Empathy, kindness to lettuces and people

I may have shared this before, but it's a lovely reminder. If we can be this kind to plants, we can be this kind to each other and, perhaps most importantly, to ourselves. ❤️

Farnborough Air Sciences Trust

Otherwise known as the aeroplane museum.

Kids and daddy like the planes. I like the cafe, the articles on women's efforts in the war...and on this occasion the crockery they were giving away (I gave a donation in return). Everyone left happy. Except perhaps daddy who was fearing the increase in household crockery.

Mama 1 toddler 0

Mwah ha ha! I spiked her pancake with pear, vit d drops and multivitamin drops. She ate the whole thing. Mama win!!!

Humour of a two year old

Daughter: got food for you, mama.
Me: ooh, thank you!
Daughter: got a plate here, and an apple on plate... and tea.
Me: yummy tea, thank you!
Daughter with serious look: pig tea, mama! [Evil chuckle]

The sorrows of a sensitive soul

Neighbours are chopping down a beautiful fir tree I've been enjoying since my four year old son was a baby. I looked out at it in the early hours of the night when I was struggling in those early weeks. I'm gutted they're chopping it down (though I totally understand why). Son keeps crying about it too asking me to save it, asking why I can't stop them. It's heartbreaking. It's going on Friday. I plan to let him say goodbye to it tomorrow. I expect tears. He keeps saying he stands under it when it's raining...and asking what will shelter him once it's gone. 😞 He has such a big heart and sensitive soul. ❤️

A happy day

So I braved taking both kids actual swimming yesterday morning and it was great fun! Proud of facing a fear of mine. We'll definitely go again. Spent early afternoon making pancakes so we could have a pre dinner playground trip and it was lovely to get some running around, rain in our faces, forest bathing time. 😍

(You can just see the biggest as a yellow blob in the distance)

Where does the imagination go?

Four year old son: mama, look! There's another world in that puddle! Let's jump into it and go into the other world!

Me: so there is, how beautiful! Let's do it!

Son: look, we're out the other side! There's still a forest in this world and it's so beautiful!

😍😍😍 Love his mind and sense of beauty. 😍😍😍

International Women's Day - wishes

To all the women feeling insecure, I wish you love for yourself; to those feeling disempowered, I wish for you the confidence to keep fighting; for those women that are uncertain of their paths, I wish you light to guide your way; and for those feeling discontentment, I wish you wisdom to identify what changes to make, and peace for your hearts. To all the amazing women I have befriended or that have befriended me over the years and to those that have been my inspiration. ♥️ Happy International Women's Day.

Emotional self care

Wonderful talk on self care and how to be successful at what you want.

Dreams

So, I had my first proper remembered dream for over four years.

Due to pregnancy and breastfeeding and possibly sleep deprivation, I've not remembered any of my dreams for over four years. Last night I woke at 3am, like I always used to, from the most vivid dream I've had for years and I was blown away by the reality of it, the vividness of the colours, the sensation of touch and smell, the realness of the conversations and the intensity of the emotions. It felt so real, that I stayed awake for about an hour processing what had happened in the dream and what it meant to me, as if it had been real. It was a good experience that taught me a lot.

We get used to dreams, as adults, but feeling like this was my first real dream ever, I can now understand why children often find even the most ordinary dreams so frightening or confusing. How do you explain this concept to a toddler, how do you tell them it's not real, when it feels so very like reality?

It reminded me of something I wrote in 1997, over 20 years ago, when my dreams used to scare me.

Dreaming of reality

The illusion of reality scares me.  What if what I see is not really there?  What if all I see is just part of a dream?  What if I am just part of a dream?

To be thinking this, I must be real.  To have fear of nothing, I must be more than nothing.

To realise that I am more than nothing, I must exist in a world that also exists.

I live in what I see; I can touch it and smell it.  I have lived for twenty years in this world, and it has remained constant throughout.

But what if those twenty years are just an illusion?  What if I haven’t really lived in a world that was constant?  What if that was a dream too?

Does it matter?  If my memories are a dream, it was a nice dream.  If all my experiences were part of a dream, that dream taught me a lot.

Life is not about knowing what is real, or what to believe in, or what I am.

It is accepting that things just are the way they are and realising that I am no less real than that acceptance of my environment.

I am who I am.