Afternoon everyone, you all okay?
It’s been a busy old week here and I can honestly say I am pooped. As the title says it’s been a rather cakey-themed affair which has seen me bake and ice about a million cupcakes. For those of you who don’t know the week is ‘Cake A Difference‘ week in aid of the charity Bliss. Bliss is the charity for babies that are born too sick or too soon and is definitely something that is very close to my heart. I am a parent rep for the local support group and try to do what I can, which this week has been an awful lot of baking. I won’t go into it in great detail but you can check out my efforts here: “Mum’s Get Baking To Help Tiny Babies“. I know, I know, in the paper again. The thing I really wanted to tell you about was my big boy. Young Master Elijah came into our lives in the most dramatic of fashions in late December 2007, bum first and a whole 15 weeks early. He weighed just 1lb 15oz and went down to 1lb 10oz at his lowest, taking a whole 102 days to graduate from the neonatal unit and finally join us at home. He is a very very special, bright, talkative young man and we adore him. That tiny scrap of life with the huge blue eyes has changed my life immeasurably over the last four and a bit years, he is living proof that having a tiny premature baby (although not ideal) is certainly not always a bad thing, I have met some wonderful people and children and have made some fantastic friends.
So after all my other cakey endeavours of the week I decided to treat myself this morning and amble off to a few of my favourite places with the tiddler in tow. We had a mooch of my very very favourite little wool/craft/pretty much everything shop, I got some pretty ribbons and some very nice new pins that are for my new pin/cushion button box. I seem to have a bit of a habit lately for buying pretty containers and pots to put stuff in but more of that another day. Then we had a mooch of the charity shop where I bought a really really cute green stoneware pot with a lid, it did have a very very unfortunately little accident though in the car as I had left the bag a little too close to small fingers. 😦 It now has a little chip on its lid but I guess that is just a war wound and a little bit of a marker of our little adventure.
Last of all we popped into the Ruskin Glass Centre for a nosey and a spot of brunch (of course), young Noah did fab walking all day and we completely ditched the pram (Hoorah) which led to extra exploring, he especially liked going to see the frosty fountain.
The boy is just far too cute for words and an utter ray of sunshine, if he’s not happy… you know there is something wrong. We took to Ruskin’s rather fab organic cafe for our little brunchy treat, somehow being in a creative place always gets me all warm and fuzzy inside and this is one of my faves. So we hit the cafe and placed our orders, the last few times I have visited they have had a fab John Ruskin quote up on their blackboard and today was no exception:
Now this may be quite a topical quote as I have quite a lot of friends who are teachers (oh and a husband… forgot about him 🙂 ), but I genuinely do believe this to be true. I am probably very guilty of being overly harsh with my boys when it comes to discipline (verbally of course, I never have or would lay a finger on my children) and would not tolerate the slightest step out of line, but the more I see and hear about the things children are allowed to, or are defended over in schools really does make me despair. I come from a background where we would have been frightened to have gone home and told our parents we were in trouble at school, where we were expected to do our very best and most of all were supported every single step of the way. I don’t really see that this is a bad way to be and it certainly never did me any harm, even if me and my little bro did turn out in varying degrees of odd. So my point is really, are we setting the children of today up for a fall, is being too lenient on their behaviour and is giving them endless lists of excuses really going to be their downfall? Who know’s? Just me pondering.
… And so onto something lighter… my breakfast! 🙂 Just thought I’d share with you there rather yummy looking photo’s we took:
Omm Nom Nom! So all in all it was a thoroughly lovely (and well deserved morning), I am motoring away with my top-secret project and one other at the moment but will tell you a bit more about that next time.
Big pat on the back to you if you got this far.
Smoochers xxx