Hello and welcome to my new blog “The Grateful Mummy”!
Thank you so much for visiting! It is very early days yet and I have yet to fill up my blog with as much information as I would like, but I promise to add as many helpful, interesting, fun and inspiring posts as I can in the very near future. We are just getting started!
Firstly, I will introduce myself, my name is Fern and I am a mummy of three glorious, miraculous, little men who have transformed me in to “The Grateful Mummy”. I adore my husband and my three totally lovable, little boys who I will refer to as “Bubbles” (6), “Angel” (4) and “Honey” (21 months) for the purpose of this blog, and I am constantly striving to be the best that I can be for my family.
About me, I am a mostly very positive, happy person (although like all of us I have my rough days too!), I love anything sparkly and pretty, I love to eat sweet food (definitely in moderation now as much as I would like to eat it all the time!), I like to be tidy and organised, I love teaching, guiding and helping others and making people smile and as you will discover, I have an unhealthy affection for using abundant amounts of exclamation marks in my writing (I can be a little over-enthusiastic!!!!). My background in previous careers is mostly in teaching, both in Early Childhood and with adults, I have a passion for teaching, guiding and helping others because I love to watch people grow, develop, be inspired and to see people having fun, and my most favourite thing to do is to make other people smile and feel happy and good about themselves. I absolutely ADORE children, I love their innocence, their appreciation of the small things, how they find everything wonderful, how they say they are proud of themselves and that they love others so often and so openly and how they laugh, sing and dance without abandon, I guess subconsciously I admire these qualities in these little, tiny role models and wish that we retained all of these beautiful ways in to adulthood.
As soon as my first precious, little angel was born, any other accomplishment I had ever achieved seemed so small and unimportant, now every day is such a gift, even when it is tough, just knowing that I have to keep going to be their mummy and to keep them happy, healthy, safe and warm, keeps me going somehow. Being grateful doesn’t mean that it is always easy or that I am “grateful” when my children spill their milky rice bubbles on the carpet three times in a row in the one morning rush before school, ahem….no it reaaaally doesn’t (Grrrrrrrrrrrr…) but seeing their beautiful faces smiling, just somehow melts away any of those frustrations after a while….even if sometimes it takes a LOT of adorable little, smiles to ease the pain!
Sadly, at times, I think we all have moments where we feel as though we are the only ones experiencing a particular stage, event or challenge, I think that having a safe haven where we can all come together and ask each other for help, advice, inspiration, ideas, support, encouragement, or just reassurance that what we are doing is okay and that who we are being is okay, is just what we all need sometimes to find some comfort.
I sometimes doubt myself as a mother, whether I am doing enough, being enough or if I am enough. I love them all so very much but also struggle to ever feel really 100% confident that I am giving them everything they deserve. The reality is that most of us have SUCH high expectations of ourselves that we, nor anyone else could ever, ever reach them, but because our families deserve so much, despite knowing that our expectations of ourselves are impossible for anyone to reach, we still impose them on ourselves and are then mostly wracked with guilt and feelings of inadequacy when we don’t reach the impossible standards we want to achieve, which just isn’t fair to ourselves. I am on a journey to find peace as a mummy and to help others do so also, not just mummies but people from all walks of life, we all deserve to know our own potential, because the truth is that we already DO more than enough, we are BEING enough and we ARE enough…just the way we are. This doesn’t mean that we can’t try to find new ways to make life easier for ourselves, save time, save money, and to be more present and calm in life though, if something helps you to feel even better, then why wouldn’t you try it? I will embrace ANYTHING that allows me to spend more time with my beautiful family and making them and myself happy, I deserve to be happy and so do they! So please come and share your gifts and your wisdom too, the more the better!
Social media can be such a false reality, we all like to put on our happiest moments to share with our loved ones, which is natural and beautiful, but it can unintentionally give SUCH a false perception that our lives are happy and shiny and peaceful like this ALL THE TIME! Which is never, ever true! A friend once asked me how I stay so calm all the time and keep my kids happy all the time and that she never feels how I appear on facebook, and my jaw nearly hit the floor because I felt the same way about her! I looked at her photos and what she was doing and felt so inadequate next to her! What I realised is that people don’t generally post photos of their kids having full blown shopping centre tantrums or how big our dirty washing baskets are or how messy our floors are or selfies of ourselves on bad hair days or with a massive bags under their eyes from the night before’s madness! This page is a safe, warm, positive place where EVERYONE is welcome to come along and privately message me to put out an anonymous call for constructive and supportive advice or tips for a certain situation and our network of friends can offer whatever they can to help.
So……here’s to keeping it real, sharing the good and the bad with each other and being here for each other whenever we need support, tips, ideas, other’s experiences, or just to share a funny story! I can’t wait for all the fun that lies ahead and the special feeling of commonality and unity that others have been there (or are still there!) and done that and they have made it through in one piece! So if you love to help, positively support and encourage others and then in turn receive these same gifts right back at you – then please stay and play my friends! We look forward to being “real” and honest with each other and understanding that we are all facing similar struggles at times and that we are not alone. We are all just doing our best and making decisions based on the information and experiences that we have in our “tool belt” at the time, in years to come some of these will still feel right, and others may not, but wouldn’t it be so nice not to have to learn by our own mistakes? If others have tried something and it hasn’t worked, why wait until you make the same mistake yourself! Share the successes AND the suggestions based upon our own experiences, share anything to make other’s lives easier and our own – let’s all help each other!
It is in this spirit, that I decided to start this blog, “The Grateful Mummy”, to come together with others and share with the world all our ideas, tips, emotions and stories, to ask questions and hear a beautiful mix of answers and suggestions from others, to feel supported in knowing that others have experienced similar things and their suggestions of different options that may help others and to come together as a united force to make our lives more beautiful in every way possible. If you are looking for a blog where people come to judge or TELL others what they are doing is wrong and that what you are doing is the right way, then this blog is not for you, I apologise, but no “Negative Ninjas” or “Happiness Hoovers” are welcome here, but I do wish you well for what you are searching for and hope that your life is happy. This is a happy home here, where we support each other, no matter if it is very different to our own way, please feel free and warmly welcome to offer any other “options or suggestions that may help”, but criticism and judgement are not allowed past these safe, warm walls, they don’t help anyone except the person who is dishing it out to feel better about themselves, and this usually stems from a lack of self esteem. I would suggest to these people to go and find your inner peace with who you are and to learn about embracing diversity of approaches in the world rather than dictating that your approach is best, and then come back and visit then. The fact is that what is best is what we have found works best for our precious, individual family with all it’s unique quirkiness, characteristics and qualities, no family is the same and therefore the same approach will not work for everyone. So share your successes and suggestions, but please ALWAYS do it from the heart and with compassion, understanding and from a place of love.
I am always looking for new and different ways to be the best mummy I possibly can be, anything that I find that is helpful, I vow to share with you, I want to aspire towards the feeling that I am ENOUGH, no matter what, and I want to share that gift with others. We all DESERVE to marvel in our own beauty and amazing qualities, I do not understand this force of nature that seems to give “Mummy Guilt” it’s power or any type of guilt it’s power, if you do your best every day, then that is enough and we should be grateful for that, we should also know that at times when we don’t feel we have done our best, that this is okay too, as it drives us to be mindful of doing our best tomorrow. I feel it is an immensely important responsibility to collate and share all of the wonderful research, ideas, tools and insight I discover along the way from others with others and will do my best to make your life happier, easier, more love-filled, fun and to help you save time and money, BE the person you want to be and spend QUALITY time with the people you want to spend time with and most importantly to feel GRATEFUL. So if you are searching for inspiration and motivation, a feeling of unity and inclusion, love and happiness, sunshine and sparkles, fun and laughter, ways to help your children learn and have fun, parenting ideas and suggestions, cooking inspiration, organisational hints and suggestions, general ideas and tips to make your life easier so you have more time for the things that you want to do with the people you want to be with – THEN I WOULD LOVE TO GET TO KNOW YOU!
I would also LOVE to hear your suggestions on what YOU would like to see on here, if something is on your mind and you would like opinions, ideas or experiences, please share with me privately and I will ensure your anonymity but “put it out there” for you to help find ways to help you with what you would like to know. If you have great ideas for the home, organisation, parenting, health, nutrition, fun, entertainment ideas you would like to share like great places to go or see or holiday hints for others, craft ideas, hints or tips, or even other great pages or blogs to share with others who may enjoy them, please feel free to let me know! I am always looking for great ideas to make life easier and happier and would love to spread that love to everyone! This is our site and together we can make it in to anything we want it to be so long as it makes others happy, so let’s get started working together to make the world a more grateful and happy place where we all feel good!
Here’s to a journey of trying to keep ourselves and our families upbeat, happy and grateful and to looking after each other, I am so very grateful for your support and I can’t wait to share lots of fun and resources and also learn and be inspired by all of you!
“The Grateful Mummy” AKA Fern, cuddling my little “Honey”, one of my many reasons for being so grateful!!