I am MUM

These are the kids today:

I have no real thoughts tonight- i poured those out, down the drain with the second bucket of grey liquid from the mopping of floors.

I spent the day shoving clothes into overflowing spaces, while half paying attention to the kids and mucking around on facebook. Haha Facebook and its distractions.... and me so willingly distracted!! 

But this here is a page of nice ordinary pleasures and as such these are my memories of today, i wake up to a bed, with 3 boys in it and quietly muse that there was a time not too long ago, when my bedroom was a space just for myself.

I made Tivis lunch and as an afterthought threw in a speckled fairy butterfly to go with her sandwich. Mondays these days are filled with catch ups on all the messes we made on hastey exits to fun and freedom... so i drag myself a little these days into the beginning of the new school week.

Breakfast is always a battle - I tell Tivianh that today i will not spend my morning yelling at her to eat. And as usual at some point- break that statement with a EEEEEEEEATTTTTTTTTTTT YOURRRRRRRRRRR BREAKFASSSSSSSSSSST NOWWWWWWWWWWWWW orrrrrr elseeeeee (i'll throttle you with it!!!!) haha... i really am trying.

I never eat breakfast and sometimes i feel really bad for making her- but its the school and all their nutrition talks and all that pressure - sooo much presssureeee gaaaaaaaahhh!!

Hahaha but it's okay coz as i'm typing, Maz the Yoga Guru Vegan, motor bike riding hippie girl I sorta knew from work- is offering to feed them home made delicious Vegan treats.... now if i can get her to just make them all their meals- and yoga mind trick them into eating it without fuss- then i shall be set.

 But- i been thinking on and off about something- coz sometimes i find it really frustrating to help Tivi with homework and getting ready for school coz she's so laaadeeedah offf in the land of stained and grotty fairies... that i'm always asking her 50 times to do things then yelling them coz she gets lost and distracted so easily and after it all i feel guilty and i'm not really sure where i stand in this parenting thing.

Like... i went to this workshop that the school ran on writing and reading- and the teacher was saying stuff about learning to write correctly. And there was a certain point when she was talking about the correct way to write letters was starting from the top not the bottom... and i thought uggh really? Sometimes i've watched Tivi write and wondered where she learnt to do her letters like that (she writes most letters from the bottom up). She see's the shape and copies it and it seems unnatural to me and i wonder if it was always like so or if it was drilled into me at school also.

SOmething in my head said- well so what if she writes it from the bottom up- its kinda cool and there's plenty of time to unlearn what comes naturally so should i really be pushing her to do these things a certain 'right' way??

It amuses me that she writes her name like this:

When i ask her why the 'h' is so big, she says she likes it like that- she does it on purpose. Like a signature. I'm sure some day someone is going to tell her to stop doing this. I'm sure she will write her name in standard sized letters on a straight line one day... and that day... i will be a little sad for the fact that we live in a society that focusses on all the wrong things.

Despite the workshops that i go to and the advice laced with guilt that is dispensed at such gatherings- i celebrate that at the end of the day- she is mine (weird and cool) i made her and expelled her from mine flesh and blood and because of this strange and wonderful fact, i get the final say.

I want her to do well at school- because i don't want her to be disheartened by judgements for not doing well, but there's a conflicting part of me that disapproves of the uniformity that is indoctrinated into these kids. We spend our childhoods learning to fit in so that as teens we are stifled, confused and resentful and as adults we struggle to find ourselves and have to try so hard to  find again and love our own quirks and differences. How does that even make sense?! What a collosal waste of time.

Haha anyway- this pull from the individual me, and the opposing force of Mother me- is confusing at the best of times and insanely frustrating in others.

I don't want my kids to be the same as everyone else, but where's the balance between not blending in and not fitting in at all?

Che, i know will struggle more than Tivi with this because he is the most individual of all the kids- he likes his shoes and sees nothing wrong with wearing two different ones at once, he likes the colour yellow and sometimes refuses to wear anything else, he likes satin and will touch you if you're wearing it. Haha... he likes tiaras and the colour pink.... but he's also hideously sensitive to teasing and laughter thats directed at him. I know they will laugh. All i want him to do- is not care and be himself anyway. I don't want the kids to unlearn what will take them too many long and wasted years trying to recover. That confidence. That sponteniety. That niceness of just doing whatever you want to do. A complete and magnificent freedom.

I wonder if by allowing him to do and dress as he wants, i will end up confusing him when he sets out into the big wide world and is told that this is unacceptable. Right now to him, i know everything.

'Seeeee stella My mum said it ISSSSSS so it isssssssssss!'

he will defend my honour to the death, such a gentleman is he.

ahhhh... anyhoots I am doing my oh geez i am so tired rambling now so let me just move on... haha

The glowing and lovely Yummii who is new to my facebook list of friends, i added just to leech her ideas and vibes because she is one of those people, with a marvelous energy and appetite for both good food and good times.... offfered me this:

I think the thing with parents.....

...is that you're worried that you're not doing enough.. or you're worried whether you're good enough.. or you're worried how they are going to turn out.. and then it's this balancing thing of doing what you want.. and worried that you're selfish..

.... all i know.. is that your children will always love you.. and that you are definitely good enough.. and the children will turn out the way the children turn out .. and parents need the time to take a breather now and then and acknowledge how great they are

haha true that, and she doesnt even have any kids of her own... 

What i've found hardest with parenting is everyone has an opinion and on the days where you are drained and cannot even gather the basics of who you are, it's the most judgemental and unforgiving ones that you tend to remember.

It is impossible for me to believe that i am capable of making decisions for 3 individual lives... and i doubt everyday that i am cut out for this job... everyone tells me i am a great mum- and i am awkward and really cannot take compliments well.

I wonder if they pick up on that too. That sometimes when people compliment me or them - instead of saying Thank you, i say ughh no not really- you should get to know me/them.

Even when i joke about being awesome and such things- i most of the time do not believe it really.

I'm bad at recieving, i have bad manners when it comes to accepting kindness, it makes me feel weird and i start making funny jokes and deflecting the warm and fuzziness.

But tonight i will commit to trying harder, to be kinder to myself and to teach my kids to be the same to themselves, to believe the compliments as statements and i will try and eat breakfast - so that i am not just saying what i refuse to do.

Thank you Yummii for your words, and your inspirations. My kids are gorgeous. They truely are, and yes even more so when you get to know them. Even when they are annoying - they are still great looking kids hahaha- no, see i do it again.

The kids are beautiful, both inside and out- as all kids their age and abouts are.. it is awesome to behold because they don't even know the meaning of ugly and their misbehaviour is (often) accidental, their judgements free of malice.

I learn more from them everyday, and i am thankful to have been given the honour of watching them grow.

....................................................................

Tivi's favourite part of the day was making a pedestrian crossing sign out of cardboard and celaphane. 

Che like playing- and complained that he didn't get to paint haha...

Jacie said Crocodile! Haha he likes to be animals these days so at random moments i'll find him crawling on the floor barking or meowing-  or running at me with his arms out 'snapping' coz he's a baby crocodile. 

They grow fast and i am terrified of the day when i don't know all the answers anymore. But for now- i know everything and i am not afraid of anything, because-

I AM MUM and it IS because i say it is.