Tag Archives: lessons

Your Legacy, Your Footprints…

Posted in Being Me, Uncategorized by

Legacy 

What is Legacy?

It’s a word we usually retain for after someone has departed for the Big City in the Sky, (or wherever you believe we go after this life.)

But Legacy is not as final as we think.  We’re creating our own legacies, Every Single Day.

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Wouldn’t it be nice if we thought of our legacy as our everyday?  It’s the things we do each day, the people we affect each day, the conversations we have, the changes we make.

Sometimes, we make changes in our lives that take us on a new direction.  Sometimes, the change is subtle and yet, whether big or small, all changes lead us on a new journey.

Change is good. Change is what you make it.

But just because you come to the end of something, doesn’t mean that it’s over.  You will always have the memories you made.  You will always have the lessons you learned. You will always be who you are, based on what you’ve done, who you’ve met and what you’ve been through.

May it be an ending relationship, an ending friendship, an ending job, a change in career, an end of a process… all of the things that we do, every day, have made and DO make us who we are.  Our past has brought us to our now, and it shapes where we are going.

I’m thinking of a special friend as I write this today.  Big change is happening for this friend.  And I need her to know a few things:

This is not an end.  It is simply a change in direction.

It is the right change for her.

She has touched the lives of so many, in many positive ways.

She has influenced more young people than you could imagine.

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Rather than being sad that something is over, we need to be glad that it happened; to understand that its highs and its lows ALL contributed to what we learned from it.  And know that as we leave something, or someone, we can choose which memories to take with us.

We all leave footprints; we don’t remember every single step we ever took, but we know that every single step had to be taken to get us to where we are.

THAT is our legacy.  And we’re still creating it.

So , to you, (whose name means “Together” or “One” and which actually suits you perfectly considering the “together” YOU helped create), don’t be sad.

Smile at the memories (and friends) that you made, acknowledge the footprints you’ve left and get excited at the thought of the next stage of your journey.

It’s yours. Dance through it.

You have many more footprints to leave.

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I am Seriously Tested Mum

Posted in parenting, Uncategorized by

There are days when things happen to test us.

Yesterday, it was not just Mammy who was tested by events.  No.  Mammy AND Daddy and our marriage in general were tested. By what? By who?

By our Princess Poonami.

“She’s a great age now.  We can go anywhere and it’s so much easier than when she was tiny” scoffed Mammy to her cousin-with-older-kids at approximately 5.10pm.  We were standing watching our minions playing in the garden at Granny-Mary-Queen-Mother-of-the-whole-wide-world’s birthday party.

“All I need now is to throw a nappy in my handbag and go! No need to be lugging half the house around anymore!” Mammy was so sure of herself.  Cousin with older kids agreed.  How smug and fablis Mammy is about how clutter free Mammying is when out and about now that my wobbler is 2. Smug mammy.  Silly Mammy.

“Mammy.  We have a poonami!” I hear The Him call.

“Sorry what? We do not have poonamis anymore.  Silly Daddy.  Don’t you know that our mini is now of the post-poonami age? You have made a mistake.  Check that you have lifted the correct child from the garden.  You must be mistaken.”

Mammy is past the point of the Poonami.  I am no longer THAT Mammy. I no longer have to carry a changing bag.  I no longer have to remove brown sticky vests from the back of my child. I have past this stage.  I am Poonami free..,

Except that I am not.  And when I look up, the child in The Him’s arms is indeed mine.  He is pretending that she is an aeroplane, so as not to have to touch the bum region.  Of course, this WOULD be the first day she is wearing a dress and is bare legged and so I can already see the rivulet which SHOULD have been held inside leggins, trickling down the crevaces of her fat little legs. And the unmistakeable smell wafting from her arse can only be one thing.  Yup. Poonami.

And all that I have in my handbag is a single nappy.

Who’s smug now?

My sister calls out “My baby bag is in the hall. GO GO GO!!” and GO GO GO we GO.

There are approximately 120 people in Granny-Mary-Queen-Mother-of-the-whole-wide-world’s house, through which we have to manouvre the leaking posterier of the aeroplane baby.  She is “WEEEE”ing with glee as Daddy flies her through the crowd.

Scuse us.  Poonami alert, poonami alert.  We rush to the spare room and throw a towel onto the bed.  Princes Poonami is having a great oul laugh as we rummage through the sister’s baby bag for nappies and wipes.

I’m about to start changing her and I look at the Him.  He looks at me.  And we know that we are both thinking the same thing… HOW the fuck do we do this?

You know how they say that a parent forgets all the bad stuff…the labour pains, the pain pain, the recovery, the exhaustion…well it seems that we also block out the cleaning up of the bum explosions too.  Because for a few seconds, neither of us had a clue where to start!

Right.  We can do this.  And for the next 10 minutes. (Yes, it took 10 minutes, such was the extent and reach of the exposion.) we were a tag team.  Back in the throes of early parenthood. Working together. A team with one purpose.  Our marriage being strengthened, tested and verified by a shitty nappy.

“Nappies…nappies.”  “Wipe…wipe.”  “Hold that.” “Wait wait wait!”  “Watch her hair.” “Mind the bed” “You missed that bit on her neck”  “Fuck fuck fuck!” “Is that it?” “WTF? HOW did it get in THERE?” “Where will I put this?” “Go get a plastic bag.  NO a Bin bag!”  “Christ the smell…” “Get your HANDS out of THERE!”

The bumbag went into the binbag.  The clothes and towel went into another one.  The Wobbler was dressed in a spare outfit that my sister-who-will-always-be-prepared-for-all-eventualities-and-is-not-a-smug-relaxed-twat-like-Mammy-here had packed for her girl.  And at the end, Mammy and Daddy hi-fived. Yes.  We did. That’s how proud of ourselves we were.

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GRRRRRRRR!

“Still got it Daddy” says Mammy.

“Hell yeah!” says Daddy.

“I dood a pooooooo” said Princess.

No Shit Sherlock!

Lesson learned.  Mammy needs to go back to keeping a changing bag in the boot of the car.  Be prepared for all seasons…and remember that when she is on an antibiotic, there is a high chance of poonami, whatever age she is.

And together, there is no shitstorm that Mammy and Daddy can’t handle together.