Mama's Haven

A bubble gum flavour Angel Delight!

Sounds delightful? You bet it is!

A couple of weeks back BritMums and Angel Delight Desserts kindly sent us their new, bubble gum flavoured sachets to sample and encouraged us to come up with new ways to enjoy the very popular and much loved dessert.

If you have never tried it yet, Angel Delight is the easiest way to make dessert and keep kids happy in busy households on weeknights. All you need is a sachet and half a pint of milk! Oh, and a keep helper, of course :-)!

We decided to take it up a notch today when we came back from school, since it was Friday and include our dessert in an Eton mess. We added the whipped Angel Delight to crumbled meringue nests, strawberry jelly and cut up strawberries.

The preparation took no more than five minutes and provided Emma with an opportunity to use her fine motor skills in whipping the milk and her negotiating skills in trying to convince me to let her sample the jelly before it got mixed in our Eton mess :-).

It was a simple and beautiful way to connect after a long and difficult week and it provided us with a very tasty dessert which we felt was much deserved!

This post is an entry for #AngelDelightMoments Linky Challenge and we are grateful to BritMums for the reviewing opportunity.

We have been away for the Halloween weekend. Went to visit Alex’s family and were very intent on giving Emma a sense of normality in the midst of all that has happened this year.

I normally love travelling but I have found this trip tiring. It wasn’t only the visiting and being in a different place and the staying in other people’s homes. It was a very mentally tiring trip as well.

You see, grief does that to one. It robs one of all her strength and energy and resources. I have now learned to manage life at home, I know how far I can push myself and how much I can expose myself to emotional triggers. But being away from home is a step too far for now.

So as soon as we left, the nightmares started.

I had prayed a lot for God to show me in dreams how Georgie is doing. Instead, I found myself in the Royal hospital, the CHU ward, time and time again. Reliving the pain. Holding babies. Being given the bad news, about Emma this time. Waking up in cold sweats and completely drained of strength.

And then, the trip coincided with a new trend and a perceptible shift in people’s expectations from us. It started with the emails I mentioned before. It sort of spread to the “get on with it”, “have another baby“, “it won’t be long before you see him” type of shit advice.

And I found myself get angrier and angrier. With people and God. My mind started sifting through the arguments people brought to us as a means of comforting themselves and in God’s defense. And this is how my mind demolishes them:

1. The “get on with it” approach.

I reached the conclusion that when we were created by God, we were created as souls. Eternal.

Death was not meant to be.

When my baby died, my soul couldn’t comprehend the loss. There is no getting over anything because the loss of a soul cannot be grasped, reasoned, rationalised, understood. My soul is forever left longing for my son’s soul. And it will forever be, on this side of heaven. So please, do not try and comfort me or yourselves with the illusion of a “moving on from” what has happened to us. I won’t because I can’t. I am not meant to. I will forever grieve the loss. FOREVER.

2. The “you will see him in heaven” approach.

Yeah, I know that but that doesn’t make up for the loss of a lifetime of love here. I have missed everything he should have lived here: teething, walking, talking, playgroups, schools, teenage years, marriage, grandchildren. I have also been deprived of the holding, the loving, the heart-fulfilling, the giggling, the tickling, the cuddling, the niggling, the nagging, the stomping, the…everything that life with a child brings. EVERYTHING.

That, I will never get back. NEVER.

Will I get to spend eternity with him? Yes.

But as a soul, as a being consumed with worship and love for God.

I will not get his childhood back.

I will not get the snapshot happy moments.

I will not get it, it will be something else.

Better?

Maybe.

But totally different.

So,please, next time you see me and feel the urge to comfort me with this approach, please do this little mental exercise. Pick one of your children. Kill him/her in your head, with the slowest and most painful death you can allow yourself to picture mentally. Try to feel all the emotions that come with it. And now, try and be happy because one day you will see that child again in heaven…

Yeah….I think you got my point now….

3. The “have another baby” approach

Hm, yeah, ok, as if babies and souls are interchangeable.Like dolls. Or socks. Or other things.

As if another baby will be able to erase the pain.

Another baby will be born carrying the burden of being a “rainbow” baby and having to fill in Georgie’s shoes.

Another baby will feel the pressure to comfort and smile and be someone else he/she wouldn’t have been if his older brother had been there in the first place.

Another baby will be born with his/her own personality, his/her own destiny and his/her own right to be happy.

He/she will be a different story to read. But that story will not be Georgie’s story…

I have more approaches to dissect but I am too exhausted to write. I will have to come back when I gather some strength.

Please don’t try and comfort me with words, if you meet me these days.

I need to be loved, where I am, in this scary and dark place of doubt and restlessness.

I need a hug and a tissue.

Because for me, life just doesn’t make sense at the moment…

These are two very big words, fairness and loyalty. Two very big words we would love our children to learn the meaning and appreciate the value of. Easier said than done, you would tell me, especially if you are a conscious parent who is aware of the realities of the world we live in. Teaching about fairness and loyalty goes against the grain of what the society is teaching our children from when they are babies. The strongest gets the toy, if mummy isn’t there to watch out. The loudest one gets the attention most of the time, if the presence of a responsible grown-up isn’t there to mediate the conflict.

My Emma is no different from any five year old girlie out there. She wants to be the best, the fastest, the prettiest girl of them all. She thrives on praise and would do anything to get herself noticed. Nothing wrong so far. But I have noticed that as she get older and is exposed to more TV and outside influences, the more self-absorbed she has become. Selfish, not in the mean and nasty way, but self-caring nevertheless.

I have always tried to make her aware of other people’s existence and feelings. She does recognise situations when she is in the wrong now and says sorry for “hurting your feelings, mummy!” But the next step for me now is to help her grow empathy for her friends, especially in situations when they have a conflict of interests.

She has started school this year and has grown her circle of friends. But she has also become aware of children whose behaviour, appearance or demenour makes them less popular with the majority. And it has been challenging for me but oh, so worth my mummy job title, to help her step in their shoes and see the world through their eyes.

“Mummy, that little girl I was telling you about yesterday, mummy, she has hit my friend again, mummy!”” “Why, my love?” “Because she is a baddy, mummy!” “No, my love, no one is a baddy at this age, she must have felt sad and lonely. What happened before she hit?” “We told her she can’t play with us, mummy.” “Why, my love?” “Because she calls us names, mummy.” “Why do you think she does that, my love? And what would you do if the girls you like tell you you can’t play with them?” “I would cry, mummy.” “Well, my love, her name calling is the way she shows her feelings are hurt. It’s the way she cries for attention.” Thinking pause…”I didn’t know that, mummy. I will tell her she can play with us tomorrow before she gets sad.” Learning to look beyond the polished surface. Evaluating things in their complexity. Appreciating people for what they expose to us, not only what they let us see. Being fair to others and understanding their need for security.

I was very impressed to learn that one bank is trying to break the mould and make a difference by offering their existent customers a fair and loyal service. The NatWest Hello campaign aims at keeping its existent customers content by making them aware of a missed payment before charging them a fee and by keeping the ISA rates level, for both new and existing customers. No favoritism and unfair play to other banks by attracting their customers with bogus starter offers but an internal policy aimed at providing loyal customers the best deals!

No fake offers of “security” in exchange for custom but a recognition of the innate need we all have as human beings: to be treated respectfully. To be heard. To be given a sense of recognition and security even when we have been customers for a while, even when our bank balance is low, even when we do what all human beings do, fail. At making a payment. At filling it with much needed and profitable cash.

Making life real, not only pretty offers which will be withdrawn as soon as we join, like in the video below:

It gives me a glimmer of hope, this new NatWest initiative. It makes me feel a bit happier about Emma growing up in a world that is not only focused on the sensational and rewarding the novelty factor. I want her to grow in a world that is still passing on “traditional” values like respect for the elders, loyalty to your friends, compassion for the weaker, understanding for challenging behaviours.

In a world where the banks have been blamed for the worst, it is refreshing to see a bank initiative focusing on improvement at ground level.

Much appreciated, NatWest!

I’m working with BritMums and NatWest on this project and have been compensated to write this post but all opinions expressed are my own. 

Last year was the first year I blogged about the World Vision initiative, a night of hope. I found it important, at a time when the children in our privileged world stuff themselves with treats and have fun pretending to experience fear, to remember the ones for whom fear is a daily fact and occurrence.

World Vision has kindly invited me to be part of their yearly Night of Hope Halloween campaign. This year the focus is the Syrian children and we are all invited to carve a heart in a pumpkin thinking of them, write them a letter telling them we care and make a donation to show them our support.

So, here is my picture and my letter:

“Dear little ones,

I am so, so sorry for the hard times we have been having. I am sooo sorry you had to see things you were never meant to see.

If only I could, I would give you all a tight hug. If only I had the power, I would rewind the time and put you back into your homes, along with your parents and siblings. If only I could, I would stop the violence and make your world ok again.

I am a mummy too, a mummy who has lost a precious boy. Not to human meanness, not to war atrocities but to illness.

So I understand pain. I understand sorrow. And I also know what a difference a small gesture of kindness can make in a gloomy world.

I have another child, a four-year old girl who loves children. She has heard about you all and has helped her daddy carve a heart, showing our love for you, into our seasonal pumpkin. I am sure you don’t have the pumpkin habit in your country. You probably feed them to the hungry animals. But here, we use them to decorate our homes. And this year, we will use ours to remember you all, say a prayer for you and send you a small token of our love.

Be blessed, little ones, be blessed with joy and peace and healing!”

If you want to join in the initiative, all you need to do is text HEART to 70060 to donate £5 to help make Syrian children’s lives a little brighter.

See below how you money will make a difference:

Back in October we were privileged to be picked by Brioche Pasquier to sample and write a review about their lovely milk chocolate rolls and brioche sliced loaf. They were also extremely kind to send us a voucher so we can create an autumn picnic for the family.

The lovely offering came presented into a cute picnic basket and it arrived bang on time as we were heading out for a weekend away to Newcastle. Emma was absolutely thrilled with the chocolate rolls and devoured a good few before we even arrived at our destination!

I sampled the brioche loaf the following morning and I found it delightful, reminding me of my mum’s Easter cakes, full of flavour and incredibly soft. I had it toasted with a cup of coffee, bliss!!

We came home and since Halloween was approaching I decided to use our Halloween molds to cut out cute shapes for Emma’s afternoon snack. Winner, once again, the loaf was perfect for shape cutting and Emma enjoyed her seasonal snack to the full!

We are heading away today so last night I made use of our gifted Sainsbury’s voucher and recreated another lovely picnic. Have a wee look at the bounty of goodies:

Thank you, Tots100 and Brioche Pasquier for making our times away from home so very special and introducing us to a lovely and yummy range of products we will be buying time and again!