All posts filed under: Parenting

Pregnancy Update

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I can’t believe it but there are only 6 weeks left of this pregnancy according to the calendar! I have had an uneventful but sort of stressful pregnancy: diagnosed again with hypothyroidism then antenatal depression. Struggled for nearly six months with insomnia and the crankiness and tearfulness that resulted from the lack of rest. Then a spell of lack of iron that left me lethargic. For the past two weeks I have been feeling exhausted most of the time, no matter how much sleep, vitamins and iron I get and heavy, although this baby isn’t massively bigger than Emma. Climbing stairs, walking for any length of time and standing are challenges that leave me breathless for minutes. I have had a “funny” midwife who seemed most times more interested in her watch than me and who has obsessively insisted that this baby is laying transversally and then breech, despite him hiccuping close to my pubic bone during the checkup visit and talking rubbish like moving my baby inside my womb a month before his due …

My to-do lists…

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I am a doer, so I am. I have always been one, come to think of it, but my lists shaped up and started to feature consistently in my life after a few summers of working in Switzerland in children’s camps. I learned so many things during those summers but most of all, I understood the importance of sanitation, organisation and discipline :-). You see, I am a firm believer in “plan for success.” In my opinion, a mentality of “good things happen to those who believe in good things” characterises people who are too lazy to plan and work. As a family, we live our lives according to the slogan “good things happen to those who plan ahead!” As I wrote in a previous post last week, when it comes to juggling modern parenting tasks, good organisational skills are essential for the smooth running of a household. I try at the moment to balance many “plates” and as any juggler worth his/her salt, I need to know my tricks really well in order to …

Giving and receiving

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This post ties in well with what I wrote yesterday but it looks at our children’s side of things, for a change. I was writing yesterday about how busy a mummy’s life can be when it is centered around her children, her work and the well-being of the ones she loves. We work to provide for our children. We strive to ensure they get opportunities to develop and thrive. We sacrifice our careers, our comfort and our healthy sex lives 🙂 in order to bring up individuals who will serve the society and themselves well as adults. BUT there must be a balance, and this balance needs to be introduced early on in our children’s lives. They need to grasp the concept of giving as the natural reverse of receiving. They need to understand that the sacrifices we make for them, done in love and with the utmost pleasure and enthusiasm, need to reflect a similar attitude in themselves. And folks, flash news now, giving ain’t natural to a small child! The natural thing is …

The Juggle of Modern Motherhood

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I remember asking my mum as a child, as I saw her working hard every day until late: “When is your work going to finish, mum?” Her reply stayed with me forever. She told me, juggling cooking and helping us with homework: “Never, it will only end when my days end!” At the time, I found her answer weird and stuck in the “weird things mums say sometimes” box, in a corner of my consciousness. Now that I am a mum, I totally get what my mum said back then. Although I don’t work in the traditional sense of the word at the moment, my “work” never ends either. A typical weekday for me at the moment includes playgroup runs, shopping errands, blog posting, PR email approaching…and this only describes my mornings. Once I pick Emma up from playgroup, it’s lunch prep, drama, ballet and girls’ brigade lessons. Then rushing home to cook wholesome dinners for the family, packing lunches for hubby and ironing/laundry/house cleaning. And if you thought I had the evenings to myself …