Judging parents…

It seems that once you become a parent (even before the baby is born) you open yourself up to advice, from strangers and loved ones, wanted and unwanted, criticism and judgement.

We’re all guilty of judging other parents, and offering advice, but what happens when judgement is misplaced and unneccesary.

Recently someone commented that they can’t wait for John and I to have a second child, implying that we’d then appreciate how hard parenthood really is. Because apparently John shot their child ‘a look’ when their child was misbehaving and the parents were doing nothing about it. Did the comment piss me off much? Um, yes just a tad. To fully appreciate this comment, let me start at the beginning.

When I was pregnant there were many, many people rubbing their hands together smiling like a stupid cheshire cat waiting to see how my darling ex-bachelor husband would handle fatherhood. I even had the suggestion made to me that if we sold tickets there’d be a line around the corner wanting to catch a glimpse of John in the early days of fatherhood.

I could have easily jumped up and down telling everyone to stick there comments where the sun don’t shine, instead I smiled sweetly and rubbed my own hands together knowing full well they’d all be shot down when John turned out to be a wonderful Dad. I wouldn’t have married him if I didn’t think he’d make a wonderful father. And of course his little girl came into the world, melted his heart and had him changing nappies before he could ask, what’s that smell?!

John’s own father even commented he was pleasently surprised at what a hands on Dad his son was. No pleasent surprise for me, I always knew he would be.

So our gorgeous daughter has been and is a wonderful baby, full of personality and cheekiness, a good sleeper and a good little eater. That’s not to say we don’t have shitty days or shitty nights, but over all we’d like to think we’re doing a pretty darn good job. So why not compliment this instead of being negative and making comments like the one that started this whole rant.

I don’t doubt that 2 kids is much harder than 1, but it doesn’t necassrily mean that you know more or are better parents then someone else because you have more children.

The most amazing pieces of advice usually come from those who don’t actually have children of their own. I was recently told that I needed to put more effort into my blog. I needed to get myself and Sophie into a routine and set aside blogging time for myself to improve my blog.

How nice would that be, regular time set aside for myself to blog. That would be great. In a perfect world. And we all know that said perfect world, unfortunatelty does not exist. While Sophie is in a great routine (thank you ‘Save our Sleep’) not everything is the same everyday. I’d love to say, right I’m going to blog every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. But what happens when Tuesday night Sophie screams for an hour at 11pm because her mouth is hurting from teething. Or we sit up at the hospital for 3hours from 1am because her temperature sky rockets to nearly 40 degrees. Or when I put her down for afternoon nap and sit down for my scheduled blogging time and she throws up all over her cot.

Unfortunately as I’ve mentioned before this blog has taken a back seat to motherhood, and rightly so. Posts are few and far between but blogging doesn’t always have to be everyday, or always 3 times a week. Most bloggers aren’t paid for their writing (happy for that to change if anyone wants to pay me!), it’s all for the love, and in my case, it’s cheaper than therapy.

So back to my original rant about judgement. At the end of the day, those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. And before you judge another parent, just remember, we’re all doing the hardest job in the world, all with different children, all with different beliefs. And don’t forget to look in your own backyard before criticising others.

Rant over.

The clothing clean out

If only this was my wardrobe! (Image)

Sophie, my 14 month old and I have one big thing in common: we were literally busting out of our wardrobes. Last week I came to the end of putting up with what was a very messy little girl’s wardrobe. You see, I’m actually quite an organised person. I like things neat and tidy, but behind Sophie’s wardrobe doors was anything but neat and tidy. As she grew I bought more clothes but just put them on top of the old clothes. It didn’t take long before the drawers were bursting at the seams and the hanging space rivaled a very squashed retail sales rack.

So with the latest basket of washing staring at me to be put away, I decided to begin. Begin tidying up Sophie’s wardrobe. I pulled out all her clothes and sorted them into what was far too small and what actually fitted. The problem was that I loved seeing all the gorgeous little outfits hanging in there even if they were from a size 00! I ended up with ANOTHER large space bag of clothes bringing the grand total to 3 already! I found gifts I was yet to unpack, and clothes I had forgotten I bought for her. 4 hours later Soph’s wardrobe was spick and span.

Then it was my wardrobes turn. I gave myself a couple of days break and on New Years Eve morning with Sophie asleep and hubby out and about, I began. I started with shelves of stuff I hadn’t even looked at let alone used in the past probably 3 years. I got ruthless and just started throwing stuff out. Belts that were no good, pyjamas that were far too small and swimmers that I can’t believe I ever fitted into. Then I started on my shoe shelf. As I dusted off the boxes of all my lovely high heels I reminisced about the old days. The old days when every work outfit was carefully chosen with shoes to match. Sky high heels that at the time seemed easy to wear. These days… Well mummy mode has well and truly kicked in! I’ve got one pair of comfortable black heels I wear to hubby’s awards nights and the rest are trusty old flats. Unfortunately the word ruthless didn’t enter into the shoe clean out. After dusting off the boxes and the shelf they all got neatly stacked back. Throwing them away seemed too much to bare!

This unfortunately continued in the clothing department too. I’d had a massive throw out a few months ago and gave my brothers girlfriend all my lovely work clothes that even if I were to go back to work would require me to lose at least 15 kilos for me to fit back into. But my lovely casual and some dressy pre-Sophie clothes I couldn’t part with. You never know, I told myself, maybe one day after we’re finished having kids I’ll fit back into them. One day. So they all got packed into plastic tubs for safe keeping. You know, just in case. Finally I rearranged the clothes that do fit me and hung up the things I wear everyday so I can actually SEE what I have. I even found clothes I had forgotten I’d bought. It was like shopping without the having to spend money bit! So after about 8 hours spread over 2 days my wardrobe was complete. And it feels so good knowing that behind all the cupboard doors everything is neat and ORGANISED!

I never make new years resolutions because I know I’ll never keep them. But I have promised myself that when 2013 rolls around our wardrobes will be as tidy as they are today.

Now to get hubby to do his wardrobe… I have a feeling that will be MY next clean out!

Oh, and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

I can’t believe another year has almost passed us by. I’m convinced that time speeds up as soon as you have kids.

So I just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

See you next year!