Insecurities

This photo made me want to die. After about 4hrs sleep I carefully applied some tinted moisturizer, put on mascara and chose a cute outfit. My hair was shit but I didn't have time to brush it or do anything. See, I've had really bad anxiety all week about everything...meaning that I've bawled my eyes out for at least an hour every day. So my eyes and my face are puffy. And I've had not very much sleep partly due to the newborn, the toddlers, work and stress. 

I needed a photo to celebrate my first kill cliff (recovery drink) and instead my friend took this photo*. Eric looks hot and I look like a hot mess. I'm posting it here because I'm sick to death of people telling me how confident I AM, how LUCKY I am...

I had a baby 8weeks ago and I am still working SO hard. I don't look the way I want to, I want a tan, I want my teeth fixed, I wish I had time to have nice hair, I wish I could have some sleep so my eyes aren't so squinty.

What I really want is a hug and a million dollars, but I'd settle for someone telling me that I'm doing a great job. Because every mum should know they are doing a great job! The mums that work have it pretty darn hard, the mums that stay home have it pretty darn hard, the mums that do both have it really freaking hard. 

To all the pregnant mummas, I feel you when you struggle with your changing body...but it's ok.

So that is a photo of what I sometimes look like, no filters...it will change when I pose, my teeth get fixed and I lose the baby weight, but this is me...feel free to be you too.

Current CF stats:

- Snatch 33kg

- Back Squat 60kg

- Clean 45kg

- The Bear Complex 30kg

- still to scared to run more than 100m...

*Kellie, yes we're still friends ;)

 

Winter Solstice

Reef is seven weeks old! Seven whole weeks have sped by me and I will never again have a baby so small. He has had a rocky start with the tongue tie and the laser to release both ties, the week of unsettle and uncertainty and then the happy baby that has come through. He smiles every day now and it lights up my heart, he is also starting to grow too long for 0000 clothing. He wakes a few times in the night and is usually up from 4.30am, he sleeps well though and loves being swaddled, held and the natural rubber dummy can soothe him (which we didn't use for the other two).

Raine turns two in two weeks and is SO loud and independent, you cannot tell her anything she doesn't want to hear! She is spirited and full of energy, a nightmare to get to sleep and when she wakes is extremely upset if she can't be held or fed immediately. In the mornings this is super challenging as I will be settling Reef and she will barge in and demand to be fed with tears and tantrums a plenty. I remember that River did this (not as loudly) at the same age and when we had Raine, so I know it will pass soon. Raine also loves her dolls and drawing and her little handbag...she is such a dancer and very athletic despite being such a small ball of untamed energy. 

River is displaying very typical four year old behaviour. He is argumentative often, quite unreasonable in his "needs" and as a child that rarely tantrumed, can definitely and defiantly stamp his feet!

It is sometimes shocking and truly exhausting to parent a four year old. Possibly why they start kinder at this age? Haha. We are trying to parent with cuddles and kindness, though I know when I am having a bad day that I can yell when things get out of hand, this is something to work on daily because it makes us all just feel awful and is not how I want to parent at all.

Eric and I are in a new phase of our relationship, wondering what it would be like if we had dated properly or had any time to ourselves instead of having kids and running a business together. We keep saying that it will never be this hard again, and looking back to the startup of CrossFit Croydon when we were broke and miserable, clinging to a dream and hurt from our first venture not working out, we have definitely come a long way!

We may have more work to do now, but we always have food on the table. 

It is really hard to be everything we need to be and so we are learning to seperate our roles and define the time to be business owners, athletes and parents, the time will come when we can focus more on being partners too. 

I have been training a bit, seeing the Chiro, and generally feeling ok physically though yesterday I had my first Olympic lifting session and somehow managed to punch the bar and hurt my thumb! Snatched 33kg and power cleaned 45kg.

There is so much fear mongering around training post partum, but it is all a balance, my pelvic floor is activating well and with my core musculature, I feel strong and stable.

Mentally I'm feeling ok...quite anxious to be honest, a little baby blues and a lot like there's too much to do. Things that make me the most anxious are feeling torn between needing to do things and not wanting to miss out on every second with the kids. I'm learning to ask for help and accept help more...sometimes. 

Anyway The Mumma Movement will hopefully be live next week, a blog not quite as personal ;) and more collaborative. Hopefully today gets better with the sunshine and I can start the week on a high, feeling accomplished and ready for whatever life throws my way. I saluted the sun today, my own way of celebrating the winter solstice, a time of reflection, breath and grounding. We are naturally drawn indoors this time of the year and melbourne weather certainly encourages this, though as a sun lover I am usually a little more impatient and somber. 

Our household was unwell all last week and I feel thankful for a chance to welcome health.

 Love xx

The start of winter

It's been a month and two days since Reef arrived...and it has simply flown. My little squishy one has his tongue tie lasered tomorrow which I am apprehensive about but it will hopefully bring much needed relief for both of us. 

Feeding has been better in the last week, thrush cleared up too (I cut DOWN sugar...couldn't quite cut it out).

Trained in a WOD for the first time on Thursday night which ROCKED and did a 5km walk on Sunday. In between I've been stretching and stabalising though my thoracic and shoulder girdle have been killing me from breastfeeding (and feeding in pain). Speaking of, HUGE excitement: with Rivers fourth birthday, I also celebrated my fourth year of breastfeeding...for the past 1,460days I have fed at least one child every single day!

So I'm writing tonight because I had a really awful realization about the solo parenting at night...

Lately I've been trying to stay away from my phone and be super present with the kids, it goes so fast these precious first years, but I still find myself getting really frustrated and really angry about the kids not listening to me. You see, I believed a part of me not coping well with the toddler behaviour could have been due to the fact I do a lot of work on my smart phone and I really get swept away on social media platforms. But I don't think that is the issue...I think I am just maybe not that FUN. I don't like singing, or silly voices (except when reading), or splashing...I become anxious when things are messy and this is to the point where I will cry because the wooden birthday cake is not set up perfectly on its special plate...I feel like I spend a lot of time explaining what to do or what not to do and why. Then the worst part is that I take everything as a personal attack on me, I feel like Reef doesn't love me when/if he cries (rather than just acknowledging he has gas), I feel like River wants to hurt me if he does the opposite of what I'm asking (rather than remembering that sometimes he CANT listen and is overcome with an impulse to touch/do/say whatever it is)...and it hit me tonight when I asked Raine for the thousandth time not to jump on the bed, there was just no threats I could use to make her stop (she can't understand that she might fall or hurt herself), there was no bribe (she certainly didn't care if we read or not), there was nothing at all I could do except walk away or just accept it. Her jumping on the bed was not a reflection on me as a bad parent, she wasn't doing it to upset me...and so I did something I haven't really done before...I gave in. As much as it would have been awesome to start jumping with her and get Riv up to jump too, I just let her jump until she was done. And when both kids where slamming their heads into the pillows, laughing maniacally, I warned them that someone would get hurt (Riv missed and collided with the wall), but I gave in and then I soothed him when he was hurt.

As much as I have been a peaceful and attached parent, I still have much to learn and much to work on. Currently I am overwhelmed easily and know that I can be a bit too hard on the kids...especially because I feel like I NEED things to be perfect. So this is me, raw and honest (for a change), promising my beautiful kids we'll be having much more fun. It's not realistic to expect I can mimic Mary Poppins but I will definitely be trying to be softer and more lighthearted with everyone in my family, including myself.