Baby Baby

3 October 2010

Dear Sandy

Last year I wrote a letter to my 16 year old self. It was a wonderful way to recognise the poor decisions I had made in my life and to be kind and forgiving to my younger self.

It didn't do much to help me now though. My life is generally good, but it is not perfect. My husband and I had a state of the nation conversation last week. We talked about how we feel now and about what we would like to change.

We found it useful to look ahead, hoping that the future would hold long life and happiness for us and our children. We imagined ourselves at the end of our lives, with our children beside us and maybe grandchildren too.

We wanted to know what we needed do NOW to enable us to die happy. So we imagined being old and looking back over our lives to this point in time. What did we hope for ourselves, as we lay on our death-beds, and what could we change now to make that happen?

I decided to write this letter to me now, to gain some perspective on what is important and what is not.

Dear Sandy,

Your priorities are your husband and your children, everything else is a distraction.

Remember to make time for you and Andy. Remember why you fell in love with this man, almost at first sight, maybe before. Spend time together as Andy and Sandy (yes, I know, we rhyme). Arrange dates and stick to them, even if the 'date' is a night in front of a DVD with a bottle of wine. Talk.

Appreciate your beautiful children while they are young. Remember that they are children and they will act like children. You can not control them, they are their own people. Try to keep your temper. If they smear yoghurt all over the table for the fiftieth day in a row, screaming and shouting isn't going to make any difference. Just clear it up, it doesn't matter.

Enjoy playing the same games over and over again. Read to them and sing and dance with them. Cuddle them more than you think is necessary now, when they are older they won't be quite so keen.

Allow them to make their own mistakes, but be there to help them pick up the pieces. Keep them safe, but let them flourish and grow. Prepare them for the world by teaching them manners, tolerance and compassion.

Be there for your friends. Nurture those relationships that make you happy. Make the effort to keep in touch with people who enrich your life, no matter how far away you all live.

You can be viciously self-critical. There's no need to be so hard on yourself. Be kind to yourself. You can only do your best. You are loved.

Remember what you once heard: when you're in your twenties you care what people think of you. When you're in your forties you don't care what people think of you. When you're in your sixties you realise no one was thinking about you anyway.

When something or someone makes you unhappy you need to take a step back. Balance is everything. If you want to write fiction, just write. Don't make excuses. Turn off the internet.

Go outside more, walk and breathe in the fresh air. Practice yoga everyday. Smile more. Keep reading every day. Keep learning. Eat to live.

Do things that make you happy.

Be happy.

Love, Sandy x

29 September 2010

Handbags and Guitars

My husband and I are a bit like ships that pass in the night at the moment.

In spite of this, we are quite old-fashioned and still rather romantic. We write each other little love notes.

Here is an example:

Some background may help to decipher this love letter. Earlier this year I bought a Radley handbag. It is roomy and practical, but it's not my dream handbag. When I came home with it, Andy asked how much it was and promptly bought a guitar of the same value.

Then when I came back from Bicester Village with a few little bits and pieces *ahem*, Andy bought another guitar.

You see where I'm going with this? I get a handbag, Andy gets a guitar. Or vice versa. So when my new John Lewis catalogue arrived and I saw the Mulberry Alexa in GRAPE, well, I wrote the note.

Andy's response to my love note? He said '£695! How do they make a profit?'. Then his eyes showed guitar signs and he mumbled something about a Fender Stratocaster costing around that much.

Of course Andy doesn't really need a new guitar and I don't really need a new handbag (oh yeah, and we haven't yet won the lottery), but my goodness, isn't it a gorgeous bag?!

At the Beach

We love bargains here at Baby Baby and they do say the best things in life are free...
One of our favourite free activities is spending time at the beach. We're very lucky to live just half an hour away from a beautiful sandy beach. We go to St Anne's beach on the Fylde coast in Lancashire. It is charming and old-fashioned, the complete opposite of it's noisy neighbour (the one with the tower).
We take a picnic blanket, sun cream, water and buckets and spades. The boys love to run on the sand. If the tide is out it takes forever to get to the sea. Then we find somewhere to sit - there is always plenty of space - and we dig holes and make sand castles.
The boys haven't quite got the hang of this yet and we all get frustrated when a bucket full of sand is tipped over from a great height. When it does work, it is wonderful to see the joy on their little faces. I'm sure in a couple of years they will get the hang of it and we can look forward to castles and moats. Until then we will enjoy the simples pleasures of sitting on a beach without a care in the world and endure sand getting everywhere.
As if free entertainment wasn't enough, how about free food?

Pizza Hut have been running an excellent offer this summer that allows kids under 12 to eat for free.
The Kids Eat Free offer has been extended to 9th January 2011.
Find more details about the offer at http://bit.ly/a1DhgJ

Sponsored Post

23 September 2010

Delusions of Adequacy

As a perfectionist it is difficult to have delusions of adequacy. I aspire to have delusions of adequacy.

There is a running theme in my writing and that is whether I'm a good enough mother. I know that by caring enough about my children to question my parenting clearly demonstrates that I'm not a terrible mother.

But.

I can't shake this nagging feeling that everyone else is better at it than me.

I want to relax and let go of my control freak tendencies, but they've been with me for years. They helped me in my accounting career, but they're no use to me now I'm a stay at home mum. Young children are unpredictable. In fact the only thing that you can be sure of is that they are their own people. They aren't compliant robots. Their personalities are bursting to get out and develop along side speech and motor skills.

My job is to provide a safe and loving environment where they can bloom. Am I doing this when I'm rolling my eyes and screaming with exasperation when Cash tips over his drink deliberately again? Does it matter if I have to change his clothes again? I know it doesn't, but at the time it's infuriating.

I try to chose my battles. There are some issues where I will not compromise and my word is law. If we're in the front garden and they step one milimetre beyond the missing gate we immediately go back inside. If they throw a toy it gets taken away. Mostly I try to let them do their own thing. They are 'good' children. They are polite, caring and so so sweet, but of course, they have their moments.

This week I gave them some chalks for their blackboard. Presley, 3, accidentally broke a few. Cash, 2, systematically broke each one he picked up. I told him that if he continued I would stop him. He continued. My normally easy-going little boy was being naughty. I wasn't sure what to do. I picked him up and sat him on my lap and explained that what he had done was wrong, we had to look after our things. He cried and said he wanted to play with the chalks. I cobbled together some brand new discipline technique (partly inspired by Supernanny) and told him he had to sit on my knee for two minutes, say sorry and then he could carry on playing.

We don't have a naughty step, we haven't needed one (although when we had a playpen it was called 'the pen' at times). I thought the two minutes would be up and that would be that. Oh no. Cash totally surprised me by stubbornly refusing to say sorry. FOR 75 MINUTES.

You know when you start something and it seems like a good idea, then you realise it was a hopeless idea, but can't back down? That's where I was this week. Presley was apologising on his brother's behalf, bless him. I ended the stand-off, or should I say sit-off, by putting Cash in his booster seat to eat the tea I hadn't yet made. The boys had a hastily thrown together cold salad instead of the planned hot meal.

So you see, I feel like a failure, a ridiculous failure. Nowhere near adequate.

Who knew that looking after children was so difficult sometimes? I didn't, but of course I wouldn't change them for the world. Especially not when they play at going shopping wearing hats and Mummy's shoes.