The rollercoaster of parenting

So I have always been honest in my writing, its the reason I write, I want to be honest with people. If my writing makes one person feel like they arent alone, feel like someone understands them, then my job here is done.

So today I want to talk about parenting. I made 2 little people, with a little help from hubby of course. But I grew them, I was lucky enough to fall pregnant with them (something ill go into more detail about another day) But I grew them, I watched them change every day, learn new things, say new things and do new things. Its such an incredible journey and I am so blessed to have these little people in my life.

But guess what, some days I my mind wanders, on the days where its 7:30 am, my two beautiful children have already made each other bleed from the fighting (yes, this literally happened the other morning). But those days, my mind wanders, and I find my self thinking, what would my life if I didn't have any kids. Its awful I know and its not that I wish I didn't have them. I love them endlessly. But a woman can dream right?

I dream about a house that I clean, that then stays clean. I dream about alone time with my husband, him calling me on the way home from work suggesting we go for dinner, I dream about going to bed at 10 and not being woken up once over night and sleeping until I wake up in the morning, breakfast in bed and a Sunday morning spent in silence.

Some days are really bad and I have these thoughts along with those that tell me, maybe I feel this way because i'm not a good enough mum. Does feeling this way make me less of a mother? Does it highlight that maybe I shouldn't be a mum? Does it make me ungrateful? I have these thoughts and I leave them in a deep dark pocket of my brain, scared that if I voice them, all the awful things I feel become real.

Until I sit with other mothers, and I say these thought out loud and I feel like mood in the room shift, I feel the other mothers take a breath and love the fact that they arent the only ones who feel this way. The share their thought about some days, wanting to just go back to bed, wanting half an hour of silence or wanting to have a cup of tea in peace.

Guess what mums? Its ok not to love being a mum all day every day. Its ok to some days feel overwhelmed and frustrated! Its ok to dream about a life without kids, these thoughts dont make you less of a mother, they dont make you undeserving of your children.

Its normal

Its healthy

And guess what, they will still go to bed at night and you'll miss them the moment they are asleep. because love wins. 

x

I have a dream

Everyone should have a dream, I do. My family do anyway.

Its a big dream and its a scary one if im going to be completely honest. BUT its a dream we have been talking about for as long as I can remember. And it comes hand in hand with my last post about "The great Australian dream". Re directing our focus from buying a house, and instead focusing on this dream.

So what is the dream?

Well its simple really. Come mid to late 2019 (yeah a few years a way but we need to get organised)

We are going to pack our little family up and hit the road.

We are going to travel Australia in a Caravan.

We plan to be gone for at least 6 months. The reality is, we might last 6 weeks and hate it and come home. OR we might hit six months and just keep going.

We will school the kids on the road, we will teach them through real life! real experiences. Something (we hope) they will get a lot out of and experiences they will carry with them for life.

As a midwife ill be able to work on the road and we plan to just follow work around Australia, doing stints of a few days, weeks or months in different hospitals. Then travel for a few weeks and then do it all over again. Hubby plan to find some work on the road and get some new skills under his belt, picking up whatever work is available.

Its terrifying to think of packing everything up, selling what we don't need and hitting the road. But it is also completely exhilarating.

So that's our plan, that's what we are aiming towards, a life on the road. The big, wide, open road!

Bring on 2019, we absolutely cannot wait.

Have you done it? Do you have any tips for a family about to give it a go?

The great Australian Dream

Google it, the great Australian Dream.

What does it tell you?

Australians want to own their own home. They want to buy a house, pay a mortgage and own their own home.
Obviously its a dream! Who doesn't want to own a house, pay it off and one day live mortgage free in their own home, the home they watched their kids grow up in, the home that sore their kids walk, talk and play for the first time.

I have a home like this, its seen my kids walk, talk, laugh and cry. Its seen my kids birthdays, its watched me plan a wedding and its heard endless hours of laughter. My pictures are on the walls, my clothes hang in the wardrobe and my kids toys decorate the floors.

But guess what? This home isn't "mine". I dont own this home. Someone else does. I pay them for the ability to live here. Im deeply in the "rent trap" or so they call it. 

Let me tell you my thoughts on this. For years and I literally mean YEARS, I have been renting and feeling like a failure. I moved out with my MR when I was 19 years old, I was pregnant at 20 and had my first baby at 21. We have never ever asked for money and have 100% supported ourselves since this time. We pay rent, childcare and a car loan every week. Leaving us with enough money to live but not enough money to save for a house deposit.

So I felt like a failure. I wasn't focusing on all the amazing things we have achieved, instead I focused on the one thing I didn't have. It ate me up in time. I felt I was letting my kids down because I wasn't supplying them with their own home.

It has only been in the last couple of weeks I realised just how ridiculous this is. Home is where the heart is. Home is the roof over our heads, the kids dont know the difference between a house we own and a house we rent. And with that, brief thought...I took a breath. I smiled and I realised how wonderful life is. There are 100 million homeless people in the world and a further 1.6 Billion who live in substandard housing, and here I am complaining about not owning my own house, how ridiculous.

MR and I sat down and had a deep conversation about our future. We have decided that we are going to work to enjoy our life, not work to pay off debt. We have decided we are going to show our kids the world through our eyes, so we can see the world through theirs.

We have decided that for the next 10 years, buying a house is not going to be a priority but instead living our lives is! We are going to travel. We are going to work hard and then we are going to travel.

Our first stop is going to be JAPAN. We are going in March next year....cherry blossom season. Its been our dream for years and from now on , we are going to make our dreams a reality.

So here we are, a new lease on life, The Great Burgess dream! and this is just a small step on what is going to be a fantastic journey. So please follow along and enjoy the ride.

Have you been to Japan? Do you have any must see things? Whats your family dream?

The big disconnect to reconnect

Lets get brutal and honest right now...brutally honest I suppose youd say.

Since ive started work, ive become a different person. Ive become a different mother. And Im not happy within myself anymore. Part of the reason im writing this blog I suppose. Its all about the journey.

Once upon a time id wake in the mornings, Id snuggle my babies, Id spend the day being crafty, playing imagination games, baking and generally having fun. I loved my days, I was connected with my children. We had fun.
In the interest of honesty, I still had bad days. I still had days where the moment my MR walked through the door, Id give him the children and go and hide for 5 minutes in silence. I still had days where I wasnt sure I was a good, meaningful, capable mum. But those days were significantly more numbered than they are now.

Now, my days go a little bit like this. I get up and check my phone, I go out on to the couch and makes the kids breakfast, then I sit, I watch tv, I sit on my phone. I dont connect with my children like I used too. Im tired alot, the days I have off now, I spend cleaning or cooking or generally feeling sorry for me.

THIS ENDS NOW!

I am now on leave, I want to spend this time with my children, I want to dive in, get dirty, have fun and really appreciate my childrens smiles, memorise their laughter. Ignore the mess and just connect.

So thats the plan. We will have days at home, building forts, baking, painting, pasting! we will have days out and about, visiting the park, the zoo and other local places.

Im going to spend less time mindlessly searching social media, missing the wonderful things right in front of me.

This is a big part of my journey and I cant wait to share it with you.

Do you have any hints and tips for recconecting? Have you ever been through anything like this?

The hiatus, and why im back

Hi guys!

Ive missed you, ive missed writting, ive missed sharing.

I had to take a break. To start off with I decided i needed a week. to switch off and disconnect. A week turned into a month, which turned into 6 months. And now I feel ready to come back and begin sharing again.

So why the hiatus you make ask?

Viral blog post...to put it simply.

The very last post on this blog when viral. More viral than anything ive ever written before. My last post was quite literally read, 8000x more than my next highest read post. It was posted on facebook pages such as Kidspot, News.com and Daily Mail. It was also on radio, news and other media outlets. It went crazy. I was contacted by people to give interviews, podcasts and phone calls. Everyone wanted to hear about my interaction with that mother and daughter.

At first I was totally blown away. I watched the number on my blog climb and climb, I watched my inbox fill! I was happy at first because I though I was able to share this story and hopefully share the love. The idea behind the post in the first place. How ever thats not entirely what took place.

Most of the comments on the post were positive, supporting me, supporting my choices. However it wasnt those comments that stuck with me. It was the negative comments, however not just the ones directed at me. I would open the comments section and see mothers attacking other mothers for their choices. I saw the breastfeeding and formular feeding war unfolding before my eyes. This was the opposite of why I shared my story.

I wanted to spread love, I wanted to share the story to enforce the importance of parents supporting one another. This was not what happened in the end and I couldnt stand it. I felt awful for the women that were fighting. I felt awful for people feeling as though I was attacking other mothers for not breastfeeding.

Thats not me, thats not what im about. I support any parent making any decision that is best for them and best for their children. Thats the message I wanted to share. I got messages from people, telling me I was sexually abusing my child by feeding for so long. I got messages from people saying I was disgusting for shaming other mothers. I got messages from people asking for explicit images.

I had to switch off. I had to close down the blog and ignore these messages.

The article still pops up in my feed every now and then and it just makes me cringe.

So now im back, for a couple of reasons. One to say to everyone:

I suppprt you, I support your decisions, I support you caring and loving your children exactly how you see fit. Please know that I think each and every one of you is fantastic.

The second reason?

Its Troll free day today. I LOVE THIS CONCEPT! Share the love, spread the love, support one another. What better day than to switch back on, than today!

So im being brave, im coming back to continue to share my story, to share my journey, I have lots of things I want to do, lots of things I want to share and I want to connect with others going through the same things!

So here I am, the trolls wont win! Support and love will win!

Lets do this :) 

Its time to love one another

So today I was shamed very publicly for a number of reasons.

Shamed by a mother and her daughter. The mother maybe being in her 40s the daughter around the age of 16. Im totally assuming that but that was my guess.

Anyway here is what happened...

Its school holidays at the moment so the parents room at the local shopping centre was standing room only and Mr.15 months wanted to feed. Rather than allow him to get more gumpy the more hungry he got (typical male) I went out to the couches in the middle of the centre and starting to feed him, discretely of course.

I saw this mother and her daughter walk past and the daughter tapped her mothers arm and pointed at me. *here we go*
The mother charged in my direction.
"That is not on" she spits at me,
"Go and do that where my daughter and I dont have to see you"
Quite simply and politely I replied,
"My baby is hungry, so im going to feed him, im sorry if it offends you but him feeding is whats most important"
Angrily she points at Oscar,
"That is not a baby, he is way to old to be feeding off your tit"
Im starting to get a little more frustrated now as I also have my four year old sitting by my side,
"He is my baby, he will be my baby and this is how we choose to feed"
The mother crosses her arms and said
"So if he was still "your baby" at 7 would you keep feeding him"
"If thats what he wanted"
She scoffs and rolls her eyes, looking as though she was done, when her daughter chimed in and blew me away,
"And you look like a slut"
To which her mother laughed and gave her a hi five as they turned to walk off.

I had my four year old with me, i was discreetly feeding my 15 month old. I am not a person who is overly comfortable in my own skin but I am confident while I feed. The dig at how I looked, hurt me. The fact that mother thought that was appropriate to say to another human, another female, another mother just hurts me to my core.

Todays outfit of choice. Apparently inappropriate 

A lovely old lady who I had seen watching the interaction came up to me and gave me a hug and encouraged me to continue feeding Oscar as long as I want and ensured me that I looked beautiful.

That is what we should be doing! Loving and supporting one another. Whatever your choices as a parent, happy, healthy children are what is most important.

So watch this space! Im working on something, a wind of change. A way to support others to support each other.

Dear discheveled mum

Dear Discheveled mum,

High five for getting out of the house even though you look exhausted

Good on you for taking hold of your four year olds hand and stopping when he wants to show you every toy upon the shelves.

Enjoy those hotdogs and milkshakes with your little men, watching them giggle as they eat is truly beautiful isnt it?

Dear Disheveled mum,

Dont fret, your boys will remember the good times, the smiles the laughs

Dont stress, the bad days are numbered the good days are plentiful

Be kind, to yourself, everyone has bad days, sad days, tired days, thats ok!

Dear Disheveled mum,

You're amazing, you're wonderful and your children are proud of you

You're a wonderful mum, the fact you doubt that just proves that you are

You're everything your family need and more, their shining faces prove that

Dear Disheveled mum

Laugh with your children, they love you today and always

Love those around you, spread it, share it, feel it

Take time for yourself, a 5minute cup of tea in peace is just what the doctor ordered.


Always be kind, always share love and always remember that you ARE good enough, today and always.

I wrote this to remind myself that today is just a day, a bad day that will pass. My children love me and thats all that matters.
Hey mums, dads, grandparents and carers...YOU ROCK!

My hairs not done, my kids have mismatched socks and we ate hotogs for lunch, BUT we survived!