I have been trying to mentally prepare myself for this break because let’s admit it? Children need entertainment. And so the past few days I have been letting my children make a mess (I was in OCD heart failure can I just say) and explore their skills and well, you know, also make a mess but I’ve been really patient and I haven’t let the lioness within me wake up. You see, my children LOVE playing with absolutely everything and I never deny them their right to be as creative as they want to be. There are times I’m cringing and I know I will most likely have to clean up after them because it takes up more energy to literally beg them to do anything. My 4 year old son has a way of making me feel like I’m at fault for his mess? He has a tactful way of saying, “mummy you will have to help me too”. Yes, that’s right my four old has a way of making me do the work. Do not get me wrong, they really don’t get away with much at home. I am that mother that can listen to my children cry for hours and not give in to their demands but sometimes, my children just ignore me. They completely blank out my emotional speeches regarding caring and sharing and helping. My four year old just walks off really. I do get offended but I pretend I haven’t taken it to heart. Then there are days I’m trying give a motivational speech but I can feel my jaws hurt from all that fake laughing and my throat hurts from the way I’m trying to deliver this oh-so-heartfelt speech. I cringe inside really because I can’t believe it has come to this? I’m sure other mums can relate. Truly you have my sympathy!
I wrote a blog post about Aleena last week and I mentioned how there is another side to this life with Aleena and to Aleena herself. She very conveniently brings out toys which she rarely plays with for 10 minutes. Her concentration on one activity doesn’t last long and the most frustrating part is, she casually leaves the activity saying, “I’m really tired mum, my legs hurt”. How funny that her legs didn’t hurt when she was sprinting around the whole room on her tippy toes dancing just a few minutes ago but sitting down and playing has tired her out? So, during those times the lioness within me does make an entrance and we all know what happens when a mother turns into a lioness – God save the neighbours because even their ears will hurt!
And so I have been really worrying how I will let my children walk all over me while I try to keep my home together. I’ve had OCD since I was a child and usually my habits changed depending on the circumstances and situation during those years. However I have always been a meticulous person and as years have gone on some habits have remained with me. Yes, I love my home to stay in order and have a place for everything but I do sometimes slow down and allow myself to breathe in the chaos. I absolutely love for my children to draw, colour, build things with Lego’s but I avoid things like gluing and sticking, and play doh - the bane of every mother’s life who has a home that is carpeted (although after years of pain I realised cleaning the doh up after it has dried saves a lot of struggle).
Our first day, I prepared my children for a surprise with a rather palpitating heart I must say. I decided that I will let them do a collage. Aleena loves collage and Isam has not really done any so I felt generous and took out my beautiful shiny and glittery (I really hate glitter but I didn’t as a child) scrap papers and cut them into small pieces. I took out the children’s scissors too and arranged the table for them and called them into the dining room. Their little faces were full of smiles and their voices were so exciting and they were giggling and thanking me. I actually didn’t bother wrapping them up in cellophane can you believe? I joke. However if anyone follows me on Instagram or Facebook you will see how I wrap my children while they even eat ice cream – that’s how I help the environment by saving a load of clothes to wash.
We had a great few hours and I was able to leave them in between to complete a few chores around the house because clothes do not wash themselves and dishes do not dry themselves and anyone that says to live a little, well I prefer not having to cram in a million chores when I can plan my time and have lots of time to spend with my children.
After they completed the task they were so eager to help me clean up and so I announced in excitement that they can have a play doh session the next day (I should have waited on that because children do not forget promises but they forget the ones they make everyday). I realised that they were both so content and proceeded on to helping me clear up all the mess and they finished their lunch nicely (I will ignore the mess Aleena makes when she even eats a lolly) and even watched a movie in peace while I ironed and watched with them. They didn’t kill each other all day however I will ignore the fact that Isam's slight touch did make Aleena go, “ooowwwww”, a few times. That’s just a done deal and she’s got into the habit of doing this which is annoying and then other times Isam could be treading all over her and she will be giggling and encouraging him – I am still trying to figure this out myself but I suppose some days they are just typical siblings at war.
We really enjoyed making masks the first day and it just made me realise that allowing such pleasures now and then isn’t so painful. The clearing up is not so bad and I myself studied Art & Design for A'level and they were the most enjoyable years. I will minus the stress out of the equation but those years I was a stressed out teenager/young adult and so I loved getting myself busy and learning various art mediums/media. My favourite was screen printing. It was amazing to see the stencils I created come to life. There was a certain satisfaction and joy in seeing your work come to life.
We had our play doh day today and it was a disaster. I think I secretly threw out some of the play doh tools a while back and so I had to actually show them how to manually make things (we had plasticine in our days so these children have no idea what real kneading and moulding is). Again, I let them get on with it. I closed my eyes and pretended I can only see the good things so it wasn’t so bad and I’ve even gone and promised them some play doh tools if they have a good week. I’ll have to remind myself to not store them in the wheelie bin where it gets collected every week.
I’ve noticed a great change in them in the past two days. The more I nag them to do things and to complete their little chores the more they fight to not do it. The more I tell them that they HAVE to clear up their mess, the more my son especially pretends he can’t hear me. It has made me realise that maybe we haven’t had some relaxing time in a long time. They have picked up on my stress and daily battles with my chronic pain. They’ve seen me literally lay around in pain and cry even when I try to avoid these situations but some days it is unavoidable. Life does get in the way. I probably haven’t let them do some messy play for a long time because of the fear that I’ll have to pick up the mess. Truthfully, I haven’t been a confident mother and I’ve lost myself somewhere in the past two years. Appointments and daily life has taken a front seat and I’ve been trying to manage all that on top of everything else. We always make sure we leave the weekends to go out to the library, visiting family or taking them out to eat but I rarely let them do messy play like gluing and sticking and painting and so I hope I can continue this now that I have faced my fears and realised, it isn’t so bad. That things will fall into place if I am calm and less stressed and so far the past two days have been great.
We hope to do more creative things tomorrow as I have saved some yoghurt pots (I’m going all out, I know ha!) and I have been browsing through Pinterest for ideas. My children will go back to school and tell all their friends what an amazing break they had hopefully and I will feel satisfied that for once I was a fun mother after a long time. We have our share of happy days but lately they have been lacking but I hope we have plenty more of happy moments to come in the future and my chronic painful days will be a distant memory for my children and I. The four of us deserve to have some happy times in our lives. It has been limited in the past two years but here’s to happier days to come and surviving parenthood and if I do not write another blog post regarding positive school breaks, I’ve either eaten my words up or I’ve drowned in all our artwork!
Enjoy some pictures of my children's work.
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