Embracing My Inner Child

So as a parent I can recognise that my children Needs certain things. examples of this would be love, touch, safety, food etc.  Children need these things as a bases for growing, for developing into adults.  We expect that a child will learn to sit before they can walk, but that is only a physical example.  We also need to have emotional needs meet while we are young to be able to make the next step.  When my middle child was born, based on bad advice we control cried him (note: self settling being the bullshit cover-up name given to control crying it started being thought of as 'bad', don't be fooled.), it is not something I hide, but I do try to make clear why I went a completely different way with my next child. While my child cried for me to come to him I sat outside his room wishing he would just give up.  Each time he did, each time he eventually stopped crying and usually went to sleep. Each time his stress level shot thought the roof and each time he had the belief, one he was not even old enough to consciously think, reinforced. "I am worthless, not even my mother comes to care for me when I call out to her".  I'm not interested in judging someone who has made this decision, because I have been there myself, so don't hate me for stating how it is. My mother also did this with me, she didn't know the trouble that comes from it, she didn't have the information to base her decision on, the same as myself.   If a baby is control cried s/he does not learn that hir needs will be meet. On a basic level they learn they cannot trust others to look after them.  What a horrible thing to learn in the early months of life.  I learnt what I could about this method and am trying to reverse the effects with my son now. I didn't get that chance as a child (disclaimer, My parents did what they could, so no pooh poohing them at the moment).

I spent much of my child hood with my father depressed (undiagnosed bi-polar) and my mother suffering post-natal depression while continuing to have more children (4 children in under 6 years, plus me).   My childhood is not full of happy memories, this is something I can't change now. What I can do is embrace my inner child. I hold her, rub her hair, sing to her, dance with her, run with her, have fun with her.  Last night was Halloween and I dressed up with her. I dressed up as a vampire, with white make-up, fangs drawn on, and dark purple all around my eyes. I wore a lace skirt with lace leggings and a purple shirt. I got to play make-up with my 8 y/o daughter, who was a witch and had green eye shadow and brown lipstick and was wearing velvet robes. How awesome :D A new memory, and I loved going around in public dressed as something other than myself. I will be doing this for a while to come :D

Embracing my inner child is a lot harder with children as I can't be irresponsible like children are, so I do little things regularly.  Rubbing my hair is a big one, its something I imagine my mother must have done when I was really little. I imagine I'm a little girl, with an adult coming to calm her down after a big day.  While I rest, rubbing my hair I day dream, let my mind wonder away enjoying being jus me in my head.  I love it.

When you see an young parent partying and being generally irresponsible try not to judge them, think about what it must be like to be responsible for an entire living being, when you have not had a chance to be an adult, Ever.

Finding 'Me'

This is an interesting topic for me.  The question "Who am I?" came to me a long time ago and it was easy to answer, I'm a mother.  When you have 3 kids (2 kids, 1 kid, 2500 kids whatever), it's easy to feel that being a mother is ALL you do, it's all you ARE. At least that's how I saw myself, and I'm pretty sure many others are seeing the same thing. So when you have never been single, when you have never been able to make a single decision based solely on what is best for YOU and ONLY you, how do you know who YOU are?  hard question to answer especially if you have no idea, it's pretty hard to see yourself as anything else. 

So what did I do? I got myself an iPod and I downloaded some music, I found my favourite CD's that I had not listened to in years and I played them all over and over, and I started dancing, I would turn all the lights off and ban my husband from entering the room and I danced.  Sometime I would go outside and dance under the moon.  I had not danced free like that since I was a child, and I always felt silly even then. I Danced and I sung and I listened. I discovered I had some favourite bands.  Like What? I had FAVOURITE bands?? how did that happen? but I did. and the more I did this the more confident I got in other things. Something as simple as choosing my own music and dancing by myself made me find myself as someone other than the mother I was.  It was something I could do that in no way effected my children negatively, it didn't effect them if once they were in bed mummy spent an hour dancing. 

From the music and dancing I have discovered a want to do other things I think I will enjoy, I want to learn to play the guitar and go to concerts to hear my favourite band/singer play.  I have so much more to learn about myself, there is so much more to 'Me' than I am close to knowing.

Have I Really Missed That Much?

This post is inspired by a private message I got about this blog by a friend who is going through a similar thing at the moment, finding one self, past being the one single thing you have been for so long.

If you grew-up before you had kids, or have managed to do it since, think back, did you go on holidays? did you go clubbing(that's not, 'did you enjoy clubbing?' by the way cause that's a different question)? did you ever go on a road trip? a weekend away? Did you ever work in a different town to the one you grew-up in? Did you go to university? Did you have loads of sex, with loads of people? Did you fall in love? How many times? The questions go on and on. And not every adult has done everything, I'm not an idiot, I know that, but I didn't do any of these things, some of them I will never get to do, and I'm ok with that.  These are experiences that help us find who we are as an individual.  Once we are all grown-up we get to go and have kids and be great parents, knowing that we love music, or to rock climb, or driving fast cars, or whatever. This is what I'm doing right now, around making school lunches and washing nappies and breastfeeding and brushing hair, I'm finding me.

I'm Cool and Stuff :D

Me!

Jen and Tommy!

My new friend Crystal!

Adam Lambert with Tommy in the background :)

Ok so while deciding to grow-up I thought about what, say uni students get up to, what would I really like to do? I get the idea of going to a concert, but with three kids, one of which was still breastfeeding, a lot, I put it on hold for a while. So I really wanted to go to a concert. I looked around but could not find anything that I wanted to go to, so I started picking some bands I really liked and I 'like'd them on face book. sure enough there is an update, Muse is coming to Australia!! WOOHOO! in December.... I'm like, but that's ages away lol. I did everything I could and managed to get myself a ticket, I am going with my awesome friend! only a week later I find out the tickets to Paramore, who are playing at the Riverstage in Brisbane on are on sale, Eric offers to get one for my birthday if I can find someone to go with. I searched and had everyone who was interested change their mind. I LOVE Paramore, but it looks like I won't be able to go. Weeks later my SIL (sister in law) agrees to come! WOOHOO! 

My birthday rolls around, I go shopping for a skirt and get a short lacy layered one to go over black leggings. from Eric and the kids I get black nail polish, purple All Star Slims and my Paramore ticket and I'm fucking EXCITED! I convince my mum to let my 15 y/o sister come :D I can't wait!! The Sunday rolls around, we forget to organise where we are parking, so park somewhere that means we have to be back at the car at 10pm. I spend the entire night in the mosh pit and I LOVE it! I could not see any of the performance which I am seriously bummed about, and in the end we had to leave before the last song was played to get back to the car on time, but holy crap, how AWESOME are Paramore?1 how AWESOME are concerts?! Being there while one on your favourite band plays some of your favourite songs?!?!? nothing beats that! We swear as we are leaving that if they come back to aus we are seeing them again! 

Only 5 days later Adam Lambert is playing at the Tivoli, the tickets are sold out even before I know who he is. I'm seriously bummed that I will miss it and I look forward to hearing about it from a Facebook friend who is going. The day before the concert she sends me a link, someone is selling their ticket. I freak out, I mean buying a concert ticket of someone you don't know... how stupid. But I want it. So I email her, then we chat on the phone and a few hours later I have deposited the money.  I get the email and my friend prints the ticket. I have my everything crossed that the ticket works, while I buy my glitter hair spray and have the woman at the make-up shop (inglot) show me how to do AWESOME :D Once I'm there we go for a drink and as we are leaving we walk past a really hot guy and I think  "wow that looks like Tommy".... my friend is a bit faster then I am and ends up getting a picture with him! I took it :D what a Spunk that man is!  We get to the Tivoli and my ticket works, IM IN!!!! yay! holy crap I'm about to see Adam Lambert perform! He gets on stage I'm only about 6 rows from the from and he is amazing, the show was amazing. I love every minute. I am still in shock that I got to go! The only complaint I have about this concert was the crowd, what a shit crowd! I'm embarrassed for Brisbane, to tell you the truth. I really hope he comes back so we can show him how we really are!

At each of the concerts I made some new friends, people I will never see again, but that's me isn't it?

So a shout out to Maddy, Marshy, Cory (from Paramore), Evon, David, Crystal, Amy and other dude I don't know the name of!

So this was me, doing something for me, something that benefitted no-one but me, my kids got nothing from me going, my family got nothing from me going, I did it for me.  And. I. Loved. Every. Minute!