A catch up from April to July 14

So after our lovely visit to Dorset in the Easter holidays at the beginning of April, things very quickly declined for me health wise, which is why it's been tricky to keep up with our blog. Some days it was all I could do to drag myself out of bed, look after the children, cook dinner, keep on top of the cleaning and washing as my back and body eventually just packed in.

Instead of doing separate posts, I'm going to recap our adventures in one blog so we're up to date. Here we go:

Easter holiday fun.....

I love being at home with the kids during Easter holidays, I simply adore preparing all sorts of treats and crafts with them. I love having their friends over to play and watching them interact with other children.

My birthday:

This year I was in quite a lot of agony, so most of the day was spent in bed. However, it was lovely to have my friends take me out to Nandos, lovely food and equally lovely company. Esther very kindly drove us all.

My friends bought me some beautiful flowers and gifts and Bexy and I spent the weekend before at a lovely spa.

The importance of friendship:

I have been so blessed to have amazing friends in my life. This year I had the privilege of watching one of my dear childhood friends Helen get married. It was a beautiful evening and such a lovely opportunity to be reunited as friends again. Both Jason and I had very close friends who we still keep in touch with from our childhood and we try and encourage our children to nurture friendships. After all, life is so much more happier when we have people to share the good times with and help us through the tough times.

Sadly, (for me) getting married meant that Helen was becoming a diplomat's wife and would be moving away to Sweden. We spent a lovely last afternoon together, Helly, Meggy, Sammy and I reunited once again. I love these girls, what an honour it is to call them my friends.

Play times April/May

The children love playing dress up and make believe, it always makes me really happy to see them getting on with each other and using their imagination. Eden has an incredible imagination and he often  sets up the scenario for their play, and gives out roles which the girls go along with. The girls are very good at playing role play type games, and Mia loves to be the mummy. As can be seen in the pictures, she is very maternal and really enjoys looking after younger children.  

I love how all three of them are naturally inquisitive and love to experiment and try new things. Whenever we go anywhere, I always have to take some kind of receptacle with me as they are always collecting shells, rocks and anything interesting that they see. In this last picture in the collage, inspired by some homework he was given, Eden decided to conduct his own sink and float experiment using any object he could lay his hands on (without my knowledge or permission) ruining several of my precious objects in the process! This was one of those times where I just had to look at the positives and smile through gritted teeth!

Being ill.....May 

I don't want to go into the ins and outs but after increasingly hideous pain and a number of other health problems, I was admitted to hospital for 10 days right through the half term break. It literally broke my heart being away from my kids as I was kept in isolation for 3 days whilst they ruled out certain infections. 

I was so happy when they were finally allowed to come and see me, it really lifted my spirits. It made me appreciate how lucky I am to be their mother and how important they are to me. I never ever want to be parted from them again, and it strengthend my resolve to overcome my health challenges.

During this time, I also realised that I have some incredible friends who love me. They came to visit me in hospital, helped look after the kids, cooked meals, kept me company when my spirits were low and literally made me feel like I was of worth. I am truly indebted to them and am sure that if it wasn't for them I wouldn't have made such a good recovery.

It was also at this moment that I truly understood how unbelievably lucky I am to be married to Jason. Having never had to cook, clean or wash in our 13 years together, he immediately stepped up to the plate and even baked with the girls. I was impressed with his ability to get on and do things without any prompting from me and seeing the love and adoration our children have for him.

The road to recovery; making the most of my time with my beautiful children:

 Although I couldn't really do much after my stay in hospital, I did enjoy lying on the sofa wand watching the kids play. They transformed this cardboard box into a house of their own volition. Ismay made a "sold" sign, no idea where she got the notion of signage and it's significance in the housing market from.

Although none of us supports a team (well I have a teeny, tiny soft spot for the Red and Blacks (stade Toulousaine) as my first Graduate job was with Rugby Shop and some of the team would come in and model stuff for our online catalogue) as a family, we love to watch all games that involve England playing. Be it football, tennis, athletics, rugby or gymnastics, it's our tradition to sit together as a family and enjoy the games along with a few tasty snacks.The children enjoyed the treat of staying up past their bedtime to watch some of the World Cup matches.

We also relished being together as a family after me being away from them for 10 days. I love the last picture in this montage, Mia and Ismay wanted us to wear the same colours for church.

Like father like son:

Eden idolises his Daddy. Whatever Daddy does, Eden wants to do it too. I am so lucky that Jason is very good at DIY and we have been sorting out the house these last few months. Every time daddy would get his tools out, Eden would too and it was so cute seeing him copying his daddy. If he's anywhere near as handy as his daddy his wife will be a lucky lady.

Jason used to play football every Saturday before we had kids, and recently I encouraged him to take it up again. Eden had a whale of a time imitating daddy and going with him to Stake sports.

My aspiring sportsman and women:

Whilst not fanatical about it, Jason and I do enjoy being active and have always encouraged our kids to      lead healthy lives. As babies and toddlers they learnt to swim, them came gymnastics and now Mia has shown quite a talent for running placing in under the top 20 in everyone of her first cross country races she ran for her school this year. Meanwhile, Ismay and Eden have really enjoyed tag rugby, scoring tries and getting to play in the final of the local schools cluster.

Sleeping beauties:

I remember my mum once saying to me that some days when us kids had worn her out she would look at us sleeping angelically and be reminded that it was worth it. Now I'm a mother to three children and one particularly rambunctious son, I know exactly what she means! Each night, before is go to bed  I go into their rooms and check they are still ok and kiss them goodnight. Mimi always sleeps like I imagine a princess would, Eden is always the last to get to sleep and Izzy has the tidiest bedroom.

We have been trying to instil in Mia the importance of being tidy it is a literal effort to get her to make her bed.

Eden's 6th birthday:

Some of my earliest memories as a child are sitting as a family at my Nana's house at Christmas watching the Empire Strikes Back. I loved how fiesty Leia was and not having a tv ourselves, us children would often enact the films we had seen at Nana's for weeks afterwards.

As Eden was our last child  I have spent many an afternoon dressing up with him whilst his sisters were at school or nursery. From the age of 2 onwards he was obsessed by Toy Story especially Buzz lightyear. He loved anything to do with space and we spent much of our time together before he went to nursery building rockets and spaceships. Last year, I decided he was old enough to watch episodes 4-6 of Star Wars, and much to my delight, he loved my favourite; the Empire Strikes Back. 

For the last year, whenever we have had mother son time together, his request is always that I dress as Leia and he as Luke. We've fashioned our own costumes out of things we have found around the house.

I was therefore chuffed when we asked me to through him a Star Wars themed birthday. He was allowed to invite 10 friends and had a birthday lunch with them followed by building Jedi interceptors out of cardboard boxes and a game of pin the "light sabre" on Luke. 

My favourite part of the prepping, was making this Death Star cake at his request.  One of these days I must invest in some baking equipment. All I have is a rolling pin and a sharp knife, I need to invest in some cutters and things. I have to confess, I did really enjoy making it.

Team Maddock/Basford:

This academic year, I have had the incredible privilege of working in the school where my children go. I have taught Base 5 which was a class that started off with 32 pupils and we finished the year with 31 due to one of them moving on.

One of the best things about working here was my job share Jo. We made a really good team and I have loved bouncing ideas off her and working together to help produce the best curriculum we could for the children we taught. I particularly loved the fact that Jo was amazing at making displays, and it has been such fun to create them together over the year. Here our some of my favourites ones:

It's not just been Jo Jo that has been an amazing colleague either; I've worked with some spectacular ladies. I've not only enjoyed working with them, but it has been a pleasure to get to know them outside of school too. So, good luck for the next year ladies, it truly has been wonderful.

Restless legs: why I keep on moving even though it hurts. Holiday 2014

Anyone who knows me well understands that I do not know how to sit still. Even last year on an all inclusive break, the most I could manage was 30 mins on a sun lounger followed by the rest of the time taking the kids to the park, walking, swimming and generally doing anything other than lying down. 

Having fun with the kids at a theme park, Salou 2013

Inlatable fun (anything but sitting down!), Salou 2013

I just cannot remain immobile for very long; (probably just as well with my sacrolitis) something I have been working through in my therapy sessions lately. My therapist has her hypothesis for why and even has a name for it, I have a sneaking suspicion though that it's down to the way I was raised......

You see both my parents were always on the go, working hard, rushing around after us. If I look back into my childhood, the only times I can recall Mummy and Daddy sat down are the times we went to church. My mum, an aspiring ballerina, gave up everything in her early twenties to put my dad through university and then to have kids and educate us children at home until I was 11. Being too poor to own a car we walked EVERYWHERE, often for miles at a time.

Nanah en pointe, little Brug, Bridgnorth 

Nanah and me

She had very fixed ideas on what formation we needed to make us "rounded", and at the age of 9 enrolled me and my siblings ( even Jordan) in ballet classes at the Gaston Payne School of Dance when we moved up to Shropshire. (Interestingly, this school is still going, Mia and Ismay had lessons there as toddlers until they decided that they preferred gymnastics.) She would even join in our lessons, and was very good at making sure we did our daily exercises. I firmly believe that it's because of this that I've always had stamina to run long distances.

Sir John Talbots Athletics club, aged 11 and one of my first park runs aged 34

Having grown up on the Coalbrookdale road as a child and having the run of the (then) fields from Blists Hill (which didn't exist then) to St Michaels in Madeley, and subsequently the idyl of " little Brug" in Bridgnorth, Mummy was adamant that we too should experience the freedoms of living in the countryside. Although moving to the middle of nowhere in Mid Wales and (through no fault of my parents) living in some quite tough conditions, we did spend my teenage years surrounded by fields. My siblings and I would disappear for hours on end, hiking up to Dolforwyn castle, running races down the hills opposite our house and walking two miles to the bus stop to get to the village. It was at this point that having started secondary school I discovered my love for running, and after competing in the North Shropshire schools cross country championships and placing well, Mummy befriended the owner of the local athletics club. Even though we were short of cash and couldn't afford it, ever the resourceful woman, she exchanged reading lessons for his children in order for us kids to train with his club.

From that day to this, she has supported and encouraged us all to get out and do things, to see the world, to look after our bodies. Thanks to her inspiration, I took up running again and this was a huge factor in helping me overcome my health challenges over the last two years.

Last park run before the accident, I achieved my PB here, 23:15 for 5k.

My first (and last race) with Oxford Brookes before my back finally protested.

In August it will be a year since the accident and a year since I have been able to be properly active. These last 11 months I have literally been itching to run, ride a bike and just generally be on the move and have sorely missed the pleasure of running for miles. However, I am grateful that thanks to my mother, her insistence on an active life for us kids has meant that my body was strong enough to stand withdrawal from morphine without any symptoms, to survive two hours of theatre without anesthetic and to have the strength to look after my three young children.

Spikes bought for my birthday by Jason which unfortunately will have to wait a bit longer until they can be used.

And so whilst this holiday I may have exhausted myself from constantly telling Eden off for running and jumping and climbing and have worn myself out some days running around after the kiddies, this morning I have resolved to continue my mother's legacy, to embrace my boy's love of being "on the go" and to bring all my kids up to live active lives.

So thank you Mummy, these photos are dedicated to you xxx

Active kids, Cap d'Agde holiday 2014