Memories

I came across this photo whilst uploading a back-up disk during my recent computer problems, and it got me thinking of how the years have flown since it was taken. Emily was just three weeks old and completely helpless, my life as a father had just begun - a role I knew nothing about (having had no secure father figure as a child myself.) Without blowing my own trumpet too much, I think I've done a bloody good job of it! Emily is six now and with a real character and personality of her own, a mixture my sense of humour and adventure and her mother's looks and brains. We've all come a long way.

Whitewash!

Following the red sky in the morning, it turns out it WAS a shepherd's warning!! The snow has been falling thick and fast across much of the UK overnight and today - and there's more to come. Still, it makes for a pretty picture AND (if you don't have to drive or work in it) it's fun, fun, fun!!

Emily's First Snowman
More Snow

Snow Fight!

In The Blink of a Week!

Is it me, or do the weeks seem to be zooming by?

It's been a full week since I last posted! And what a week!

Emily lost her tooth, which was safely placed under her pillow and replaced by the unseen, unheard "Tooth Fairy" (Me) who left a shiny gold coin and some 'pixie dust' which resembled gold glitter. Needless to say Emily found the whole saga really exciting and promptly found another tooth loosening up - and getting more loose by the minute with all of Emily's frantic waggling! Best get the pound coins and pixie dust ready again soon! (And book a dentists appointment to check that everything's as it should be.)

Lesley has been unwell all week and unable to eat anything (so the food bill has gone down significantly!! lol!!) however, what we saved on food, we more than made up for on toilet rolls, if you catch my drift.

I've had a busy time at work - training course up at Seaham, clients all over the place and project after project to coordinate - hence the lack of posts.

Expecting the Tooth Fairy Tonight!

Emily is growing up fast! The first milk tooth has been wobbling for a few days now and today, during a tactically issued mini-Mars bar, screams, and blood and 'hey presto!'

Trauma over with, Emily soon reverted back to her cheery self, proudly displaying her new gap!!

www.mcarthurbaker.co.uk

The Party's Over.

Well, that's it for another year (I do seem to recall saying that very recently!) The birthday girl was suitably impressed with all of the gifts and cards from friends and family, and the well-wishings of bloggers too.

 

The party took three weeks to organise, the food took two hours to prepare, the presents took two months wages, and it was all over in 120 minutes!! The parcel had been passed, songs had been sung, presents had been opened, lost in wrapping paper, then found again, kisses all round, illuminated cake extinguished (twice - for some reason our family have decided that every child at a party should have the opportunity of blowing out the candles on the cake, so we did Emily first on her own, and then relit them for a group blow!)

 

Emily had a great time and slept like a log after all the excitement. At the end of it all Emily announced "Oh, that was great, I can't wait until I'm seven!" Ah, happy days.

www.mcarthurbaker.co.uk

Birthday Girl - Emily is Six!

Emily loves birthdays. Not just her own, but everybody's. Here she is excitedly posing with my birthday cake from last October. For weeks before it she was building up to the event - little 'secret' conversations with Mum about what she was going to get me, what she was going to write in my card etc. etc. She is the same with everyone - even the cat has to have at least two birthdays a week! And today is her special day as she reaches six.

We have yet to find storage space for the Toys R Us delivery she got for Christmas and today there will be another load!! What joy!

www.mcarthurbaker.co.uk

Out of the mouths of babes...

I had my first 'meeting' of the year today. It was only a 1-to-1 with my team leader, but I thought I'd pick out a nice shirt from the ironing basket for the occasion.

So, I'm stood in the kitchen three quarters of the way through ironing my 'nice' shirt and Emily walks in.

 

"Hello Pet." I say

 

"Daddy?"

 

"Yes pet?"

 

"Isn't that the shirt you sometimes always wear for work?"

 

And do you know something? It was!

 

Needless to say, a fresh shirt was hurriedly selected from the ironing basket.

www.mcarthurbaker.co.uk

The First Blast of Winter

Its been a long time coming - I think Emily was three when we last had the opportunity to build a snowman (sadly, at that age, the snow frightened her a little so she watched from inside whilst I built the snowman!) - alas this is not the stuff of snowmen and even as I took these pictures this morning I could feel the patter of rain rushing to wash it all away.

Reminder to self - unhook the hosereel and turn off the water!

Halloween

Emily plumped for her usual witches costume for Halloween tonight. Here she is preparing to go out into the cold, wet and windy evening - needless to say she and Mummy didn't venture far and were soon warming themselves with milk and cookies by the fireside, counting their treats!

Autumnal Art

I'm suffering from a severe bout of bronchitis and infected sinusitis at the moment. My face feels like it's going to implode and my chest feels as rough as the proverbial badger's behind so what better way to avoid the disappointment of not being able to go out than to spend the day crafting leaf pictures from all of the autumn leaves currently littering our lawns.

Emily loves to craft! And it passed a good few hours whilst waiting for the painkillers to kick in!

Happy Girthday to Me!!

Yesterday was my 43rd birthday and, as my Crohn's seems to have been settled for a few weeks, the lovely Lesley decided it was time for a treat. My favourite! Chocolate Cake with all the buttercream and chocolate flakes you could wish for. Just a small one ("enough to serve 8" the box said - though these must surely have been tested on very small people with even smaller appetites, or perhaps eight people who didn't much care for scrummy chocolate cake!) Needless to say I dived straight in immediately after Lesley took the following picture........

Obviously nothing to do with overeating and more to do with steroids, but me thinks it's time I lost a bit of weight!!! (I never, EVER thought I'd hear myself saying that!) Fitness regime begins....

............just as soon as the rest of the cake is consumed!

Happy Birthday to me....happy birthday to me....

ABC Wednesday - F is for...

Feathers!!

Fluffy and Fearsome.

It being the school holidays, and the weather being so foul we have struggled to find suitable places to take Emily. She is of an age where discovery is everything and counts a lot towards education and personal development. She seems to have an endless capacity for soaking up facts - if the weather's bad (which it seems to have been constantly) these facts will be absorbed from indoor activities or the television - I have caught her using advertising slogans in the past, she'll come out with "Every little helps!" (Tesco) or start singing "Let it shine!" (Morrisons.)

So, in order to cram her brain with as much non-TV knowledge as possible we try to take her out to places of interest. One such place is Kirkleatham Owl Centre near Redcar. Emily loved it. (I'll keep my thoughts about it to a later post.)

Snowy

The centre houses all manner of birds in addition to owls - as you can see from the first picture Vultures are there too as well as a pair of Ravens who absolutely refused to stand still long enough for me to photo them (they knew what I was up to and danced around, singing and 'laughing!!' - at me?)

Emily had a great time and came away with a fluffy feathered friend of her own (to add to the four million fluffy friends at home!!) So the day was a success for her and she learnt a lot. Afterwards we paid a visit to the Kirkleatham Hall Museum - subject of a future post.

For more fantastic 'F's' visit the ABC Wednesday Blog and sign in on Mr Linky or to view an anthology of all of the posts visit The ABC Wednesday Anthology.

A Gift From Denise.

Just a quick post tonight to thank the wonderfully generous Mrs Nesbitt - who we met up with today in a less than clement Guisborough, I say less than clement, when what I actually mean is torrential downpour -  for her to hand over a  box of craft materials for Emily. I have never known so much material be crammed into an 18 inch box:

- cards, stickers, glitters, paper, cloth, stampers, stencils, crayons, felt-tip pens, feathers, shells - you name it, it was there -

Emily could barely contain her anticipation at the prospect of rummaging through the box of goodies: 

A veritable feast of craft materials was discovered within.

Of course, Emily just had to make use of the colourful cloth inside and transform herself into an Indian Princess for the rest of the day:-

So a great big thank you to Denise for providing hours of fun today, and for every other rainy day for many months to come - Emily really appreciated it and will work to create one of her "special creations" just for you in the next few days.

Thanks very much - Gary, Lesley and especially Emily. xx

Light Relief

After the trauma of losing my computer over the weekend Emily has brought me some well earned light relief by wrestling with Pepper..... and proving, once and for all, that the sun definitely shines out of her.... by beatiing the cat hands down!!

a distressed Pepper decided to hide herself under the coffee table for the rest of the evening!!

Bless her!

Weekend Wandering

Weekend Wandering - David McMahon over at Authorblog has posed his weekly 'wandering' question:


The question is: What do you want most out of life?


It would seem that my answer to this often asked question changes with the advancing years. For example, when asked this in my teens and early twenties I might have responded that I'd like a house of my own, a family and a decent enough job to keep that family financially secure.

In my early thirties I'd obtained the house and a partial family - in that I had been married - but the job and "full" family evaded me. Until, that is, the age of 36 when the job of my lifetime came along and the following year the daughter of a lifetime joined the fold. The question "what do you want most out of life?" had been answered. Happiness was complete, surely?

Well yes, and no. With age a different set of priorities form in the mind. Now there are different needs and wants. A daughter to consider. What kind of future will she have? What can I do to make sure that she remains as happy and healthy and secure as she is now? What kind of inheritance will I leave for her? What do I wish for her? What does she want for herself? Endless questions, endless challenges - and this is my answer to David's question:


"I want to remain able, for as long as possible, to come up with new answers to what I want most from life. I want to be challenged to seek solutions to needs in my, and my family's, life, and I want to never lose the desire to attain goals of benefit to the family.

I believe it's called 'living' - and I want to do that for as long as possible!"

Emily's Foody Face

Emily decided to cheer up a dull Saturday afternoon by making a fruit foody face!

The best part being...

Eating her hard work!!

Well done Emily!

ABC Wednesday - 'R'

ABC Wednesday already? So many words to choose that begin with the letter 'R' - even more difficult than last week's 'Q'!!!

R is for....the ability to form........

Relationships

In spite of my own very jaded, entirely dysfunctional, relationship with my mother, my primary concern with Emily was that she should be able to forge a very strong and healthy set of relationships within our family circle (Which comprises of Lesley's relatives, not mine.) My family life left me with a lot of baggage - very shy, very withdrawn, very difficult to get to know, very scarred by my early relationships - I could have quite easily drifted into a life of solitude had it not been for Lesley. Because of my upbringing I find forming friendships very difficult, relationships even more so.

I never knew my father, he was off the scene soon after we returned from Cyprus when he and mother divorced. I had a close bond with Peter, my mother's second husband, but he soon got sick of mother's ways and eventually he too was off the scene - I stayed in touch for a while but eventually he found himself a new life with children of his own.

Mother alienated herself further from us and married for a third time. After that she became a distant memory for a long time, then she was back after the birth of my daughter, briefly, and now she's gone again.

My strongest relationship from childhood was that with my Nana and Grandad- mother seemed keen for them to look after me (probably because she couldn't be bothered.) - and they took up the gauntlet with gusto. Sadly Grandad died in 1976 - three days before my eleventh birthday (I've still got the card he had already signed) After that Nana put most of her efforts into raising me. I became the son she never had and she was the only constant in my life until her death in 2005. (Well, almost - but that's a different story to be told some other time!)

We wanted Emily's family life to be so very different from my early experiences - and in the main I think we've succeeded - Lesley and Emily are the only people who see the true me and I hope that Emily will feel a thousand times more safe and secure and loved than I ever did as a child. She seems happy enough now - but only time will tell I suppose - but strong relationships can only be built over time, so there's a way to go yet.

Flaming May.

Emily is particularly proud of her little flower garden
Lesley's hard work pays off!!
Digging for England - as a woman should!

"Cast ne'er a clout 'til May be Out!" my Nana used to say, and here we are at the tenth day and already we've got all the bedding plants in, lawns have been trimmed (more than once or twice) and all our non-frost hardy summer plants are in and doing well. It's been a beautiful two or three days, but has it lulled us in to a false sense of security?

Call me a miserable old pessimist, but I've convinced myself that my Nana's adage is about to come true and all our efforts have been in vain. Mind you the garden look glorious already and if I figure out how to mend my camera I may upload one or two for your delectation and delight.

True to form for the weekend the clouds have started to gather - it even rained for a wee while last night.

Bring on the frost!