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All the ways I love you

Izzy and Ellie enjoying a joke
It's all a bit manic at the moment. I missed writing a post on Sunday and suddenly it's Thursday - new year, new job madness. The weeks are spinning by quickly and it's the end of January tomorrow and we all know that means the year just starts to get away from you!

As it's January and I've started a new job I'm very much trying to maintain some balance and hold onto the sense of calm that I'd found over the Christmas break. 3 weeks out of office and a clean break from one company to the next is always going to provide a moment of peace in between the madness. Yoga helps hugely - my twice weekly chance to re-ground myself and breathe deeply. I also love to read books influenced by psychology and biology - I'm fascinated about what's happening in our bodies and brains, particularly as the kids are going through such a seminal stage of their lives.

I've just finished one all about how rushing about causes all kinds of biological effects on women's bodies and brains which then impacts everything from digestion, sleep, your immune and nervous system and so. All this makes perfect sense - we weren't designed to rush about like we do today with never ending to-do lists and technology which results in us being always on. One of the areas the book talked about was to take the time daily to be grateful - in doing so it makes you slow down and think if nothing else. To this end Izzy and lay on her bed last night and played a game of 'all the ways I love you' which I have to say left me feeling like I wanted to stop time and hold onto the moment forever - I guess the book has a point! I went first and my top 3 were:

1) Her never ending smile
2) That she comes and hugs me and tells me she loves me
3) That she is always open to a new challenge and will try new things

Her three for me:
1) Hugs and kisses
2) Looking after her
3) When I spend time with her and buy her presents I make her feel special

I plan to repeat this with Abi, but clearly not in the morning given she won't speak to me in the morning at all - she completely blanks me if it's a school day and she's had to get up at 7am! I have learnt now not to try and make her do differently - she's a teenager and I should be happy she's talking to me at all!

Talking about kids we caught up with JoJo and her 4 over the weekend. She's had a tough time recently so it was good to see her and check in on how she's doing. The boys are growing up so fast - Edward is now, like Izzy of course, in his secondary school years and is too cool for over the top demonstrations of affection but was obviously very happy to see the girls. Ellie, the one who knows Abi and Izzy least was ecstatic to see them and wouldn't let go of Izzy for the whole time we were together. We went completely retro and met at the Living Rainforest, somewhere they used to go together a lot.  They loved it, albeit commenting it's a lot smaller than they remember - welcome to getting older!

Got to go - I'm writing this on the train and blissfully the journey is not as long as it used to be - another little thing to be grateful for every day!

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