Have you done things in your past that you regret? I’m sure many people have. I’ve done a few stupid things, but I’m not sure if I entirely regret them. I feel like some of the ridiculous pickles I’ve been in through naivety (or pure stupidity) are actually sort of fun looking back on. Wouldn’t it be boring if we didn’t have any embarrassing stories to tell our friends?
So I don’t really regret things I have done. But I do have regrets. I regret the things I haven’t done. I regret that first day of high school when I was too scared to go and talk to a boy I really wanted to talk to. I regret the camping trip during which I was too scared to try white water rafting, and so I stayed behind and missed out. I regret not making the most of a summer fling when I was young, just because I knew it didn’t have a long-term future. These are just some of the small things that I’m willing to share with the internet.
What my regrets amount to are that I regret letting fear hold me back from making the most out of life. There are times when fear is sensible – when there is an actual likelihood that something will harm us. In that case, fear does us a service. But in many cases, it simply holds us back.
Maybe you’d like to change jobs, or even careers, but you’re afraid to move on. At your current job, you feel safe – you know where you stand. What if you changed jobs and then it didn’t work out?
Maybe you’re stuck in an unhappy relationship, but you’re afraid of the upheaval that ending that relationship would cause.
I’m not saying these things are simple to face. Making a huge life change requires thought and planning. But fear alone should not be the reason we don’t do things.
Maybe you’d like to do something just a little bit physically scary (like white water rafting), but you feel anxious about it. Maybe you’d like to do something a little bit socially/mentally scary (like going on a date or giving a presentation), but you are scared of it going wrong.
It is scary leaving our comfort zone. It is hard to do things that might be difficult and scary but necessary. Or to do things that are just a little bit risky, either physically, socially or mentally, but could result in huge payoffs.
As I look back at my life, I see that fear of leaving my comfort zone has never served me well. When I did do things I was scared to do (like moving countries, taking a risk on a relationship, having babies, putting myself in any situation where I was under scrutiny), I was almost without exception glad that I did. When I let fear hold me back, I later felt sorry about missing out.
So the next time you have an opportunity that you are afraid of taking … the next time you face a difficult choice … or if you simply feel unhappy with where you are right now, ask yourself: Is it only fear of the unknown that is holding me back? And if the answer is yes, throw your fear in the bin and break out of that comfort zone.
I took my eldest to see Despicable Me 3 recently. I thought it was brilliant – all of the 80s jokes were perfectly pitched to those of us who are now parents today. But there was also a sweet moment that stuck with me. **(Slight) spoiler follows**
At one point, Agnes, Gru’s youngest daughter, goes hunting for unicorns. She lays out a bunch of sweets and waits for hours in the woods until, sure enough, a fluffy one-horned beast appears. She brings it home and Gru is forced to inform her that it is merely a goat who lost one of his horns. He says tenderly, “Life is just like that sometimes. We’re hoping for a unicorn and we get a goat.”
And I thought, wow man that’s deep. Am I right? Think about it. Unicorns are the ultimate in awesome, sweet mythical beast. They are pure, fluffy and, apparently, poop rainbows. Why wouldn’t you want a unicorn? Goats, however, keep it real. They definitely don’t poop rainbows, they eat everything (and I mean everything) that they can get their mucky teeth into, and nobody likes it when you play the goat – even worse if you get their goat.
So, when you’re hoping for mythical perfection, you get real life. We can learn something here from Agnes’s response to Gru’s disappointing revelation (and forgive me if this is a slight misquote): “Well then he’s the best goat in the whole world!”
So, she didn’t get what she wanted. She got something that was less than her ideal fantasy of a mythical beast. But she saw the good in it and was grateful for what she had.
I can think of a lot of times in my life when I was hunting unicorns and got a goat.
I was going to be a famous musical theatre star but instead I have an office job. I was going to drive a Ferrari but instead I have a Hyundai. I was going to marry Robert Downey Jr but instead I married an IT consultant from Yorkshire. I was going to have a boy and a girl but I ended up with two boys. I was going to have ab muscles that you can see, but I never have and (I’m pretty sure) never will.
These were the dreams of an immature and inexperienced girl. They might have meant a lot to me at some point, and they served their purpose in keeping me motivated, but they were never really the right things for me. They were unicorns. My goats are much, much better.
Musical theatre would have been a hard life. Constant rehearsals, pressure to look a certain way, working late nights, moving from town to town all the time. It must be hard to start a family with a lifestyle like that. My office job is challenging without being overwhelming, has predictable hours with lots of holiday, and my colleagues accept me for who I am.
Ferraris are extremely impractical on British roads, would not fit all of my shopping, and with my driving skills it probably would have been totalled in the first month I owned it anyway. My Hyundai can totally cope with being rubbed up against a bush from time to time, and it can fit the spoils from a trip to Costco in the back.
Robert Downey Jr has bounced back from his drug problems thankfully, but I’m not so sure he’d be a nurturing life partner, and is really too old for me anyway. My husband cooks, cleans, changes nappies, listens to me spout rubbish all the time and basically puts up with me doing whatever I fancy. Who could ask for more?
Lots of people have a dream “gender pattern” for their future children, but us parents learn that that’s a load of rubbish. My two boys are everything I really wanted. They cuddle me and give me an excuse to watch kid’s movies and play with toys. They are smart and funny and have totally unique personalities. I did grieve briefly for not being able to buy pretty dresses and fix my daughter’s hair like having a real-life doll, but pretty dresses look hard to put on wiggly legs and I’m sure I’d be rubbish at combing the knots out of long hair.
Now I’m not going to try and feed you a line of effluvia about how chiselled abs are not actually all they’re cracked up to be. I can’t think of any reason rock hard abs would be bad. But we live in the real world. And in the real world, my love of donuts was never going to mesh with the visible ab muscles goal. And I’m okay with that. I don’t want to miss out on any food pleasures for flat ab pleasures. Anyway, I totally do sit-ups from time to time, so I’m pretty sure my abs are actually rock hard (underneath the layer of fat).
So there you go. My unicorns all turned into goats. And my goats are pretty awesome.
Now, I would like to recognise that sometimes life gives you a lot worse than goats. It might give you a stinking, partially decomposed and maggot infested ex-goat. I’ve had a few ex-goats in my time and things can be really, really hard. It takes time to move on from ex-goats, and sometimes a part of you never fully heals from the worst life has to dish out.
But maybe even on our darkest days we can remember the little things that we are still grateful for. If we can remember that sometimes things don’t turn out the way we expect, but that they can still turn out pretty good, then there is always hope, and something to look forward to.
Sometime around the end of July, the one-year anniversary of me starting this blog quietly passed. This blog was originally inspired by a holiday that I wanted to write about. A year later, it was ignored because of another holiday, which I should probably write about at some point.
I often see other bloggers writing something about their blogging anniversary (blogiversary??), and I’m not usually one to avoid a good bandwagon tbh. However, I think the sort of things I want to say might be a little bit different.
Until last week, I hadn’t blogged in about a month. I was unsure whether I was done with blogging, or I just needed a break. All I knew was that I really just needed to chill out and watch Netflix in the evening, and to never ignore my kids at the weekend so I could (just quickly) join a linky. I also had some other stuff going on in my life that distracted me from blogging, which I’m not sharing publicly yet … but watch this space (however I can tell you now that it’s nothing to do with having more babies – that’s what people always think when you say you have a secret).
So I had my break and I enjoyed it, but then last week I had a really stressful day. So to stop me mulling over the stressful thing, I went ahead and wrote a little blog post. It brought home to me the real reasons I blog – reasons that I hope I’ll remember as I continue to blog – reasons that might even keep me blogging for a long time yet.
I don’t need to be the best
When I first started blogging, I knew absolutely nothing about the world of blogging. I was just going to write down some stuff on the internet that I thought a few other people might find interesting. Then, I got sucked into the world of stats and leaderboards and follower numbers and branding collaborations. I got a little ambitious and competitive. I got a little obsessed.
What many people who don’t blog don’t know is that nobody gets to be a famous blogger, or a blogger who makes their living from blogging, without having a killer combination of hard work, talent and luck.
I do not need to compete with the famous bloggers, the well-paid bloggers, or even the ones who I personally think are just awesome and wish I could be more like. I don’t have to publish consistently or have beautiful social media feeds unless that’s what I want. I can just blog because it relaxes me and because it helps me think things through. My blog is about me, and if anyone else is interested or thinks it’s good, then that’s a bonus.
I don’t need to get paid
Making a living from blogging or getting occasional paid blogging opportunities or product reviews are totally awesome. I’ve dabbled in this a little bit. I may or may not continue doing so. It’s kind of cool, but usually the time and effort I put into a review or sponsored post is not worth the money or “free” thing I got.
Occasionally, there have been a few experiences I’ve had because of blogging that money actually couldn’t buy. I’m grateful for these. But if they never happened again, I would still be happy about my little blog.
Blogging is about people
The best, best thing about blogging is people, in a couple different ways.
First of all, any blogger worth his or her corner of the internet engages with other blogs. We don’t all have endless time to read and comment on other blogs, but really a good blogger ought to have a few other blogs they read. Blogging isn’t just a broadcast … it’s a community. And if you read other blogs, you will be learning new things, and often these things are about people, and you will learn interesting things about people who are different to you. This expands your horizons.
Second, blogging really does help you make new friends. I have made at least one proper, meet-up in person friend through blogging, and have several other acquaintances who I really like. There are lots of bad things on the internet, but blogging has an amazing knack for helping you meet like-minded people.
Blogging is healthy
Ok, so there is the risk that you get obsessed with social media and you never look away from a screen again. But the act of actually blogging – writing something about your life that you have thought about – mitigates against that.
Blogging encourages introspection, but it also requires you to think about how to write about your introspection in a way that engages others. For me, blogging has helped me avoid negative thoughts about myself and instead think about how I can be my best self. This process is what I like to share on my blog.
So what next?
A lot of people talk about their future goals for their blog on these sort of posts, and sometimes those include getting to a certain follower milestone or something measurable like that. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I’ve been to some mindfulness talks and I now prefer to set intentions. So here are mine:
To stay true to myself in all ways, including with my blog.
If I don’t feel like blogging, I’m not gonna blog. So you know what’s happening when I don’t post for a while.
But temporary breaks don’t mean I need to shut down the whole thing.
Carry on nurturing the community I’ve become a part of by joining in on social media and reading other blogs when I can.
Carry on balancing introspection with things that might be useful to others – this is, after all, a public place.
What do you think? Has your blogging journey taken you to places you didn’t expect? Did you go down a road that you later decided wasn’t right for you? What’s good and what’s not so good about being a blogger?
“I’m just buying loads of food and hoping it might arrange itself into a meal like monkeys writing Shakespeare.”
That’s my creative caption for the featured photo. Are you tired of deciding what to cook for your family week after week? Are you stuck in a rut, cooking the same things every week? Are you tired of buying expensive ingredients to try something new, only to have your kids reject it?
I know I am. In my house, I’m responsible for cooking 3 days a week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday. My husband does the other days, and he is a much more creative and resourceful cook. Moreover, he doesn’t get quite so cross about the soul-destroying experience of slaving over a hot stove to produce something the kids won’t even eat.
So from a combination of being busy with work and a general sense of ennui, I rely on the same old failsafes every week. And even I’m getting tired of it.
I do “Freezer Food Monday”, which is fish fingers or previously frozen Richmond sausages, accompanied by potato waffles and frozen peas (I do cook the peas; I don’t serve them frozen. I’m not that bad). Come on, don’t judge me … it’s Monday and I can’t be bothered. If we’re all very lucky, we had a roast chicken on Sunday and instead of freezer food I mix the leftover chicken with a jar of Korma curry sauce.
We then have “Mince Wednesday”. My kids are mad for mince, so I might as well be the one to cook it for them. I usually do a mild chilli con carne (the Hairy Bikers one is best) or a spag bol. But I get so bored and think there must be some more ways to serve the mince.
The week is rounded off by Pizza Friday. Usually it’s one of those ones they make for you in Morrisons. Sometimes we get one delivered or even occasionally go out for one. When the day is very special, I buy the pizza bases and other ingredients and we build our own. I’m quite happy with Pizza Friday, actually. I’m sure I read somewhere that a pizza each week keeps you on fleek. Although I am over the age of 30 so I don’t actually know what that means.
In any case, I really would like – for my own sanity if not for the sake of expanding my children’s tastebud horizons – to try some other stuff. But the problem for me is that the stakes (and the price of the steaks) are too high. I don’t want to make things that require a lot of effort and expensive ingredients, only to have my kids reject it.
This very website actually has some great family-friendly recipes to try out if you’re in a rut (written by a mate of mine, not me, in case you didn’t realise I had a reclusive guest poster). But another cool idea is to try out new recipe subscription service, Mum’s Meal Planner. This is a small business venture by a normal mum named Becky, who felt just the same about the difficulty of getting meal inspiration.
The way her service works is you pay £2.50 per month, and she sends you a weekly email with a whole week worth of meals (and 2 substitutes on the list if you really don’t like some of the main options). This is accompanied by a full shopping list that will cover everything for the week and use all of the ingredients without excess waste.
I’ve been getting her emails for a while now and I’m really impressed by the variety of easy recipes that keep things a bit fresh, along with the convenient shopping list. As I don’t cook every day of the week, I don’t use all of the recipes, but I enjoy getting some options each week to choose from. It’s fantastic that they’re all easy to follow even for those among us (like me) who have the bare minimum of culinary skills.
For this “Mince Wednesday”, I tried doing her cottage pie and beans recipe. There is minimal chopping and throwing the can of beans in adds loads of flavour and bulk with a minimum of effort. It tasted just as good as the much more labour-intensive cottage pie we usually make. It had a bit less depth of flavour (because our usual one has wine and worcestershire sauce in it), but that’s all well and good when you’re feeding children (the culinary cretins). My husband and I both really enjoyed it.
Sadly, my kids basically still didn’t eat it. But I didn’t mind so much because the expense and effort was low. Normally, when I worked so hard on a meal and my kids don’t eat it, I’m all like:
But I didn’t feel that way today because the meal was low effort. I just shrugged and cracked open a beer. I’m looking forward to trying more of Becky’s meals. I’m sure my kids will find one or two they might deign to eat.
Becky subscribed me to her service for free for a short time so I could evaluate the service, but this is my honest opinion. I just like helping out small businesses.
It’s hard to get kids to eat more mature meals – grown-up dinners that appeal to the adults – so I wasn’t sure how to serve my children some gorgeous pork loin steaks that were making my mouth water. I decided to go for a tried and true recipe I grew up with, pork chops with cream of mushroom soup. Of course, not content to just dump the contents of the tin onto some fried chops, I created this recipe, which went down a treat. Using my cast iron pans makes colouring the meat really easily, but if you don’t have one, just leave the meat alone for several minutes to sear the colour onto it in any deep frying pan. I was really surprised at how keen the kids were once the chops were in bite-sized pieces and swirled into the mash.
You can choose to make your mash anyway that suits, but this recipe offers a microwave shortcut that shaves time and clean up in half. Peeling the skins once the whole potatoes have been cooked is much easier, and you don’t have to worry about a pot adding to the steam in your kitchen in the summer.
I used a teaspoon of bacon fat I had saved in my fridge to fry off the steaks, but a bit of veg oil will do the trick if you don’t have lard on hand. I happened to have it after a bacon-heavy brunch, but I must admit it adds a lovely depth of flavor to the pork and onions. You can keep it basic, or add more of your own flare to this dish, so I hope you’ll find inspiration in this ramped-up old standard that takes less than 30 minutes.
You’ll need:
4–6 pork loin steaks or pork chops (depending on the thickness of the steak)
2–3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon garlic granules/powder
1 teaspoon bacon fat or veg oil
1 cup chopped white onion (I use frozen)
2 cups chopped green beans (again, frozen is so easy)
1 cup water
1 8oz (small) tin cream of mushroom soup
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried tarragon (optional)
¼ cup single cream or half & half (optional)
4 large baking potatoes
2 tablespoons salted butter
½–1 cup milk
Salt and pepper to taste
The method:
At least one hour prior, but preferably the night before, place your steaks or chops into a plastic bag to marinate in the Worcestershire and garlic.
Bring a nice deep frying pan to a medium-high heat with either the lard or oil to fry off the steaks. Try not to move them so you get a lovely, deep colour on both sides.
Add the frozen onions after both sides have some colour, and allow them to create a bit of liquid for clearing the fried bits off of the bottom of the pan.
Add the green beans and mix into the onions. You can add up to one cup of water to help if needed.
Stir the liquid created with the dried oregano before adding the tin of soup.
Stack the steaks to one side whilst you incorporate the soup and the onion and green bean sauce.
Add another splash of water if you want a thinner sauce, but it will reduce as you decrease the heat to medium-low.
Allow the sauce to come to a slight bubble over the steaks, for about ten minutes to keep the steaks tender.
While the pork is finishing and the sauce is reducing, scrub a few good-sized potatoes and poke them each in several places before placing on a microwave safe plate.
Microwave on high (or use the “baked potato” setting) for 8–12 minutes, or until they’re all soft to the touch.
Once the potatoes are all cooked through, roll them in your hands with an oven glove to loosen the potato inside. Allow the potato to cool slightly before peeling away the skins by hand.
Add the butter and milk, salt and pepper, and mash together with a fork. Reheat if necessary before serving.
As the sauce for the pork reduces, add salt and pepper to taste. Optional additions are a bit of cream and dried tarragon right at the end, which I find add a richness and aromatic quality. I mix them in right before I turn off the heat.
Serve the steaks with the mash, and drench them both in the gorgeous sauce and beans. I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Summer is upon us, and in full on heatwave mode! The sunshiny days are glorious, but they don’t inspire a love for slaving over an even hotter stove. In protest, I take to the grill and opt to BBQ nearly everything that requires cooking. Fresh ears of half-husked sweet corn are plentiful in the grocery, and I keep my eye open for the sales of fresh fish and grillables. I recently saw a stellar deal on salmon fillets, so decided to grill the fish in a bid to tempt my children. They aren’t the most adventurous eaters, so when my 6yo proclaimed he loves salmon and wants it every night, I figured I had better share the recipe!
You’ll need:
Approximately 2.2kg/1lb fresh, skin-on salmon fillet
2–3 tablespoons lemon juice (fresh is best, but I tend to use the plastic squeezy type for ease)
2 teaspoons fresh pressed garlic (I keep a jar in the fridge)
1 cup fresh chopped coriander
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1+ teaspoon coarse salt
3–4 ears half-husked sweet corn on the cob
Optional bag of mixed greens for a quick bed of salad
Optional 1 cup of white rice for a bed of rice (I tend to have leftover rice in my fridge, but you can make it while the fish is grilling if you like)
The method:
Using a large sheet of aluminium foil, lay your salmon fillet skin down onto the centre of the foil.
Using a small bowl, combine the lemon, coriander, garlic, cumin and salt before spreading the mixture on top of the salmon.
Loosely cover the fish with the foil and seal the strip with a bit of crimping at the top and sides. Your salmon parcel is ready to marinate for about 15 minutes, while you get the grill ready (you can also use the oven at 200C/400F).
Using another sheet of foil, cover the grill and place the corn cobs husk up so the kernels are against the foil. This helps to steam the corn in the radiant heat and lessens the risk of burning.
After the corn has been on the grill for about 10 minutes, add the salmon parcel and reduce the heat to a medium flame/setting. Be sure to place the fish skin down, the top/opening of your foil parcel up and ready to open.
After 10–15 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fillet, you should open the parcel and allow the steam to escape. Check the centre to ensure the fish is fully cooked before removing from the grill. You shouldn’t need to have the fish on the grill for more than 20 minutes total.
If you’ve put the corn on before the fish, these should finish at the same time. Pierce a kernel beneath the husk to be sure it’s cooked through; it should squirt a bit of corn juice at you if it’s finished.
Clear off the husks once the corn is cooked and cooled slightly. Serve on the cob or sliced off into kernels.
The skin of the salmon may well be stuck to the foil, so if you’re a fan of the skin, I suggest oiling the foil and fish on the skin side when preparing. I love that the skin stays in place while I serve the flesh, but it’s my preference.
With the salmon and corn slightly cooled, you can enjoy these over a salad, with some steamed rice, or with a bit of mashed potato to your tastes. I serve the kids with flaked salmon and sliced corn mixed into rice, but my husband and I prefer to have a big salad. The flavor of the salmon with the coriander is so fresh and earthy, it’s just about my favourite summer treat. Enjoy!
My eldest son is 5 and what I have realised is that teaching him to be kind is not always easy. It teaches you a lot about human nature to have children. Although they are loving and innocent, they also can be very selfish. Which of course in terms of our evolutionary psychology makes perfect sense. Survival of the fittest! Look after number 1!
I have to work very hard to teach him how to be considerate of others feelings. I don’t feel I can offer him rewards for being kind and considerate, because then he would do it for the wrong reason. I have to teach him that the feeling of being kind to others is enough.
My main strategy is to praise him profusely whenever I see him being kind. I try to notice when he shares something, or comforts his little brother when he cries. I also try to chat with him when I see someone else doing something kind, and explain why it was a nice thing to do.
So I was very interested when a small start-up company offered to send me some of their Good Egg cards. These cards have a series of good deeds on them, and you can set yourself the challenge of doing as many as possible. They are aimed at older children (13+), and some of them are a bit silly, but I found them quite useful as a conversation starter with my 5 year old. He loves playing with cards, so I let him pick a card out of the deck at random and then we had a chat about the good deed on the card.
The first card he picked said you should give blood. Obviously my 5yo is too young to be donating blood, but it was an interesting topic to discuss with him. I explained why people need to receive blood, why it is important that people donate blood when they can, and how the process works.
Another card says to take your old books to a charity shop. So I was able to chat with him about how charity shops work and why it is nice to let others have things that you no longer need. On top of teaching about kindness, it was also a useful way of increasing his general understanding of the world.
The way in which we all function in society is dependent upon an understanding of how our actions affect the people around us. Unfortunately, in the real world, not everyone remembers that – even sometimes those people who have quite a lot of power to change the world for the better. Remembering to teach our children kindness is one way that parents can make their small contribution, in the hope that the next generation will seek to help instead of win.
I receive the cards for the purposes of review but all opinions and thoughts are my own.
I had a rotten day last Monday. I was leaving for a work trip the next day and I had so much to do. Packing, cleaning, trying to fit in some exercise, and of course looking after my kids. I also had an unfortunate conversation with someone who made me feel like an idiot and really knocked my confidence. And I was feeling guilty because the work trip meant that I was going to miss my 5yo’s first sports day at big school. He also had a bad day at school that day and was upset when I picked him up.
After dinner, I collapsed on the sofa to cuddle up with my kids until it was time for the bedtime routine. I suddenly had a terrible feeling. An aching and heaviness spreading from my shoulders, across my back and down my legs. I shortly found myself running to the loo. I had some sort of stomach bug. Perfect. Perfect timing.
That evening I had booked myself a manicure. My manicurist comes to my house after the kids are in bed, sorts out my nails and is very good company in the process. I had been looking forward to it all day, but now I was ill I needed to cancel it. Worse, it happened so soon before she was meant to come that I had to turn her away at the door. Another embarrassment for the day.
And so, feeling downtrodden and physically ill, I removed the peeling shellac from my nails myself, leaving them as plain and stripped down as I felt. It was times like this that I normally would have called my grandma, who died in April. She would always listen to me unload all of my fears and heartaches and worries on her, with no judgement, and with no feeling that I was imposing on her. I felt very lonely indeed when I reached for the phone for the millionth time since she died, and stopped short, when I realised there was no one on the other end.
I called a friend instead, cried, and went to bed. Sleep was not forthcoming given the need to constantly rush to the bathroom, but over a course of hours, I eventually fell into a fitful sleep.
My dreams were normal at first, not exceptional. But then I woke up. I thought I woke up. The view I saw was the door to my bedroom, the bedside table, the light switch – the same as always. But then someone started to walk into the room. I couldn’t see who it was in the dark.
I was scared. Who was coming into my room in the middle of the night? My husband was in bed next to me, fast asleep. I tried to scream but at first I couldn’t. With a massive effort I finally managed to make a noise – a weak “aaahh” “aaahh” that sounded more real than the image I was seeing.
As the figure continued to approach my bed, I thought that it was actually someone I knew. It started to feel less menacing. I thought it might be my next door neighbour, but I couldn’t figure out why she would be coming into my room.
The figure sat down on my bed, and suddenly I began to see her shape. Soft grey curly hair, giant glasses. She grasped my hands and suddenly I knew. “Is it Grandma?” I said, talking in my sleep. It was her. “Grandma!” I spoke again, aloud, joyful.
Then, a stroke on my arm from my husband, and I was awake, and she was gone.
My husband was only half awake so I just told him I had a weird dream and to go back to sleep. But it wasn’t just a weird dream. It was powerful. I know that I talked aloud in my sleep – that is why I woke my husband – and it is not something I normally do. I was aware of struggling to speak as the dream was happening.
I had been in that twilight state between dreaming and awake, and my Grandma’s face and the clasp of her hands had felt oh so real. It was not like a normal dream where pictures and scenes run through your head, you may talk but it’s more like watching a movie of yourself than actually being you. In this dream, I was self-aware and everything I experienced was palpable.
So what actually was it?
A ghost? A dream? An illness-fuelled hallucination? Or was it really her?
I’ve been wishing to dream about her since she died. Not the sort of dream I had. Just a normal one, to see her alive and healthy again. But she’s been conspicuous by her absence from my dreams. Perhaps because of her prominence in my waking thoughts.
I’ve read some “woo-woo” websites about ghostly sleep visitations and lost loved ones. These sorts of experiences are not all that uncommon. And the biggest thing they have in common is that the person who experiences it cannot simply dismiss it.
Perhaps it was just a dream. But in my heart I think that it was really her. Coming to see me when I needed her.
This post may seem someone off-topic to my blog, but really it isn’t. Because my blog is about family. Whether my grandmother really visited me in some intentional ghostly way or whether it all came from my own mind actually doesn’t matter. What matters is the way it made me feel. Safe, not alone, important. This is what mothers do for their children.
My grandma was the only mother I ever knew, and though I always knew that I would have years of life without her, she is with me still. Earlier that day, my loss had felt bigger than big, but my dream reminded me that whatever force had bound us together in life can never be broken by death.
Nothing makes my heart sink and stomach turn more than waking to that sound in the night. The bleurggh wahhhh noise. The sound of a young child puking. There are a few things that I can guarantee you at this point:
You will not be sleeping much for the rest of this night
You will be doing a lot of washing
You will want to help your little, but there isn’t much to do but ride it out
Equally heart-sinking are the coughing and hacking noises, followed by inconsolable crying, followed by panicked trips to the doctor or even the hospital, to end up with the dreaded antibiotics for tonsillitis or some other nasty infection.
Luckily, the worst of these bugs usually passes with a bit of perseverance and a lot of wet wipes. But often the dregs of the illness linger for quite some time. After a tummy bug, it takes a while for my kids’ to be back to normal, and often a course of antibiotics can fix the infection but bring on some unfortunate tummy-related symptoms.
At these times, I often load my kids up with as much yogurt as they can eat, because I think the “good bacteria” in the yogurt will help their tiny guts get back to normal faster. But recently I found out about a product that I can use instead of yogurt, that gets the job done faster and more thoroughly. Enter Bio-Kult Infantis.
Does Bio-Kult actually work?
Bio-Kult Infantis is a scientifically developed, advanced formula for babies, toddlers and young children, which contains 7 strains of probiotic “good” bacteria. In the party that is your child’s digestive system, these are like the really burly, yet handsome, bouncers. They kick out the baddies (the bad bacteria) and stop new baddies getting in. I’m a sucker for the Vin Diesel look. But I digress…
The specific blend of good bacteria in Bio-Kult has demonstrated positive outcomes in a number of clinical trials, for example in reducing diarrhoea from gastroenteritis, among other things. Look, I have some charts and graphs:
Bio-Kult’s literature is full of footnotes citing an ever-growing, peer-reviewed, body of published research on the efficacy of probiotics in improving or even preventing a number of conditions. And they can also provide impressive documentation on their own research into the product’s efficacy.
So when should I use Bio-Kult?
As you can tell by my introduction to this post, I would be most likely to give this product to my kids for a boost after they’ve been ill, especially if they’ve been on antibiotics, which can kill good bacteria as well as bad. But there are lots of other uses:
It can be given regularly as a preventative boost to the immune system, and has been shown the improve conditions such as eczema in young children.
It can be given for an immune boost when you know your little one is going to face a challenge, such as when going on holiday or starting nursery.
Studies have also shown that Bio-Kult Infantis can help with cases of colic in infants.
The product has been proven safe for use with children from birth, but if you have any doubts, of course you should check with your GP.
Win a goody box with Lenny the Lamb comforter
If you would like to try out Bio-Kult Infantis, please enter this competition for a chance to win this goody box with a product sample including instructions, a Lenny the Lamb comforter and keyring, a cute muslin and a pen.
It’s not a well-known song, but “Little Acorns” by The White Stripes is a song to live your life by. It tells the story of Janet, who has been having a tough time lately. But as she’s walking one day, she sees a squirrel storing up nuts for winter. She notices the way the squirrel brings the nuts to her nest one at a time, and eventually manages to store up as much as she needs.
Clever Janet sees this as a metaphor, and realises that if she takes the “one acorn at a time” approach to her problems, they will be more manageable.
Okay, so it’s sort of a silly song. A hard rock riff and an entreaty to be like the squirrel. And it also might be something that we all already know implicitly. Of course it makes sense to break problems into smaller pieces to make them more manageable. But knowing something doesn’t mean we always do it.
So what are the problems that sometimes overwhelm us, and how can we “be like the squirrel”? Here are some situations where being like the squirrel has helped me.
Grief
Regular readers of this blog will know that I keep banging on about the death of my grandmother, who brought me up in my early years. It’s been a couple months now but sometimes I’m still suffocated by sadness and I just miss her so much. I had read about it before, but now I know firsthand, that grief never really goes away. Some days are better than others. Let each moment of grief be it’s own little acorn that you acknowledge. I’ve been allowing myself to feel sad when it happens, rather than trying to just carry on, even though that sometimes seems like what everyone expects.
Work
I work part-time but I’m pretty sure I’m still doing a full-time job and then some. I never, ever get to the bottom of my to-do list and sometimes I worry that I’m not keeping up well enough and I’ll get in trouble. But actually, everyone is just as busy as me in my office, and we’re all doing our best. So I just take one small task at a time. And I try not to multi-task, because that is a way of doing lots of work but never finishing anything.
Money
I also, like most normal people, do not have as much money as I would like. I have a lot of bills, like childcare, to keep up with. And I’m not very good at budgeting or saving. If I try to impose an austerity regime on myself, I’m going to (a) be miserable and (b) fail at it anyway.
So my acorn approach is to just think a little harder about each time I want to do something that costs money. How much do I really want/need this thing? Is there a way of doing it cheaper? And each time I manage to save some money by thinking it through, that is a small success.
My house is a tip
This is one that I get pretty stressed about. We have too many toys, but it hurts my heart to get rid of things that were loved when my children were smaller! Am I the only one who gets sentimental about brightly coloured plastic?
Sometimes I start planning to get organised, but am discouraged by the enormity of the task. One thing cascades into another until I just don’t know where to start. Saying I would just do one job becomes just as difficult as trying to do it all at once.
So I’ve started taking a more novel approach and applying complete and utter blinkers to certain bits of mess. Instead of focusing on doing small jobs that might ultimately add up to a tidy house (neeever gonna happen), I just focus on the things that really need keeping up with. The dresser near the front door always gets piled up with loads of random crap. Fine, I’m ignoring it. But I’m going to keep up with the washing. Sort of.
I wish I had more close friends
Becoming a mum changes your social life forever. I used to constantly be with friends, and I had a different friend for every situation. I could call up my “going to the theatre friend”, my “going on holiday” friend, or my drinking buddy. When I had my kids, I grew apart from some of these friends, either because they had kids too and also had no time, or because we were now living such different lifestyles.
I have found it difficult to make mum friends in my local area, and only have a couple ladies who I consider real friends and not just acquaintances. I sometimes feel pretty depressed that I can’t find a group of friends to hang out with at a moment’s notice, or even just that I feel so socially awkward and isolated among groups of mums on the school run.
But you know what, it doesn’t even matter. Quality over quantity. I’m putting more energy into the little acorns I’ve already collected (the genuine, proven friends). And every time I feel awkward on the school run, I’m just going to carry on saying hello to people even when they don’t respond, and smiling at them all like some sort of maniac.
I’m a shouty sweary mum
When I get stressed or worried or upset or hurt, I shout and swear. That is my reaction. It’s something I’m working on. But I still sometimes step on a bloody lego brick and then turn the air blue in front of my children.
Or when my 5yo is completely ignoring my entreaties for him to stop chewing on a fidget spinner before he chokes on it, and the 10th time I ask him I shout, FOR GOD’S SAKE STOP CHEWING ON THAT BLOODY THING OR YOU’LL END UP IN HOSPITAL!
I am aware that this is not ideal parenting. Judge me as you will.
But I’ve also gotten better and better at showing more empathy with my children. When they get upset about something like misplacing a small plastic junky toy, or because one brother knocked over the other’s tower, I’ve learned to say “I’m sorry honey, I know you worked hard on that tower”. Instead of what I’m thinking, which is “get the f**k over it already”.
So every acorn of positive parenting, every time I offer some extra praise, is one to add to the pile that is making up for the fact that my eldest definitely knows all the swears and how to use them. I’m also working on replacing my swears with rubbish replacement words too. Like “oh FFFidget spinners” or “GoddaaaaarNit”.
Do life’s little problems sometimes get you down? What problems could you add to this list, and how do you deal with them? Here is the song, btw:
