So this week has been particularly hectic and actually thought provoking. Yesterday it was #InternationalWomensDay. A couple of years ago I would have frowned on such a day and been cross at the audacity of anyone seeing women any different from men and being silly enough to hold a special day. How wet I would have said. These days I think differently. Not because I think we are better than men. Not because I want any special attention. And not because I've become all 'mumsy' either!
Last week a Mum at the babies' gymnastics class was on her knees she was so tired. She has a two year old she runs round after and a 6 month baby in a sling as she does so. She asked me how I coped with two together and I said in my usual reply "I don't cope, I survive!" Her next reply has bugged me all week: "But you always look great, you have make up on, you look so together all the time, I don't know how you do it." I could tell she was broken and feeling the strain and it saddened me immensely. To think that looking at me that day had dented her own confidence really stung.
Little did she know that make up is my ammunition and always has been and that underneath my 'togetherness' was a tired, equally broken, stressed, busy, frustrated, mentally challenged, physically knackered girl thinking if either baby runs off one more time I think I might scream, drop kick them out the door, or both! I am obviously a 'swan' because if she saw anything serene about me she sure as hell needed to know I was kicking furiously beneath.
So when I saw #InternationalWomensDay, I was compelled to encourage all girls to see swans in all of us other girls around them and that despite what we think they see, we are all kicking and all surviving and are all doing a wonderful job of getting through each day - as a mother or not.
And so then this Sunday it was actually Mother's Day. A day of rest one might have hoped, a day when this particular swan had thought she might stop kicking for a short time, but oh no, as it was my Mum's birthday yesterday, I naively invited my brother and his family for the weekend to celebrate and forgot about my supposed relaxing day off! Instead I had a houseful! Fortunately it was a houseful of my absolute nearest and dearest and I loved every minute.
I've said for years that Mum is greedy every March, always having her birthday so close to Mother's Day and this year there was just two days between them so she was well untruly spoilt!
As ever, around her 5 crazy grandchildren, she lived up to her nickname of 'Mamarazzi' taking loads of photographs of them playing fancy dress and generally being lunatics. Trying to get all five of them to look at the camera at the same time and smile on cue is almost impossible. In fact, when we looked back at the 20 or so shots we took, we proved it pretty much is impossible. The challenge now is which one will "Momma" choose for her birthday photo frame? Which grandchild will be shown with their head down, or gurning, or looking away? Thank goodness they are all too young to notice for now and don't take it personally!
Love family. Love photo keepsakes. Love gurning! x