The Gallery: Still Life

The theme for the Sticky Fingers Gallery this week is still life. 

When I'm wondering what I'm going to photograph for The Gallery I try to look for the quirky or to find the extraordinary in the ordinary. This week's theme allowed me to play with my camera and be a little creative.

This is another 'can you guess what it is yet?' series of photographs.

I'll call it 'Finding Yourself'!

So did I find myself in the bottom of a bottle?

No, I drank three bottles, did a big wee and went to bed a bit tipsy!



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The Gallery: Still Life

Guest Post Day - Welcome NurtureStore

Hello everyone. I’m Cathy and I write over at NurtureStore, bringing you lots of cheap and easy ideas you can do at home to have fun with your kids and help them learn lots of important early learning skills at the same time.

In Sandy’s ‘Good Enough’ post I sensed a slight reluctance on her part to get the glue and glitter out and do some craft with Presley and Cash as she says she’s ‘not good with mess’. I thought I might use this as the inspiration for this guest post and bring you...

 A Reluctant Parent’s Guide to Kids’ Craft

Firstly, I want to tell you why craft is so good for your children.

Craft activities such as drawing, painting and model making offer children so many opportunities to develop important skills. If you’re making a model you’re working on maths concepts such as size, scale, shape, volume and dimensions. Working out how to get your egg box dragon’s eyes to stay on exercises problem-solving skills. Using scissors and peeling off stickers work on fine-motor skills, building dexterity and strength in fingers which one day will be expected to hold a pencil and produce neat writing. Craft play is important for even very young children as it introduces lots of sensory experiences as they use different materials.  And crafting gives children a chance to be creative and use their imagination. Transforming a cardboard box into a castle offers up a world of new play. Most importantly craft is fun and your child will feel such a sense of pride and achievement when they’ve created something of their own.

Craft is also good for parents. If it’s raining, if your child is tired or grouchy, craft can be therapeutic. Play dough or painting can calm frazzled children and occupy them for a good while. Crafting is also gentle on the purse and environmentally-friendly. Grab a big box and start filling it with all the items that you’d usually throw away, such as cereal boxes, string, old wrapping paper and bottle tops. You’ll soon have a well- stocked craft box ready to spark your children’s imagination, all for free.

And my top tips for stress-free and (almost) mess-free craft:

1.    Cover up: Protect the floor, table, your child and yourself using table cloths, newspapers and aprons. That way you can relax and allow a bit of mess.

2.    Supervise mindfully: Young children do need constant supervision when using materials such as paint and scissors but try to let them create using their own ideas, supporting them with tasks they find difficult.

3.    Choose your materials carefully: Having a recycled making box is great because it costs nothing, so you don’t have to be precious about how the kids use what’s in there. You can completely avoid paint and (heaven forbid!) glitter if you want to; wax crayons, pencils, play dough and stickers are all good, almost-mess-free options. Glue sticks and sticky tape in a sturdy dispenser are cleaner alternatives to runny glue and a spatula.

4.    Make something your kids love: Got a train fanatic? Make them their own tank engine. Got a princess? How about a beautiful crown? And for the very young, just let them have fun exploring the materials on offer.

5.    Extend the play: adding a few props to what you make can transform your child’s play. Four paper circles on a tissue box create a car. Add in their favourite teddy and they can spend the morning going on a journey together.

6.    Have a go! This is the most important rule of all. You don’t have to be a great artist - channel your inner Blue Peter and give it a try. You never know, you might love it.

And if you do, then I hope you’ll pop over to NurtureStore for ideas on what you can make next.

***

Thank you so much, Cathy. I know this post was written for me and I have been inspired now. I'm off to rummage through the recycling to find items for my making box!

I'm guest posting at NurtureStore today, writing about nurturing a love of books. I've even written my first children's story in honour of the occasion, now if I could just find an illustrator...

Thank you too to Erica at Littlemummy.com for organising Guest Post Day.

***

There are also a couple of blogging carnivals to tell you about.  

Firstly the lovely Rosie Scribble hosts the BMB carnival. Thank you for including my post, Rosie. I know how much work goes into each carnival.

Finally the wonderful Karin at Cafebebe hosts the MADs carnival. Here you'll find posts by most of The MADs finalists (including NurtureStore, Littlemummy.com, Cafebebe and Baby Baby). If you haven't voted yet, head on over for some inspiration. Even if you have voted there are some wonderful 'best of' posts that you may have missed first time round.

Guest Post Day - Welcome NurtureStore

Lost

I lost my temper today, all day.

I used to be a pretty mellow person. I've never been volatile. When others flew off the handle at work, I was always the one calming the situation. I would tell them that it's not worth getting angry.

Recently I've felt a rage building up. I don't know if it's hormonal or caused by lack of sleep, but I find myself getting annoyed quite easily.

I try so hard not to lose my temper with Presley and Cash, but sometimes they drive me to distraction. I had no idea children could behave like, well, children. They go on and on and on and on. They ask for the same thing over and over again. Every time I go into the kitchen to cook their tea, Cash follows me, raises his arms and barks 'up' at me. I explain that mummy needs two hands to poach an egg/butter a slice of bread/peel an orange/whatever but this goes in one ear and out the other. 'Up up up UP'.

I sometimes shout at my boys and I ashamed about this. I'm supposed to be the adult in the relationship. They seem to ignore it anyway.

Today though, I have been incandescent with rage practically the entire day. This has nothing to do with the boys and I've tried to keep it from them. 

We're trying to get our house on the market. Our estate agent sent through the brochure for us to proof read today, two days late. I found 31 errors. Some were pretty fundamental. They had ignored our main selling points in favour of saying that we had a 'Conservatory and Modern Fitted Kitchen'. This is incorrect. Our kitchen is the original one from when the house was built in the early 1980s and sadly there is no conservatory. 

I replied with all the changes that were required. I asked for the next proof to be double checked before it was sent to me and advised them that we were thinking about changing agents.

I received a brief email from the manager with no apology, followed by a brochure still listing 'Conservatory and Modern Fitted Kitchen' as a main selling point.

Argh!

I'm furious.

Needless to say I will be terminating their contract in the morning. 

I haven't stopped shaking my head in annoyance and disappointment this evening.

I think I'm pretty justified in losing my temper - just this once.

This post was written for the Sleep is for the Weak Writing Workshop. This week I chose prompt no.2 Lost.

Lost

The Gallery: Friendship

The theme for the Sticky Fingers Gallery this week is friendship.

I initially thought that I would take a photograph of my boys playing together because I hope they will be wonderful friends as well as brothers - especially as they are so close together in age. Unfortunately the tops of their heads is not really an interesting photograph and I don't like to show their faces online. 

This led me to think about my friends. I don't have a large circle of friends, so there are no happy photographs of me on drunken nights out with the girls. I do however have a handful of close friends. 

There is a recent photograph of me with my best friend, but I look awful in it. It was taken at the end of the Breast Cancer Care Fashion Show. Amanda was one of the models. She looked fabulous, hair and make-up professionally done. I, on the other hand, had been crying for the last hour and had no make-up left on. The less said about my home hairdressing attempt the better!

But, because she looks so amazing and I still cry when I remember how proud I was of her on that night, here it is:

This friendship is so important to me that I'll publish a photograph of me after I've been crying - a lot!

We've both been through a great deal since we met (at work, 15 years ago), but we've always been there for each other. I love you Amanda, my sister from another mother x

The Gallery: Friendship

Fight

"Put your bags down" said Jackie. 

I put my bags down against the youth club wall like this was a reasonable everyday request. It wasn't. I quickly realised that I was surrounded by a large group of girls from the year above me.

Jackie punched me in the face. It didn't hurt as much as you would expect. 

My arms were still at my sides as Jackie punched me again. This time I could feel a sharp stinging in my cheek.

I was having a fight. How was this possible? I'd always avoided confrontation and had only ever hit my brother (like you do and even then I wasn't allowed to hit him hard because he was ill).

Jackie grabbed my hair and pulled my face down towards her raised knee.

Oh God. Don't cry, Sandra, don't cry.

I had to fight back otherwise I was going to get beaten up. I pulled away and lost a handful of hair. I tried to hit Jackie, but she seemed too far away. I tried to grab her hair and put her face on my knee but it felt like I was underwater. I was hurting now. My head hurt.

I could smell cheap hairspray and cigarettes covered up with Impulse body spray.

I looked up at one point to see Mrs Butcher driving the school mini-bus with her netball team in the back. Our eyes met. Mine pleading with hers. She drove off.

I was going to be late home.

"FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT" rang in my ears. It felt like the whole school was watching. No one helped me. No one tried to stop us tearing at each other like angry cats.

Satisfied she had taught me a lesson, Jackie shoved me away from her. Her gang greeted her with congratulatory back slaps and well done Jackies. Someone lit a cigarette for the victor. She took it, half grinning, half wincing. They walked away.

I brushed myself down, watching clumps of my hair carried by the breeze. I picked my bags up and walked home alone.

***

That was 26 years ago. It turns out that I had snogged Jackie's boyfriend, Steve, one afternoon in a small town churchyard. I didn't know he was Jackie's boyfriend, but apparently that was my crime. I was 14 years old, naive, cheeky and invincible. I was wearing my 'Frankie says RELAX don't do it' t-shirt. When my friends and I walked past him and his mates, he said "Steve says relax, do it".  I never saw him again, but ended up with two black eyes for a quick kiss.

My Mum said I was bullied because I was pretty and clever. Sometimes it can be any excuse, the way you dress or speak for instance. The school, unhelpfully, said I shouldn't walk around on my own. These bullies made my life a misery until they left the following year. This was the first of many incidents, although I was too scared to fight back after that. The worst incident resulted in a suspected fractured skull and rather a lot of blood down the back of my coat.

I still look over my shoulder in that small town.

This is a pretty extreme example of bullying and it scares me that one day my boys may be picked on. My experience hasn't made me any tougher. I've had low self-esteem ever since. I really don't know how to protect them.

This post was written for the Sleep is for the Weak Writing Workshop. This week I chose prompt no.4 Have you ever felt bullied? At school? At work? In your personal life? How did you deal with that? Tell us your story.

Fight