#Mumlife isn’t easy…

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

Finding inspiration to write is not always easy, not is it easy to find time when a good idea hits. These past couple of weeks I have had several “I could do a blog post about that” moments, but inevitably the time passes and I haven’t managed to open up my laptop. Add on to that the fact that TP is extremely possessive of my phone when it is out, these moments pass.

Thinking about that though, about how fleeting moments are, and about how quickly time slips away, is itself, something to share. Recently this has come up a lot for me; the hours and days we wish away. At 27 weeks pregnant now, with a 25 month old, I will be the first to admit that I take a lot of it for granted. I ‘just know’ that tomorrow we can make up for today, or that after nap-time we can do something fun, or that the weather will be better next week for us to go out walking more. I assume that I will continue to be able to run around after my son, and pick him up, throw him around and let him ride ‘monkey’ on my back down the stairs. He sits on my belly and we joke he is sitting on his sister as he climbs onto my shoulders.

On the other side of it though, are the long hours where I thank god and the BBC for Mr Tumble and let TP sit through many, many episodes just so I can eat and cook and do the washing and check my email and maybe if I’m lucky go to the loo before he gets up and demands attention. There are 5am starts and 10pm bedtimes, the food strikes or tantrums for anything other than marshmallows, the milk hunger to the point my nipples feel they might fall off, and the hitting and biting that is his current method of expressing upset and anger. These are moments that I want to pass quickly, because staying present and accepting is hard, it’s easier to wish the hour away and want to ‘move on’ to the next thing on our schedule.

Yet these are also the moments I think back on with a wry smile, because the cuddles and healing that happen after are often the best hugs and cutest conversations. So why do I wish them away?

Because I am tired.

Because I am embarrassed.

Because they make me feel like I am raising a ‘trouble’ child.

Because accepting and dealing with the harder minutes is not easy. Parenthood is not easy.

But it is worth it.

From April to August; An Unplanned Break from Blogging

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

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.

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

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.

Life with a Toddler: Night Weaning

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

Letting go of your baby is one of the hardest things a parent will have to do. Allowing them to grow is a beautiful form of torture because while your heart soars for them, it also aches. I am lucky to be a stay at home mum, so I get a lot of time with my toddler, but as a result, letting him go isn’t something I find easy.

My personal parenting journey has been a bit everywhere honestly. I spent the majority of my pregnancy and first year of my son’s life away from my husband, and 8 months into 2nd year of Theo Prana’s life, his dad has missed over half of that time. None of this has been by choice per say, it’s just the way life is for military families; we count our blessings where we can and we know how to make the most of time together.

Even together though, I have been the main carer and it began reflecting in the way that Theo Prana would settle, play and interact. Harrison has been back just over a month now and we moved from Daddy being the fun person who would play all the time, to the person who plays sometimes and keeps coming and going. It wasn’t fair on Harrison, and it was exhausting me. I want to raise my son to know that mummy and daddy can both fix things, feed him, settle him and provide security, even if one is around more than the other; we are both his parents and we both provide for him. That said, I had got used to being in control of the way things ran, so last week, by a little bit of a mess up and a huge nudge from a friend, I left Harrison to do Theo Prana’s bedtime routine – something I have done almost every single night of his life.

I should mention that Theo Prana still nursed to sleep by this point too, and co-slept; the boys were thrown into the deep end, and the water was rough.

They struggled… Harrison will probably remember that as one of the worst evenings he’s had in a long time. Luckily, Theo Prana won’t remember it in the long-term; toddlers are forgiving.

1 week later, Harrison is at work all week and Theo Prana keeps asking for Daddy both day and night. He is almost entirely night weaned with very few complaints until the early hours where I am sure he’s thirsty but refuses water. It feels like a miracle.

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Here is how we did it:

*Disclaimer: I am not telling anyone else this will work for them, just sharing my experience. If it resonates, great! If not, that’s okay too… we did what the universe allowed us to do, and what felt right for our family.

Day 1: Bedtime routine went out the window, I was having a rough day, so I told H he could handle things from here and went upstairs to our spare room where my friend was staying. I had a meltdown because of how exhausted I was, and then we listened to the boys watch ‘In the Night Garden’, have a bath, read and finally, go bed. It took 45 minutes to settle Theo Prana. The first night in over a year he had been away from me at bedtime. I spent the first part of the night in his cot and got involved at 2:30am and we co-slept again.

Day 2: Harrison took the lead, and told me to go hide in the spare room again while the bath was running. He did the night routine and half the night; getting to sleep took less than 20 minutes. I slept in the cot again, and got involved at 4:30am, getting back into our bed.

Day 3: I spent the night at a hotel. I slept from 10pm until 6am almost entirely without waking – it was bliss!

Harrison and Theo Prana spent the night on their own, with Theo waking at 3:15am for a short while and climbing into the cot because it smelt like me. It broke my heart to hear but he settled with his dad, and I think this was a huge leap for them both.

Day 4: I put him to bed. Milk downstairs, not upstairs, he screamed and kicked for 50 minutes. I caved at 4:45am and gave him milk.

Day 5: I changed the routine. I fed him in bed, read a book and had him help me plaster over my nipples and say goodnight. It took less than 20 minutes and he slept for 7 hours without needing comfort. He fed again at 6am.

Day 6: Saying goodnight to the milk leads to complaints but not severe; he slept on and off and got milk at 6:45am.

Day 7 (today): Am beginning to think he is having a bit of anxiety over saying goodnight to the milk. Will work on it over the next few days/weeks with extra cuddles and lots of reassurance. He fell asleep in minutes today, was exhausted.

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Somehow, we have managed to begin our night weaning process and it is hard but it is working. We have needed this for months now, so I am hoping that this allows me a little extra rest and a break from 4am hunger pangs! I love the fact our nursing journey can continue, but it takes a toll, so this allows us to have the best of both: rest and nursing without making him ‘cry it out’ or suffer. He knew (and knows) he is safe and we will hold him, and that makes a big difference.

If you are trying to do something similar, hang in there! It feels so incredibly difficult but you will be glad you stuck it out – I know I am already, and it is motivating me to keep going.

A Childhood Memory

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

Recently a friend asked me to think back to one childhood memory that stood out. No thinking, just do it.

I urge you try.

What did you come up with?

Was it something Happy? Exciting? Sad? Angry? Shameful?

My memory was a happy one, one that brought a smile to my lips. This was actually the reason my friend had asked to me to think back, to remind me that even though life seems hard sometimes, overall, my life has been pretty damn amazing.

It got me thinking about how much our childhood influences the way we raise our children. If you had a perfectly happy childhood, you try and replicate the same for your kids. Similarly, studies suggest that people who were raised in unhappy households tend to pass on this cycle to their children. Most of us are somewhere in the middle, with good bits and bad bits; with the hope that the good outweighs the bad, the happiness is prominent than the sadness.

But, as Alfie Kohn points out:

To get better at the craft of raising children, we need to be open to seeing what’s unpleasant in order to evaluate what our parents did right and where we might be able to improve on their approach.

We learn from the way we were parented and pass it on, or we take what we have learned and adapt it.

My memory was catching butterflies. This is what I wrote when I thought about it: 

We are walking around a field of sorts, it is not green, rather yellow-ish because of the warmth. It’s the 4 of us, with Sid and I holding nets and jars, I think they are empty at the moment; we are looking for butterflies. It’s a family outing. I remember feeling happy. 

Next thing I remember is the fascination of watching a butterfly, inside the jar we have, the one that is meant to be especially designed for them – now that I am older, I highly doubt this, but I remember believing it. The butterfly is sitting on a twig or something we have but inside the jar, it is colourful and beautiful. We admire it, and then let it go. it flies away and we keep walking.

This is one of my favourite memories, and I am sure it has very little to do with the butterflies and a lot to do with the fact it was a family trip. We did a lot of them and even though I know we squabbled, and were hungry or tired or both, I don’t remember those bits. The bits that stick are the feelings of warmth, of excitement and of joy; they are the kind of thing I want to pass on to my child. We learn from our parents and we better our own parenting from them; I’m pretty sure if we do that, then generations get better and we raise good people to keep the world running.

Thanks for reading,

Xoxo

R

Hello April

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

Somehow we are now in the 4th month of 2019 and it is flying! March was an extremely busy month for us, with lots of highs and some lows too.

Harrison got back home in the first couple of weeks so we have been readjusting to life as a family of 3 again, while working around his shifts and terrible sleep pattern. Theo Prana absolutely adores his Daddy though and they are building a strong bond; one I hope we can foster as time goes on, so Theo knows that his dad is just as much of a parent as Mummy is. It’s been us 2 for a long time, on and off but on our own regardless, so this transition has been a long time coming.

Apart from bringing H back, March brought us lots of play-time, puddles and towards the end a little bit of better weather; a new car (which was much needed) and some driving lessons for me so I will be back on the road soon! I finished my photography course and started a new yoga one, we all went on a 4 day flying visit to see my in-laws and booked holidays for the next couple of months too!

We ended the month on Mothers Day which was lovely, and I was really looking forward to H’s birthday on the 1st (not a April fools joke, I promise!). Alas, I ended up with a sickness bug so spent all day feeling utterly rubbish after a night of D&V – the worst 24 hours I’ve had in a few months!

That said, this month is going to bring amazing things – I can feel it. I would love to say I’ll commit to more blog posts, but I know that I am doing the best I can so for now, I’ll be content with that. I have friends visiting next week and the week after, a week down in Norfolk after Easter and most importantly, a toddler who day-in-day-out brings extreme joy. He is talking more, and I am understanding what he wants. He is incredibly strong-willed, which isn’t much of a surprise really, but definitely means I have moments where I want to melt down with him, but then he will kiss me, or hug me or stroke my arm and its worth every single hard moment.

As he grows bigger, I try to take more photos, be in more photos and live away from my phone/camera (contradictory but effective). I do have days where I wish I could be more than mum, but being mum brings such incredible fulfilment that I know I am exactly where I am meant to be right now.

April is going to bring blessings, I am not sure what kind or when, but I am waiting, watching and listening for them. I hope you are too.

XOXO

R

Dear Mummy, on days parenting feels like a chore, remember this:

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

Dear Mummy,

I can’t tell you yet, but I see how hard you are working. Some things I won’t understand for a long time, but I do understand that keeping me alive, healthy and happy is a tough job, so thank you.

I love you too. 

Some days are fantastic, some days are long, some days are happy and some days are sad. We have many different types of days together, but the work you do and love you give remains the same: thank you.

Dear Mummy, thank you for all the things you do that get unnoticed.

Thank you for keeping me safe at night, for cuddling me and for kindly waking me up in morning, for helping me changed to get ready for the day. Thank you for letting me choose my trousers, and the colour of my shirt. I like choosing my clothes for the day.

Thank you for feeding me breakfast, and understanding that maybe it is because I had a lot of dinner so I am not very hungry this morning. I know I seem difficult when I turn away from the food, but it’s only because I don’t know how else to tell you I’m full. Thank you for not forcing me to eat at mealtimes.

Thank you for taking the extra time so I can explore as we walk wherever we are going to. I like learning when we are outside.

Thank you for holding me while I nap. I know I am safe in your arms and lying next to you. Thank you for the cuddles when I wake up scared too.

Thank you for hugging me.

Thank you for playing with me

Thank you for reading to me.

Thank you for making bathtime and dinner fun.

Thank you for taking care of me even when your sick.

Thank you for looking after me when I am sick.

Thank you for being in my corner always.

Thank you mum…for everything.

I love you.

DIY Fridge Magnets

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

Recently, as much as I am happy to spend money on toys/activities for my son, I have wanted to also make things at home.

My latest midnight craft is magnets. Fridge magnets specifically, so that rather than get frustrated when he cannot reach the ones we use to hold notices up, Theo Prana can play with his own set of colourful, felt magnets.

I bought some easy cut magnets from Amazon, and found some felt that I’d bought donkeys ago! Grabbed some scissors, a pen and a bit of PVA glue, and was all set. Oh and of course, I needed a snack too!

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I ended up with 12 magnets and added one strip to the back of a (very scratched) kids mirror that he plays with. For now I’ll leave it at that, but I can’t wait to make some with Theo’s own input when he’s older! I think it’s a fab rainy day activity and it’ll be something he can learn with too.

Homecoming

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

Theo Prana and his Daddy were reunited this week, as well as over a hundred other submariners families.
It wasn’t a particularly long patrol, but it is always a celebration when they return. That said, because our loved ones are back, other families are separated from their loved ones. It is an integral part of our lives.

H being away affected Theo quite a bit, more than I anticipated honestly; but overall, it hasn’t been too difficult (aside from our trip to Indonesia). The time has passed quickly, we’ve kept very busy and Theo has coped like an absolute trooper, and in the last week has really begun processing a lot of his emotions. He is still full of beans but is also being more cautious and seems softer and more gentle. I think having his Huggable Hero and me talking about Daddy coming back made a big difference because he has adjusted really well to having him home so far. That said, it’s only been 3 days so we won’t count chickens before they hatch.

He got back home just before Theo’s bedtime so I kept Theo up a bit later than usual. His initial reaction was one of absolute surprise; I think he couldn’t quite believe that the man he had been watching (and talking to) on mummy’s phone, and the pillow he had been hugging, was actually here in person now. He was a bit unsure at first but H soon had him giggling and it was perfect.

We had yesterday together and now he’s back at work so we will get back into some form of normality over the next few weeks. I think this time will be a lot easier because we are in our own house and settled (rather than moving in like last time!). I am honestly really excited to have some family time, and to watch my 2 boys bond; now Theo can play more I think it’ll be a lot of fun for both of them.

For our first proper homecoming, I think things went really well. We’ve got lots of planning to do, and lots of things to check of my never-ending To Do list, but for now, it is just really good to have him home.