Goddess (of the domestic variety)

In an effort to inspire some Easter spirit (is there such a thing?) I have been channelling my inner domestic goddess.

First I decided to try and make some chocolate cornflake nests with E. Easy right? We decided to push the boat out a bit and add some nuts and dried cranberries because that’s just how I roll. It was all going terribly well for the first few minutes until I slightly over warmed the chocolate and it all went a bit lumpy. Not easily deterred, this just gave E an excuse to get his hands in the mixture and try and shape it into not particularly nest like lumps which we just hid under a bit more chocolate and a mini egg. I’m sure you’ll agree they are a thing of beauty.

Next we moved on to biscuits.

Christmas In Our House

I am so glad it’s December and I can finally let out my Christmas cheer. I love it and turn into a complete child at this time of year. It’s even more fun now that E is old enough to really understand what’s happening and look forward to it with me (especially as Hubs is a Christmas Scrooge and couldn’t care less).

It’s official, I’m going back to work

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T is nearly nine months now and I hadn’t realised how quickly the time had gone until I got the ‘when are you coming back?’ letter from my boss. My heart sank a little because I can’t quite imagine leaving him at nursery yet but unless we all stop eating or win the lottery we can’t afford for me to stay at home. So a few emails later and it’s all agreed. I’ll be going back full time in mid-December. *Sniff*

If I’m honest, I’d be a terrible SAHM longterm anyway. It would be a disaster. I’m rubbish at looking after the house, except for baking I’m a mediocre cook at best, I know I’d miss the challenge of my job after a while and Hubs would be insufferable if he was the only earner. But still, it would be nice to have a choice.

Being a second time mum has been much more fun that the first time round because I feel like I know what I’m doing (mostly) and I’m much less worried about things but the big down side is that I know what’s coming. I found the first couple of weeks back at work after E was born unbelievably hard.

He was 14 months when I went back and was such a happy, sociable toddler that I hadn’t expected him to have any problems but every morning when I dropped him off he would just howl as soon as we walked through the door and cling on to me screaming until one of the girls managed to disattach him. It was just awful. They would always say ‘Don’t worry, he’s fine once you’ve gone’ but then they were hardly going to tell me he was deeply traumatised and I should stop being such a terrible mum and give up work, were they? I’d then spend the next half an hour sobbing in the car park making myself late.

I was distracted all day because I was worried about him. I looked a state because of all the crying and the sticky toddler fingerprints all over my suit. It was such a battle to get us both ready and out of the door on time in the mornings that I kept leaving things I needed at home. To top it all off he’d come home with a new cold each week and give it to me and Hubs. It was a really miserable time.

Of course after a month or so everything started to settle down. E loved nursery and would toddle off to find a toy without giving me a second glance in the mornings. I got back into the swing of things at work. We even managed to get a bit of a routine going so it wasn’t quite so hectic.

Now I’ve got to do it all over again. Eeek!

Today’s To Dos

I love a good list. I know that’s sad but I find there is something very therapeutic about getting everything down on paper. I’m sure it goes hand in hand with the fact that my memory if terrible. It’s always been bad but since I had the boys I find without a list to hand to write things down as they occur to me I’d forget 90% of them.

Last night I was sat feeding T before bed and I knew hub was just about to pop to the supermarket for some milk. I thought of three other bits we needed, yep just three, and by the time I got downstairs I’d forgotten them. To my credit, I at least remembered that there had been three things which was a start. After 20 minutes of hub helpfully listing everything you can buy in a supermarket (charcoal, no, selotape, NO, tupperware, shut up now) we’d managed to work out two of them and I gave up and sent him off. 24 hours later I still can not remember the third item. It’s like having the housewife’s equivalent of the sword of Damacles hanging over me because I know at some point over the next couple of days it will become obvious what it was. That point will be the precise second when I need it and realise we don’t have it.

E was in Holiday Club today so it was just me and baby T and I was planning on getting lots done. So I didn’t forget anything important my ‘to do’ list looked like this:

• Do the washing
• Get chicken out of the freezer for dinner
• Tidy kitchen
• Write a blog post
• Pay cheque into bank
• Sort out invitations for my sister’s leaving party

However, I left the list on the dining room  table so what I’ve actually achieved unfortunately looked more like this:

• Play with T who is being very entertaining at the moment
• Put T down for nap
• Put the washing on (good so far)
• Put roasting tray in sink to soak then realise I can’t use the sink for anything else and therefore put off the rest of the tidying
• Sit down to write post but get distracted by twitter, facebook and general piddling about on the internet
• Get T up and ready to go to the bank
• Pay in cheque (big tick)
• Walk past bakery and decide to get doughnuts to celebrate my supremely productive day
• Decide to go to the park because the weather is so lovely
• Get home and put washing in drier (excellent)
• Make cup of tea and sit and play with T until hub comes home with E, feeling relatively content
• Realise I have forgotten to get the bloody chicken out of the freezer and we now have doughnuts for tea
• Facepalm

This is just getting ridiculous. At least I’ve done a post now I suppose. But wasn’t there something else…

Image: Rawich / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Listography – 5 Lessons I Learnt From My Parents

What a great listography topic from Kate at Kate Takes 5 this week. Things we learnt from our parents. Where to start? Well, of course there’s all the usual swimming, reading, bike riding and then how about what to do when your cat is in labour, how to make the perfect G&T or how to adjust the choke on my ancient Fiat Uno. I think I’ll narrow it down to those things I’d most like to pass on to my own kids. Here we go:

1) There’s a big world out there

My dad’s job meant we were lucky enough to live abroad a couple of times when I was young. It’s great to be able to feel at home in another country and culture. I think it has also made me more willing to move around and try new things. I lived and worked in Germany for a little while before I was married and I hope in the future we’ll have a chance to live abroad with the kids whilst they are still young.

2) The importance of siblings

Neither of my parents were particularly close to their brothers and sisters and they both regretted it which is why they have always made sure that my brother and sister and I looked out for each other. Much as we’d moan as teenagers when my brother had to stop playing on his computer to help us fix some gadget or I had to change my plans on a Friday night to chaperone one of their parties or drive them somewhere, as adults they really are my best friends. I’m so proud when I see my boys playing together and I hope they will grow up to be as close, even though I know they will bicker along the way.

3) The ability to be happy spending time by myself

Of course it’s important to play with our kids and to socialise them, helping them to interact and play and work together but we were also encouraged to amuse ourselves. Read a book, make something or just roam around the garden. This really fostered an independent streak in all of us that has helped us deal with life’s ups and downs and to be happy in situations where we’d need to meet new people.

4) A practical approach to health

My mum is a nurse. Not a new style hold your hand and fill in a risk assessment type of nurse but a ‘buck up and get a bit of fresh air’ type. She has taught me that as long as you know what potentially serious symptoms to look out for everything else is almost always best dealt with by a combination of rest, fluid, good food and gentle exercise. Her ‘keep an eye on it but they’ll probably be fine by tomorrow’ approach has given me the confidence to avoid most of the baby health paranoia that so often sees new mums heading down to the GPs and help me keep those worried sleepless nights to a minimum.

5) If you try to understand why someone did something that upset you it’s often much harder to stay upset

My parents maintain that most people are not horrible, they just do horrible things sometimes and there’s always a reason for their behaviour. This isn’t alway what you want to hear when someone has upset you but suddenly the girl who didn’t invite you to her party becomes the girl who was upset because you’ve been spending time with here best friend (why don’t you invite both of them over?) and the boy who wouldn’t speak to you becomes the boy who is scared you’ll turn him down in front of his friends (why don’t you talk to him next time?).

I think the perfect G&T is probably the most useful though 😉

Image: Louisa Stokes / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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No more apologies…Deal?

I’ve enjoyed lots of mums blogs since having my first baby. There’s so many to choose from, the funny ones, the informative ones, the sad ones, that I’m sure I haven’t even scratched the surface over the last three years. Recently it’s been bothering me how often I’ve heard one phase:

I love my children but…

I love my children but I miss having some time to myself. I love my children but I enjoy my job. I love my children but I’m really bored of Bob the Builder.

How depressing that we are so worried people might doubt our commitment to our kids because we admit to having some other interests that we need to constantly prefix any reference to these things with a declaration of our love.

Do we shamefacedly admit ‘I love my job but I quite like doing some gardening at the weekend’? As students did we apologetically say ‘I love college but getting some work experience would help me get a job later’? Do we even have to explain ‘I love my husband but a night out with the girls would be fun’? Of course not, everyone balances different facets of their life and we’d be pretty boring and one-dimensional if we didn’t.

So who make us feel like this? It might be the media, celebrities or even health professionals constantly showing us images of what a perfect mother should be but I think if we’re honest we probably do it to ourselves. It’s that ever-present ‘mum guilt’ that always makes us feel that we should be doing more or better.

Like all of us, my kids are my absolute priority and nothing will ever stop me from being there for them when they need me. However I’m not going to let myself feel guilty for saying that they are the most important thing but not the only important thing in my life.

We often talk about work life balance as managing kids and a job, but I want more than that. I want a relationship, my friends, hobbies, to still be an active member of my community and a bit of time with my feet up, all while my kids are blossoming into happy, secure and independant young people. Does that sound ridiculously ambitious? Probably but I think that’s what most of us want. I know we’re not always going to manage it but let’s not apologise for trying…Deal?

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net