Birthdays and Family Traditions

I accepted a challenge to write a blog post daily for a month, and because today we have a birthday in the house, I decided to write about it.

When it comes to birthdays, we have a few family traditions, like breakfast in bed, a personal date with the birthday child, a breakfast date has become quite popular among the older children these days, and a cake with the family by the end of the day. We did few birthday parties for the ones that have theirs during the summer, but early on I found out that I am not the right person to organise parties. It would end up very chaotic by the end and the child would end up not really enjoying it because their mom was stressed the entire day.

Today my philosophy is, the simpler the better, if the child feels loved and accepted, all efforts are appreciated.

I often laugh at the fact that five of my eight children have birthdays close to each other. Two in December and 3 in January. Springs must have been a busy time at our house few years ago 😊!

Since I became a single mom, I have tried to stick to the traditions, it is not always easy, but I try to take the child on a date and then have a cake with everyone else in the evening.

I do not know if you read my last post about us all having covid now, but that situation made it a little challenging to know what to do for Lucy’s birthday.

Lucy is my youngest child, only few birthdays but almost each of them she has spent either in hospital with asthma issues or at home sick, seems that there is always something happening on her day.

 Becky’s birthday was on Monday, so the moment it ended, Lucy could talk about nothing else but her sixth birthday that was coming up, Tuesday we got our first positive test for covid, and poor Lucy got her positive on Wednesday.

She was so angry: I hate Covid! she said. Why do I always get sick on my birthdays, it is not fair!

I told her I would find a way to do something and then when we are better, we can do our proper date.

Thanks to my amazing neighbours, we had a cake and cupcakes, I was well enough this noon, so I took Lucy on a drive, we went to one of my favourite spots and had one hour for ourselves. We had homemade pizza and fish cakes and she is happy enough

How do you celebrate your children’s birthdays?

Here are the links of little videos I made to register the birthday we had this month.

Judah turned 14! Here it is!

Becky turned 13! My sweet girl.

Lucy turned 6! My forever baby 🙂

Count Each Day

Happy new Year everyone! 

For those of you who wondered where I was gone since my last post, you know, the post where I wrote about my many goals for the month of November, well, well. 

Things didn’t turn out exactly how I had envisioned, many unplanned obstacles came our way and changed a lot the course of the end of the year for me and the children.

Thankfully, I have an amazing family and friends, people that have encouraged me during what I could call so far, some of the hardest days of this single parent journey of mine. 

I have had moments of real hopelessness, it is strange how our brain plays tricks on us, those are the times we need friends in our lives that will talk to us and put some sense back into our minds or just be there to listen so we can find our own way back to reason.

During the month of December , my baby number seven became 7 years old and my first born became 16! I am blessed!

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For those who have been asking, we had a quiet but nice Christmas. 

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Few days before Christmas, 7 of my 8 children were sick with a cold, one child was tested for covid but it came back negative and because the others had similar symptoms the doctor didn’t feel it was necessary to test them all. 

Few days before Christmas to few days after the New year’s, we were miserable in bed, the quietness of the house was really nice,  there is not much we can do for them but to cuddle , and that is my favourite part of sick days. I don’t think I had cuddled my kids for the past year as much as I did on those sick days.  There was a day where my youngest was on my belly the whole day, it was sweet and made me think of my early days as a young mother, tired and worried. If I only knew then that cuddles are the best cure I would have cuddled so much more.

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On the 7th of January, my only son turned 13!!

It was also a snow day; we woke up to all white roads.

At first, we were both disappointed because we had planned to go out and get a drive thru McDonalds breakfast, we usually do breakfast in bed, but this time we decided to change.

We had to change our plans and went on a walk. It was lovely!

I won’t describe the whole day, but this was the first birthday he didn’t get a cake, and yet, by the end of the day he hugged me, said, I love you mom! This was my best birthday yet!!  Success Friends!

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In March 2020 when our first lockdown happened, I was not happy that our life had to change again, we spent a few months in survival mode, things settled by the end of May, when the schoolwork was no longer an issue and living in Dunmore East, that is one of the most beautiful villages I have been to in Ireland, was a great advantage. I don’t think we have walked as much as we did during that lockdown. Looking back, I can say it was challenging but we learned a lot about each other.

Now, we live in a different county, all the children are enrolled in school and again on a level 5 lockdown. 

The children were supposed to be back to school on the 7th of January after the Christmas break, the government extended the holidays to the 11th and very soon after announced that the children will be doing online school till the end of January. 

Covid-19 is no joke! 

Here we are, 11th of January and trying to do this home-schooling thing that once sounded like the best method of education and now it is like a monster coming to hunt me. 

Well, not that bad. 

I will try to post more about this crazy journey of mine. 

Life sometimes doesn’t go the way we wish or plan but it is during those trying times that we learn more about ourselves and those around us, we just need to have eyes open wide to see the beauty in challenges (I’m not there yet) 

May we all try to live each day as it comes, Rain or shine, snow or not and may we make each day counts and transform it in one of the best days yet!