The weekend before last I had the pleasure of spending a weekend with Robo Boy. Then last week my head was a little out of sorts, and I forgot to tell you all about it. Anyway better late than never.
With three children it sometimes feels like I spend so much time managing my family that I don’t get to spend any quality time with each child. So when my lovely friend Abbi invited me to take a trip and visit her house in London I decided that this would be a great opportunity to spend some one on one time with one of the children. I decided to take Robo Boy with me this time.
We drove down on Saturday, stayed overnight and came back on Sunday afternoon. Before hand I hadn’t realised how lovely this experience was going to be. Even the journey down was a pleasure. Having the time to chat to him over our service station lunch, playing silly games and laughing together whilst I drove, it was magical.
We spend our weekend doing simple things, a visit to a lakeside playground, dinner at The Harvester. What we were doing was unimportant, hanging out with my friend and my boy was the main attraction. He skipped, and shone with joy, revelling in the attention from us both. He behaved beautifully with no-one to fight or compete for my attention with.
I got the chance to see what a wonderful person he is becoming. He’s funny, sensitive and caring. He has an eye for detail, I let him use my SLR which he loved. He took care framing the pictures, finding the best angle.
He’s also interested in animals, my friend has cats and he was fascinated, first watching then playing with them. Dragging his special stick, found at the lakeside playground, along the ground for them to pounce on.
As we got ready for bed I asked if he minded sharing a bed with me, his reply filled my heart “thats the best bit of the weekend Mummy”. In the morning we lounged in bed, him watching Netflix on the iPad and me reading my book, cuddling up and enjoying the lack of plan.
This weekend showed me how much I need this time, one on one with the children. It also reminded me to notice them, in amongst the chaos and the logistics, to really see my babies and the people they’re becoming.
Here are a couple of the photos Robo Boy took (unedited), obviously I’m biased but I think he did pretty well on his first go with a proper camera. No jokes about which one is the goat!
