Mama's Haven

I felt it creep up, Christmas
Slowly saw it taking shape.

It grew in me from angry thoughts
Into Anger.

Then Sickness.
My body was running itself out.
Just like my soul was running itself empty.

Now, it is a big, heavy blanket of Sadness.
It has descended on my soul,
Into our home,
In our family.

Sadness is here to replace,
In an ugly and twisted way
The precious boy I have lost.

I cannot have another baby like this,
They say.
And they are so right.

Sadness bears more sadness
And a baby deserves joy.

But I do deserve joy too.
I do deserve my own miracle too.

There is no way out.
Just sadness, thick and heavy,
Filling out all the gaps.
Leaving no place to breathe,
Leaving no place to exist.

All I have ever wanted was “normal.”
Two point five children,
A home and a husband who loved me.
Was that so much to ask?
Was I so bad to deserve punishment,
And punishment to this degree?

Antenatal depression
Postnatal depression
Cancer
Death.

The death of my dreams.

And now,

Now what????

Hubby is going through a health craze stage, once again. He has taken to posting pictures of his creations(and they are his, I kid you not, talking about creative men in the kitchen!!) so I decided to give him a voice here, on the blog.

I will start with his oak cakes, he made them the other night and they are savory, to my taste and I can truthfully testify to them being absolutely yummy!

Here are the ingredients and instructions for Alex’s Mediterranean Oat Cakes:

I am really struggling to keep my chin up these days. It is hard to find any positives in the day when you have lost a precious child, you are battling a cold and the pressure to be “merry” has become almost palpable, with December knocking impatiently at the door!

But in the midst of all the pain and rotten, bed-ridden days, we were offered (by two wonderful local charities who got to know us and have worked with us since Georgie died) tickets to two beautiful shows for Emma to enjoy: Disney on Ice at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast and Alladin, the pantomime, at the Grand Opera House. Here are some pictures of the very impressive shows:

I have also been forcing myself to deck the house in Christmas attire and prepare the ground for Christmas, all for Emma’s sake. She is only 5 and it is not fair on her to have no Christmas celebrations nor joy just because we, as parents, feel like hiding away from the world until the 1st of January:

This Saturday it was also our wedding anniversary but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to celebrate as such. We did exchange cards and sort of promised each other that we will try and do better next year. This year nothing feels like celebrating:

I am really trying, I am…I will do the Elf on the shelf and a book-a-day advent calendar with Emma. But I do wish Georgie was here to marvel at the silly Elf and pull at the Christmas wrapping paper…For Emma, the magic will have to still be there but for me, there is no more magic…

One week ago, the House of Fraser launched a wonderful Christmas competition for children, to celebrate the launch of a toys’ section on their website.

Emma was invited, alongside other lucky mummy bloggers’ children, to come up with an ending to Fraser Bear’s dilemma: explaining to Baby Bear, in very simple terms, what snow is.

We chatted a lot about snow this week, Emma and I, and since the competition gave us the option to either draw the ending or use no more that 200 words for our explanation, we came up with an idea that might solve successfully Fraser Bear’s dilemma.

After much consideration, Emma decided that the best way for Fraser Bear to explain the concept of snow to Baby Bear would be to find as many images of white sugar used in winter culinary creations. Emma thought that for someone who had never seen snow before, comparing it to powder sugar, “only cold”, would be the easiest way to make Baby Bear understand the concept.

Here is our collage “picture”:

In words, here is how the story would go:

““Baby Bear, do you remember the beautiful winter cakes we saw in the shop the other day? The snowman, the North Pole igloo cake and the marshmallow man we made together this afternoon ?”

Baby Bear looked less confused this time and nodded, with a smile of recognition on his little face.

“Do you remember the powder sugar we used to cover the snowman in, once it was all decorated?”

Once again, Baby Bear’s eyes lit up at the sweet memories of cake and time spent together making memories.

“Well, Baby Bear, exclaimed Fraser Bear happily, this is what snow really is: It is like powder sugar, only not so sweet but very cold to the touch and on your tongue.”

Fraser Bear watched Baby Bear’s face scrunch up for a few seconds and then, the realisation of what snow is making its way on Baby Bear’s face with a big, wide grin:
“Cold sugar…yum, yum!”

Fraser Bear smiled at his little brother:
“Yes, Baby Bear, snow is something like cold sugar, indeed!”

Disclaimer: This is our blogger entry to the House of Fraser snow story competition. We were not rewarded financially for writing this post and Emma and I found putting our entry together a wonderful opportunity to work as a team on a winter project. Emma was invited to choose a toy from the comprehensive toy selection on the website.

If we win the competition, and the £250 voucher to spend in store, we will use it to update Emma’s room to suit her school age. We will most likely invest in a desk for her to use to do her homework at and have it as her own creative space for beautiful, artsy handiwork.