Skip to main content

Mother's Day 2024: Home, Fires, Writing, Reading

It's Sunday, and I was woken up by small little stomps coming up the stairs from our littlest. She snuggled into her perfect little spot next to me and said she wanted a bar. She usually has these fruit bars. She was hungry. The first thing she says when she wakes. Every time. But no, today, she wanted a Naanaa (banana). Once Daddy had found her one, she then proceeded to dunk her biscuit in my tea that he also brought up for us. Our eldest was still snoozing in the spot next to me where Daddy sleeps (she had come up in the middle of the night again and swapped). Daddy then goes downstairs to our littlest one's bed for the rest of the night and we all sleep soundly until I hear those little 6am stomps. Our little family of four. Our happy Sunday mornings. 

The eldest then proceeded to gallop downstairs on a mission. Our youngest and I finished the Naanaa and biscuits, and for the rest of the morning, the girls brought me little gifts like chocolate and wine, cards, and painted flowers from nursery. For today is Mother's Day. 

Downstairs, we then spent 45 minutes trying to get trousers on our youngest where Daddy eventually just took her out half naked in the hope to dress her at his friend's house. She is driving us up the wall with craziness and love. 

With peace restored in the house, the fire on to speed up the drying washing, I decide to write and watch the new Richie gangster series. Baby just kicked in my tummy and this blissful middle trimester of pregnancy has come back to me. The impending new baby coming into the home again, the little nappies, the tiny legs and toes. The slow days. The new bedtimes. The anticipation of new schools. So much to come. Our family growing again. More love to feel and give back.

A little plan is coming into shape with my 'career' too. The story has been bumpy for a while and it feels like I'm constantly navigating my way round keeping my journey going as long as the children are happy. The new hours I've attempted at a little school haven't quite worked for us as a family. It's put too much pressure on Oscar. I'm glad that will change now and I'll be careful to think about that next time. I also missed picking them up from school - and even though having two nights off a week was a luxury - I've had enough to last me a year or two. I can go into the new post-partum fourth trimester with refreshed headspace and the knowledge that that peace will one day be back.

In between that future peace and now, it comforts me that I can continue my tutoring - through ZooWorld Education - and I'm already putting conversations out there. GCSEs don't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon and children still need navigating their way through the mess that are public examinations. It's my strength - those exams - and I feel I should stick to my strengths. They're easy once you know how to manipulate them. Then, through tutoring, I can create the day I need to while the girls are at school. My biggest worry was that I'd only be able to work with local UK children after school hours but that's when I'd be doing school runs and it would clash. However, working with international students, and the changing of time zones because of that, it would mean that I can work in the day for a few hours whilst also maintaining motherhood life with time still to do the housework here and there. 

That's the dream, anyway. And we all need small dreams, and big dreams: but today isn't the day to talk about buying a farm...I'll have to make do with making a veg patch in the garden from a flower bed that is far away from thriving in our stony soil. 

That'll do for now. More to follow. 

I think I might scale the bath down to a shower - this house needs to be in some sort of order before the pickles come home and I'm running out of me time...

Zx

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

New Parents: we're all winging it.

As Oscar bathes Olive and plays with her in the bath, I have the time to write. We've had a weekend away from him and we've missed him so much. Their bond is just so heartwarming. Makes me want another...oh wait, we've already made one...just got to get the little one to Earth safely now and we don't have long to go...  This pregnancy is totally different to our first. Kicks are the same, same sickness at the beginning, same waves that roll in my stomach that make me feel so lucky and feminine. Same power. Same tiredness. Same overriding feeling of so. Much. Love. Same feeling of fear. The fear is now: how on earth will we cope with two? I think more about post-birth than the birth itself. As soon as I'm on Mat Leave, at the end of this week, I can feel a shift moving towards preparing for birth and the arrival.  I literally have no idea how we'll cope but we will. It's amazing how much courage and reserves we have deep down. Oscar said the other day that we...

Motherhood: A discussion on identity

The weaning post is coming along (halfway there) but something has happened today that is too pressing not to talk about. So today was an important day in moving forward. Yesterday, I was in the doctors with excruciating round ligament pain. Turns out resting while having a toddler to look after is almost impossible being pregnant and my body was telling me to slow down. Today, after lots of rest, my body is feeling better and my mind has shifted.  Last week, I realised that I haven't had a whole day to myself since Olive was born. That's 19 months. I've only just noticed.  At the beginning of motherhood, I was breastfeeding round the clock; then, I went to work for a few hours a week so I'd be gone for 3 hours. I'd be back to take over as soon as I returned. Work hat off, mother hat on. We have no nursery but help from Grandparents while I went to work so it was full on. Then there was a third lockdown so we all worked from home: I had even less time to see people ...

Books from 2022: Shed some skin

It's nearly time to say goodbye to 2022, so I thought I'd share the literary adventures I've been on this year. The embers are softly glowing in the late evening heat and I'm starting to feel a bit more me after a few days of being under the weather. It feels like I'm letting go of a lot of baggage from the last year and my body is telling me to slow down and shed some skin.  I've had to look at the calendar to see what the day is. It's Thursday. Time to write. Christmas was Christmas. Equal measures of joy and exhaustion. Another year to build the traditions of our family. Stockings, sacks of toys, the mince pie and carrot left for FC, the ceiling decorations from the 80s, tinsel everywhere, eating with family, nourishing days of rest with the fire, and lots of rain. No snow (apart from in our magical Christmas Cottage escape). I've taken down the decorations already. The tree is naked and waiting to be thrown out into the street for the dustbin men.  L...