This is not what I had planned...

Instead of waking this morning and writing my weekly post for Sunny Mummy, I woke up to a sick child...nothing too serious just a tummy bug but certainly this was the end of the day as I had planned it. So as I sit here with my laptop on my lounge room floor, the air faint with the smell of pine-o-clean, I am reminded that at any given time, things can change and we must adjust our plans accordingly.

So instead of ticking off the tasks I had on my to-do list for today, I am writing this post in between washing sheets and comforting my daughter instead. Of course this is not a problem because looking after my daughter is far more important than any of the tasks I had planned but there was a time when I would have been frustrated by this 'inconvenience'....as though the things I had planned to do, were more important than fulfilling my role as a mother.

You see, us Mummies are often so busy planning and cramming so much into every single day that we don't allow time to just be...be mothers or ourselves, to deal with whatever life may throw our way. We spend so much time thinking about what we need to do, could or should be doing that we forget to focus on what needs our attention RIGHT NOW!

Trying to do too many things at once is a recipe for doing none of it well. Multi tasking may seem like a positive skill to have but in fact, it only adds to the feeling many mothers have that the things we have to do everyday NEVER END!

The reason it seems like things never end is simply because WE don't allow them to...

We just keep going and going and going, starting another task often before the one we are doing is even completed. We would not do that in a paid job; we would have a line and would know when to stop, when to go home, when enough is enough for one day. So where is the line for mothers?

Make no mistake, no-one is going to ring your mobile and say "Hey, I was just calling to let you know you've done enough, why don't you knock off for the day!"

We are in control of HOW we CHOOSE to spend our time. We are NOT in control of what life throws at us. If we are organised in our home and get the most important tasks completed first each day, then we leave room in our day for unexpected situations or to simply relax and have some quality time with alone and with family.

Resist the urge to keep doing more and more...us mummies overload ourselves for a single day and then have a mini (or major) melt down when things don't go the way we had planned. Then we make excuses and complain about how tired we are from all that we have to do...

Today, make the decision to be realistic about how much you can achieve in one day without leaving yourself frazzled. The sooner us Mummies realise that the only things we are in control of is our REACTION and WHEN we choose to do things, the more fulfilling our lives and the many roles we play in it , will be.