the things not said

Social media among many things is a way of individuals marketing themselves to their target audience in such a way that gives those that see their posts, tweets, blogs and Instagrams an impression of their lives that is the only one they want people to see, but is in fact not an accurate representation of what their life is really like.

Of course that’s as it should be.  That’s why we have families and homes and private lives and our own thought life, so we can choose what we share with others.  We often hear about how social media is taking away our privacy and exposing too much, but I think for the majority of us we still keep hidden what we don’t want others to know.  The whole thing about marketing is that it sells a product people want, that people will be attracted to, that people will want in their lives.  So if Facebook is the marketing campaign for us ‘The Product’ then we’re going to put our best up there.

I’ve never looked over my Facebook marketing, but I would wager that the over riding message my campaign is giving is I love my children, we’re having lots of fun, every day is cupcake day in the Cowles home and I like really cool things.  And that’s really the message most of us are sending out there isn’t it, I’m great, please be my friend.

What got me thinking about this today is that I read a blog of a friend of a friend who is a young mum (isn’t that like 90% of bloggers??) where she talked about “the mythical creature that is Super Mum” and essentially she talked about not comparing herself to this superhuman standard of a mother that we all feel we should be, who bakes without sugar, makes all her children’s clothing, spends seven hours a day playing one on one with her brood and runs a successful design agency in her spare time – you know, her.

Here’s a photo I took today.

It’s my super cute two year old, sitting in a toy box having lots of fun.  The sun is shining outside, the carpet looks clean and obviously his mum is sat on the floor, taking pictures of him and having a giggle with him.  My perfect life.

I could have written a blog about how much I love my boy, how he is my delight, how it’s challenging being a mum but there’s so many pockets of joy that it’s all worth it.  I may have alluded to the fact that summer is coming and we’re having great fun in the garden and going to the beach.  I may have even said that despite the impending house renovation, the bills that come with it and the mess that is gradually building up as I care less and less about the tidiness of rooms because they’re getting smashed in anyways – I still feel so blessed with all the room we have, how we get so much sun in the rooms and the vegetable garden is producing courgettes.  All of this would be true and I would have been uplifted by focussing on the positive and my family and friends who read it would be pleased to hear we’re all doing so well.

However what is also true is that before I had even gotten out of bed today this adorable boy stuck his bare bum in my face, whilst his finger was in it and said ‘Mummy wipe’.  Just moments after mopping the kitchen floor I spilt my morning coffee all over it along with the pyjamas I had just put on clean last night.  When out doing errands my son had three, face-on-floor tantrums whilst judgy shop assistants stared at me as if I’d shown them my bare bum.  My ridiculously hot oven burnt a tray of cupcakes in five minutes so I had to throw most in the bin, and cut the tops off the rest so I could ice and take to my church life group (thus enforcing the illusion I am a great baker and we always eat cupcakes).  My children flooded the bathroom floor despite me threatening them with countless punishments so eventually I nearly drowned them with my furious and vigorous hair washing whilst screaming (I think my whole street will have heard) at them for being SO NAUGHTY!  The TV has probably been on for about 3 hours today, I didn’t sit with them whilst they painted, I fed them chocolate digestives when out on our shopping trip, I forgot to clean their teeth this morning, I took a photo of them when they climbed on the roof of the car instead of telling them off because it was so dangerous (I did tell them off after I got a good photo) and frankly, by 4pm today I was just counting the hours until they were in bed and I didn’t have them screaming, demanding or misbehaving around me!

I don’t have any photos that show all that mess, but today I was thinking that’s what I should do, take a picture of all the messes and misdemeanours and post that on Facebook.  To give an honest reflection of my day so people wouldn’t get the impression that I am all sorted and the perfect mother but that I’m just like everyone else, imperfect and missing the mark a lot of the time…and sometimes I’m really upset and angry about that, it’s not always cute and funny when my children are naughty, sometimes it’s just really annoying and downright dangerous.

So here’s another photo from my day; my son on the roof of the car, which he climbed onto whilst I was pulling burnt cupcakes out of the oven and cursing the kitchen I have.  It’s still too smiley and not at all reflective of the potential head injury that could have resulted from his stupid antics.

I guess my point is, and I think a few friends and fellow bloggers would say the same, I don’t just want to read about how wonderful your life is and how amazing you and everyone you know are, I want to read about your messy bits too, I want you to share that you don’t always get it right, I want to know I’m not the only one frustrated and exhausted by how much my day did not go as I would have liked.  Because empathy is also a powerful thing.

I have been missing blogging these last few months, I have lots to say (I’m sure) but I just don’t have the time to think of it and even less time to put it down somewhere so other’s can read it!  So at 11.14pm on a Wednesday night, having just finished working for the night I thought I would post some photos from today.  I may regret this tomorrow morning but hey, live on the wild side that’s what I say (I don’t, not ever).

Grandparents look lively –  these are up-to-date photographs of your grandchildren – this is what they look like right now!

It’s the middle of Winter over here on the “other side” but the last couple of days have been sunny and mild (19 degrees!) so today, despite runny noses, gunky eyes, nasty coughs and runny bottoms my children embraced the outdoors like the long lost friend it is.  Clothes were stripped off, picnic lunch was served and the Wendy House had some fresh air come in.  Oh and the trampoline saw some action for the first time in months!

One thing that has changed since the last time some bouncing was had is Jackson can now floor Minnie.

OK in Minnie’s defence she has been sick for the last few days and shortly after this session her temperature went up to 38.6 and she sloped off for a midday nap, but I’m certain this is the state of play for the future – even stakes in the sibling rivalry.

The Winter is hard when you have toddlers because they have way too much energy for being inside all the time and there’s literally not enough puzzles in the world to keep my two on their bums for longer than 15 minutes.  Thank goodness for a large living room where we play Duck Duck Goose and Hide and Seek. Daily.  Getting outside reminded me of how much easier it is in the Summer and how much fun my children can be when the noise of them has endless sky to disappear into.  Most definitely the loudest children ever.  Anyone surprised? Anyone?

We went to a play park today and Jackson located a massive crust of bread I had brought to feed the ducks and carried the thing around with him the whole time.  Sometimes he nibbled on it, sometimes he offered it to other children to nibble on (to my horror some accepted the offer), he laid it on the floor when he needed both hands but always returned to it, sometimes standing on it before picking it up.  Disgusting but hilarious.

Minnie has relaxed more about having her photo taken and they are both pretty willing to have me take photos of them.  Here they were meant to be pulling funny faces at me – Minnie gets a strong 8 out of 10 for her efforts, Jackson as always missed the point.

So I’m grateful for today, grateful for the sun and grateful for my children, who despite pulling the curtains off the wall and breaking the TV with one big push, are the apple of my eye and I love them with my whole heart.  Don’t I Jackson.

Anyone who has known me long (let’s face it everyone who reads my blogs is either related to me and so you’ve known me since birth or if not you’ve known me since I became an adult!) you will know that I am somewhat of a busy minded person.  That is to say, I don’t switch off unless I’m sleeping, I over think, I obsess, I go over details to the nth degree, I’m a bit of a stress head.  There are quite a few good things that come from this..I don’t miss much, I get things done, I’m likely to say yes if you want me to do something, I’m awesome at organising things.  The downside is that I can be pretty tense at times, if my emotions are involved they can be all consuming for anyone within a mile radius of me and lately…I think it effects my health.

One of the reasons I don’t blog so much anymore is that I literally haven’t got the time to spare.  I’ve been gradually picking up freelance work since the end of last year and I now have essentially three clients that I am juggling with two toddlers, busy social life, being a member of a full and ambitious church, keeping in touch with friends and family back home and trying to spend meaningful time with my husband.  There is literally no time for just stopping to think anymore, no reflection, no planning, no space in my brain.

As I write I know that there are plenty of women who do the same and more and they don’t have palpatations and a dicky tummy, but before I disregard my experience as not qualifying as hard and just carrying on anyways, I’m going to say I’m TOO stressed.

I have a plaster on my arm from blood taken today.  My lovely GP (who is a doctor and has four children under the age of five, the twins she is still breast feeding, so there’s someone who has it busier than me?!) listened to me give a history of six months of random symptoms, from something like IBS, to endless colds, to shaking legs, to flutterings in my chest that make me cough, followed by my many Google generated theories on what they might mean from diabetes, panic attacks, cancer of anything and Chrohns disease, all while blubbing my eyes out.  She generously signed me up for blood tests for just about all there is on the list and has referred me to a highly intelligent, good bed side manner, thoroughly nice consultant of gastro things to see if he can work out what’s the problem. 

I pray it’s nothing sinister.  I pray the consultant will stamp out all my worries and give me a happy diagnosis of ‘it’s just all stress’.  That is my hope.

But then what do I do with that?  How does one remove stress?  Particulalry one who is “wired” that way?  How do I slow down when in one hour I can take four work calls, send two emails, clean two small bums, cook a dinner and process one wash of laundry, all the while planning my child’s birthday party and make a mental list of the things I need to tell my equally hard working husband when he comes in the door?

It’s a rhetorical question.  I don’t want answers because if you gave me a solution from your point of view it would stress me out to have to try and apply it to my life.  I’ll work it out.

As I finish off this I realise I was supposed to have baked 20 gingerbread men for Jackson’s birthday party on Sunday so Minnie and I can decorate them tomorrow lunch time, but instead I took 20 minutes to write this…and don’t get me started on the fact that as I type I can hear my children watching Brave and I’m thinking “is it too scary for them?”, “I haven’t seen them all day, I should be with them”, oops and I’ve over cooked their dinner…

I’ll let you know how I get on…