Dee: (The) Mama Blog

I'm a big fan of Dhar Mann videos and there was a video that I watched a while ago.. and the story was mainly about a mother who completely forgot about herself, put her needs and even her health on the backburner and put everything else first. She had cancer and instead of going to her appointments and getting it treated and dealt with, she put her marriage, her kids and everything else ahead of it-- and it became too late to do anything.  Maybe this story is a little farfetched-- but is not at all far from the truth. Mothers... we can get so caught up with being mothers that we forget that we were a person before we had children. But the pressures of motherhood or being the 'perfect' mother in the eyes of people can overshadow us.. and we end up overwhelming ourselves. or getting extreme burnout because we are trying to do 1,000 thing with just two hands. We have to slowwww down and recalibrate. If we aren't the best versions of ourselves.. how can we be able to raise...

"Mummy my nose" "Do you want me to wipe it?" He puts his hand over his nose "Bless you" "Mummy my nose!" She gets up from the chair, putting all of her weight into her right arm to push herself up. Ripping a wipe out of the packet, but realises four are stuck to it, she pulls them apart, stuffs the rest back into the packet. She turns around and watches her child wipe his nose with his hand. "Nooo! Not your hand!" He giggles and starts to play with the slimy green goop on the back of his hand. She wipes the back of his hand, the front and under his nose. "Mummy it was in my hand" He giggles again.

Until our children are old enough... we are our children's advocates for.. absolutely.. EVERYTHING.  This year.. Matthew has been going through this issue with his breathing-- whenever he gets a cold and cough; it starts to affect the way he breathes to the point where he is struggling. He had to go to the hospital and stay overnight-- this was in April. September comes.. it happens again-- another hospital trip; prior to all of this happening, Matthew has a lot of food allergies and I was told that he could be prone to having asthma. I reject this. Fast forward back to September-- they told me to prepare because it can get much worse. I reject this too. I recently spoke to a doctor at my GP because they wanted to do an asthma review on Matthew-- he's 3?  The doctor even said to me that it's too hard to determine at such a young age if it is asthma.. their airwaves are still developing so it wouldn't really be any need to assess him. I was telling the doctor about Matth...

Truly... kids do learn from other children, what they see.. what they hear..  But REALLY... our children learn from US first. One thing I realized I was doing is that I used to cut my eye a lot and my boys when I'm telling them off.. and.. low an behold.. Jeremiah would be cutting his eye back at me!  My blood would BOIL whenever I saw that because it's so rude-- but I taught him that? So-- when I realized.. when I'm telling them off now, I just look them dead in their eyes. Once I'm done, I'll say 'Do you understand?' and when I get a reply I'll say 'thank you' and then give them a hug. No walking off and cutting eyes anymore. Oh my goodness.. children pick up literally everything that we do. And this is just it... even certain things that I say.. if they go and repeat it, it's not that they learnt it elsewhere.. it was FROM ME! So really certain behaviours that they adopt is from us, and sometimes we don't even realize it's coming f...

So... a couple of weeks ago my two boys went through a very scary experience... they got chased by dogs. Now.  The backstory: we were walking to school-- our normal route, and we were passing by a house with an orange door. It opened, and the minute it opened two big dogs came running out, no leashes, just wild and free. Where was the owner? Had not even stepped out of the door yet. The minute the dogs ran out of the house, my boys ran for dear life, because as much as they like watching dogs on TV and have toy dogs and such.. real live dogs they are absolutely terrified. Jeremiah was so afraid he ran into the road! I screamed for dear life and grabbed him and Matthew-- I then saw the owner running after the dogs, no shoes on and in shorts and scooped up the dogs in his arms. He then spoke to my boys and said that they shouldn't have ran, they're babies.. if they see you run they'll think you're playing etc etc. From that day.. this went on for about a week-- everytime ...

Jeremiah's 5 now.. and I'm still trying to find a way for him to express big emotions...  He has a good understanding of tired, hungry, angry, upset, sad, happy... but more complex emotions like anxious, overwhelmed, confused.. those types.. I don't think he has caught on and I have no idea how I can get him to understand those feelings. He still has meltdowns and tantrums because that is the only way he can get all of the frustration, confusion, feelings of being overwhelmed out. I try my best to model 'big' emotions.. like being 'confused' or 'frustrated' or 'annoyed'... but Jeremiah still hasn't grasped it. Sometimes when he does get to that level of frustration, I will say to him 'Ok Jeremiah, I know you are frustrated about what just happened.. but it doesn't mean you hit your brother' or something around those lines.. I need some help here... we are still working with his speech.. but before speech comes, understanding h...

I've been really reflective over the past two or so weeks.. because this motherhood/parenthood journey is a lot more than I ever could have thought. The child that grew in us for 9 months is out and now we are holding this blessing in our hands.. and now we have to figure out what to do to keep this small human healthy, happy, protected-- and as they grow they are going to have more needs, more wants, and are going to want to know what is going on around them, why this happens to certain people and not others.. ..and it is us that have to figure out how to raise them, advise them, protect them, shield (for as long as possible) them for particular things... and sometimes we have to do this as well as going through our own personal storms and tribulations... internally we are withering but we still have to appear put together and strong for our children (even though children are extremely perceptive to so many things) and continue this parenthood journey. Motherhood/parenthood has no...