A couple of days ago I saw a tweet. It came at just the right moment, speaking to me through my haze of tired eyes and puffy feet: “The idea that we always have to be tired to be successful is wrong. We need new role models.”

It seems SO simple. But in a society where so many of us are rushing around all the time, proudly declaring how busy we are, it seems almost controversial to suggest that being busy and, ultimately, being tired is not always a good thing. There is such a thing as being too busy.

This week has been a bit of a strange one for me. After my pregnancy health scare last weekend I’ve been more aware than ever of the need to slow down a bit. And when I say “slow down” I don’t mean sitting on the sofa all day. I mean reverting back to a normal pace of being, that doesn’t involve running up and down the stairs, rushing everywhere and constantly fretting – to the point of waking in the night – that I’ve forgotten to do something. 

Before I became a mum I found it quite easy to switch off. I’d go to work, work my arse off, then come home and chill out. Sometimes I’d go to the pub, sometimes I’d go out for dinner, sometimes I’d just sit around at home in my pyjamas with a face mask and a good film. The point is, I didn’t feel guilty about doing “nothing”, because I knew I’d fulfilled my busyness quota for the day.

But when you have responsibilities other than work, the thought of sitting around in your PJs seems like a huge luxury, rather than just a normal way of relaxing after a busy day.

Most days, I have just three hours of child-free daylight time to cram in all the freelance work I do. Considering I work around 30 hours a week that’s not very much daylight time. So my evenings often involve working too. When I’m not working I’m being a mum, entertaining, playing, talking. And when Frog is happily entertaining herself I’m doing chores, making tea, scraping porridge off the carpet.

It never ends. Parenthood is brutal. Add work to the mix and the idea of carving out any time for yourself is almost laughable.

When I take a step back, though,  I realise so much of my hectic life is down to my own making. I don’t need to take on as much as I do. We moved to Devon for cheaper living and a better quality of life, after all. But as a freelancer, I find it hard to turn work down and, if I’m honest, there’s a competitive edge to me that doesn’t want to be “out-done” by my peers.

And then I burn out. Or get sick. And I rue my life and wail that it’s everyone else’s fault rather than taking responsibility for the fact the situation is entirely of my own making.

Partly, I think, this need to be busy is linked to what I see others around me doing. I compare my own workload, for example, with those who have full-time childcare or children already at school. I think I should be doing as much as they are, so I pitch more and say “no” less. And then I see other parents saying how busy they are too, like being busy is a badge of honour to wear with pride. We smile over our hectic weekend plans and share a laugh over the fact, “It never ends, eh?”

I’ve realised something this week though. As I’ve stayed up late to meet deadlines, comforted my daughter in the middle of the night over a bad dream, rushed to get laundry done and stop my home resembling a hovel, it dawned on me that sometimes doing nothing is just as important as doing something.

Sometimes you need to watch TV mindlessly without scrolling through Twitter at the same time. Sometimes you need to get outside and go for a walk without feeling the need to quickly check emails en-route. Sometimes you need to allow yourself to turn down a work project or sit for five minutes with a cup of tea on the sofa, without that feeling of guilt taking over.

Doing nothing doesn’t make you an under-achiever. Switching off your phone and having an hour in the bath with a good book doesn’t make you lazy.

We don’t always need to be tired, overworked and too busy, to be successful people worthy of praise and respect.

I just need to remind myself of this a bit more often.

What do you think? Do we place too much value on being busy?

The post Being busy is not a badge of honour appeared first on Mother's Always Right.

I’m a bit nervous today. The excited kind of nervous, that you only get when you really care about something.

Today I can finally share with you something I’ve been working on for the last few months. Back in August, I got an email from my friend Alison at Not Another Mummy Blog. Alison had this idea to set up a collaborative blog. She wanted it to be a collaborative blog with a difference though.

After weeks of emails to and fro, Google hangouts, phone calls and Facebook chat, we are finally ready to show the world what we’ve been up to.

The Motherhood is a brand new blog brought to you by a team of seven. We are all mums and all have very different backgrounds. We are glossy magazine editors, journalists, writers, crafting gurus and photographers. But the one thing we all have in common is that,  just like many of you, we are mums and we love to blog. 

I’m not going to wax lyrical about what we are and what we plan to do, because we’ve already done that on our About page. But here’s the crux of it:

“We’re here to share the ups and downs, the eureka moments, and talk about how we tackle motherhood. We’ll pour that glass of wine after a bad day and exchange tips on how to make an impressive dinner for friends – the easy way. We’ll share how we tackle rainy days and tantrums, and what we’ve been buying with the spare pennies. We’ll rant about the things that get us down, but we’ll shout from the rooftops about the happy times too.”

This is us (I’m the one having a tantrum at the bottom because I’m scared of the crab I’m holding):

We are me (obviously), Alison from Not Another Mummy Blog, Charlotte from Write Like No One’s Watching, Katie from Mummy Daddy Me, Erica from Modern Mum Must-Have, Kelly from Domestic Goddesque and Eleanore from The Mumday Times.

Our content is varied, with interiors and style posts sitting alongside the odd light-hearted rant and beauty tip. From Phubbing to maternity fashion, debates about Christenings to the best way to cover grey roots, there’s all sorts. 

If you like what you see then tell other people about it! We are new and excited but a party is no fun if you’re the only one there. So follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook and add us on Google+.

Now come on over to The Motherhood and crack open the biscuit tin. We’re waiting to welcome you.

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When you raise kids with someone, I guess it’s pretty obvious that there has to be an element of “team playing” in the role. I’m not talking about being consistent with behaviour, or praise, or whatever – I’m on about the more back-to-basics stuff. The DOING stuff. The bits of being a parent and living in a house that are vital, but often overlooked because they’re just so, well, OBVIOUS.

When I first became a mum I was on maternity leave for a year. The first part of the year was all newborn baby sleep deprivation, adjustment and trying desperately to get out to meet other mums. The second part of the year was all about setting up a new direction in my career, building a portfolio so I could start freelancing. 

Within that year, we made some pretty massive changes to our roles on this “team” we’d created.

The (self-proclaimed) Northern Love Machine was the one “bringing home the bacon”, so to speak, and I did much of the stuff at home. But when I started working again we needed to reassess how we did things. I just didn’t have the time to do ALL the washing, ironing, cleaning, cooking, shopping, toilet scrubbing alongside work AND raising a tiny baby. That was when the NLM started doing more around the house and looking after Frog for periods on his own, so I could crack on and get some work done.

We haven’t always got it right though. There have been times when we’ve both felt unappreciated and over-worked, downtrodden and taken for granted. I’ve written before about feeling annoyed that everything with the house always seemed to fall to me, just because I was a woman. It’s a subject that has come up again, since then, but I think it’s generally because (like me) the NLM is often so busy, he just doesn’t realise stuff needs doing.

The last couple of months have seen another shift in our roles on the team. Before the summer, I was out of the house for work by 4.30am Monday to Friday, meaning the NLM did the whole morning routine before he went off to do a full day teaching kids in a secondary school. Over the summer the routine changed again when I left that job, we relocated 200 miles away, and the NLM was on school holidays. Recently, I’ve been readjusting to working from home again and doing the lion’s share of the house stuff. The NLM’s new job means he’s out of the house by 7.15am most days and doesn’t get back until gone 6pm most nights. He spends evenings planning lessons, marking and preparing for the next day of teaching.

Up until last weekend I was starting to feel that familiar pit of resentment in my stomach. I still had work to do, but was having to juggle it alongside all my other responsibilities as a mum.

The NLM’s long work hours mean I do the morning and the night routine. I do tea time and all the washing and cooking. It’s up to me to fill in forms for pre-school and make sure Frog has a packed lunch to take with her. I do the ironing, the cleaning and make sure the fridge is stocked and the meals are planned. I spend afternoons crafting or running around the park or getting out the play dough with my three year old. Come 7pm, I am exhausted, but that’s when the second part of my working day begins, when I fire up the laptop and get typing.

It didn’t feel like much of a team, to be honest.

But then, on Friday night the NLM and I had a chat. “I have a huge deadline on Monday morning and I can’t get all my work done in just the evenings this weekend”, I told him. So, at 10.30am on Saturday morning I trundled up the stairs and locked myself in the office until 10pm that night. Meanwhile, the NLM got out the poster paints, the play dough, the glue and made a trip to the supermarket. On Sunday, we swapped. I took Frog to the beach, cooked a roast, did the washing and put her to bed while the NLM worked.

While weekends are important for family time, sometimes it’s just not possible to fit an activity in that we do all together. From an outside perspective we were very separate all last weekend but, actually, I can’t remember the last time our role as a “team” worked so well.

How do you work as a team in your house? Do you have set roles and responsibilities within the home?

The post How do you define “team player” as a parent? appeared first on Mother's Always Right.

I’m not a fan of labels. I think they divide us rather than bringing us together. “Attachment Parent”, “Stay At Home Parent”, “Natural Parent”, whatever the label, they all make me feel kind of itchy.

I have no problem with the concepts behind the label, but the idea of belonging to a “club”, likening parenting to being a fan of a particular football team, just doesn’t sit well with me. I was the kid at school who loved Take That but also had a secret soft spot for East 17. So you see, I’ve never been very good at choosing sides.

Of all the labels out there that are thrust upon mothers (and I say “mothers”, because I’ve yet to hear someone use the father equivalent of this label), the one that I detest the most is “Full Time Mum”.

Full. Time. Mum.

Let’s think about that for a second. You’re a mum. And you do this role “full time”. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!

Does it mean that you clock in at 9am and leave at 5pm, mumming approximately 40 hours a week? Or does it mean that you are always a mum, spending every second of your day wearing your title proudly?

In truth, I know what “Full Time Mum” is supposed to mean. I’ve heard it used enough times to work out that a “Full Time Mum” is a mother who stays home and doesn’t use childcare. It’s a term that is often used interchangeably with “Stay At Home Mum”.

But “Full Time Mum” is, at best, a rubbish description of this role and, at worst, insulting. It’s insulting to the mums who stay home and it’s insulting to the mums who go to work. After all, if you’re a mum who stays at home, then you don’t get the luxury of clocking off at 5pm. “Full Time Mum” fails to consider the 3am nightmares and the 6am wake-up calls. And if you’re a mum who goes to work, you don’t magically stop being a mum between the hours of 9am and 5pm. You might be in an office miles away from your child, but that doesn’t mean you’re not wondering what he is doing right now, or planning what to cook him for tea tonight. Someone else might be looking after him, but they are sure as hell NOT his mother just because you aren’t there.

And how about the mums who work AT home? What if you work at home while your child is at nursery, or whatever. Are you automatically a “Part Time Mum”? I dare you to call ANY mother a “Part Time Mum” and see what response you’ll get. I’m willing to bet big money that it won’t be pretty.

So there you have it. I don’t think “Full Time Mum” does any “type” of mum justice. I vote we ban it.

I vote we just use the term “Mum” instead.

The post Why we should ban the term “Full Time Mum” appeared first on Mother's Always Right.

When we moved to this little corner of Devon at the beginning of the school holidays it all felt very exciting. The sun was shining hot heat over the pretty hills and the sandals and strappy tops on the high street made it feel like a holiday.

Two weeks passed and the holiday vibe was replaced with something else.

My (teacher) husband was off work and my three year old’s pre-school was closed for the holidays. We had days out and trips away, but I still had to work, albeit from home. Life was still exciting, but I craved a bit of stability and routine. I think that craving was partly due to the fact we are only temporarily renting our house, so it felt even more like a holiday home. 

This time last week I was sad that summer was over. I already missed the long days on the beach and rambles over the moor. I dreaded the pre-school dash in the morning and cramming the extra work hours into my shorter working day. But, at the same time, I was eager to return to a sense of normality. I was ready for it to feel less like a holiday and more like our life.

So, summer is now officially over. But you know what? That’s OK. The last week has been brilliant. We are starting to feel settled. We have a new routine.

Frog LOVES pre-school. We get to wander down the hill together in the morning when I drop her off and I feel like part of a club, as I smile at the other mums at the gates. This is simple stuff, but they are things I missed when I was working on a breakfast radio show alongside my freelance writing work, pulling 80 hour working weeks and being out of the door at 4.30am. The work was fun, but so is walking down the road listening to the chatter of my story-telling three year old.

People are friendly here. There is a slower pace of life, I feel less stressed and frantic. I get no Internet signal outside of the house, so I can’t surreptitiously check my phone for emails. I like that. My three year old likes that. People know when they can get hold of me so I don’t worry about being available 24/7.

We have a little routine going on. Afternoons are spent doing stuff. Eating cake in a cafe, meandering down to the library or the park, going to swimming lessons or playing at home.

For the first time since becoming a mum I have a regular two evenings a week to myself doing non-work, non-mum stuff, at a Yoga and a Zumba class. I even enjoy the walk there (although not so much when it’s raining). I’m starting to wonder if this is what “normal” feels like.

Of course there are bouts of stress or anxiety, as I fret about hitting deadlines and keeping on top of work. But, mostly, I am managing the juggle. I enjoy my mornings working, even. It adds balance to the mum stuff.

Summer’s over, but that’s OK. I’m looking forward to seeing what autumn brings.

The post Summer’s over, but that’s OK appeared first on Mother's Always Right.

When I was little I had a friend. We used to write stories together, make up plays, create magazines and draw pictures. Play times at my friend’s house were always fun, creative affairs.

As well as dressing up and bossing around our siblings, we would play make-believe games with my friend’s huge dolls’ house. She also had a Sylvanian Families collection that beat anything I’ve ever seen since.

We drifted apart as we grew up, going to different schools and hanging out with different people. But I’ve always kind of kept in touch with her through our mums, who still remain very good mates. So it was with a huge sense of excitement when I discovered my old friend on Twitter, later getting in touch with each other via email and, eventually over the phone.

Turns out my friend has written a book. She also has a rather interesting day job as a costumed interpreter.

And that’s why I wanted to invite her on here for a rare guest post – if your kids love to act and have an interest in history, then maybe this is a career path that they too will follow one day.

Over to my friend, Lauren Johnson…

Today when we meet, I’m Lauren Johnson, historian, writer, and twenty-first century scruffbag. Tomorrow I might meet you while I wearily clean dishes in the scullery at Audley End House. Or perhaps you’ll be kneeling before me, your queen, at Hampton Court Palace. If you’re really unlucky I might be shooting a siege engine in your direction at the Tower of London.

These are just some of the multiple identities I inhabit in my weird working life as a costumed interpreter. For the past five years I have worked at some of the most beautiful heritage sites in Britain, pretending to be people from the past. From the twelfth to the twentieth centuries, I’ve worn a lot of uncomfortable clothing, an enormous array of unflattering headgear and I now have very defined calves thanks to half a decade of stamping about on cobbles in completely flat shoes.

If you’re still not sure what I do for a living, you’re not alone. Costumed, sometimes called live or historical, interpretation is still relatively unknown, despite there being a daily costumed presence at both the Tower of London and Hampton Court Palace since the early 1990s. Costumed interpretation sits somewhere between re-enactment and theatre. The simplest way to explain it is to say that I dress in the costume of a particular era and engage visitors to a heritage site by, basically, pretending to be a historical character. For instance, I’ve quite often played Katherine Parr at Hampton Court Palace. As Katherine, I’ll do a mixture of timed performances with other interpreters – which all adapt to the audience we have – and wandering the Tudor route in ‘freeflow’, inhabiting the spaces and talking to visitors as if it’s still the 1540s.

Working as a kitchen maid at Audley End

However, my job is even a little stranger than that. I am the research manager for Past Pleasures, one of the oldest costumed interpretation companies in the UK. So I spend half my time in costume and half of it researching for the team. It’s a bit of a bipolar existence. One day I might be a princess holding court at Dover Castle in front of a packed great hall, standing to attention and cheering what I say. The next I’m all alone in a silent library, huddled over a pile of books. As Research Manager I produce research packs for the whole interpretation team at Past Pleasures, which gives them a way into an era or event that we are interpreting. That’s over 80 people, and during the four years I’ve done the job I’ve produced 60 packs, which is not a bad output compared with the number of essays I did during my degree!

You might be wondering how I got into a job like this. And certainly I would have done a few years back. I studied History at Oxford University, and during my whole time there I never knew that such a career existed. I had rather assumed I would go down the academic route of immersing myself in dusty tomes and hushed reading rooms, channeling all my desire to perform into the improvised comedy group I was part of, The Oxford Imps. However, while studying for my Masters I realised I didn’t necessarily want to just keep focusing more and more intently on one single era, or sit in silence for the rest of my working life. I wanted to communicate with others about History and explore all the periods I had never really looked into during my degree. It was after my Masters, while I was working as a classroom assistant in Bristol, that I heard on the improv grapevine about this job where you dressed up like a Tudor at Hampton Court Palace and I thought, ‘I have to do that!’ ‘That’, I learnt, was working for Past Pleasures, and after sending in a CV and essay, going for interview, and having training I finally started as a costumed interpreter in early 2008.

I still enjoy attending conferences – it’s great to dip back into academia and meet world experts in their chosen field – but I think I have the best of both worlds now. I undertake research – sometimes quite intense, and always rigorous, combing through primary sources or historiography of different eras – but I also get to educate, perform and debate with the public about history more generally.

You do butt up against some strange preconceptions in this job. I once had a woman insist I could not be a real medieval person because I had eyebrows. On another occasion, my colleague – who was dressed as the seventeenth-century Duke of Monmouth – was asked, over the course of a single day, if he was Henry VIII, Robin Hood or Jesus. However, those peculiar moments are massively outweighed by the rewarding interactions you have, however briefly, with members of the public.

I remember doing a scenario about Catherine Howard’s arrest at Hampton Court, and it ended with me as one of her ladies in waiting being dismissed from Court. I had to explain what that meant to the crowd, and ultimately what would happen to Catherine, a character they had just seen escorted away to the Tower. As we stood in the very rooms that the real Catherine would once have passed through you could see a ripple of grim understanding pass over the crowd’s faces – there was one woman in particular, who went from grinning and playing along, seeing it all as a bit of fun, to realising that this really had happened, a matter of yards from where we were now standing, and it ended with a young woman being killed. By the end she had tears in her eyes. She had come face to face with the past, and it really affected her.

I have also had moments where the driest of historical topics have utterly fascinated visitors, in a way that I think only costumed interpretation – and the human interaction it engenders – can achieve. Most children visiting the Tower of London want to know where the executions took place, where people were tortured and imprisoned, but one ten year old I met became absolutely entranced by a reconstructed document we had. It was the household account of a fourteenth century noblewoman, listing the number of herring being moved from one of her estates to another. Not exactly ‘ghoulish tales from the Tower’. But this boy sat with me at a table in the Medieval Palace for a good quarter of an hour, just reading through the clerical script, getting excited when he recognised words and asking where the herring ended up. His parents looked completely bewildered. I really hope that one day he becomes the leading academic on fish transportation of the high Middle Ages, and dates his interest back to that juvenile encounter with a lady in costume at the Tower.

I am incredibly fortunate to be doing this job. It combines things I am absolutely passionate about – History, teaching – with activities I love doing – researching, reading History books, and performing. But probably one of the most amazing things is simply working in the spaces that I do. Our breakroom at Hampton Court is in the old queens’ apartments. So Jane Seymour gave birth and died somewhere in that complex of rooms. Anne Boleyn lived there, and Catherine of Aragon.

At the Tower of London I’ve been in Thomas More’s cell and on the roof of the White Tower, which for 800 years was the highest point in all of London. The men’s changing room at the Tower is next to a portcullis and medieval painted beams.

It is just the most incredible place to work. Sometimes when you leave after a rehearsal at night you’re walking through these totally deserted, ancient spaces and you can feel that you’re a part of the history of that building. Which, for a historian, is pretty much the best feeling in the world.

***

Told you she was interesting didn’t I?

To find out more about Lauren check out her fascinating blog, follow her on Twitter, @History_Lauren and – please, please, please – check out her brilliant new book The Arrow of Sherwood. (If you don’t like Amazon, you can also get a copy of the book here.)

The post My life as a costumed interpreter appeared first on Mother's Always Right.

A hurried dab of make-up (and dodging my daughter’s helpful fingers) later and I was dressed, making breakfast and slurping a cup of tea. And then I was out of the door, on my way to appear on BBC Radio 4′s Woman’s Hour, as you do.

My main concern about the whole thing was finding the unfamiliar BBC studios, 40 odd minutes from where we now live.

With my nose practically touching the car windscreen and my sat-nav turned up full blast, I focused on not getting lost. Not getting lost is a big priority when you’re the kind of person who gets lost regularly, even just going to the local shop. 

Amazingly, I made it to the studios without one wrong turn, but then realised I was embarrassingly early. Attempting to style it out, I moseyed on into the reception where I confidently told the lady I was booked for a slot that morning.

It was only when I looked above her head that I realised she was the receptionist for a chiropractic clinic in the same building. So much for cool. Sitting down, I then noticed my shirt had come unbuttoned to reveal my bright pink bra. Nice.

I sat around for a good half an hour, reading magazines and drinking tea (blissful – I highly recommend getting booked for Woman’s Hour even if it’s just for the excuse to sit down for 30 minutes). Once I was shown into the studio, I was left alone for another 15 minutes.

I was linking up live via ISDN (spot the radio geek) to London, so once the engineer had shown me through to the padded room studio I just sat and twiddled my thumbs for a bit, listening to the soothing tones of Radio 4. I imagined my boisterous diva throwing a tantrum at home, while my frazzled husband wished for the beginning of the school term so he could go back to work. I smiled.

And then I was on. It was all very quick. And fun – very fun. Despite being on the radio every day up until recently, I haven’t lost my enthusiasm for the medium. Plus, it’s Woman’s Hour, you know?

I think it went OK. I had enough texts and tweets afterwards to tell me I managed to speak English and put my words in the right order anyway. Plus (as one of my friends pointed out) I got a mention in for wine pre-11am, which surely wins me some kudos?

Anyway, if you’d like a listen then it’s on iPlayer – 13th August with the wonderful Jenni Murray. I was talking about camping, alongside Pheobe Smith editor of Wanderlust travel magazine and author of Extreme Sleeps: Adventures of a Wild Camper).

We discussed the merits of wild vs mild camping. I was in the wild camping camp, obviously. JOKES. Of course I wasn’t. Pillows and a toilet block all the way for me, thank you very much.

The post Just went on Woman’s Hour, no biggie appeared first on Mother's Always Right.

As my sandals thudded on the pavement, smack smack SMACKING against the hot cobbles, a continuous monologue was droning round my skull. “WHY do I have to do it ALL THE TIME?” I huffed to myself, as I pushed the buggy down the hill, ignoring the chatter from my three year old.

The sweat trickled down my back and my cheeks grew redder by the minute. “It’s always ME!” I muttered, eyes squinting in anger as I turned the corner into the park.

I was cross. Scrap that – I was furious. 

Having spent the morning working in my upstairs office, doing interviews, writing, sorting through accounts, I then came across an email from our financial adviser. It was about mortgage stuff, grown-up stuff, stuff that I have mainly been dealing with because the (self-proclaimed) Northern Love Machine…. well, I’m not sure why I’ve been dealing with it to be honest.

Anyway, I came downstairs at midday to find my husband and daughter on the sofa, in their pyjamas, watching TV. With no food in the fridge and the butchers closing for the day in under an hour. I was not impressed.

Rather than saying exactly why I was so peeved, I simply got Frog dressed, wrote a shopping list and smack smack SMACKED my sandals down the hill to the shops.

We took a detour to the park and then a detour to an icecream shop so – of course – by the time I got to the butchers it was shut. As I trudged back up the hill, laden down with my wares from the grocery and local Co-Op, the internal monologue returned. “If he’d have done it THIS MORNING, the BLOODY BUTCHERS wouldn’t be SHUT!”

I set my jaw as I grappled with the buggy and didn’t greet my husband as I huffed my way into the kitchen. Instead, I went all silent and cross, daring him to guess what was up by the shape of my tense shoulders.

What an idiot.

Me, I mean. Not him.

Yes he probably should have gone to the shops. And yes, we have no clean washing. And yes, the shopping list wasn’t written. But maybe if – when I first came downstairs at midday – I’d have told him that there was no food and that he needed to get off his backside, then he’d have known why I was less than chirpy and gone off to the sodding shops himself.

That’s when it hit me. I have taken on the “mother = packhorse” mentality. Like a little pony trudging up a mountain, carrying a huge burden, I lift the weight of the family To Do list onto my back every morning.

Need a mortgage? I’ll sort it. Need some clean clothes? Consider it done. Need a shopping list? No problem. The basics of living as a family always seem to fall to me, along with the usual pressures of work. Added to that the fact it’s the summer holidays and there is no pre-school until September, I’m trying to be Super Mum as well as Super Wife. And it’s stupid.

The thing is, my husband hasn’t asked me to do any of these things. He’s more than happy to pull his weight and take on an equal role. Being a teacher, he’s on school holidays at the moment too, so it’s not like he doesn’t have time. But I haven’t let him. Rather than sitting down and saying, “Look, this isn’t working. I’m frazzled. You need to start noticing things more and doing stuff,” I just stomped on down the hill without even questioning why he’d been sitting on the sofa all morning.

Later, when we had our chat, he told me Frog had been up three times in the night but I hadn’t heard her, because I’d been fast asleep. He knew I was tired, so he’d got up with her and, as a result, was exhausted. Fair enough really.

Still, I’m now going to stop the instant “I’ll do it, I’ll sort it, leave it to me” attitude. In this house, mother no longer spells “packhorse”.

There may be no clean pants for a while.

Photo Credit: Keith Marshall via Compfight cc

***

Linking up to Ranty Friday at Mummy Barrow. 

The post Mother doesn’t spell “packhorse” appeared first on Mother's Always Right.

It’s funny how it’s so easy to fall into a default setting of “glum”. When the weather’s a bit rubbish and you’re tired and the dishes are piling up and you can’t afford that new dress, it can sometimes feel like the world is against you. Or is that just me?

We’re going through a bit of a stressful time in our household at the moment. Lots of change is afoot, which means a huge amount of juggling, not much sleep and more than the odd tense moment.

Although I relish change and get excited about new things, it’s difficult to let yourself get too carried away when you don’t know exactly how things will pan out. That lack of security has had me and The (self-proclaimed) Northern Love Machine doing that thing of, “Once this month is over, it’ll all be OK”. Basically, we’re wishing our lives away past this challenge, counting down the seconds of each day until things are more settled.

That is A Bad Thing.

This is what I realised this weekend, while I was at Blog Summit, listening to the fantastically inspiring Andy Cope. He talked about living life “well”, rather than rushing through it, looking forward to the next event. His theory is that happy people are the ones who “stop looking for gold at the end of the rainbow”, realising that perhaps “that pot of gold is already sitting at their feet”.

According to Andy, happiness is a choice we make. It’s often hard work to jolt yourself into feeling positive and to remind yourself of the good over the bad, but it’s an effort worth making if you want to feel the glow of being happy. And, as Andy says, happiness often leads to success. Happy people have more energy and motivation; they have a certain “zing” that is difficult to define, but it’s magnetic.

I like to think I’m a fairly positive person, making the most of life. But, sometimes, my idea of making the most of life is more about cramming as much as possible into 24 hours. It means I sometimes forget to just enjoy a moment, relax and not worry about the next thing. Whether it’s immersing myself in a game with my toddler or enjoying working on a great creative piece of work, my mind is often on the next thing, planning ahead.

My mum (who is the wisest woman in the world and knows everything) has taken to sending me postcards with little nuggets of advice on. Her latest one is particularly apt, I think.

She knows me well, my mum. She knows that I’m constantly reaching for the next thing, sometimes picturing myself in an uphill struggle alone. But, as she reminds me, I’m never alone, because I have a family who love me. Every now and again, I need a little jolt to help me remember that.

That’s why I’m going to take Andy Cope’s advice. I’m going to listen to my mum. And I’m going to follow my own instincts that tell me to stop looking at what I don’t have and to start focusing on what I do: a beautiful family, a clean bill of health, a full belly, a roof over our head, a sturdy bank balance, a bright future.

Life is good. I’m choosing happy. After all, that approach seems to be working for my toddler.

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Celebrating the ordinary: managing to persuade a toddler to have an afternoon nap = win.

Last week I wrote a post admitting I often struggle with feeling “not good enough“. It was one of those posts that sees you hesitate before hitting publish. I worried that I’d been too vulnerable, admitted too much, been a bit needy. No one likes needy.

But I’m glad I wrote that post. The huge range of comments it provoked, both on the blog, Twitter, Facebook and Google+, all made me realise it’s not just me. It would seem every single one of us has the odd nagging doubt from time to time.

I admitted I sometimes didn’t feel like I was doing “enough” in my working life (despite often working around 70 hours a week). I held my hands up to the fact I very rarely felt like I was doing “enough” in my role as a mum and wife. I openly shouted that I’m RUBBISH at keeping on top of the housework and the washing.

But then a funny thing happened. I had comments from other mums with sparkly careers in the media and finance. I had comments from other mums who spend all day making homemade playdough and sensory tubs. I had comments from mums with immaculate homes.

I had comments from university students worried about getting top grades, comments from dads struggling with juggling work and fatherhood and comments from grandparents who feel they should do more.

And the common theme amongst every single comment? NO ONE felt like they were continually being good enough. Whatever that may be.

And it got me thinking, maybe we need to start shouting more about the ordinary stuff. I’m not talking about the parenting wins or the amazing career breaks or the huge big life announcements on Facebook. I’m talking about the little things – making tea without burning the saucepan. Getting the kids to bed without a tantrum. Going a full two days in a row without a celebratory glass of wine in the evening.

THESE are the things we need to make more of. Then maybe we’d all realise we’re pretty much the same. Whatever your family finances, the size of your house, the success of your career, the skill of your baking or playdough making – no one is perfect all the time. And you know what? That’s OK actually.

So, here’s your chance to celebrate the ordinary. What normal, mundane stuff has gone right for you today?

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