a week before our birthdays, we had a photo shoot in virginia water with Aunty Maja - one of mummy's favourite photographers (check out all her fab work here). mummy had decided that we were going to make family portraits a tradition every June. mummy loves a birthday centred tradition. she already set up the one where her birthday is celebrated throughout the month of March. she said when she was born she was sure people didn't just pitch up that day & move on. they must've been streaming in steadily throughout the month & sending my grandma messages to check all was ok. all these moments must be celebrated she says. naturally we are following suit so June & July have been all about us!! well - sort of. somehow mummy has found a way to get in there by saying mums should be celebrated on their kids birthdays as they carried them for 9 months & delivered them with much gnashing of teeth. yep - she'll do anything for a gift that one. so we had this photo shoot which mummy is hoping will form part of a lovely gallery wall in years to come. She said we don't have to be the royal family to commemorate special days in our lives. but aren't we royal? daddy said i'm a princess...

 

 

 

 



 

 

the centre of the shoot was baby Judah's brand new radioflyer wagon.  mummy had planned it all in her  head - probably from the beginning of time. she had always fantasised about her kids having this wagon and spending many a summer dragging eachother around in it. as soon as judah was born, that was it. she began researching the wagon. after a brief dry mouth period induced by the £200 price tag, mummy hatched a plan to get daddy to bring it over from the USA where it cost around £70. more palatable.

 

 



 

 

she assured daddy it would fit in his suitcase. look at it. ofcourse it didn't. so daddy had to stone face it past customs and gave mummy an assurance that he wont be trusting her word again. mummy was too busy texting aunty maja confirming that the central item was in the country and the shoot was on. imagine mummy's horror when we all arrived at virginia water & the screws started falling out as daddy dragged it along. (apparently he hadn't had the right tools when he put it together that morning. no, we don't do things last minute at all.)  aunty maja suggested perhaps leaving it. silence fell. mummy would have carried it on her head if she had to! she had a dream & it would come to pass! daddy remembered all his hard work to get it here. so he carried it. one of my my godmothers', aunty Tinashe, helped out too. they had all bought into the nutty woman's idea! we had fun in the woods with bubbles, laughter & tense moments as passers-by admired the wagon, waiting to see it  really move & mummy worrying about it crashing spectacularly should we indulge their curiosity.

 

 



 

so here's to new traditions and new adventures with our new wagon! yes, it's ours baby judah: What's mine is mine, because it has "i" in it, and what's yours is ours because there's "ours" in it. thats what i heard mummy explaining to daddy the other day...

 

i wore : top - primark , skirt - zara , sandals - gapkids

baby judah wore: top & trousers - gapkids

mummy wore : dress - french connection

daddy wore: trousers & shirt -gap, shoes - office shoes

 

do you have any fun family traditions? please share :)

   **all images shot by maja tsolo of maja tsolo photography**

xoxo

 

Translation: happy birthday to me!!!!!!!
Erm Judah, it's 6am! Go back to sleep! More importantly, let me go back to sleep & keep calling you Baby Judah in my dream.
You've woken up so full of beans - is it possible that you know it's your birthday? You are desperately trying to wake your sister up - ah, there you go, she's kicked you in the cheek! Now she's awake. She's happy, oh now she isn't - and now daddy is awake too! He is referee today - a job you helped introduce to our lives the day you arrived.
That beautiful day that you came and showed us our capacity to love was greater than we ever imagined. I had spent many a day wondering if I could ever love another child the way I loved your sister. You've shown me I can. And that my love for her can grow even more because of you & the sides to her you have helped to reveal.



You are such a joy. Your smile lights up the room and every fibre of my being. Not least because you took your time to jump on the smiley bandwagon! Then your laugh! Oh your laugh is like a drink of water on a hot day. We anticipated the day you'd finally laugh & it took a  while. You laugh on your own terms and are proving quite the tough one to amuse! We love it though - you are helping to sharpen our comedic skills!

I can already understand why they say the bond between a mother & her son is special. You have n't started crawling yet (you still miraculously get from one end of the room to the next!). Am I in a hurry to encourage that? Answer: would I be in a hurry for you to get your first girlfriend? Anything that keeps you close to me for one more day can only be a good thing in my book! ( plus it stops you wrecking this now sold flat! You are a very strong boy!)



We named you Judah: God be praised. May people thank God that you walked into their lives. Be a source of Joy & strength for those around you - just by being you! We also called you Iyanu - a wonder. May you truly be a wonder. Rise above every stereotype & expectation & be an example for others to follow.

Our prayer is that you live up to your names & that we will have the skills to bring you up to fulfill your potential & live your dream.

My selfish prayer? That we have our special mother son bond that no woman can put asunder!! Sigh. Ok - fine. That you'll always indulge me and your sister in a little bum jive in the kitchen as we dance to Bracket's "Girl, Girl!"

My Baby Judah. Even when you become a teenager and scowl when I say it, I'll whisper it under my breath as I wish you a good day at school. And at night when you go to sleep and have a "hazardous area, do not enter!" Sign on your door, I'll stand over you as you sleep and still see my baby.



I love you more than you'll ever know

(and more than any woman....ok sorry..)

(What do you mean who is Bracket?)

 

xxx

I can hear you now in the living room - shouting, jumping and as excited as ever! The day you've been anticipating all year is finally here & you are 3. I'm sitting in my room, listening to you telling daddy - " I'm 3 now! 2 is gone daddy! I'm 3! Dillon had his birthday already. Now it's mine daddy." I know your daddy is so happy - he was up decorating that living room just so he could see that reaction this morning

 



 

 

 



 



 

 

Oh Morayo-Hope! How can you be 3 already? I remember crying everyday in the run up to your actual birth! "Where is this baby??!! Why does he / she not want to come out??!" I had become an emotional wreck. Meanwhile there you were enjoying yourself on the inside - taking advantage of the full 2 weeks they allowed you to go over the due date. Sigh. If I'd known in a blink of an eye you'd be screaming "I'm a big girl now!", I might have held on tightly to you in my tummy. Treasured those last days of us being truly inseparable.

Now as each day passes, I'm understanding why we were taught that good parenting is equipping our kids with the tools they need to leave. Because one day that's what you will do.
I'm watching as your baby chub slowly disappears. Your once round feet and hands are taking shape. Your little face is looking less like a toddler's and more like a little girl's. Trying to hold onto you, too keep you this way, is like chasing vapours. For now I'm hiding in my room desperately holding onto you as my 2yr old for a few more minutes....

 





 


My prayer for you today is that your life lives up to the names we gave you. Morayo: "I have seen joy" - May your life always be characterised by Joy. May those who see you know what true joy is & declare "I have seen joy!". Hope - and may they know the hope that Joy brings. Anashe - "one who is with The Lord"- May you always know that God is with you. (Psalm 23).
I also selfishly pray that we will always be friends. That you will never tire of our spontaneous dances in the kitchen & of our made up songs. That you will will always think I'm "the best cooker in the whole wide world!". That my jokes will still make you laugh even when you're 30. That you'll always need me for something nobody else can give - no, not my milk, seriously you are 3 now! (Stop trying it - it's been 2 whole years, get over it!)



 



 

 

I hope something about me being your only mum will keep you coming back to me. I love you.

 

 

oh yes!! it's that time of year - birthday season is upon us! i am so excited as i am going to be 3 this year! as i am a bit bigger and can articulate myself vocally - (as you know i was born already writing) - i have been dropping hints here and there about what i'd like for my birthday. well, not so much what i want for my birthday. just what i want generally. it turns out that mummy is smarter and has asked the girls in nursery to tell her what i enjoy doing best during playtime and cross checked it with her own observations at home. from there she has come up with a list of top contenders for my gift.

1. a scooter

everytime we go to the park i stop and stare at the little kids on their scooters longingly. mummy finds it very upsetting and it takes her back to the days when she and my uncle really wanted bmx bikes but my sekuru (grandpa) had bought them some bikes from India as kids. they had to manage those bikes well into their teens. they were frequently laughed at but my sekuru was never one to cower at peer pressure. thankfully my mum hasn't got such strong resolve and is already eyeing up this nifty little scooter because she's a sucker for the prettiest of them all. she also says she likes that it has 3 wheels making it easier for me to learn to balance & she's read great reviews about it. pah! she's a sucker!

available from john lewis - click here or from Mini Micro Scooter - click here

2.  a dolls house

as some of you may know, earlier this year i was admitted to hospital. during my time there i was confined to my room & my favourite thing to do was playing with a dolls house. at nursery i also spend a lot of time playing with my friends in the dolls house corner.  mummy never had a dolls house growing up. infact, she stopped playing with dolls prematurely as one of her aunts said she should move on from that at the age of 7. i reckon she secretly wants this for herself!

available here

3. a play  kitchen

my favourite thing to do is help mummy with the cooking! she lets me have a plastic knife and chop mushrooms and sweet peppers. i also help her to stir the food in the wok - away from the stove ofcourse! at nursery i spend much of my time in the cooking corner.  mummy is keen to harness this passion i have for cooking. she said she was able to make simple meals at 10. this was mainly because she had an aunty who stayed with them who constantly went on and on about how well her younger cousins could cook & how at the age of 8 one of them was cooking meals for her entire family. one day mummy flipped and shouted "THATS BECAUSE THEY LIVE IN THE RURAL AREAS!!!!".  You could have heard a pin drop. (the girls older sister was staying with them at the time so it was extra inappropriate.) mummy's aunt said "WATI CHII??!!" (you said WHAT?!!). Feeling extra recalcitrant mummy opened her mouth to repeat herself when she noticed that one of her aunt's arms was  reaching for a wooden spoon. she sprinted out of the kitchen, her aunt hot-footing it behind her spoon in hand, and her cousin following screaming "please don't hit her!".

mummy ran across the seemingly never-ending front yard and leapt over the gate. she spent the rest of the afternoon sitting by the gate till some visitors came to her rescue. she loved visitors. as mummy knows she could be arrested if caught chasing me with a wooden spoon, she's decided  to make me love to cook and save herself some future drama!

she currently loves these two as they are neutral colours & non stereotypical! judah will cook!

available here

or

available here (a new little shop we've discovered thanks to our facebook fan - thanks Kirsty!)

mummy is obsessed with wooden toys as she is becoming more passionate about recycling.  she also loves toys that both judah and i can play with and enjoy together. phew - i'm off to be a very good girl because i'll be soooo happy to have any of these!!

morayo-hope

xoxo

I'm sitting on a bus at 7am. I should've been on it at 6:30 but that's part of the joy of being a working mummy. You can have all these plans of being somewhere impeccably dressed and a half hour early but instead pitch up breathless with a whiff of milk lingering around you & a piece of Lego in the pouch your lipstick should have been. This morning I was up at 5:15 and thought surely today is the day I will leave before the babies are up. As I got on with brushing my teeth I wondered how Kola would handle MH's hair & wondered if I should do it whilst she slept...hmm. Then I remembered I still needed to sort out Judah's stuff for the day so I decided he'd be fine. Feeling excited that I was going to enjoy getting dressed in front of the TV, I bounced out of the shower & was greeted by 2 giggling little people snuggled up to their dad in bed. No. It's 5:45! I was so unamused. Judah started whimpering for me as MH yelled out "say good morning to me mummy!". I immediately knew 6:30 was out of the window. Breakfast in London was out of the window. Cereal bar and a bottle of orange juice were probably as good as it would get. I carried Judah about as I got on with stuff and began to feel increasingly emotional. I didn't want to leave him. I didn't want to leave with the sound of his scream ringing in my ears. I wanted to cuddle him a bit more. Take him to the park and play on the swings. I want to sing to him and watch him finally crawl for the first time.   Everyday I ask myself why I have to work, why i have to be up at the crack of dawn after very little sleep. Why I have to spend my 40 minute journey from home to nursery to work getting the baby lingo out of my head and practising sounding like an educated human being. yes yes yes.... it's for the very same people I want to stay at home with. For that house with a garden that we so want them to have & grow in and blah blah. For that school they can go to and that future they could have. Siiiiiigh. Ok fine, so i do enjoy the dressing up. And the lunch hour i can spend by myself, with that delicious sound of....nothing! Oh my - I can catch up on my magazine subscription from the last year - all still in their plastic wrap - #truestory.   Some mummy friends who had the option to choose to press pause on career and  did so have loved it. Others in that same camp are full on encouraging me to get back to work, citing various reasons for why they'd have gone back if they knew what they know now. Some working mum friends feel like I do, and wish they could be with their babies. I certainly look on with envy at mums pushing strollers in town. It's like they are there to torment me. I want to throw an egg at them.  Other working mums couldn't be happier. Full time mummyhood is no mean feat! Work is easier in many respects - top of the list being nobody is following you everywhere and making you pee with the door open. (if they are, speak to your HR manager- that right there is harassment). So as I now arrive at my destination I know I must pull it together. Off come the trainers, on go the heels. A quick look in the mirror to ensure I don't have panda eyes. Another quick look for that lipstick I know I put there.....nope, its gone. Oh well, I'll hold onto this piece of Lego...... and remember I'm doing this because I love them. just like  all mummy's who've made the decision to do whatever it is they're doing.

Are you a mum / dad? Do you face this struggle too? How have you learnt to deal with your "tug of war"?

**images are by tauyaz vision photography