Young & Younger

23/52

Heather — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 19:50:19 +0000

‘A portrait of my children, once a week, every week in 2013′

Inspired by the 52 Project at Che and Fidel

Ez: Sharing a joke with friends over dinner after a day catching up in the sunshine
Fonz: Counting with fingers to negotiate how many pieces of pasta he’s willing to eat

22/52

Heather — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 06:38:00 +0000

‘A portrait of my children, once a week, every week in 2013′

Inspired by the 52 Project at Che and Fidel

Fonz: Entranced by his first ever campfire
Ez: Enjoying a hot drink with friends before bed

12 go camping

Heather — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 21:10:00 +0000

It’s been a while, but I’m finally rediscovering my love of camping. All of my childhood holidays were spent under canvas or in a battered old caravan, and after investing in a tent last summer, I’m remembering how much fun camping as a family really is. This week we headed off to Suffolk to meet up with two other families (total six adults, six kids) for a three night stay. It may have been a bit wet, it may have been mighty chilly but we didn’t let that dampen our spirits. Campfires, late night chats, seaside trips, den building, ice cream eating, kite flying and general merriment were all in plentiful supply, and I honestly didn’t want the trip to end, even though by that point I was so cold I wondered if I would ever feel warm again.

On one of my three hideously early morning starts (next time there will be a concerted effort to drape some kind of blackout fabric around the twins’ bedroom compartment or I will resort to taping eye masks to their faces), as I lay cocooned in my four-season sleeping bag, desperately attempting to ignore the ear-splitting sound of the crows overhead and the twins bickering over the ipad, I drafted a brilliant blog post in my head, listing all the wonderful things I deem essential for a successful family camping trip. Of course now I come to write said post, I cannot remember a single one of my witty and insightful must-haves, so I’m afraid these will have to do instead…

Brilliant company – Emily (from Mummy Limited), Kelly (from A Place Of My Own) and I met through our blogs when I first began blogging over three years ago. We have become closer and closer as the years have passed, and we were so proud that we managed to get ourselves organised to go away together with our families for the first time. I couldn’t have asked for better company, the kids just fell in with each other as if they meet up everyday, and spending the time with such a great group of people definitely made the lack of sleep well worth it. Despite knowing my children were likely to rise at dawn every morning (which they dutifully did), I still couldn’t tear myself away from our campfire chats to go to bed at a sensible time.

Bed essentials – eye mask, ear plugs and a hot water bottle (or two). The eye mask won’t stop your children waking at dawn, but at least you can throw your ipad in their general direction, put your eye mask back on and snooze for the next hour and a half. The ear plugs will also help with this, and they’re handy when you’re sharing a small bedroom compartment with a husband who snores like a trooper when he’s drunk too much red wine. The hot water bottle needs no explanation.

A campfire – Despite camping countless times as a child, I don’t ever remember having campfires, except when singing round one at Guide camp. This week we stayed on a campsite where fires were allowed and I’ve fallen head over heels in love. I love the smell, the warmth, the crackle, the cosiness of huddling round it with your camping companions, and watching the flames and coals flicker as darkness falls. I’m not a fan of marshmallows, but fizzy strawberry laces melted in the flames were a more than acceptable alternative.

Baby wipes – My addiction to the baby wipe is widely known, but I can now add camping to it’s endless applications. Brilliant at wiping up mud from the floor of the tent, baby wipes were also the closest thing to a wash my children saw for the four days we were away.

Cake – After raising our hopes with her promise of an amazing sounding homemade rhubarb crumble cake, Kelly forgot to pack it. I will never, ever let her forget it.

Kite – The idea to get the kite out can be credited to Emily’s eldest, and it was one of the biggest hits of our trip. We were surprised how well the older kids could manage the kite on their own, and Fonz even perfected the art of lying on the floor and flying the kite with one hand. Nonchalance is his middle name. All the kids absolutely loved it and we’ll definitely be getting ourselves one of our own as soon as possible.

Bacon – Starting the day without one of the awesome bacon butties Emily cooked up for everyone every morning is going to take a bit of getting used to. A real mood booster, it’s a camping tradition that I hope we stick to from now on.

3G – Get three bloggers who can’t get enough of Twitter and Instagram together in one place and 3G coverage is essential, even if it does result in Instagram being swamped with all our camping snaps. It didn’t take us long to identify the best spots on the campsite for 3G, and we were particularly delighted to discover we could tweet each other from our separate beds in the morning. Our biggest challenge was the constant battle with the phone batteries.

My Instagram camping favourites…

20/52

Heather — Sun, 19 May 2013 19:59:54 +0000

‘A portrait of my children, once a week, every week in 2013′

Inspired by the 52 Project at Che and Fidel

Fonz: Wheezy boy waiting patiently for his turn on the fairy swing
Ez: So excited to take her dad to the wood where the fairies live

Twin myths: who’s in charge?

Heather — Fri, 17 May 2013 06:45:14 +0000

It’s a question I get asked a lot about my twins: “Who’s the boss?”

I can honestly say that when it comes to my two, there isn’t one. More often than not, it’ll be Ez directing play (she has always been more independent and her imaginative play has developed faster than Fonz’s), but I wouldn’t say that means she’s in charge. If strong-willed Fonz wants to join in, he will, but make no mistake – it’ll be on his own terms. When he gets bored (as he frequently does), he’ll instantly stop cooperating and either leave Ez to carry on or, more often than not, wind her up by trying to change the game or the way it’s being played. Which infuriates her, obviously.

There are times when both of them are engaged for a long period of time, and there are times when it lasts a minute at most, and then there’s a dispute that brings the play to an end. Sometimes I step in, sometimes I leave them to try to try to reach an agreement themselves. That choice usually depends on the level of violence the disagreement involves. I draw the line at biting chunks out of each other, for example. But otherwise, I reason that conflict resolution is a good skill to have in their arsenal.

And when it comes to behaviour, or the often asked “who’s the naughty one?” question, they switch it up all the time too. When one goes through a challenging period, this often makes the other twin all the more obliging. It’s like they can’t wait to grasp the opportunity to show their sibling up, and so they suddenly become polite, responsive, helpful and generally delightful with the sole intent of highlighting the fact that their sibling’s lying on the floor, kicking and screaming because I’ve had to admit to them that I’m unable to ensure that there’s a sun in the sky instead of rain falling heavily.

I can’t quite decide if I’m better off having them take turns at challenging their boundaries, because having two of them doing it at the same time might actually be enough to make me give up getting out of bed in the morning, or whether it’s a pain because I never seem to benefit from two impeccably behaved toddlers at once (I can’t believe I actually just typed the phrase “impeccably behaved toddler”. As if).

This week we seem to be in a land of Happy Medium, where both twins are just content to be normal toddlers, with the usual unpredictable mix of extreme highs and extreme lows, but in short, sharp bursts rather than 24/7. It’s nice. I’m pretty sure they’re doing it because we have two nights away from them on a mini break to Brighton. Save the best behaviour for the grandparents, right?!

{Monday Movie} A sunny day on Southbank

Heather — Mon, 13 May 2013 08:31:05 +0000

Southbank in the sunshine from Heather Young on Vimeo.

I enjoyed every single one of the six weeks on the Shooting Stories eCourse I did with Capturing Childhood, learning more about shooting, editing and crafting my home videos. I can’t recommend it highly enough to get more out of your film-making, and it’s left me really keen to try another one of Capturing Childhood’s photography courses. I’m thinking it’s about time I learned how to use my camera on the manual setting for a start. Kat and Kat have also started running photography workshops, so at some point I’d love to go along to one of them.

I’ve been meaning to share my end of course project here since I finished it, but somehow time has run away from me as usual. This is a video of a day trip to London’s Southbank to meet up with some old friends. We were so lucky with the weather and had an absolutely fantastic day. I couldn’t wait to start editing the footage as soon as I got home and am pretty pleased with the finished film. It’s definitely not something I would have been able to put together before the Shooting Stories course.

19/52

Heather — Sun, 12 May 2013 20:07:43 +0000

‘A portrait of my children, once a week, every week in 2013′

Inspired by the 52 Project at Che and Fidel

Fonz: Very engrossed in our first ‘Movie Afternoon’ film
Ez: Doesn’t like “the black bits” in popcorn

The secret fairy woods

Heather — Thu, 09 May 2013 18:39:27 +0000

This afternoon we went in search of fairies. We had a tip off that a fairy kingdom had recently appeared in a local wood, and so we set off to visit the fairy folk that had taken up residence. Eyes peeled, we followed winding paths through the bluebells, looking high and low for our fairy friends.

The person responsible for this wonderful spectacle remains a closely-guarded local secret, but whoever you are, thank you for a truly magical experience.

18/52

Heather — Tue, 07 May 2013 19:59:43 +0000

‘A portrait of my children, once a week, every week in 2013′

Inspired by the 52 Project at Che and Fidel

Ez: Showing off the dress she picked herself on a shopping trip
Fonz: Watching the bigger boys play football

Finding my rhythm

Heather — Fri, 03 May 2013 05:36:06 +0000

For the last couple of years the rhythm of my working life has been unpredictable, like an avant garde concerto, veering from intense passages that run so fast it’s almost impossible to keep up with any semblance of melody, to periods of wobbly calm, which remind me of the old metronome I used to have at home which was so overwound it was on the verge of stopping altogether, but instead lurched unsteadily from one beat to the next. Brief interludes that seem like a break but that actually just remind you that you need to keep the beat, not lose your place in the music before the next crescendo begins once again.

But I feel like in the last six months or so, the music is settling into a cohesive piece. There are still moments when it feels like I’m going to get swept away, but I don’t. I ride them out, and find myself learning how to navigate, I’m noticing the repeats, seeing patterns, feeling in control (to a certain extent). Friends and family may have picked up the beat before me, recognising my mood changes at each stage of a big project but it’s taken me a little longer to grasp.

When I jacked in a perfectly good job on a successful magazine to go freelance because I didn’t want my days at work to outnumber my days at home I thought that at best my career would be on pause. Really, I thought it would probably go backwards, especially when I realised that balancing work and the kids won’t just suddenly become easy when the twins start school next year.

What I definitely didn’t expect was for my career to advance. I didn’t expect the amazing opportunities that have come my way. To see myself challenged, to take on more responsibility, to manage a team. To get to be creative. At first I felt way out of my depth, but now I’m finding my feet and relishing those challenges. And for once I actually know what I’m working on for months at a time. Continuity, security, control. I’ve got it back in my life and I’ve missed it. I’m under no illusion – the freelance work is fickle so who knows what’ll happen after the final project ends in September, but for now I’m just going to enjoy not worrying about it.

Of course I’m knackered. Of course there are days, weeks even, when the pressure feels so great I think I’m going to crack, and all I can think about is what I’m not doing, rather than what I am managing to get done, but I’m pretty sure that’s normality for a working parent. But I know what makes me happy and I may actually be getting closer to finding a balance that suits me and my family.

That pot of gold at the end of the rainbow might be mine one day.