Tag Archives: #parenting

LOVE

I would say that this is surely the most written and sung about subject in the entire existence of humanity. “Love”, such a short word that encompasses a plethora of emotions. All of which equate to, or are, the result of being in, feeling, receiving and giving love

LOVE – even has three meanings in the dictionary

1 – an intense feeling of deep affection.

2 – a great interest and pleasure in something.

3 – a person or thing that one loves.

The topic is huge, the breakdown of emotional and physical response of the word could take me weeks to discover each delicate strand that coils around to make the rope that curls around a heart. The heart, the organ that sustains life and is continuous in its persistence to keep us alive and to experience LOVE.

There is a wealth of love types, a love of a friend, dog, parents, partner, things, nature, life.

Yet I want to talk about the purest of love, the mothers love for a child. A love physically born from you. A love that shares your DNA, a love you carried inside for 9 long months, unbeknownst at that moment to be the most powerful love of all, a love you fed from your body. It is an untarnished, unquestionable love. I sadly do not have the super powered intelligence or breadth of vocabulary to explain it, but I will try.

When I look at my child it is like two warm soft hands are grasping my heart, crushing me so hard that the air from my lungs have been ripped away by a warm, persistent current. It’s like the sun caressing me on a slightly chilly day, illuminating each cell in my body and making them vibrate in harmony. When I look at my children’s faces, hold their hands, smell their hair, feel their soft cheek against mine as they whisper “mummy I love you” love pulsates out of me and covers them in a nurturing blanket. A blanket that will always wrap around them, ensuring they know I will always love them. It is infallible, unbreakable, a titanium tower of surety that I will always be there to care, with arms and heart wide open. I am theirs and no one else’s. Yes, I love Kieron my husband deeply, but that love can change with the day, the year, the person and circumstances, it is not necessarily forever, as much as I hope it will be.

But with a child, through life and death it is there, tangible, visible, like a light flickering across water, a shooting star in the sky, a firefly dancing through a forest, it lights up all the dark corners and glows. It illuminates kindness, dreams, hopes, emotions and needs. It is powerful, constant, suffocating, it consumes all who come within its radius and breathes life into you. Once you have inhaled that love, without it you will surely drown. I would die for that love, I would place myself in front of my child and take whatever life hurls at me, I am their shield, their knight, their champion. FOREVER.

A mother’s love is the strongest of all loves

Love Kelly, A Mother of Dragons.

Tis the most wonderful time…..

OF THE YEAR…. If I sing loud enough will this make it true? PLEASE MAKE IT TRUE…

Hummm Christmas. Sits as a conundrum in my mind. A time of magic, fairy lights, stories, family, a fat jolly man and fantasies.

I still see Christmas through my child eyes, I dreamed of Victorian London, Carol singers, Father Christmas appearing down a chimney, elves, reindeer, Rudolph and brightly colored presents piling under a tree, that was so beautiful it used to make my heart flutter with excitement.

Christmas could stop right there for me as a child, when the magic was still tangible, and I could smell excitement in the air. As soon as that first present was opened Christmas was dead, the magical bubble POPPED.

Then came Christmas as a mother! First up, ALL MOTHERS OUT THERE, I SEE YOU, I see the magic you weave, the unseen grind you commit to from Halloween to Christmas its a full time job of……. FUCKING doing EVERYTHING which no one fucking really sees.

DEEP BREATH here goes

Costume making, candy buying, present wrapping, cooking, cooking, cooking, cleaning, cleaning, laundry, laundry, cooking, navigating family tantrums, family feuds, kid hyperactivity, kid meltdown, kid fighting (my boys go from Lord of the Flies, to Kill Bill then finish up with the Hunger Games), present wrapping, travel, travel organizing, packing, school plays, school carnivals, school parades, activities, kids party x 20000..

Mothers drowning under expectation, suffocating in the false Joy you emit as you sweat holding the 2nd turkey of the year and bring it to the table, which NO ONE EATS. Lets not forget the cards you create, mail, trying not to forget the random uncle who lives in the Outer Hebrides. Next on top of family gifts we have, teachers gifts, breakfasts, thank you notes. The list is endless… I make lists for lists, it is all about survival by the third Thursday in November.

Now multiple all of the above by 3, I have 3 kids, this is three of everything. EVERYTHING !!!!

Mamas of multiples – I SEE YOU.

Coping strategies equate to, but are not limited to….

Running away / drinking / drinking / hiding in cupboards (oh drinking) / Valium and drinking / hiring help if rich / running away if poor / screaming /learning to box / Running away / sitting in the car (hiding) / doing puzzles in the cupboard / changing idendity.

I want to love Christmas, but I’m too tired to even try.

T I R E D

Tired is a feeling I know well. From a very early age, It has been a significant safety net in a world that has always felt a little too fast, a little too loud and a little too busy to me. However, over the years I have become sloppy with my wanton usage of the word “tired”….

The conversation being…

“Hey are you ok? yes, I am just a bit tired!”

Now just change that word, the word “tired”, that innocuous, innocent 5 letter word to reflect its excuse to my real meaning. We then could replace tired with a multitude of hidden feelings that I am not quite ready to share…

Sad / angry / annoyed / scared / bored / uninterested

It is also my blatant lame attempt to avoid, confrontation / talking / expressing feelings / facing truths / doing something I do not want to / avoiding sex / avoiding physical activities that bore or scare me.

It’s true meaning is….

TIRED – in need of sleep or rest; weary.

an anagram of ..

TRIED – found good, faithful, or trustworthy through experience or testing

Yet, 50% of the time when I say I am tired I am not “found good, faithful or trustworthy”. I am lying through a façade of sleepiness to avoid revealing the real thing that has me off center.

I am not entirely sure when I started to do this. I mean, do not get me wrong I do experience true exhaustion daily. I am a mother of three boys, and I am running after them, on top of running just shy of 60 miles a week. No I do not take naps, there truly is no time, so in reality, YES I am pretty knackered. I daily would love to lie down and stay very still, but no, instead in my world I am putting on ANOTHER WASH!!!!!

So when I say I am tired as an answer to a question, I truly may be tired, or failing that I just do not want to talk to you.

Love Kelly – so so tired – Mother of Three.

Hey, I’m not stupid! Says the mother…..

I was listening to a podcast today and they were discussing, how no one ever recognizes raising kids, or being a carer as a full time job. That it should be celebrated, appreciated and quantified in value. Yet, I am not writing this piece from the stand point of “hey look at how hard this job is”, or how much work I do, everyday, all day and night. As a parent you also do the night shift. Check me out – I am a warrior against bad dreams and bed wetting.

What I want to share is the silent shame that seems to be woven intrinsically into being a full time mum. At age 32 I became pregnant with my first child, at the time I was a project manager for a media company. I am also a 2:1 graduate with a Sports Science Degree, and have been a top 10% student for my whole schooling career. In the past I have been a fashion buyer for department stores and Levi’s Europe, an assistant Pastry Chef, blogger and recruiter.

BUT as soon as that wiggly single sperm fertilized that big ass mama egg, I became a “mother”. On a dime I decided to give up work, and work hard at being a mum. In that single moment all my education, and my entire career just faded away. From then on, all people would see, was a disheveled woman with kids!!! With snot on her shoulder and a small, dirty handprint on her thigh. All they can see is a bearer of screaming infants, and not the intelligent being that lays dormant beneath. I basically became a walking womb! A person who could not do both, who could not parent and hold down a paid job simultaneously. DO not get me wrong I tried to do both, but I crumbled, I was up working at 5 am and starting again at 9 pm and trying to parent in between. I could not do either job well, and I was failing miserably.

Today I cried when I heard that podcast, because, I do feel like life has kind of passed me by when it comes to work. I am a 44 year old mother of 3. Seriously no one wants me, when you read the numbers. When people cast their eyes in my direction and look me up and down, I want to scream, “PLEASE see me, I am smart, I have ideas, I can create and be creative, Hey hey hey I can still do mental arithmetic in my head, go on, go on, test me.

Yet, why? Why do I feel like I need to hang my head as I mumble, yes I am a full time mum, full time care giver. Is it my own internal shame of working failure, or did society create this. “Oh you don’t work”??? What you settled into the homemaker role, what a cop out. “Dumb bitch” !!! I am not going to sit here and list all the shit I do every day. The continuous work I do as a parent of three. I hold my hand up high, yes I took the role willingly, but that does not make me unintelligent, so why do I have this driving need to make sure people know I have a brain

I will admit at times I feel so unbelievably lost. A languishing amoeba floating in a sea of meal planning, bed making, wound cleaning and ferrying small humans around. Yes I am single cell creature fighting to be more. Yet life right now just doesn’t see me, I am an aging shadow that no longer has the time to be fleshed out.

What do I want to be when I grow up? I still want to be an architect, a painter, an antiques buyer, museum curator, a historian, a writer, a sneaker designer, a run shoe tester, a gallery curator, a merchandiser…….

I still have work dreams. However, as a sit up at 2 am cradling a small frightened child on my lap, stroking his hair and telling him mummy loves him, I do know I have the right job. I was made to be a boy mum, a strong mum, a fair mum, a loving mum, a mum who will always be there….. To pick you up, take you to the dentist, to hold your hand, to take you to the zoo, to rush you to hospital, to clean a bloody knee, to make you pancakes in the morning, to bring a forgotten lunch, to see your first steps, your first smile, to hear the words mama first, to have your warm arms around my neck and your face buried in my hair, just loving you. I was made to love you.

Yes, that may not tell the world my IQ, but that makes me amazing to them, to the little people I created. It grants me the time to watch them blossom and grow, forge their own path. AND that is why I gave up work, I gave up so I could be everything to my children. AND I must stop feeling guilty about that.

That is who I am and will always be, a mama, a mother, a mum, their mom, mummy…

Love ME

BOYS BOYS BOYS

“Make sure you raise your boys right!”

OK? What does that even mean? What is exactly “right”?

To be kind / clear up their plates / not be an abuser / give to charity / not drink to excess / learn to cook a three course meal / to not touch small children inappropriately / to not be a racist / help the elderly with their shopping. Clearly “all of the above”, yes?

What exactly do you mean? Please clarify.

As a mother of three strong, independent, loving, smart, athletic, caring, sensitive, creative boys, over the years I have either read or have been told the above sentence multiple times, always from the mothers of all girls. Every time I smile with a grimace, nod my head mechanically and secretly want to come back with “well please can you do a good job with your girls” .

What you mean to say is please make sure your son, is not an alcoholic, chauvinistic, wife beating, raping , pedophile, Correct, is that what you want to say to me over coffee?

The thing that shocks me is that, in today’s modern society, apparently all men are born bad. That unbeknownst to them, my boys have been placed in a :”box” before they have even had their first wet dream, I mean who knows, blimey they could be homosexual, would that then make it all ok?

The thing that hurts most is, I am a female, and as a woman, I want to be treated equally, kindly, with love, to not be raped, abused, beaten or touched inappropriately. Like many, I have not escaped all scenarios, and I am a product of some very unfortunate moments when a man did bad things to me. So, please excuse me while I damn well make sure my beautifully caring boys are raised to treat women as their equal. I also have taught my boys, that none of the above sentence is OK to happen to them either. That none of the above is acceptable to happen to them AT ALL! They too are worthy of love, kindness, and to be treated equally. They are the good guys too.

Firstly, let me say OUT LOUD, that my husband and I love them with every part of our souls, my kids know they are loved and are worthy of unconditional love.

We are teaching them –

Everyone has feelings. That kindness above all things will get them far in the world. To love with passion. That other peoples feelings should be respected, but do not have to be taken if inappropriate. That NO means NO in all aspects, for them and for others.

We are also working on the idea women are different anatomically but equal. That women are the bearers of life and that is pretty damn magical. What is more, a small boy needs to know that his mama carried him for 9 months, she fed him from her body, she kept, and will always keep him safe. Your mama made you.

What do you mean “raise them right” ?

I AM , I do not need anyone judging my small child or me, before he has even developed his own feelings, thoughts, likes and dislikes. You have judged my son because he has a penis, because he is male. Men are not the bad guys, society is, poverty is, the government is, a failed system is. “THEY are not born EVIL” All children are born GOOD, clean, wholesome and pure. We were all children once. Please remember that.

As parents we all have a responsibility to our children to be the best parents that we can be. To nurture, support, listen to and love them. Please, stop making my boy start his life on the back foot, constantly trying to prove he is worthy of the sex he was given. He is worthy, he is human, he has feelings, he has fears, he is a child

So, in answer to this ambiguous phrase, YES he will be raised “right” because, to receive kindness, love, compassion, help, you too must give, you must listen and be listened too. As absolutely no one should ever be put in a box, and told who they are, before they have even be able to make a choice.

My boys are good and a penis doesn’t change that. Choices do.

Love “a mother of boys”

Not “Another” Mother runner!

As a mother and a runner, there is something really damn annoying about the title of “mother runner”! It is an over used rhyme, for runners who happen to be mothers. To be a runner and a mother are actually two very separate things for me. Both elements / roles are extremely important, commanding equal positioning in the genetic fabric of my soul, my being, my sanity.

Each have single handedly created a very resilient human being, blossoming from my core. Each have taught me love, deep deep happiness, a sense of order, and a sense of relief. In equal measures they have also driven me bat shit crazy and forced me to look at the reality of my failure. Of missing expectations and grounding myself in the limitations of my “Now”! Not that this has to be continuous, but it grants me the time and space to sit in the moment and to feel, taste, tangibly experience loss and pain, in a safe and controlled way.

Motherhood has been my making, yet, so has running. However, they are not part of the same thing, they are not joined or rhymed or even belong together. But they can flow in harmony, rubbing together with a slight friction that creates the “spark” that is my drive and superhuman powers to dig in and welcome the ability to feel extremely uncomfortable in wilding emotions and pain for long, excruciatingly long periods of time.

Although the Mother runner phrase is ridiculously over used, and even slapped across tee shirts, to be a mother and a runner with goals makes me an outlier, an outsider, a juggler. I cannot make the 7am run or the 8am run, I cannot take naps after a 60 mile week, I like many run on a perpetual empty, I cannot stay and chat, I have to run, pack up and haul ass back to the fold of wild boys, school, runs, packed lunches and activities. PTO commitments, work, dinner planning, shopping, washing, cleaning, folding, doctors appointments. I work fucking hard in my over scheduled life to carve out a daily 1-2 hour slot to run, to train and to not impact my home life. That does not make me a mother runner, but a “Mutha Fucking Runner!”

But, there are others, other mothers running in those twilight hours, alone and dedicated. Other Mother fucking Runners” all juggling, all exhausted, all so badass and dedicated to managing time to have the ability to leave, alone. Propelling ourselves forward, stride after stride. Stride, arm swing, breath, sweat, inhale, exhale – repeat over and over and over again. We run together at 5am pushing each other with a strength and understanding no one else can provide. We hold each other up and listen in those dark morning hours, just waiting for the sunrise to peek above the horizon, beckoning, calling us home. As the light hits the trees we crouch in tiny groups stretching, pulling off sneakers, guzzling water, moving inwards, shedding our runner skin as the mother once again returns, all business as she kisses small children awake, drinks coffee, busying whilst listening for the waffles to pop.

Wake up children! The Mother has returned.

Shadow Runner

The darkness is my running partner, more so now I am forced to be solitary in my stride. I do not hate it, I am very comfortable with my company, we laugh at the same jokes and run at the same pace, so it is perfection. However, it is not unusual for me to run in the unlight of the morn! I am a mother of three small boys and I need to get up and run before the kids open their sleep crusted eyelids and stretch their gangly arms towards dawns first light.

It is my ritual, it is my thing and I adore every dusky edged moment of it. As I steal through the house at 4.30 am, silently yanking on shorts, sports bra, socks, wrist band, hair band, headlamp, HR monitor and FINALLY the “piste de resistance”, my sneakers. To aid in my stealth I lay them all out the night before, clean, in order, ready! I double check what run I have and then choose the run sneaker to match, comfy Saucony ISO 2, 4mm drop for steady and easy, Saucony Kinvara, 4 mm drop , for tempo or intervals and then my Saucony type A9, 4mm for the track or a race. By the way I like Saucony incase you were not sure, well better then that, my feet and ankles really like them.

Faced scrubbed, coffee chugged, “bathroom”, teeth brushed, bed hair clipped back, I grab my hand held bottle and steal out into the gloom.

Stepping into the sepia of a fading night, the blackness and humidity envelopes my already sweating body (I am a Florida flatlander), shielding me from danger. The dim beam of my lamp fights its way through the night, scrabbling to light a safe path for my pounding feet, rhythmic body flow and steady breath as I strike out in time to the beating crickets and hiss of sprinklers.

A hushed calm floats over me, shushing jangled nerves and a busy mind in to silence. Foot plants, arm swings, breath rushes, foot plants, arm swings, breath rushes, again and again, over and over, my morning meditation propelling me deeper and deeper into the waking morning. A grey light starts to warm the sky, subtle reds, pinks, oranges and gold start to paint the sky, the tips of trees and roofs of a slumbering world.

Feet are still ticking over, perspiration running in rivulets down my back, across my face, I rub it out of my eyes, breath rushes in breath rushes out. Birds get busy, softly chirping with the breaking sky as it brightens. The moon softly, slides across the horizon to hide behind a cloud, the birds noise builds and builds, a mounting crescendo of song. Whipping around me, pushing me, driving me like a spectre from the confines of the night in to the day. Losing the phantom, joining my flesh and bone body.

Arms swing forward, arms drive back, chasing the night as she slips away. Shadows are sucked out from the base of trees and stretch to the soaring sun. She climbs higher and higher, the birds oh the birds are so loud, I run faster and faster, heart pounding as each mile passes, like a vampire I yearn for the night, sprinting home. Strike, swing, breath, the momentum, the motion is now a blur, I am almost there, muscles screaming for oxygen, but there is nothing left, depleted, spent. The front door looms, I slow, I stop, head hanging like a weeping willow tree, bowing humbly to the sunrise, my sweat glistens in its newborn glow. I lie down, hair plastered across my brow, the twilight is gone and I am stranded. Left to recover on the concrete, dragging air in and forcing it out, slowing my heart, relishing the stillness, the mild ache of my body as it rests from the pain.

I am still, I am awake, I am a shadow, I am a runner.

Minutes pass, I ease myself up off the warming side walk, drag in a slug of water and open the door, ready to hit the fray of my day.

I close it quietly and begin.

Love, Shadow runner.

Mrs. Home “not” fooling anyone!

I would like to introduce you to Mrs. I have No Bloody Idea, a shit show of an educator, a human thrust in to the limelight to teach her children for the foreseeable future.

Her skills lie in baking, science, writing amusing self depreciation blogs, headstands and running long distances. She knows her multiplication facts and is pretty good at percentages. Her laundry skills are shite, but her cooking is pretty good.oh and she knows all the words to the opening scene in Macbeth and all of the Sound of Music.

Which is pretty apt in the current climate

“When shall we three meet again?

In thunder lightening or in rain?

When the hurly burleys done,

When the battles lost and won, that ere will be the set of sun…….. ”

From this very small base she now has to teach a 5 / 8 and 10 year old (who is already way smarter than she)

I would like to apologize to all my children’s teachers for the fuck ups I will make. But know they are loved, safe, brushing their teeth and can cook a mean banana bread 😂

Drowning in Motherhood 2020

I would like to caveat, that no I will not be ending my life anytime soon. Some days as a parent I just cannot keep up with the demands of being a mother of three small dragons (boys), of being a wife and then meticulously making sure I have time for me. This post was borne from a day when I felt like I just could not keep up.

Drowning in life! An oxymoronic phrase? Not just my life, but the life of my kids, my husband’s life and even the darn cat. Scrabbling to hit all the bases, these lives throw at me and always missing the mark. Treading water and slipping under, allowing the water to slowly seep in, fill my lungs and pull me deeper into the depths of a sweet, dark, silent oblivion.
A world of gentle nothingness. No laundry to be done, no “healthy” dinners to be made, no cleaning to get to, or beds to be changed, no first job or second job to create time for or not fail at, yet excel at and then off to mop and care for my sickened child. Pay bills, change the car oil, activities to sign for, pay for, get to. ALWAYS running late, never on time. With the last-minute shoe searches of three young boys, hanging like shackles on our ankles dragging us back, never on time.
Activities! The dictator of my day, ruling my life with its iron fist. Where each activity cannot comprehend that your kid may do another (god forbid your loyalties are split). Or you have more than 2 kids, each an individual and each wanting to do something uniquely theirs. We have homework, school trips, lunches to be made (uhum they must be healthy or be classed as the shit mum with the unhealthy kid). Snacks to remember, water bottles to be filled, sort clothes into piles that need to be scrubbed and bodies to be bathed. Because, boys seem to be perpetually dirty or covered in a bodily fluid of some sort.
Then there is ME. I must remember me! I want to run and run daily. Running is what keeps me calm and happy. But, sadly this is just another weight tied to my ankles dragging me further into the silt of not enough hours, dark dreams and no air to be found. With a sickly glow of light filtering through the watery murkiness of my fears, that ……
I am not enough.
I will never be enough.
I am failing.
I can never be the person that the life I have created needs me to be.
I am lying in the depths of failure and wishing I could breathe.

Signed – Motherhood 2020

Summer, break every part of me.

Let me start with a very honest caveat to this article. I Kelly Krystina love my children with every fiber in my body. Yet, that does not mean I always like them. Truth.

As Philip Larkin rightly said :-

“They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.”

So clearly there is no hope that I will actually create a better, kinder version of myself. I may as well stop beating myself up, when my kid farts at the dinner table and laughs and I crack up in hysterics internally under my stern facade and, ” please do not be so rude, young man”.

I was not born to be a mother, it is not my forte or natural talent. Yes, I work damn hard at being the best version of a mother I can be, but no I am not the “chosen” one, it was never on my list of career paths. Fashion Buyer, yes, Travel Writer, yes, Architect, yes, Mother – um nope. My forte of dreams are international travel, coffee drinking, running and people watching. For example, right now I would particularly like to spend 3 days in the snow tipped mountains of Colorado, trail running every day, interspersed with fine wine drinking in exclusive vineyards and floating in natural pools totally alone.

As a family we bob alone on the sea that is school, work and after school activities and then out of no where along comes summer break. Fist pump, yes, no schedules, no early mornings, no packing lunches… WHOOP, here we come fun adventures and vacations to strange places. I dream of idling on the beach watching my beautiful boys build elaborate sandcastles and splashing in the sea.

UM NO F ING way, are you delusional? BOOM, lets start with ocean water drownings, sand rammed into eyes and rugby tackling into the surf is what I contend with, snacks dropped in to the water, (clearly all my fault as I am now their resident snack bitch). Heart broken tears when they do not get the (insert beach toy description or brightly coloured confectionery snack here). Therefore, summer has me like – shit I have birthed three, mini, ungrateful ass holes. At least one of them is my mini me GULP. Summer is grinding me down to the point, where I don’t want to parent the crying, the fights (I am really a referee and not a parent) the eternal eye rolling, continue with the constant food prep, the tidying, the keeping them entertained, safe, off electronics. I do, just want to close my eyes for a few seconds, hopefully no one will die and wish for a small moment that they may disappear for an hour or two and I can lie down with a book or take a pee and not have to break mid stream, pull up my knickers and bolt towards the blood curdling scream emitting from a child being pummeled by his sibling or the fact he cannot find (insert random toy here). I mean WTF – you mean that broken plastic toy you have not touched for months.

I don’t want to deal with their ass holeness, when I need to work on my inner ass hole and man she looms large some days, Yes I have walked silently behind my wonderful  small child flicking the double V sign and no it is not for peace, maybe peace out, as he berates me, with his smart talking mouth of how unfair I am and life is, that he cannot have a play date this second with his friend I have never met, let alone the parents. I just do not have the capacity to deal with a double dosage of the ass… At that point it is all about survival until 7.30pm and I can put them to bed. Or myself 🙂

Older people say let them get bored oh and I do, but unless my three boys are given a constructive physical activity, they will just run wild around the house like Genghis Khan heading into battle or they wrestle over every item of furniture they can find, imagine the noise and destruction, please imagine that. Mind Blown BOOM. Each day is a re enactment of “Lord of the Flies” and each day I wonder so who will be Piggie today?Occasionally, they play quietly, but they are boys they need to move and letting them run out and play in the streets on the afternoon of a 95F Florida summers day, well that lasts all of 5 minutes and they can only be in the pool for so long before someone attempts a back flip in the shallow end. NOT COOL – I scream in horror as I pour myself a large drink and turn on another kid friendly movie. PEACE.

Yes I agree Summer, is fun and truly it is, but oh its distressingly hard, to the point where I cannot decide if I love or dislike those hot summer days of supposed freedom and carefree fun?

I’ll let you know once these 10 weeks are up, probably from a padded cell in the local mental asylum. 🙂