The first month of school

Tired out after a full day at school

September was a month of big steps, and we kicked it off with Leo starting school. At just turned Four he is one of the youngest in the year, and I can see the differences. In so many ways Leo is still so young, so innocent, still so dependent upon me. 

While the other children run around the play ground in a morning, Leo would rather spend those last few minutes sat with me before the bell rings. I asked him today if he would like to go off and play with his friends and he just snuggled into me a little more declining the invitation. There we sat cuddled up together on a bench until the bell sounded out calling all the children into their prospective class rooms. I am enjoying these moments while they last, because I can only imagine how long it will be before he his banishing me from even entering the playground...Calling me un-cool and just generally stripping his title of 'Mummy's boy' in front of his peers. 

The first month of school has seen Leo go from half days and straight into full days, he has been so very tired and the bed time routine has began to commence at 6:30pm, so that he can be in bed and going to sleep for 7pm. It has been an essential change to our lives as when Leo comes out of school, you are never sure what mood he will be in. If it has been a particularly tiring day for him or he has been presented with Broccoli for lunch, then his mood is either mud when he rocks out of school, or very quickly turns to mud and aids the anticipated melt down that can only be described as fireworks of the finest quality. Last week I was planning on treating Leo to a Costa before heading home, we pulled up in the car park and out of nowhere the biggest temper tantrum commenced. I gave him 3 opportunities to bring his behavior back into line, and when none of those chances were actioned, I strapped him back into the car and drove with a screaming, shouting, angry, hysterical 4 year old all the way back home again.

I don't think I had mentally prepared myself for how tiring Leo would find school, or the moods that go hand in hand. It has been a big adjustment for both of us, and he often asks me why he needs to go to school, and he was horrified to learn that it's all in preparation for one day getting his very own job. I guess when you look at it like that, it is actually quite a depressing thing. We cart our children off to school when they are tiny, we teach them and guide them, only for them to leave school and be thrown straight into the world of work...

Leo does seem to be adjusting to this big change to his routine though, taking him into school in a morning has become so much easier. No longer do I have to hold his hand right up until the teacher welcomes him in, no longer does he cry and pine for me. He just walks straight inside and shouts 'Bye Mumma!' before disappearing through the door. 

We have been doing bits and pieces at home to help bring him along, as his teacher talked to me about how Leo was just not getting patterns. So instead of the coloured blocks they were using with him at school, we used trains and created coloured patterns with Thomas and Percy. This seemed to do the trick, and although we need to keep persisting with it all, he has a much better understanding than he did before.

He is recognising more letters when we are out and about, he is talking to me about the letters, telling me what sound they make. So far we have had 'S' 'M' and 'L'. We are reading the books that school send home, and I am enjoying the new stories each night, because up until school commenced, Leo had me reaing his Thomas the Tank collection over, and over, and over again. 

We are fast approaching the October half term, and it is going to be nice to have him at home and get some fun activities booked in for us to take part in. To give him a well deserved break from school, to let him catch his breath and just have a fun relaxed week at home with his Mumma.

It really is suffice to say that I am immensely proud of him, and this next chapter of our lives is definitely an exciting one. 

I just hope that he loves reading and words as much as I do, it would be such a beautiful thing to be able to share with him. One day I want to get all of those special posts that I have shared here on this blog bound into a book for him, it would make such a special bed time read together.

Wearing Mummy's Hoodie

The one with the leavers assembly

It's been a funny old year, one that has involved speech therapy, development concerns from outside elements and then watching as Leo came along in leaps and bounds, entirely in his own time. 

At the end of July Leo finished his time at nursery, a coming of age moment. A day that was both sad and exciting, a day full of smiles and memories that we will always treasure. We had been invited along to the school that Leo will be attending in a matter of weeks, an assembly had been put together by the nursery as it is set within the school premises. 

I love that the school and nursery is attached, it has helped make this massive transition so much easier, and Leo doesn't seem to have any concerns over the next chapter of his life. We weren't certain we were going to be able to attend the assembly as Leo had been poorly just after arriving at nursery the day before, and of course there is a 48 hour period after a child has last been sick before they can return to the school environment. To say I was disappointed was a massive understatement to say the least. I wanted Leo to experience this, because in the years to come he is going to look back on the photos and the memories of that day, he will see how much the children have grown, how he has changed and evolved. I wanted him to have that because I don't. 

I moved around as a child, so the children I attended nursery with, the children I first went to school with, they are all strangers to me. High School however is a different story, and over 10 years since leaving, I am still friendly and still see many of them. I was always a little envious of the children who knew each other from those very early days, and when a Facebook photo appeared in my timeline I would always look for me, only to discover that it was before we moved here. I wanted Leo to be one of the children who was in those memories.

Nursery cleared us to come in for the half hour assembly as Leo wasn't under the weather and hadn't been sick again. I was over the moon, I was going to get to see everything that Leo had done and put together.

They sang songs and danced about, Leo looked a little un-sure but he joined in. A far cry from the child he once was where he refused to do anything like that (just like his Mummy!). It was so amazing to watch him, this little person who was now stepping outside his comfort zone. Outside that box he had once been so firmly placed in and joining in. I sat there beaming from ear to ear the entire time, and that smile only got bigger when he was asked to stand up and announce to the entire audience of parents what he wanted to be when he was older. He took the picture he had painted, that was actually really well put together. That along with him announcing 'I want to be a race car driver' Just made my beaming smile grow ten fold.

The nursery leaders awarded all the children with their own individual awards, and it made me really appreciative to just how well these amazing ladies actually knew all of the children within their care. There were awards for who was most likely to be famous, most likely to be a singer, most happy all of the time... And I already knew what Leo's was going to be before they even called his name out. Leo was awarded the train award, for being the little boy who is ALWAYS found to be playing with trains. I had to giggle at the fact they had actually ran with this, when once upon a time they were concerned about Leo's love (or obsession) with the objects... But a long with everyone else they have seen that Leo is just a little boy who likes to accomplish things at his own pace, and in his own time. Leo is just a little boy with a big love for trains, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

The nursery wrapped up the very special assembly and invited parents to try the food served in the school hall that the children had the option to have from September. Boy have school meals come on a lot since my day, and I think it's going to be a great way of broadening Leo's taste palette.

We collected Leo's school bag with a number of goodies inside, and that was the start of the summer holiday's. 

I cannot believe that in a matter of a few weeks, my little boy will be starting school.

A Best Friend

I can remember my school days as though they were just yesterday, a time where I had all the time in the world to make memories with friends and quite simply rejoice in the complete lack of responsibility.

In reality it is already been 8 years since I bid farewell to that time in my life. So many things have happened and changed since the school bell rang for the very last time, and responsibility has certainly caught up with me now!

My school life was fun and looking back I quite simply wouldn’t change a thing, I could often be found giggling with my oldest friend. Trouble quite simply used to follow us around, and we certainly used to act before we thought things through… I guess to some extent that is still true today.

It has been 14 whole years since I first met my mischievous best friend, and in that time frame we have certainly had our fair share of ups and downs. For every wrong we have made we always make things right, we have said things in the heat of the moment but kissed and made up regardless of any choice words we said. We have cried happy tears and shared nights where we have done nothing but laugh, and she was even the person to support me when I first found out I was pregnant.

We have been through absolutely everything together, we have grown up together and experienced many of life's lessons. But sometimes things happen in life that you don't expect. Sometimes you can be nothing more than a shoulder to rest upon.

In December 2011 Chelsea got dealt some life changing news, my best friend was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. For once even I was lost for words, and I didn't really know what she was telling me. I didn't actually really know what Multiple Sclerosis was until that day. I guess to a certain degree I still don’t understand exactly what it is, but I do know that from deep inside her MS is rivaling and making himself apparent to her in ways far less than desirable.

I have watched Chelsea fight this, and fight hard she does.

Chelsea is head strong and knows exactly what she wants, she always has done. MS certainly was not in her life plan, but as you walk through life you realise just how cruel it can actually be. You realise that even those people closest to you can get dealt a life changing set of cards and age has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Chelsea is 24 years old and dealing with this horrible disease at the same time as juggling her two beautiful children and loving husband. Multiple Sclerosis has no place or right to be taking away all of her energy and throwing multiple relapses in her path. Relapses mean being pumped to the nines on steroids, steroids that make you feel awful and then give a much needed buzz! But no amount of steroids can undo the damage that this silent disease has already done.

I wish I could wave a magic wand and take all of the pain away but I can't. Nor can I relate to how she is feeling...But I do try to comprehend what she is going through on a day to day basis. I wish I could go back in time to when she first started mentioning her eye sight problems and push her to book into the Opticians sooner...

It breaks my heart to think of everything that she is going through, sometimes I don’t know what to say because I cannot even comprehend how she is feeling. The only case of extreme tiredness I have ever experienced was in early pregnancy with Leo, and was gone within a few months. I cannot imagine my eye sight being permanently damaged and not knowing what MS will do next. But somehow she still lives her life to the full, and all the while is raising awareness of this horrible disease.

Throughout everything she is going through one thing is for sure, she is still the same girl that I met all those years ago, still as vibrant and fun loving as she always was, she really doesn't let this disease define her. She still strives to do everything she can, plays with her kids all the while creating an amazing childhood for them to reflect on when they are big and grown.

Even though Chelsea has been dealt this set of cards and her life has changed beyond recognition she is still here telling it exactly as it is. You can read her story over on her blog MS Mummy of Two, where she enlightens us into exactly what life is like, living with Multiple Sclerosis.