This journey of motherhood...

So I find blogging really therapeutic, it helps me to process what's going on in my head and I also really enjoy writing and sharing. I have never been a super secretive person, I will tell you what's going on in my life if you ask. My close friends and family will tell you that... However on Facebook you obviously won't see what you would read here on my blog.

I feel like I can let it out and be real.

This year has been a really confronting year for me as a Mum, I have had a lot of changes and the picture I had painted for myself of how life with my children would be didn't go exactly to plan.

I have learnt a lot this year. I feel like I have grown up a lot! Maybe it was having my fourth baby? I feel like I have accepted everything it is to be Mum. The good the bad the ugly, this is my season of putting my babes before myself. My time will come, but for now there are other things happening with my children that I need to show up and be fully present. These are the important years, I will never have this time again so I need to make it worthwhile and be the best version of me. The best mum I can be. I am a role model in my children's lives and I've taken ownership of that. (This is not to say I don't need to take time for myself. That is so important! I need to look after me, so I can look after them, which I do).

So this year I guess you could say I was confronted with a few changes that took me a little while to get my head around.

I had a fourth child.

The pregnancy was pretty good, minus the 15 weeks of nausea and vomiting last year. Me wishing I could just curl up into a ball on the couch and everything would get done and someone would just be me for a bit. Just till I could function normally again!

The labour was amazing, Charlie was really easy on me and I felt like I bounced back to feeling normal fairly quickly. (I left hospital 5 hours after he was born!)

Now I don't think I have ever suffered from post natal depression as such. But I definitely do get a bit of OCD before bub arrives that tends to linger for a bit after bub comes along. The need to be organised, the need to have everything at home done so that I feel like I am winning.

Poor Jared probably got sick of me asking him if I was doing a good job? Everyone was telling me a I was a supermum and I felt like I had everything under control but I needed that reasuurance from Jared that I was in fact "winning" at this Mum of four kids thing. I needed to feel like I was rocking this mum gig!

The raging hormones that linger in your body from pregnancy and into breastfeeding really don't help! Then there's the post partum body you have to get used to. I try my hardest to go easy on myself and love my body for the amazing work it's done. But honestly I struggle! I really struggle with that post partum Mum bod! Call me vain or shallow or just real, but if I am to be 100% honest with myself and you I really struggle with the changes that pregnancy has on my body.

I love that my body has grown and carried four amazing little humans. It's such a miracle. I grew four little humans!!! Like it completely blows my mind when I really think about it, but the effect that it has on my body is hard for me to process and accept. I think the more children I have had I have cut myself a little more slack but it still does get to me.

Charlie minutes old - 06/06/2016

Let's back track before that little cherub of a boy entered my world...




So back in February I found out that Lucie needed glasses as her eye was turning in, I thought I had seen her eye start to turn but it didn't always happen and I didn't know if it was just because her eyes were so blue and the way she focused. Anyway, a couple of other people noticed it so I took her to the optometrist to get checked out. We were referred to a specialist (Ophthalmologist) as her eye was in fact turning in and she was given a prescription for glasses. The Ophthalmologist informed me she'd most likely need glasses till she was a teenager. It was all a bit of a blur, me trying to bribe her to stay still for the specialist and let him look in her eyes and trying to take everything in that they were saying. I didn't fully process exactly what this all meant.

We returned back to Emerald with our script and headed off to Spec-savers to choose some cute little glasses! It was all a little bit exciting. Lucie picked some cute little Disney princess themed glasses and her order was processed and we waited for them to arrive.

When they arrived, we went to pick them up, came home and she put them on! She looked so stinking cute! I took a couple of photos for family to see and uploaded them onto Facebook. The amount of people that commented and liked her photo and said how cute she looked was over whelming, in a good way! I think I really needed that. When I looked at her that night sitting on the couch, with her cute little glasses on, sucking her thumb and twirling her hair. I felt a sudden feeling of loss and tears came to my eyes. I felt a loss for her that she would have to wear glasses from now on, for the foreseeable future. I almost feel like I grieved a little for her, she rocked the heck out of them, but she had to wear them from now on! Then my mind started to wander... Did I do something wrong in pregnancy, is this somehow my fault?! Should I have seen a specialist sooner? Jared and I don't have any sight problems...  I didn't feel like I was winning...

Ultimately we did the right thing and I will never know if it has anything to do with anything I did. But the choice was out of our hands. This is what needed to happen to help her eye. If she didn't wear them, her eye would continue to turn in as her eye muscle was not strong enough.

Miss Lucie rocking her specs!

You don't realise what comes with a small child wearing glasses, they look so cute. But they are actually a bit of work. The constant cleaning, like 10 times a day!! Little children are messy! They get all sorts of stuff all over the lenses. When children cry with glasses on, tears dry on the glass and it's near impossible to see out of them. They throw them when they are angry, or sad, or mad. They take them off from time to time and then you're searching everywhere for them as said child doesn't remember where they are. (I am currently still trying to find a pair she's put somewhere) They get pushed into the inner part of the eye when they fall over or are pushed or rough housing. (Lucie always has little red marks in that area) They get scratched! Sometimes they just don't want to wear them. Lucie has been an absolute trooper and she now knows how much they help her and will wake up in the morning and put them on herself. But it has still been something we have had to adjust to.

I have said in an earlier posting that Lucie needing glasses was a blessing in disguise. Because of her troubles I had the other children's eyes tested and found out that Callie needed glasses, she has quite a strong prescription. She has learning difficulties and has made a lot of progress since she's had her glasses.

However needing glasses was not the only cause for her learning difficulties, so we have found out in the process of elimination. We have been seeing an OT and a speech therapist in order to help bridge the gap in the way that Callie processes things. The school has been amazing and I can not fault the support they have given her. Her teacher and teacher aide have implemented everything that has been suggested to help her and together we have made progress. We are still on the road to gathering all the information we need to best help her in the way she needs help. And to find out the way she processes information so we can work with her on her level.

My Callie girl.

Like I said earlier, when I first thought of how my life would look with children, I didn't have any of these little things in my painting.

I do however feel that I have grown as a mother and person for the better. I am doing everything in my power to figure out how to help Callie and that means I am "winning". Because really I am her biggest advocate and if I am not trying to do everything I can, who will? Lucie and Callie can both now see everything around them. This makes me happy! My babies can properly see this beautiful world we live in. I helped make that happen!

This journey of motherhood is full of speed bumps and hair pin corners that sometimes come out of nowhere and leave you with a flat or a leak. (Metaphorically of course, don't even get me started on boobs from feeding four children and sneezing after children).
The journey is unpredicatable, exhausting, draining, defeating at times...

But sooooo REWARDING, which makes it all so worthwhile!




Just in case you haven't been told in a while, from one Mum to another... YOU are "winning" at this mother thing!