Category: Motherhood

A Letter To My Children After The Orlando Shootings

Home / Motherhood / A Letter To My Children After The Orlando Shootings
by Luschka

Dear Girls,

Sometimes really bad things happen in the world. Things that can hardly be explained among grownups, never mind being explained to  young children.This weekend one of those bad things happened. A bunch of people were in a nightclub in Orlando, dancing and having fun, when a man walked in and started shooting. He killed 49 people that night, simply because he didn’t agree with some of their choices. It wasn’t any of his business, really, but he felt they deserved to die. And ended up dying himself, leaving behind his own wife and child.

The whole situation is terrible, but there’s one story I want to tell you about. One person who really touched me. It was a young man by the name of Eddie Justice. He was 30 years old, and while he was pinned down in a bathroom, held hostage by the gunman, he was sending texts to his mother. When I read that, I cried. Read more: A Letter To My Children After The Orlando Shootings

Mothers Need To Become Selfish

Home / Motherhood / Mothers Need To Become Selfish
by Luschka

Mothers need to become selfish. No, I’m not talking about those people who are already selfish, and also happen to be mothers. The world has enough selfish people. But good mothers – mothers who prioritise their children always, mothers who put their families first, those mothers, they need to become more selfish.

This kind of selfish isn’t a bad thing. It’s the kind of selfish that they ask you to be on an airplane. You know? “In case of a loss of air pressure,  please put your own oxygen mask on before you help others with theirs”. It’s a life-preserving selfish and I know many, many women who could do with adapting that philosophy into their – our – own lives.

Mothers Need To Become SelfishRead more: Mothers Need To Become Selfish

A Mother’s Pain Over A Lost Toy

Home / Motherhood / A Mother’s Pain Over A Lost Toy
by Luschka
An anxiety I never anticipated before children, never understood, really, was that of THE LOST TOY.

Of course for the child, it’s the stuff of nightmares, and having lost things I care about, I totally get that. But what has caught me unawares was the anxiety, the pain, that I as mother would feel over a toy that I have no personal attachment to.

Ameli never had a security blanket or a dummy or even a toy that she favoured above others, until last August, when my sister bought her a stuffed elephant at The Rain Forest Cafe in Disneyland Paris. “Rainy”, as he was dubbed, quickly became a new member of our family, and while he might end up in the toy box from time to time, he is still the preferred bed time buddy.

Yesterday we had to take our car in for a service, and despite my protestations, Rainy came in with us. Come bed time, of course, we realised that Rainy hadn’t come home, so we assumed that he had stayed in the car – there were many tears, but after assuring her that Rainy was probably loving his sleepover in what must feel like a campervan to him, all snuggled up comfortably in the car seat, Ameli finally succumbed to sleep.

lost toysRead more: A Mother’s Pain Over A Lost Toy

Two Questions To Ask Your Kids Every Day

Home / Motherhood / Two Questions To Ask Your Kids Every Day
by Luschka

“How was your day today?”

“Fine”

“What did you do today?”

“Nothing”

“Learn/see/do anything exciting?”

“No”

Sound familiar?Two Questions To Ask Your Kids Every Day

This is pretty much what every conversation with my daughters was like, till about a year ago.  Whether they’d spent 3 hours at nursery, or spent the whole day with a friend, they pretty much couldn’t remember what they’d done an hour ago, or they couldn’t really tell me much about their day at all.

I found this really frustrating, and after a while, I stopped asking. Not because I didn’t care, but because I found ‘nothing’ or ‘I don’t remember’ to be too infuriating.

But this didn’t sit right with me.

I want to know about their days. I want to know what they’ve been up to. And even if we spend the whole day in the same house, their days often involve different experiences to mine.

About a year ago, I decided to give up on questions that weren’t getting answers, and to instead, change the questions.

While I will still ask loose questions about the time we spent apart, I don’t have feelings one way or the other if they don’t answer fully. What we do now is this:Read more: Two Questions To Ask Your Kids Every Day

The Importance Of Writing Love Notes To Children

Home / Moments To Remember / The Importance Of Writing Love Notes To Children
by Luschka

I’ve been thinking a lot about a dying-out medium, that of letter writing, and specifically, writing love notes to children.

My mom and I had what I remember as a difficult relationship during my teen years. Not an uncommon story, I know, but still something that impacts into your adult life.

A few years ago, my mom’s cancer took a terminal turn a few weeks before Christmas. On Christmas eve, the UK was deluged in rain and our garage flooded, along with many parts of the country and some of our neighbour’s homes. On Boxing day, my mother died, and all flood debris was ignored until a few weeks later.

I was going through a trunk full of old photos, cards, letters, and other things I had at one point deemed important enough to keep, when I came across letters that I had quite honestly forgotten about. Discovering them was shocking to me, because I had forgotten their existence. But it was powerfully affirming of my mother’s love for me. I mean, I knew she loved me but seeing those letters reminded me of the days I’d come in from school and find a letter from her on my bed. Love Notes To ChildrenRead more: The Importance Of Writing Love Notes To Children

8 Ways To Not Lose Your Mind When Moving House

Home / Motherhood / 8 Ways To Not Lose Your Mind When Moving House
by Luschka

Moving to a new places is fun. I should know. I’ve done it a dozen times in my adult life. Moving to a different house in the same area lacks a lot of that excitement because, well, all that’s new is the place you’re moving to. Moving house with children however, is a whole new ball game. You’ve heard those jokes about tidying up with children being like making a smoothie with the blender open? Or brushing your teeth while eating an Oreo? Those apply to moving house with children too.

And add to that home schooling children and it’s like being caught in an episode of a really bad slap-stick comedy. I can just visualise it. Pack a box of toys, go make dinner, come back to those toys all over the living room floor. Repack the box of toys, sit down to check your emails, telling the kids to get ready for bed. Go to put them to bed and find that same box of toys all over their room!

Yeah, it’s not funny when you’re living it. So here are some things to consider doing if you’re moving house with children.

  • Find somewhere else to stay

I’m not kidding. I grew up military and whenever we moved we’d have two weeks in a hotel on our exit destination and a week in a hotel near the new house. I thought it was a nice gesture from the army. As a parent I realise that it was the military’s way of keeping military wives from mutiny!

Find a hotel or a holiday park, spend four or five hours a day packing, then leave. Have somewhere comfortable to sleep, cook healthy food without having to think of what to pack and what to leave out. Get to your accommodation, have a swim, relax, get to bed early, start fresh the next day. It’s for your mental health!

  • Get one room completely finished first

If you can’t stay somewhere else during your move, or if you still have children around while you’re packing this is especially important.

Get one room packed up and cleared out as your first priority. The temptation might be to get the biggest job done first, but by getting one room done you either have a place for the children to ‘be’ without being surrounded by boxes, or you have a place for all the boxes to go once they’re packed, making the room out of bounds. (We weren’t able to do this this time, and it showed in the constant unpacking and repacking of not-yet-sealed boxes.)Moving house

Read more: 8 Ways To Not Lose Your Mind When Moving House

I’m A Freakin’ Parfait {Or The Many Layers Of Mothers}

Home / Motherhood / I’m A Freakin’ Parfait {Or The Many Layers Of Mothers}
by Luschka

I’ve had an odd week.

Things have happened, I’ve connected with an old friend, taken a walk down memory lane, had totally unusual conversations, and you know what – I’ve been fully there with it all.

Does anyone remember this scene from Shrek? About the layers?

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See. Layers. Like a parfait.

Motherhood changes you. You go from spreadsheets and workshops (if you were an adult educator and project manager like me) to nappies and breastfeeding in a blink of an eye. Unless you make an effort to stay current in your work place, you can quickly be left behind. It’s just how it is. World news has to be big to even break through the fog and haze of sleepless nights, sore nipples, and the mind-numbing awareness that you’re probably doing something wrong.

It’s just how it is.Read more: I’m A Freakin’ Parfait {Or The Many Layers Of Mothers}

Simple Christmas Decorations For A Child’s Room

Home / Motherhood / Simple Christmas Decorations For A Child’s Room
by Luschka

I don’t know about you, but my children are worse than any cat I’ve ever had when it comes to Christmas decorations, and fiddling with things on the tree! They simply can’t leave well enough alone. Of course Christmas is a family affair, but when you’ve spent hours putting it all together, it can be soul destroying to have little hands pull it all apart again – especially when they do that to everything else all year round anyway!

There are a few things you can do give children their own creative space for Christmas – preferably in their own room.

If you’re lucky enough to have an amazing room for your child already, like one of these nursery ideas, then you’re off to a good start:Read more: Simple Christmas Decorations For A Child’s Room

#nothingbeatsabike Halfords Competition

Home / Motherhood / #nothingbeatsabike Halfords Competition
by Luschka

Halfords has a great competition on at the moment where they are offering a new bike as a prize every week till the 16th of December.

Enter the competition to WIN a Carrera Star 16″ Kids’ Bike! Excellent for 5-8 year olds, the Star is lightweight and really easy to ride! It’s got the same high quality parts you’d find on grown-up bikes, making it perfect for little ones who can ride without stabilisers. Entrants for this competition must be must be 5 to 8 years old.

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Closing date for this week is 2nd Dec 2015, with the new competition being announced that day.

To be in with a chance of winning a bike in time for Christmas, all your child needs to do is draw a festively fun picture of their dream bike! Let their creativity run wild, and show exactly how they’d love their dream bike to look – the more colourful and unique the better!

To enter the competition, a grown up needs to take a photo of this drawing and upload it to the Halfords Christmas page here. Each week the most creative dream bike drawing will be featured as the Bike of the Week on Facebook, and the lucky drawer will win a shiny new children’s bike!

The competition at Halfords is now in it’s fourth week. This competition requires your child to draw their dream bike. The parent or guardian will then take a photo of the picture your child has created and upload onto the Halfords website. The most creative drawing will be picked as the winner. You can find out more here.

For a wide choice of Kids Bikes Visit Halfords Today