I'm back - living in the moment!

This is the year I made a promise to myself to live in the moment more, something kids are so good at and something I know I can learn from them. With the balance of two young children, a part time office job, a house renovation and just life, I tend to get distracted from the present moment with the kids quite a bit, get frustrated, stressed and eventually loose my cool and crave the all important alone time.

Enjoying the Collingwood Children's Farm

With my daughter starting school this year and my little boy going into the 'kinda' room in a few months at childcare the passing of time has really hit me. Where did it go! This has left me feeling a bit nostalgic for the past and resulted in me feeling very clucky but not sure if I can go back there. How is it we forget all the sleepless nights, general exhaustion and other difficult things? Or is that just me? Funny but I do have vague memories of some hard days early on where I thought if only they were a little bit older and I got more sleep! Those days are now here and I miss the baby side. One example of not living in the moment!

So now to focus on the present, enjoy the day to day with my children, which hopefully results in being calmer and more accepting of things (like the constant toy clutter) I have been reading books such as Buddism for Mothers (I am not a Buddhist but found the book great with invaluable Buddhist teachings of mindfulness, compassion and calm) and so will now look at getting Buddhism for Mothers with School Children. I have also been reading various articles on articles the importance of unstructured play and leaving kids things, not creating too sterile, controlled environment which just causes stress - this has all helped.

And I have thought getting back to this blog would help also, a chance to share, as I have learnt through my design blog (GeorgyGdesign.blogspot.com)there is a fantastic community out there, both for support and ideas. So here's hoping you can join me in my journey of trying to live in the moment.

Busting some Mummy Myths

I have recently realised that before children, I really had no idea and had this naive, idealistic view about motherhood. Others told me things, like how sleep deprived they were and I just thought that won't be me, my children will be in a good routine, if I only knew!

The issue now is that I have come back to work into a young team that are in the BC zone. So why should I be surprised when colleagues have commented on me being sick yet again and analysed why, 'hmm maybe, if I got more sleep (which I am extremely lacking) and didn't have two small children (or two Petri dishes for disease) in childcare, I would be feeling a lot better!!

Returning to work and taking in comments made to me, really hit it home for me what I used to think - all these myths and others busted very quickly! Here are just several but there are many more......

1. In general I will be calm, serene, in control, cook lovely meals and bake, do learning games and craft with my children at all times, minimal TV - mantra, serenity now doesn't work!

2. I would breeze back into work after maternity leave, maybe even full time, I mean, why not Men do it - women are different - I really struggled after both children and I work part time – (actually sometimes I think the part time gig is harder but more on that later)

3. If I follow Gina Fords routines in The New Contented Little Baby Book my children will be sleeping through by three months and I will never look back, none of this sleep deprivation for me - routine lasted from week six to seven with my first, gave up after kept getting mastitis and my little girl just wouldn't conform, really stressed me out - with my second child didn't even bother.

4. Again on the sleep - sleep training how hard could it be and if worse comes to worse I will do it and all will be fixed - it is hard, very hard and they don't tell you, how it can break your heart, I was crying too, plus even after putting in the hard yards worked for a month and then stopped - my daughter now nearly four still has bad nights

5. Breast is best - I will breastfeed until I go back to work - fairly much did with my first through four bouts of mastitis (what was I thinking) but with the second he never seemed to get enough, unsettled and I suffered postnatal - all this improved once I moved to the bottle at four months - so no, breast is not always best! Both B and I suffered postnatal (B after her first and me with the second) which is something we will talk about in a later post – but believe me from this perspective bottle is best!

6. No dummies - this mantra lasted all of four days with my first and she had it until she was three

7. And one on top of these for B - I will never let my children eat hot chips when I go out or suck on the sugar sticks ( I now only go to cafes with sugar sticks so I can have five minutes of peace!).....

And following on from the comment above, I could never have imagined how little sleep and how many bugs I would get in the first six months after returning to work –having a child starting childcare. Lets just say I had never had gastro in my life and then got it four times within the first year of my daughter being in childcare.(B - I also view gastro as part of my dieting regime!!!! All I need is a good bout to kick start this diet!) With my son it has been the chest colds. Fun, fun, fun!