Im just being honest

So I’ve been feeling quite the terrible mother recently. On the back of sending all the kids to nursery in a morning and finally having some actual alone time after four tiring years, I’ve been rediscovering the old “me”. This has come at quite a price. I’m struggling to balance the old ‘me’ with the ‘mama’ and ‘worker’ I usually am.
On one hand I feel the need to clean, tidy and declutter the house, plan fun activities with my kids, take them on outings and play with them. On another hand, I have a massive workload to get through, jobs that won’t get done by anyone else, paperwork and deadlines to get through and a whole social media boat to steer. Then on the third hand, I want to swim, run, be romantic, hang out with my friends, read, watch movies, bake, eat and do all of this in near to utter silence without a small audience to negotiate round.
Much like when my triplets were small, I’m reminded I don’t have three hands (as much as I’ve always needed them) and that all this stuff just can’t be carried with two hands, something has to give. So I’m behaving more like an unmotivated, selfish, tired, fed up person; than the vibrant energetic, engaged individual I was hoping to emulate.
I don’t want to give up the old ‘me’ but I also don’t want to sacrifice relationships, work and my children’s happiness in order to achieve it.

I have spent so long taking care of everything; feeding, working, clothing, tidying, carrying and just endlessly grinding through each day that I’m not entirely sure I’m not actually having some kind of mini breakdown. When faced with the image of all this work to still be accomplished, I just want to sit back and say “no” someone else can do everything, I am going to sit here, with headphones on and read my book. But then inevitably the guilt, the thick hot roiling mass of it hits me and I get out of bed and start doing all the work again.
I think I’m tired, but it doesn’t feel okay to be tired, it feels like now they are at nursery I should be well rested and revived. In reality I think it might just have suddenly hit me, in that moment when I could finally stop moving for just one morning, and the whole exhaustion of the past few years piled on top of me its overwhelming mass colliding with my previous propulsion. And I’m not sure quite how to move on.

I’m desperately trying to find the balance between getting all the housework done, doing a few things a day for myself, going to work, doing my job plus raising and nurturing my kids.  And no matter how well I think I can schedule it in, there is never enough time to achieve it all, yet all of it feels so vital.
The times when I can stop to smell the roses, I am racked by guilt that I’m not doing something more productive (you have seen how much there is to do right??!) that I can’t enjoy the peace, or the book or the moment. Instead, much as when I was breastfeeding three babies, is that nagging voice in the back of my head saying “hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry this up, you’ve still got so much to do”.
I feel as if a third person has turned up into my previously balanced life, and is refusing to go away, despite how busy I am and keeps trying to elbow her way into my life.  

In an evening I’m too tired to do much beyond a quick tidy, bathing (if unavoidable) and then slumping on the sofa watching tv, reading or doing work until such times as it’s a decent hour to go to sleep (that means I won’t wake up at 5am and then feel even more tired tomorrow). In a perfect world I could fit the “me” stuff in then, but by bedtime, the cup runneth dry.

I read this back and I realise I am exhausted, I’m not unhappy or disappointed with my life, but I am so, so very tired.  My blood test results continually show something is wrong there (Vit D and calcium at all-time lows) which is affecting my energy levels so hopefully once that is fixed I can feel less exhausted and get some of my usual drive back. While this is a work in progress I am trying to spend more time doing things solo (aka without kids); swimming, dinner out, movies to get lost in all to just pick me up a bit and keep me moving forward, but much like a drug the more I do, the more I feel I need to keep doing in order to keep me satisfied, and there is not enough time for everything.

It feels a little like when you have finished a huge project at work and just need to take a couple of weeks to recuperate from all the late nights, missed lunches and massive amount of time and effort you have put in, only the job isn’t over (although the baby years are) and the idea of having a holiday away from your already very full life is laughable.

I supposed it doesn't exactly help, that I'm writing this as I recover from the flu, my head aching, my face full of fluid and feeling like I need to sleep for a week. I know there must be a balance to find, that it might just take time to find it, but at the moment even that thought makes me feel shattered. But everyone has bad days, this one's just kicking my ass.

Turning 30

So I'm reaching the end of my 29th year. I have one business, a very busy household and four super kids. Said kids are now ALL at nursery together for 3 glorious hours, four mornings a week and I'm rediscovering the 'me' underneath everything. I've been feeling like I do so very much "adulting" in keeping things functioning, responsible and on track that I have slightly forgotten what the not-mother-not-wife-not-business-person me is like. In between decluttering three years of baby gubbins from the loft, garage and crevices around the house. I'm discovering I feel like the exhasting hardwork side is starting to take over the sit back and enjoy it, fun stuff. To get the "fun" part back on track I figured I can add some excitement by creating 30 things I want to do before the end of my 30th year. This gives me a little over 15 months to enjoy life and have a few rewards for all the heavy duty adulting that needs doing each and every day.
In no particular order;

1. Swim a mile in one session (we've worked this out as 64 lengths)
2. Hire a Jacuzzi for the weekend and have a night of bubbles under the stars
3. Go to Cosmo for dinner (All you can eat chocolate fountain!)
4. Graffiti the Viaduct with chalk pens. (It's already covered in graffitti, at least ours will wash off!)
5. Champagne on the golf course in the middle of the night
6. Climb a tree (and climb back down without the assistance of the fire department)
7. Pass my driving test
8. Go to DISNEYLAND PARIS
9. Have a Spa day - (gym, swimming, sauna, jaccuzi and lunch)
10. Have a silly string fight
11. Go to Sundown Adventure Land.
12. Get a Dog
13. Kill the Ivy growing on the house - removing it all is impossible (it''s possibly the only thing holding the house up), but cutting the roots so it can no longer grow is possible
14. Do 4k every single day (I'll accept an average)
15. Do a new sport/hobby for at least three months.
16. Bake a sweetie cake
17. Take all four kids swimming (doesnt need to be all in one day)
18. Swim in the sea
19. Ride a horse (it's been 14 years since I last sat in the saddle)
20. Rockclimb
21. Go to the 2016 triplet mummy meet-up in Newcastle

I only have a few so far, but it's all things I really, really want to do! I am noticing my list becoming filled with things I dont think I can achieve in one entire year. But it's a start.

War and how it (doesn't) affect me.

I think it touched a nerve with all of us. My kids are 3...in a different time, a different situation that might have been my little boys.
War never changes, but we need to do more to help. I'm not saying swing the doors open and invite everyone in, but if you were fleeing from war with your tiny people scared for your lives, desperate about the future. Would you want the rest of the world to turn it's back on you and say, 'no thanks, you don't deserve our help, we're all full from helping ourselves today so sort it out yourself. It's your fault for being a resident of a country at war, your fault for being born there. Don't come here, go away. Don't let your problems touch me.

I once played Zlata in a rendition of Zlata's diary. Reading her diary and the things happening in her country and studying the history of it and having to act out her life was jarring, horrible and heartbreaking. It wasn't a story or a make believe. It was her actual LIFE. Much like Anne Frank she didnt write a book to be a good story (which is how it can seem as a child). She wrote it as an account of what she was going through day by day. They were living through war.

We were at war once, but we've never been invaded. We've never had our homes ransacked, our families murdered, gun shots fired and battles fought in our streets. We lack the true sympathy and understanding of what they are going through. We get bombarded by images on the tv of war and violence and just shrug it off, turn the channel over, that's what its like sometimes, it happens all the time everywhere else, but here. We see it on movies and it's all make believe so sometimes the real world images can pass us by unnoticed. But to actually live that war torn life. I can't empathise, I can't pretend to empathise. Not fully, not truly because I don't understand what it's like, I haven't got the faintest inkling of what it feels like to run for your life and I don't believe you can understand unless you live it. But we are all capable of compassion and the pity seen in that man's face as he carried that tiny toddler boy away from the shore is being shared by many.

The thing I do understand about it all is that if I was so frightened and desperate to protect my children and take them away from a terrible situation, as any parent in this world would feel. That I would have gotten on that boat, and those could have been my little boys.

We are judged on how we care for the smallest and weakest members of our society. We can't stop war, but we can change it's outcome and the future of the survivors.

Peanut Butter Chronicles

The other night D and I were talking to Zarek about how he could have half a crumpet with butter on for supper and a custard cream.

Ayla comes running across the room shouting:
"I want Penis! I want Penis!, I want PENIS Daddy!"

Dom: Wha...I...uh...wha?

*we look at each other puzzled*

Ayla " I WANT PENIS!"

Me: Ayla.... do you want peanut butter?

Ayla: Yes, I want Penis butter

Me: Okay then... *start laughing*

Dom: We don't have peaNUT butter on crumpets that would be yucky.

Ayla (many tears and loud shouting about penis')

Me: We could have peaNUT butter sandwiches tomorrow for dinnertime though?

Ayla: "yes penis butter sandwich tomorrow later"

Me: Ayla can you say Pea - NUT

Ayla: Yes penis...

Me: No Ayla Pea

Ayla: Pea

Me: NUT

Ayla Nut

Me: Pea Nut

Ayla: Peenu

Me: That'll do.

A story to horrify her on her 18th birthday

Innocence of a Two Year Old

At home we have recently started watching 'Sunday Afternoon Movies' with the kids. We were sat watching Lion King for the first time a few weeks ago. Obviously at 2 years old my triplets are too small to grasp the permanence of death.

During the stampede scene our little girl Ayla got visibly distressed saying over and over in a sadder and sadder voice "baby lion....baby lion!!! ... baby lion?" She rallied when Mufasa appear to save Simba but then when Mufasa fell from the cliff she got extremely uncomfortable with what was happening and kept asking us for reassurance while looking like she was about to cry. Then when Simba goes up to his dead father she announced "HE'S HIDING, HE'S SLEEPING" with a huge "everything is okay again" smile on her face....we've banned lion king until she's older....and bambi 

The White Stuff

Recently it snowed. Not enough to build a snowman, but when it did snow it went all out with thundersnow and covered enough of the world to make it seem magical.
It was the first snow my two year old triplets had ever seen, or at least were old enough to notice,.So when it decided to snow during their naptime and then break out into glorious (deceptive) sunshine I decided it was time to play in our first ever snow.

I roused the troops from their beds by flinging the curtains back and exclaiming proudly SNOW!
Some vague excitement started to build as they all crowded the windows to see this 'snow' which they told me was white (well done nursery), and they were even more intrigued when I announced we would put coats and shoes on and actually go outside into the snow.

Ten minutes later all three were finally dressed and ready, I decided not to put a coat on myself so I could gauge when it might be getting too cold for them. I pushed them all out into the garden and popped the 'baby' in the playroom by herself where she could watch from the warm house, (and cry at us as it turns out) through the window.

Let the fun commence!

Ayla picked up some snow and stared at me with a horrified, it's cold and wet, look on her face while I pranced around trying to convince them it was fun to be in the snow, showing them how I was leaving footprints and could ball the snow up into piles.

They were unimpressed.

Determined to salvage this amazing first snow experience I ran inside and returned with the sledge I 'optimistically' purchased the previous year, certain that it would snow in 2014. It didn't.

I proceeded to encourage, beg, bribe and then threaten each child into a sleigh ride. Each ride lasted no more than two steps before they wanted to get off, so still clinging to the idea that perhaps they would like the snow if they I just tried a bit harder I started placing their teddies on the sleigh and dragged that round the garden while saying;

"weeee, oh isn't this fun, weeee, woooah"

When I looked back over at them the 'baby' was leant against the window howling at the fact we were outside and she wasn't, while my triplets, (who hadn't moved since dismounting from the sleigh ride) were all huddled together, shivering.

Wimps.

I asked them if we should go back inside (to which the answer was a firm NO through chattering teeth) and then proceeded to bribe them back indoors with the promise of cake.

So much for our first snow experience, it would appear it's great to watch from inside but not something they want to get actually out in. Maybe next year.

Truths about motherhood

No two people will ever, nor should ever walk the very same path.

I felt it was so important once I had my kids to tell people "i don't like newborns, or babies" once I had the pleasure of three living at home with me. This is me, the one who wanted kids FOREVER. I do not like those first few weeks of a newborn, stretched out by prematurity. But once your kid gets more dialled in, starts smiling and being more aware its fantastic. At age 2 my trio are now how i imagined having kids would be, as in I can actually do stuff WITH them and not just FOR them. Sure we had a lot of fun from 4-24 months but they are learning now, like big thirsty sponges eager to soak up any game, idea, book, word or song they can.

That hit you in the heart love when you meet your kids, never had it, didnt love my trio when I met them. I dutifully cared of them as I was their mother (or so they told me) but thats the end of it. It was different with Quinn, they showed me her the moment she was born and there was this feeling, this strange 'oh, there you are' emotion, this instant recognition - she was mine and I knew it. I never got that with my trio, let's blame it on an upsetting birth and traumatic first few days but some part of me has always felt broken and sad about that fact. Walking into a room not knowing which of the 15 babies were mine, I felt horrible, I felt I should have (but couldn't have) known which children were mine.

I am happy breastfeeding Quinn but really didnt like it when I was breastfeeding my triplets. It was very important to me they had breast milk but the never ending line of another baby needs feeding by you and you alone now was so very, very hard. After the first fortnight of all three babies home I kept thinking, it's someone else's turn now, I don't want to do this anymore, it's got to be someone elses go now. And then just as quickly, I got over it, had learnt to do it so well (and to take care of them better than anyone else) and realized no one else was going to come and do it for me anyway that I just got on with it and soon I didn't mind doing it anymore.
Feeding Quinn is different, she has at moments brought me to my knees with frustration but at 10 months she is once again (hallelujah) consistently sleeping through the night, on a firm routine and has always remained a compete joy. All those sweets she made me crave have definitely made her into a total sweetie.

Motherhood is both hard and glorious, and I cannot stand any mumpetition of "well my baby was already walking at 10 months, I see yours is 11 months and can only drool" which seems to be lurking everywhere. Each kid is unique, each milestone just as special for everyone, no matter when they occur, and each journey and life is so very different they deserve more credit than most give them.