Black hole

I had one of those days this week. The ones I dread, the ones where I think is it going to start again. I woke  feeling lower than normal. I didnt want to do anything but climb under the covers and stay there forever. It wasnt a happy feeling. I have learnt to recognise this feeling, but it always seems to catch me off guard.

I am getting stronger. Each time it happens I am bouncing back faster, and I am learning new tricks to help me. On this particular day I learned a new trick, one that the kids loved. He-Man had left for work and I decided not to let it beat me. I have two beautiful children to be thankful for who inspire me to be the best I can be and I was not about to let them down. I cranked up the mucsic and we danced. We jumped around and spun and laughed. It was fantasitc. My favourite was Helen Reddys - I am woman. It has now been dubbed the "jumping" song by Monkey. We had it stuck in our heads for the rest of the day.

It ended up being a great day. Sometimes you need to just dance for your life, like no one is watching... And I really hope noone was!

Take only photos, leave only footprints...

It is a grey and definitely colder day today. The string of hot days are behind us and there are now longer and longer periods of cold days occurring between the warm spells. I am liking this cooler weather which brings the need for light jackets and pants but isn't sooo cold we need to be wrapped in scarves and hats and gloves.

Today was a day for running and playing outside.. even if it was it long pants. It was perfect for footprints on concrete. We (read I) crushed up pieces of chalk and added water then with bear feet we made our prints. When they dried they looked just like ghost footprints...

These will wash away with the next rain but their impermanence is what makes them perfect for today.

The long weekend..

Don't you just love it when a long weekend comes along right when you really need it... When you're exhaused by life and totally spent and you despirately need a recharge. Whil long weekends are always good these are the best! This weekend was one of those. Both He-man and I havebeen scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to our energy and time. Lack of sleep aside I think the move fiannaly caugh up with us... Its only taken 6 or 7 months.  This weekend we focused on us as a family, just enjoying the sun and each other.

Saturday was glorious... We meet an old friend for brunch at a local kiddy cafe. Chosen for the fact it had a play area and sold the scooters we wanted for Monkey. After a long relax catchup. Which was really needed for us all. We allowed Monkey to choose the scooter - black of course.. It looks a little Knight Riderish!!!. He couldn't wait to get going.

We had planned to walk along the water and get an ice cream later. It was fantastically hot and everyone we saw was out just enjoying being in the sun. No one seemed to mind the crazy boy learning to steer his new contraption. At least I was the only one he banged into.

We walked down to a lovely sand playground. It was perfect to watch the kiddos playing with dad. Miss Boo gets such a kick out of the swings and her happy smiles just egg us on. Monkey of course made instant friends with some others so he could share his and their toys!!

After we found the promised ice cream and boy it was good.. melting as fast as we ate it... too fast to even photograph!!!

The rest of the weekend was spent finding places to scoot near home just because we could, going for swings and swims and just soaking up being together. Tuesday meant a return to the daily routine but now the have-to's are not so bad. I have been recharged and refreshed and am finding the joy in thosee everyday have-to's!

Company's Coming

I feel like jumping for joy.. Im finally having someone local over to my apartment. I have missed having friends over. Missed having kids come to play, missed the conversations. But I haven't missed the white tornado I turn into to make my house look better. Its funny but even if I have just cleaned I always feel I need to tidy again just before company arrives. Although I will never have a house out of a magazine, it is usually clean and depending on the time of day tidy. Its lots better than it used to be as I think I've finally found the magic system for keeping it tidy - one that actually works for me. 

It doesn't bother me that the homes in the glossy house designer magazines look perfect, they have to look perfect to inspire you to buy things but why do the homes in parenting magazines always have to look perfect. Surely perpetuating the myth that having a perfectly clean and tidy house is the norm can't be good. I have two children who pull things out of drawers, drag their toys and clothes all over the house and are not always the neatest eaters (especially the self feeding 9 month old). My house is not perfect. It is clean but if you walked into my house now you would find washing on our bed ready to be folded, a pile of shoes and bags at the door and any number of toys out depending on the time of day, if you're lucky you might even find a half sewn outfit. However as I prepare for a visitor I find myself doing following my old routine of manic tidy. Maybe once I've made a good first impression I will relax... We'll see.. 

Stopping!

Everyday I stop 3 times for around 5 minutes each time.

All children go through it I think, that faze where they find it hard to settle to sleep. Sometimes they have been a great sleeper since they were born and it can hit you like train other times it starts a birth. There has always been great debate about how is the best way to get your child to settle to sleep. When I had Monkey the trend for settling babies to sleep was the "cry it out" method. Everyone was doing it. It didn't FEEL right to me but I read all the information and it was what was recommended to me by the nurses so we gave it a go. There was very little information which offered a real alternative (at least very little my baby brain could find). We tried it for a short while but it didn't work and we couldn't keep it up. It works really well for some parents but for us nope. I know of many who have had great success using it.
We rocked him to sleep sometimes, shhhed and patted him and tried all sorts of different methods eventually Monkey just grew out of it.

Miss Boo however has always been really good at settling (except when teething of course) so it came as a bit of a shock when she suddenly stared having trouble getting to sleep at night and then during the day. I think it must be separation anxiety kicking in (something that never happened with Monkey).  Well again we briefly considered the cry it out but this time we were wiser about our own feelings on the subject.

We did decide to give it a shot and tried for one night, but again it just didn't feel right for us. This time however we listened to our instincts straight away. I know that you have to keep up the cry it out method for more than one night but it just wasn't going to work.

We soon noticed that Miss Boo settled far quicker if we were in the room. I did a very through search online and came accross a youtube movie I had never seen before. It recomended allowing the child to fall asleep with your hand on them then leaving once they were asleep. Now I know how stimulating it can be having a parent in the room so I just lay on the floor with my hand on her tummy. If she rolls away I stay put. It worked from the first time we tried it. The first time it took about 10 minutes for her to fall asleep but now it takes less than 5.

So for around 5 minutes I just stop! I lay on the floor in my daughters room and just be there for her. As time goes on this too will no longer be needed and we will start to withdraw ourselves from the sleep equation, but for now I love this snippet of quiet time we share.

A good day..

As a professional I always had proof (or a scale to measure myself against) at the end of the day to show when I'd had a good/successful day. Usually I had tasks I had ticked off and achieved, expectations from on my by my boss had been for filled, I'd started on the tasks for the following day and sometimes if I was lucky someone said thanks for a great day or you're doing a great job. Now as a parent it is slightly different, there is no one above you to answer to. There are no set tasks for me to tick off when it comes to raising children. Coming up with a way for me to feel I had proof of a successful day has been a learning experience but I think I've finally cracked it... as has realising that I don't need proof of a successful day.

Proof today was a good day...  Miss Boos shoes were dirty from crawling and exploring new places,

Monkey created and recreated a house, garage, and fire station out of the duplo and didn't want them put away so he could continue creating first thing,

and finally their peaceful faces sound asleep after a busy day.

Now, sometimes I get a thank you, or a can we do that tomorrow, which is a bonus, but I love going in to see the smiles on their sleeping faces before I turn in for the night, knowing that tomorrow has the potential to be another great day!