The holiday countdown is officially ON and we only have 3 more days to go! I hadn’t allowed myself to think about it too much, or get too excited yet, just in case anything happened that meant we couldn’t go, and so now the excitement feels extreme, and the last-minute panic is real!
What on earth do you take? How many nappies?
We have never been abroad with the girls before, and Luna has never been away at all. In fact, Aurora has only had one week in Devon, and another in Lyme Regis, so we really are not experienced at this at all!
I am a notorious over-packer, so this will be interesting! Luckily my mum is coming to have the girls on Friday while I work, and then staying over so I can pack, uninterrupted, on Saturday.
Any tips on taking two toddlers to Turkey, are much appreciated! We are staying in our friend’s mum’s villa, with a pool, and travelling with Luke’s mum, his sister and her family. It’s going to be so lovely to have a break. I feel as though my patience is not just running thin at the moment… it’s all gone. Completely used up, so I need these two weeks, with Luke by my side, to re-charge, and hopefully I’ll return with the patience of a saint, ready to start a clean slate.
We had the most lovely day together on Tuesday, and I am so excited to be getting these weekly family days reinstated again, after holiday. We went to Farrington’s Farm, the girls played in the outside play area, we saw the animals, had a nice lunch in the Restaurant, and the girls sat beautifully, eating almost everything put in front of them! Who are these alien children, and why do they not act like this at home!? We then had a look in some of the shops and ended up in the soft play. There was hardly anyone there, Luna loved the ball pool, and miniature village style shops, and Aurora was whizzing around like a tornado. She asked me to go with her the first couple of times, ending with a huge wobbly slide that she sat on my lap for. Once I had explored with her, she was off! Racing around without so much as a backwards glance, and almost throwing herself down the slide with no fear at all. She ‘made friends’ with a little boy and girl, and that was it. I felt as though it was a monumental step, showing her next phase of independence. She doesn’t need me as much anymore, sniff!
It was such a beautiful day, the girls both slept on the way home, and once we returned, the BBQ was fired up, and we shared our first alfresco dinner as a four. Ending, of course, with toasted marshmallows and ‘S’mores’. Bath time went smoothly, Luke read us all a story while successfully sending himself to sleep, as always.
I thought this was the fresh start that I had been so desperate for. I felt revived, I felt calm, I felt in control.
Wednesday was another corker. Beautiful sunshine, Luna napping well, Aurora listening and following instructions, and any upset was comforted and dealt with well. But sweet, baby, Jesus, dinner time. It was awful, absolutely awful. I must do better. I don’t want to be a shouty mum, but it seems to be getting worse.
I don’t know if it was because I had my NCT girls coming over at 8pm, so had put an invisible pressure on myself and the girls to get everything done quickly, cleanly and without fuss. I have noticed over the past weeks that the times when I get frustrated are when there is a time restriction of some kind on the activity. But I have also noticed that some of these time restrictions are completely made up by me…
Getting up the stairs for bath time, I’m carrying Luna while Aurora decides to crawl at a snail’s pace, and it pushes my buttons. But why does it matter if it takes us 5 minutes to climb the stairs? It shouldn’t, but it does, because I have the idea in my head of how that situation should go, and this isn’t it.
Getting dressed for bed, after the bath, both girls are obsessed with going into every single room, climbing in my bed, getting as many toys out in a short space of time as physically possible and it blows my fuse. But why does it matter if it takes longer to get them in to bed? Because in my mind, it takes a certain amount of time, and this isn’t how I see it going in my head.
I need to let go of these unrealistic, and frankly impossible standards I keep setting, and just ‘Let It Be’ a lot more. But that really is easier said than done, and takes physical effort, for me at least. I also find it hard to think that climbing from the bottom of the staircase to the top, in less than 10 seconds is now something of an impossible standard that I will forever be striving for. I know I have to let go of some things, but where’s the line? Do I lower the bar so much that simply surviving a day is considered an achievement? Maybe!
When Luke, or my mum, are there, it is a lot easier to have that outlook, I don’t know why I can’t transfer that to when I’m tackling it on my own. Especially because (other than Wednesday) I never have any plans on those evenings. I get them in bed, go downstairs to do the washing up, and then either write my blog, do my Interior Design course, or watch TV. Not exactly activities that insist on promptness.
I think the biggest sticking point for me is that I feel like I am the only one experiencing this. Every time I find a situation stressful, or I get frustrated, or upset, I feel totally alone. I know the girls are there, but in those moments, it feels as though they are playing for the opposite team, and I’m fighting my own battle. I know from talking to friends that this is not the case, and from messages I get after each blog post, validating my feelings and confirming that they too are going through the same thing. But it’s all hidden, you don’t see it. Just as no one see’s my struggles, or at least not the extent of them.
When picking Aurora up from Pre School, she likes to look for snails on the land outside the gates, and usually a friend or two will join her on this quest. Today was no different and was incredible to hear her saying phrases to her friend, that I had said to her days earlier. (She had gotten into a habit of smashing the empty shells with another girl and I explained how unkind that was, so today heard her saying, ‘But we don’t smash the shells, okay? We don’t smash them’) Time was creeping on and the other mum and I were both nearing our limit of waiting aimlessly for this snail hunt to end (it will never end). We both, independently, tried a couple of different tactics to get our toddlers moving to no avail. We both, silently, decided to give them a bit longer. After being there for about 30 minutes, she reached her peak just before me. This may sound awful, but I find such solace in hearing another mum raise their voice a little louder and lose their patience. It’s not just me! I didn’t judge her in the slightest. I felt it deep in my core. I hope other mums feel that way if they ever see me reach my limit. Pure understanding, zero judgement.
Therefore, I think this holiday is coming at exactly the right time. Two weeks, one in Turkey, and then one back home, with a few Newbury visits planned, where there will be no schedule, no timescale, no rush, just time to ‘be’.
Isn’t that always the way though, doesn’t a holiday always feel like it comes at just the right time? It’s probably more down to us getting more and more worked up and stressed in the run up to it, so it feels like the release we need. Whatever the reason, I’m glad it’s almost here. I can smell the sun cream. I can taste the cheap cocktails. I can hear the splashes in the pool. Only 66 hours until take off. That sounds manageable.
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