Actually I think my real mothers day present was just as we came away to Melrose, and SB bought me some flowers. i brought them to Melrose and popped them on the mantelpiece -they are prob still there as our leaving was a tad disorganised. But they were spontaeous because she thought I would like the wrapping. That really is a mothers day gift.
i knew I would get a card, because on the way home I bought a card for my mum and little nanny, so SB came with me and chose one for me to buy [rofl!]. She chose a beautiful card that really suited her – a fairy one sprinkling glitter. i would have been just as happy with a home made one – in fact i suggested a thurs card craft to some dads at melrose, but they looked horrified/sheepish/you must be joking at me!!
Antway so i came downstairs and was told i was about to have breakfast in bed. oK, i hopped under the duvet on the sofa. what would i like? hmm, onions, sweetcorn and mushrooms on toast, no? err, scrambled eggs? no? oh, something SB can make – weetabix! So she balanced that, a cup of tea and a jamjar decorated with fimo and a dafodil in it. those that read twitter will know that she tipped it all off as she reached me. never mind i said, lets mop it up and try again, so she did!!
What mothers day has mostly said to me though, is that I am not particularly shining example of motherhood. i used to be pretty good at the patience and joining in, but I had teeth in gritted mode so often today that i am suprised i can open my mouth. yes, BB is very challenging, but i think that a lot of it might be that i am just to crap to give her the attention she needs and sort out the right strategies. her and SB are screeching within 3 seconds of being left alone – and it isn’t all BB, but a majority. I can here my gritted teeth voice in SB too, which is awful. She just doesn’t care about anyones pov, whether she has hurt them, but wants what she wants when and how she wants it, instantly, always.
oops, this isn’t finished. i pressed wrong button, and will return!
SO, that has been quite stressful. for example, i bought a tiny mini violin magnet for SB to say i was proud of her for being part of the orchestra. bb whips it and says it is hers – actually before i have given it. sb looks dejected. so i do the oh no it isn’t routine. sb says its all right, bb cn have it if she wants. do you want it sb, shrug, sb do you want it. give it to who you want to mum. i gave it to you [counterpoint bb screaming its hers in background] i would like you to have it because i am proud of you giving the harder part a go and enjoying playing and getting your friends interested. well, i would like it. i take from bb – cue foaming at mouth screaming wailing and kicking. sb clenches it tightly, clear she wants it. i hug her and give her a kiss and repeat why its hers. bb in a total frenzy. oK, i should have had something for bb. but sb has a resigned and doleful air about surrendering everything to bb. should she be more encouraged to be assertive? surely if i was a good mum she would tell me what she wants? and does she side with bb to get her out of trouble because we overreact to bb??? aarghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
hmm, ok, so what have we done today? well, bb and i did some of her before the code letter f stuff [at her request!] and she was adorable. SB was doing education city science at the time. BB did some starfall and SB did some playing with webkinz. SB did some singapore maths and we did a rather excellent violin practice together. we had a stressful time getting her dance mat that hooks to the tv to work again [well, it was last used 3 years ago, when deemed too difficult] but i managed it. and i managed to get the melrose game on 2 different computers so that both could play it – well bb couldn’t so i did that for her at her insistence whilst she frothed and foamed and jumped on me until i stalked off. and sb please to see ‘her’ level. at tea, sb said she was bored and today was boring. i guess it was. but we have loads of stuff she could have done. humm. glumness alround.
Helen, you’re a great Mum, and your girls are lovely.
From my own pov, I am coming to the conclusion that some of my children’s communication difficulties are just parts of their personalities. So C gets withdrawn and doesn’t talk about what she wants, then gets angry and quietly destructive, but finds it hard to suggest ways we could make things better for her. M just screams and roars with enormous tantrums but doesn’t express herself easily in words, despite modelling from us. I guess these are all things they will learn in time, and we just have to keep on trying to help them learn, and the family is the best place to be learning them.
what she said, because she said it so much better than I could have done!
thirded!
thanks for the comments, you really are my friends. but its still true, i didn’t enjoy today at all.
ah but you not enjoying it is a totally different thing to good mum-ness. Hugs from me anyway.
back to say, surely the saying today was boring is at least in part come down from having had several days with lots of friends to play with? I know my two have been going stir crazy today!
Also what Jan said; you are a great mum and your children are lovely.
I’ve been reading back aways on another blog thinking how to comment on yours, so I’m glad Jan was able to express so well.
It also amazes me how people I admire so, so much (namely you and Merry I guess) can in any way think they are not good parents. And it kindov makes me cross that you feel the way you do sometimes. Not that I’m belittling your feelings, it’s just that I think you are a far better mum than I am and then I read things like this and think I must be an even worse mum and then need to eat chocolate to cheer myself up.
And after a picture of me on flickr (that I would like removed!”!!!) I need to eat a lot less chocolate.
And this has turned into all about me, me, me. Sorry. Have lots of hugs (((((())))))
if it was one of my photos,let me know and i’ll remove. i have eaten vast quantites of chocolate this pm. i think comparisons of any individuals mothering to ourselves are always false. dif people, dif peronalities and dif pressures with dif kids. i compare myself to the mum i want to be – and def wanting in patience and time. and i so so desperately want to do this right. i am time short so need to work out how to effectively communicate with and be communicated with in return by my girls.
thanks jan though, cos i have you in my pantheon of ‘good parents’ though of course comparisons invalid! and if yours are variable communidators, perhaps that is how they are.
in fact, michelle, i was saying to merry how i wish my home ed had a bit more of your spark to it.
truly though, i do think that i am not going at this right, and constructive criticism will be wailed, raged and teeth gnashed over, and then dissected and quite probably implemented with no loss of life, limb or friendship and a huge rise in cadbury’s share prices.
“def wanting in patience and time”
You are possibly the most patient person I know and you give freely and happily more of your time than most mums who don’t even attempt to hold down a part time job let alone a fuill time one. I have never heard either you or Chris yell at your kids whereas I am a very bad shouty mummy who makes it oh, so clear when I am displeased with her behaviour or attitude. (I blogged this weekend a valentines card she made saying I am like an ogre!) I will not play games with her if I don’t want to and only give of myself to things that please me. So she seeks to please.
I also suspect that if we totted up actual contact, attention giving, responding to the child time, you would fare better than me.
Have some love Helen xxxxxx
As above
I don’t think you should have had something for BB also, the point was your pride in SB, she did something well and if you had also given BB something this would have taken away from your pleasure in SB. For me it’s really important that they are each in turn (as and when) rewarded or treated. Clear as mud?
I’m with Ros, the reward/gift/whatever you want to call it was for SB for HER efforts. If you had got something of equal value for BB it would have devalued the gesture hugely. you are a good mum, and I susupect taht when you aren’t full of migrane and work stress you know this but stress does horrid things to how you think.
SB is so eager to please and so loving with BB, I’m sure in time she will get the hang of still being allowed to do things and have things that please her too if you remind her every now and then.
I just want to (is it 7th now?!) what Jan wrote so well.
Try not to be so hard on yourself. From us on the outside looking in, you do a bloody fantastic job.
Sending lots of hugs for a tricky day though. xx
sending hugs – hope you’re feeling a little more upbeat today.
Time doing stuff (I’m discounting playing the daft “sausages” game over lunch when I tried to read the paper) with Clo today = none
I will try to keep a record all week.
Michelle, I might try that with you. I’m sure Helen will knock the spots off us all, full-time job or not!! I definitely err more to your side of the equation!
Helen, if we all had secret CCTV cameras in each other’s homes so we could spy on each other, we would all barely be able to look each other in the face, I’m sure. I’m still amazed that Bill loves me when he knows what I’m really like!
I think BB’s behaviour is just 3-year old stuff – Shannon is exactly the same. Perhaps it just doesn’t register so strongly in my mind because Jade is almost as bad! And that really IS a problem!!! Whereas Shannon does much more genuine ‘sorry’s than Jade ever does.
I honestly truly can think of nothing I’ve seen you do in your parenting that I would criticise you for, Helen, and I wouldn’t say that about everybody!! I only wouldn’t say it to anybody else ‘cos then they might tell me some home truths back and I don’t want to hear them – I’m only too well aware of them already.
It’s easy to be a good mother when all’s going well, and even easier to think that things are going well because you are one! But it’s when times/children are trying that you really get to prove yourself. A few crappy days does not make you a bad parent. How you react to them is the thing. You are constantly thinking about what you do, reviewing your days, working out how to make improvements, etc – that’s what makes you a good parent. IMO.
Erm, is it possible that you are setting yourself very high standards, Helen? I think that sometimes we beat ourselves up for the bad days and don’t acknowledge the good ones enough. What others say is true – everyone has bad days – and bad weeks. Getting over those spells is a challenge for me. And then, suddenly, things are brighter. I often have no idea why!
Speaking personally, I tend not to give something to one and not the other. In my family of origin there were four kids and some felt any such incidents very keenly – and were inclined to keep score! I reckon it’s not worth the risk of feeding latent jealousy, so we try to be scrupulously fair.
thanks guys. i am concerned that the rose tints on those specs may be giving an unrealistic impression of the world of here. however, its lovely that you are all writing. you have all given me a boost.
sausage games count michelle.
and allie, yes, i think i have a tendency to the negative, and poss standards high. but i feel that i actually have no time to get it wrong. i couldn’t bear the, well mum was always at work, and if she was at home it was clear she would rather have been at work epithet [which i nearly did yesterday]
but i am seriously concerned about doing this sib thing and bb thing right [and have on and off worried about it since baggy poopoo christmas]
and i know i am a bit of a middle class navel gazer. but …
I don’t think it does count as I was trying very hard to read the paper and reading bits out to her such as the Many struddle with arithmetic article (so discussed square roots)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article3471167.ece
and the whale defending her babe http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article3470886.ece
It only counts if it’s full and undivided, willingly given attention/time.
I’ll give myself half a point for reading the articles to her – but that was just because I wanted to read them myself and she wanted interaction. So again, interaction was on my terms.
It’s sometimes very hard to tread the line between complacency and beating yourself up. Always beating yourself up might be tempting as it keeps you from being complacent, but the guilt and other bad feelings it produces can actually get in the way of being a good parent. Also it’s so easy to see other people’s happy smiley children and feel bad at you/your children’s imperfections, and bizarrely also easy to shrug off the tantrums etc. of other people’s children as not a big deal (certainly much smaller than those of your own children). Our lot often seem to behave much better when out-and-about than at home, which adds to the distorted perceptions.
Sorry – this sounds patronising when I re-read it, but I can’t think of how to say it better. Hugs sometimes say things much better!
actually bob, that comes over just fine! in fact you have a good track record of writing sensible comments when i blog wobble.