Motherhood changes you- special needs mom

Being a mom has changed me in so many ways, so many wonderful awesome ways, the amount of joy and understanding my children have brought into my life is just beyond me and I can never thank the universe enough for allowing me the privilege of being their mom.

Being a special needs mom specifically has also changed me, in ways I have only come to see of late, probably because they have become more noticeable to me especially over the past two years when Loghan was reassessed the boys changed schools and I began to understand them better as a whole having met certain friends and people who showed me what to look for and how to better understand the quirks and needs that come with a special needs child.

Whats the big deal- wedding rings

Gasp shock horror more often than not I don’t wear a wedding ring and for the most part I have received maybe one or two questions over the years regarding it and only one person who seemed to think that I had committed a great travesty, the irony of who that person is still makes me want to roll on the floor with laughter but anyhoo.

Personally I just don’t see what the big deal is, I get terrible eczema on my hands when I am stressed I also have the unfortunacy of having hands and feet that swell terribly in the heat so whilst my rings are relatively loose in the winter there are often times I struggle to remove them in the Summer.

That aside I have just never seen what the big deal is in fact when my hubby and I got married I ordered a ring out of a honey catalogue at the last minute it really didn’t faze me, I had a picture in my head of what I wanted and I never found it so just shrugged my shoulders and moved on, my mom later gave me my grans eternity ring and I loved it so much that on the occasion where I do wear a ring that is the one I wear.  My father never wore his ring because he was a mechanical engineer and was forever working on a bike or a car so it made no sense and I don’t expect my hubby to wear his either.

At the end of the day I am no less married without a ring, a ring is a symbol yes but at the end of the day it doesn’t make a difference to your marriage status, some people think why wouldn’t you wear it are you trying to give off the idea of being unmarried, uhm no a person who wants to appear unmarried can very easily temporarily remove their ring and lie and then pop it back on so that to all they seem happily married.

I love my husband I don’t need to wear a ring to prove this fact and I don’t owe it to anyone to wear it to prove in their eyes that I have a solid marriage, many people are unhappy in their marriages and will still wear their ring.

At the end of the day it really is a personal preference, I love my rings (engagement and ‘wedding’) and I will wear them out or when I want to but if I run out the door I’m not going to drive all the way home because I am without it and I'm not going to stress if I don't wear it for a few days or a week, am I the only one who feels this way or are there other ladies out there who feel the same? How do you feel about the wearing of rings between you and your partner is it important to you and why?

I would love to know =)

It's called affection and it's normal

It's been a few days since I saw the post against Victoria Beckham for kissing her child on the lips and I am still in awe of it.

I just cannot believe people are so against it I kiss my kids on the mouth at least once a day I love them they are my my kids there is absolutely nothing wrong with it and honestly if you feel there is then there is something wrong with you and you need to see someone urgently, of all the things people are concerned about or show concern over, people are dying everyday, woman and children abused every day but people throw a fit over a mother showing affection for her child it is so warped and wrong it makes me want to scream it's no wonder kids are growing up with a warped sense of affection and love if we are encouraged by society to see it as wrong and dirty there is a very big difference between appropriate and inappropriate affection giving your child a peck on the cheek or mouth is normal argh!!!

I am a proud momma and I will continue to give my kids love and kisses until the day comes where they are to embarrassed to be seen with me and that's that!

Kicking Term 2's butt monkey style

I don’t think I am the only parent who hyperventilates at the thought of end of term parent meetings, this term has not been great for Loghan, for Gabriel he has blossomed and in our opinion was doing so well so whilst I was looking forward to his meeting I was honestly not looking forward to Loghan’s and had geared myself up for a drop in codes etc… however my child proved me wrong and I couldn’t be more proud and needed to remind myself that I should never doubt my kids abilities even for a second.

Whilst there are a few things that need attention Loghans marks came up in every area which was such a relief although he does have some work to catch up on during the holidays and we need to still work on him rushing his work and his handwriting, he also has the same problem I had in school where in mathematics he cannot see why he has to show the method when he knows the correct answer I felt exactly the same in school if the answer is correct who cares how you got there but that is not how the school sees it so we had to have a chat about that, but his marks are great all improved and excellent marks for both mathematics as well as life skills, English was also good and Afrikaans as well so yay I walked out feeling incredibly proud and happy, we have been told they both have the ability to get top marks across the board which we know but honestly I don’t expect perfection I just want them to be the best they can be.

Dads

I didn't post with all the hype surrounding fathers day this weekend, my dad doesn't have facebook and we just spent the weekend mostly at home as Jesse was sick, we did make a small road trip up to my mom in law on Saturday which was really awesome so hubby got to see his father then and we had a really great day, I am trying to stay away from blogging and social media on the weekends unless the kids are asleep I'm trying to focus my time on the weekends with my family and I feel it has really changed a lot of things at home. 

Anyway I am straying waaaay off topic.

Dads...

Its the small things...

In light of what has happened this past while I spent this weekend trying extremely hard as tired and frustrated as we were to just flat out spend time with the boys, play board games, read and talk and it really made me realize just how terrible it actually is to be a parent in today's age...

Everyone is always busy, we are always busy there is always something that needs to be done or something to worry over and by the time we all get home we are tired and quite frankly just want to fall into bed and get a bit of sleep before it starts all over again the next day.

Is it any wonder why things have become the way they are, why kids and adults both struggle emotionally or are emotionally crippled in some or other way, its not as if most of us don't want to spend time with our kids its just when we do we are present in person but we are not really always present emotionally if you know what I mean.

We have had to make an incredible amount of changes this last 2 weeks and I truely feel that although this situation or what has happened is not something I would wish upon any child or parent in many ways it has done our family some good.

I now get to drop my kids off at school every morning and as I hugged and kissed my kids goodbye this morning after physically walking them into the gate, I felt great; as a mom my heart swelled with joy and love as they waved good bye ecstatically until they were sure I could no longer see them... it may be something small but I feel even this will make a big change within our family dynamics and I will look forward to having this extra time with them every morning.

Its a terrible thing that sometimes it takes something tragic or terrible in order to wake us up to the small gestures, the precious time that we have to spend and truely appreciate those around us.

A games night is something that a friend and colleague actually suggested she was even kind enough to send some games our way and the kids had an absolute ball... no tv no interruptions I highly recommend it.

We are all so incredibly blessed but I think sometimes we just need to stop and truly wake up to our surroundings truly pay attention instead of living day to day in auto pilot so to speak.... our kids are only kids for so long and every year the time just seems to pass even more quickly than the year before...

Boy's Photo Shoot with Lauren Pretorius Photography

Some time ago I was lucky enough to win a photo shoot on Caffeine and Fairydust, I was very excited for this shoot as I had heard so many great things about Lauren Pretorius Photography and I was not disappointed.

Lauren met us out Southern Suburbs side she took the time to actually ask me about the kids what their likes and dislikes were she put together a Pinterest board and threw ideas around for a few weeks which was just that little extra cherry on top especially considering I had won the photo shoot and wasn't paying for it.

She took us to an amazing location, she was great with the kids very patient and kind, her assistant was amazing as well and I feel terrible because I suck at names and cannot thank her formally in this post, she even shot in the rain and we left knowing that we would end up with some amazing photos.

We collected the disk today which was gorgeously packaged even the disk was over-layed with one of our pictures and the photos made my heart swell with such joy because they honestly embody the boys personalities so wonderfully.

So I decided to share some of my favorites with you, I absolutely hundred and fifty percent highly recommend Lauren if you are looking for a photographer who puts the time and effort into what she is doing and I do plan on using her again in the future =)

My weekend in Pictures

I have been a bit blue over the last week, I can always feel when I start to slip and I hate it so much, I think anyone who suffers with depression can tell you its a constant struggle and you can have everything and be as happy as pie but it just happens, slowly those feelings creep up and become stronger... anything can trigger it this time it has been a combination of the anniversary of my grandmothers passing as well as I have been suffering with severe jaw pain and migraines and then financially things have been incredibly strained so this weekend I took the time to just spend time with those who I love the most; my family.

It was a calm weekend, we went to the beach on Saturday, but for the most part we just spent time together at home in the garden and playing games or watching movies... I cannot explain how much better I feel, so I decided to share a few of these moments, the moments that have made me smile and bring me so much joy.

Words to Jesse on the eve of his birthday

Hi Everyone

So on the eve of Jesse's second birthday which was last weekend I filmed a few words for him, I decided to share it so that one day Jesse would have it to look back on....