7 reasons why you’re a BRILLIANT mum!

ONE

Your little angel loves giving you kisses, and you love receiving them, but he kisses open mouthed, with lots of slobber, but you just smile and let it dry on your face rather than wipe it off and hurt his feelings.

Kissing Mum XXX

TWO

You know that gorgeous cashmere knit top you’ve had your eye on for the last five or six weeks? The one you’ve been trying to save for by secretly squirriling away $10 a week from the grocery money? Well you’ve just walked past it in the store to spend your stealthly saved cash on a new pair of tracksuit pants and shoes for your son because he’s outgrown his. And the kids always come before you these days. So you miss out. Again. Oh well.

THREE

Your socialite girlfriends invited you out for a rare night on the town, but you sombrely decline, so you can spend your Friday morning, afternoon, and evening, well into the evening, baking and icing a delicious birthday cake worthy of a Women’s Weekly award for your little angel’s birthday tomorrow.

My Banana in his PJ's for Max

My sister's fire truck for Joel

FOUR

You feel like shit today. You’re tired, your hair needs a wash, your legs need waxing, and you’d give anything to sit on the couch and watch a movie. But instead, you build a cubbyhouse under the dining table, using all the clean linen in the cupboard, and you spend the day trying unsuccessfully not to knock your head as you play “let’s pull Thomas and James along the railway track” for the one millionth time, pretending it’s the most exciting game in the world! Every time.

FIVE

You get three hours to yourself each Wednesday morning. That’s it. And instead of putting your feet up and watching that rom-com movie you’ve been dying to see, you get out the vacuum cleaner and cleaning products and give the house a frenzied scrub, because you’d feel like a bad mum if you cleaned the house instead of spending “quality time” with your little angel.

SIX

Ellen is your favourite show. It’s makes you laugh, it’s entertaining and it’s YOUR time. But “little angel” isn’t tired yet and won’t quit whining unless he can watch Banana’s in Pyjamas for the upteenth time today. You give in, because you adore the smile on his angelic face and the happiness it brings him as he laughs along with B1 and B2’s silly antics.

SEVEN

You go without, you put them first, you smile when you want to cry, your heart melts when they look at you, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Why are YOU a brilliant mum? 

Career woman. One step forward, two steps back?

The other night I watched Working Girl on TV, the 1988 movie about a secretary who uses the absence of her female boss to put forward her own ideas and in the process realise her own career aspirations. 

This movie came with all the dazzling glitz and glamour of 1988. Big hair, big shoulder pads and make up that would be the envy of a circus clown.

It was a wonderful reminder to me that as a woman, I can do anything. I loved my career. I believe I was great at what I did. I did it with integrity and passion. It didn’t matter that I was a woman. I did the best job that any PERSON could do.

Then I came across this book at the library.

I’m sorry, but can someone please explain to me, why does a woman need a book on computing skills that a man doesn’t need to learn as well? Don’t men need to use computers in the workplace too?

I thought we had come so far in terms of breaking through the glass ceiling of women in corporate roles, but stumbling across this book made my blood boil!

Then, on second glance, perhaps the choice of hair accessory, the popular 80’s scrunchie, is a giveaway to the age of this book. Perhaps the library are the one’s who need to update their books!

Two pink lines...

Two pink lines.

They mean so much.

In my case they spelt out ten weeks of constant nausea, vomiting, lack of appetite and an overwhelming sense of feeling sorry for myself.

Yes, I am pregnant!

It was with palpable excitement in early April that I lay in bed and watched the look of pure joy on my husbands face as I told him of our great news.

To be completely and utterly honest, until now, that was the ONLY time I have been excited during these last three months.

Being sick sure does know how to impede a party.

It hit me hard. I found myself buried under a sea of blankets as I tried not to move, lest the little that I managed to eat during dinner found its way out again.

I couldn’t write posts for my blog. I couldn’t enjoy anyone else’s. My son suffered, as I couldn’t give him the best of me.

I was so tired. Like a bear hibernating for the winter, I wanted to close my eyes and wake up smiling, already in my second trimester.

I kept telling myself to be grateful. Miscarriage is such a common occurrence that I should count my lucky stars all was going well. Feeling sick was a good sign, surely?

Hello in there!

Again, like my first pregnancy, almost overnight, nausea and exhaustion were replaced with nursery decorating ideas and a desire to spring clean. Names are now circulating through the recesses of my head and I’m starting to enjoy my swollen belly as it ceases hiding its secret within.

Due on the 27^th December, my fingers are crossed that we’ll have a bigger family and be home in time for Christmas.

What a precious gift!

My day out with a gorgeous male (and it wasn't my husband!)

Glorious Melbourne sunshine!

One of my last posts had me reflecting on a past life that I often miss. You know that single life where you can do anything, go anywhere, whenever you like?

Well last week I took a trip with my son to Melbourne, my old stomping ground. I caught up with my lovely sister and her two little boys, and was able to catch up with friends I haven’t seen in years. It was brilliant.

One of the highlights of my trip left me smiling ear to ear for days afterwards.

As a day out, I took my son Max into town on the train. We strolled through Bourke Street, had a hot chocolate and a baby chino at Koko Black (with accompanying chocolate teddy on a stick), spent forty glorious minutes wandering the Myer toy department, caught up with a lovely old friend who had yet to meet Max, and then whilst my little angel slept in the pram I wandered the banks of the Yarra in the glorious Melbourne sunshine.

It was such a beautiful day. 

With my favourite little person.

In my life before kids I would have been stuck at work that day. Perhaps I might have dressed up that evening only to wander from bar to bar with my friends, trying to find “Mr. Right”, wishing I were at home in my track pants with a glass of wine and a good movie.

How my life has changed. And I am so much happier for it!