Letter to son early May 2014
Hello Darling,
You crazy, wild, free-spirited wondrous child you. When you were born I thought I could never love more than I loved you but every day, every week, every little thing I learn about you and every new thing you learn and do I love you more and more and more.
Before I became a mum all I heard was "children ruin your life/stop you doing things/wreck your body" and I wonder how anyone could think such things. Sure, parenthood has challenges, but since you were born my life has changed for the better and just keeps getting happier and happier every day. Rather than stopping me doing things, being a parent has opened new doors for me, in blogging, socially, and most important spiritually and mentally. Understanding you and helping you to be the best person you can be is an exciting task, ans one which brings me the reward of pride and amazement in your wonderful self.
A couple of months ago all we seemed to be doing as shouting at each other. I sat back and took a long hard look at myself and realised that I was reverting to the old fashioned parenting method of dominance, and that was making neither of us happy. So, I looked at myself, and saw stresses in my life, and worked on giving myself a small mind break every day, and learned how to meditate properly. I read the parenting puzzle book again, and introduced a more effective reward system for you, building on helping you to be proud of your achievements. We now have a family kindness chart so that we both make efforts to reward ourselves. We have marble jars for big achievements, and a 30 second time out for harmful behaviour such as hitting or shouting. I get time outs too, if I shout, because we need to work as a family to achieve harmony.
It's working as well, within days of the new ideas, we became closer again, the household was less shouty and much more loving. I make effort to listen to you, really listen, and not just make demands. We work out difficulties together, and you take on your responsibilities with pride.
I realised that if I was not dealing well with my own emotions that I could never teach you to effectively deal with yours. I was punished for emotion when I was a child, or told that they were silly, and that is not helpful either. Your anger, your happiness, your fears and worries are very important and I try never ever to ignore them, but instead name them and find a way to help you manage them. It's done me a world of good too, who knew that having a child would be a therapy for me as well.
There's a butterfly house opened near here. When I told you that butterflies scared me you were surprised and amused, so I must have done a good job of hiding this phobia so far. But I really want to take you to the butterfly house so this week I am going to shed enough of this phobia to take you to this big House of Potential Horror (for me). I couldn't do this for anyone else but your own strength and resilience is an inspiration for me so I am going to give it a go.
Another big challenge this year will be running a half marathon. I started running so that I could keep up with you, you being so super fast and a ball of energy and all. Anyways, I got to liking it a bit, then liking it a bit more and think I have fixed my dodgy knee by scooting with you so I'm going to give it a bash anyway and see if I can do a half. Considering I never liked running, and it hurt, and having a baby is supposed to wreck your body, well, I think I've proven to myself that I can do anything, if I try hard enough. Of course my inspiration for everything is you, and if I am struggling, I just think of you saying "go on Mummy, you can do it, anything you want to do you can do it".
You are the kindest, most compassionate, interesting, interested, confident, funny, brave and altogether wonderful person I have ever met. I can honestly say that nobody has ever been as kind to me as you have and you're my drive and inspiration for everything I do.
Some mums go to a class for this, a class for that, a class for another but I am enjoying us both discovering the world together, in freedom, learning and growing and discovering a level of love and happiness that I never thought possible. There's time for clubs and this and that when school starts, and so in the last few precious months before school I want us to relax and learn and build happiness and resilience together, ready for everything that lies ahead.
I love you, my strength, my motivation and my biggest influence. My body is stronger, my mind is clearer and in every way you have made my life richer and more vibrant.
ps...you know I love you, right ;)
your (totally besotted) Mummy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
You crazy, wild, free-spirited wondrous child you. When you were born I thought I could never love more than I loved you but every day, every week, every little thing I learn about you and every new thing you learn and do I love you more and more and more.
Before I became a mum all I heard was "children ruin your life/stop you doing things/wreck your body" and I wonder how anyone could think such things. Sure, parenthood has challenges, but since you were born my life has changed for the better and just keeps getting happier and happier every day. Rather than stopping me doing things, being a parent has opened new doors for me, in blogging, socially, and most important spiritually and mentally. Understanding you and helping you to be the best person you can be is an exciting task, ans one which brings me the reward of pride and amazement in your wonderful self.
A couple of months ago all we seemed to be doing as shouting at each other. I sat back and took a long hard look at myself and realised that I was reverting to the old fashioned parenting method of dominance, and that was making neither of us happy. So, I looked at myself, and saw stresses in my life, and worked on giving myself a small mind break every day, and learned how to meditate properly. I read the parenting puzzle book again, and introduced a more effective reward system for you, building on helping you to be proud of your achievements. We now have a family kindness chart so that we both make efforts to reward ourselves. We have marble jars for big achievements, and a 30 second time out for harmful behaviour such as hitting or shouting. I get time outs too, if I shout, because we need to work as a family to achieve harmony.
It's working as well, within days of the new ideas, we became closer again, the household was less shouty and much more loving. I make effort to listen to you, really listen, and not just make demands. We work out difficulties together, and you take on your responsibilities with pride.
I realised that if I was not dealing well with my own emotions that I could never teach you to effectively deal with yours. I was punished for emotion when I was a child, or told that they were silly, and that is not helpful either. Your anger, your happiness, your fears and worries are very important and I try never ever to ignore them, but instead name them and find a way to help you manage them. It's done me a world of good too, who knew that having a child would be a therapy for me as well.
There's a butterfly house opened near here. When I told you that butterflies scared me you were surprised and amused, so I must have done a good job of hiding this phobia so far. But I really want to take you to the butterfly house so this week I am going to shed enough of this phobia to take you to this big House of Potential Horror (for me). I couldn't do this for anyone else but your own strength and resilience is an inspiration for me so I am going to give it a go.
Another big challenge this year will be running a half marathon. I started running so that I could keep up with you, you being so super fast and a ball of energy and all. Anyways, I got to liking it a bit, then liking it a bit more and think I have fixed my dodgy knee by scooting with you so I'm going to give it a bash anyway and see if I can do a half. Considering I never liked running, and it hurt, and having a baby is supposed to wreck your body, well, I think I've proven to myself that I can do anything, if I try hard enough. Of course my inspiration for everything is you, and if I am struggling, I just think of you saying "go on Mummy, you can do it, anything you want to do you can do it".
You are the kindest, most compassionate, interesting, interested, confident, funny, brave and altogether wonderful person I have ever met. I can honestly say that nobody has ever been as kind to me as you have and you're my drive and inspiration for everything I do.
Some mums go to a class for this, a class for that, a class for another but I am enjoying us both discovering the world together, in freedom, learning and growing and discovering a level of love and happiness that I never thought possible. There's time for clubs and this and that when school starts, and so in the last few precious months before school I want us to relax and learn and build happiness and resilience together, ready for everything that lies ahead.
I love you, my strength, my motivation and my biggest influence. My body is stronger, my mind is clearer and in every way you have made my life richer and more vibrant.
ps...you know I love you, right ;)
your (totally besotted) Mummy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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