Me and Mine - A Family Portrait Project March
We made it. Me and Mine at last hello!
There's no big secret why we've been so hopeless over the last few months, really it comes down to not making enough time for each other - no time really just the four of us. The boys are thriving, as I type this they have run in from the garden shedding their shoes and clothes like snakes in the jungle. Rich has just cut the grass and hung a tyre off a tree he picked up while the car had it's MOT and there's a scent of cut grass mixed with boy sweat wafting around the house. And I love it.
We have literally been ships that pass in the night, trying to keep all the cogs turning, handing over boys in bed, tag team parenting.
It's been teamwork.
Planning diaries months in advance, working out who can go to hockey matches, who can be at school plays, who is food shopping tonight, swapping cars, swapping dogs with my kind in laws and making sos calls to my mum who flies down the A303 most often actually without asking, she can just sense I am a bit wobbly.
You know that feeling when you are on the edge of a cliff and you need to jump. Into a beautiful pool of water and you'll feel so exhilarated when you do it but you have to leave some things behind when you do. That's me. Trying to juggle too many plates, being everywhere...just.
We adore the old American series The West Wing and there's a scene with one of the characters where someone asks her "Is the water above your head?" and she replies "No the water is right at my head."
And weirdly I work best under that sort of pressure. I always have. I love a fast paced life but it only works when you have down time in between the madness to recharge and we have sort of missed that since the clock struck midnight on the 31st December.
But the Easter holidays have started and I am having some time off. Ironically that means I have time to write again, to share what we've been up to, to blow the dust off old photos which hopefully still look like us. To take my biggest boy to see Beauty and the Beast (he has a blue Prince like jacket to wear - if only the Disney store made an adult Belle costume I'd be buying it!) to have a day up in London at the Science Museum, to share the good things that come from a Mama living in an online world and to celebrate a big niece's 21st dressed as tacos tomorrow in Cornwall (hello Me and Mine April!) and a small niece's 4th birthday dressed as the characters from Moana. I couldn't love the next few weeks more.
And it started with an impromptu dinner at the local pub after a trip to the Morrison's photo booth.
It's a very special thing this Me and Mine project. This blog is worse off for the missed posts, the photos of my nephew Logan's 1st party in January of all of us dressed up like lumberjacks that are still buried in my photo library and the missed opportunities to simply ask someone to take a photo of us.
We've done some lovely things and at the same time we have had a difficult few months. Trying your best and having days when you feel like your are failing at everything.
I have so much respect for the bloggers who link up every month and I am sorry I haven't made the time to read all the posts. There's no excuse, I've just let myself get consumed with life. Everyone is busy and although it's very late for new year resolutions I almost feel like the new year starts now. That the last three months have been such a blur, launching new ventures, trying to establish and grow old ones and raise two mighty boys who would never know that you ironed their uniform at 2am.
Everything we do is ultimately for them. Not just for holidays, the house and nicer meals out or clothes from more expensive shops, but managing our own businesses to be able to have the flexibility to work around them. Around that diary full of school commitments, birthday parties and remembering to see the friends we love and miss.
It's a good life and it's good to record it.
So come and join Lucy, Alex, Katie, Jenny, Fritha, Charlotte and I and share your Me and Mine posts.