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Home schooling, lockdown vol.2 – the winter edition

~ Fridgesays ~ Leave a comment

Four days in to January 2021 in the UK, any hope was slashed by the Prime Minister’s announcement to return to life in March 2020, you have every right to feel the emotions you do; whether you are fearful, angry, bored, or nonplus *or perhaps like me fly between them all like a Meerkat on look out. It’s perfectly normal to not feel normal, that’s the new normal.

However, hope is on the horizon and that’s why I have popped this midweek post together. This time we have several super powers within us and we should unleash them…well it could make all the difference to us and our families thriving in 2021. Although I write as both a parent and teacher, I would also like to highlight that everyone is in their own personal battle at present and hopefully non parents can take some joy from this post too.

Super power one: knowledge: Volume two means there was a volume one. I know you know that, I know things aren’t exactly the same BUT we lived through volume one! Knowledge is power, something I never had last time. This time I can see an end, volume 1 was six months of ‘maybe next week’ a blur, a really long Sunday…this time I know it will end because it did before. Maybe we didn’t all thrive, but it’s well worth taking time to reflect on the things that did work, adapting them where necessary and making them work for the winter edition, hindsight is a beautiful thing – use it. For example, a paddling pool in January probably isn’t going to go down well, but we as a family in vol.1 took the time each day to come together and watch a film, it was a calming time (it was always Disney) and it added a drop of structure to an otherwise chaotic day.

I took the time to ask my son what he wanted to do, sure home schooling was usually part of the day but actually with no commutes we did have time to bake or build some Lego. We went for walks, okay if I’m honest I’m a little walked out but I also know that nature always makes me feel better…do the things that served you last time.

Superpower two: Know your child isn’t behind: You are giving them an experience. Like most adventures in life it comes with highs (we uploaded work to the school site) and lows (no work was achieved and my son claimed corona stole all of the pencils in the house) but it’s how we look at them that counts. My child is where he is academically; I can’t rewind 2020, I can’t push knowledge into his brain, but I can make sure that no matter what he is safe and healthy. Today the juggle was real. My full time job, our home, my sons education, our families sanity, our mental health all rolled into one and it was messy…but it was also good too….

Super power three: Hold on to the gratitude: Being thankful, for whatever small glimmer of hope, joy, love, appreciation you see or feel…it matters. I’m eternally indebted to frontline workers, I’m pleased my family is healthy, that today we are ok, that the internet connection works, that I have the skill set to break down tasks set for my child and can make them applicable to him, that the dog didn’t bark when the postman came and I was on a Teams call for work, that we did our best.

Super power four: Small steps are mighty: This may be part of your existing super power one, but I know that small steps, low expectations and being kind to myself is the only way I can manage at present. I didn’t do all the work tasks I had the intention of completing, by 10am I prioritised them and spread them out over the next few days. I can only do what I can. I did take a few minutes to do a facial this evening so that tomorrow I wake feeling topped up with self love, I also treated myself to a hot chocolate because this life is precious. Small steps with treats along the way make unstructured time’s a little easier. Also, a technique that works well for most children and age groups is Now, Next and then. It works like this: Now we are doing maths, next we will read and then you can play. Forget the rest of the day for a few small steps, when they are heading off to play, remind them that now they are having play time, next they can read and then we will have lunch. Those three small words can give enough knowledge to make your child feel safer. If you have multiple children it might be that time is divided and your ‘Now i’m helping Bethan, next we will go and play and then we will revisit your history work together’ feeling heard is so important and often grounds us far more than Mummy spending 5 hours the night before creating a complex rota that due to a tantrum and a high temp from the baby has all gone out of the window before 7:30am

I hope by reading this you maybe remembered how awesome you already are, that you’ve got this and that with a few super powers under your belt you can achieve anything.

Own who you are

~ Fridgesays ~ Leave a comment

I’m not sure this post is for you today, perhaps it’s more for me. However, I invite you to write your own with the same first and last line.

I am enough

I am a woman

I am a teacher

A partner, fiancée, lover and when the dirty laundry is on the floor – a hater

I am a mummy

My womb grew two beautiful souls

My heart has learnt to love and recover

I feel grief but it’s temporary and it passes

I am confident but I falter

I am healthy and I count my blessings

I am a friend

Somebodies neighbour, friend

A driver

Writer

I am grateful for all I have, good and bad. They teach me more about who I am, who I want to be and how I can be a better me.

I am a daughter, cousin, a niece.

I am Lucy and my name means light.

I love yoga, crystals, high heels and sunshine

I love beaches, watermelon, tea and peonies.

I love cold champagne, essential oils, books and crisps

I am loved.

I am appreciated and…

I’m always enough.

Sometimes the days pass and the years fly by, as an adult we lost who we are. The costumes we juggle from day to day consume us, my teacher cape engulfs me and my mother hat swallows me like a praying mantis. This list of ‘me’ is only a glimmer but I found writing it helped me to be grounded. Like you, I’m not one thing, I mean more to some than others. Having a senses of self allows me to appreciate all I have…pick up a pen and discover that you too are always enough.

Be a good person but don’t waste time proving it.

~ Fridgesays ~ 24 Comments

Quote Anon.

The word that sprung to mind was ‘integrity’ when I saw this quote. It’s so important when you have an audience to still do the same things when your audience has gone home.

Being ‘good’ is obviously a word thats open to interpretation, but proving it is something I find people who are often insecure in their self do. Lets face it many people suffer from ‘lack of self love love’ and we certainly all have days where the self love monster eats our souls and spits us out in a top thats too tight, eyeliner thats clearly thicker on one side than the other – and thats only if we can be bothered to open our make up boxes.

Self love aside, there is nothing worse than meeting a person, thinking they are ‘good’ (feel free to enter any other adjective of your choice in here – I’m partial to ‘kind’ and also ‘stupendous’, although I just looked up good in the thesaurus and ‘ship shape’ made me laugh), only to find a few meet ups down the line that they are more plastic than Tiny Tears.

However, don’t despair below I plan to outline my own survival guide of 2018 for surviving and even thriving around these people. Its a comprehensive guide and I hope will be of value to you and others, in true fridgesays manner I have created it in magnets.

In essence, if someone is good to you or others to impress you or so you think they are good, suck up their good vibes like a baby and their milk bottle and don’t worry about their motivations. If they are doing it to impress you, firstly be honoured they give a shizzle and then know that in time people always show their true colours. I believe Phil Collins (legend of the 90’s) created a song around this theme, aptly named ‘True colours” although I can’t recommend the song to you, the video is hilarious with more fist pumps than the average 90s classic.

If you are an ‘impress’ kind of person, take a moment to sit down. Think about your motivations – if you want to bake a cake for people or show kindness and compassion, do it…if you feel socially bound, don’t. I live in a village and my son attends the local school, some of the parents are lets say a little keen to get involved. I am not. If its in my sons interest, I’m there. If its not or of no interest to me, I’ll avoid it like I do day time TV. I couldn’t give a scooby doo what any of the other parents thinks of me…why? because I don’t have the luxury of time to think about them and when I do have time, I’d rather show kindness to those in my tribe. I don’t aspire to be the class ‘rep’ Mum and I don’t wish to meet up with them in the holidays, unless my sons wants to see his friends.

I do think good role modelling is essential to our little peoples lives, and so try to be the best me. This summer I am planning a series of ‘acts of kindness’ to others beyond and within our tribe to educate my son on being grateful for what we have, sharing and giving to those that don’t.

So please, if you are anxious about what others think of you, spend the energy of loving you a little more and I promise what others think will become irrelevant.

Perspective

~ Fridgesays ~ 15 Comments

This just made me chuckle.

If you had been watching me this morning and was wearing your judgement pants you may have concluded a different perspective to my current reality. You may of said this Mum wasn’t engaged in her son and consumed by her mobile device.

Little dude had Judo, Mr F and I sat on the sidelines and whilst Daddy looked on I marked thirty GCSE papers…well half marked (seriously marking takes FOREVER), then it was swimming time with Daddy. Little dude is now 75% fish and Daddy has been a pro at teaching him. They are currently working on a new stroke and having a blast…I’m typing this from the gallery. On my mobile phone. I glance up every now and then, but I am writing. For me. This is my time. Swimming is their time.

Judgement pants may conclude I’m disengaged and not interest. I’m one of ‘those’ Mums. It’s true and I’m going to tell you why.

This Mumma doesn’t care what anyone other than her tribe thinks of her. This parent works full time, blogs for her own sanity, lives life to the full…manages her time to the minute. This time isn’t mine to watch my son swim…it’s my writing time. It’s Daddy and little dudes time. It means that with my marking done (well more done) and my post is written, in twenty minutes I will help little dude to dress. My cup will be full and I’ll be able to give him my attention, full attention – not planning in my head, stressy Mum writing a mental list kind of attention. My phone will barely be seen and we will fill our day with cooking, visiting loved ones and a dog walk. We will create memories and giggle.

It’s clear to me that perspective is needed. On lookers don’t know me, don’t need to judge me and I don’t need to judge them. We all do, obviously – it’s human nature. Sometimes, like my image above, we need a new perspective to read it. We need to step back, to not attack, judge or be quick in response.

In friendships, with work colleague and with your tribe add a filter before you make a remark. Breath. Step back. You’ll be wiser for it. Much like the swimming pool my boys are currently in, a filter is essential to prevent them from swallowing pure wee. Don’t let your life be poisoned by other people misunderstood perceptions.

Be different babe

~ Fridgesays ~ 32 Comments

Quote Anon

During my time at university I house shared with four other girls. We were all pretty amicable and we took it in turns to cook and weekly shopped together. It was during this time that I learnt there are a million ways to cook Spaghetti Bolognese that are nothing like my Mum would do. Adding mushrooms was fine and something I’d consider adding now, carrots seemed very amicable and almost Italian until one chick added what can only be described as ‘bendy’ carrots and we had to have a word with her. Ultimately it wasn’t fair on our stomachs lining and the carrots had escaped the pot long enough to be put to rest in a refuse centre somewhere far away. (R.I.P bendy carrots)

What I learnt was the old phrase of ‘there are more ways than one to skin a cat’ or in this case, cook a mid week spag bog. (Way more animal friendly when using Quorn, sorry cat lovers).

At the moment social media is enjoying looking at gender in young children and making comments on the toys they should and shouldn’t have, I think there is also a blogger who has written about her son being denied a princess Disney experience. So, as a blogger I thought I’d give my opinion on the topic – I couldn’t give a crap.

I don’t care if my son, or any child of any gender, non gender or polka dot gender wants to play with a pink sparkly doll or a transformer. I eat Yorkie chocolate bars on principle that they are advertised as ‘not for girls’ and all I actually care about is that my son is happy and healthy, or any other polka dot child previously mentioned. Be different babe, or don’t be different – it doesn’t matter, as long as you are happy. Some people love to be unique and others strive to fit in, some bubble along in the middle. Ultimately, society will judge (me included, especially after a GnT) and thats okay too. Whats not okay if for me to force my opinion on you to a point where you feel you need to change. Freedom of speech / rights are lovely phrases that comes with A LOT of really important small print. Ultimately you can squeeze it down to several sentences:

  • You CAN say what you want BUT you can’t offend someone
  •  Slander can get you in prison (and rightly so)
  • If nobody asked you for your opinion keep it to yourself, oh and the classic parenting quote ‘if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all’

Over the last few weeks millions of children will start new schools, colleges and Universities, over the last month parents have argued with those children as they battle to find ‘the right school shoes’ or the bag that is acceptable. I even heard a child crying in a local supermarket as her Mum was insistent on buying her ‘the wrong’ skirt. She wanted the one with the bow in the middle; don’t tell her Mum but the kid was right, it was way cuter with the bow. Anyway, I digress, the point I’m making is that many of those people will make fake friends as they battle like sardines to find a place to belong, any place – just to feel like they fit in…except they wont belong, the good news is they will form friendships by Christmas that are based on things that matter like shared interests, morals and the ability to make each other laugh, oh and the girl in the supermarkets Mum will be right, the bow will also have dropped off by Christmas and I totally understand why she isn’t paying an extra £3 for it.

I selected this quote for its simplicity and frankly I agree ‘Be different babe’ but if you don’t want to be different thats okay, just don’t feed me bendy carrots.


 

He can call me Flower if he wants to…

~ Fridgesays ~ 35 Comments

Quote from Bambi

Okay, so when you are ‘up the duff or ‘baking a bun in the oven or just plain ‘with child’ everybody likes to give you advice. It’s usually horrific advice where men tell tales of sleep deprivation and a loss of reality and women share intimate stories of vaginas and stitches (seriously, why has nobody told these women the phrase snitches get stitches?) because frankly when your bun / duff or child is growing inside you and you’re overwhelmed with hormones,the thought of impending responsibility FOREVER and feel the size of a house – you don’t want to hear any advice or the downsides of your situation, in fact this advice should be placed on the side of condoms packets.

When I joined the world of blogger-sphere I also learnt that every Mummy blogger has at least one blog on ‘new mum advice’ and every Dad has some army survival themed post on adjusting to life after birth or preparing for the big day. Not one to follow in the paths of others, I’ve avoided these posts like my son avoids holding a pen because I know that deep down no new parent really wants to hear what I have to say and frankly they’ll work it out.

UNTIL NOW.

If there is one piece of advice that nobody gave me, id want to know the details of what I went through this week because frankly Disney let me down. Regular reader will know that Walt is one of my Best friends and pretty much every Disney film offers me some form of advice in which I apply to my life and impose on you. 

Disney is my equivalent to Breakfast TV or the news, Disney is my go to, my google and my fountain of knowledge. Im constantly applying Mermaid philosophies to my studies, letting it go and loving like the beauty I am and the beast that Mr is when he hasn’t shaved  (I look past the prickles and try to visualise the man he was before he realised that razors are super expensive and beards are vaguely in fashion).

When raising little dude we have always encouraged Disney and he has a DVD collection to be proud of, his favourites are the Toy Story series and Car’s – our Goldfish are proudly named after key characters; Mater and Lightening McQueen and a relaxing afternoon in our home usually involves a Disney DVD, now here comes my advice to all parents, new, young, old or frankly lacking in Disney knowledge…

If you truly love your child more than life itself NOTHING GOOD CAN COME OF WATCHING BAMBI. (please read this like I’m shouting at you)

Forget ‘breast is best’ advice, what nappy you recommend, please pass this on to all new parents and i’ll tell the tale of the traumatised four year old and the Mum who f*cked up by trusting in a classic.

Firstly, Ive seen it before, I should of known better. When the hunter first tries to kill Bambi’s Mum (it came out in 1942 so I don’t feel like I’m throwing any spoilers into this) I was quick to tell him that Bambi’s Mum had died….only to see B’s Mum bounce off into a field, I was then branded a liar by my small child. Fast forward ten or so minutes and Bambi’s Mum does get shot. At this point my son looked at me, eyes fully dilated and brimming with tears screaming at me to tell him it wasn’t true…I was lost for words.
We then had to pause the DVD whilst I reassured him that his Mummy (yup me) wasn’t going to be shot anytime soon (its not in the insurance policy) and that the hunter lived far away and wouldn’t hurt any of his friends at preschool or our dog, fish, stick insects or African snails.

With the tears under control I pressed play on the remote (we call it a ‘magic’ in our house – because frankly a remote is like voodoo) and then a bush fire consumed the screen, with my son stuck to my face we watched as a racoon build a raft to a small island, we watched carnage run through our happy Disney place and all the while I was thinking what the hell am I doing to him? Seriously, a cute rabbit with a speech impediment and a giant thump doesn’t really make up for the neglect I had subjected him to. Nobody cares about ‘drip drip drop little April showers’ after Bambi is left traumatised in the snow.

The ending is happy, Bambi and his hot Deer Mumma Faline make Bambi twins, but even this confused him and he thought Bambi had been born again. He also asked how they made the baby Deer’s but frankly by this time I was still speechless and distracting him with chocolate bribery to protect his precious mind from the horror that is Disney’s Bambi.

So, don’t believe the certification of U that the film industry gave it, instead warn all parents everywhere, all Grandparents and anyone who is vague human…or perhaps a Deer (they wouldn’t like it either) to NEVER watch it. His Godmother hit it on the head when I was retelling her my traumatic Bambi failure “Actually there isn’t an age where anyone wants to see that, is there?” Nope, there is not wise Godmother that I selected for my precious bundle, nobody ever.

This is all my parental advice from two pregnancies, a four year old and way too many years of teaching teenagers. 

Best of luck. 

Lovely things #12

~ Fridgesays ~ 4 Comments

This lovely things should be #13 but July was a blast of Summer holiday delights and frankly I was too busy having fun with my little monster, this rolled into August and well I thought I should get back in to some routine…haha I’m kidding myself. We are still on holiday and having lovely family time, I plan to squeeze every second out of this vacation and as a result will mean I will return to work severely jet lagged, at this point it seems worth it, I’m not sure how I’ll feel on Monday morning? 

1. Beach days. 

Living on the south coast of the U.K. we have enjoyed more than our fair share of beach days. A boy with a bucket of pebbles and a Mummy looking for pretty shells is a winning combination (and usually costs very little). It made me appreciate the scenery that surrounds us and that in the working week I sometimes forget to look at. I’m thankful that the sun came out to play and that lazy afternoons climbing rocks and searching for crabs was possible.

2. Time with friends was joyful. Over the holidays I met with many close friends, some who don’t live on our doorstep and I realised that the depth of friendships in your thirties is richer than previous decade friendships. They bring out the best in me and it was glorious to catch up and just ‘be’ 

Working / Mummy head means I can get absorbed in the mundane and everyone of my dear friends helps me to aspire to reach my dreams or buy ‘that new bag’ I really don’t need.

3. Vacation

I’m writing this from our balcony in Barbados. I’ve been here many times and the view never gets old. The island has many personal links to family life which I may write about another time. This lovely things however is dedicated to family time and the opportunity to fly with my son for the first time. I was really anxious and had read all the posts on what to pack to keep your little one occupied on a plane to horrendous holiday horror stories…I need not have worried. The plane journey here was fabulous, J took to the sky like he belonged and even slept for three hours! Today we are off on a submarine tour of the ocean and watching him make friends and chase waves in the ocean has been a pleasure. (*fingers crossed for the journey home)

So I raise my cocktail glass to family, friends and making memories. I’m glad I’ve neglected my blog in exchange for sun, sea and sand that really does get into every little crevice. If you to are a blogger don’t ever feel guilty about  your blog taking a back seat for a week…or six, who wants to be a lifestyle blogger that was too busy writing to actually live. 

Three is the magic number 

~ Fridgesays ~ Leave a comment

img_3538

Lyrics from De la Soul.

Dear time,

Thank you for blessing me with a healthy and (usually) smiley boy. You gave me nine months to prepare and then the clock began to tick…how did my baby become three?

He has imagination that can take him to worlds where time cannot go, he can spend hours reading and making up songs that make me giggle and he always knows when it’s bedtime. Since birth he had slept like a king (thank you) and he wakes wide eyed and ready for more minutes of delicious adventure and every second brings more funny sentences from his ever developing vocabulary and expanding mind.

He is like an alarm clock of questions through out the day as he bellows ‘why, how and who?’ As he takes it all in I can see in his eyes the cogs are turning, exploring and fine tuning just as a fine pocket watch might.

What makes him tick is easy; simple delights in his trains, cars and his plastic crocodile, Spotting the moon and telling me with pride when day turns to dusk and the calendar pushes forward.

So time, many thanks for the blessed memories and the opportunity to be called Mummy, the pride in watching him grow and gift to see a much more exciting world through his eyes, one that acknowledges emotion with giggles from the belly and tears from the soul.

All I ask is that you slow down,

Love Mummy x x x

Happy 3rd Birthday Prince J .x