I’ve been a parent for 5 and a half years so I am by no means a veteran. However, they have been a very busy and eventful 5.5 years, so have offered many a lesson on parenting tiny humans. I have also been listening a lot to parenting podcasts such as Motherkind and The Therapy Edit, which have both taught me so much about the realities, joys and challenges of being a parent, and how to look after myself in them. Now, I do not claim to be an expert in anything and also one of my children is autistic and the others are twins, which both lend to a rather intense experience of motherhood. My path likely looks different to yours. So this is not guidance or advice, just some things I have learned personally. Also, I do not do these things all the time, but I’m trying to do them more of the time. Take or leave what you will!

Get playful: This works better with the twins than with C at the moment, but I do remember when C was younger it was often playfulness that got him engaged or at least distracted him for a while from what ailed him (if I felt that was the appropriate thing to do). Things like pretending to put the girls’ pyjamas on ourselves to convince them to get dressed, joining in with their silliness when they’re not listening or pretending to forget the names of toys. Sam is especially good at this and is brilliant at playing dumb, which B and L find hilarious. This not only makes the experience more fun for them, we find it often encourages compliance and we get more out of it too!

Be their calm: a lot of the time when either of the children are having a tantrum/meltdown/”emotion explosion” as we call them, it’s a case of waiting it out. So I will sit down next to them, as close as they’ll let me, and offer a hug for when they’re ready. It can be so hard when someone is yelling at you not to respond in kind, but I’ve learned through experience and podcasts that children are simply not able to control their emotions, so cannot calm down without our help. So I will take many deep breaths and keep my voice low and quiet to hopefully radiate the calm they need. We are constantly dealing with emotion regulation in this house, and the thing we’ve found to be the most impactful is learning to control our own emotions first.

Being a parent is hard work: not to be a doomsayer, but it is. Dr Rick Hanson, when speaking on the Motherkind podcast, shared the statistic that being home alone with young children is more stressful than 98% of occupations. Some of you will think that’s a load of rubbish but I hope some of you will feel seen and validated by that. It’s not so much the fact that it is hard that I want to talk about though, it’s the ability to acknowledge the fact and give yourself grace for when you find things hard. It’s so easy as a parent to just assume you’re doing things wrong, or that you’re a bad mum/dad, when you find things hard. But the truth is, it’s just really hard. I wish I had known this as a new parent the first time round. Intrusive thoughts are normal. Wanting to give the baby back, even, is normal. These things pass but they’re so difficult to experience. Let’s not forget that one of the reasons parenting is such hard work is because we love these tiny humans more than life itself and we long for them to be safe, happy and healthy. When life gets in the way of this, it’s hard to deal with.

Find your people: following on from the above point, it’s so important to have people in your life who “get” the specific challenges you face every day. For example, I’m part of a group of local mums of autistic kids in our village who meet once a month and also have a WhatsApp group. We share the stresses of applying for EHCPs, the heartache of bad drop offs and the frustration at limited special school places. Then there is a Facebook group I’m a part of for parents of twins. I’ve never met anyone in that group in real life, but they understand the chaos and joy that come with parenting twins. I can take issues and questions to them that I feel like I can’t take anywhere else, because they understand immediately where I’m coming from. So find your people, either in the flesh or online. You are not in this alone and there is no need to feel like you are.

You do not get a gold star for being a martyr: You are not a bad parent if you need a break. You do not need to break your back tending to all your precious children’s needs all by yourself. You can ask for space, you can ask for help, you can ask for advice, you can say you have no idea what you’re doing (spoiler: no one does). Pretending to have it all together only hurts you. Get a cleaner if you can afford it. Don’t feel bad about putting the kids in childcare even if they don’t “need” to go. Put them in front of the TV so you can hide in the kitchen hoovering chocolate for five minutes. Try to let go of your need to do it all and be perfect. This is not only so your kids can benefit from a calmer parent, it’s because you deserve to feel calm, peaceful and happy with your life.

Pick your battles: yesterday evening, L went to bed wearing a fancy dress instead of pyjamas. Whereas today, C came for a walk with us in his pyjamas because he didn’t want to get dressed. When we’re out of the house, the kids all keep their hats on all. the. time. Whether we are inside or outside. Sometimes it’s just easier and quicker to let them do the thing they want to do instead of arguing against it. As long as it’s safe and not hurting anyone, go for it! Like Anna Mathur suggests doing on The Therapy Edit, I regularly need to stop and ask myself “does this actually matter?” Is it worth spending my very limited energy resources on fighting this? If not, I won’t.

What are some lessons you’ve learned? Do you agree or disagree with mine? Let me know!

This week has been a tough one with Sam away for the start of it, all of us being ill and me injuring my knee on Friday (it’s fine now). I nearly didn’t write this, but memories have been sparking in my mind, so I thought I’d share some memories from the many different houses I’ve lived in. Since there have been quite a few, I’m only going to include the ones pre-marriage, but if there is interest in the places Sam and I have lived in together I’ll write that too. This might be very dull for you, but I’ve enjoyed writing it!

Folkestone- The first two houses were in Kent. I only have very vague memories of a duck pond and the way the saucepans would rattle on the wall when a train went past one of the houses. I’m not sure whether I actually remember these things or if they’re from stories I’ve been told about our houses there, to be honest. I was only really young when we lived there, we moved to Cheltenham when I was about three.

Pinetrees– our first house in Cheltenham. I just looked it up on Google maps and I don’t remember it at all! I’ve seen photos of my brother and I playing in the snow with our neighbours but other than that I don’t have any memories. We only lived there until I was about 5 or 6.

Halland Road- we lived here for less than two years because it was the house we were living in when my parents separated. I have one memory of the house which I’m not sure is accurate so I won’t share it here.

The farm– despite my mum, brother and I only living in the farm for three months when my mum was trying to buy a house, I have a few vivid memories from it. One of them being a goat in our kitchen. There were also some labradors and ponies there I remember us befriending and, even though it was quite a tumultuous time in my young life, I have fond memories of it. I have no idea where it actually was, but it was somewhere in or around Cheltenham!

Old Bath Road- a lovely house with a Tudor-style front but I have no memories of it at all! We didn’t live there for very long before Mum found our next house.

Naunton Crescent- the house that houses most of my childhood memories. I remember sleepovers in the front room, climbing the apple tree in the back garden and sitting on a branch to read, standing on the wall at the front of the house to watch my friends coming or going, having one of those awesome bunk beds that had a desk and sofa underneath it. My bedroom was beach themed and had yellow paint that felt like sand and ceramic shells and sea creatures stuck on the wall. I had my first pet there, a hamster called Hammy (original), and one night he escaped from his cage in the dining room downstairs, climbed all the way upstairs and into my mum’s bedroom. I cut my leg shaving for the first time in the bathroom and sobbed in my room to Britney Spears’ Born to make you Happy after my first break up (in year 6). I can still walk around the house in my head and it often features in my dreams. It was an old house with so much character and a lovely long garden. I’d love to have a house like it again.

Windsor Street- as lovely as the house on Naunton Crescent was, after my mum remarried it wasn’t quite big enough for two adults and two kids. So when I was about 15, we moved to Windsor Street. It was a brand new house, some houses in the same development hadn’t even been built yet. It was a three stories townhouse and my brother and I had our bedrooms at the top of the house. I had a Velux window which I used to love hanging out of. The house was just round the corner from Pitville Park, my favourite park in the world, so that was wonderful, especially when we got our first dog. This was the house I would return to during the university holidays so it was “home” for a while, despite us not living there for that long before I left. I have lots of good memories from that house but also a number of really sad ones. It was where I lived when I had my first serious, turbulent, relationship and it was where a couple of family members went through severe depression. But it was also the closest we’d ever lived to town so it was great as a teenager to be able to regularly walk into town for my first job (at Evans, the clothes shop) and to see friends.

Lilongwe, Malawi- during my gap year I spent four incredible months in Malawi with four other wonderful girls. The house was yellow, all one storey and had a weird layout with rooms coming out of various corridors, very unreliable electricity and a few non-human creature friends. There was a lemon tree in the back yard and we had to do our washing outside. We didn’t have a TV or internet, so had to make our own entertainment. We had a toga party, we baked, we held our own Olympics, we played games and we crafted. It was our home when we were so far from home, so it was very special to us.

West Downs, Winchester- and so we enter the Winchester years. Ah, halls. I did not enjoy halls. I was not particularly a party person, and I lived with people who very much were. My bedroom was unfortunately right next to the kitchen, where my housemates and their friends would noisily congregate before going out. One very clear memory is when one housemate held a party in his room that got a bit out of hand and led to his friends puking in the communal shower and out the window from the third floor. Yay.

Crowder Terrace- a much more positive uni living experience where I got to live with my good friends. My bedroom had a window seat I could fully climb into so I would often curl up in there to read the many many books I studied for my English degree. Our house was close to uni and close to town, so a perfect location. My housemates and I would often trek into town for a McDonalds’ breakfast, we would cram into our tiny living area with friends to watch reality TV and we made friends with our elderly neighbour. Being a house full of girls, it wasn’t without its drama and our second year saw two strangers join our core group of three when two housemates left, which was a whole other experience. But it was so much fun living with my best friends, learning how to be adults.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this trip down memory lane, I certainly have. I’ve been privileged to always live in safe, clean, spacious accommodation with good people who I love and trust. Not everyone has that privilege so even though I would have preferred to have fewer homes, I’m very grateful.

As we’re at the beginning of the year, I thought that I’d share some rather random facts about me. I’m sure some of these will provide fodder for future blog posts too, so let me know if you fancy hearing more about something!

• I have lived in 16 different homes (ie houses or flats) in my life so far. These include places I only lived in for a matter of months, like the farm my mum, brother and I lived on for 3 months after my parents separated and the house I shared with 4 other girls in Malawi for 4 months of my gap year. It doesn’t include my dad’s houses. I had already lived in 8 different homes by the time I left for uni and since Sam and I have been married, we’ve lived in 5 different homes. I can sometimes feel jealous of friends who grew up in one house and have a “home” to return to. My mum and stepdad moved out of my last home in Cheltenham just when I graduated and got married. Most of the time it doesn’t bother me but I’d love for our kids to have a main home they grow up in. I could probably write a whole blog post about “home”… maybe I will!
• I have seen an eclectic mix of live music including: Cher, The Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, Girls Aloud, Jay Z, Rise Against, Paramore, BB King, Britney Spears and Coldplay, amongst others!
• I can only wink with one eye and when I count using my fingers I put my pinky up before my ring finger. Sam says that’s weird.
• I have a bright red birth mark type thing under one eye that I randomly developed when I was about 15 (so probably isn’t a birthmark at all). I keep it cleverly concealed under a brilliant concealer, Maybelline Eraser. Highly recommend.
• I am scared of bats, I don’t like eggs, nuts, tea or coffee and have a very low tolerance for spice. But I love hot chocolate and pizza. Probably not together.
• For most of my adolescent/teenage years I was a semi vegetarian in that I didn’t eat red meat but I did eat poultry and fish. This was swiftly abandoned after literal years once I accidentally ate a cocktail sausage. I wish I was joking.
• I have had numerous jobs after leaving university determined to find a job in the charity sector and facing a desolation of job prospects. I’ve worked in retail, dental insurance, childcare (as a nanny and in nurseries), in the charity sector (where I was made redundant after a year because: charity sector) and in a university. If pressed today, I couldn’t tell you what I would want to do for a job. I love being a mum and I’m happy with that being my sole role at the moment, but I will probably look to get back into work in a few years. I love writing but I also love working with people and kids so… The fact is, at 34, I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
• I used to want loads of kids, maybe 4 or 5. Then I had kids. (Jk, I love them of course but also…)

So there you have it, me in a nutshell. I’m a natural oversharer so if you have anything more you’d love to know about me, ask away!

Way back when, pre-kids, I decided to take up running. I used the Couch to 5K app to get me going and as soon as I could just listen to music without the woman telling me to stop and walk every few minutes, I did. This is when we lived in Winchester close to St Catherine’s Hill, which was a perfect place for running. Largely flat and paved around the bottom, with beautiful trees and a river to look at, it also had the benefit at the time of not being very busy so you could run for a while with just seeing the odd dog walker. I pushed myself to run further each time, either turning around at a certain point or doing a full loop. I ran that route in many seasons, actual and metaphorical: unempolyed, employed, trying for a baby and briefly while pregnant. I think of it very fondly now as it was a really wonderful place to go for a run and it was right on our doorstep.

My music of choice then and now is a noisy mix of emo, punk rock, metal and screamo as the energy carries me and motivates me. Plus there’s generally nowhere else I can listen to it anymore as our daily soundtrack features more Gabby’s Dollhouse or Danny Go! than Rise Against and Slipknot. I’m aware that if I were to be a better gatekeeper of my mind, it would probably be better to steer away from such angry, sweary, violent-sounding music but in this case, I feel the end justifies the means, the end being me having a really enjoable time of exercise. Just don’t ask to see my playlist. Fred Durst makes an appearance more than is morally justifiable.

During pregnancy and the little baby years, I only ran very sporadically and I definitely wasn’t able to run for as long or far as I had previously. I found I just didn’t have the energy needed for running so my exercise consisted of walking and pushing a double buggy up Bristol’s hills. Not for the faint-hearted, I assure you. It was a shame I wasn’t so into running at the time as Sam’s college was right next to the Downs, which I only ran around a handful of times. The Downs, if you’re not familiar, are beautiful, huge open green spaces, flat and perfect for team sports like football and Quidditch (I’m not kidding) and ideal for running.

Where we live now isn’t the most inspiring place for runs (you can hop in a car for that), but it is mostly flat and I’ve worked out a fairly painless 5K loop door to door, primarily running alongside the main road. Now when I say 5K, please do not imagine me gleefully galloping constantly for that distance. I manage to run for maybe the length of a song, then I’m walking for a bit, then running, then walking etc etc etc. I want to be able to confidently run 5K before I increase my distance. My goal for the end of the year is a realistic one but I’m not going to share what it is until I beat it!

The gold medallist Eric Lidell famously said, “God made me fast and when I run, I feel His pleasure.” Whilst I don’t feel anything that profound, there is a sense of freedom and release when I’m out running. No one can make any demands of me, no one is climbing on me, my body is my own. I was about to write no one is shouting at me, but invariably there is someone musically screaming in my ear. I don’t care what people think because I’m there and gone in a flash, any judgement they make can only be fleeting. So my bright red tomato face can shine carefree.

I’m not going to pretend that I’m not hoping one of the side effects of running will be weight loss. That will be a big bonus but it isn’t my ultimate goal. Running gives me time to myself, a release of stress, an opportunity to not have to mentally unravel all the things there are to unravel in life. When I’m running, that’s all I’m thinking about. The music is pumping in my ears and I’m setting my sight on markers that I encourage myself to reach before I can slow down. “Keep running to the speed sign… that’s great, now keep running to the roundabout sign… that’s great, now walk.” As I’m pounding the pavements, nothing else can worry me, nothing else can touch me. It’s just me, panting and sweating away, doing something for me.

Do you love running or hate it? Has this at all inspired you to give it a go? Let me know!