Being mum is a really unique thing.

I work part time and I go to work to get a break, absolutely. It’s at work I can feel on top of things, good at something, I have meaningful things to say at meetings and get fulfilment from the helping people side of my work.

But it’s at home where I feel inadequate all the time. I wake up at 5.30am to be at work by 9 (I know, how many more hours do I need right!?) and I hardly get myself ready in that time. I hardly get a look into a mirror – its cooking, cleaning, getting two kids up and ready that seems to actually take that long. After work, it’s hectic. Groceries, more cleaning, more cooking, walk the dog, pay attention to the kids, wipe up spills, mop up wees, gardening, get meowed at by the cats, book appointments etc etc. 

Its just a phase of life, I tell myself. Enjoy it because one day I’ll miss it – I know I will so badly. When I’m 80 I’ll want for nothing more than their little hands reaching for mine or their wee voices in the night, “Mumma I want to sleep in your bed”, or maybe even laughing at them laughing at fart jokes.

Its midnight. Im exhausted, feet pounding, back aching, wired on cups of mother fuckin’ tea.

It’s so busy. I wish it wasn’t.

Saturday Night

You know what, yes it IS annoying how you sleep in until 8am every. Single. Day. While I wake up whenever the kids do. Unless it is my birthday or Mother’s Day, although those days I am not not even garunteed a sleep on, or so I have learned. 

It IS annoying how I get up to the kids all night long while you sleep. How do you not even hear your son cry or your daughter whine? How is it that I can change three nappies in one night plus settle toddlers while you awake and say “oh, were they up last night?”

Why is it that when you day we’re going to have a ‘party’ of a night, I am sat on the couch at 10pm waiting for you, even though you have fallen asleep? I am hoping you will wake up and we can spend time together.

Or should I just drink on my own again?

I do all the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, the child rearing. Yes, today I asked you to clean the bathroom and you did it but we live in a two story home and you only cleaned one bathroom once. I am a full time mum, full time student, part time community worker – I am not a housewife. I cannot do everything you expect me to do. 

The times you can play games on your phone, or watch cartoons with the kids, I envy that. I want that. How in this time of gender non specifics, do you Still Expect me to be the maid? The slave? The nutuerer? The scholar? The income generator? Those roles are opposing and yet I am all of them. 

You help and then expect me to pat you on the balls for a job well done?

I cannot imagine literally sitting next to a pile of unfolded washing and saying, “I would do more if you just told me what I needed to do” or sleeping in EVERY DAY and complaining when you needed to get up at 8am because your wife has the flu.

This isn’t fair.

Now here I am typing a bunch of bulkshit on an iPad to myself while you lie in bed, tired. Because you ‘helped’ your wife by cleaning YOUR bathroom this morning after sleeping in and waking up to cooked eggs and a coffee (like every morning). Then went and helped your friend while I had ANOTHER day with the kids screaming, yelling, fighting, crying. Tomorrow you are off to your friends again. Tomorrow I have ANOTHER day of not being the parent I want to be because all I worry about is the house, the washing, the dinner, the kids crying and fighting non stop. Then it will be Monday and my week starts again.

You get to have a beer with your work mate. But you fall asleep instead of having a beer with your wife.

Here I am. This is now. My life is right now.

You are like every other man Inhave ever been with in the fact that you are aggressive defensive. When I try to communicate, it is shut down and it turned on me then ampliphied times one million. To the point where when you raise your voice at me, I am nodding,  but my thoughts are saying “I am nodding to keep the peace. I wish this was being filmed and someone could mediate for us.”

You are all talk and the actions don’t align, your reality does not match the action but you think it does?

I am surrounded by family all day the I get a night like this, when I thought we would hang out, and we are not. And I feel so lonely.

I can’t be your Supermum

Argh, ugh, the term supermum. Filled with honest good intention, it’s actually a compliment that places an shitload of expectation on an already overloaded Mother. As if being a Mum wasn’t enough, now we’re supposed to be super?

Supermum can handle the domestic responsibility, the kids, her career/study/job, supermum works out, creates healthy meals and looks fabulous as if she actually shops for herself, supermum has sex with her husband and does date night while picking up her husbands slack around the house/with the kids, supermum has time for friends. If you can’t keep up with supermum… then obviously you’re priorities are wrong and you need to rearrange your life.

Eminem said it best “I can’t be your superman. I can’t be your superman”.

Give me a few wines and I will gladly (and accurately) finish this rap for you 🙂

ANZAC DAY

We will remember them.

My biggest fear is war. It is world war three. With the state of the world, Nostradarmas’s predictions and Donald Trump’s popularity… My fears are becoming more and more of a prominent thought in my head right before I switch off to sleep.

With kids, I never want them to see war or experience it. I never want to send them to fight and I never want them to experience loss, destruction, violence etc, I wish for peace over their lifetime, as much as a human can have peace.

I was good at history class in school because war is something that was talked about in my home growing up. My great Grandad had fought in the war and had a hook for a hand when he returned. He never spoke of what he experienced and was traumatised by it. He’s buried in the war memorial plot of the Gisborne cemetery. I felt really moved when I paid my respects to his grave one Anzac weekend as a tween. I hope to take my kids to do the same when they are older.

Perhaps that’s why I’m fascinated with the human side of war. I don’t recall dates, I am not very quick with treaties singed or what the key pivotal points in world wars one and two were but I have spent hours pouring over war poetry. I have watched many documentries and read articles on soldiers telling their stories, or wives with their tales of loss. 

It is my deepest hope to never ever have my kids go through living in war time. I fear it. 

Here is a poem I studied 11 years ago and memorised for scholarship English. It is as I remember it, written in green marker pen on the whiteboard by Mr Kelly. I haven’t checked it to make sure it’s right, this is as my memory recalls it and my memory is not the best.

Suicide In The Trenches

By Siegfried Sassoon

I knew a simple soldier boy

Who grinned at life in empty joy

Slept soundly through the lonesome dark

And whistled early with the morning lark

In winter trenches cowed and glum

Through crumps and lice And lack of rum

He put a bullet through his brain

No one spoke of him again

You smug faced crowds with kindling eye

Who cheer when soldier lads pass by

Sneak home and pray you’ll never know

The hell where youth and laughter go

Vain and insane

Body image of mums. “I earned these stripes” and all of that “Real woman” stuff makes me feel like I’m not allowed to admit to being upset about what my body looks like post baby.
It’s an awkward topic to dance around because I think it’s been over simplified by memes and the online society. I’ll explain. It’s not just that I’m upset because I’m flabby, stretched and have rocks in socks where my perky b cups used to perch. It’s a hard time because when I became a mum it was such a huge change in my identity, losing myself and becoming an exhausted on demand servant to two tiny beings that having a Mum bod’ is like the outward, physical identity change. But not a welcome one. Yes, I’d rather have torn apart tummy muscles as evidence that I was so fortunate to carry a child than be without a baby, my baby is most definitely worth it, let’s get that part out of the way. But you know what, it’s not just breastfeeding that gives me bad posture these days, I want to hide away my belly. It’s not just my two year old tugging at the bottom of my shirt that makes me cover my hips. I want it to look physically like I didn’t have  two babies in under two years. I should be allowed to say it without an eye roll, without a lecture and without people excusing it. I feel like I am not myself anymore and my image reflects this. 
Being a Mum is mental. How is any one person supposed to do all the things a Mum is supposed to do everyday? Typically, My husband comes home from work and my hair has snot in it, my clothes are two days old, I haven’t showered in three days and my legs/armpits are hairy. This is the most accurate physical portrayal of the stale yet raging chaos that is my brain. The outside represents the inside, in my case.
To take ownership and control over my appearance may signify taking back some control over my life. I will then have been able to prioritise myself over the relentless demands of Motherhood. For now I guess I’ll just keep walking the kids in their dual stroller so that we all have some quiet sanity time in the mornings and afternoons. It’s healthy for us all.

Another day, another birthday

What kind of a message does it send that, for my 28th but bday today, my husband got up with my toddler and cooked me breakfast. I was surprised he knew what I ate for breakfast. Everyday for over four years, I make him breakfast. Cooked eggs, in fact.
What does it mean that for my birthday, I order in pizza because I have no one who can cook me dinner without me instructing or giving my blessing? I still had to sort dinner.

What does it mean when, for my birthday, my husband baths the kids?
He did still go to work today.
What does it mean when what I really want is some time to connect with my husband, but he falls asleep putting our toddler to sleep. I wait up for him before realising he’s not going to sit and talk with me. I sit and remember the nights I have been exhausted but have stayed up to make an effort with him. Not for particular occasions or anything.
So, for my birthday he treats me the way I treat him everyday except he then falls asleep at 9pm. 
I’m quite confused by this. I don’t know what to make from this birthday.
I am having a bit of a crisis today. An internal conflict of desires and a want to make a change. I am deeply ashamed that I have lost myself to Motherhood. It’s a weird thing to be embarrassed about because it is so apparent, so obvious, so in your face, it can’t be missed. It’s like, everyone knows so stop pretending like you’re hiding it…
I was at a wedding in January and old friends there didn’t even recognise me. I have gained twenty kilos, my eyebrows are unruly, on the top of my frazzled head rests a nest of unwashed greying hair. I used to feel like I was somewhat attractive. I was treated like I was something special. Doors would open for me, things paid for, I toured with three famous bands, people wanted to be my friend, invites piled up, I was never alone. Then, Motherhood. 
Then, Motherhood, indeed. I don’t think I lost myself to Motherhood as I believe I have found myself in Motherhood. I am fufilled in ways I didn’t know possible, life has meaning now etc.

Today i recognise this pattern I fall into time and time again. Where, during change, I must fall apart in order to build myself up again just the way I want myself to be. There is less control over myself now with being a general dogs body and razing small children, as they come first but maybe there is more liberation as well. I’m not a slave to alcohol, to drugs, to party invites, to fancy A-list shenanigans, to that pressure. I am just running around always in a flap wondering how anyone is supposed to do all the things a Mother is supposed to do, plus manage a household, maintain friendships, maintain romance, maintain family relationships, have a career, make money, lose weight etc. This flap is becoming unflappable now. I feel like I’m doing a really bad job of being a Mum. My children should not be watching me cry into the frying pan everyday. I feel like my kids look at me and must feel so uncertain that I am a strong leader, which is very scary for a child. They must feel so uneven. It’s my fault.

I feel like if write this down then the uncertainties and insecurities are no longer within me and maybe I can get some sleep tonight. While they are kept in my mind, I can’t rest with them buzzing around so loudly. 
I want. I want to figure out what I want.
It’s what I need to do, I think. Or I’ll forever be drowning in Motherhood, unable to lift my own head above the surface because it is swamped down with Motherhood. 
What do I want? Is trying to get what I want going to create unnecessary pressure?
I want.
It’s a start. A conscious start. What do I want?
28 years old. Like, what does that mean? Why do I feel let down with today? What did I expect? What reality did I create today? Ultimately, this is all my choice. My life is my choice.

So maybe I need to figure out a few things about myself. Maybe I need to embrace falling apart and learn from the vulnerability that comes with it so I can put myself back together as a stronger version, as the pattern goes.