Chasing Butterflies Daily

A lot of my posts about the kids are tongue in cheek, I joke about how annoying they are as a coping mechanism. Luckily they throw me moments to be proud of too, just occasionally they must know I need a reminder it's not all chaos. If you're on the fence about adding another one to the mix then I'll tell you honestly that it's madness when they multiply. And it only gets madder as they get older and fight more and more. But there's also a whole lot more love to go around. This wee event happened today and I'm sharing it partly for myself as a reminder of the nice moments but also for any mother who's recently added to her crazy or is thinking about it. After pick up today I let the kids stay and play in the school playground for a bit. I'd been speaking to another parent when the 5 year old came up to me, tears streaming down her face. It transpires that she was distraught because she'd tried to stop some of the older boys from pushing...

In honour of our son and third baby's first birthday I thought I'd share a wee hack I have come up with with you. With cameras in our pockets most of the time these days mothers are taking thousands of photos of their children (I'm going to hazard a guess that it's a common habit regardless if whether you like to share them on social media or not!). The problem with the endless supply of pictures of our little cherubs is that it becomes so difficult to choose our favourites and create albums of the important early years. If you're anything like me you still like to have a book with the "best of" even in these technological days where everything is backed up online. Somehow I found the time to scrap book an album of our first born's first year but finding the time to make something as special for her younger sister seemed like it would be an impossible task. However I figured out an easy and very effortless way to document her ye...

Today it is one year since my dad died. A few days before he passed I got a message from my two older siblings who live in Stockholm. They'd been out to visit our father at is dementia home to most likely say goodbye. He'd taken a turn for the worse, after many years with Alzheimer's, and had become bedridden. Staff did not think he had long. So the two eldest of his children went to say bye and let him know everyone was well; that his grandchildren were all well. When I got the message about his deteriorating health (at the time we all still thought he might have weeks or months to go) we were snowed in here in Scotland with the "beast from the East". I was 38+ weeks pregnant with our third (who we knew had to be born by C-section for a safe delivery). So I was in a position where I knew there was little I could do other than focus on the life that was about to enter the world. Then the 5th March, 2018, the day before our son's scheduled sec...