A day in the life of a HE mum

"Mum!" calls my 12 year old. "Look what I've done!" He proceeds to show me how he's found a programme on his laptop that gives me a green screen. This means he can make lots of special effects, for him meaning making his own dinosaur or supernatural film on his you tube channel. He goes into vast detail of what he has to do to make it work and if I'm honest, my ears shut down a little as most of what he is saying is going straight over my head! However, despite my lack of understanding, I love that he is so motivated to find out new things and create amazing videos. We've only be HEing him since September and it's all quite new to him. I have to admit that I have wobbly days where I wish he was writing endless stories or drawing endless pictures that he used to do prior to leaving school... but then I realise that despite it only being 9 months, he has grown up so much as a person. The little boy who left school is no more. He may only be 12 years old, but he has grown so much as a person that he doesn't even resemble the boy in Year 6 less than a year ago. And that makes me feel so proud.

"Mum!" calls my 14 year old. "I can't do it!" She looks up at me from her chair in despair. "I hate geography! Why do we even have to do GCSEs!? I just want to be a child and do child things. Why do I have to rush to grow up?" My daughter left school nearly 2 years ago due to severe anxiety. Despite this she was very academic (in the sense of she just naturally did well at all subjects - but loved none of them). Since leaving school I've tried to convince her to take a more relaxed hands-on approach to learning. Telling her if she wants GCSEs a bit later she can choose one or two a year and go from there. But she's so stuck in the school way that she wants to take at least 5 and start studying them now to sit the exams in summer 2019. "But it's so boring!" she says. "My life is all about GCSEs and I just hate it!". So I tell her that she can change that. She chose to do her GCSEs now but she can go a different route if she wants. She can do some practical courses for now and maybe go to college to do vocational courses alongside English and Maths when she's ready... but due to her anxiety the thought of college terrifies her. The thought of sitting her exams as an external candidate terrifies her too. As a mum I am beside myself with worry. What if she bottles out of sitting any exams AND going to college... what then?? I will feel like I've failed her. But right now I can't think of that. I just have to help to guide her in the right way so that she can find her passion. That's what I'm here for. She's only 14. She has time to decide what she wants to do and the jump between 14 and 16 is huge with regards to maturity, confidence and life goals. So I will sit and wait. Help her to experience a variety of things and have trust that she will figure it out in her own way.

"Mummy!! Look at what I made!!" calls my 5 year old. "I made a "hostipal" from lego!" and he proceeds to tell me at great length all of the pieces he used to make it. "Can you help me make a dock, like at the harbour?" I was just about to grab my notebook and sit down with a cuppa to jot some points down for an article I had an idea on. But his expectant face looks up at me and I cave in. "Ok, I'll help you". We spend the next hour searching through endless piles of lego bricks trying to find the perfect ones to make into a dock. By the time we finish my tummy is rumbling loudly. "Do you want lunch?" I ask hauling myself up off the floor. "Not yet" he replies tipping yet another box of lego pieces all over the floor.

I walk into the kitchen and open the fridge.

"Mum!" Calls my 14yr old. "Can you help?" I grab the lettuce from the fridge, put it on the side and go to her. She asks me to explain a question in her book. I read it three times before I understand myself and then attempt to explain it to her. She looks at me confused so I go back through the passage and show her examples of what it wants. "Oh, yeah." she says, finally understanding. I return to the kitchen and open the fridge once more. I take out some more salad, some dressing and some hard boiled eggs I cooked earlier. I put them on the side and go to fetch a plate.

"Mum!" calls my 12 year old. "I can't reach the box in my cupboard". So I go up the stairs to help he get said box down from the top of his wardrobe.

I return to the kitchen and begin to put the salad on to the plate.

"Mummy! Can you help me wipe my bum!" my five year old yells from upstairs. "I can do it, but can you check".
"Yes ok" I call back, tummy making loud gurgling noises now and my body starting to feel a little weak due to hunger.

Back in the kitchen I peel the shell off the egg and slice it and place it on the salad.

"What's for lunch?" says my 12 year old as he slumps into the kitchen.
"Whatever you want." I reply. "I'm doing salad, do you want some?"
He turns his nose up and shuffles over to the fridge. Can I make bacon sandwiches?"

I'm trying to lose some weight but I could KILL for a bacon sandwich right now, but that doesn't mean he can't have one. "yes that's fine" I say reluctantly. I pour a small amount of low fat dressing on to my salad and take my plate to the table.

"I'm hungry now" says my 5 year old. "Can I have a wrap?" I debate telling him he now has to wait, but seeing as he only ever has butter in it, and he likes salad too, I decide it will quicker and more pleasant if I just quickly make it and he can join me at the table. So I do that.

As we sit down again to eat, my 14 year old comes in while on the phone to her friend. "I'm just grabbing this" she says taking a hard boiled egg out of the fridge and begin peeling it. "I'll be back for lunch in a minute".

Once I finish my meal I stand up to visit the toilet. "Mum" says my 12 year old..... and 15 minutes later I manage to close the bathroom door and breathe a sigh of relief as I finally have a bit of privacy. Spoken too soon, I suddenly hear a knock at the door "Mum!..."

The good things in life...

"When you finally get something good, enjoy it. 

Don't always go looking for something better."

I saw this quote on facebook today and it really struck a chord with me. Many years ago when my eldest, who is now 13, was very tiny. I used to read a cute little book to her. It was about a mouse family who took walks along the sand, swam in the rivers, lived in the country with fields and trees where they made rope swings and went for jogs... you get my drift. When I read it to my little girl, who was then a toddler, I would tell her that one day we'll get to live by the sea and have walks along the sand, be able to climb trees and swim wildly in the sea or rivers. 

A couple of years later, when my daughter was 3 and my, then youngest, was 8mths old, we moved to live near the sea. Unfortunately I had long term postnatal depression that lasted from when my son was born until he was 2 1/2 yrs old so, despite it being exactly what I had wanted for years, it wasn't something that I appreciated fully for a long time.

A lot has changed over the past 10 years that we've been living here. We've had good times and bad times, the last year being one of the worst we've ever had for varying reasons... but all of that has led to something amazing happening. I have felt this on and off for the past few years now, but not as much as I feel it now. I am so so happy in my life right now. So grateful for what I have. I'm approaching 40 and I guess it's a time in my life that I can look at it and see what I've done. I have achieved SO much. Maybe not in the same way that someone else might view achievement. But for me it is all I ever wanted. 

I live in that house by the sea. We have a woodland running along the back of our garden so our view from our decking and our bedroom window is nothing but green trees and an abundance of birds and wildlife. 

We have been lucky enough for a colony of bees to set up a temporary home in our garden 3 years running and a permanent home once. We don't have a lot of flowers in our garden, but we do have lots of green hedges, and I guess that's just something they must like.

 We go for walks along the sand, swim in the sea, the children climb trees and play in the woods. 

We are lucky enough to have made some wonderful friends since we have lived here and my parents and sister also live within walking distance to our house.

I haven't made a huge career for myself but I do what I love. I write. I create. And I surround myself with my beautiful beautiful children. Home educating 2 of them is amazing. In July I will have all 3 of them here with me learning and enjoying life together. We have great plans for the future and we are so excited for what we hope to achieve. Our home, however busy and hectic it gets, is where all our hearts lie. I love my home and have big plans on how to make the spaces within it work better for when we are all here (watch this space).

I was always the one who was "looking for something better". There was always something that I was searching for to make my life complete. But this is it. This is what I dreamed of when I was a child. This is my life. C x

Random Acts of Pefectness!

I've recently been working on something that I'm hoping will help other people keep on top of their perfectionism. As I worked on it, it got me thinking that to feel like you have reached "perfection" it may be worth jotting down some random perfectness from our days.

For example, I've been trying to teach my 3yr old to jump off an object. He can jump on the spot but he won't jump off anything. It's always been something he struggles with so over the half term holiday we concentrated a lot on it. Jumping off steps on to the beach etc. And Wednesday, he jumped off (on numerous occasions) the horse and the beam at his gymnastics class! Very proud mummy moment and a little bit of smug perfectness that I was part of him learning that.

Yesterday, we spent the morning at the beach with a "perfect" blue sky. We enjoyed it so much we almost forgot to go home for lunch!

Today, I wrote an article from beginning to end and was actually happy with it! Another tiny bit of perfectness from my day!

What have been your perfect moments today? (Anything from cleaning the bathroom to show home standards, to having a perfect meal with your loved one). xx