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(Catch up on last month here)

This year we decided to forgo the January Blues and in our effort to escape them we have booked our first holiday as a family of five! It will also be our first time doing a camping holiday in Europe – and we can’t wait! It’s definitely helping to have something nice to look forward to.

So as well as taking time out to find the best flights and general prices for our trip, I’ve been taking time out for myself this month. It’s an area of my life I always fail at. I’m beyond useless at finding time for me, to be me and not just mammy.

However, I’m also killing two birds with one stone. I’m not only making some time for myself but my hobbies of choice are exercise and baking – both of which I find Wonderful for mindfulness. And practicing mindfulness is a necessity when you’re suffering with your mental health.

On the whole, I’m feeling ok. Not wonderful but better than I was, I’m no longer drowning at least. I’m staying afloat and the prospect of getting away to the sun as a family most assuredly helps with that!

On the topic of feeling well, the boys are all pretty much better after a disaster of a month healthwise.

Will is back to school, albeit hesitantly over the course of the first week but thanks to a teacher who just “gets” him and his little quirks he soon got over it.

He’s back into the swing of the school run, playing with his buddies and of course his Homework. He adores his homework and long may it last!! He’s just started bringing home his first readers and he says he can’t wait til he can be the one to read ME the bedtime stories!

Speaking of his homework, it just reminds me of a funny story that pretty much sums up my middle son, Jamie. He’s an absolute Rogue – a lovable one in fairness but a rogue nonetheless.

Last week as I was making the boys a snack Will was finishing his homework. He was trying to come up with a word that began with the letter O, his letter of the week at the time, so he got up from the kitchen table to ask my advice. I brought him back over to the table to sit by him and brainstorm in relative comfort when Will noticed a small scribble on the corner of his homework.

“Ummm, Mam? Who did THAT?!”

“Well love, it wasn’t me now was it!”

Next thing he roared “JAMIE!!!!” which was met with a huge belly laugh from the culprit. I quickly said I’d grab the rubber and get rid of the scrawl. Will was content enough with this until Jamie teases (in a real nah-nah-nah-nah-nah tone of voice): “And if you do that I’ll do it again!”

See? I told you, he’s a pure rogue! He’s not even 3 like!! But by God he makes me giggle!!!
And he is a pro at making my smallest boy giggle! Ben is now completely and utterly enamoured of his older brothers. He wants to be with them all the time and has zero interest in either his mammy or his daddy while they are around!

Daily he gets massively frustrated when he can’t shadow their every move. Which results in a very upset little man from time to time – and between this frustration, teething, the dreaded separation anxiety phase and apparent sleep regressions of late I admit that some days I am willing this period to pass rapidly so I can get my smiley sleeper back!

Sometimes I feel the first year of their lives is a race to get to the end of it in once piece. Don’t get me wrong. There are some wonderful milestones in these first 12 months like their first smile, first tooth, first step, first word – but when you’re tired and juggling two other kids who require more and more attention, a house that feels like it’s falling down around you, a mountain of never-ending and rarely ironed laundry, a somewhat neglected husband and a very neglected self it can sometimes be easy to miss the beauty.

But the 2017 version of me is making a conscious effort to just, in the words of a little known Disney song, let it go. Cut myself some slack, put less emphasis on things like housework and laundry and just enjoy the kids while they are still little enough to think I’m superhuman.

Cause let’s face it, mammies kinda have to be, don’t they!

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