One year.
One whole year of writing my weekly blog, bar a couple of missed weeks when we have had holidays etc, but I am incredibly proud of myself. It’s taken quite a lot of effort and motivation some weeks, and others I have been itching to sit down with my laptop. So far, I haven’t gone back and re-read any of the posts, maybe if I did, I would see how far I have come, what has changed and what hasn’t!
It’s been a rollercoaster, that’s for sure.
I’m not going to lie, this past week, specifically Wednesday – Saturday, has probably been one of the worst yet.
Saturday afternoon I broke away from the room the girls were playing in, to write the following words down in my notepad.
“Just finding everything hard and unenjoyable at the moment. I’m crying multiple times a day and feel completely exhausted of putting up a façade that everything is fine. I have no patience at all. I don’t want to talk to anyone, including Aurora. I have such a short temper and can’t seem to go even an hour without raising my voice.
I’m trying all these techniques and reading different theories, but it doesn’t change the fact that fundamentally I am done.
I haven’t got the energy for any of it anymore. I feel as though I have spent the entire year looking for answers or solutions, something that will help, and maybe subconsciously it is because we are now nearing the end of the year and I feel worse than I did at the beginning, that I have simply had enough. There’s no escape.
I haven’t got the time or resources to get away from them. The tiny pockets of time that I do, I’m either with people that have kids the same age, so we inevitably talk about them, and I can’t help but silently compare my situation to theirs. Convinced that my children are so much worse and harder to manage than theirs and also victimising myself because their husband is at home to help a lot more.
Or I’m with people who don’t have children, so have no idea what it’s like, or what my issues are, and I feel completely disconnected. In these instances, I WANT to talk about the problems, but can’t.
I just feel constantly unhappy. Everyone is always crying. The girls can switch from sad back to happy again in an instant and I simply do not possess that skill.
It takes me quite a while to emerge from the other side of my feelings and it cannot be rushed.
Getting angered by Aurora and then having to switch back to the animated person reading them a bedtime story got too much for me last night. It just felt so inauthentic. I can’t flip like that, well not in that direction anyway. I almost feel as though I can’t imagine enjoying them ever again. The cloud seems thick and dark.
I’m tired of making excuses for it.
I’m tired of searching for answers.
I’m tired of it all.”
Writing it all down definitely helped, and what was even more beneficial was Luke having an earlier finish, getting home around 9.15pm, so I unloaded everything on to him, with all the tears and desperation included.
Being able to unload is such a release, I hadn’t realised how much I had been craving it.
Recently we had both been baffled by Aurora’s behaviour as it had seemed to be off the charts. Tantrums about everything, losing her mind if something was done slightly differently to normal, or just different to how she had thought it would happen in her mind.
All the focus was on her. But it was me. I feel out of control. I feel as though I am floating in a strange limbo with my future held in the hands of others. As a control freak, I despise being out of control, and clearly, I have been taking it out on the girls when I look at what it is that has been triggering me. It is me trying to claw back some control on anything else I can to help me feel better. Aurora in turn is doing the same.
Realising this does not help the fact that I have already been feeling like an awful mother who is ruining her children’s lives. Now I’m subjecting them to my insane ways, and they will both turn out like this too.
I need to regain control. Everything I read in my books when learning about toddlers, I need to apply to myself! Regain control where I can, not somewhere uncontrollable – like the actions of two unpredictable toddlers!
Upon waking up Sunday morning I felt a lot better. The cloud had lifted, and I felt motivated to get out of the house – something I had not felt in a while. It’s so silly because I had made this rule with myself just a couple of weeks ago, after realising that that had been one of the problems, but I had quickly turned back into my usual hermit self and look at the mess I had made!
So once everyone was dressed and ready, I took the girls to a coffee shop that has one of those Tiny Towns above. We all had a hot drink and some yummy biscuits and then headed up for a play. They absolutely loved it. We’ve been a few times, but I really don’t know why I don’t go more often. They were entertained for ages, and we could have stayed longer, had Luna not needed a nap.
They immediately went into the little kitchen room, Luna sat up at the table with a monkey she had found, and Aurora got in to character, telling Luna that she was cooking her dinner. Luna then shared her dinner with her monkey. It was so lovely to watch. Neither of them could see me, so it was completely organic and beautiful.
It was what we all needed and actually gave me a lot of thinking time, that I just do not get when we are all at home. There is always something to be done, or snacks to be made. It’s magical how the simple act of leaving your house can feel like a little holiday from your To-Do list. I can feel this turning into more of a regular activity!
During this thinking time, I have decided that I may try and find a child minder to have Luna one day a week. I had originally thought just half a day, but today I decided that if I did a whole day on a Wednesday or Thursday, then Aurora and I could have a morning together, just us, and then I could have 3 hours in the afternoon with neither child. It would give me time to get things done around the house that I then try and squeeze in while the girls want to play, or they get plonked in front of the TV yet again. Or I’m trying to do it while Luke baths the girls on the nights he’s here, so we never get to experience bath time all together. But more than just getting little jobs done, I could simply exist without them for a while. Take a breath and enjoy relaxing in my home completely free of any responsibilities. As I have said time and time again, I love being at home, but what I have come to realise is that I love being alone at home. Being cooped up with two toddlers at home does not have the same Zen feeling that I had been used to.
On top of that decision, I have also been thinking about the possibility of tidying and organising for a living. It’s one of the things that makes my heart truly happy, and I would love to help people that either don’t know where to start, or don’t have the want to do it at all.
Hospitality has taken a real toll, and I realised recently that it is absolutely draining my social battery. Working front of house is a lot like being on stage all day. It’s all an act, you have to be on top form all the time, and again it feels incredibly inauthentic. I need to move away from seeing 100+ people a day and work more in solitude. It sounds dreamy.
I have a friend that already does this a couple of days a week, and I would love to experience what a day in the life of that job would be. To get a taste.
It probably doesn’t make sense to do anything before we move at the end of May, but I just don’t know if my social battery will last that long. I need to be smart though as moving involves getting approved for another mortgage so I need to concentrate on that and earning as much as I can before then. It’s definitely worth thinking about for when we are back in Newbury though, even if I just start by helping friends and family, to build it up. I really feel as though this is where my strengths lie, and I haven’t felt that way about anything before.
It's a hard pill to swallow, being almost 36 (9 days to go!) and still not knowing what I’m meant to be doing career-wise. I feel as though everyone around me has it all figured out and I’m coasting along waiting for the next hobby.
I’m so glad that I was so organised with gifts this year as December has felt so relaxed on that side. Being able to spread the cost over 3 months has made it feel a lot more manageable as well so starting in September is definitely the new tradition.
I’m excited to spend time with our families, have some delicious food and drink copious amounts of Prosecco. We’re trying to be as low key about the gift side of it as possible to the girls, and really aren’t bigging up Santa all that much. I don’t want it to be all about that. I get that it’s magical, and I’m not taking any of that away. But I heard Aurora tell Luna off for making a mess and then said ‘Remember who’s watching you, you won’t get any presents’. I don’t want that to be their mind set. I want them to behave nicely all year round, not just in December because they’re worried it will affect how many presents they get. We’ll see how this goes as the years go by. I’m sure in a couple of years I’ll be threatening to call Santa in June because they’ve done something naughty.
I hope you all have a truly wonderful Christmas. I hope you have moments where you look around and realise how much love is in the room. I hope you find joy in the small things. I hope you have laughter, and lots of it. I hope you find time to dance to the music. I hope your homes are filled with the delicious scents of roast dinners, mulled wine and freshly pulled crackers. I hope you don’t put too much pressure on yourselves, because it really is just another day.
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