Faith

Such faith, such trust....I feel it emanating from him. When he grasps my finger in his tiny hand I can't help but feel invincible. 

I have to be, after all this little being believes in me... so I have to believe in myself.

Just 15 minutes, peeez

I'm happy and perhaps even, in a weird way, a little proud of myself that my kids seem to love spending time with me. This must mean they like me, right, which is a great thing cause that means they'll stick around even when they outgrow needing me. 

I've always thought it's one thing to be loved by your children but another if they like you too. 

And God knows I like my kids. Just like any parent, I think they are the coolest brightest most loving kids in the world and I love spending time with them.  I love reading with them, building puzzels, making playdough snakes and snails, even rough housing on the couch. I love hearing them laugh over the smallest, silliest things. I love when Lucca gets so excited he can't help but babble away and I love trying to figure out what it is that Leo is trying to tell me.

But sometimes, just sometimes I hear a voice screaming in my head "Just give me 5 minutes of peace and quiet...please..."

Of course there are moments in the day when they become engrossed in one thing or another, but there are two of them, they are boys and one of them is under 2 so you guessed it, it never lasts long.

That leaves me with two options... wait till they go to bed or seek refuge in the shower. 

But how many showers can you take in a day so maybe I should consider putting myself in a time out.

Bees, dogs, fear

Bees and dogs may smell fear, but kids smell weakness.

Whether it is due to lack of sleep, accumulated frustration or just low levels of patience; they will spot it, hone in on it and play up to it.

So how do we beat them? Well they say positive attracts positive, so does that mean if you fake a smile at a time you least feel like smiling it will have the power to improve your day and fool the kids into behaving themselves?

I reckon it’s a theory worth testing…I’ll let you know if it works.

Miracle of life

 

Isn't this an amazing pic?

Parenting

The Dictionary defines the word Parent as:

1. a persons father or mother

2. an animal or plant from which new ones derive

3. a source or origin of a smaller or less important part

4. an organization or company which owns or controls a number of subsidiaries

and it defines Parenting as :

1. to be or act as a mother or father to someone

If only it were that simple.

Sometimes I wonder if it wasn't simpler way back when before the onset of the Technological age or should I say the age of information, aka the internet.

Back then you only knew how you had been raised and maybe, just maybe you had access to Dr Spock's book about parenting.  (That's Dr Benjamin Spock author of the 1946 best seller "Baby and Child Care" not Dr Spock from Star Trek fame.) He claimed mothers knew more than they thought they did and that parents should be more flexible and affectionate towards their children. This was a huge contrast to the conventional discipline your kids and don't spoil babies by picking them up when crying mentality. 

Todays parents are inundated with contradictory information regarding all issues involved in raising a well adjusted kid via books, articles, forums, antenatal classes, not to mention mothers and mothers-in-law and of course don't forget the fellow first time parents (I say first time, cause usually by the time you have a second you realise its best to just follow your gut when it comes to raising your kid - and nothing gets done by any book anymore) 

Breast or bottle. Schedule or demand. Co-sleep or cot. Cry-it-out or pick up. Dummy or no dummy. To smack or not to smack. These are just some of the heated debates and choices we are faced with. 

To many choices. 

Now if you know me at all, you may realise I might have a slight problem. You see I love absorbing new information, I loooooove reading and I am pretty interested in psychology. So you can just imagine how much parenting related info I have accumulated so far.   To give you an idea here are some of the books I have read so far. (I can recomend the red ones) Secrets of the baby whisperer - Tracy Hogg How children learn - John Holt Seven spiritual laws of success for parents - Deepak Chopra Living simply with children - Marie Sherlock What all children want their parents to know - Diana Loomans The emotional Life of the toddler - Alicia Lieberman Love and logic magic for early childhood - Jim Fay Baby Minds - Linda Acredolo Baby Hearts and Baby signs Baby sense and Feeding sense - Megan Faure Secret Spiritual World of Children - Tobin Hart Birth and Beyond - Yehudi Gordon The A to Z guide to Raising Happy Confident Kids - Jenn Berman Children are from Heaven - John Gray Anyway I believe in order for me to make up my own mind about something it never hurts to learn what others think, that way I can take what I like, discard what I don't and be left with my very own opinion. After all there is no right way and there is no wrong way, as long as you love them and are there for them everything will be OK.  So for me parenting is made easier by the knowledge I have tapped into. I think I would be totally lost if I had to go by gut alone. Or ironically maybe I wouldn't, maybe it would have been easier as the only voice I'd listen to then is my own. I'll never know.  To sum up - "To read or not to read" that is the question, and the answer is follow your gut. P.s. I must add I am the type of person who will read the manual - as my dad would say "no need to invent the wheel again".

Ups and Downs

Over the years I have learnt that it is precisely the downs in life which help make you stronger, wiser and more appreciative of what you have. And its the ups in life that pull you through the downs. The ups are the light at the end of the tunnel. They are what make you hold your head high and move forward.  

And when you close your eyes they are the things you will see.

So when 5 o'clock rolls round and the the kids are both screaming, or I get woken up at 2 am, 3 am and then again at 5 am or Lucca joins us in bed and sticks his cold feet down my PJ's...I close my eyes and see their angelic faces as they sleep, hear their infectious laughter as we play and see the love in their smiles and feel the gratitude in their hugs and kisses.


Then I remember "This to shall pass". 

Thank goodness nothing lasts forever and you can always count on change. 


 

Catch 22 of me time

Yes you get to chill relax and rest but as soon as you get back the chances are great it will all get wiped out in a matter of seconds.....

.... it's always worth it though. 

You know what they say about needing to look after yourself in order to look after others and if you don't respect yourself how can you expect your kids to respect you and your needs. 

Well guess what "they" are right.

Remind me - Why did I have kids again?

I cannot remember ever asking my parents why they had us. I’m not even sure I ever really wondered about it. I do remember my brother and me threatening each other with being adopted. At the time that seemed like the worst “insult” to dish out (kids and their imaginations – gotta love em).

Anyway a few weeks ago, while enjoying a peaceful moment under the shower, I found myself trying to remember what possessed me to have kids in the first place? You know those moments where you have to remind yourself of all the blessings they bring ;-) so that you can look past all the sleepless nights, the tantrums and the lack of me time. I wondered will they ever think to ask me and if they did what would I say. 

Well at that moment in the shower I had an epiphany: we have kids so that they will grow up and have kids, so that they will finally know what they put us through and at the same time give us a chance to enjoy the wonders of childhood without all the downsides.

Now I just hope my sons pick good woman who will be happy to share their kids with their mother-in-law. Ok I better rephrase that… I better make sure I am the best mother in law in the world :-)

From laughter comes tears

Recently I overheard a granny telling a mom she better go check on the kids (who were playing/roughhousing upstairs) as they were laughing to much so soon someone was going to be crying.

My first thought was why are you getting involved and my second was so what?

Of course I remember hearing the saying "tears follow laughter", or was that "from laughter comes tears", from many different grown ups when I was little and yes more often than not their predictions came true.

But does that mean we should stop kids from laughing in the first place? I mean, really?

OK ok it's parental instinct to want to protect your offspring but are we being true to them if we are always stepping in to rescue them? Trying to protect them from pain or sorrow is futile because at some point they are going to run smack bang into it.

As much as I remember the saying I remember the fun and laughter we enjoyed as kids but for some reason the teary bits are pretty blurry. Because that's the beauty of tears... you can wipe them away.

So let your kids play till they cry, pick them up dust them off and before you know it the owey is all but forgotten and laughter will fill the house once more.
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On sleeping through

It would seem one of the first questions most people ask, when they see you with your baby, is "does he sleep through?"

What a question. I would bet most moms dread this very question like they would the bubonic plague.

If you say no you feel like a failure as a parent and quite often to make it worse they may retaliate with "O my little one slept through from 6 weeks". Ja right, you probably just put earplugs in and took a sleeping pill.

And if you say yes they probably won't believe you or they will brand you a bitch for bragging about it.

So I find myself wondering whether this tendency is preprogrammed into our genes or whether it's a non parent (or I was a parent so long ago I've forgotten what it's like parent) way of trying to relate. Or is it simply a automatic small talk response like talking about the weather.

If you really are curious rather ask "how are the sleepless nights going?"
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Learning by repetition

Most mornings Lucca and I have a familiar conversation. Some days even before I get my morning kiss.

At least he says please :-)

Lucca: "Bikkie... peas uummy. Bikkie?"
Me: "No Lucca, biscuits are not for breakfast. You can have one after school."
Lucca: "Okit?"
Me: "No chocolates for breakfast either. You can have otees or oatsoeasy."
Lucca: "This one." (Points at the oatsoeasy) "Yeah"(Trippling on his tippy toes from excitement) "This one"

Breakfast tantrum averted. This time.

You would think by now he should have realised he won't be getting a biscuit or chocolate for breakfast. Not my son, he just keeps on trying.

At least I know he has perseverance.
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Election day musings

There are days I can't help but look at the world around me and wonder whether I did the right thing by having kids.

I mean really, what kind of world have I brought them into? What lies ahead for them? Threats of food and fuel resources running low, global warming, recessions, unemployment, crime, war, famine and that's only the man made disasters. Sounds pretty dark and gloomy don't you think, and we claim to love our kids.

Here's the thing though, luckily there are a few things that gives me hope, one of which - I am not alone.

Generations upon generations upon generations have been wondering exactly the same thing. The great philosophers Aristotle, Socrates, Plato all made statements about the unruly, disrespectful, misbehaved youth. My mom remembers her granny saying the youth of today have no respect, my mom has made similar comments about me and my peers and now I find myself thinking the same thing when I see or hear how some kids are acting today. And the cycle will continue with my kids saying the same thing about their kids blatant misuse of the family teleporter and curfew rules.

Another thing that brings hope. My father grew up in Holland during WW2. His parents grew up during WW1. And before them millions of other kids grew up during the Crusades, the Revolutions, heck even the downfall of the Roman Empire. Throughout all of history people were born into and lived in what seemed to them to be a crazy doomed world.

So just like all the mothers before me I will arm my kids as best I can with the tools I think they may need and hope they'll manage, like those before them, to carve their way through this crazy crazy world.

"The more things change the more they stay the same" - It's that simple.

Words of wisdom - now what?

During a Easter weekend roadtrip to Normandy, France (a good couple of years ago) my hubby and I stopped over at Mont Saint-Michel, a rocky tidal island which has been the seat of the Saint Michel Monastery since the 8th century. From this picture you may be able to imagine how stunning, quaint and old this place must be. 

But before I digress and start telling you just how stunning,  amazing and incredibly steep the fortifications were let me get back to my post.  

It was here, in this historical place, that I found a gem. A gem which in my minds eye, was going to become the next family heirloom. Passed down from generation to generation.  It was a notebook. A beautiful, leatherbound notebook with handmade paper that looked like it belonged in another century. I just had to have  it as I knew immediately what it was destined for.  

I would jot down all my sage advice and my thoughts on life,  so that I could one day share these with my children.

The way I figured it, by the time they hit their teens I will have more luck reaching them via the written word than with any unwanted lectures from their "old" mom. In the back of my mind I could already see them devouring my every word and saving this precious book to later add their own thoughts (if there was still space) and hand it down to their kids and so forth. 

See, what did I say - destined to become a treasured family heirloom. Brilliant idea, right?

Well I started writing... inadvertently addressing my daughter (yip for some reason I figured I would one day have a girl) With time I fell pregnant and what do you know, we have a boy.... I think OK, this changes things slightly but never to worry I'll just find another notebook and write down my advice aimed more for boys. I'll keep the original for my daughter, which actually works out perfectly because now my kids will each have their own book. So no fighting over who gets to keep it.  Problem solved? Wrong, I fall pregnant again and you guessed it we have another boy. 

What now? I am certainly not going to keep on going till I get a daughter. Luckily I do have a lovely niece whom I adore so in the next 10 years she will become the proud custodian of my treasured family heirloom. 

As for my boys they'll just have to fight over who gets to keep the "male" version. Not that boys really care about that sort of thing :-)

Food for thought,  have you ever noticed how your advice would change whether you are addressing a boy or girl? I'll save that for another post....

Toddler tantrum survival instructions

Should you find yourself in the vicinity of a tantrumming toddler, after negotiations have gone south and all attempts at reasoning have succeeded only in raising the level of hysteria, do as follows.

 
1. Activate nerves of steel.
2. Trigger vacant stare.
3. Install ear plugs. If these are not available increase the volume on TV or radio, or if neither is present, just start singing really loudly.
4. Commence with evasive action. (be super careful if you are wearing heels and be prepared for the ball and chain effect)
5. During steps 1 to 4 it helps to laugh inwardly at the sheer absurdity of the situation you presently find yourself in. Depending on your location you could also laugh out loud, hysterically, which may have the desired affect of frightening your toddler into a stunned silence (better known as shock-and-awe treatment)

6. As tempted as you may be, never ever loose your cool or raise your voice, as this is seen as a sign of weakness and will result in a victory for the toddler.

Remember the timeframe of tantrums will vary, you are always allowed to pray for a shortened version but please bare in mind very few of these are awarded.

Finally, once all screaming has ceased, and a state of calm has returned always, always follow up with a great big hug and a "I love you".

Good luck

Parenting as a business

The dictionary defines the word parent as a person’s mother or father, which is simple enough… you either are or you aren’t. It’s that black or white. It also defines parent as a company or organisation which owns or controls a number of subsidiaries. Now I know what you’re thinking, “what’s that got to do with being a parent to a kid?”  Well, I think we could learn something from the business world, because in a few ways parenting is very similar to running a business. It may even help us ease the grey area that is parenting.

Think about it.

As a parent company you may offer your subsidiaries financial backing or you may share your skill set with them, you definitely would try and teach them which business strategies work and which don’t. The first few years of any new business is crucial and I can imagine it would be during this time that as a parent company you would be hovering over your subsidiaries, watching, making sure they are on the right track. Some parent companies may intervene when they feel it’s necessary while others may not.  Most parent companies hang around in the background, expecting their subsidiaries to take responsibility and deal with the consequences of their own choices. The subsidiaries are responsible for taking the knowledge and skills provided by their parent and applying it in such a manner as to make a success of themselves. Of course they will think they are smarter than their parent and will believe that they can do things quicker, easier even better. And on many occasions may be right, they certainly will improve on certain ideas but they are also going to make mistakes. At which point some parents will bale on their subsidiaries by either selling them off or closing them down, while others will spread their wings and nurture them back again.

Sound familiar?

I believe we only have about 6 or 7 years to give our children the necessary tools and core values, which they will then have to hone and apply by themselves, in order to grow into the successful adults we hope for them to become. We teach by example, we teach with love and empathy, we teach by providing boundaries and by applying discipline strategies.  However, at a certain point this window of teaching closes, at which time we have to stop teaching our kids and start supporting them. We have to take a step back and see how they fair on their own. Let them take the front seat and run with the knowledge they have acquired. They will be able to do this with confidence safe in the knowledge we are always near by. This is the time for us to support them by just being there, in the background, hovering, watching, ready to give advice when asked, empathise when things go wrong and help them find ways of correcting their mistakes.  Of course our children will be influenced by trends, by teachers, by peers, by the social media and all we can do is encourage them to follow their hearts, possibly try and nudge them in the right direction but mostly we just have to have a lot of faith that we taught them well enough.

Luckily the balance of power stays in our hands for a while longer, even if our level of influence shifts. As we are the ones providing the financial backing, along with any necessary hardware…

Parenting will always remain a grey area, as there will never be a right or wrong way of raising kids. There may be a slightly better or worse way, depending on your perspective, but there really is no right or wrong way.  So the best advice I can give myself and you, is to stop worrying about whether we are doing it right, start accepting that we are going to make mistakes and our kids are going to make mistakes, which is actually great because success is bred from failures, but mostly cherish the first 6 years with them as those are the only years you really have your kids to yourself. During that time just be a good-enough parent for your children and watch them flourish.

Introductions are in order

Before I go any further let me make one thing very clear.....I LOVE my two boys more than I ever imagined possible. In fact I cannot imagine life without them and I would die if anything happened to them. So even though they drive me crazy at times, they complete our family and I can honestly say I miss them when they are not around.

Being a mom is one of the best things that ever happened to me, and I love being a mother, but, and it's a big but,  lets be honest it's also one of the worst. As much as I hate to say it (because of course I strive to be one) there is no perfect mom. I have my fair share of bad days and whether I like it or not I do, at times, take it out on my kids and my hubby. After which I promptly  feel so darn guilty, I brand myself as the worst mom/wife/person ever and condem myself to a lifetime of servitude :-)

In order for me to maintain my sanity (I am in serious need of an avenue to vent) and try get back a bit of the old me, I decided I am going to blog again. I used to have a blog which was my space to verbalise my thoughts about life and such but I have not written anything since my oldest was born in 2008. That's a long time to be silent.  


Why not carry on with my old blog then? Well I've changed and my thoughts have changed, because lets face it, that's exactly what happens when you walk down the parenting aisle and grab yourself a kid or two. 


So basicly I am your average stay at home mom (for now) of two adorably gorgeous boys (aged 2 1/2 and 4 mnths) married to an amazing man (whom I know I take for granted) willing to share my ups and downs of parenting. I've been told I have a way with words, but I'm not so sure. All I know is I love writing and I manage to put things into words easier when there is a piece of paper involved. So hop on my roller coaster or don't. Either way enjoy the ride that is life,as  it promises a thrilling, unpredictable experience for all those brave enough.

Amendment... Jan 2013 I've joined the world of working moms, my eldest just turned 5 and my youngest will be 3 in a few months time.