Refilling the Well

There doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to keep everything up to date lately, and get some time to myself. There are so many dishes, so much laundry, children who need feeding, bathing, entertaining and help with homework. It's so easy to leave myself to last and end up with no time of my own each week. Rather than rush around multitasking and wearing myself out, I have taken the opposite approach lately, looking for little ways to build in me-moments each day. 

Besides scheduling in Yoga once a week and going regardless of how I feel (I always feel better afterwards!) I have been slowing down, reading Ellie's A Week Of Slow, and carving out time each day to spend as I please. I find it so easy to keep going and doing what I think I 'should' be doing, thinking I will stop once I am 'done'. Only, I am never done. I clean the dishes and more appear, I tidy the lounge room and toys creep straight back out again, I sweep the floor and the baby throws his dinner as far as his chubby fists will allow. 

But one must re-fill the well. So I treat myself to a Frankie Country Style mag. I reward myself with a cup of tea. I write my morning pages after school drop off. I sit with my Drawing Journal and draw, just because. And it helps. 

How do you refuel after giving so much of yourself?

Happy Mothers Day!

Mothers, Grandmothers, Mothers-to-be, here's to a wonderful day for you! May your tea be hot, your family adoring and your sleep-in luxurious. 

And if not, may you find five minutes peace in the chaos to remember what an amazing job you are doing are how very important you are.

xx

Expectation Vs Reality

My loves at Redcliffe Lagoon

You know those 'Expectation vs Reality' photos you see on Facebook? Like the one of the Mother and child all dressed in white, sleeping sweetly snuggled in together under the 'expectation' side of co-sleeping, and then the baby sleeping on the Mother's head on crumpled sheets in the 'reality' shot? I giggle at those things, because so much of parenting seems like that. Expectations not met by reality. Not that a baby sleeping on your head is a bad thing, it's just not how you imagined it. It didn't stop me from bed sharing, or getting morning cuddles in bed after a feed.

Pre-children expectations, I had so many. Lately I'be been remembering how I would cringe when parents would laughingly say they couldn't wait for their children to go back to school. I was horrified and inwardly shook my head, naively promising myself that I would never say such a thing. I wondered if they were lazy or selfish, or if perhaps, I admit it, they had out of control children? (Ha!) I vowed that I would enjoy having my children home. We would explore, craft, play, read, draw and have a wonderful time on holidays and I wouldn't want to send them back to school. Please feel free to laugh at my foolishness.

Because here I am, five weeks in to the six weeks of holiday between Prep and Grade one, feeling the need to confess - I am rather looking forward to Cohen going back to school. Not because we haven't been exploring, crafting, playing, reading and drawing. We have, and it's been wonderful. Not because my son often has an age appropriate inability to listen and needs to be told simple instructions several times before again ignoring them. He does that regardless. But rather because my six year old son and my two year old daughter really seem to need that six hour break to stem them incessantly irritating each other. That bit of space five days a week seems to make the heart grow fonder and the play nicer.

Oh the fighting, the intentional annoying, the shriek and screams and 'he pushed me's'. The toy throwing, hair pulling, biting, lego breaking, paper scrunching, food stealing, sibling rivalry of it all. It has only increased a little more each week, despite my very best efforts to the contrary. Oh, the refereeing is exhausting! Having all three children to contend with each day on my own can be a little too much of a good thing.

So if you bump in to me and ask me about our holidays, yes they've been wonderful. I shall indeed be sad to see Cohen go back to school, though I am excited for him starting grade one. I will miss the long lazy mornings, the pancakes for breakfast during the week, the day trips and projects and afternoons spent with friends. I will miss the sweet moments of all three children climbing in to bed for cuddles and the golden moments when they are playing sweetly. But I get it, I do, I understand now why the return to school can be so alluring. I'm sorry I judged.

Only one week to go!

-

It seems Mike gets it.

Last Days of School

My two little ones are asleep and I am savoring a cup of tea after running errands and grocery shopping, before hanging out the third load of laundry. There's three more days left of Prep and I am feeling a little sentimental. Only three more days, and my big boy has finished his first year of school. His first year away from me, given that he never attended childcare. On top of which, he turns six this week. Oh my. 

Time seems to speed up when you have children, because they are like yardsticks for time. How quickly they grow. How different he seems from the little boy who first put on that brand new uniform, to child dressed in the paint and play marked uniform he wears now.

I'm so proud of my boy. He has always been confident and social, and so accepting of anyone who is 'different'. 

And his Mona Lisa is pretty awesome too.

Sleepy Sunday

It's a slow Sunday.
A two cups of tea in bed Sunday.
A no to-do list Sunday.

Last night was the second consecutive night of all-night-cluster-feeding with my growing two and a half week old baby. I spent more of the night awake than asleep. So I'm reminding myself that it's normal, allowing a little more tv than usual for my other two little ones, and hoping to sneak in a shower and a nap with hubby's help.

What are you up to today?
Here's hoping you get some rest this Sunday too.

29/52

 

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013." Che and Fidel.

 

Cohen: Exploring

Emerson: Pausing

 

Thank goodness for sticker charts, for they are sanity savers! It is amazing the way my eldest child will curb his behaviour for want of a sticker. Twenty stickers gets you a Lego mini figure, don't you know. I felt like we'd hit a wall with his behaviour and my patience. I was getting frustrated, dumping my frustration on my husband when he got home from work, then feeling better and wondering why he seemed frustrated. Sticker chart to the rescue!

 

Motherhood has taught me how important it is that I acknowledge Cohen in a positive moment - helping his sister, putting on his socks without whinging, playing quietly while Emerson sleeps -  rather than falling in to the bad habit of only reacting when he does something he shouldn't. The sticker chart is a reminder for both of us to be mindful of our behaviour I think. I know there are many arguments surrounding external and internal motivation, so the chart will disappear from the fridge again sooner or later, just as it did when he was toilet training. But in the meantime it's working. And for that I think I deserve a sticker.

 

-

 

Two of my favourites from last week - a sweet little hair puller and an adorable cuddle.

Moments that shimmer

Do you ever have those moments where your heart seems to give a little burst and everything seems to shimmer? And for those few seconds you feel overwhelmed by love in such a positive way, like a surge of love that brings with it a feeling of clam? Recently I experienced it while laying Emerson down after she had fallen asleep in my arms. I watched her head slowly fall to one side on the mattress, her eyelids fluttering for a moment in that in between state where you're not sure if they will cry out and wake up, or settle and sleep. Her hand touched her face, as it is prone to do when she is very tired, and I knew she would sleep. As I watched her I felt a surge of emotion and in that instant there was an overflowing of love, contentment, gratitude, hope.

Another such moment I sat in bed, my children either side of me, as I read them a story. I recognised this moment as an image I held of motherhood long before I was a mother. Something I had yearned towards. An aspiration now fulfilled. The warm bodies and sleepy eyes beside me suddenly filled me with an immense and quiet joy. An intense wave washed over me, before the emotion receded. Everything was back to normal in a few moments, and my voice continued to rise and fall with the narrative.

I wonder what you call those moments?
Perhaps there is a word for it in another language?
Do you experience them too?