From April to August; An Unplanned Break from Blogging

My son is currently asleep for his daily nap and I have a To-Do List as long as my arm but today, after months away, I wanted to blog. I have thought so much about why I stopped, why I lost it on my list of priorities and how I miss typing away and sharing my life.

I lost touch with a lot of things over the last few months, adjusting to life with Harrison home, falling pregnant and facing the parenting struggles (and adventures) that come with having a 2 year old. The days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, where I chose to watch useless television or even worse, scroll my Facebook and Instagram feeds, pretending that it was a good use of my time! How easy it is to get sucked into wasting precious minutes mindlessly on these apps. I love the ability to share and connect, but not the ease with which we are trapped into staying on the platform longer and longer.

Turning off my phone, or at least my internet recently has helped, maybe that is why I have found my way back to the keyboard. Or perhaps it was the gentle push from my mother this weekend, reminding me that writing has been a great way to care for myself, express and evaluate, let go of emotions and heal from experiences. If I want to express myself, share my life constructively, and unpack the emotional backpack I am carrying, writing is a much better idea that Facebook scrolling isn’t it?  So here we are, hopefully this time for a long time.

I won’t attempt to relieve all that has gone on since April, but I will fill in all the important bits, at least the big ones; like my little brother moving to Australia, my best friend in Scotland moving away for a year, and TP losing his best buddy (her daughter). My anxiety over TPs birth trauma made an appearance (which I am slowly trying to heal) while we were on our first ever family holiday, and we have had members of both sides of the family come to visit. TPs speech is incredible now, and I learned that even in Scotland, a paddling pool or variation of one is an asset on the hot days. H bought a bike and is using it, and I am driving around a lot more comfortable, albeit locally. We have also begun to really enjoy cooking from scratch and learning how to love the kitchen. The rest, well it’s history, but the future is still waiting, holding stories and laughter and love for us to share.

You might have also caught that I am pregnant – yep! – 25 weeks currently, and a big part of the reason I stopped writing. There were a few weeks in the first trimester I walked around permanently holding either a sick bowl or bag, and crying because I wasn’t able to do much else. But it passed, after a lot of trial and error I found a couple of pregnancy sickness tricks to keep it at bay (another post about this will come) and finally we are over it (mostly!).

Apart from that tiny detail, my first born, Theo Prana turned 2 this July, making me officially the mum of a wild toddler who is the biggest light in my life but also makes me want to curl up under the blanket with a tub of ice-cream and hide. Nobody can prepare you for parenthood and each stage has its challenges, but toddlerhood is by far the most testing. That said, we are working on finding the balance, and thankfully H is very on board with a lot of the peaceful parenting ideas I propose, so we are a team rather than giving TP mixed signals by being confused ourselves.

We also started cloth nappies, and reusable wipes, and as a family (sometimes actually led more by H than myself) trying to cut down our plastic consumption and be less wasteful. This has been an amazing development for us because we both feel like as TP gets older and understands more, we want him to know we did our best for the planet, and we didn’t stay ignorant. It is hard, sometimes we forget, sometimes even though we remember, we cannot afford the ‘planet friendly’ options, but every little bit we do makes a difference in the big picture, like the butterfly who’s wings flapping could be felt across the earth, each step we make, is a step forward.

Oh and lastly, we are moving house! Still a little while to go, so I won’t share much on it yet, but I guess that is also kind of a big reason I have felt like life is so busy, because we have had a few really major things to adjust to. All good thankfully and I am so grateful for that.

Until the next time, 

XOXO

R

August 2019 – a rougher night in motherhood.

Authors Note:  A little note up here to say that in my effort to cleanse this site and (hopefully) write again, I am trashing and posting things I have drafted on here.  I don’t believe in hiding the hardship – even, and especially when it is ugly. This post below was written on an ugly night – but it happened and we survived. May it serve as a reminder than even when the world feels like it may crumble; time can heal as long as we keep showing up to let it. 

 

August 19th 2019 

Being okay is such bullshit sometimes. Wanting the life I have and actually enjoying it are very different things, and loving my kid but resenting the hard moments is real as fuck. But we don’t talk things like this because its not acceptable. Mum’s are meant to be over the moon in love with their kids all the time right? Especially if we choose to stay at home.

No. Staying at home is yes, a choice, but also a necessity for us. I am always going to love my kid, I am always going to show up for my family, but it is such utter crap that I am meant to smile and be okay while I do it. Sometimes I want to cry, other times I want to scream, tonight I wanted to hop on a train to anywhere and disappear for a few hours… But I don’t do any of those things. None of us do. Instead, we breathe deep, go for a walk if needed or grab a glass (/bottle) of wine, and bury all the feelings. It’s eaiser to be numb. Because if we felt the overwhelming love and hurt and exhaustion then I think we might crack. I certainly would. I glimpsed those feelings tonight and instead of facing them, I called some family to catch up, to pretend, because its a hell of a lot easier than confronting the emotions. I don’t have time to unpack my own shit… not when I know my toddler will need me in an hour!

“It takes 10 times longer to put yourself back together than it does to fall apart.”

Easier to shove our feelings away right ?

Except that’s wrong too. No winning here. If we feel and show up a mess we’re failing, if we don’t show up at all because the feelings got us, then we’ve failed, if we’re okay then we must be hiding something, and if we’re hiding something then we’re doing it wrong again.

I am tired of it all. And I am ranting but it feels good. I love my life, but I also don’t love it all the time. I love my son but I also wish I’d get some breathing room. I want to be a great mum, but I also want to be a person who isn’t mum all the time. All these things are allowed… And it’s bullshit to believe differently.

Goodnight.