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Raisie Bay

little man

The Little and not So Little Man – My Sunday Snapshot

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My Little Man is growing up! He will always be my baby but it’s a hard thing to get my head around now my baby is going to Secondary School. He’ll still be the youngest with him only just turning eleven years old. To celebrate this milestone I’m sharing a photo of him at four years old starting Primary School and Last week starting Secondary School.

He’s changed a fair bit. His hair used to be so blonde when he young. I didn’t cut it for the first two and a half years and it grew long and curly. He is still the fairest in the family but he’s a lot darker.

I really do think he is need of a growth spurt though. I have photos of his sister’s starting secondary school and they are at least 3 inches higher up on that door frame! He won’t be short forever, no-one in our family is, so it wouldn’t make sense.

He really enjoyed his first week at school but I’ve warned him that it will get harder. They’ve done a really relaxed induction which is great, I just hope it’s not too much of a shock once the work really gets started. My wish is that he gets on really well and enjoys his time at secondary school. My Little Man is like the calm in a storm. He’s a boisterous, funny, clever amazing little boy who gives the most amazing hugs.

RachelSwirl

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The Little Man’s 11th Birthday

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This post is over a week late as the Little Man had his 11th birthday 12 days ago. His day started quiet, it was just me and his Dad watching him open his cards and presents. He played with his new aircraft carrier for a while, but mostly just making noises. The lazer guns had to wait until later, although he did have fun chasing both his sister and his Dad around the house and garden.

I was self isolating so we couldn’t go out or invite friends around, but he had his choice of take out for dinner and he chose KFC. He also had a birthday cake that I’d bought from Sainsburys. We’d only been back from our holiday for a few days so I didn’t get the chance to bake one for him.

We celebrated properly once my isolation period was over and he had a friend over who he’d not seen for a couple of years. They used to go to the same primary school until the Little Man left, but they will be going to the same secondary school. Star and Boo also had friends over and we had a birthday lunch with more cake…this one I did make but it wasn’t that special, just chocolate cake with icing. I think he enjoyed his day.

The Little Man.

He was a cute baby, born with very little hair. When his hair did grow it was a gorgeous blonde colour and really curly. We didn’t cut it until he was nearly 3 by which time it was really long. It grew back darker and he lost his curls.

a college of photos of the Little Man from a baby to two years old.

He was not as angelic as he looked though, in fact he was quite the monster, always up to something. I couldn’t take my eye off him for a minute.

We moved house before he started nursery and he moved school again in year 4 after we couldn’t get the school to stop the bullying. They claimed that the children were too young to bully and it was just kids playing, but my little man ended up in A&E with a bruising all over his body. He never went back.

He missed the last week of his other school thanks to a Covid case and self isolation. He was so sad, it’s a shame he’d not been at that school from the start, he loved it there.

Here’s the Little Man at the picnic this week.

The Little Man standing by a painted wall with flowers and bees

He has changed a lot over the years and mostly likes to play Roblox or Minecraft. He finds making friends difficult but he is kind and friendly.

His 11th birthday was quiet but we made up for it once my self Isolation was over, and since then we’ve had a couple of days out too which have been nice. We took him to the Wildlife Conservation Centre to look at the animals, and I took him on a picnic with a few other families which was lovely.

In September he starts Secondary school which is a whole new adventure for him. He’s my baby and will always be.

My Sunday Snapshot – The Boy is Strong!

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I’ve cheated a little for this weeks snapshot. I made My Little Man strong by using an app. This is my boys face, nothing else belong to him.

A photo of a strong boy in a super hero outfit in front of a chalk board with a drawing of huge weights.

We were messing around as one of his school party ideas was to make a ‘face in the hole’ picture, but he wouldn’t make one himself so I used an app. I haven’t really taken many photos this week so I chose to share this one.

Feeling Strong

It is hard to keep feeling strong during these difficult times. The whole world is a difficult place to be right now and sometimes it’s better to switch off the news and just get on with it. Then life at home can be difficult when everyone is cooped up inside all the time. The weather doesn’t help either, it’s been so very cold. Some have enjoyed the snow, other’s have had their lives disrupted by it. We have had to endure no heating for a couple of days when our boiler broke down.

Some people are going through hell right now, coping with so many things, grieving not only loved ones but normal life itself. And then there are those that are sick, which is awful for them but lets not forget the families waiting for news, to hear if their loved ones are going to be okay. It’s difficult to be strong.

What can be we do to be strong? All we can do is what we do every day, live our lives as best as we can and wait and hope that this pandemic will be over at we can all get back to some sort of normality. And if our normality changes forever, then we will have to deal with it. Sometimes, the longer you fight something the harder it becomes to accept. Then life just gets harder and you are fighting all the time.

It’s okay not to be strong. We all have times when everything gets too much and we feel like crawling into our shells. There is nothing wrong with that. Our strength and determination will re-appear someday, it might be different but we will cope.

More of my Sunday Photos

My Sunday Photo – 22nd October 2017

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My Little Boy riding a bike at his nursery, in his purple jumpsuit
Flashback!
Not having a photo for this week I’ve snatched one from my archives. This is my Little Man when he was in nursery school. He is riding a bike along with his nursery school teacher. The school uniform for the nursery children was this purple tracksuit and I loved it, it was so easy to keep clean too.
It’s quite relevant to this week for two reasons.
One is that I’m quite worried about my Little Man, he’s having problems at school with bullying, he’s having trouble coping at home and he has health issues. He was at the GP the other day and now I have to take him to the hospital for blood tests. He also has an appointment at a clinic in December. It’s not really what I need at all and I just hope it all turns out to be something easy to treat.
The second reason is how time flies. Here he is playing on a bike at nursery which was just after we moved into this house four years ago. The time has flown. The first two years seemed to go slowly but it’s so hard to believe that I have been sick for nearly two years! When we moved we were dealing with Star’s neck so we spent a lot of time at the hospital. We had a nightmare eighteen months, but time seems to have sped up so much since then. My babies are no longer babies.

It’s in the Past

I’ve been pre-occupied with thoughts of my past, all of it, even as a small child I had a lot to deal with. It’s been the same ever since and it’s let me to not believe in Karma because too many bad things happen to good people.
I guess over the last couple of weeks I’ve felt so ill I really believed I was near the end. A Terry Pratchett quote came to mind.

“It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it’s called life.”

Life certainly does fly by so quickly, but no worries, I’m feeling better now so I have a lot more to cram into it. I have lots of happy memories too, so it’s never all bad. You can’t stop bad things happening but it’s how you deal with them that counts.

I pin My Sunday Photo pics I visit on my Pinterest Board. Please let me know if you wish your photo to be removed.

Photalife
Sunday Snap

The Little Man’s Bouncing Birthday

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My baby is now five years old. If I call him my baby he retorts “I’m not a baby, I’m a big boy” and all too soon he really is. As he is my last child though he has the honour of always being my baby…just don’t tell him okay!

So, what do you do for a five year old’s birthday? What could be more fun than a bouncy castle!

Unfortunately, I had some technical problems with my camera and my phone for his party, but we do have some photos to share. (Is anyone else’s camera refusing to work with Windows 10?)

First up, here is the party table, with my little helper. The table cloth, plates and serviettes were provided by Party bags and Supplies which I reviewed earlier. They also provided the lovely party bags filled with little gifts for the guests.

The bouncy castle was provided by Toyz World. It was the BeBop Turret Ball Pit Inflatable Bouncy Castle which was just the perfect size for our garden at 15ft. I was amazed at how easy it was to put up, just spread it out, pin it down with the pegs provided, attach the fan and the kids were bouncing away within minutes.

The kids loved the bouncy castle, it had a good size bouncing area 214cm x 214cm, a slide entrance/exit, netting all around and a ball pit at the front. We did not have any balls for the pit but my kids didn’t mind. We did put some water in on one day for them to splash around in which they found great fun, and it also helped them to keep cool.

This bouncy castle currently retails at £229.95 which I think is a real bargain. It would be great to own one for the kids to use whenever they wanted. You could even share the cost with friends or neighbours and take it in turns with the castle.

My kids, and all their friends give this bouncy castle a big thumbs up. Looks like I’ll be saving up for one for next summer.

Back to the birthday boy, I did manage one other photo from the party, A rather dark pic of the Little Man blowing out his birthday candle.

Happy Birthday Little Man….now don’t you get growing up too fast my baby x

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Disclosure: we were provided with the loan of the bouncy castle from Toyz World, all thoughts and opinions are my own.