Tag: mother and son

Beauty And The Beast The Musical – my review

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A Tale As Old As Time, but somehow never gets old!

Last night I visited Bristol Hippodrome with Otis (5) to see Beauty And The Beast The Musical for their press night. I will admit this was my 4th time seeing the show, yet it still managed to blow me away, made me gasp at the magical affects and triggered emotions in me throughout. If you’ve never seen it, I recommend booking a ticket at Bristol Hippodrome before it finishes on 12th Nov. If you’ve already seen it, I recommend seeing it again!

Bristol Hippodrome:
view from Row F, seats 20 & 21

After the prologue in which the back-story to the Beast’s curse is told, the show immediately starts full of energy as we are transported to a provincial village complete with an ensemble full of character, giving a perfect insight into the day-to-day lives of the villagers through beautifully choreographed song and dance.

I’m sure most of you will already know the storyline of Beauty And The Beast and how it is a story told through a rollercoaster of happy and light-hearted humour as well as dark and mysterious scenes. The Musical echoes the original family-favourite Disney movie, but with additional songs and even extra interactions between characters, such as between Belle and her father.

Throughout the show Lumiere (Alyn Hawke) and Cogsworth (Nigel Richards) bounced off each other’s humour in a way that had the whole audience smiling as we watched how the unlikely friends bonded so well. This humour teamed with the hopeless clumsiness of Le Fou (Louis Stockil) made for a serious story shown through a light-hearted manner, making it perfect for children too.

In such a musical, it is so difficult to pull out favourite scenes as they all play into each other perfectly, but there are definitely standout moments that had the audience gasping, emotional and erupting in applause.

Credit: Johan Persson

The Tavern scene was perfectly executed as Gaston (Tom Senior), Le Fou (Louis Stockil) and the Ensemble brought to life the aesthetic of a small, French tavern. As they performed “Gaston”, the audience were treated to brilliant choreography featuring metal tankards being clashed in beat with the song, all over the stage. There were even a few “magic trick” style stage affects that made it look like real arrows were being fired and guns were being shot on stage.

Credit: Johan Persson

We were then treated to the “Be Our Guest” scene which (if you’ve ever seen the film) had a lot of high expectations to meet, but managed to exceed them in every way. Tap-dancing, synchronised floor dancing, epically strong vocals, humour, transforming costumes, illusion-style staging and captivating lighting – you name it, this scene had it! And then it ended with cannons of streamers being fired into the audience which, as you can imagine, had everyone cheering in glee (Otis in particular couldn’t contain his excitements as the streamers fell all around us)!

It wasn’t just the busy scenes with a large cast on stage that impacted the audience though. The Beast’s (Shaq Taylor) performance of “If I Can’t Love Her” was so full of emotion that it truly felt like the Beast was singing from the heart there and then instead of remembering a well-rehearsed lyric sheet. Even as one person on stage, the scene was powerful and Shaq had the whole audience listening intently to every word.

This power is then echoed in Belle’s (Courtney Stapleton) lone performance of “A Change In Me”. Courtney absolutely blew the roof off the theatre and at the end (rightly so) the audience erupted in applause after being taken aback by such a strong vocal performance, delivered through deep emotion.

It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen the film and this show, the ending always gets the better of me. I’m not sure how many dry eyes there were as all the castle characters transformed back to their human selves, but mine certainly wasn’t one of them as Mrs Potts (Sam Bailey) was reunited with her son chip (Zayne Norris) who came running into her arms on stage. Beauty And The Beast The Musical has a truly magical way of taking you into the lives of its characters and experiencing this journey of love, loss, humour and desperation with them. It’s a story of falling in love that we can all relate to with a meaningful moral that we can all learn from. A 10/10 must-see show for the whole family!

Beauty And The Beast The Musical is on at Bristol Hippodrome until 12th November withh matinee performances on various week and weekend days until then. Tickets are available from £20 per person and there is a special performance for a visually impaired audience on Wednesday 19th October.

Click here to book your tickets!

The honest confessions of a mum with a newborn during lockdown

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2 months old. That’s how old my baby was  on 19th March when we had to self isolate due to us all having a persistent cough: a virus symptom. During our isolation, on 23rd March a national lockdown began with no idea of when we can see our families and friends again. So here are my feelings about this situation and my thought process.

I’m worried people won’t love my baby as much as my toddler. As heartbreaking as that sounds, it’s even more heartbreaking to think because it’s true. I am genuinely worried that people won’t love my baby as much as they love our other son. I’m worried that he’s not able to bond with anyone and they’re not able to bond with him. I’m grateful for social media and for family etc to be able to see what he’s up to, but they can’t physically see him and he can’t see them and it tears me apart thinking how much time is slipping away. I ask myself how can they love him just as much without having this time with him, to see his changes and development and to be the reason behind his smiles and laughter. I can’t stop crying about it: in the bath and at night. I feel like I can’t talk to anyone about these feelings because they might just tell me I’m being stupid or something. Of course you can love someone unconditionally without really knowing them, but is unconditional love enough? What about a love that’s built on memories, moments, a bond…..? I want that for my baby and as a mother I should be exposing him to opportunities for this and I can’t. It’s a feeling that physically hurts in my chest when I think about it.

I’m also anxious that my baby’s development will be delayed. Will his social skills suffer? Will he lack confidence? Will he struggle in social gatherings? Will he be cautious of new people? Will he struggle to make friends? Will he trust people? Will he be happy in the company of other people? Will meeting people make him uncomfortable? Will he find it difficult to build relationships – to love and trust people?

So many questions and no answers. People may think they know the answers, but reality is that nobody could possibly know the affect this will have on my baby. It’s not happened before. People can’t time travel. We are in uncharted territory at the moment and as a mum I worry about the impact it’s having on my baby, much more than my toddler who has already developed such skills in this area.  It’s only when you have a newborn baby at home with you that you realise how much they take in every day and how everything affects them. Yes he doesn’t have a clue what’s going on in the world, but for him this is normal and that very idea is what terrifies me. His normality is a far cry from our usual, every-day lives as a family. Will he adjust ok when things change for him? I have no idea.

I feel robbed of our time together, just him and I. His older brother should be in pre-school 3 days a week now. This is a reason we waited for this age gap so I could have time one-to-one with him, just like my eldest son had. I had so many plans for the baby groups and play dates we should be attending and memories we should be making- as just a mother and her son. I feel like I’m grieving for those lost moments because although we will have some when this is all over, we would have already lost so much time and experiences we were meant to have together. I’m trying to take the positive from it being that the two boys now have the opportunity to form such a lovely and strong bond together, but I still feel guilt that I can’t give my baby all of me throughout some of the days.

So those are my confessions: brutal and honest. My head and my heart are hurting right now and I’m locked in a battle with myself about what kind of mum I’m supposed to be to my baby. I’m keeping him safe, which is the most important thing, but what is the sacrifice? None of us really know yet.

💙 Mini Plum Baby 💙

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3rd March 2020

💙 NURSING 💙

Did you realise I was breastfeeding my baby in this photo? Wait….. did you even spot the camouflaged baby in this photo? 🙊

I am loving breastfeeding this time round. Despite his tongue tie, Eddison feeds like a dream which couldn’t be more different to the experience I had with Otis. I hated breastfeeding for the first 4 months with Otis; I had to syringe feed him for the first 5 days because he couldn’t latch, when he did latch, it was a shallow latch and it was such hard work and very painful at times too. I am so proud that we managed it for 26 months in the end!

So I was prepared for the same struggles with Eddison…… but low and behold he’s a complete natural. To the extent that he has never dropped his birth weight. In fact when we went to his first weight check 4 days after his birth, he had *put on* 50 grams 😱 the midwives were shocked, as was I! So for that reason they decided not to interfere with his tongue tie. But after speaking to more professionals I’ve learned that his tongue tie may be a reason why he’s so sick – because he can’t fully control the flow of milk coming in and takes down too much. I’ve also learned that when my milk settles properly at about 3 months old, Eddison will have to work harder for it which is when we may have a problem, but they are reluctant to snip a tongue tie after 12 weeks. So now I’m trying to figure out if I should get it snipped now or not…. 🤔 hopefully the health visitor can help advise me about it tomorrow.

I love to twin with my boys, but although there is a lot of matching clothes out there for mothers & daughters, there’s barely anything for mothers & sons. This is definitely the first thing I have ever come across that I can twin with Eddison whilst nursing him too! So when @miniplumbaby got in touch offering to send this set for us to try out I was over the moon! It includes a nursing nightie and dressing gown for me, a sleepsuit, mittens and hat for Eddison and even a matching pillowcase. It also comes in a pink option! I absolutely love it because it’s comfy, easy to nurse in and cosy for Eddison.