother gets to do right now! I don’t think these things would bother her too much, her confidence is pretty solid.
Unlike her brother. If he was playing his drum, you could stand him up, in front of a thousand, and he wouldn’t bat an eyelid! But the idea of going to big school alone with none of his mates, that scares the hell out of him. He does talk about walking to and from school alone, when that time will come, and though he is quite excited about it, there is a little nervous glint in his eyes as he talks about it. And it makes my heart ache…
So,like I said, I don’t want to let go…
He’s not old enough yet!
But when is the right time???
15 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
in Children Tags: fruit, healthy, Humour, kids
So, good parents are supposed to ensure their children get their 5 portions of fruit and veg a day, or is it 7 now?
That’s all well and good when your child likes the stuff. My Lil Man, who incidentally is so slight he looks like he’s hardly fed, loves fruit and veg. He’ll happily ask for fruit as a snack, and tries all vegetables we give him. He has them western style, and in good old curry form too. Then runs around like a total loon, and works all he’s eats, off!
But what do you do when your kid is scared of fruit?! Yes, it’s Lil Princess again! When she was a baby, and it was the weaning fun time, I purĂ©ed everything, more varieties than when I had done the same with Lil Man, and she loved pretty much everything… Then I really don’t know what happened.
There had been no distressing situations or stand out incidents, involving fruit, but all of a sudden, all it took was Lil Man waving a banana at her, and she’d be screaming! He liked this new control, and when he wanted the sofa for himself, he’d ask for fruit, so she would choose to sit elsewhere!
When she started nursery and even school, she was offered fruit, and I was intrigued… Did she eat it, or was this just a home thing? But no, she politely declined there too (at least she used her manners there, instead of hollering!) but, the joys of working in the same school as where your children go, I’d get stopped at lunch or in the hallway by a colleague, “guess what? She tried banana/apple today!” It was as much an achievement for her teachers as it was for us at home!
We’ve progressed to school dinners, where I ‘think’ she’s eating more veg, and today she informed me she likes pineapple!
Total list of fruit and veg she will eat
1. Apple
2. Banana
3. Raisins (I know dried fruit, not real stuff, but still!)
4. Mango
5. Honeydew Melon
6. Pineapple
7. Satsumas
8. Carrots
9. Corn on the Cob
10. Peas
But, not with any regularity! Oh well, I guess I’ll have to be happy with what we’ve achieved so far, and just hope this list will extend, and that she’ll eat some every day!
(Oh yes, I’ve tried the old tricks, purĂ©e the veg n add in sauces… Then she picks pasta out and won’t eat the sauce!)
Do you have a fussy eater at home?
03 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
in Children Tags: children, Cold, Ill, Sick, Winter
![images[1]](https://butismileanyway.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/images1.png)
You can tell its winter in our household…. well, you could tell it was the lead up to winter too!
I have been blessed with a Lil Princess who will pick up the slightest cold, cough or sniffle going, and then kindly pass it around, then when we think we’ve got rid of it, she catches it again!
Since October, I have been suffering a cold or cough, and today me and Lil Man are sporting seasonally Rudolph red noses… GREAT! I have over a week until our work Christmas evening out, wonder if I’ll shake it by then??!! Even Hubby Dearest was dosing up on the Beecham’s last night… no one’s safe!!!!!
And madam over here, of the germ spreading persuasion, is wheezing away with a bout of mild asthma thrown into the mix… Wonderful!!!
Oh well, here’s hoping any of you reading this have a healthy happy winter, and the Christmas holidays that are upon us soon, pass by with na’er a sneeze or tissue… (but I somehow doubt it!!!)
03 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
in Children Tags: Anecdotes, children, Dads, Daughters, Family, Happy, kids, love, Mums, Parenthood, precious, Sons
Let me introduce my son, 9 year old, Lil Man, and Brat, no sorry, Lil Princess, my 6-going-16 year old daughter.
It took a little while to become parents, due to some health issues, but once we got there, its been a crazy ride, from smooth sailing, to rocky road rollercoasters, but hey, I guess that’s just called parenthood! Lil Man is a dude in so many ways, a child with a great sense of humour, and he rocks when playing the Dhol drum! Ok, so academically, he’s not the strongest, but he’s got a great imagination! He loves his sport, football, basketball, badminton, tennis, and excels at it,even though he is small of stature! An emotional young man, he loves his family (except his sister, but at this age, I guess this sibling love is hard to come by!), feels change strongly, and has the temper of Vesuvius! I mean, the other day he stormed into my classroom at the end of the day and sneered at me ” I HATE your sandwiches!!!” Erm, ok…. “You put TOMATO in them!” Uh oh! The cardinal sin where he’s concerned! In a hurry to make packed lunches, I had inadvertently put tomatoes in his sandwiched, whoops!!
Lil Princess, well, she’s another story! I love her to bits, a true character, she’s always singing and dancing… yes, a Drama Queen! She thinks she is so much older than her tender years, and is constantly advising her friends, telling them what to do! But she is kind caring and considerate, always polite, the first one to volunteer to buddy up with a new child in school to help them settle in, perfect… Though it seems that that child only exists at school! Once were home, a whole other child appears!!!! One that regresses to 3 when she wants something, winding daddy and grandparents round her little finger, tears and tantrums when it doesn’t work, then an attitude of a 16year old when you try to reason with her!
Saying that, I wouldn’t change them for anything! As frustrating as they can be, they are a funny pair’ making us laugh all the time!
Take Lil Man the other day, when I became an Aunty… He saw some pictures showing my Brother Dearest having skin to skin time with Junior, on a hospital bed, swaddled in sheets, the pair of them. He sat pondering for a while, looking confused, then asked me “mummy, did Mamu (uncle) have the baby?” And why wouldn’t you think that?! After all, he’s the one in the pic, with the newborn!
And Lil Princess, well yesterday. She decided to educate us. She’s been learning about the human body at school. “Mummy I know a life cycle! First you eat something, then it goes to your throat, then your stomach. After your stomach it goes to your belly button, then it poops out of your bottom!” And proceeded to illustrate it with a flow cycle chart! Again child logic, it’s fantastic eh!
So there you have it my two crazy children, and I’m sure there will be more anecdotes over time!
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