Everyday Mum

Well the school holidays are coming to an end and I have to say……THANK GOODNESS. Don’t get me wrong I love having my boys home and easing up on the routine - no rushed mornings, no packing lunches, spending more time together - its all nicer in that regard. The other side of that is that I really do find it quite an adjustment having them home all the time again. I  greatly value times of  peace and quiet so being deprived of this for a few weeks can be, well, quite traumatic for me. Add to that the fact that my uni work doesn’t stop for school hols and you can imagine the incredible balancing act this becomes for me. So once again I find myself strategizing how to survive with my sanity in tact. 

I have found that preparation is the key. In the few weeks leading up to the school hols I usually plan an itinerary of sorts  – not for everyday but for at least every couple which keeps the boys occupied and active. Visiting friends and having friends over, trips to the park, bike rides, bowling, movies, rollerskating, a visit to the library etc. Kids tend to get bored pretty quickly after being used to the busyness of school so after a few days of nothing and laziness I find it is wise to have regular fun planned. This being said, things don’t always go to plan though. 

These school holidays I thought it would be fun to mix it up a little with a family road trip to Maryborough for the annual MaryPoppins Festival (yes a little cheesy i  know but she was a childhood favourite of mine). While I had fun memory- making ideals for this holiday, I was a little,  how should I put it – delusional. My problem was that I forgot to factor real life into this plan and found myself increasingly exasperated as the holiday went on and wasn’t living up to the picture in my mind. In all fairness, the boys were actually pretty good, they were just being normal kids but I wanted perfect little robot children. I became too focused on their loud and heavy footsteps on the cabin floor, the incessant asking to buy everything we saw, their regular arguing, their constant climbing up and down the triple bunk bed, the small confined space of the cabin, the clothes strewn all over the floor and my nagging to stop stomping, asking, arguing, climbing and making a mess! 

It is easy for me to get distracted by my need for order and calm and sometimes this becomes a hinderence to giving my kids the freedom to be kids or more particularly boys to be boys. I’m in constant need of reminding to let go and not ‘sweat the small stuff’. I dont mean let kids run wild by any stretch of the imagination, but to make peace with the fact that they are kids  and certain behavoiur is inevitable – its more how I as the parent respond to and handle this.  This time round I lost perspective and consequently missed the beauty of the little moments to be had, hopefully next time I won’t. Fortunately the rest of the holidays were not like our Maryborough adventure, lol. 

I find motherhood constantly teaches me things about myself  and challenges me to grow as a person and mother. I am not perfect (gasp, shock horror!) and I will make many more mistakes along the way but I hope to always get up and move forward (even just a baby step) each time. Nevertheless the boys seemed to enjoy our time away (even with a cranky mum!) – maybe I have something to learn from them. 

My days can get pretty crazy busy (like all other mums out there no doubt) but I always try to make sure I take the time to tell my boys how much I love them. Such a simple thing to do yet something I can easily neglect to do regularly enough when my mind is constantly on overload and I am struggling to keep all the balls in the air.  I came to realise just how much my affirmative words meant when one day I was putting master 7′s pajamas under his pillow and spotted a note taped underneath the bunk bed above his. It was a note I had left on his bed for him one afternoon after he had run in the finals during his school athletics carnival. In this note I had told him how I thought he had run so well and how proud I was of him for giving his best effort. This obviously impacted him more than I had expected it to – enough to keep it where he could look at it every night before he went to sleep. Well, this inspired me. I got busy writing down how I felt about my boys and other little encouraging affirmations and then made them into little laminated cards that I could pop into their school lunch boxes that would let them know everyday how I felt about them. They were a hit!  The boys constantly tell me how much they love finding their note and will ask me in the car on the way to school “what note did you put in my lunch box today mum?!” With a wink and a smile I tell them they will have to wait and see! This by no means replaces the verbal words of affection and affirmation my boys need to hear from me but rather a little additional and effective way I can let my boys know what they mean to me. Growing up presents so many challenges for children, especially once they are at school. Our kids need to know Mum and Dad are cheering for them and are there to remind them that they are special and valuable when sometimes the big wide world would have them believe otherwise.

cloud picture retrieved from:http://thenewmt.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/love-heart-cloud.jpg

I am always trying to think of ways I can make school lunches more interesting and fun. Being the crazy list person I am I usually have a lunch list stuck to the fridge of pre -thought out lunch ideas to pack that week in an effort to keep school lunches from becoming boring and bland. But even with my OCD planning habits, there are times when I just don’t get around to making the things I intended so it is back to the good ol’ sandwich. Recently though I discovered a way of making the humble sandwich whole lot more fun.   Lunchpunch match & munch are sandwich cutters made by an Aussie mum which cut a sandwich into puzzle pieces making lunch time lotsa’ fun. There are 4 different cutters in the pack which can make as little as a 2 piece puzzle or as many as you like. You can use a variety of spreads or fillings and match them up together to make one huge sandwich, there is no limit to the creative possibilities! The best thing is it is completely child friendly and easy for little hands so they can have the pleasure of cutting their own sandwich and is made of the ‘safe’ plastic with no dangerous toxins. The added bonus is they can be thrown in the dishwasher (which I LOVE as cutters can be a pain to wash).

Simply make the sandwich…….punch out your puzzle…..…..make your puzzle (warning: this product encourages playing with your food – not for the sensible!) ….and eat!

Another is called Dynobytes which cuts the sandwich into dinosaurs and uses as much of the bread as possible reducing wastage. These two products encourage the kidlets to eat their lunch and make the whole experience much more fun! No need to waste the crusts either – save them in a container to take to the park in the afternoon and feed the ducks

Most children tend to be early risers. I have mum friends that lament about the waking of their child before the sun has even woken up.  Fortunately I have managed to to avoid that particular situation somehow, but when my children were waking up before I was ready to face the day I had to come up with a solution for protecting that precious extra hour of sleep I needed! Whilst this may sound selfish, for me to function well as a mum I need to be well rested and it didn’t seem a big ask for the boys to have some quiet time on their beds in the morning. I believe it is important to teach children how to be considerate of the needs of others and this situation seemed to be a good way to practice! Being children though I knew it was unreasonable to expect them to just lay there quietly staring at the ceiling for any extended period of time. Enter the ‘Book Box’.

To encourage their cooperation and make this quiet time easierI bought a small plastic box from the store and filled it with an assortment of books that the boys can take out and read on their beds until it is time to get up. After this the books are put back in the box to keep things tidy. To prevent boredom I regularly change the books over so there are new books to look at. Borrowing  library books gives it extra variety which can be changed over as regularly as you like to visit the library. To add extra fun, plant random surprises between the pages the night before like special notes from mum, a sheet of stickers etc, this makes it a nicer way to start the morning. This technique is obviously not going to be terribly effective with very young children when they cannot read and their attention span is much shorter but substituting with interesting toys and fun age appropriate books may be more helpful and suitable. It’s also important to consider that an hour for very young children is too long so you may have to start out small and work up to a longer time frame, although anything over an hour, even for older children, would be pushing it. My boys LOVE  books and I find this little strategy allows me the indulgence of a little extra sleep

I have never been a big fan of mornings. Now that I have 3 young children I dread them. I am big on organisation (sometime a little too much so!) and I am always brainstorming different ways to get things done more effectively and efficiently so as to make life easier but it seems no matter how many helpful ’systems’ I put in place or how many different approaches I try  in an attempt to make mornings smoother, I am starting to believe this hope is pie in the sky.

Mornings in our home are pretty busy with getting ready for school.  The boys are equipped with job charts that help them independently get themselves ready for school while I get myself ready and  make lunches - sounds easy enough, not a complicated task right? Wrong.  The reality is that kids will be kids. Each morning I fail to remember the bumps we will encounter because of this simple fact. Breakfast is always a messy business with young boys making their own breakfast and leaving scattered weet bix crumbs from one end of the bench to the other and the floor with multiple small (and sometimes not so small) puddles of milk amongst the trial of crumbs. After that there comes the cry of “mum, I have no socks/shirt/shorts” etc which sees me exasperatedly throwing a load of washing on for the shortest cycle possible while wondering how they managed to run out when I am sure they had a full weeks worth at the beginning of the week and hoping they will be washed in time for a spin in the dryer before we have to leave!  When I am trying to get ready, there are multiple knocks at my door with questions, dobbing, crying and an assortment of other things that all take time away from my seemingly simple task of dressing myself and packing food. It never fails.

This morning we had a particularly action-packed episode when I opened my door up to the umpteenth knock since I  closed it 5 minutes beforehand, to find my youngest wailing and sporting a massive egg on his forehead. Through all the sobbing and quick sharp breaths I was able to decipher that Master 7 had tackled him causing him to face plant into the wooden play kitchen in the playroom. Fabulous. With one half made up eye and half dressed, I robed myself up, set Master 3 onto his bed with an ice pack and then went to seek out my usually-very-responsible-eldest son for a little chat that I really didn’t have time for if we were to make it to school on time. Despite all this I actually managed to hastily finish dressing myself and pack lunches. We even got to school before the bell rang.

I love being a mum. Having said that though I am not one to subscribe to the sunshine and lollipops opinion of motherhood. Most days it can be incredibly taxing, exhausting and down right hard. There are some days where I want to fall in a heap on the floor and let my despair defeat me, days when it feels it is all just too hard. However there are also days when my heart feels like it will just burst at the seams with love and joy. Despite the difficult days, I believe motherhood is incredibly rewarding (pardon the cliche’). When you experience those precious moments with your children and see your hard work pay off it reminds you of what is really important and  makes those dark days all seem absolutely worth it. When I feel myself get too caught up in the busy-ness of life - to focused on surviving rather than living, I need to take a step back, regroup, refocus and remember what really matters, what really counts – those small everyday moments.

pizza faces

I am a firm believer in family traditions. Creating family traditions help to strengthen family ties and promote a fun atmosphere. A favourite family ritual in our home is movie night. Once a month  on a Saturday night we hire a family friendly flick from our local Blockbuster store, make our own pizzas, pop the microwave popcorn and break up the block of chocolate then bunker down on the lounge room floor to enjoy the magic of the movies. One of my boys favourite part is making the pizzas. They love kneading the dough and master 4 delights in getting covered in flour from head to toe. Sometimes we get creative and give the pizza’s faces. You can use hot dog Frankfurt’s for eyes, olives for a nose, shredded ham for hair, mushrooms for ears, capsicum for the mouth, peas and corn kernels for eyebrows and anything else your kids will eat, there are no limit to the choices! Just make sure you put the cheese on first

me and mine

I am a busy work-at-home mum (not to be confused with a work -from- home mum, I just like it better than ‘stay-at-home’ mum) married to my best friend for almost 9 years and together we are raising out 3 boys - 7,6 and 4. This year I embarked upon full time study in order to attain my Bachelor of Primary education although from next term I am part time as this first term proved to be more than I cared to take on. Maybe once my youngest is at Prep next year I will consider full time again but for now part time will allow me to live out my priorities and sustain balance in my life – very important. These priorities that I speak of are my family and my dedication and responsibility to nurture and care for them as best I can. Don’t get me wrong, I am not someone who feels as though my whole life should revolve around her family(which is fine if that’s your passion), I pursue my own interests and achievements outside of my family but they always come first. People and relationships are the most important thing to me and so I will always seek to make them my priority. This dedication and loyalty extends to my friends whom Ialso love deeply and enjoy spending time and sharing life with. Last but far from least, my faith is the very foundation of everything that I am and flavours my outlook and philosophies, it is what centers me and grounds me and keeps me connected to what is real and important. Through this blog I intend to live more conciously and pay attention to the things and moments that make up my hours, days, weeks, months and years – my life.