Eye Spy - Favourite Childrens Party Game

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Although it may seem that I have fallen off the planet and in many ways I feel I have, I have found my way back on and found the world is still spinning. Some of you will know that I recently returned to my home town in New Zealand and while I was there catching up with all my family and friends I also shared a wee exhibition of my creations with two friends. I will tell you more about that and the rest of my time away soon, but first I thought I should catch up with my Eye Spys. Especially since Cindy asked me to come up with last weeks topic and I choose, "A favourite childhood game/ party game".

I LOVE children's partys. I had great joy in organising them for the children in my life when I was a teenager until I could plan my own children's parties. They are teenagers now so don't want to play pass the parcel, but I still do. Like Cindy and Christina I love pin the tail on the donkey but since I favour themed parties we have pinned the tail on the dragon, given the fairy a wand and put the hat on the gnome. I can't for the life on me find any pictures of these occasions, maybe we were having too much fun. I also love the children to get involved and we have decorated cupcakes and made pizza and ice-cream sundaes. Sometimes the simplest games are the most fun, like when we had a sand castle competition (everyone wins a prize) ............Or feeding the animals like we did last week at niece beansie's party. That's her cousins feeding the highland calves and the pig at Grans farm.

But I think if I had to choose one, please note I can't even follow my own rules and choose just one, I would have to come back to pass the parcel, I love the anticipation and who doesn't like opening a present. Everyone gets a prize in my version and in the middle a prize for all to share. Oh but I just remembered treasure hunts......

Eye Spy - Inventing

Remember when you were young and biking to horse riding, or swimming, or whatever your after school activity was. It had been a long day at school full of learning and important lunchtime activities and it was hot and there was a head wind and you just wanted to be there. Of course then I wanted to time/ space travel and to just be there, I wanted to be able to with mind powers be able to get kind parent and grandparents with cars to stop and pick me up and drive me there (obviously before mobile phones), I also wanted to be older, to have left school, to have left home to be able to live by my rules... ahh how I was so misinformed. Today if I could invent a way to play with time it would be much more about slowing things down, to give me more hours to play with, to create in, to enjoy my growing children, to have more time with friends, to have more time to be still.
But playing with time is not the invention I am thinking about this week. I think I will have to return to the Amanda's invention that started this eye spy this week. I would like to invent something where we Mums can take and carry the pain for our children. I am glad that my children have mostly had a good run however there have been time aplenty when I wish I could do it for them, to have the blood tests, to mend the broken arm, to help them to breathe freely. My kids are getting big now and I still wish this.

A friend's teenage daughter has been very sick this week and I know that she wishes she could be sick for her, to suffer for her, and save her from the fear and the pain. Even dealing with disappointment and broken hearts I wish that I could carry that for them. But I can't, I can only be there and hold them and wait for it to pass. And I know this wish for our children never stops. I remember my Mum crying for me when I was is labour with the first born, knowing that only I could do it, knowing she would have stepped in for me in a heart beat and knowing that already I would do anything for this child as yet unborn.

A little serious this week but it has been a serious week. Light and happiness will return after this short break.

Eye Spy - something in bloom/scars

This weeks eye spy compliments of bugs and pop is a two for the price of one deal. Something in Bloom and Scars. It is winter here at the moment so the only blooming going on is all the creating in my wee space and lovely winter cooking smells coming from the kitchen.
Scars though I have a few. No photos today partly because I don't know who has the camera and partly cause I am not convinced that seeing them would enrich anyones lives. But a wee list -
The ones I notice the most especially as I swim regularly for exercise are those love marks my children left behind many years ago. Transforming my trim and tidy wee body into the womens body it is today. I have a love hate relationship with my stretch marks, they don't fit the picture I have in my mind for how my body looks and yet I also know that they mark an important transition in my life.
I have a great scar on one of my fingers from a day I was helping a friend in the garden and sliced my finger with a serrated saw. I probably should have done something about it at the time but I had to pick up the kids and cook tea and.... consequently I have a scar.
Going back in time I have a burn mark on my elbow from a burn as a child, but I have no recollection of it. I am sure it was traumatic for my mother.
One scar I do remember receiving I collected while playing a very exciting game of dodge the cushion. Aged about 7 or 8 I guess, visiting friends there were probably at least seven kids needing entertaining. A game started where we had to run from the kitchen to the other side of the lounge to one of the bedrooms without being hit by a cushion thrown by one of the adults. I am guessing the weather kept us inside. It was great fun, full of anticipation, fear and triumph. We had all made it across the room with squeals and laughter. In the second round during my dash to safety, one of the flying cushions collected me with force and I fell right onto the corner of the chest freezer that was just outside the kitchen. I don't remember any pain or the blood but I do remember the bright light as I sat in the Doctors chair as he stitched up a wound on my forehead. No butterfly stitching in those days, we are talking needle and thread. It was a great wound for showing off to my friends, and I am pretty sure that the grown ups felt so guilty about what had happened that I got what I wanted for the rest of the day.
As a parent it has been strange to be on the other side as both my girls have broken their arms and had various bumps and bruises. Their memories are much more oriented around their favourite top that had to be cut off, what colour their cast was or that they got to choose what to have for tea that night (some mother guilt in action). I remember the sadness I felt the first time the first born fell and cut her lip in such a way I knew it would scar, that perfect precious skin marked, now I look at that scar and remember that moment in time, not the accident but that wee kids enthusiatic energy, running and giggling until she fell and then in my arms crying. I remember a time when a cuddle from Mum could just about cure everything. I look at their scars and my scars and notice the passage of time and reflect that as we grow we will collect a few scars like bookmarks in the story of our life. Oh how profound, I'll stop now before I wax on anymore all lyrical like... Thanks for coming with me on this wee indulgent journey.