11 11 11 Armistice Day

An absolutely gorgeous evening with Kristi last night. All donned in our long dresses we hit the red carpet, gazed in disbelief at the movie, sauntered over to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and I drank her champagne for her at the after party (she's with child).

Back to Callum's huge and wonderful pile of birthday presents. Carnage ensued. We had such great fun opening them. I like him to savour them a little and spread the presents out over a few days for him. He'd been given a little glider bike earlier from me and I don't buy big presents, and Reuben's gift to Callum, a photo album of a day we shared on the beach in the summer.

At 11 11 11, the 11th hour, we took the boys into the playroom and Reuben acknowledged "quiet time". I thought long and hard about the First World War as this moment was originally marked to honour, this being Armistice Day. I thought about the war poetry we studied at school. I thought about my Grandad who'd been shot in the ear on the front line and went on to live a long life in Dublin. I thought about that twist of fate which would otherwise have left me null and void. And I cried as I always do at this moment.

And I thought about my Blip of last year on the thumb below.

I have a fascination with big days, studying history at school fuelling that and today was surely one of the biggest. So I wrote it down for the boys and tried to explain a little about it. All the ones coming together.

Jenn arrived in the afternoon to help out with Reuben. Now that she no longer works as his night nurse, I utterly love and respect her company on the times she's now able to come out, or join me on a day out with the boys and she'll indulge me in my passion and try to learn a little about photography along the way, capturing us. We tackled the playroom, weeding out the toddler toys which I'm finding hard to let go of, or more likely, the fact that my boys are growing up too fast. That grief for the toddlerdom having passed for the last time. Thankfully tonight Jenn she was able to help get me into bed as an excruciating migraine hit me, one of my worst ever leaving me pathetic, but unusually it was almost gone the next day. I can feel traces of it still, writing this on 12th and it's coming from my back and neck. I'm only grateful that I now infrequently suffer them.