Happy Birthday to me!!!

There's something unexciting about birthdays when you get to my age.

I no longer leap out of bed in anticipation, rather I crawl out in some subconscious slumber too see how many new wrinkles have developed overnight!.

Every things heading south rapidly and birthdays remind me of the execration of this process.

I also equate it now to the day before we cremated Joshua, so I no longer wish to celebrate it that much.
Infact I have downplayed it so much the children have no idea when it is now.
As celebrations go, I don't like the fuss. I would far rather the children made me something nice when they want to rather than because a certain day prescribes they do. Likewise are my feelings towards Mothers Day and Valentines Day, oh dear I am sounding like a kill joy!
Saying that, the children made me some hilarious cards and I had a somewhat eventful day.
In the torrential rain that went on all day and night I started a new contract in Denbigh (45 mins away). Just about to leave with Bella and Martha (who go to school there) Simon returned (he was taking Mair to breakfast club) to say his car wasn't working. I had to chase around doing the school runs and then going to work. The car needed petrol so we had to stop on the A 55. As we were approaching the A55 sliproad again, Martha commented the car was very windy...perhaps because the boot was open. On closer inspection my brief case had also fallen out. Thankfully a lovely man in a van had watched the whole thing and followed me with my briefcase in tow.
Amazingly, I arrived in work 5 mins early, looking like a drowned water rat however!
Thankfully the group I was teaching were lovely and the rest of the day was uneventful.
So there goes another one....I wonder what will have changed in a year?

Starlight Express UK Tour

Last night my family and I were treated to 25 roller-skating, singing, dancing actors, pretending to be toy trains, zooming around a stage and managing to sing and dance as well! It was a spectacular performance.

The plot is quite simple. The voice of a child playing with his toy trains racing each other. The trains then appear to come alive and have distinctive roles. Rusty the steam train, to Diesel and Electra, the electric train and all the various car that can be attached to them. The moral is obvious: new and flashy isn’t always the best, what is inside is more important than what is on the surface. There is also a love element as well.

The story is played out in song. Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote the music (originally intended for an animated movie) and then year’s later re wrote it with Richard Stilgoe adding the lyrics. It became one of the longest running West End shows, closing after a run of 18 years.

The show that is now travelling around has been modified form the original and has also been updated with dynamic choreography by Arlene Phillips as well as Bill Kenwrights dazzling lighting and 3D special effects. It is the first musical I have been to where I have been handed 3D glasses!

The rock opera musical is filled with catchy tunes as well as costumes with lights and sounds so intricate in detail that they actually lulled the audience into believing they were trains. The performers were outstanding in their ability to sing, dance and act on skates. They must hold amazing strength and stamina as the show lasts for two hours!

I took an 11 year old, 14 and 16 year old. The audience was very mixed from children as young as 5 or 6 too many old age pensioners. I can imagine there is something in the tale to suit all ages. My own children (some more skeptical about coming than others) all loved it!

‘Starlight Express’ is currently playing at Venue Cymru from September 18^th-29^th. Tickets from £18. Box Office: 01492 872000 www.venuecymru.co.uk

Something I didn't anticipate at the theatre!

I took some of the older children to the theatre tonight to watch 'Starlight Express'.
It wasn't really 'my thing' but I feel it is very important to go watch shows live.
I cannot believe how much I enjoyed watching 25 adults zoom around a stage on roller skates pretending to be toy trains!
Infront of me were a couple, not much older than me, and inbetween them, their teenage daughter, who had learning difficulties. They clearly loved her and it was so enderring to watch her cuddle and hug them. At first she was very antimated and enjoyed the show, but as it wore on, it was obvious that it was becoming harder to keep her occupied. As the show was nearing the end something startled her and she screamed. Unable to calm her down quickly, her parents took her out.
We all know what it is like to take small children to something and to keep them occupied and quiet, but I was really struck, just how much courage it must have taken for this couple to bring their child.
I some times sit on tender hooks with my own children not knowing how they will react, how much more so must this couple have felt, with the upredicablity of their daughters behaviour? 
I felt deeply saddened that they had to leave the show.
I have never had a child with special needs. The nearest I have come to this was working for a period of time in a lovely little school on the Wirral, which sadly, thanks mainly to Baroness Warnock's report, is now no longer functioning. I remember clearly taking the children out shopping. I was a student and had no children of my own. It was nerve wracking. The headmaster gave me a little boy that was terrified of electric doors and another who hated umberellas.
Bear in mind we went SHOPPING and it was RAINING.
He did it on purpose, so I would never judge the parents for rarely having the courage to take them out. 
I never did.
My own children really enjoyed the performance. I left, with perhaps a new appreciation of how fortunate I am, to never have to be placed in that kind of situation, as well as a new respect for the courage and tenacity her parents showed.

Just 3 days - Joshua James Beavan

Today we have taken time off work and gone out to remember our son.

He died today, 9 years ago, at exactly 11.25am.

Sweet dreams little man.

Heavily pregnant with Joshua

Just born 1.25am 16th September

With my wonderful midwife and friend Anne Hughes

Daddy and Mummy having a quick cuddle before he is whisked away to special care.

Our beautiful little boy having a rest after being born.

Packed up and ready to travel to Alderhey Children's Hospital.

Leaving with the paramedics.

In my new home K2 ward, in Liverpool

Feeding Joshua

Taking hand and foot prints-he wasn't loving this!

Being allowed to cuddle him all night long!

His first and last bath on his last night.

What a cutey

Our first and last family photo with Joshua just before he died

Joshua's Goodbye.

The ipod touch, iphone, internet and my hate for technology!

Martha on holiday-with the phone of course!

It has to be said I have had my suspicions.
Why does my 16 year old lad, who has to be nagged to death to go to bed, spasmodically from 10.30-11.30pm each night suddenly develop such a love for his sleep he rushes to get ready at 10 pm?
I did some investigating.
It wasn't rocket science.
He has a new ipod touch.
I work with the internet on till 1am at least every night.
Have you done the maths yet?
His twitter's last statement was 12.57 am.
Busted or what!
Maybe he will read this before he gets home, giving him ample time for some elaborate explanation, maybe not.
I think the girls are more subversive and subtle about what they post and when. Maybe.........

I have an iphone. It took me two years to save for it, so I could buy it outright and not be stung for huge monthly charges (gotta love Martin Lewis's site!)
It has certainly revolutionised my life and I can now manage my time better, as the charity is run through facebook and this can be updated and emails replied to whilst I sit waiting for endless activities to cease each night.
It took me a while to master facebook, the charity has a twitter account that I just cannot understand, the  only games I have on it are Dora the Explorer for when the 6 year old gets bored, however I have developed a love for Instagram and other's photographs.

Way back in the dark ages when I was a child (or so my children appear to think) the only way to contact my best friend was to persuade my mother I HAD to speak to her about some pressing homework assignment and ring her on the very public house dial up phone in the hallway with my mother hovering in the kitchen 'cleaning'. After 5 or so minutes I was told to put it down. We did try to yogurt-pots-and-string communication from our bedrooms but the distance was too far and we failed miserably. If I had the technology my children have I am sure I would have done the same as them, apart from the fact my mother would have switched the internet off!!!

It is an amazing spectacle in the recent holidays, you can shout and shout people to come and help for ages and get really cross, OR you can simply switch off the internet and by some miracle within roughly three minutes they all appear mournfully asking why the internet doesn't work suddenly!

As part of my Masters we will look more deeply at Children and Technology as well as the influences of consumerism on children. I cannot wait. another chance to leap onto my soap box! It is good to be able to keep in touch with all the children easily by phone (apart from the fact that the majority of the time they cannot phone because they have used their credit or their phones mysteriously have no signal when I try to find out where they are!) however by and large I do not like such gadgets for my teenagers. They are a complete distraction to any form of work and study (son had all his taken off him from his G.C.S.E mocks in January until his exams had finished in June!-so he would revise!) and unless you are a very disciplined teenager, they are addictive . I do feel, however that neither do I wish to isolate them from the same technology that everyone else has, therefore some rules over the years have evolved.

• No TV's or laptops in bedrooms.
• No phones at mealtimes.
• If we are watching a family film, we are watching it, not on phones.
• Misuse means technology is taken off you at bedtimes!
• Great misuse means technology is taken off you for a period of time altogether.
• No mobiles until they need one (around year 7/8/9) and then a cheap one!
• No laptop until they are 18 (until then they use ours)
• No facebook until 16 (mainly due to what I have to deal with in school)
• Facebook / twitter etc has to have us added to supervise at times.

These may appear lenient to some of you, and too harsh to others, but this is what works for us, and keeps technology at a purposeful arms length. Maybe when I have completed my modules and read endless research papers my views will have changed?

Hi Ho Hi Ho it's back to work and University I go!

A subversive picture of me taken by one of my students (ahem Coral!)

It has often been said 'I must be mad'.
Most times I laugh it off, this time however I actually do believe it.
Back to University!
And work
And the expanding charity
And the two huge projects I am finishing
AND THE CHILDREN
And everything else.........

I was thrilled after precisely one week of unemployment to be offered a job.
I resigned from my last one, with nothing in the pipe line, which was quite a leap of faith, but one that had to be done. I wasn't happy and life is simply too short to waste so much time and energy on something that is not for you, and this most defiantly, was NOT!

Then after the relief came the guilt.
How on earth are we going to make ends meet.
Our budget stretches a multitude of ways, and we make it meet endless things but there's a limit, and without me working, we were well over the limit, without, that is cutting all the extras (the kids activities mainly).
Also, although I loved the long days with just me and the twins, I did feel guilty at Simon having to work every day ,I couldn't just sit there and enjoy myself knowing how hard he works, so I spent the time manically tidying and organising things so I could in some way justify my time at home.
Much as it pains me to admit it , I am not 'mother earth'. Try as I might to appear this way, inside, I like to work. Ouch, I have admitted it. The working mother's dilemma. I enjoy my job (well, until the last one that is!) and I actually think I am a better mother and person for going out to work (part time).

So when the phone went as I was walking around the zoo, sad as I was to think of leaving my babies for a whole two days, I was also over the moon as well, as I am back doing one of the jobs I most enjoy, the Introduction to Teaching Assistants on the community. Susie has kindly offered to take her day off work on a Monday to have the babies and they will return on Fridays to our wonderful childminder, Lizzy. We have to sit down and work out who drops off who and when like a military operation and colour code this on our phones so we all know where we are going, but now it's all planned and nearly ready to roll again.

In an extreme moment of complete madness over the summer, I signed up for my Master's Degree in Early Childhood. I was quite amazed to be accepted. It was a hard choice, I would have loved to do the fine art but would have had to lock myself in the study for three years to complete the work, I really was very interested in Religion and the modern world, but I could not use this to further my career, where as I lecture in Childcare and early years/child development so this was the most logical choice.

27 years after leaving Chester University, I returned on Saturday morning to enrol, or so I thought. I was treated to not just enrolment but a whole spectrum of how to study at master's level as well as packed off on an hour long study/research task with another group of students. Talk about throwing you in the deep end. It was really enjoyable to have to use my brain again and I was totally absorbed, until I was brought down to earth and given the booklist for the first module. If God could create another 12 hours in every day, I think I would just about be okay, as it stands, it's debatable!

So there we are.
I may not be able to write my blog quite as much, I am sure there will be a few more cobwebs appearing in the house, and some of my projects will have to further go on hold, but I am determined to somehow work it all into our lives.

To be continued.................

Grandmas had enough!

As I exited the Debenhams lift, Anya holding my hand and walking beautifully, Caleb howling in the double buggy because he wants to get out like Anya, but as yet cannot walk, I was greeted with those words.
It has been a while since anyone has referrred to me as the twins 'Grandma', maybe I look particulary old and tired this week?
So I took a deep breath, and decided I was ready to, this time enlighten at least two people.
I turned and looked over my shoulder, then looked at them.
'Oh me' I smiled, 'I am a grandma, but not too these two, but to my 24 year old daughter's little girl. These are my twins and my 10th and 11th children. They are lovely, I haven't had enough, but my son has, he's tired and needs to have his nap'.
Smiled again at them both opened mouthed.
'Bye'.
I was very polite.
I do wish people would not make such sweeping assuptions, but then I also know I have been guilty of this too, we all are.
I used to ask people who had one child if they were going to have more.
That is untill I had my one child, an ectopic pregnancy, a miscarriage and fertility issues then I saw what a painful question that was.
I used to wonder why some people had such big age gaps between their children, till I lost a baby.
Now, I try hard not to assume an older person is 'Granny' or likewise a very young girl is 'sister'.
I hope those two nice ladies may also do the same.