“A portrait of my boys, once a week, every week, in 2016″.
Since becoming a mum I’ve realised that there isn’t such a thing as bad days and good days, or ‘one of those days’. Instead there are difficult moments, blissful moments, frantic moments, uplifting moments, emotional moments, perfect moments, totally crazy moments and moments that make you feel like you could burst with happiness. But these usually last a few seconds, minutes or hours – not a whole day.
When I was mum to just Winston I used to label days as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but decided to be honest to myself, and admit that it wasn’t entirely true. I know it’s ridiculously obvious, but since I decided to stop labelling days, it has made a huge difference. If the day doesn’t start off well, I no longer expect more drama to happen. I take a breath, and try very hard to take each moment as it comes, which is easier on some days than others.
The reason I’m mentioning this, is because the above picture was taken on a day that didn’t start particularly well. Ru woke up very emotional, I couldn’t get Otto to sleep for longer than 20 minutes and Winston kept asking me when the two of us could hang out (we call Thursday our ‘hang out’ day). We all had lunch, Ru had a nap, and from 2pm we had the most wonderful time. Another example from this week is Tuesday – the day was lovely, but then Otto screamed all evening. Neither can be labelled as a good day, or a bad day – just a collection of differing moments.
W: I took Win to buy a new pair of Crocs on Saturday and he was completely over the moon.
R: With Ru a cuddle fixes everything. Win used to (and still does) prefer to talk about things, but Ru just likes to be held.
O: O has been far more alert this week. I love how he searches for our eye contact and craves our company.
E xx
I can relate to every single thing you write Esther. I’ll admit that i do this sometimes, and have been a lot lately as its been a bit crazy and fast paced at times. But you’ve reminded me that all those moments are right, and that it’s not a fact of good or bad days. Kids have emotions just like we do and I guess it’s only natural to have certain moments that change constantly. I guess all we can do is embrace it all! Love this post xx
Thank you so much Nat and I’m glad you can relate. Yes, it is completely crazy at times and yours must be even crazier. You are so right, and the intensity of kids emotions still can take me by surprise! x
Nice perspective Est. I will have to start doing this more instead of remembering the disasters so easily haha Lovely pic and excited for win and his new crocs x
Thanks M! xx
This is so true! So many different moments and emotions in one day, I know exactly what you mean. The twins were a bit frantic yesterday but even those stressful moments can turn to laughter within a few minutes, you just have to take it all has it comes. You seem so chilled out which is good with three little boys 😉 xx
Absolutely! Laughing and crying (almost) in the same second. Thanks for your lovely comment Hayley xx
Lovely photo, I almost didn’t spot little Otto bundled up over there, so cute!
Nat.x
He is rather teeny tiny! x
It’s posts like this that make me love your blog Esther. Many, many parents will have an awful night, will get up far too early, not be able to think about food until lunch time and won’t get dressed until then too. It will seem to go from bad to worse and they’ll write the day off as a bad day without even stopping to notice the positive moments in it – the smiles, the laughs or just raiding the biscuit tin. For me, this is more than just another Living Arrows x
I cannot wait to take photos like this of my son, we already have fun but i’m so excited for when he can walk and talk and we can get into all kinds of mischief 🙂 I can also relate to everything you’ve written. We went through a pretty bad patch when Stripe was about 4-6months, he just refused to nap and I made every day a disaster by focusing on just that one thing. I will definitely know better for my 2nd xx