Me? Sentimental? Yes I cried at Charlene and Scott's wedding

If you ever get the chance to see this little shortfilm (22mins)..it really is wonderful...I may be a sentimental continuum-parenting old fool but this spoke to the mother in me to be there as much as possible right to the end...this film also spoke to me about the need for connection and attachment.  I know from, personal experience, that in times of grief that connection is more needed than at most other times and if it was not not there to begin with then it can lead to all kinds of emotional disasters....so ellie and maia...listen up....i'm your mum...get over it!!! (i'll pay for therapy bills if you so desire)

Emily's Song

Meltdowns - none...for me anyway

Losing the Plot - none...so far

Breastfeeding - a few times BEFORE THEY ALL WENT OUT!!

Because That's What Mum Does

When I am feeling sadistic and narcissistic and I want to know the truth..about me...I think about an interaction with my children that did not go according to plan..the plan being minimal emotional and physical pain for all involved ie all get along

I face the truth about me everyday when I interact with my children.  

Tonight Ellie said 'thats what mum does' in response to Barry saying 'i think she has gone outside' after Maia was becoming upset and asking where i had gone after I got up out of bed and went downstairs without saying anything.  Although thinking about it after, I felt I was saying plenty.  Maybe no-one was listening? Maybe they were listening too well.

I had been lying prostrate on the bed with Ellie on one arm and Maia on the other (our usual method for the final sleeping part, after the story poart, the talking part, the questions about our day part and the milk part, but tonight it was too painful) and I had tried to move my position saying that it was hurting me and I did not want to do it anymore.  Maia literally grabbed my arm and would not let go obviously believing she had that strength (if she had been a monkey she would have...but we evolved supposedly: and if I'd been a monkey I probably wouldn't have chronic pain and I'd live off bananas and leaves and live in trees in a hot climate...sounds idyllic...anyway i digress)...she was holding tight. Ellie became upset that I would not lie in this position but I persevered and changed position.  She began kicking me and pushing me away saying i don't want you here, meaning her space, because I moved into a more comfortable position that meant her legs touched me ...i responded several times with 'ow thats really sore, stop that' or words to that (in)effect(ual).  When, eventually, I felt that nothing I was saying or doing was working, I got up and walked out.

When Barry told me what Ellie had said 'That's what mum does' I responded with 'yes that's what mum does when she is lying in pain and is not happy with the situation and feels nothing is working she walks away in case she becomes default shouty mummy'

In recounting this story I realise now that to my children it looked like yes I was saying plenty but not effectively and the time when I should have said something I, in effect 'walked out' which I believe they see as a form of love withdrawal.  

If I get to that 'walking out' stage, which is less than I used to thankfully.  (I recognize it as the flounce, a common family trait), I work harder to communicate first and if I still feel helpless its not working, I make a special effort to  leave with a breezy comment about needing to do something houseworky, there is always something houseworky needs doing because I don't spent my entire days doing housework, not anymore.  It gives me time to breathe and re-asses my words.  

Maia dealt with it all by being upset and eventually coming downstairs then falling asleep on me.  Ellie dealt with it by being upset but staying upstairs with Barry and falling asleep (she may have been too tired to come down)...later when Barry took her for her night time pee, she refused to get back into bed and sat screeching in a sleepy state at the top of the bed and would not go back to sleep.  I came up saying what's going on to which Barry replied I have no idea.  She did not know whether to push me away or cuddle me and she did not calm down until she folded herself into me (if I had touched her first she would have screeched more) and I whispered in her ear 'its ok, I love you Ellie' over and over .


She finally relaxed into a lying down (on my arm incidentally) position and fell asleep.


Now could the initial incident have been avoided? Possibly not.  Maybe I could have let them know i was uncomfortable..oh wait i did..ok maybe I could also have acknowledged their need for me to be in that position and that yes I know you are very upset but I am just cannot continue being in pain.  Maybe in that moment words were pointless or maybe a simple 'I love you very much but my arms hurt I need to move' might have worked.


I don't know but if you asked me what I would say if I did know, I would probably tell you 'I could have handled it better and I am glad I got another chance' because 'thats what my kids do' - give me another chance to handle it better.

Meltdowns - sleepily
Losing the Plot - silently
Breastfeeding - in a restaurant no less (yes we went out for cheapy dinner, no less! and there were fireworks involved)

shopping

I have to tell you I have become pretty adept in the last 4 yrs of NOT going grocery shopping........in the beginning, yeah it was a doddle, I had Ellie (4) on my front and hubby with me and off we would go....get this get that, no problems....then Ellie became a bit older and more mobile and more interested and we found ourselves going at a slightly slower speed but still manageable...we would discuss certain items, we could still have an enjoyable time in the shops and get food bought, then as Ellie got older and Maia being born, Ellie becoming more aware and explorative and not wanting to be a 'stay in your trolley seat and don't get out of it' kind of mum...not that I could ever had enforced that one even if I tried (she was climbing out of it before she could talk) and then the process continuing with Maia, it all became too much for one person (hubby back to work and not wanting to spent weekends shopping, actually using time to catch up on lost sleep!)...then somewhere between then and now the thought of me going grocery shopping on top of it all was just too much to bare and i am not afraid to say that it has become one of those things that i let slide.

It all became a bit less manageable over time with their needs and my needs...which includes...refusal of getting dressed stage and spending inordinate amounts of time waiting for children to get dressed or encouraging them to get dressed or just taking them naked and sorting it out later, refusal of car seats, occasionally spending inordinate amounts of time waiting for children to get into the car seat,  their need to look at everything and put it in the trolley and my need to keep to a budget and feeling crap that i have to say 'no' to lots of things...their need to dominate my thoughts with their needs and wants and my need to be able to have 'thinkspace' to decide what food to buy based on health and price content...their need to just be who they are and my need to not quash that in a negative way and end up being shouty freak out mummy.....and our incredibly shitty budgetary constraints and my incredibly shitty budgetary skills that leave me too scared to buy anything...that kind of thing....

I admire the outlook of the' 'we need food we need to shop, lets go'  idea and I fully believe in the idea that if we need food we should go get it.  I'd love to (and I like to imagine that if push came to shove, I would get on with it, much like most of my parenting!), but I often feel I am unable to keep up with their differing stage needs to explore and my need to do a proper full shop.....at the moment we get by with occasional massive on line shops.  I also have my husband go on his way home from work for bits and bobs...I often wonder how mums who don't have that support manage. I do occasionally do a bits and bob shop and I should really keep up with the 'small' inconsequential shops because they are learning experiences for the girls, but I need to be of strong mind, body and spirit to be able to cope with it.  I am just becoming adept at making weird concoctions and batch freezing.

Meltdowns - low

Losing the Plot - high 

Breastfeeding - on increase, must be colds on the horizon

You Don't Want To Know

Ok here is why,  i woke up with less than 45mins to get two girls, who between them don't want to brush their teeth. eat breakfast(that doesn't involve doughnut) or get dressed, up, dressed and having breakfast to make it to take Ellie to nursery for 9am, a task which on our other days takes me at least two hours and is not stressful and rushed and we don’t need to be out till after 10. Actually we don’t NEED to be out at all THAT is the key to it all.   I then took a child saying 'I don't want to go', to nursery where I felt compelled to say "pretend I am not here because we are doing this so you get used to me dropping you off and then coming back for you later" when really I want to say 'ok, lets go home then".  Then watch her run off without looking back and me having to stay in another room listening for signs of distress whilst trying to pick up after a two year old in a cornucopia of toys.  Then knowing I would have to rush back to catch the health visitor, who was arriving at same time as nursery finishes because I forget  to let her know we would be late, to defend my parenting, sorry to discuss my parenting and ‘bring her up to speed’.

Anyway, it turned out she was running late too so that worked out beautifully.  I decided the best thing for me to do was to be keeping busy whilst talking to her and our lunch needed making, life goes on. So whilst I was making pumpkin, carrot and lentil soup with the girls running in every few minutes to help by opening stock cubes and plopping them in, or cutting potato or putting veggies into the water, she was asking me if the girls were eating healthily.  She exclaimed that she would NEVER have let her child use a knife at that age, I pointed out that this was not the first time Ellie had used a knife  (she is not dead yet Grow Slow Sunday Herald 2008) and that since she had been attached to me since birth, and seeing me doing this very same task over and over and had progressed through plastic, butter and onto ‘proper’ knife, she was fully equipped with the knowledge and skills in order to perform these everyday necessary, being part of the family type things.  Likewise being around hot water and cookers hence the lack of ‘be careful that’s hot’ type comments that were flying out of her aghast mouth. 

Next she brought up the subject of boundaries to which I mentioned natural consequences to which she replied with the inevitable.  In fact before she even had the chance to respond with the inevitable I countered with “Its very common when looking at this kind of parenting for people to automatically go for the OMG BUT WHAT IF THEY WERE TO RUN ON THE ROAD OR PICK UP A LOADED GUN type scenario” In reality though, I am not actually going to allow my child to maim or kill themselves,  because well, BECAUSE I AM NOT A MORON.  Well I didn’t really say that.

Look I said to her in as open and calm as way as possible, I have had these children attached to me since birth, I have maintained my connection with them and still intend to maintain my connection with them for as long as I can.  They understand about the world, age appropriate,  because I have been with them and explaining to them exactly what is going on and how things happen and why since birth and frankly how can attachment possibly be a bad thing, compared to say….unparenting where the parent just sits watching TV all day NOT interacting with their child much.

I try to parent without using coercion, threats, bribery and sometimes I manage!

We briefly talked about the Triple P parenting Course she had been asked to talk to me about by the SS but it turns out that its not in their remit and so she knows nothing about it and doesn’t offer it at her practice.  I said I had looked online and frankly whilst some of it was interesting and (obvious) I was not about to start using time out or any other punitive discipline technique and IF I did go on the course, I would most likely disrupt it with my own views and if it was during the day, my kids would need to come too and they would disrupt it even more.  She laughed knowingly. 

Interestingly when I asked her how much of it was actually MY choice to go on the course she didn’t have a straight answer for me but the fact that I was happy for her to come over was a positive sign, meaning if I had refused and even though the SS had specifically stated it was my choice for the course, I could have been in for a whole more world of trouble.  AND even though the SS said they were having no more involvement, she said she was going to speak to them and....and....and...anyway 

I dispatched her with the Alfie Khon Unconditional Parenting and we had our lunch on the floor on a towel infront of the TV.

After lunch, we set about going to support our friend at her jewellery launch but once in the car were beset with meltdowns on all fronts.  It turned out, after stopping the car and finding out exactly why Ellie was screaming and flailing, that she was upset because Maia was wearing the hat she had on. The hat Maia always wears, because Ellie wanted to have it as a spare when the one she was wearing got wet.  When I pointed out that I understood her upset and that Maia was actually wearing that hat and she would be upset if Ellie took it, she wailed and stated that when she was unplugged from her seat she was going to grab the hat of Maia’s head.  See, sometimes, car seats are not the devil!!  When Ellie had sufficiently calmed down enough for me to continue driving, we made our way with occasional grumblings of grabbing and askings of would she would be happy to have something grabbed off her.  We arrived with an agreement, that since the hats probably would not get that wet, we would stick with the ones we had on.  THEN, between getting out of the car and walking to the venue, about 3feet something happened…I can’t be entirely sure what and it may well just have been a culmination of a very rushed and stressful day (or doughnut for breakfast), anyway Ellie had a spectacular meltdown which was made worse by me trying to have said meltdown inside the sports centre rather than in the rain or right next to the smokers corner.  So I manage to move everyone inside whilst trying to figure out exactly what the problem was.  It was really a lost cause, I had no clue, she was screaming, I couldn’t understand her, then she was roaring and saying ‘lets go home, I don’t want to be here’.  I decided to just sit.  Maia crawled about the seating area whilst Ellie screamed and I sat.  I was aware of the staff behind the counter but I was mostly focused on not making the meltdown worse by attempting to touch or speak! Then the phone rang and the woman behind the counter got nippy with me and asked me to make her stop  - HA!!! Then several staff went ‘shh’ and to my dismay I used the ‘Ellie the woman on the phone can’t hear’ line.  I wish I hadn’t, simply because I feel it makes Ellie think that woman’s phonecall is more important than Ellie’s feelings.  Anyway it was distraction enough and as quick as it had started, Ellie suddenly stopped and we were on our way minus shoes, a small concession in my eyes.

The jewellery launch was a fraught affair, simply because she wasn’t keen on us touching the stuff, even though they were being careful and knew it was delicate, even though I was crawling on the floor at their height and looking at the things with them, even though I was taking extra care to make sure they were taking extra care…it was too difficult so we got grandma’s present and left.

Home sweet home…sort of, because Maia who had now been woken from two falling asleeps decided not to have her afternoon shloph and spent the rest of the day oscillating between being upset and wanting milk, so not much was done.

BUT for a change,  dinner was actually made! Well ok, half was made, half was oven cooked from the freezer already made, but THAT in my book is enough!

Anyway, Its all kind of ironic because I spend my entire life encouraging Ellie and Maia to discuss their feelings and talk about what is bothering them rather than suppressing hitting pushing kicking grabbing or screaming the place down in the vain hope that they can find ways to deal with their emotions in an effective, affective and healthy manner in the future  and to help them see that what they say and do matters WHEN most of the time it feels like I am keeping all MY  real thoughts and feelings suppressed….hence the phrase ‘you don’t want to know’

Meltdowns - several 
Losing the Plot - 0
Breastfeeding - obviously!

really mad

i am starting to get really MAD that MY parenting is being put into question....are my kids happy? are my kids confident to be themselves? are my kids questioning? are my kids secure? are my kids inquisitive? are my kids acting like kids? You FUCKING BET THEY ARE


Meltdowns - Losing the Plot - Breastfeeding - all part of being kids

All For the Want of a Nail

Sometimes is good to have a schpeigel.  In this case it was a 30minutes hoover schpeigel of the downstairs...well minus the back room, because that means more than just hoovering .   Its freed up at least another couple of weeks where I can get by on occasional surface hoovering time!!  This in turns means more time doing other stuff.  (Believe me, no matter if we hoover every single day which, I used to try to do, I quickly realised it wasn't worth it in so many ways. Now, I don't have the inclination or time for it and anyway, it wouldn't matter because this carpet is all one colour, a lovely deep red colour.  It was amazing new, pre mobile children,  but to cut a long story short which most will 'get', next time i am going 70's patterned in creams and brown swirls)

Anyway back to the schpeigeling, things have been tested to my limit for me recently, what with unbelievable pain, social services and MASSIVE fight (again) with my mother.  Most will know my view on the whole SS visit which while quite stressful and definitely not something I would want or need every week....was just another way of cementing to me that I DO NOT want to be the kind of parent you see dragging their child out of a place kicking and screaming, I WANT to be the kind of parent that comes to some kind of arrangement where everyone leaves feeling happy, secure satisfied and feeling the love.  Yes I know there was nakedness but G-D dammit we were all naked once.  And YES I am irked that my girls don't get the choice to meet daddy naked when he comes home from work...and I have to coerce them with a threat of not being able to meet daddy...I always LOVED dancing naked in the rain for a few moments!!!  It's more about having that choice.  It's always about having the choice.

The inconceivable pain was from a month of me trying to manage my sciatica without pain medication culminating in me screaming the pain was worse than childbirth and demanding more drugs than ibuprofen to which I literally laughed in the Dr's face at and got tramadol and diazepam for my incredulity.   I just received a text from a friend who suggested that sciatic pain means one is dealing with emotional issues maybe needing more support or needing to stand up for oneself.  Usually deep inner issues.  All related to muscle tension which is a direct expression of emotional tension.  Hello, my name is Mummy and I have emotional issues.

Which brings me to the show down with my mother another one where she makes a comment too much, another show down where she complains about the state of the house...oh no wait, this one included my children this time... that's a comment too far...... I am not proud to say I did not respond with the level of compassion and love I so desire which slightly negated most of our argument about breaking the cycle of emotional abuse that she doesn't believe has a placing in her relationship with her grandchildren..or even existed with me.  ''You could be so pretty...if only you did x y whatever condition I am putting on my unconditional love for you today''.  When push comes to shove though....I always revert to what I am trying  in desperation to avoid.  I am proud to say that I stood up for myself and my children.  Hello, my name is mummy and I have emotional issues that I am trying DAMN hard  not pass on to my children.  

Anyway with our amassed time from not having a spotless home, we managed a trip into town to see a wee theatre play, it was totally delightful, Maia was mesmerized, Ellie was engaged, they both were laughing and no-one took their clothes off, no-one peed in the gutter, no-one ended up in tears....well ok......at the end, Ellie in her excitement to go down the lift BY. HERSELF. pushed Maia over which made her very upset then indignant then rendered unable to walk and ended up with me having to carry her back to the busstop but it's a different upset from a beginning of the day upset which can change the whole dynamic of our day.

Siblings without Rivalry is arriving in the post soon and for the record, this is the room AFTER a schpeigling, I think two weeks may be an over estimate.

Meltdowns - 0

Losing the Plot - 0 - 

Breastfeeding - of course!