All Mum Said

Telling it like it is...

Another Year Together

By 29 Comments

Today is the 3rd wedding anniversary of the marriage to ‘the one’, my one, my amazing husband. I feel like we have known each other for a life time – that may be because we have been through so much together. Good and bad but we have always come out the other side stronger, wiser and closer than ever.  

 We started seeing each other 10 years ago when I was just 15 (yes, that makes me 25)!! I am absolutely stunned sometimes that we have lasted, grown together and matured together. I think that is the beauty when you meet someone special when you’re so young is no one including you has very high expectations (if any) that it will last. Well SURPRISE!! 10 years, 2 children and 1 marriage later here we are still together. 

We are very happy and as much in love as were many years ago. We are still infatuated with one another like we are teenagers in the exciting ‘I want to know every inch of you’ stage. Yes we have the occasional disagreement like every other couple in the world. We get frustrated with one another and don’t always see eye to eye but we love each other for it.

I am very lucky to have him (and of course he is lucky to have me), he is my rock, he’s my person, he makes me look forward to tomorrow. He is the warmth when I’m cold; he is my protector when I’m scared (and if there are spiders, frogs, or creepy crawlies), he is mine! I look forward to spending many more years with this man.

 

Have you been lucky in love? How old were you when you met ‘the one’? Do you believe there is such a thing as ‘the one’?

Confused Emotions

By 8 Comments

Have you ever experienced that moment when the phone rings and before you even see who it is calling you or have the chance to answer the phone; you know it is bad news? I have, too many times this year than I would like.

I just received a call letting me know that my last living grandparent has passed away. A stroke they said. Death seems to be surrounding my family of late and I just want it to stop. No more please! My husband and I have lost 3 family members already this year and it’s only August. First there was my grandad B (dads’ dad) in January only a few days after my birthday, next was my husbands’ grandad in March and now my other grandad K (mums’ dad). I cannot lose anyone else – I am too close to the rest. The rest of us are very tight knit!

I am not sure how I am supposed to feel about my grandad Ks death. Am I confused, should I feel more sad or upset?  I think I may even have a sense of guilt. I haven’t seen grandad K since I was little and as my mum wasn’t close with him we weren’t either. This is where the guilt comes in, should I have made more of an effort to see him? Should he have found me? I’m 25 and I haven’t seen him since I was about 6-ish (I think).

But with this guilt also comes the memory of this man who was not the most moral and stable person and so I question myself as to whether I should be feeling guilty. He was unpredictable and drank (a lot) but as I said I hadn’t seen him in so many years he could have turned his life around and I had no idea.

My emotions are torn and I don’t know how to feel. I know it’s too late to do anything differently and that I shouldn’t be thinking about what ifs but it’s is just one of those things, you can’t help but do it. How can one simply not question and take what happened with a grain of salt?        

RIP – My dear grandad W. King.

We should have known!

By 24 Comments

As you know I recently returned from a trip to Canada. My husband and I went with his sister and mother. Let me just say that never again will we ever (and I mean ever) go away with them again. Believe it or not my mother in law was not the problem.

I don’t know how one person can have so much but still think they have nothing. Someone who has a mother, father and brother who are always there for her even after she shits on them time and time again and yet still think she has no one who cares. I just don’t get it. I can understand having a moment, day or even a week of woe is me but this has been going on for as long as I have known her. That’s 10 years!

Image Credit
A decade of ‘poor me everyone else gets everything’ can get beyond tiring. You would think that for 2 weeks whilst on holiday you would or could be happy. Guess what – she couldn’t. It was a very long 2 weeks of complaining; because it turns out we all intruded on her holiday. We were all invited mind you but that’s beside the point. It would have been more enjoyable getting my teeth ripped out one by one without anaesthetic. Ok maybe it wasn’t that bad but I think you get my point.

Image Credit
The attitude had started before we even got through customs. We should have known then what the trip would entail. We did however get to have a few good days, actually great days! I will share more in the coming week of what we got up to. I have so many pictures to go through and decide what to write about.

Have you ever had to endure a holiday from hell? Maybe it was the place or maybe it was the people.

I would love to hear them all!  
   

Part 2 – The Result of the Lesson

By 13 Comments

The Result of the Lesson
It has been a bit over a week since I went all hard core and stripped Ds’ room down to nothing more than a mattress. How has he gone you ask? Has he learnt anything or was it a complete and utter waste of my time? Well this is how the week went.
The day of destruction and the couple of days following were not received very pleasantly by Mr 5. Not only did he hate his stuff, he now had it in for C and me. Which is fine, I completely understood where he was coming from. In his eyes I was the bitch that took all his stuff (that he hated so much!) and gave it to nicer and more appreciative owners. His little brother K was one of these happy new owners.
After a few days he cooled off and asked if he could have his toys back. The answer was ‘No’. This lesson will not be learnt if I just give his stuff back; it would completely defeat the purpose of what I did. I stuck to my guns. This time however instead of getting angry and kicking the wall or throwing something (makes it easy as he had no toys to throw) he simply asked K if he could play with some of his toys. K obligingly said ‘yes’.
We explained to him how there are people who have nothing and still don’t complain, they make the most of life and appreciate what they have and what people give them. This stuff might not be new, it might not be food they like but it keeps them alive. We showed D clips from the Red Cross and Salvation Army to show him that some people have nothing and how he should be grateful we can afford the things we do.
After seeing that kids not much older than him have to sleep on the streets and eat out of rubbish bins so they don’t starve it was like something inside his head clicked. He saw an advert on one the clips asking for everyone to donate when the door knockers came around and he asked if he could. He got his money box, so did K and they got half of their money out ready to donate. All we needed now was door knockers.
Well, as you have probably read in my post last weekend the door knocker plan didn’t go so well. If you missed it you can read it here. D couldn’t understand why they refused to take his money when there were people who really needed it.
Ds’ attitude has changed dramatically (for now at least!) but it’s a step. He has been helping more with everyday things, helping his brother, tidying up after himself, etc. By day 4 he asked if I could put his bed back in his room. After his help the past couple of days I thought there is no harm in giving his bed back. C put it back together and he made his bed.
Day 5 he asked if he could have his toys back again, I told him that he will need to ask K if he can have any of them back. If K says no then you can’t. Luckily for D, his little brother can be very kind and gave him a few back. It wasn’t all the toys K choose to have but more so a handful of matchbox cars. D was overwhelmed, he hugged K and said ‘Thank you so much K, I love you’.
By this point I’m thinking something has sunk in. Before he would have kicked and screamed and carried on that he wanted such-and-such a toy but not now. He was just happy to have a few cars. This is the lesson I was trying to teach. It does however go even further than this. C sewed a button back onto Ds’ pyjama shirt (yes C is the sewer of the family!) and D couldn’t have been happier or cuter I must add. He went up to his father and said ‘Dad thank you for fixing my button, I really appreciate it!’
D has continued to be helpful around the house and his attitude has maintained its adjusted new found appreciation so we thought it would be fitting for him and K to take the money that they were going to so kindly donate and buy a toy with it. I added the coins I was going to donate so between the two of them they had $39 each to spend.
He almost cried when I told him he could have this money to buy a new toy. That is a step in the right direction if I don’t say so myself.
I had no idea in the beginning how this lesson would turn out. Would it backfire? I wasn’t sure but in my eyes it was worth a go. Now in part 1 of this story I mentioned I may lose a few followers and guess what? I did. I however bid them farewell, my parenting style works for my kids. They know when I say something I follow through. I don’t joke when it comes to them learning life lessons (yes I know they are young but in my opinion a child is never too young to start respecting).
So for now, I would have to say that this lesson has been taken on board and accepted. Lesson learnt! I know that this issue will arise again at some stage in the future and yes I will do the same thing again. For my kids and I, this works. It teaches them.
How do you teach your kids lesson in life? Does it work?

Top Posts & Pages