I’m tired. But good. How are you? This post is a round up of other people’s posts and my take, perspective, opinion and experiences relating to them….
First up, I’ve got to share this with you – it’s a great post about knowing how lucky we are to be parents, but also, would they please just go to sleep? It’s got a fair few more effs and jeffs in it, but it’s true. All of it. With the jeffs. And effs. This is the full link: http://boganette.me/2015/03/02/i-am-grateful-and/
Second, a dear friend has also written a post about saying goodbye to some of her favourite friends – biscuits, snacks and treats. I’m in the process of doing the same thing. And whilst it’s having the desired outcomes in terms of me shrinking, it’s also leaving a gaping hole. I’m sad that I don’t want to eat chocolate but don’t know what I want to eat instead. Here’s my friend’s post on this… http://www.mummybarrow.com/goodbye/
I’m sad that I don’t want to eat, but want something to give me the good feeling that I got previously from eating chocolate. I’m using some of the mindfulness techniques that I learnt from the introduction to it at CamYoga, but it’s not making it better. I think time will do that, so it’s up to me to self care in the meantime.
Third, I want to comment on the radio piece I did this morning for the BBC – half asleep – because the woke me up after pulling a late night of working for a client. The irony of it isn’t lost on me. The interview was about work life balance – a phrase that covers so many scenarios, working relationships and balances for lots of families. But that conversation has been done, several times. What’s not been “done enough”, is the fact that whether it’s a man or a woman at home with children, it’s still work. The very act of being at home – nurturing, caring, cleaning, educating, playing, growing and facilitating the development of a small person. That’s all work. It’s a lot of work.
And it’s work before you add in the household labour that lots of parents do, as well as working to care for their child / children. So to say that a woman is not working, because she’s not working in a job being paid by someone else, or working to earn money in her own business, or anything like that, it’s just not true. It’s not a real reflection of what work is. So, lets not even debate or discuss anything to do with why the numbers are changing so much. Maybe we could focus instead, on why we aren’t counting women and men parenting their children, full time, as being work.
And fourth, penultimately, I want to publicly be grateful for the swimming pool that’s near our house. It’s not glamorous, it’s not high tech – it’s low tech. It has cold changing rooms. But it’s 13.00 a month to swim as many times as I want to. And I’m making the most of it. Swimming is a release. I love it. There’s no post around this. It’s just me putting it out there.
And fifth – finally. World Book Day is in just over 24 hours. I know that there are lots of parents out there who will be going to town on this. And that’s great. If you enjoy it, go for it. But please don’t gloat or sneer when there are parents who are not going hell for leather for it. Because I’m not one of those parents who is hand crafting something for my boys. They are not keen on the idea of dressing up at school in the first place. I can tell you now, that I’ll be doing whatever I can to get bigger bear to be Steve Bakshall as it’s doable. I’ll be coercing smaller bear into the knight’s costume – to be the hero from Beast Quest. If you’re looking to do more, that’s fine. But don’t forget why we’re doing it – to celebrate and cultivate a love of books. I was reminded of this reading something that Dr Amanda Gummer from the Fundamentally Children team wrote last year. Have a look… http://www.fundamentallychildren.com/2014/03/06/world-book-day/
Naff it, I’m going to share one more thing – I wrote a post recently for work – about how things work at Weston Communications. It’s had a lot of attention and people have sent me really good emails with how we can add more to it and also, how much they appreciated the honesty. I am thinking of doing one for our house and all things Team Weston. What do you think I need to include in it? Here’s the long link if you’ve not already read it…. http://westoncomms.com/2015/02/weston-communications-social-media-at-work/
Here’s to being Hammock Happy….
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