It's 5.24am and I'm feeding Termite for the second time tonight, I'm recovering from a bout of sudden and nasty Mastitis so feeling a bit run down and I'm thinking, as I know you all do, how much more sleep I can get before we start our day at about 7am. I'm also making a mental list of all of the things I need to do, and then stressing because at 5 weeks Termite is obviously still rather needy, I have 6 school runs to do every day and the time in between never seems long enough to manage anything productive.
At this point I try to remind myself that I'm putting on a wash every day, emptying and reloading my dishwasher, cooking or preparing 3 meals a day and keeping the mess to the minimum (most days). These are all achievements, small ones, but as I have been reminded they are still achievements.
After spending this evening chatting, about how to be more organised and how long it will take to get back to normal, with a group of mums I've never met but have known for over a year, I feel better but have been told in no uncertain terms that at 5 weeks I shouldn't be worrying about working, being perfect or having amazing organisation and routine yet. I'm reminded how kind these ladies are, how over the last year we have between us had immense reasons to celebrate but also suffered losses and grief and through it all we have been on our respective keyboards a great source of support for each other.
This leads me to the reason for this post's title, I am my own worst enemy, I am very critical of myself, I hate to ask for help and I expect a lot of myself. I think in this respect I am actually the same as most mums out there. We are not kind to ourselves and we should be, we should be celebrating our awesomeness and building each other up. I know we all judge ourselves and compare ourselves to others, most of us also probably judge others, but that's a different post, and I know most of us would find ourselves lacking when in truth we are not.
So today I think we should all pat ourselves on the back for being awesome. We brought life into this world and we work from morning to night trying our hardest to provide the right diet, the right amount of exercise, the right type and amount of discipline, the right parenting style..... my days the list is endless but we do it and we do it to the best of our abilities and for that we deserve a great big high five. So the next time I find myself standing in judgement of myself I'm going to try to remember this post and list some things I have achieved that day even if, like a wise fellow mum said to me today, its only that we managed to survive ;-)
You have been way to hard on yourself Mrs! Zach is one and I ALWAYS forget to stick a wash on or do the washing up. Some days it feels like an acheivement if we are all dressed and have had all three meals by 8pm! We just need to look at what we HAVE got and what we HAVE done and not at what we still have left to do. As mums our work is never finished xx
ReplyDeleteToo true, I wonder if any of us get to the end of our to do lists
DeleteUs mums are definitely are own worst enemy, it is so much easier to give the advice than to actually take it on board ourselves. Just remember baby brain is real and we all suffer from it ;) xx
ReplyDeleteYou'll get there, even if it does take time! I think we can all be guilty of being our own worst enemy. You are doing fab x
ReplyDeletePlease try not to be so hard on yourself, you're doing a great job - just look at your 3 lovely children to see that!
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