This year has just been a huge roller coaster of emotions, everything just seemed to happen at once, which has resulted in quite a few teary moments plus many happy ones too. A follower on Instagram recently noticed that I have been a bit ‘quiet’, which was lovely of her to check in. I have been writing this blog post in my head the past few weeks and thought now being the end of school term I should put fingers to keyboard and share with you how I have been feeling of late. You know me, I am a positive person, happy, smiley and to those that know me well vibrant (to those that don’t I maybe a little shy). I like to help people in need, celebrate every occasion I can, birthday’s, successes etc. I keep my home clean and tidy, cook my family delicious dinners, make healthy lunch boxes, keep on top of the dirty laundry. So on the outside I am OK, but emotionally I have been a wreck and when I get like this I just bottle it all up and get really quiet.
image credit – quotesaday.com
I ‘think’ I have stepped off the roller coaster now and found my feet again. We all can’t be perfect supermum’s, so I wanted to write this post to share with you my reality of late and how I have tried to resolve ‘my ride’, which I am sure that many of you can relate too.
My roller coaster ride
My kids started at new school this year. The twins made the move into high school, the school is prep – 12 so we managed to get our youngest a placement into the school as well. The change in school is where my roller coaster ride started.
original image credit unknown
I knew the new school had a different expectation than the last on the kids, so at the end of 2014 the three kids stopped doing karate so they could concentrate on what the new school will give them, looking back now this was certainly the right decision. The twins had started karate when they were 5 and reached their black belts last year at the age of 11, super achievement, my youngest started when she was 4. During the years of karate I made some really lovely friends. Blogging can be quite lonely, sitting at home with nobody to talk to all day while the kids were at school and hubby out at work, so I really cherished my time catching up with the other karate mums and just talking about every day banter. Skipping forward a few weeks after the kids started at their new school and we were getting into routine it hit me how much I was missing the karate mums and how lonely I felt without seeing them so often. Resolution – we have organised our calendars to catch up for lunch once a month and then a kids catch up in between. We also started a private facebook group, where we can openly chat, share our lows, highs and other banter. Things we normally wouldn’t necessarily want to share with the rest of our friends on facebook. I have a few of these groups with different circle of friends, they are fantastic. You can create one for your circle of friends, see how to here.
Between end of school 2014 and start of school 2015 I was so worried and concerned about how I was separating the kids from all their friends. For the twins all their mates were splitting anyways to attend different high schools, but mostly my youngest has a beautiful friendship with her best friend and even though in my head I knew the new school was the right thing for her, taking her away from her friend broke my heart. Resolution – they chat frequently on iMessage and we will make sure they catch up over school holidays.
As I mentioned I knew the school had a high expectation of the kids, and by this I don’t mean just academically I mean with participation in various school activities, homework and more subjects than the kids were used to at their old school. It took us a while to get used to the new school routine, with the kids leaving home between 6.50am -7.30am in the mornings and two or more of the kids not returning home until 5pm most afternoons. Plus they had to do their homework, which for the twins takes at least an hour every night. After the initial first few weeks of such long days I began to worry and had visions of the kids burning out. I got so worried that it had me in tears and I felt physically ill. Reality was the kids were coping fine, at home we had our routine worked out well, dinner was on the table shortly after the kids returned home from school, they checked their school timetable to know what subjects were on the next day and made sure that subjects homework was complete, they packed their bags for sport before bed, woke up, lunches were made and out the door to do it all again with no fuss. It was just me worrying, perhaps I was a little OTT with over thinking. Resolution – I called up a friend and told her that I was a wreck and needed a chat. Needless to say she was going through the same emotions with her son just starting high school too. Talking about it made it not so isolating.
The second week of school I rushed my youngest to emergency, she was having horrible chest pains. After dinner she mentioned her chest was hurting, we sat down and watched some TV, she turned to me with a horrid look on her face, no words, I could tell she was in pain, not excruciating, so I didn’t call an ambulance. I popped her in the car and rushed her to the hospital, I was talking to her the entire ride and was so worried, it was then I realised I should have called the ambulance as you just never know what can happen during that time, all I wanted to do was sit in the back seat and hold her (hubby stayed home with the twins). Thankfully the hospital saw her straight away. She had inflamed chest cartilage, which the doctors couldn’t determine how it was caused. They monitored her for a while and sent her home, but it truly gave me a huge scare. We soon realised it was all caused by her school bag, her back pack was so heavy, walking up a flight of stairs with the backpack at school was just too much on her very small frame. Resolution – we purchased her a backpack on wheels and thankfully her pains have not returned.
Then the blog has given me grief. You all know I love writing and sharing my tips, recipe etc on the blog. So it pained me when shortly after the new year it started playing up, it took weeks for me to work out what was going on. At the end of January during my busy back to school period I had to take the plunge and change hosts, which saw the site down for a few days, I was unable to write blog posts for a full week (which I was just devastated as I had so much to say and share about back to school, it got me into a huge panic and felt very out of my depth, thankfully my tech help Chris came to my rescue, I am so very very grateful). Still a few months on we are smoothing out little teething problems. However I can’t work out why it took me so long to realise that the contact forms on all my sites, the blog and the shops had stopped working since the change over. I have felt sick with worry that all those people who have sent me an email through the form are cursing me or thinking I am so rude for not responding. I also had to put a few plans that I had for a series of blog posts on hold, which mucked up with my schedule. Resolution – unfortunately for the emails there is none, I just have to move forward and apologise if they resend the email (please do if you are reading!!). As for the series I put on hold, I have scheduled this in to start after the school holidays!!
The kids are growing up
Since the beginning of the year all my kids have had their birthdays, the twins are 12 and youngest is 10 (this is Miss 10’s cake below). I have to share a little about the cake with you as I think this is a brilliant concept. It’s a Cake to the Rescue kit, they send you everything you need to create a design you have chosen from their site, all you need is the fresh ingredients such as eggs, butter and milk. The kit includes the baking tray, rolling pin, server, fondant, design template and more, really does make creating a stylish cake super easy. Miss 10 LOVES penguins.
Mr 12 is turning into a young man, and I must say looks so handsome in his new school uniform. The girls have started playing Netball on the weekends, both enjoying it. It is a joy watching the girls play a team sport. Mr 12 hasn’t signed up to anything yet.
They have all transitioned into their new school really well, making friends and keeping on top of their school work. They come home from school happy and look forward to going back. Moving schools was the right choice, I have no regrets.
Being that it has been such a busy and tiring term of school we are dedicating the school holidays to rest and relaxation, having a staycation at home. I am also going to take some time off writing blog posts over the holidays, I have worked really hard these past few weeks to make sure I have posts scheduled in for you to read during this time though. I am really looking forward to some chillaxing with the kids.
Moral of my story
So moral of this story is it’s OK to worry, life is a roller coaster of ups and down, you just need to determine a way to stop it when it’s getting you down, if you allow it to continue it’s not good for your health or sanity. Plus you don’t want me to keep quiet do you!!
It has only been in this past week or so I am feeling my happy normal self again, with many things to look foward to, holidays, our wedding anniversary, gardening, stop my procrastination and start the process to get my kitchen redone, working on a few projects for the blog which is always fun and I think I will try and plan a family holiday away for the June holidays in between.
