Sisters – November 2017 {Siblings}

You know when you have a plan? As a parent, as a blogger, a photographer, you have a plan that is almost certainly going to work because you even went to the trouble to write it down. Foolproof right? Or just foolish maybe? This weekend the plans to take the siblings photos didn’t exactly go, well, to plan! This is what leaving things until the last minute does for you isn’t it?

However sometimes, just sometimes, it can work right in your favour! Due to me needing rest on Sunday after a day in London and then the dawn of a new school week rushing in I literally left it until the very last moment to take this months siblings photos. After school pick up I asked the girls if they fancied going to have a run in the leaves in the familiar spot 2 minutes from our house. As often happens with grumpy afterschoolitis (that’s a word right?) I was fully anticipating they wouldn’t want to and I would take some photos on the sofa instead. I’d be happy with that. I was totally expecting that.

Yet I was greeted with excited voices and they literally jumped out of the car as we pulled up with the sun disappearing slowly behind the trees. They might be a bit grainy due to the light (thank you autumn for getting dark at 3.30) but I absolutely love these photos and they really symbolise how they are right now. They were happier than I could ever have wished for, ever have planned for and they didn’t want to leave, both of them. At the moment they are a team, playmates, that one person to champion the other and feel the joy in each others achievements. It is lovely to watch.

It has been the simplest of months for them really, we had half term adventures which brought them ever closer together and school runs which literally melt my heart when they chat like two old women in the back of the car, or Roma runs up to Eva every single day as she comes out of her classroom to give her the biggest of hugs right in the middle of the playground. When we attend Friday parent assembly Roma also cannot contain her excitement as she spots Eva even before I have and shouts “there she is” as if it is just the two of them in the room. Eva was given star of the week a few weeks ago and had to go up to the front to collect it, you could see them both look at each other with pride when Roma shouted “that’s my Eva” at the top of her voice, and they are just that, each others.

They have started playing schools where Eva teaches Roma her letters, Roma says good girl to Eva when she correctly gets an eye spy answer right which makes Eva laugh and she loves to ask Eva to write her weekly spellings. Eva finds it hilarious that Roma whispers them to her because that’s what I do for her, it sure does makes spelling tests much more fun! Eva has a cork board in the kitchen with her times tables and spelling for the week pinned on and Roma asked if she could have her own, so of course now they sit at the kitchen table at breakfast each staring at their boards, I do wonder when being the same will get old.

The copying continues, and continues to be tolerated, they love nothing more than wearing matching or similar clothes and delight in having the same hairstyle, bunches included like here, or pony pigs as Roma calls them! And that is another thing, I didn’t know she called them that, I wasn’t privy to that information that was merely a conversation between sisters until they were talking this morning and I was allowed into their own little world. It’s something I could never have imagined witnessing and one that I find amazing and fascinating. Aswell as a little frustrating at times.

Of course it isn’t all amazing days and best friends. I feel like I always need to say this as I never want to put out an image of the perfect life but they also squabble something chronic. We have got to a point now where neither will back down as they both fight for their place in the relationship, they will have a fall out, shout at each other, slam doors and each go their separate ways into their rooms on opposite sides of the landing shouting behind them “I am going to my room and you can’t come”. It transports me right into their teenage years and although I am sure it will be more complex and difficult to manage and understand those days, right now it makes me smile that it means they have each other.

They have each other and most of the time they don’t need me.  But thankfully they do still want me. Our favourite activity at the moment to pass the cold autumnal afternoons indoors are board games, or cards. There is something special about the fire flickering, the candles on and them laughing as they both win games and I am left behind. Just Mum, little old Mum as they call me and I wonder if that really is me now. You would think that these days might make me feel left out and like I want to be in it with them but it doesn’t. It makes me happy, it makes me proud of them and proud of me that we are actually in this together. Even if collectively they do think I am old.

xx

I love this one below as you can really see they are enjoying their own little moment and joke, that I have no idea about. And the one below that where I can’t tell if Roma is enjoying having her face squashed with Eva’s cuddle but she still goes in for more!

As always there are outtakes and this right here is why my photos are usually candid, because this is the kind of crazy fake smiles you get when they know you are there! And the last two show me both how different and how alike they are, the first is the difference between what Eva thinks of the passing ducks to what Roma does, seriously how happy does she look? And the last is what we call the squirrel effect. Where they both get distracted by, well anything, random dogs, people, a gust of wind or of course, a squirrel! Gosh I love these crazy two.