Finding and Dividing Time

This year hasn’t been my most productive for writing blog posts. Our youngest, Robin has been the hardest of all of them as a baby and toddler, and with his evening crying about sleeping coinciding with my eldest developing anxiety over bedtimes, plus building work happening on the house, our lives have been pretty full on over the last year.  Having 4 children has made me slow down with my endless busy-ness late into the evenings, and when the house is finally quiet at the end of the day, most evenings all I have been able to do is to collapse on the sofa and enjoy the deafening silence.  It has also meant I’ve had to cut down on any unnecessary activities and obligations (like writing blog posts!) and simplify my life as much as possible.

I have always considered myself very lucky that my first three were pretty straight forward with sleeping as babies.  So being pregnant again with the fourth I felt sure my luck was going to be up and this one was going to be some kind of monster to make up for the other ones! How right I was.  This adorable, moon faced little boy who lit up our family with his arrival in December 2015, managed to turn our lives upside down with endless nights of screaming and pacing with him in our arms (which we still seem to be doing now, 20 months on somehow!), and sometimes made me doubt how much more motherly strength I had left in me.  He has been such a blessing but also such a ratbag.  If Immie (my third) was the angel baby to make me want to do it again, Robin has been the baby to make me (at times) never want to repeat it (no promises though!).

THOSE EYES.

Those moments in the middle of the night where you can’t really see him, when he’s screaming and raging about teething, about sleeping, about being too hot, about wanting to come in our bed, and you feel like you could never love him again.  And then you come and get him in the morning and see this face and all is forgiven.

Part of the reason I convinced myself 4 children was better than 3 was so that Immie would have a little friend.  Having two older brothers were great, but what use are they when they are at school most of the time, and out playing football or building Lego when they are home?!  “It’s all about even numbers” a friend told me once, and I think I agree.  Robin has finally got to an age where he and his sister can play together and watching them make friends has been magic.

Since having Robin, the older boys have obviously had less of my time.  I am constantly juggling with the puzzle of who to give my attention to next; who is highest on the priority list? Robin could be crying, Immie might want me to watch her on the trampoline (at the far end of the garden), Oscar will want me to play football with him and Jack wants me to help him with his homework – all while trying to make the dinner.  WHO YOU DO CHOOSE?!  Obviously, it usually starts with the youngest (and the food prep) and works upwards by age, but I do find I have less and less time to give the older boys, and this is something I often feel guilty about.

But somehow it all works out.  The small moments of quiet when you do have time to spend with them on their own become more special.  It means taking out and sacrificing chunks of “our time” on weekend evenings when the little ones are asleep to do a “movie night” or take them out swimming.  With their bedtimes getting a bit later (and the summer holidays)  the boys have started going out to watch Lance play football.  Lance has also joined Beavers as a leader so he goes to this with them every week.  Making the effort to climb into bed with them and really have a cuddle and talk about their day rather than a rushed kiss and hug good night has also become more important.

If I look back on my own childhood as one of four (second eldest), I don’t remember ever feeling hard done by having younger siblings.  As long as my mum was there when i needed her, being my constant, that was the important thing.  Whether she joined in our games or not was never something I considered as important – this is what I try to remind myself to snuff out that mother’s guilt.

Although the older boys get less of our individual attention for themselves, the balance is also weighed out with the benefits of having another sibling to love and play with.  As much as they find their tantrums and demands on me annoying, they both adore the little ones and Jack especially is often more affectionate with them than he ever is with us.  The boys have got so good at keeping their eyes on them when I can’t, making sure Robin doesn’t get lost in the shops, hasn’t put anything in his mouth or taking felt tip pens away from him before he reaches the sofa…  It fosters a responsibility and awareness of younger children that I think is hard to train in any other way.

Pope John Paul II once said “Love consists of a commitment which limits one’s freedom – it is a giving of the self, and to give oneself means just that: to limit one’s freedom on behalf of another.”  When I think about how little time I find for myself, how much of myself I have to give to my children every day, this quote helps to remind me of the reason why I shouldn’t regret this – it is purely because of how much of love I have in my life.  Love should always involve sacrifice of some kind, and heaven knows, children ask for a lot of those.  At the moment life has evened out a bit – Robin is sleeping a bit better, the children are happily settled into school and nursery, and we have finally found a rhythm in life that works most of the time (finely balanced as it may be): no one is ill or having major sleeping problems, the building has finished and life is steady again.  And so we wait for the next change, the next chapter that God has planned for us.  Until then I will enjoy the air, the sun on my face and the love in my life.

 

Everyday Moments: The School Run

We are lucky enough to live just a mile walk away from school.  So, nearly every morning and afternoon, come rain or shine, with the buggy piled high with bags and with my youngest snuggled inside for his nap we walk (and scoot) the twenty minute journey there and back …

Through having days in the school holidays when I don’t have these trips to do, I have come to realise how much I love them.  Walking at a good pace, with purpose and heart pounding, with the children flying ahead on their scooters, it is often two of the only times when the boys have my full attention.  Although it is often frustrating when they are all arguing over who gets to talk to me next, I appreciate this time when they can talk to me without me being distracted –  finally Mummy isn’t washing up, looking after the little ones, making the dinner etc.  Often these walks are the times when they tell me things that have happened at school that they wouldn’t tell me otherwise, which may be missed if we all bundled into the car and were home in 2 minutes.

The school runs are like the punctuation in my day.  As much as I enjoy having the freedom of not having to do them in the holidays, I really do like the structure they give my day in the term time.  As much as getting out of the house with 4 children by 8.20 nearly kills me on a daily basis, I think I thrive on it really.

So this week I took my camera along with me and documented one of our school run trips in the afternoon.  This seemingly mundane event suddenly holds so much more joy and beauty than you previously imagined, when you capture it through a lens.

I hope the children will remember these morning and afternoon walks as fondly as I will.  As much as they complain when I make us walk in the rain or freezing winds, the benefits we get from the 4 miles we walk every day: from the conversations, the exercise, the way it wakes us up in the morning and then teaches us to persevere when we’re tired and hungry at the end of the day, make it all worth it.  Even if the rest of the day has been disastrous and we have achieved nothing else, at least we have done that.

xxx

 

Being Blessed with Four

“Wow – are they all yours?” – has been the question I have been repeatedly asked by strangers over the last couple of months.  On affirming this fact the most frequent reply is generally – “Gosh – you have your hands full!”…

I do have my hands full.  Although my eldest two (5 and 6) are both in school now, this also means I now need to get all 5 of us fed (and breastfed!), dressed, and out of the house by 8.30 every morning to walk to and from school and then back out again in the afternoon.  The time in between these school runs is spent entertaining my nearly two year old while breastfeeding the new-born.  When the children are all at home with me in the early mornings and afternoons, I spend most of these feeds with the boys on either side of me watching TV (Netflix and Cbeebies have been my saviour over the last few months, I’m afraid to say), and my little girl sitting  on my lap trying to kiss the baby while demanding I read her another book.  She has reached the stage now where she wants to be by my side at all times; I’m lucky if I can sneak off upstairs for more than two minutes during the day, to put away some washing, before she turns around and discovers I’ve gone, my heart sinking as I hear the cries of “Muuuuuummyyyyy! Where aarrrrre you?!” from the living room, as I rush to pair as many socks as I can, before she finds me.

I’ll admit I was kind of dreading the new baby’s arrival – the thought of adding an unpredictable new-born into my life again (which I manage pretty well, but only by having quite a set routine) terrified me.  During the weeks after he was born and while Lance was still home, I’d be pacing up and down a dark room trying to calm a screaming baby while he made the dinner for the children, wondering how earth I would manage a situation like this on my own, when he goes back to work.

I have now survived nearly 3 months of this new way of life  and my response when friends have anxiously asked me “So how are you?!” has been “Surprisingly ok actually!”.  I’d say the best way to describe how I feel at the moment is ‘content’.  On reading the above paragraphs I can imagine that “content” is probably the last thing most people would feel  being faced with what I am doing day in and day out.  And don’t get me wrong – I have certainly had a good few moments of desperation when the house has been a tip, the baby is screaming and won’t go to sleep, the toddler has just been sick all over her cot and all I have been able to muster to make for dinner is plain spaghetti with a fish finger (probably one of my less “content” moments to be honest).  It has taken me a while to work out how I can possibly be feeling like this.

It struck me a week or so ago when I read this brilliant blog post by Jennifer Fulwiller.  In it she describes her slow realisation that actually it is only really through living for others, embracing the hard times as something to offer to God, and throwing ourselves into our “vocation” (if we have found it) that we find true happiness. Being open to what God throws at us; accepting and welcoming every joy, but also every trial, with open arms is the only way to deal with life.  This is something that secular society today (where any pain, suffering, and sacrifice must be avoided, if possible, at all costs) finds hard to understand –  life is based around endlessly scrabbling for more money, more holidays, more clothes, new relationships with new partners, but no one is ever truly satisfied.  Forever waiting for the next stage in life – “when I’ve finally got that promotion…”, “when my children have left home…”, “when I’ve got the new kitchen…” – everything will be better.  As Jennifer so beautifully paraphrases: “what you think is out there, ain’t there!”.  As Christians we are taught and continually reminded to embrace trials, suffering, and pain – to use the lessons we learn from them to be grateful for the goodness we have in our lives, iron out our flaws, and to strive to become better people for the good of others.

Having children is possibly the most perfect way to live out these ideals – as parents we live our lives almost entirely for our children and have to embrace any hardships, or inconveniences that come with it.  Being a mother is my vocation.  Yes, I miss working on some days, but would I give up meeting my children at the school gates every day, so that I can go back to work? Heck no.

I honestly think that the aspects of my faith, which I mention above, have helped me enormously in accepting my life as it is now and to just get on and embrace it.  I’ve made a conscious decision to try to stop waiting for the next stage of their development, when they’ve grown up, and when things will be better and easier.  Instead I am living for the now.  This is it.  Family is what life is all about.  Take the hardships and offer them up to God; use them to develop myself.  I’m surrounded with work that doesn’t give me bonuses, holidays, and a bigger house; but that is real hard graft – often mind bogglingly monotonous, soul sapping and exhausting, and gives me something that nothing else can – maternal love for the four most beautiful, irreplaceable children.  A recent study found that parents with four or more children are the happiest – and I am starting to see why: the more children you have, yes, the more you have to give, but also the more you receive. It’s as if every child gives you a 100% pay rise.

Last week was half term – I had been dreading it, as it was going to be the first real length of time that I would spend on my own with all the children.  I was surprised at how smoothly the week went and on the Friday decided to take the children to a playground in Oxford and then visit a café that they enjoy afterwards.  After being surprised at how well my week had gone, the idea to take two small children, a toddler, and a new-born baby to a café, alone, for lunch, was likely born out of over confidence in myself.  It ended with me breastfeeding a screaming baby whilst trying to manage an overtired toddler, who refused to eat her food, was only happy standing in her high chair, and sloshing my hot coffee with a teaspoon whilst crying.  I then realised I didn’t have a muslin cloth with me, so had to try and catch the inevitable baby sick with a stack of tiny square napkins.  I stood in the café with sick dripping down my back, two boys asking for a wee and the toddler crying to go home to bed, looking mournfully at my untouched coffee and I could have sat down and cried right there.  We finally left (much to the relief of the table behind us, who were apparently having a very important business meeting), and I was stopped by a lady outside who looked at all of the children and asked “Wow – are they all yours?!”.  I sighed exasperatedly at the question, expecting the stock responses I usually received, and replied to the affirmative…

“Gosh, you’re so blessed!” she replied.

I was so taken aback by her reply that I stumbled a ‘Umm, yes…thank you!’ and carried on walking. It took a while for what she had said to sink in and I now wish I had run back and given her a hug.  It was like God had shone his light down on me right there, in the midst of my turmoil, and reminded how lucky I am.  Her reply has stayed with me ever since and I don’t think I will ever forget it, where ever my life goes from here.

 Yes.  Yes, I am blessed.

Thank you God.

 Happy mother’s day everyone…

x