Lately the blog I have been reading the most of is my own. This weekend just passed was the 4 year anniversary/birthday of this computer diary and it's been quite cool to look back and see how much the kids have grown, how day to day life has changed and how bigger and droopy-er my arse and chins have expanded...
Before I blogged I used to spend my day walking to parks and stuff, my days were dedicated to actually interacting with my children! haha
I jest.
Kind of.
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So yesterday was Mothers Day and it was nice.
I'll let you in on a secret, years ago, when the kids were all small, I practically always cried on Mothers Day.
I hated it.
I guess I had these wild expectations, of a rest, to be lavished with gifts and spoiled with bacon and waffles in cute cafes that never came.
With a zillion kids in nappies who needed lots of food to be fed to them all day long, a house that I felt needed to look immaculate before inlaws visited, muffins baking the oven, the lack of gifts my way because of the extreme lack of funds while seeing what friends with significantly more funds would receive, rushing out the door for church while screaming obscenities at the husband for only getting himself ready etc etc....you get my visual.
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I didn't know how to take a chill pill.
I probably didn't even really want to. This Mothering gig was my JOB.
Yes I used to receive my payment by feeling super smug when older women at church would literally pat me on the back and marvel at how lovely and tidy all my children looked and what a good mummy I must be. When others would smile as I traipsed through the supermarket with baby on my hip and kids piled high in a trolley where the food should be. I liked that to others it looked hard, when they asked how I did it, and I never knew how to answer, because I just had to do it.
And that was my reward.
It was looking all peaches from the outside (somedays) and that's what mattered to me back then.
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BUT I would come home, whinge moan and huff about having to make lunch as soon as we walked in the door then clean up dishes. My most reoccurring memory of Mothers Day is me pushing around a vacuum cleaner with tears spilling over my cheeks after just yelling at my toddler.
The WOE is me pity party would be fully raging. All while Gooseman would be saying "Don't worry about that stuff! Just come and sit down and relax" and then we would probably fight, just to make it completely suck.
These days I'm older andwiser lazier. But I also have a different mindset towards it all.
It was my first day off from work after a few days in a row. I was tired. And it is a different tired, from the tiredness of being home with babies. I can say this because I know. It's not better or worse, it's just different.
There were also chores that needed doing. Chores that are spread out amongst the whole family now, so it doesn't all fall on Mum, but still it was Mothers Day, and here I was churning through 3 loads of washing and contemplating washing the floors. A few times my head told me to sigh as I dumped a fresh load on the ground ready to hang and I thought "No".This stuff needs to be done, I'm choosing to do it, I could not, and then reap the consequence tomorrow..
I don't think I uttered a single sigh all day.
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This is a long post with really random old pictures for a split second thought that flashed through my mind of choosing not to get down on myself for not having a total rest that all the hallmark cards and facebook messages tell you we deserve.
Highlights of my day, playing an impromptu game of netball/basketball (with completely screwed up rules) with 3 of my kids. Taking over the whole couch early afternoon, sun soaked, while I snuck a luscious nana nap.
In reality my kids fought, they declared their dying hunger while lunch cooked and they fought and squabbled some more.
Gooseman worked hard all day taking my car to pieces and re fitting it with a sweet as stereo. And life was good.
Normal (our normal, not yours or theirs)
not idyllic,
but real good.
Before I blogged I used to spend my day walking to parks and stuff, my days were dedicated to actually interacting with my children! haha
I jest.
Kind of.
So yesterday was Mothers Day and it was nice.
I'll let you in on a secret, years ago, when the kids were all small, I practically always cried on Mothers Day.
I hated it.
I guess I had these wild expectations, of a rest, to be lavished with gifts and spoiled with bacon and waffles in cute cafes that never came.
With a zillion kids in nappies who needed lots of food to be fed to them all day long, a house that I felt needed to look immaculate before inlaws visited, muffins baking the oven, the lack of gifts my way because of the extreme lack of funds while seeing what friends with significantly more funds would receive, rushing out the door for church while screaming obscenities at the husband for only getting himself ready etc etc....you get my visual.
I didn't know how to take a chill pill.
I probably didn't even really want to. This Mothering gig was my JOB.
Yes I used to receive my payment by feeling super smug when older women at church would literally pat me on the back and marvel at how lovely and tidy all my children looked and what a good mummy I must be. When others would smile as I traipsed through the supermarket with baby on my hip and kids piled high in a trolley where the food should be. I liked that to others it looked hard, when they asked how I did it, and I never knew how to answer, because I just had to do it.
And that was my reward.
It was looking all peaches from the outside (somedays) and that's what mattered to me back then.
BUT I would come home, whinge moan and huff about having to make lunch as soon as we walked in the door then clean up dishes. My most reoccurring memory of Mothers Day is me pushing around a vacuum cleaner with tears spilling over my cheeks after just yelling at my toddler.
The WOE is me pity party would be fully raging. All while Gooseman would be saying "Don't worry about that stuff! Just come and sit down and relax" and then we would probably fight, just to make it completely suck.
These days I'm older and
It was my first day off from work after a few days in a row. I was tired. And it is a different tired, from the tiredness of being home with babies. I can say this because I know. It's not better or worse, it's just different.
There were also chores that needed doing. Chores that are spread out amongst the whole family now, so it doesn't all fall on Mum, but still it was Mothers Day, and here I was churning through 3 loads of washing and contemplating washing the floors. A few times my head told me to sigh as I dumped a fresh load on the ground ready to hang and I thought "No".This stuff needs to be done, I'm choosing to do it, I could not, and then reap the consequence tomorrow..
I don't think I uttered a single sigh all day.
This is a long post with really random old pictures for a split second thought that flashed through my mind of choosing not to get down on myself for not having a total rest that all the hallmark cards and facebook messages tell you we deserve.
Highlights of my day, playing an impromptu game of netball/basketball (with completely screwed up rules) with 3 of my kids. Taking over the whole couch early afternoon, sun soaked, while I snuck a luscious nana nap.
In reality my kids fought, they declared their dying hunger while lunch cooked and they fought and squabbled some more.
Gooseman worked hard all day taking my car to pieces and re fitting it with a sweet as stereo. And life was good.
Normal (our normal, not yours or theirs)
not idyllic,
but real good.
