Wednesday 30 December 2015

Professional development part 2 - Make over your morning

I strongly advise against reading this if you feel like you don't get enough sleep. If you have a young baby, worries that keeps you up at night or are just generally not good at sleeping, this is not for you.

A little while ago I found myself being overly impatient and grumpier than usual. I was snappy and short and if Miss 3 decided to have an off day with her quiet play (which she is meant to do in her room while the boys are napping) I was pretty angry with her. It wasn't fair on her and it wasn't working for me. 

I decided that if I just had the opportunity to get into the right head space before everyone woke up, we'd all have a better day. I've always been a morning person, never a night owl. In year 12 I used to get up early and do an hour of study before school rather than an additional hour in the evening. Before I had children I'd go to an exercise class before work three or four times a week. It was the only exercise I ever really stuck with. Anything after work, I'd always find an excuse not to go.

So I decided to try getting up early in an attempt to gather myself before the children woke. I'd usually just do a few chores and generally potter about. I though it was working reasonably well and then I came across the "Make Over Your Morning" course by Crystal Paine. Now I feel like an absolute champion by 7am. I don't want to be dramatic but giving a bit of structure to my 'me time' in the morning has changed my life. I am happier, the children are happier, the house is happier.

At first I was a bit skeptical about the course. It seemed to be telling me things I already knew but Crystal Paine writes the Money Saving Mom blog and has nearly 800,000 Facebook likes. I have 100 so I figure she's got to be doing something right. The course includes a bit of reading and a short video each morning for two weeks. What it did was make me really think about what I wanted to achieve in the mornings and why. Like everything, some elements were more applicable to me than others. There was a part on setting goals which I pretty much completely skipped because at the time my goals were something like 1. Keep everyone alive, 2. Feed everyone. Now I'm feeling a bit more on top of things, I might revisit the idea of setting goals. 

Everyone is going to be different but my morning routine consists of three parts - exercise, chores, golden time.

I get up at 5.30am, get dressed, do the Seven Minute Scientific Workout on Youtube (it actually takes nine minutes because there are breaks). I just do it barefoot in my living room. I'm not claiming to be super fit but doing something has got to be better than doing nothing,

Once the exercise is done, I quickly do my morning chores; put on a load of washing, put away the drip dried dishes from last night and sweep the floor. I then do any necessary baking to make sure we have snacks for the day (see goal 2 - feed everyone). This is usually all done before 6am and then I have an hour of golden time before chaos unfolds.

This is when I sit down with a cup of tea at the computer and do what ever I want to do. Sometimes I read, sometimes I blog, sometimes I just stare into space and take in the silence. It's amazing. I swear this hour has made me a better person. I am so much more patient and accepting and it feels good.

Of course what I've described is the perfect scenario - exercise, quick chores, hour of golden time. Sometimes the chores take longer, sometimes the children get up earlier, sometimes I decide to prioritise sleep. On the whole though, my mornings are much improved and so is my attitude. Sacrificing a bit of time in bed has definitely been worthwhile for me.


If you missed it, Professional development part 1 was the Triple P parenting program.


Thursday 24 December 2015

Christmas traditions come naturally

I was going to make an effort this year to create some christmas traditions but then realised they've kind of come naturally. My children are all very young but we have a few things in place which I'm pretty confident will stay forever. 

Carols and lights. We had a great time at carols this year and I especially enjoyed the walk home looking at the christmas lights. It was memorable and I'm going to make it something we do every year. This is the kind of effortless activity I like. We go somewhere and walk home. Perfect. 

Ugly Christmas sweater party. This is already a highlight of our calendar. It started off as an evening event but has just been brought earlier in the day to make it more child friendly. We love it. It's a fixture. I like to think that when my children are 18, they're going to struggle to make a decision to miss it.

Nativity advent calendar. Growing up we always had an advent calendar. It was just cardboard with a picture inside each window. Last year, I wanted to get something simple and couldn't find one. Most had chocolates in them. In the end I decided to invest in a pretty special one that we will use each year. It's wooden with boxes around the outside of a magnetic board. Each box contains a character from the nativity story so over the course of advent we create the nativity scene. I'm really happy with it and also happy that I don't have to think about it each year and buy a new one. We will have it forever. Maybe even one day my grandchildren will use it.

Elf on the shelf. When I first heard about this I just wrote it off as some weird commercial thing that I didn't need to know about. However, I love it! Basically we have an elf that visits our house during the day and returns to the North Pole during the night to report back to Father Christmas. Some people set up elaborate scenes with the elf for their children to wake up to. Another idea is to have the elf bring notes back from the North Pole with suggestions of something kind they could do that day. Maybe we'll do some of these things in the future but right now we just move the elf to a different place in the house. That is exciting enough for a 3 year old and two one year olds.

Christmas books. We've acquired a few different books about Christmas. These get packed away with the decorations and get read over and over again during December. I don't know if you can call this a Christmas tradition but it's something that only happens in December and it certainly creates excitement around Christmas time.

Stockings. I grew up with stockings at the end of the bed and the notion that whatever was in the stocking is what was actually from Father Christmas. The stocking gifts are little enough to fit in the stocking and also little in terms of cost. If we're going with the idea that it comes from the big man, I'm not going to put the most expensive gift in because he visits everyone and it would be a bit weird if he brought bikes to my children and socks to the less privileged. It's more about the excitement of waking up and seeing that Father Christmas came. My memories are of the stockings being filled with water balloons and a few lollies. My children this year are all getting crayons. Not a whole pack each. One pack split up across all three. 

Food for Father Christmas. We're going to start this one tonight. I used to do this as child and it was fun. I just asked Miss 3 what she thinks Father Christmas would like. She thinks biscuits and a glass of water. I love the simplicity. We will do that.

Are you seeing my 'effortless' theme? Creating Christmas traditions doesn't have to be a big deal. These things have all come naturally. We haven't even got to Christmas day yet but I'm already confident that Miss 3 loves Christmas time.

Wednesday 16 December 2015

They'll get there eventually and it will be worth the wait

Almost two years ago exactly, I lined up with my then 18 month old to put her on a pony ride. We got to the front of the line and she kicked and screamed and didn't want to go anywhere near it. Since then, there have been numerous pony ride opportunities and I've always offered but never pushed her to try. You can't force enjoyment on somebody.

Then just last week we were at the same event from two years ago. She knew there was going to be pony rides and now as a somewhat anxious 3.5 year old, she spent the days leading up to the event telling me she didn't want to go on one. That's fine I said. You don't have to. Nobody is going to make you. 

I was sitting down eating lunch with the twins and Miss 3 came bounding back from the bouncy castle. "Mummy, mummy, mum, I DO want to go on a pony ride!" I didn't want to discourage her but I did say something upon the lines of, "So you want me to pack up the lunch, put the twins into the pram, line up in the sun and then when we get to the front of the line you will get on the horse?" "Yes!" So that is what we did and she did it. She went on the horse. I don't think she was particularly taken by horse riding but she was certainly pretty proud of herself and I was proud of her too.

It's funny how children are so different. I put both S and L on a horse too and they weren't at all phased. Not a big deal in the least but for their older sister it was a massive deal and she knew it more than anyone. I can't think of anything which has triggered her to be nervous but she's just grown up a little bit scared of things and it's so nice to see her overcoming her fears. 

Animals is a big one. Dog was one of her first words yet if one comes anywhere near her she is terrified. She wants to like them and sometimes she'll tell me she wants to pat one but really she just sneaks up, pokes it with one finger and runs away.

Last year, she absolutely refused to go anywhere near the water when we were at the beach. I tried a few times and eventually gave in and just played with her in the sand, accepting that she just didn't want to get in. Then one day she was playing happily in the sand with my parents who had also given up on asking if she wanted to get in the water. All of a sudden she jumped up and said she did want to go in. We let her get there in her own time and she did. Pushing didn't help.

There are a lot of photos around at the moment of children sitting on Father Christmas' lap. Like many of them, Miss 3 is absolutely adamant that she does not like that Christmas Man. The Easter Bunny freaks her out too. I think we're a few years away from overcoming this particular fear but one day I'll get 'that photo' and I think she'll be smiling more than anyone because she'll not just be excited to be with Father Christmas but amazingly proud to be overcoming her fear. 

It's taken me a while but I'm finally learning that there is a lot more enjoyment waiting for a child to be ready than pushing them because you think they should like it. They'll get there eventually and it will be worth the wait.

Monday 14 December 2015

A busy but stress free weekend

Christmas has well and truly arrived at our house. We had a massive weekend! Saturday morning swimming lessons, a lunch guest, afternoon/evening Christmas party, Sunday morning water playground, lunch guests and carols by candlelight Sunday night. Sounds exhausting writing it down but it was actually great and the team held up well!

The trick is to not make hard work of things. Since the twins came along, I have basically become the champion of the Australian custom of everybody bringing a plate when it comes to entertaining. The days of me saying things like, "don't worry, you don't need to bring a thing" are well and truly gone. In fact I've gone the complete other way. Just on Friday, Ed's godmother announced that she wanted to visit at 11.30am on Saturday. I considered saying no but then we'd have to find another time in the next few weeks and I couldn't really see that happening, so instead I said, "sure that's fine as long as you bring lunch." She was happy to. It was nice. I was grateful and she got to feel like she was helping out (which she was). Win win.

Saturday night was our annual ugly Christmas sweater party. This involves my uni friends and their partners all dressing in ridiculous Christmas jumpers and generally having a good time. It grows each year and this time we had 14 adults and nine adorable children in our little backyard! It might sounds a little bit stressful but when you're good enough friends to dress up in stupid jumpers in the middle of summer, you're also good enough friends to help each other out. Ed and I pretty much only did the meat. Nibblies, salads and desserts were all brought by other people. Even the friends who had an 11 day old baby pitched in. Best of all I don't think I heard my children whinge the whole time people were here! With adults outnumbering the children, there's always someone around to provide the necessary attention. It was great. I can't wait until next year. My only concern is that as all my friends keep having children, the adult child ratio is going to tip the wrong way!

Sunday lunch we had more friends over and again they all brought something plus we unashamedly served up some leftovers from the night before. Very low key, very stress free.

We hadn't committed to carols because we weren't sure how we'd be going after all the entertaining but in the end we decided to go and I'm so glad we did. It was fantastic. Miss 3 was up the front with her friend dancing almost the whole time and despite being well past everyone's bed time all three children were super happy. Another unexpected benefit of the late night was the walk home. It's usually light when the children go to bed so they hadn't seen many of the Christmas lights but we found out last night that our street has really turned it on this year. There was lots of ooing and ahhing all the way home and we were even inspired to jazz ours up a bit next year.
So a busy but great weekend and much to my delight everyone slept in until 7.30 this morning! 

Thursday 10 December 2015

Mental health and special needs

Serious title. Serious topics. I usually like to think I'm a paragon of mental health but I have to admit the last few months have pushed me to the edge. Some days it feels like I listen to whinging and crying from 6am to 7pm. It's never really that bad but sometimes it feels like it is. Fortunately the whinging is only really when we're home so I spend a lot of time out and about. Yesterday was a great day. We caught the train into the city. I didn't have anything particular to do there but we made a morning of it. We basically had a coffee with Ed, listened to the London Court clock turn 10 o'clock, watched the little horses go around, picked up some milk and caught the train home. It doesn't take much to entertain everyone but we do have to be out and about. Being at home is painful.

As it turns out, the medical world is well across the effect whinging children have on their parents. Over the last few months, I have seen the GP, orthopaedic surgeon, ENT specialist, respiratory specialist, special needs toy library staff, paediatric physio. All but one have taken a moment to ask me how I am. The child health nurse took it to the next level and directly asked me if I have days when I want to walk away and check myself into greylands (our local mental health hospital). The answer was no but I have to admit I have considered booking myself a flight to Bali. I'm tired, I'm not mentally ill. Maybe there is a fine line. I don't know.

Maybe I'm going ok because I know it's not forever. I think it would be a very different story if this was a long term situation. The boys are struggling a bit but we're 95 per cent sure that they'll be completely caught up in a year or two. For a long time I could put it down to them being twins or them being a little bit premature or even a bit because boys are often later in their development than girls. I've only got Miss 3 to compare to. Eventually though I had to bite the bullet and get some medical assistance and unfortunately I didn't receive any reassurances but instead a mass of referrals and specialist appointments. I wanted to be told I was being silly and not to worry but sadly my concerns were right and they are quite delayed in their development. 

They're delayed but they are getting there every day. I think Master L might even walk before Christmas. My fear isn't their long term prospects, my fear is that I will go crazy in the next six months listening to their constant whinging. I feel for them too. It must be horribly frustrating not being able to walk or talk. I know all children get frustrated and difficult when they're trying to learn something new. The problem for me is that in my house it's taking a really long time and there are two of them. 

Despite being confident about the future, having the boys referred to as 'special needs' has been pretty confronting. We live next door to a house which is rented by the autism society. Two young men live there with their rotating carers who come for two and a half days each over the course of a week. That is what I think of when I hear the term special needs. They make the same whinging, moaning noises as my babies but they're in their early twenties. Sometimes I see their parents when they visit and I really feel for them. One of the boys is a twin and when the mother saw my twins I could just see a wave of emotion sweep over her. I don't know what age her son was when he went into care and I can only imagine the torture she went through making this decision.

Christmas time can be difficult for many people and there is a lot of talk about mental illness at this time of year. When one of my boys is being difficult for me on Christmas day, I hope I'm going to pick him up, give him a hug and be grateful that he's there with me (I'll also be grateful that there is someone else there to pick up the other one). In the spirit of Christmas, I hope that I will take a moment to think of the lady next door whose son is too big to pick up and who has made the decision to take him home for Christmas even though she knows it's going to be hard work.

So things are a little difficult for me at the moment but I have perspective. This Christmas, let's all spare a thought for the parents of the boys next door and the parents of all the special needs children.