On Edge

I am on edge and I need to vent the best way I know how.

I need to somehow clarify and articulate what it is that has me pent up like a pipe about to burst. In my body I feel the tension, every nerve screams.

It's this lockdown. This endless, mind-numbing, soul-sapping lockdown.

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The Urge to Write is Upon Me

In the past few weeks, I have written multiple stories in my head. So many thoughts, issues, feelings and words needing to be expressed, but where to start? What to focus on?
I just didn't know where to begin.
But today I sat down, opened up my laptop and began to write, without a clear direction, just needing to satisfy this urge to write, while it is upon me.

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"Stop the World, I want to Get Off!" she said...

I don't know how many times I must have said this out loud, to myself or in my head.
Stop the World. I want to Get Off.

Life was too fast. It came at me from all directions and I could never, ever catch my breath.
Since becoming a sole-parent nearly four years ago and re-entering the paid workforce, life has been faster than ever.

Endless days of driving kids from place to place, juggling chores and work and parenting.
I once totalled up the amount of time I spent in my car each week during winter sport season and it came out to more than 20 hours. That's half a full-time job, just on driving.
No wonder I wanted it all to stop.

How many times did I say to my kids, "ONE DAY! JUST ONE DAY is all I want. ONE DAY where I don't have to drive ANYWHERE..."

Well, I got my wish, didn't I?

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After 17 Years as a Mum Here's What I've Learned

[Image Credit]

My eldest boy turned 17 the other day, which is crazy because it feels like only yesterday that I began blogging when he was five.
Oh my word, what a journey we've had, what a rollercoaster ride. With one short year of schooling left, my 6-foot-tall manchild is almost ready to take on the world. I'm caught between shock and awe - shock at how fast it's all gone and awe that we have made it this far.

Let me share some of the things I've learned - the hard way of course - in the last few years of parenting. I hope to shed some light and sprinkle some hope for those of you just entering the teenage years, to encourage you that if we can survive, anyone can...

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From the Ashes

It has been nearly three years since I left my marriage. It was the most difficult decision I have ever made, and one with the highest cost I’ve ever had to pay. It was ‘Hobson’s Choice’ you might say – the choice you have when there is really no other choice. When my marriage ended it wasn’t from lack of trying – we’d been in counselling since 2012, after all. But when all avenues have been tried and the pain being caused to all parties is greater than the benefit of staying, well, at some point you have to call ‘time’.

No-one walks away from a marriage lightly. No-one launches a grenade into their family on a whim; but still, I had no idea at the time just exactly what the price would be for that decision, though all things considered it was still the only decision that could have been made.

With the decision to walk away came Death of the Dream.

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A Merry Heart Does You Good (like medicine)

If you've been around this blog for any length of time you'll know that in our family we've always loved to celebrate for any excuse – and sometimes for no reason.

We loved having friends over, spending time with special people enjoying an occasion together. Whether it was a Light Party, a Birthday Party, an Easter dinner or one of our famous "Parties for No Reason", we sure did love to host a gathering.
We never spent loads of money, we never parted with cash for glitzy entertainers or fancy catering.
We liked our birthday cakes a bit wobbly and homemade-looking.
We got a kick out of thinking up decorations, games and food that we could adapt and make.

More than anything, we really got a thrill out of creating an atmosphere for our friends to come and enjoy.

Even the planning was part of the fun.
As the kids got older they came up with their own great ideas for games and decorating.

Celebrating each other was a way of showing appreciation and letting each family member know that they were valued and special.
So what happened when we changed to a sole-parent family on a tight budget?

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One Foot in Front of the Other

Right about now I'm wishing I had some Easter inspiration to share with you. Wise words or bright ideas, either one would do.
One of those posts from days-gone-by popped up in my Facebook "memories" the other day. I read it and sighed... a deep soul-weary sigh.

Breath in, breath out, I tell myself. Keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Just one more trip to football training in rush hour traffic, one more early morning drop-off to the train, one more night of worrying about bedtimes and lunchboxes and clean uniforms.
Just one more day and it's school holidays. A chance to catch our breath and pause for a few days.
Man, this tiredness is bone-deep.

By body rebelled on the weekend and I kind of crashed. Had to pull the plug on all the plans, hunker down and conserve energy, go nowhere (a fair amount of takeaways may have been consumed).

I think it was the endless going-and-going without a break for so long; holding it together for everyone, keeping all the balls and plates in the air and spinning. Sole parenting is not for the faint-hearted.
Me myself, I'll admit it - I'm knackered.

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Pearls

This post is the result of a conversation I had in the car with Scrag this morning - a deep and meaningful discussion about the meaning of life (the kind of talks I often find myself having with my eight-year-old. It's how we roll).
There we are driving along in traffic, rushing, on the cusp of lateness as always, and he says, "Mum do you think there's a plan for everything? Is there a point to it?"

See what I mean? Deep. This kid is DEEP.
I know where he's coming from, what he is trying to get at.
With all the crappy things that happen, is there a reason or plan behind it? Is there a reason why we go through stuff?

Here's how I answered him...

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When it feels like the World is Falling Apart...

I'm almost scared to check my news feed these days - what new soul-clenching, stomach churning madness has occurred while I was sleeping?
You probably know the feeling.
I have this urge to write, to vent, and get all the *grrrrr* off my chest, but do we really need another post like that cluttering up the interwebs? Another "this world is going to hell in a handbasket" opinion piece? I doubt it.

Sigh.
Chin up, I tell myself. This too shall pass.

I've been sitting here at the bottom of the world watching the madness unfold, feeling shocked and sickened as the fundamentalist American Church aligns itself with the most reprehensible human being we've had on the world stage in a long time. Their endorsement of him is doing irreparable harm to the name of Christ (who I love and try to follow). Making excuses for his inexcusable behaviour is painting the rest of the followers of Jesus with an awful tarnished brush. What they call Christianity, and Christian values has nothing to do with Jesus.

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Good Riddance 2016 (but Thanks for not Killing Me)

Today is the last day of this bloody awful year. It has been without a doubt the hardest year of my life - yet strangely it hasn't actually been the worst year. 

Why? Because I'm finishing the year a stronger person than I began it.

My faith in God has been tested, and strengthened, because He has not failed me yet.

I've lost friends along the way, but discovered others whose worth is pure gold. 

I've had to learn to fill the roles of both mum and dad - and have since realised how incredible single mums are.

There are so many of us out there, doing the hard yards, unseen and alone, but rocking parenting in spite of the endless challenges - in spite of incredibly tight budgets, the (unfair and untrue) judgments of others and the sheer relentlessness of doing life on our own. 

I am in awe of the strength of women, and single mums in particular.

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What Kids Learn from Having a Dog

In just four short months our rescue puppy, Clyde, has turned us into a bunch of fully converted Dog People. Of course the kids had been begging for us to become a Dog Family for donkey's years, but I had taken some convincing, because I'd heard the rumours.
Dogs are lots of work. They stink, they shed hair, they chew everything, they pee and poop everywhere, they eat you out of house and home. Having a puppy is the same amount of work as having a newborn; having a dog is like having another kid.

Being your quintessential Lazy Mother, I was extremely reluctant to sign up for extra work. I mean, I already had my hands full with three human children.
Who needs the extra job of picking up poop and bathing a dog when it's all you can do to keep your boys regularly showering and your toilet floor a urine-free zone.
Am I right?
Having a dog sounded like sooooo much work.

But then we got Clyde. In some kind of weird fit of intuition, I had a gut feeling that a puppy was just what the kids needed to help them get through a tough time.
It seemed counter-intuitive, and plenty of people thought I really had finally gone crazy taking on extra work in the middle of a crisis, but I turned out to be right on the money with this one.

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Taking Stock (cos that's what i do when i've got writers block)

I really thought that when I got the giant boulder-sized "elephant in the room" blog post out of the way, my writer's wellspring would unblock and the stories would flow once more. I guess I was wrong about that.

Sometimes there's just so much going on that the thought of finding a way to write it all down in a manner which is honest, heartfelt, but lighthearted - yet also manages to avoid upsetting half the people in my life - well, it's just too exhausting. Consequently, I still seem to have a rather insidious case of writers block.

But I can't go wrong with a list, right? A summary of recent happenings and photos from the past few weeks? It's either that or I blurt out my angst about the upcoming Silly Season and how much I'm dreading it with a capital D. That could be awkward.

So here goes with some taking stock instead. The last few weeks I've been...

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O August Where Did You Go?

I had the best of intentions, I really did.
This was going to be more than a one-post blogging month.
I started well, didn't I? Blogging on the very first day of August? It was a good post too, that lonely August birthday party post.
It was meant to be joined by others, at least three more.
Yet here I sit, late on the 31st, and that one post was all I managed.

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In Defense of Ritalin (and ADHD Kids)

ADHD seems to be misunderstood and get a bad rap from people who don't actually know much about it, so I'm here today to throw my hat in the ring and clear up a few misconceptions.

I've heard comments from many quarters about the tendency these days to "throw around labels" and "bung kids on medication". In some circles it's rumoured that ADHD isn't even a thing - that it's made up - because apparently "French children don't get ADHD" (the same way French women don't get fat. Yeah right).
Some people have the idea that ADHD is a convenient excuse for the bad behaviour of children who, in earlier generations, would just be called "naughty". Sigh.

Of course it's one thing to be able to sit up on a very high horse and spout theories, it's another to live with children who actually have that very real thing going on in their brains, which makes life and school so painfully difficult, for them and us as parents.

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Flying a Kite is a bit like Parenting

On Saturday we went out to Piha Beach on the wild West Coast, in an attempt to break through the lethargy and blahness that sometimes descends on us all after an exhausting, busy week.
The car was loaded with reluctant, groaning kids, a bag of snacks, a soccer ball and our never-before-used, still-in-its-packet Kite.

We've never had much luck with kites before, but for once the wind was blowing right and the kite's string was barely let out when the wind caught it and whipped it up into the air.

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Parenting at the Pointy End

Last night I lay awake writing this post in my head. This week I've been discombobulated, out of sorts, tearful and nostalgic as the reality of this latest stage of parenting has made itself felt. I feel the need to put it all into words, so I can reconcile myself to our new reality: My kids aren't little any more.

Every stage of parenting (and life) has it's pain and its rewards. It's just very easy to slip into a wee bit of melancholy when you compare your rose-tinted memories of "the simple fun-filled days" of yesteryear with the serious business of parenting a teenager and an adolescent, with one lone seven year old bringing up the rear.

I've been overwhelmed with nostalgia for the days when homework was simply reading a PM book together each night and I could relax a bit knowing that we had years ahead of us to get our parenting crap together, years to figure out "adulting", years for our kids to nail the academic side of life.
We had a reassuring buffer zone of time.
It's OK, I kidded myself. By the time we get to High School we'll have it all figured out. We'll know what we're doing. We'll be sorted.

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This is Normal (apparently)

Sometimes everything works. Every now and then we have a day - or a few days in a row even! - where everything just flows. There are no meltdowns, no raised voices, no tears or tantrums. There is no reason to tear out my hair or wish human ears came with a volume control.
Sometimes, every now and then, I feel like a good mum. Like we've figured it out. Like we are winning.

And then there are the other days.
The days where nothing works.
The days where we are like kittens in a bag, scratching at each other. The days where if it's not one kid crying/shouting/fighting/whingeing, it's another. Scrapping and answering back. Needling each other. Melting down over the littlest things. I should be bald by now with the frequency of these days.

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Enjoying Christmas & Finding the REAL Magic

This is not your usual Christmas post. I am not going to give you another list of things to do - you don't need that. There's an avalanche of crafty ideas on Pinterest, if that's what you're after.
No. This is a from-my-heart-to-yours post about how to REALLY have a magical Christmas and actually enjoy the season.

Isn't that what we all want? At this time of the year, don't we all wish we could recapture the lost wonder and magic of Christmas?

I wanted to write this post for the many, many mums out there who are madly trying to recapture Christmas magic yet are feeling only exhausted, overwhelmed and annoyed at that little Elf they keep having to invent antics for.
This post is for you. I'm here to tell you Christmas doesn't have to be an endless stress-headache.

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Cheer Up

Today I got sent a link to some photos taken of Miss Fab's cheerleading team at their competition last weekend, and as I clicked and saved them, I felt inspired.

I was inspired by the smiles, inspired by the teamwork, inspired by the sheer athleticism of these girls.

Miss Fab has been doing Cheer for nearly two years - and I wasn't always a fan.
The pageant-y makeup, the skimpy outfits, the glitter and bows - it all felt alien to me: un-Kiwi and overly-American.

There are plenty of misconceptions out there in the world about it as well. Many people are under the impression that it's like the Cheer teams on things like High School Musical and Glee: all pompoms and high ponies and backstabbing. But nothing could be further from the truth.

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Confessions of a Lazy Mother - Party Edition

I'm terribly sorry if I have misled you all - that was never my intention. I'm a little worried that some people may be under the mistaken impression that my children lead a charmed life full of whimsical tea parties, theme dinners and picnics; a life full of jolly fun, a magical memory-filled enviable childhood. Because after all, this blog was called (until very recently) "Greatfun4kids". And wasn't it all about having fun with your kids? Wasn't I meant to be some kind of role model for an impromptu fun-filled life?

No, no, no. If you thought that, I'm sorry but you have me pegged all wrong.
While you may have imagined that the person who could pull off a party for no reason at the drop of a hat must be exceedingly energetic and well organised in the domestic department - and while you may have been under the impression that my kitchen always smells like fresh muffins and every dinner is themed - nothing could be further from the truth. I am anything but energetic. I am more often boring than fun. And I only bake when I have to.

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