Month: January 2016

Motherhood in rhyme.

My house is a mess and so is my hair, 

I’m sure people see me and think I don’t care. 

My makeup is forgotten and my clothes too small, 

But as far as I can tell I have got it all. 

My glasses have smudges and jewellery gets broken, 

But how exciting it is to hear first words spoken. 

My times not my own and my personal space is non-existent, 

But it’s amazing seeing baby try to crawl being so persistent. 

When baby wants me and stares into my eyes, 

I forget all the nights I’ve woken to hourly cries. 

When we play together and she begins to coo, 

I forget all the times she has covered me in spew. 

I may sometimes look tired and have no energy left, 

But this is the most incredible job I’ve got to do yet! 

My life isn’t glamorous or what everyone desires, 

But being a mother and having my family is all I require. 

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Nursery rhymes suck! 

There is no way to say this other than I suck at nursery rhymes! How do all you new mothers know all the words to nursery rhymes? I have no clue! Literally! Is there like a course you can attend that teaches you the lyrics to these songs? Did I miss the enrolment? 

I rock Rhemy to sleep in my rocking chair sometimes and she loves Hush Little Baby! I thought I knew the words until I turned to YouTube and I was way off! I know you can make that one up as you want but I didn’t even know how the song ends! Even at swimming lessons which we have just started they sing nursery rhymes and change them slightly to make them relevant to the pool which is fine but I didn’t even know the originals let alone the revised version! 

  She loves me whether I know the lyrics or not!  Right? 😂

Don’t get me wrong, I knew them when I was a child, my mum even worked as a kindergym instructor for a period of time but that was years ago and as it turns out my memory sucks! 
What did you have to learn (or relearn) when your child/ren come along? Share in the comments make me feel better!
📸 featured image credit: http://www.loving2learn.com

The City vs The Country! 

Bringing up children has its complications and its pros and cons. Does the location you live in contribute to this? Or does it not matter where you are situated? 

When I was 18 I moved from my hometown to Adelaide. When I was 23 I moved back to Broken Hill. My husband got a job on the mine and we have family here. The decision was a no brainer. We both enjoy the relaxing, slow pace lifestyle that living in the country gives us. However I can’t help but compare what life would be like if we were bringing up our family in Adelaide. For many people Adelaide is just a big country town and not in contest with Sydney or Melbourne and while I wouldn’t necessarily disagree it is a major difference living there in comparison to living in Broken Hill.
First and foremost let’s tackle incomes and jobs, while Adelaide offers more opportunity in job prospects it does not allow my husband to work on the mine and come home to his family everyday. To earn the mining income and to be situated in Adelaide means FIFO work. Which just wouldn’t work for us. 

Secondly support, we both have family here. My mum is here for advice, questions, anything I need. In Adelaide we simply didn’t have that. We don’t need to use Childcare and I can return to work for two days a week and reap my entire salary, instead of returning full time just to make paying for childcare seem worth it. 

Lastly is our facilities and to be honest that’s where Adelaide shines, medically there is no travelling “away” to see specialists. Education- no leaving home to attend university or a private school. Location- no rip off plane fare that seems to be forever increasing, no six hour drive to be able to fly to our holiday destinations. 
 I love the country, to me the outback wins! My family is here, it takes me 5 minutes to get to work and I go home for lunch everyday. Do I miss the shops, beach and cafes in Adelaide? Yes! But that doesn’t mean that it’s the place for us to live. 

Broken Hill does offer a lot that the “cities” do, we have great mother groups and support in the hospital for new Mums. We know the people that live here and it’s friendly. 

What do you think? City or the country? If you ask me its all personal preference and I wouldn’t have that any other way! 

5 wishes for baby 

I thought for this post it would be fun to share with you all my five wishes, hopes and dreams for Rhemy as she takes this journey through life.
1. Courage. I hope you have the courage to pass through your life following your dreams and being able to stand up for your beliefs. To push yourself to the limit and be courageous in all that you try to do. 
2. Education. I hope you are educated in whatever your choose to do. Whether aquiring a university degree is necessary or learning on the job. 

3. Knowing your worth. I hope and will do my best to ensure that you grow up knowing your worth and that you ensure others know it and respect it too. You are worth the world and it’s important to me that you believe that!

4. Happiness and Love. I want your life to be filled with happiness and love in every aspect of your world! 

5. Passion. I wish for you to find your passion in life and that you are able to follow it with all your heart. Daddy and I will do everything we can to give you all the opportunities you require. 
I would love to hear your hopes and dreams for your offspring so please comment at the end of the post sharing them with me! 

Don’t lose yourself now that the baby is here! 

I know everything changes when you have children and they become your whole world. I know that we as parents put their needs before our own and to be honest I truly believe we should. I know that we should be the ones that accommodate them into our lives not the other way around but I am a true believer in that we as mothers can still be us. We are still entitled to some reward for doing the best we can for our offspring. 

Now let me clarify I do not mean that if before kids your Wednesday to Sunday nights were spent out partying that you should continue on with that lifestyle. I do not mean if pre children you spent all your disposable income on unnecessary luxuries and lived off two minute noodles for the week that you should do the same now your baby has entered the world. 

What I mean is that every now and then, things are still allowed to be for you, you can still travel to exciting places with your children in tow, you can still buy something expensive and unnecessary. You can still have a day to yourself and not feel guilty because we all deserve it once in a while. The only difference being things may have to be planned for, budgeted for or talked about with your partner. 

When we become parents we change, knowingly or not, I’m unsure but it is inevitable and I believe necessary. We need to adapt to our new life and we can’t always be who we used to be. However we don’t need to lose ourselves entirely. I have changed since Rhemy and I am happy with that. You can’t be the same person when your baby comes as you become less selfish, more paranoid, guilt surfaces easier and your camera feed becomes filled with photos of your baby and not much else. 

While I say to not lose yourself entirely, I also say not to fight the changes in yourself either. They are happening because of your new addition and will help you on this new, exciting, sometimes scary journey of parenthood. 
Comment below and give me your thoughts xx 

📷 featured image: beautythroughimperfection.com 

Staying Organised

Two days ago I returned to work, I am only working two days a week, so I can guess technically it is now my weekend. The work and my colleagues were fine, leaving Rhemy was not! (but that is a whole other blog post)
I realised that in order to succeed in my 2016 New Years resolution which to be quite honest is more or less just to get my shit together, I am going to have to come up with a way to focus on being more organised. I am heading back to uni in March and with Rhemy, work and also this blog to contend with I would like to have a system in place before the start of the semester. 
I already have a diary/planner and I use it religiously for appointments etc, but I think I can tweak my usage of this, to help me organise dedicated time slots and ensuring I stick to them. I understand things change and it will not always go to plan but it can be used as a guide.

My plan is to begin with hourly slots and go from there. Obviously having a little one means that the time may need to be altered during the day, depending on her naps but if I know Tuesday is study day and Thursday is washing day I can stay more focused and see my way through the week. 
At the moment, I am using this Personal Planner, which is A5 and what can be customised to suit your needs and preferences. I wish I had chosen a vertical layout because after a couple of weeks of use of what I thought was a planner I loved, I realised everything I write and want to stay on top of doesn’t quite fit in this layout. We live and learn. I’m changing now to a ring planner so I can fit all the different parts of my life into one place, but this is still a great option and would recommend to anyone who wants to just simply track appointments or like me would like to become more organised. 

 

I’d love your input! What’s your organisation system? What allows you to stay on top of everything happening in your life. Comment below 🙂

My achievement list! 

Okay everyone knows what a bucket list is, what they want to achieve and conquer during their life. But I present to you an “achievement list” it is a catalog of what you have succeded, participated or experienced in life that you are proud of. That you can look back on and give yourself encouragement of how far you have come, when you are feeling down or just need a reminder of how great your life truly is! 
It’s not to be taken as bragging or to show off. It can be totally private, shared anonymously or shared for the whole world (online of course) to see. 

I would love to share some of mine with you all. The rest I will keep for myself, but here goes: 


Rhemy; duh my greatest achievement in life. No other explanation necessary. 
My marriage; an equal partnership. The only way I want our marriage to be. 
My relationship with my family; we are close friends as well as blood. I have their back, they have mine. 
My study; I have completed certificates in my chosen field and out of it. I’m currently participating in a university degree. My achievement is not what I have become qualified in but the fact that I continue to learn. 
Travel; I have seen many places with some of the most important people in my life at some of the most important times of my life. Hello 21st birthday and honeymoon! I have memories and stories from these trips to last a lifetime. 
There you are my achievements, not material but sentimental. Maybe not what everyone strives for but what I hold very close to my heart. 
Share yours with me or jot them down for yourself but do it! Look back, be proud of what you have already achieved! Dreams are wonderful, hence why the bucket list exists but what about the dreams we have already conquered? Don’t be so focused on what’s to come that you forget about them. 

We are doing the 52 week savings challenge! 

We have decided in 2016 we are going to participate in the 52 week savings challenge. We budget (or at least try to) anyway but feel like this could be a nice way to save an extra almost $1400.00 for the year. 
To find out all about the challenge and how it works click here, but basically for each week of the year you are setting aside that amount of money, for example week one is $1, week two is $2 and so on. There are many articles online saying that it should actually be done opposite, as in save $52 the first week and work your way backwards but we have decided for us it is best to start small and build our savings up. 
I can see why people have suggested beginning with the larger amount as just before Christmas it may be difficult to set aside $200 for the entire month of Decemeber and this is true, however for us right now it is actually harder to find that money following the festive season.

Anyway week one is here, I have a pretty jar set aside and a list next to it for us to check off so we don’t miss a week. So far all we have is $1 but I’m excited! 
Are you doing anything differently this year? I would love to hear about it! 

The bond we share…

She’s six months old today, that’s right Rhemy Sharen is six months old! And what a wonderful, hilarious and beautiful six month old she is.

It’s so surreal when you look down at your baby and you realise that you have created something so gorgeous. It is amazing what the human body can do and what the end result is. 

Watching Rhemy grow and change everyday is what it is all about. I already loved her with everything I had before she born and I knew no matter what, I would do anything for her, to protect her and to be there for her. 

What I wasn’t as prepared for, was the bond we share at such a young age. We are already little besties, the way she looks at me, the trust she has in me and myself for her is out of this world. 

Knowing I have a very close relationship with my mum, you’d think I would have been expecting it, and I definitely was to some degree but not while Rhemy was so young, but here we are. 

She has such a big personality, she makes me laugh on the daily, her smile lights up my day, she’s as stubborn as they come and very persistent in what she wants (I wonder where she got that from?). She is my very best little friend, my heart wandering out of my body! 
Ask me about our bond when she is sixteen, when she is still stubborn and persistent in getting what she wants!