“Learn something new. Try something different. Convince yourself that you have no limits.”

 

It kind of felt like 2020 was going to go out in exactly the same grey and stagnant way that it has been festering the entire year. I know I shouldn't moan, we're all going through this but having a mass of other rubbish thrown in to the mix was making this year one I was desperate to put behind us. Even without the lockdown madness this time of year has been a testing time for Opeie, shrouded by a mix of emotions and upset. I tried so hard the last couple of years to make 'Christmas' fun again but with no joy, so this year we talked and said 'no more!'. If this year has taught us anything it's shown us what is actually important and also what ever we decide to do (even if it doesn't fit in with other peoples views)... its okay. 

So instead of 'Christmas' this year we have decided to have a celebration of our favourite little creatures 'Beetles', With the build up being filled with beetle related creative activities to decorate the house 'our way'. We've been busy doing all sorts but my favourite thing so far has been decorating the wall in the LEGO room with a series of hanging beetles. This really got us pumped about the upcoming festivities.

What has really made this for me is how much it has taken the strain off of Opeie and has given him the chance to see the end of the year in a different light. This morning he said 'Dad, I'm so excited about Beetlemas!'... and that is all I needed to hear to feel like we are taking control of 2020 again.

"Forget the past; look forward to the future, for the best things are yet to come."

Day 113:

Every year for as long as I can remember my birthday has always felt like just another day of the week, this year was different though. There was a feeling in the air that I wasn't expecting on the build up and as it got closer I felt myself feeling all warm inside. Opeie had been busy doing some top secret prep for weeks and my unexpected warm fuzzy birthday feeling was definitely coming from their excitement. By the time the big day came today I felt like I had already had my birthday twice over because of the first two days of the three day celebrations.

You know you are on to a winner when not only do. you receive a thoughtful toy from your childhood but also new patches for that magical toy (which are always battered because of their age). And Opeie couldn't be any cuter, knowing exactly what to get me because he is so bloody awesome. By the time we were ready to head out I was feeling like a princess.

As we drove out of the road to start our journey to Lake Vyrnwy, I spotted pictures of myself all over the place, Opeie had clearly been having a blast getting ready for today. I liked to think that everyone one on our road thought I was a young dad but now they all know that I'm a crusty 40-year-old.

Lake Vyrnwy was a little busier than we expected but we found a quiet spot to have a picnic and a good stomp while Opeie took photos for his next comic. On the way home all I could think about was that delicious looking backed cheese cake that Opeie had made. Today was perfection, it was so nice to have a clear head for a few days. Hopefully next year the world will seem a little calmer. 

"When one has not had a good father, one must create one."

Day 93:

Fathers day has always been one of my favourite days of the year and this one was lush, I got breakfast and coffee in bed, a lovely card and most importantly lots of cuddles. The weather wasn't great but we managed to find a spot by the river in Jackfield where we could park, open the boot and paint in the back of the car while it thrashed it down, perfection.

"Treat your friends as you do your best pictures, and place them in their best light."

Day 85:

Ive distanced myself from FB since all this lockdown craziness started but today I signed in and was greeted by this and it really perked me up. This smug face (because of that amazing boy of mine) hasn't changed in the 9 years he's been with me. Becoming a dad was my defining moment and it has shaped everything I have done since that special day. Ive been through happy times, Ive been through heartbreaking times but he's been there next to me through it all. Theres not a person on this planet I could love more, my best friend. 

"The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love." ... 'and LEGO'

Day 84:

Today was another one of those days that can just do one. When these days pop up you can guarantee that myself and Opeie always turn to the LEGO for a pick me up. Those magical bricks have some crazy healing power. 

Hoping for a few happy days please.

“True emotional healing doesn't happen without feeling. The only way out is through.”

Day 66:

I used to be one of those people that would think 'bloody hell another blogger hash tagging 'mental health'. A few years back everybody seemed to be jumping on some sort of mental health band wagon and I really didn't understand it. It turns out that I'm an idiot, and the reason that everyone was talking about it back then was because it was the start of society really giving it the attention it deserves. The last two years have been an emotional rollercoaster and have really made me appreciate how hard it is sometimes to stop myself (and Opeie) feeling like we are emotionally sinking. This Coronavirus has become testing to most peoples emotional health and when there are other issues in your personal life too (especially ones that are unnecessary) it really adds to those negative feelings. Tonight is one of those nights where I feel like I've been on the verge of tears for quite sometime, So, as todays word on our #creativelockdownproject is 'Afloat' I figured my brain and emotional wellbeing were the things that I'm always trying to keep above the surface. 

Be kind to each other, It really makes a difference.

"A smile is a curve that sets everything straight."

Day 61:

As I lay in the woods today staring at the lush blue sky through the gap in the trees, I concentrated on my breathing and really took some time to think about how lucky I am. I have an amazing little family and they really make me smile. The last 60 or so days have been a rollercoaster of emotions and although we're still here in the midst of this madness, we're still smiling and that's so important.

“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.”

Day 56:

I need to keep reminding myself that despite the bizarre situation we are all currently living in, it's not all doom and gloom and there's always time for mucking about and having a good chuckle. Being in a relationship with someone that not only accepts my insanity but also encourages it and adds their own  bit of madness in too really does make all the difference. I'm feeling pretty loved up today.

"Don't cry because its over, smile because it happened"

Day 26:

Although all of us in this country are living these crazy times in unison and many of us are feeling hard done by because of it, it's important to remember that we all have our own personal struggles and heartaches on top of all this madness and this social distancing is putting a huge barrier between us and the people we love most. Ive found it really difficult over the last few weeks that I couldn't be there in person for a friend I care about as she has just lost her lovely mom and its been playing heavily on my mind. With the funeral being today, Opeie and I decided to have a painting session in her honour, lots of colour and happiness. I asked Opeie what he wanted to paint and he said 'happy sausages'. Ive no idea whether she was a big fan of sausages (I mean they are pretty special) but I'm  sure she would have loved the sentiment.

So todays picture is for you Carol Ann Beale, I hope you are in a better place.

"Some people don't like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster."

Day 10:

It would be so easy during these insanely weird times to just lose all hope and fall into a deep emotional pit of stress and worry, and although the last few weeks have affected me deeply (as they have most of us), I'm doing my best to say 'NO!' We need to focus on the love and the laughter. Like eating S'mores with a beard and giving no fluffs about the mess I'm leaving as I eat. This is the new world now people and we need to embrace it or we'll lose our minds.

"Your smile it makes me weak, And the red spreads to my cheeks"

"Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success"

I love everything about home-ed but one of the things that really makes a huge difference is not feeling restricted when heading out adventuring. Some days we have most of our work finished by 10am, some evenings we are out till late stargazing, it's nice to not have that 'its too late to be thinking about going out, its a school night' mentality. So when we decided at 4:30ish on a Sunday to take a drive to Lake Vyrnwy for a bit of a stomp and have some fun while the sun comes down, there really was nothing holding us back.

Lake Vyrnwy has always been one of those places that I like to go to reset. If things have been a little stressful and my mind is wandering it just seems to even me out. Opeie hadn't had the greatest week so a little adventuring was just what he needed. As you drive up the hill to the dam and reach the opening of trees the view of the water gushing through is always a satisfying start to the visit and it was lovely being able to share that with the newest addition to out happy little family.

There seemed to be a few people along the dam as we drove across which I was really surprised at but by the time we had parked up everyone seemed to have vanished and it was almost as if we had the whole area to ourselves. The walk about the sculpture park was so peaceful, I seem to zone out from the noise from the dam until we are standing right at the bottom of it. The first part of the walk had already chilled Opeie out and he was back to his usual self pretty quick.

These kind of adventures that we have during the week are great for the soul, but there is always an educational element to the visits too. Opeie picks up a lot through experience and he asks a lot of questions along the way. The animals that we spot, fungi, structures, and everything that we are taking in around us is for me what education is all about. When we google the areas we visit for more information Opeie gets to learn random facts about the area too. We had no idea that the lake is actually a reservoir, supplying water to Liverpool 68miles away.

With the sun starting to drop and us quickly losing light we made our way over to the waterfall. This part of Lake Vyrnwy has always been a really satisfying part of any visit. The 20 minute walk from the carpark to the fall is really peaceful and the surroundings are idyllic. By the time we reached the Rhiwargor Waterfall it was all about the slipping our shoes off and submerging them in the cold fresh water.

I try and fill most days with at least a little bit of crazy, its important not to get swept away in the often mundane routine of life and sometimes those random moments can be the difference between going to bed anxious or going to sleep relaxed. As the sun had well and truly departed and with there being no light pollution at the lake, it was pitch black. We pulled up at the bathroom and all slipped into onesies for the drive home. We all had a good chuckle making our way back to the car wondering what someone might say seeing Pikachu, Stitch and a skeleton emerge from the gents toilet. 

It was the perfect way to spend a Sunday evening, great surroundings, great people and a calm, happy head space to take home to bed.

"Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves."

Im really having to force myself over this blogging hump and its getting to the point where I'm driving myself insane, Its like I'm desperately trying to claw back my confidence. Aside from the boys obviously, writing was one of the things that really kept me going through the emotional battlefield I had been dealing with for the last four or so years.  I would look forward to that quite time when the boys were asleep so that I could get on here and write down my thoughts and document all the fun we had been having, for them to look back on. Things had to go and get complicated though and in no time at all that fire to write had gone out and that evening quiet time, became the darkest time of the day for me. I had a plan, it involved a strong family unit,  content and happy children and life of adventure and learning together. Im still working on that daily and to a certain extent we still have it, but now there is a dark cloud looming over all of us that we just can't shake.

I want to see the blog as a positive again but with so many people that I know reading it, it can at times make me feel a little uneasy. Especially when they get the hump about light comments written within the more personal posts. I need to get myself back to that place I was when writing was exciting, there is so much that I've not written about over the last 15 or so months and I want to continue giving the boys something amazing to look back on. 

Im not the same person I was a two years ago and I'm only just starting to realise just how much has changed. My views on life and relationships are so much clearer now and feel like I've reached the point where I can move forward in hopefully a healthy way. So for now, a bunch of short posts to ease me back in gently and hopefully I'll have my confidence back in no time at all. 

'In a Heartbeat'

I'm not one for sharing videos on the blog unless I am writting about Opeie's music tastes but Mrs M sent me this video and I had to share. It seems that even though we are in 2017 I still hear negative comments about homosexuality weekly which can be really difficult to explain to the boys if they overhear as they have been brought up in the correct way, knowing that we fall in love with whoever we fall in love with and gender, race and all those other ridiculous things that hold some people back mean nothing. We live in an age where we should be able to embrace these things and it is great to see that short movies like this are being made to help children understand that they can be in love with whoever they choose. The world would be an even more interesting place if our hearts could physically do the hard work for us.

There is real power in video! watch it peeps!

"It's an ongoing joy being a dad."

Opeie gets more and more adorable each week. When he was a baby I loved the way he would smile at me and reach out to touch my face. When he learned to talk, the words 'I Love you Daddy' hit me like a crazy wave of emotions (and still do). Now that he can write himself, his latest addition to his adorableness, is leaving me little notes about. I had hoped it for so many years, but I never actually realised that being a dad would be this amazing. I feel so lucky every day

 

"A brother shares childhood memories and grown-up dreams."

It doesn't matter how many times I see this, it will never stop my heart melting. Thats all I need to say really, the picture says it all.

"Treasure your relationships, not your possessions."

There has been an envelope sitting on our tall boy at home amongst the tin robots since last Thursday, addressed to me and the boys with the strict instructions not to open until 4pm today. As you can imagine me and the boys were very eager for that time to arrive as we had no ideas about the contents of said envelope. Mrs M had left us this as she is working away and we've all been missing her very much.

Excitement was in the air when Seth finished school today and we raced back to see what Mrs M had planned for us. Inside, a clue and the start of what turned out to be a very exciting treasure hunt. I loved how personal the treasure hunt was, some of the the clues were things that only we would know and were aimed at us individually. Considering Mrs M is always so busy with work I don't know how she found the time to organise it.

Not only were we running about the house searching for well hidden items, we also had to take our hunt online and get clues from Mrs M's Twitter page. As excited as the boys were getting, I was starting to get a bit of a headache by this point as because the excitement was too much. I loved the effort that had gone in knowing that she would be away for a few days and it really meant a lot to us that she had gone all out with this surprise hunt.

With clues zipped inside sofa cushions, within the pages of books, inside pen lids and hidden in the barbecue in the garden it was just what the boys needed to perk them up because of mommy working away. I was getting so much out of the smiles on the boys faces, it was lovely to watch. there was one point where there was a clue in a box of Amsterdam shortbread and Seth thought that was the end but the search continued.

The final clue was a memory stick with instructions to play a video and when the boys saw Mrs M wearing a pirate hat and explaining where the surprise was  they were on the edge of their seats. She told the boys that even though she had told them where the surprise was they had to watch the video till the end. She told Seth not to run off and that she knew he was giggling (which he was, he thought that was amazing).

As the video ended they both darted for our bedroom to the lever arch folder in the bookcase that was hiding their surprise. Mrs M notched up some serious super mom points today, not for the surprise itself although we've all been so excited about getting this game and it really will keep us entertained while she is away but for the effort and love that went into organising this without us knowing, so that she can continue to put smiles on our faces even though shes not with us.

I feel so lucky to have Mrs M as a best friend and i know the boys feel exactly the same way. Now to go and play LEGO haha.

Thanks Mrs M there really is no one quite like you x

"Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time."

Day two of LEGO series 14 monsters and meeting the right person can be difficult no matter what plane of existence you are on...

'The product was provided by LEGO GmbH without any obligation in regards to the content of the review’

"Sometimes you are catapulted in to the world of parenting, skipping the baby years and are faced straight away with a confused toddler"

Because Seth isn't with us all the time the blog features Opeie so much more. I never wanted it to be that way but it just seems to be the way its gone. Seth is such a huge part of my life and i will always see him as my first son. I wrote this post a few weeks back when i was thinking about everything we have been through together as a family... enjoy.

The bond between parent and child is one that is very special and something that is grown and nurtured from birth. If you fully embrace it it will flourish from day one and keep growing indefinitely. As romantic as this ideal sounds though, Sometimes like my own experience you are catapulted in to the world of parenting, skipping the baby years and are faced straight away with a confused toddler wondering who you are.  I first met Seth at the age of three, i had been seeing Mrs M for a couple of months and she had made the important decision to hold off introducing me until our relationship was something serious.

I fell in love with him that very first meeting and as i picked up his toy box with him sitting in it and began to fly him around the room i knew instantly there was a special connection and that things were going to be great. I had craved a family from the age of around 16 but i was creeping up to 30 before meeting the one. Our time together was (and still is) filled with laughter and fun and as the months went by mine and Seth's relationship blossomed. For months i viewed him as Laura's son but some amazing news the day after my 30th birthday, set in to motion a relationship i wasn't expecting.

I was going to be a dad, and have a child that in all tense and purposes was mine, that was an extremely exiting thought and something i had always dreamed of. The smiles and excitement soon turned to worry and upset though and as Seth's beautiful mom fell very ill and spent many weeks in hospital. To say it turned our world around was an understatement, but despite the hardships and the emotional roller coaster, it turned out to be an amazing thing for mine and Seth's father/son relationship and it shaped the love and affection we have for each other today.

The events of our pregnancy pushed me to drop out of university and i also left work as i had to look after Seth, this was uncommon ground for me and i wont lie, for someone who had spent most of his life looking after only himself this was frightening. Any money we had saved had soon gone, i wasn't driving at that point so travel costs back and forth to a hospital over 20 miles away had eaten up everything. Things got so tough that it got to the point where me and Seth were waking up in the morning, walking almost 2 miles to the train station, avoiding the ticket guy for the 20 miles of the journey and then walking almost 2 1/2 miles from the station to the hospital, every day. Some days we would arrive for the morning visiting slot and hang around the hospital until 9pm. It was heartbreaking seeing Mrs M suffering but we were there for her, as a family. It opened my eyes to how parenting should be, the effort i put in to keeping Seth's mind away from the more serious issues that we're unfolding was exhausting, we built a base in a weeping willow on the hospital grounds, we went on adventures between visiting slots, we read books and lay on the grass for hours telling stories. As much as i was doing everything i could for him he was unknowingly doing just as much for me and was keeping me grounded.

Thankfully those months passed, our youngest arrived, despite even more drama (but that's another story) and Mrs M gradually got back to full health, but that lesson in parenting never went away and that same amount of effort and attention is today how i spend my days taking care of both of my boys. Sometimes its the hardships in life that get you where you need to be emotionally and bring out a side of you that can sometimes be buried deep. I'll never forget the story of how mine and my step sons relationship grew and how much we relied on each other to get us through a pretty dark time. I will always view Seth as my first child and thanks to Mrs M i have now been lucky enough to be given the chance to fully embrace this side of me and become a stay at home dad.

I may not have had the baby years with Seth but the experiences we have shared together since that special day that we met has more than made up for that and the tough times we shared together have built a relationship that is fit for any doting father.

"Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier."

Me and Mrs M have never celebrated Valentine's Day as we are always doing nice things for each other throughout the year. I do try though to make the effort for the other ladies in our life, Nanny Roo and Auntie Lottie. Last year we took a trip to build a bear and made valentines bears for them both which they loved. This year I wanted to make sure they put their card making skills to good use. Of course mommy needed a card too.

We're always drawing, painting or colouring but it's nice sometimes to have a special reason for it and someone to give the finished piece too. Making cards is also great because it gives us a fun excuse to get Opeie practising his writing. He seems to be more in to the whole activity when he's creating something for someone he loves too.

Opeie's a big fan of cutting and pasting he loves getting the glue out. We made Mommy a Miffy card using a dog eared book from a charity shop and Opeie wanted to make the most of the packaging from his Paddington Bear he got last week for sleeping in his own bed, as Nanny had taken him to see the movie recently he wanted Nanny's card to be all about Paddington.

Seth drew a lovely picture of mommy for his card and Opeie went on a heart drawing rampage for auntie Lottie's card to show her how much he loves her.

The boys were excited about putting question marks in their creations and although they were written out to 'Nanny' and 'Auntie Lottie' I suspect they had absolutely no idea who their secret admirers actually where.