Today’s post is written by South African Mom Blogger Amy Lalouette who blogs at Mommy’s off Her Meds.
1) Give us a brief description about yourself:
Allow me to introduce myself, I am the Unmumsy Mother to a Slytherin Baby and wife to an incredibly lucky husband.
I’m the mom you see in the parking lot of playschool, barefoot and prising my kid out of the car before tossing her to the teacher and yelling as I run back to the car, “Sorry, I’d love to say hi, but my lecture started 2 minutes ago and I’m the one who’s giving it!”
I’m also the mom on the play date, who suggests it’s never too late for coffee or too early for champagne and has a huge bag but never has wet wipes on her.
I see myself and my kid as a duo who spreads a bit of cheer wherever we go; all the other parents look at us and feel just a little bit better about themselves!
2) How do you feel about motherhood – what are your struggles and joys?
Undoubtably the most difficult thing I find about motherhood is the kid!
But in all seriousness, the thing I struggle the most with is “am I doing it right”? I have a streak of perfectionism in me (something most people who see me living my life in chaos find difficult to believe!); I want to make sure I’m doing the very best I can and that the very best I can is excellent.
A lot of people say that the problem is that motherhood doesn’t come with a handbook, no one tells you how to do it. I have the opposite problem! Every time I scroll through any social media, every second post is telling me what I’m doing wrong and what I should be doing differently. I just want to look at snarky memes and cats and all I see are titles like: “10 every day things you say that are damaging your child”, “The dangers of screentime”, “Why time outs are creating lasting psychological damage to your child”; even things like “How to stop a tantrum in 5 steps” are enough to trigger me. Believe me, my kid can count to five and I promise she can outlast 5 steps!
I even saw an article entitled “Things you say that can make your child bad at maths”. That started a spiral until I reminded myself that if she takes after her mother, then really nothing is saving those maths skills anyway, I might as well not stress about what I say.
Then there is the pressure to use the perfect parenting approach at all times. When your child is on the floor screaming because you said no to the bag of Flings, how do you know how to acknowledge her feelings and validate her, make sure that you’re not repressing her feelings or squashing her personality, while still ensuring that you raise a child who is not an entitled brat, but a compassionate, emotionally well-adjusted and well socialised human being. All while trying to pick her up off the floor and carry the basket of groceries to the till, as you feel the condemnation of the entire shop for not discipling your child, while remembering that the ways we were disciplined are now illegal and gentle parenting is the only parenting style that is (according to social media) acceptable.
I personally cope by eventually just putting her on the floor out of the way of the trollies, pretending I don’t know her and making sure that I don’t drop the bottle of wine!
On the flip side, when those little arms wrap around my neck and I can feel her little body relax against me, I also feel that same sense of safety and love she feels, and my neck muscles, which were tensed so tightly my shoulders were rubbing my ears, also relax.
But the best parts of motherhood are not only the moments of snuggling and wet kisses and the yelling “I wuv you!”; I love to watch my little Slytherin Baby become a real person. From the moment I saw the little black and white blob on the screen, I started to wonder who she would be: would she be shy and quiet? Love sport? Would she be sassy and bossy, or arty and dreamy? Some of those questions I felt I knew the answer to before she was even born! And from day 2 I knew she was going to be a bossy little tyrant; but every day I learn more about this fascinating, infuriating, loveable person. I learn that she likes to face her fears; that she doesn’t enjoy ballet; that she loves make-believe and seeing as she inherited her mother’s co-ordination, I doubt I’m going to be spending my weekends watching her play sport!
3) Tell us about your kid
My favourite scan picture I have is the picture where baby is posing beautifully for the camera. You can clearly see the head and the nose; the little legs are crossed and one arm is raised with a clenched fist and what is very clearly a thumb sticking up. That was the 17 week scan when I was desperate to find out the gender of my baby. The little so-and-so, sat with her legs crossed the entire scan and then at the very end raised her left arm and gave us a thumbs up. I left that appointment not knowing the gender of my baby, but I did know for sure that I was going to have a Slytherin.
My kid is the most incredible, caring, compassionate, smart, funny and interesting person I have ever met. She is never short an answer, a hug or some astute observation. Of course, that’s when she gets her own way. When she is denied anything, then she turns into the sort of tyrant that it takes the combined strength of an empire to overthrow.
I’ve always considered myself a good disciplinarian. I was a high school English teacher before I was a mom. You could give me a room with 120 restless, noisy teenage girls and 4 minutes I would have them quiet and ready to learn Renaissance poetry without saying a word, such was the power of my stern aura.
How did this work with my kid? Well, it ended up with me lying face down on the floor and my toddler sitting on my back, using my butt as a makeshift trampoline for her baby T-rex figurine.
The thing is, I’m convinced Slytherin Baby was a queen in a previous life; the sort who was carried around in a litter and surrounded by servants, waiting to fulfil her every wish. I don’t think she’s quite moved on from that mind set, and I have a feeling that she has no intention of settling quietly into the life of lowly commoner!
4) How did you start blogging?
I am not a naturally maternal person. Pregnancy and childbirth and children in general tend to freak me out. Despite this, I decided that I would take the plunge and start a family; even if that meant I had to face the whole growing-a-human-inside me thing. Early on in my pregnancy, I was given a best-selling pregnancy book by a friend who told me this was the most reassuring pregnancy book I would ever read; that she had been so nervous about pregnancy until she read that book. She swore that I would stop feeling scared and start feeling excited.
I spent about an hour with that book.
It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I couldn’t look away, and yet I knew what I was seeing would haunt me forever. It turns out that what other people find reassuring is the stuff of nightmares.
I was a total fish out water when it came to the pregnancy, baby, child thing, and I could either curl up into a little ball (although was I allowed to do? Would that hurt the baby?) or I could laugh at ridiculousness of the situation and myself.
And so I decided to chart my journey through pregnancy (and then onto motherhood) in part to put the whole surreal situation into perspective and in part because I thought I couldn’t be the only person who felt like the least qualified person in the world, and I wanted to reassure others that it was ok, there was someone else out there who also spent their entire pregnancy saying WTF!
And even now, on days when I’m face down on the floor with a toddler using my butt as her personal trampoline, I remind myself that at least this will be good content for my blog, and that one day I will look back on this and laugh; and the rest of the world can look at it and laugh now.
5) Share with us a valuable blogging tip you’ve learnt
More and more blogs are written about the extremes of motherhood or show the “reality” of unglamorous motherhood (tip: it doesn’t count as “unglamorous” if you’re not wearing makeup but you’re filtered into dewy Valencia perfection). For most of us, the reality of motherhood is jeans that have been pushed three days past wash day , a t-shirt with a mysterious stain that is still damp and the most unflattering angle of our stomachs because for there to be a picture of us, we had to beg our partners to take the photo and they just never bother to get the angles right. It can be lonely to feel like maybe I don’t have the same experience that everyone else does.
So, I would recommend write your reality. Write about the extremes, but also the little things. Write about the days you couldn’t fit into your jeans and the days your kid did something amazing. Write about the days that are boring and the days that are too busy. Write about how you messed up bedtime and ended up on the floor with a crying toddler and a glass of wine. Write about the day you did it all right.
You never know how many other people will feel a sense of relief because you GET IT.
Blog Link:
Slytherin_Baby_and_the_Unmumsy – Mommy’s Off her Meds (home.blog)
https://mommysoffhermeds.home.blog/author/amylalo/
Instagram Link:
https://instagram.com/slytherin_baby_and_the_unmumsy?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Twitter Link:
Amy Lalouette (@mommysoffhermed) / Twitter
Facebook Page Link:
(2) Mommy’s off Her Meds | Facebook
Watch the interview with Amy here:
Love it – laugh out loud truth!!