Marvelous, marvelous, marvelous...

......mum’s favourite word. Mum picked up this word from her boyfriend and although she often moaned about him she made a conscious choice to try to see the best in him and enjoy his company and never do anything to hurt or upset him. My mum had the most positive attitude of anyone I know, if she was lonely she made herself go out for a walk, if she needed help and none of us were available then she had been known to knock for a neighbour or even ask a stranger. Mum loved to socialise and dance and chat with friends and bravely walked in alone to join clubs. She loved making people laugh.

I hope I can be like my mum.

So the last five months have been very sad and stressful for me, but now it’s time to look for the positives! I have received so many lovely cards and messages offering sympathies and support. How lucky I am to be surrounded by people that love me. Also need to mention how busy I am because my lovely daughter is including me in some of their activities or creating activities we can all do (she bought me lunch today)! And more good news to share this time is that on Sunday, in her very first gymnastics competition, Comedian came away with a silver medal ..........fan the flames of life and they will burn out the rubbish sad events! Memories will never burn.

Busy birthdays....

Although Comedien and Olympian don't actually turn 7 for another week, this weekend we celebrated (they are with their dad next weekend). Saturday morning Olympian and I went to gymnastics and Hubby collected Daughter, Sool, Comedien, Dynamo and LittleOne - so by lunchtime we were all at my house! After lunch they opened their presents from Daughter and Sool and from each other and their main present was a kareoke machine!!!!! Can you guess how the afternoon was spent eh? We rounded off the evening with a Chinese Takeaway feast.

Sunday was the big party - they had chosen to have a Cave and Animal party. So their bell tent was erected in our garden to be the cave and it was filled with soft toy animals. Comedien, Olympian and Dynamo were in animal fur costumes and Daughter wore an animal print headband and even I managed to find a top that was a sort of animal print too.

Daughter and I loaded the table with mostly home cooked food and Hubby had printed off some caveman and Flintstones posters to stick up round the place. 1pm and our home filled up nicely with about 40 lovely people (about 50:50 adults to children). The children all amused themselves and each other - all getting along well even though some are friends from home-ed groups, some from gymnastics and one relation and various ages too! Meanwhile the adults chatted lots and drank lots of tea, made by various people and many of them taking turns to cuddle LittleOne as this is his first social function too!

All too soon it was 7:30pm and all the guests had gone and Hubby loaded the car with Daughter's family and took them home...........then I had less than an hour to clear up before going out myself, you should have seen me go through the place like a whirl-wind, I do work better under pressure!

And now today Daughter, LittleOne and the girls are back here so the girls can concentrate on going through all their prezzies properly! They will have more when their presents from me and Granddad arrive (ordered on-line and partly arrived), then they will have more again at their daddy's next weekend so a very long birthday indeed.

Quote of the day from Conmedien........"The best thing about parties is there is always lots of leftovers for lunch the next day!"

Small person, big humour.......

Last night I was driving home with Comedien after her gymnastics session. We were chatting about how windy it was and I said I was surprised my washing had stayed on the line, "Some things could have blown over fences as far as the Tesco roundabout" I exagerated.

She smiled and said "Actually Grandma, has Tesco got automatic doors?

I could instantly picture where her imagination had taken her.......then we laughed and laughed!!!

Remember it's temporary...

Well it's been a very busy/cuddly/stressful/fun/scary/depressing/proud/exhausting week!

Our daughter has sufferred quite a bit since delivering LittleOne, who I have to say is sooooo cuddly, she had to stay in hospital Saturday till Wednesday night because of unhealthy issues that were so painful and immobilising, but in her ususal positive way I only saw a meltdown once.

I've spent lots of time with Olympian and Comedian, running them about and spectator to hours of their gymnastics which has been great. they work so hard. I've also managed to cover nearly 400 miles in the car going between my home the hospital and various errands. Job wise has still been a big part of this week even though I'm supposed to be on leave!

However, it's all temporary......our daughter will heal, my father-in-law will find peace in a better place and I will soon have time to play grandma as much as I like.

Welcome to LittleOne

Well this has to be the best reason to blog and make you all smile - our new grandson arrived 2:31pm today at a very healthy 8lb 4oz. I've had my first cuddle with LittleOne and he's adorable, well I would say that wouldn't I :o)

My very special daughter did suffer quite a bit - starting with a very much wanted home birth but ending with an emergency ambulance dash to hospital and theatre for a c-section delivery but everyone knew it was the right thing to do so just got on with it. Seeing her this evening was upsetting for me as she is still in a lot of discomfort and it broke my heart when we had to abandon her in an empty room unable to be mobile enough to do what she wants for LittleOne without calling for help each time, however, I know she is a very strong person and will recover quickly. I'm so proud of her! Sool played a major part and did a lot to help and I'm proud of him too.

Meanwhile, I collected three children and headed for gymnastics early this morning for Olympian to have her training. Thankfully Hubby met us there and first took Comedian and Dynamo to the park and later took them home to our house. When we were all home it was lunch and playing all afternoon - occassionally a little heated but mostly fine and some of the time great fun.

All of us to the hospital this evening for our first visit, with the three children wearing their "I'm a BIG sister/brother" t-shirts that I'd painted for them. The children were all bessotted by LittleOne and all desperate to cuddle him. Main comments by them all was how soft his skin is. I'm really happy knowing they appreciate how precious our new family member is!

Nothing in life can top this............so I'll say no more.

Naming names

I don't know how you all do it?!?!?
As if it wasn't hard enough to think up a name for this whole blog I now have to rename all my family and friends to help keep their anonymity!!! OK so Hubby was naturally Hubby and our daughter can remain called our daughter but then it got to twin granddaughters, what could I call them as I will often have to talk about them independently of each other and 'the twins' will just strip them of their own personal stories. As you may have noticed yesterday I called one of them thump-sucker and the other curly-locks but what if they stop being those things?

So from now on I think my hard working and dedicated gymnast can be Olympian, as she will strive to make us proud of her, while my fun loving, nature loving, loving all things scientific granddaughter can be known as Comedien as she always makes us laugh too.

Hmmm that solved, now what do I call my daughter's partner? He's not my son-in-law as they are not married so I guess he's my son-out-of-law, Sool for short! And his son, who is the same age as the girls, we can call Dynamo because he always seems to be fully charged and bouncing around excitedly!

We also have a son and he has a fiance, but we don't see them often so I'll probably not have too much to report from them.

There is also a new grandson due to arrive any day now, but I'll have to meet him to be able to call him anything but bump :o)

Well that's the immediate family done and that's more than enough for my tired brain today.