This blog post is about something so heavy on my heart that I had to write about it so I can let it go… I am a stay at home mom so for the most part staying home and looking after my kids is my job, or that’s the way I see it… It’s not an easy job cause for the most part it’s thankless, you don’t get a boss come in and say “ohh Marcia I see how well you did at toilet training this month here’s a raise, keep up the good work”…how I wish that was the case ha ha ha ha
What you do get however and this is the part that’s heavy on my heart, is a thousand and one people telling you how to raise your kids… everybody is a childhood expert and it drives me nuts… Look am not saying I raise my kids perfectly or that the routine I have is perfect but for the most part it works for us… With Mattea it’s always you underfeed this child you need to increase her milk, the child is happy, smiling, playing following her growth chart nicely but still I am told you need to feed the child.. and when people visit they over feed my child and when she sleeps they say ahh you see she was hungry… no she wasn’t hungry she is now in a food comma and it’s not her sleep time and in the middle of the night when she is cramping from being over fed there is no one there it’s me walking up and down corridors with a screaming child…
With Maya it’s ohh this child doesn’t eat enough greens, you know that’s why she is always sick because she doesn’t eat enough blah blah blah… yes I know I could be a better cook, or as my cousin tells me have less junk food I know that really I do and for the most part I try to include something healthy daily.. but with such a picky eater am just so grateful when she eats something.. So sometimes that means that means food must be separated or that she doesn’t like the texture of red meat, or we have cereal for dinner…I get the speech in our days we ate what we got… yes that’s nice in your days, but this is my days and I am doing the best I can so that not every meal time is a melt down about not wanting to eat peas.. Really the world won’t end for a lack of pea eating, or at least I hope it won’t..!! I thank the makers of vitamins cause my kids live on them…!!
And another thing people/strangers feel the constant need to remind me how small/short my kids are, most specially my middle child.. First it’s how old is she, 18 months I reply, then it’s ahh shame she is so tiny, ahh shame has she always been so small..? It’s so cute though…I love the its so cute bit don’t get me wrong, but really why the need for the shame I don’t know? Everyone was wonderfully and perfectly made by God it’s not a mistake or a shame, it’s genetic their Dad is short, so just cause you see all of me and my 1.73cm self doesn’t mean it’s not normal for them to be short… I am thinking of making a tshirt that says yes my kids are short but so is their dad ha ha ha ha.. but really you don’t see me walking around saying ahh for how long have you been this badly dressed, ahh shame it’s ok it happens you’ll grow out of it ?????…
My husband is sometimes guilty too… He works away from home all week and when he arrives comes home to tell me everything that’s wrong in our routine.. yes I know it’s his right he is their dad but really come home try out routine then comment on areas that you feel need improving or help and make improvements, rather than criticizing… Some days we need breakfast and tv before we start the day, some days we don’t… My personality type is that I want to be routine but I struggle so bear with me… I mean I don’t go to peoples work places and give suggestions on how to improve before having spent time there on a constant basis…
This is my new plan of action I have decided rather than getting worked up about these things, really I know these things come from a place of love so people don’t mean it in a way that’s meant to offend me, but some days it’s harder to take it on the chin and laugh than others… So this is my solution from now on I am a stay at home mom incorporated, any complaints must be directed to me in writing or your can schedule a meeting to chat between 7pm-8pm when my kids are in bed ????
So anyways this leads me to my art activity, we needed Christmas present tags for teachers, but in the mood I was feeling it needed to be a perfectly imperfect activity with no worrying about end results, pretty much like my life so this is what we did:
This is what you need for a perfectly imperfect Christmas tree:
• Watercolour paper
• Dala liquid tempera paint
• Ruler or something to scrape the paint off
• Hole punch
• String
How to make a perfectly imperfect Christmas tree:
• Using the water colour paper cut out the Christmas tree shape that you would like to use.
• Then put paint on trees… lines, squiggles, dots.. anything goes… just put and let loose it doesn’t matter where or how many… we put too much paint so there was a lot of wastage ? so a side note you don’t need a lot to make the effect the same..
• once you have paint on all the desired places, then take the ruler and press down to scrape the paint off… you need someone to hold the paper so it doesn’t move when you scrape it off… we tried scraping up or down and both gave nice effects… but what I did find is if you went back to scrape the same area again it isn’t as bright as the first time…Cianna mushed her paint with her fingers before we could scrape, but we just added a little more paint dots and we still scraped it, and it still came out perfectly imperfect..!
• Once the paint is scrapped off the beauty of the imperfectly perfect art is revealed.. here’s a few that we made.
Forgive my complaining but sometimes it just feels too much to take in.. you know that point where you have been pushed too far and it must come out.. So thank you for bearing with me and reading about my frustrations, writing about them has really helped to get them off my chest..!! I loved this activity so much cause again it reminded me that there isn’t one right way to do something, we all have different ways of doing things.. Whether you breast feed or bottle, co sleep or not.. each one different but each one perfectly imperfect in their own way… I loved this activity so much am going to use it for birthday tags next year.. I love the brown paper cause I can write the note “Brown paper packages tied up in string, here are a few of your favourite things” ha ha ha ha
? Mic down that’s my piece said…! I’ll just leave it here and sip on my tea like Kermit..!! Wait who am I kidding these situations had me sipping on vodka not tea ha ha ha… wishing you a stress free week..!
Love
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