Make the most of them being little, it doesn’t last for long.
Monday Morning Mum Musings
You won’t be a ‘Mummy’ for long! …
Once a mother, always a mother, no matter what happens. Whether your children are two years old, twenty, sixty or older they are and always will be your children. (and for mothers who have sadly lost children either during or after pregnancy, you are still mothers, the title doesn’t leave you)
What occurred to me was that I am now ‘Mum’, have been for a long time, my boys are 38, 28 and 25 and I’ve been called mum (and probably a lot worse!) for years now. I wasn’t always ‘mum’, I definitely started out as ‘mummy’ called that by my beautiful little boys and others who knew I was their mummy ?
I don’t know when it changed, I didn’t notice. That’s what happens we don’t notice it, well we do eventually, looking back perhaps. It happens so quickly, our children growing up and we’re not mummies for very long. It’s not often you hear children saying ‘mummy’ once they become teenagers, or even a bit before that. Goes in a flash, your mummy days are over (I know some days you wish they were, it can be challenging and tough at times). I’m inviting you to savour them, relish them, make the most of them, notice them and your children, often and fully.
Tips to help:-
Remember you’re a Human Being not a Human Doing
Be present with and for your children. ‘Be’ with them as well as ‘doing’ with them. Remember we are human beings, not human doings. So many of us spend time making long to do lists, that never get done, we create a forever ‘to do’ list. Make a ‘to be’ list. Think about what you’re going to be, how you are going to be, e.g. Calm, patience, kind, trusting, loving, happy, grateful, joyful. So, let us be, let us be …… (singing to the Beatles tune Let it Be … ?)
Ask for what you want and not what you don’t.
We can often get fed up with and frustrated with our children not doing what we want and them continuing when we tell them not to do it. It can be looked on as defiant or naughty when they continue doing something we’ve told them not to. Thing is, they really can’t process the word “Don’t”. Their wonderful unconscious mind hears the main subject of the request, so when we’re saying “Don’t run … don’t jump on the sofa … don’t throw toys …hit your brother!” or whatever it maybe, they hear Run, jump on the sofa, throw toys, hit your brother! Even as intelligent adults and knowing what ‘Don’t’ means, we still can’t process it directly, it’s a secondary process. We have to think of what it is we’re not supposed to think of (i.e. highlighting it) and then think or do something else. Go on, do it know “Don’t think about elephants, whatever you do don’t think about elephants” You have to, to then not think about them and turn your focus onto something else!
Wear Rose Coloured Specs
Make a conscious effort to experience good feelings and emotions. Focus on the positive things and not the negatives ones. Yes, we have to deal with the challenges and unpleasantries in life, we don’t have to keep focusing on them though and revisiting them and thinking and talking about them. Deal with them and let them go. Spend more time focusing on the positives, what’s good. Focus on what your children get right, not what they don’t. See the good in what they have done, look at what else does this mean. A great example of this is when a couple took their daughter to Milton Erickson, a family therapist, because their daughter was defiant, wouldn’t always do as she was told and ‘had a mind of her own’ he pointed out that that was a good thing … she won’t be easily influenced later in life, by others, will make her own mind up and it’s a very good trait to have in life, he said …… He was looking at the silver lining, wearing rose couloured specs. It helps, think outside the box about what your children are doing, find a positive in it. The lesson in it, even if it’s only ‘well it could have been worse’ ?
Remember your wont be a ‘mummy’ for long!