Jay's been working all hours at the moment so I've been solo parenting a lot. Now don't get me wrong I love spending time with my children but not having my tag team partner is really bloody hard.
I feel like I'm letting them down because doing fun things at the weekend by yourself carries guilt that Daddy is missing out, but not doing them means they're missing out. Its a constant battle of keeping everyone happy.
After a pretty awful night with Eva, she's taken a liking to our new bed and has decided she wants to sleep in there with us all of the time and a difficult start to the morning with two children who had apparently gone deaf and had forgotten any manners they had been taught, we decided that we would wrap up and go out for an adventure at some local woodlands.
We had a wonderful time roaming around the woods spotting things, we laughed a lot, made silly jokes and ran around. Fresh air and no rules seem to make the world of difference when it comes to how the children behave.
I'm terrible for constantly worrying what people are thinking of me, judging me as a mother and questioning my actions. I often get told 'you're awfully young to have two children' and admittedly that really hurts. So when a group of older ladies were approaching us they stopped still and were constantly taking a look over to us, I immediately stopped the laughter and started to act more 'appropriate' and shuffled the children along. It wasn't until we were just walking past one of the ladies stopped me and said 'I hope you didn't stop on our account, we were watching how wonderfully you and your children were playing. They look so happy and are a real credit to you, your doing a fantastic job.' I could feel my cheeks burning and a smile was on my face from ear to ear. I felt so incredibly proud of myself and my children.
So thank you to the lovely stranger I met in the woods on Sunday, you have no idea what those simple words did to my self esteem and I will cherish them in my hours of parenting failures. I'm making a promise to my self to not let my worry about others opinions stop me making the best memories for my children.
Here's to acting a fool and laughing too much!
