Believe in you

I went to the Time out for woman conference today (LDS womans inspirational conference) 

It was amazing. 

I came away believing more in my self than I had done for a long time.  I felt motivated to make a difference and to believe that I,  just one of me,  could influence many people in the part of the world I live in.  

The conference theme was..

Choose to Become....

Think of the possibilities of what I can choose to become....what you could choose to become.  We all have dreams and hopes in our hearts.  Many of them stay there unfufilled. I use the children, time restaints,  lack of skills, others opinions and fear as excuses.  But really there aren't any excuses.  We all have so much potential and skills within us.  I think they are so buried and so deep that they get missed sometimes. 

 Write down today what you dream about and what you want to become. 

I am choosing to become who I was born to be and who I am deep inside. 

Inspiration

Find something inspirational every day in your life......

You could........

• Read a book about an inspirational woman
• Listen to a piece of music you love
• Listen to a genre of music you have never listened too before
• Write a quote on a piece of paper for the fridge
• Write a poem
• Find 5 good things that happened today
• Say 2 nice things about yourself
• Dance
• Sing with all the spirit you have
• Go for a walk
• Take a photo of something
• Think about all the blessings you have and count them

Stages of life

Life goes around in stages.  Our children have stages and so do adults.  I think this is one of the reasons our house has so many clashes in it.  Friction is bound to arise when you have a mother with PMT and a 3 year old on the scene. 

At one point we had 2 teenage girls at 14 and 16,  a preen teen girl, (all hormonal!)  6 year old and a 3 year old all at the same time.  It was not good planning on our behalf!!.  All 5 children all went through very challenging stages all at the same time.  Add to this me with PMT and depression and dad with long working hours you can just imagine the strain that created in our home.  It was hard work but I made it though the other end alive and an added bonus was all the children were alive too : )

A few things helped

• Believing in myself.  Realising I could do this.
• Prioritising time for me.
• Seeking medical help for my depression
• Remembering these stages would pass and change.  
• That I couldn't do everything on my own.  It takes a village to raise a child!
• That stages in life are part of how we learn and grow

And remembering if all else fails a chocolate bar fixes everything : )

Pressure

When I look around me there is so much pressure to be something no one actually can be.  There is  falseness in advertising,  photos and the front people put on for show.  So many women end up feeling like they don't measure up to anything. 

One of my 'favourites' is an advertising campaign by a nappy/diaper company  There is this beautiful, slim, tall, well groomed woman crawling around on a perfectly clean floor with her baby. The baby is clean,  cute,  has no rashes and giggling delightfully at everything the woman does.  The woman has no marks on her knees when she stands,  no bags under her eyes and no greys in the hair.  She is only about 20 and never had a baby. You get the picture. 

I have had a few moments like this with the baby giggling cutely but it usually followed by a drained looking mother with bags under eyes,  stains down her t-shirt, and hair combed 7 hours ago in thin strands around the face.   For many years I felt I never measured up.  Then the light bulb dropped for me.  We can't be like this all the time (or none of the time)  because this isn't real.  I was measuring myself up to an ideal that was non existent.  I couldn't look like that with a baby and my babies could never look like that as they all had reflux and were permanently in bibs and rashy from being wet all the time.  I wasn't a failure I was a normal mum just like all the other normal mums out there.  I was doing my best.  My best was a happy baby and a mum that slept when baby slept (but still looked tired)  I never could achieve a perfectly clean house (actually getting the dishes done some days was a miracle)  or be perfectly groomed everyday as that was completely unrealistic and this was totally O.K. 

My best is all that I need to worry about.  Not someone elses best and that is all that really matters.

Hello and welcome

This is a start of a new blog one that values families,  mothers and their children. 

So to introduce myself .... My name is Catherine Parkinson and I am a stay at home mum of 5 wonderful children.  I have 3 daughters aged 19, 17 and 14 and 2 boys aged 10 and 7.  They are all wonderful and beautiful and very unique.  I have been married for 20 years to Philip, an amazing father and husband.  I am a fabric artist (see my blog at http://catherineparkinson.blogspot.com/ for work that I create)  a primary teacher (elementary school-I only do occasional relieving)  and a general maid :)  to all those who live with me.  Life is hectic,  tiring,  exhausting and sometimes fun! 

So welcome and come on in.  Please feel free to comment on posts, discuss topics of interest and invite others to join us. The more input we have the more we can get out of our discussions.

Let us value our important jobs and love the lives we lead.