Kalbarri

Love this place!

New

I have a new phone and that hopefully means more photos and posts.  

A visit this morning to the community garden on a gorgeous warm sunny day. We even went as a whole family! The kids (and maybe me the most!) loved raiding the mulberry trees. We have three of them. The other favourite is the strawberry patch and the gooseberry bushes. The snow peas are out as well. And Jacob collected salad lettuce and capsicum for Matilda. I think we may visit daily this week and the pool as well.

Abby is tricky to get in a photograph at the moment, and Jacob, not one of him today. I need to make sure I capture his beautiful soul tomorrow. 

We also played a game of monopoly today. It was a bit of a marathon game! I ended up stopping as it had gone passed lunch time and I needed to get everyone some food. But I really enjoyed saying 'yes' to playing a game with Abby and Sam (J & M joined in but also watched Disney junior on fox). It was so nice to focus solely on a game and time together rather than watching others play as I continue with jobs and the every day 'stuffs'. It was fun!

Reminders

 Reading 'lilah Sophie' Facebook page always cuts as a huge slap in my face, a tug at my sleeve, a pull at my most inner heart, to appreciate what I have, but mostly to prioritise it. 

How easy is it to get into a flow of business. Of getting dinner cooked and cakes made and checking Facebook and prioritising friendships and allowing school to demand of me what I love to do but know is not good for me right now. Teaching I love, but I don't even have this home life, wife, parent, mother, lover, cook, finance keeper thing down pat.

I have the universe, every . single . Time, screaming at me that it is not right, yet I still say yes. The night before a relief day, you can bet that I get 3 hours of broken sleep max!

Then I get all sorted for work, get the kids sorted, me sorted. We get to school smack bang on the bell. I either love my day (like today) . It all flows. Or I walk away disheartened, with myself and my abilities, the state of the school, the system, kids of today.

I come home, after juggling my own kids, Matilda's poorly nappy amongst a spelling lesson, smiling for my kids and making sure they feel special even though I'm being super nice to the other 11 kids in the class.

I bring them home, do the after school thing plus clean up the breakfast stuff and unpack the night before stuff. Life goes on. I've been with kids all day and I'm struggling to be patient and enthusiastic. Sam comes home and he doesn't have the umph to pick up the pieces that I have dropped. Instead he comes down to my level and I get frustrated, coz if I'm being grumpy, the kids desperately need him to be happy. They are tired too. And they don't understand why I'm not up to scratch. 

Tonight I lost it at Abby because she wanted me to snuggle, whilst i tried to get Matilda to sleep and I could hear jake awake (after a whole day at school, surely he should fall asleep easily!). So Abby gets up a dozen times (probably only 4). So she's crying because she doesn't like to be alone. And Sam is playing the banjo and watching a stupid show, which is fine. But surely he could've given her 5 minutes, or put Matilda to bed so I could give her the 5 minutes she needed. 

So I'm reminded in the post by lilah Sophie's mum. 

 Thank you for reminding me of what is most important. It's not the phone conversation, nor the catch up with a friend, or offspring on TV, or the work that is offered. it's my precious children who need and want me. Who I need and want :: so desperately. Thank you.

I want to get out there and play more. To stop what I'm doing and take more notice. To smile more at my precious angels. To give my darlings what they need from me. Me, their mum. To snuggle when they want me to. 

'Things you say' + WIDN

Driving to the hall to do some yoga with the kids, I listen into a conversation between jake and Abby. Jake says that he'd really like a baby brother, Abby insists she needs another baby sister. I put my two bobs worth into the conversation, Abby says 'well you and daddy really need to start loving each other more, if you want to make another baby'.

I've convinced mum she needs to get out of the rat race and come up to the loop with Jas for a few days, she's here!!!! I was having a cuppa at Kristies when they arrived. I had just sent Abby on a run home to see if they were here yet with Kristies phone number written in a little torn off piece of paper. I told her if they weren't that she could collect julietta from next door and play while she waited. Off she ran out the back gate near the community garden, along the back dirt tracks to home, I yell after her 'look out for snakes!'.

Mum and Jas pull up about 2 minutes later at Kristies. They'd been to ours, went to the toilet and then driven to find us. Yep, the beauty of our lovely little town.

The photo above shows us returning from a walk up to the water tower with Kristie and Alice and bubs. We then went home and I packed a snack for morning tea at whiting bay with Simone, Bec, Alice and Claire. The kids were relaxed watching a movie and I felt bad disturbing them. But I knew it would be nice to get out.

We're all relaxing this arvo, Abby and Jas are on the iPads laying on the couch, matildanis inbed, Jake and Mum are on the couches in the playroom sleeping (jake nodded off watching barbie and the 12 dancing princesses) and I am on the hammock outside writing and relaxing and listening to the kids next door. It's nice to have the neighbours home for the holidays. 

I'm so happy mum and Jas are here. It is never long enough though. I always want more. I want mum to feel the peace of our home and our location. I would love to snavel her for 2 weeks.

Greatfully grateful!

For school holidays :: for Matilda's health on the mend :: for the health of us all for now :: for Sam who works hard to give us a happy life :: for my kids who bless my life with light, love and joy, frustration, disappointment and guilt! :: for dogs who lovingly adore and are soft and therapeutic to pat :: for rainy weather to water and nourish the earth :: for my bomb of a car, coz I have wheels to get from a to b :: for the love I knew from my dad, I am blessed to have known that :: for living coastal , whether it's the flat still waters of shark bay or the salty ocean mist from the waves in gero, kalbarri, falsies or crayfish bay. Greatfully grateful!

Nothing like an argument with Sam the night before to get me out if bed and ready to exert some pent up energy and emotion! 

I messaged simone to see if she had been for a walk, plans were made :: meet at the hut in 15! A quick dress in fitness garb, a stealth exit from the house with no one noticing me slip out of the house And a text msg to Sam to let him know where I've gone! Free :: first alone me walk in, well I reckon 3 years !!! 

I sat at the beach hut watching the north wind swept water smoosh onto the sand at high tide, watching the sunrise, picturing my dad sitting, bent with  elbows on knees beside me and standing, hands in his pockets of his country week jumper at the edge of the water. Kizi, sniffing freely around. Simone arrived with a yap from poppy and off we go, me wondering if I'm slowing her long leg strides down. 

We walked to the point, up the sandy track to the 'caravan park', up to the water tower and home. 

Then I devoured yesterday's pear cake for brekky amongst whinges, whines, moans and tears from unsettled and worn out kids. And it's only 8.20! 

A walk to auskick with jake and Matilda. (Sam and Abby left a but earlier while I cut fruit and packed snacks.). 

Kids settled and a really nice day so far!

I think I'll do the walk again tomorrow. That was life giving!

Life lately

I just read a post by cherie at raising master max and I just had to respond, I messaged her on Facebook, which I've never done, but my god! She lived my life and read my dark parenting feelings and I knew how she felt! And this was my response :: 

Oh my gosh! I feel like you just crawled into my life, my honest thoughts that I never express, and just wish for a second I could to my husband without sounding like a whiny, ungrateful monster (which I'm not and you're not). And I have that mother you're talking about, that ideal mother, I have her, but I have to rephrase that, I had her, but two years ago, when I delivered my third precious child into the world, my most amazing dad (like yours) was diagnosed with leukaemia, and for 9 months, mum and he fought it with their whole beings, and then we lost him, to another world/time/place that I cannot comprehend, and well my mum, I sorta lost her too, coz she's a shell of the person I've always known. And she lives 4 and a half hours away, and I live in a little town of a hundred, and when life gets overwhelming, I can't even bundle my three into a car and go to ::  anywhere, a shop, a cafe, an anywhere!! And then I feel completely trapped. So cherie, I feel you, and I thank you, for being honest, coz it doesn't make us bad mums, we're just people too!! Super mums extraordinaires! We are pretty bloody amazing! Again, thank you x