Positive

A few days ago, my friend tagged me in her status for the "5 days, 3 positive things" challenge. I don't usually like being tagged in stuff that I have to do because half the time I then forget to do them, or it's just things I don't want to do (no make up selfie, anyone? Although I did actually do it!). However, I accepted the challenge.

If you don't know what the challenge is, for 5 days, you have to say 3 positive things about that day and then tag other people to take part and do the same thing. I thought it might be nice to spread a little positivity so I did it. My days went like this:

Day 1
1. Caleb let me sleep until 8am.
2. Seth got home from Hull safely (he had gone up there the day before to see his sister)
3. We had a lovely time playing with a friend and her son at the park.

Day 2
1. Got to catch up with friends at Caleb's toddler group.
2. I bought a new dress and it was on sale! Happy times.
3. Caleb fell asleep within a few minutes of me putting him to bed that evening.

Day 3
1. Had a lovely lunch and catch up with friends.
2. Caleb wanted lots of cuddles that day and I was loving it!
3. I had made extra dinner on day 2 which meant that I didn't have to cook on day 3.

Day 4
1. Caleb and I got to Norwich safely (went to see the fam - more on that in another post!)
2. Went to a brilliant inter-schools concert where my sister was conducting one of the choirs.
3. Got to see the ginger children (Sam and Cait, my nephew and niece).

Day 5
1. Caleb and I had a lovely day with my wonderful family.
2. Mum got up at 6am to be with Caleb and hang out with him so that I could have longer in bed!
3. I arrived home that evening to be with my wonderful husband. 

As you can see, some of the things that were positive weren't particularly spectacular or amazing things and on a couple of the days when things really weren't going that well, I struggled to think of anything positive at all! But in doing this challenge it reminded me of a talk I heard at our church's general conference in April, called "Grateful in any Circumstances". It talks about being positive and grateful, regardless of the circumstances that we might find ourselves in. I have to say, I'm not always the best at that and it can be pretty easy to adapt a "woe is me" attitude when things aren't going brilliantly. However, I'm glad I took part in the challenge as it reminded me to see the positive in things every day and to be grateful for them.

"Carry you!"

Caleb has just gone down for his nap so I thought  would take the opportunity to blog about the cuteness of our morning while it is still fresh in my mind!

It is a gorgeous sunny day today and really warm, so Caleb and I walked into town (I walked, he was in his buggy). It's about a 4.5 mile round trip and when we probably do this walk a couple of times a week. On the way, Caleb is in his buggy and on the way back, he usually walks most of it. We did a few things while we were in town, which included buying him some sunglasses. He is so thrilled with them!

While we were there, I started to not feel that great so decided to head back. It would probably have been easier to keep Caleb in the buggy and just walk home but he knows the routine and obviously wanted to walk! So he did, I put his reins on him and he walked for around 100m. Then he decided that he didn't want to walk anymore. He stopped, turned to me with his little arms outstretched and said, "carry you!" I tried to persuade him to go in the buggy again, but no, he wanted to be carried. Part of me was quite happy because I enjoy carrying him when he asks me to, he's so independent and doesn't really seem to need me that much so I like it when it happens! But the other part of me thought that it is such a warm day, I don't feel great and I don't really want to have to carry him all that way.

The nicer part of me won on this occasion and I'm so glad it did because we had such a lovely time! He kept taking both of our sunglasses off, tapping them against each other and saying "cheers!" like they were drinks. He also wanted to see my eyes so he would pull off my glasses and point at / poke me in the eyes which he thought was hilarious. On a few occasions on the way home I asked him if he wanted to walk and would try to put him down but he would grip on with his legs and say "carry you!". Then I would rearrange him into a position that was comfortable for me to carry him in and he would rearrange himself into a position on my hip that was more comfortable for him! We chatted away and sang songs ("Royals" and "All of Me" in case you were wondering - they're two of his favourites) and I kept telling him that he should carry me, which he thought was pretty funny. During the walk, he took our sunglasses off again and swapped them so that we were wearing each others, then kept saying, "cool!" as he was looking at me / his reflection in the glasses I was wearing. That boy makes me laugh so much.

Finally as we were walking through an outdoor shopping area to get home, Caleb decided he would walk for a bit and push the buggy as well. I was holding his reins and at one point, he tripped and fell. I tried to stop him falling by pulling on the reins but probably made it worse because he then kind of swung into the side of the buggy and hit his head on the metal frame. Cue lots of tears! He doesn't usually cry when he hurts himself, he just jumps up and carries on so when he's properly crying I know that he is actually hurt. I knelt down to hug him and he wrapped his little arms around me and lay his head on my shoulder. At first, I thought I was the one who was rocking us back and forth and then I realised it was actually him! He finally let go (I never let go of him first when we cuddle, I like to make the most of it! Plus, my sister once told me of a quote that said, "when a child hugs you, never be the first one to let go; you never know how much they need it". I kind of live by that now!) only to go to the changing bag, pull out his muslin (his comforter of choice), come back to me as I was still kneeling on the pavement and continue to cuddle me, even though he had stopped crying at this point. My heart may have melted a bit.

We both carried on walking and when we walked past a bench, he pulled me by the hand towards it and said, "cuddle!". So we sat on the bench, he laid against me and we sang "Annie's song" (one of his favourites if he's hurt or something) as we cuddled. He was singing along too (and in tune with me, I might add! That boy is a musical genius! Either that or we were both horrendously out of tune ;)). After that, I carried him the rest of the way home.

As I said, he's napping now and I'm still not feeling that wonderful but I'm so glad that rather than insisting on him going back in the buggy I carried him because we had such a lovely time and there were so many sweet moments during that walk home that again reminded me how blessed I am to have such an amazing boy.

Disclaimer: In case you're reading this and thinking that I think I'm pretty amazing, I really don't think that at all and I know that there are a million things I could be doing so much better. I have plenty of days where, as lovely as Caleb is, he is really hard work and I feel like I am really not cut out for this motherhood thing, but today it just reminded me to cherish the little things because really, they are the big things!

Developments

Can you believe that Caleb is actually going to be two in less than two months? I'm not sure I'm ready for that, it seriously only seems like five minutes ago that he was born and a cute little new born baby who I could just cuddle lots. And now, he runs around like a mad thing! That boy just loves to be on the move ALL THE TIME. He is just so busy and into everything. I thought I would just blog about some of his recent developments because I think they're cute and even if no one else cares, I know that my Mum at least reads this and she can never get enough of Caleb so at least one person other than myself will find it interesting!

He has started to say "I love you"! It is the cutest thing and it makes me melt every time he says it. Usually he says it in response to me saying it to him first but the other night when I put him to bed, he said it first! It was adorable.

He has recently developed a love for teddy bears. One of them is actually mine, it's a bear wearing graduation robes which my Mum got me for my graduation (obviously) ten years ago. He is obsessed with it. Seth said to me the other day that he is sure that when Mum gave it to me that I wasn't thinking that in 10 years time my son would love to play with it. He's quite right about that! The way he says "teddy bear" is really sweet, he puts the emphasis on "bear" and I love hearing him say it. Yes, I do make him repeat it over and over and pretend that I don't know what he's saying just so that I can hear him say it. I'm a good Mum like that.....

He can count to thirteen and backwards from 10 to 1. He also recognises numbers up to 10 and when we're out and about, he will randomly shout out numbers as he sees them. This worked really well for me when I went to the hospital for a blood test a couple of months ago. You go in and take a ticket and they have the board where your number flashes up. We were waiting there for around 45 minutes but Caleb was more than happy to be there as he was busy calling out the numbers as they came up.

He is beginning to recognise letters and he knows all of the letters in his own name.

He is beginning to get more cuddly! This makes me so happy as he really can't be bothered with cuddles most of the time. When I get him up from his afternoon nap, we will sit on the sofa and watch CBeebies and cuddle for a few minutes. It never lasts more than a few minutes but I'm grateful for what I can get! The other day, he walked up to Seth in the kitchen and said "cubble me!" (cuddle me). Seth bent down to him and Caleb threw his arms around his neck and put his head on Seth's shoulder. I must admit, I welled up a bit.

He has started to tell himself off. A couple of weeks ago I heard him say to himself, "no Caleb, naughty! Get down! Good boy". I went into the lounge to see that he had climbed onto the TV stand and was sitting there. I must admit, it's so hard to try and discipline him when I am trying not to laugh!

He knows the names of everyone in our families. This is not an easy thing to learn as Seth and I are both from big families and we have about 18 nephews and nieces between us. It's really sweet hearing him pick these things up.

He has started to repeat things that we say. Luckily, we never say anything that we wouldn't really want him to repeat but it's so funny hearing it. A couple of days ago, Seth said, "thanks babes" to me (by the way, he never calls me "babes" seriously. Just when he's trying to sound like an east Londoner) and Caleb repeated it. Not quite sure how I feel about my almost two year old calling his Mum "babes" but it was pretty amusing.

Okay, so I actually ended up sharing quite a lot of developments! And I know that there are probably so much more. Caleb is growing up so fast but I love seeing the little person he is becoming.