Yes means no...

Remember as a kid, you would play that game where yes meant no & no meant yes?

I am reminded of that game often, when my kids decide it is opposite day :) oh what a confusing time that is...

Do you think mothers play a one sided version of that game every so often?
The side where YES really means NO?

How often have you said YES when you really wanted to say NO?

All because you didn't want to hurt the other persons feelings or didn't quite know HOW to say no?

Isn't it funny that we don't know HOW to say No...shouldn't we just be able to say it? NO, that is.

Most of us have been in a situation where we have been asked to do something that we didn't really want to do but we said yes anyway.

Then we are resentful..WHY?
We should have just been honest in the first place...

Our lives are not complicated, we complicate them by NOT sticking to the truth and telling people how we really feel. I am not referring to telling your friend that her new haircut is hideous...I mean if you are asked to go somewhere or do something that you really don't want to, then say so!

It might be a friend asking to borrow something, that you really don't want them to use. Or inviting themselves somewhere, you really don't want them to come to...what happens? We say YES instead of how we really feel, all the while building up resentment and negative feelings.

Whenever I use to say yes, when really I want to say no, my internal dialogue usually went like this "far out...why did they have to ask me, they should know better, now I HAVE to, oh why couldn't I have just said NO?"

I struggled with this for a long time because I didn't want to upset people, let them down or was worried about THEIR reaction...

Who knew that you didn't need to make up a story or an excuse? WOW, just be honest...really, you can do that? Apparently so...

During the priceless time I spent in counselling, I had one of many 'a-ha Oprah moments' when I finally realised, I am NOT in control of how other people deal or react with things.

It is THEIR stuff, not mine.

Have you ever thought that for every YES we say to someone or something, results in a NO to ourselves or our family?

Think about that the next time you feel compelled to say YES when you really want to say NO...

Life is simply too short and too busy as it is, than to SPEND time doing things or dealing with STUFF you really don't want, nor need to.

It's not easy to do, it can feel very uncomfortable but the best part of it all is this...

When you are honest and upfront...you give others permission to be the same.

Free yourself and others from the need to please and from saying yes when every inch of you is screaming no...

If you go through each day living your life with your mouth saying one thing while your heart feels another, you are heading for trouble.

More often than not, we listen to our head over our heart because we think it is what we 'should' do or what others 'expect' us to do.

In my experience, making a head decision only places you in a position where you eventually have to go back and listen to what your heart was trying to tell you in the first place...

What your heart is trying to tell you, is what is REAL. It's what you FEEL.

There is nothing more to it than that.

Has your head and heart ever been at battle? If the answer is YES then my message is simple.

Part of being a Sunny Mummy means you take the time to REALLY listen to your heart....then you simply 'say what you mean and mean what you say'!

There really is no other way...

Change Change Change

When I started this blog, I initially thought I would post just once a week (every monday morning) with a topic that had been on my mind. Well, I am still going to do that topic once per week but have decided to post a little more often.

Every Monday I will be posting a habit for us all to focus on for the week!

A shorter post to remind us all of the simple things that help us feel WELL, yet we often forget to do. How many times have you wished for more energy? Weight loss? Clearer Skin? The list goes on...and wishing for it will get you nowhere, nor will quick fixes like replacement shakes, energy drinks and such like...

Like everything in life, if you keep it simple and get back to basics you will have much more success. I know what usually happens with me is that I am tired and my jeans don't fit so I decide things need to change and in the space of one monday I decide to; drink more water, give up sugar, exercise more, cut out coffee, not have dessert blah blah blah and by 7.30pm monday I am tucking into my vanilla ice cream with ice magic (ahhh I am instantly 7 again when that runny chocolate turns hard)!

The key to make lasting changes is to focus on just one habit change at a time and make it a habit for life, not just a "OMG Summer is coming, or I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired, so I am going to drastically change the way I have been living for x amount of time all in one day" NOT GOING TO WORK!

We can read a zillion books, try 30 different programs yet if we just got back to basics and only put into our body what it really needs...we would be well on our way to feeling great.

Forget your business, job, house, even family....without good health you have NOTHING! Without good health, it is this simple...You cannot play with your kids, you cannot work and generate an income, you cannot enjoy life as you are meant to.

So this weeks habit is the first of many simple habits...WATER! I'm not going to list all the benefits of drinking water that we all know, like more energy, weight loss, less or NO headaches, flushing out toxins etc etc oh I just told you didn't I oops!

So much for a short post (hmm I am not sure that I do short but hey I will try I promise :)

Today, lets drink water....every time you feel like another drink, drink a glass of water first then the other drink. Chances are you won't feel like it after the water but if you do, then drink it....you are going to be visiting the toilet ALOT but it is well worth it.

I am sure you have all heard "your body is a temple"....do you want yours to be Buckingham palace or Hungry jacks? The choice is ours, don't make it seem so hard, just get back to basics with water for now (8 glasses minimum) and lets aim for our bodies to be like a PALACE and start feeling like the QUEENS that we are!


PS Lets encourage one another on facebook, twitter etc by updating how many glasses your up to today....oh and if you are reading this, please let me know by leaving a comment... one word or one hundred...its nice to know you've stopped by!

PPS Hmm legal disclaimer perhaps...don't go drinking 5 ltrs water on me and getting sick, I am NOT a health professional, just a Mummy trying to live a sunny and simple life and encourage other Mummies to do the same. So please seek professional advice if you need to about your individual health situation. Thanks and have a sunny day!

Put your own spin on it....

Disclaimer: I am writing about a genuine experience of mine and have not been commissioned by Cole's to promote their product on this blog however I am unashamedly doing so because they are soooo fantastic, no pantry should be without them :)

I recently won a competition where I created an original recipe for Cole's using one of their fantastic new recipe bases. I am one of 2,500 mums who test products for Cole's (and feel so lucky to be a part of it I must say)and I just think it is so great that Cole's have put together this panel and genuinely listen to what mothers need/want from their supermarket and products.

If you would like to see a clip of the dish being cooked, you can do so at www.coles.com.au/Products/Recipe-Bases/Mums-Recipes.aspx and also receive a free sample! I had so much fun coming up with the recipe, having the base to work with meant the foundation was already there... I just had to put my own spin on it!

I used to spend alot of time trying new recipes always being sure to follow the EXACT instructions and ingredients, I was simply to scared to try something new or bend the RULES...in case it didn't work!

I found myself doing the same thing when I first became a mother. I read all the books and followed the advice to the letter, often brushing off my own instincts along the way. I have since realised that we all have the 'foundation' for motherhood, we just have to put our own spin on it!

We know that every woman has a different experience of motherhood, yet so many of us do our heads in, trying to stick to the rules of "THEY SAY"!

Who exactly are "THEY SAY"?

Are 'they' your mother, his mother, the books, the magazines, the seemingly perfect mother at playgroup? Or is it you? The voice inside your head that tells you your not doing it right, not FEELING or LOOKING how you should, that everyone else must be doing a better job at motherhood?

Motherhood does not come with a how to manual, a job description or a set of KPI's.. It is up to us to believe in ourselves and trust that we are doing a great job.
We need to be honest with ourselves and others about how demanding and overwhelming motherhood can be at times..yet at the same time how amazing and joyous it can be too. We are always going to have good and bad days, that's life!

Part of being a Sunny Mummy is giving yourself permission to SHINE. It means you put your own spin on everything you do, from parenting to cooking, to how you dress and everything in between...

Forget about what 'THEY SAY', relax, enjoy motherhood...the good and the not so good, try new things, bend the rules and don't be afraid to mix it up because you may just be onto a winner!

Collaboration not Competition...

Surprise! I just had to do another post as I have just finished reading a book that I think every mother should read.... Mama Mia, A memoir of mistakes, magazines and motherhood by Mia Freedman.

For those who are not magazine junkies (or ex) Mia Freedman became the editor of Cosmo at just 24 yrs old and I could totally relate to her back in those days...until that is I became a mother at the same age she became an editor and her life seemed a world away from mine...Goodbye Cosmo, Hello Practical Parenting!

So imagine my surprise, 8 yrs later when I notice her book in borders (because of the fabulous cover :) and happen to flick to the page where she writes about losing her baby girl at 19 weeks gestation... WHAT? hang on, Mia Freedman doesn't have kids...or does she????? SOLD, EFTPOS, NO I DON'T NEED A BAG THANKS, GIVE ME MY BOOK AND A VANILLA LATTE PLEASE!

So here I am 6 days later and have just finished the book. I am writing no more about the details inside because I would love for you all to read it yourselves. What I will say is that by reading this book, you will begin to realise that it is OK to feed your kids cereal for dinner occasionally and much much more. It is even more OK to ADMIT it... (BTW breakfast for dinner appears every so often in our household!)

Motherhood is a tough gig and no 2 women will navigate it in the exact same way. So why not talk about what works for you and what doesn't with other mothers? You will undoubtedly learn something that may just work for you and probably realise that you are having thoughts or feelings that another mother is having too!

Yet not many women do this...we pretend that everything is great, that we have it all together when in fact we don't. We refrain from telling it like it really is for fear of being judged or because we believe that every other mother has it together. With good reason too, how many times have you had a discussion on breastfeeding, or circumcision or whether your child is sleeping through the night or not and felt as though every way other than the way you did it was right?

You see motherhood should be about COLLABORATION not COMPETITION. Why are we sooooo judgemental of one another? As Mia suggests, we all have our SMUG lists (things we know we do well as mothers) and our CRAP lists (things we don't do so well) so why don't we admit this to one another in order to know that IT'S ALL OK!

Let's encourage one another and the next time you're having difficulty or a crappy day...tell it like it is, don't pretend, embrace it, sit with it for a moment, don't be quick to feel better (and don't be quick to judge if you are listening)....yet don't get all worked up either; instead simply feel the emotion, find the lesson, then move on.

I encourage you all to buy the book, take some time to yourself, have a good laugh (and possibly a cry) and enjoy reading about a celebrity who admits to struggling to keep all the balls in the air just like the rest of us (oh and to having a muffin top too, go Mia you make us proud). Mama Mia is Mia's story so far.....motherhood is better off for her sharing it.

Like Mia, we all have a story too so lets share it and begin to rid motherhood of negativity and competition, afterall we can be our own worst enemies! We are all doing fabulous jobs even if it often doesn't feel like it and it is high time we started telling each other and more importantly... OURSELVES!

Thanks Mia for your book and for inspiring this post!

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.

When a child is born...

Yesterday was fathers day and we had a GREAT day out of the house, enjoying breakfast, lunch, ice cream, sand, sea and sunshine! As my husband left for work this morning, we hugged each other and I said "Thanks for yesterday, it was really fun!" His reply? "No, thank you...for making me a father!"

Wow, what a thing to say! Let me tell you that on mothers day I milk it for all its worth, the only thing I do is go to the toilet for myself and I only do that because well, no-one else can do that for you can they he he? The day is all about me, after all, I deserve it...we mothers work sooo hard, and you know what they say "When a child is born, so is a mother".

Absolutely, but so is a father!

When we are pregnant, we get 9mths to feel the baby inside us and prepare as best we can for motherhood. Then we deliver the baby and it is at this time it becomes physically REAL for the father. No longer is it just the 2 of you and where once you were each others world.. suddenly, for many men, they go to the bottom of the pile. As mothers, of course we justify this. The baby needs us, he can take care of himself, I am soooo tired and many of us go into a world where we think we have to do it all and our way.

Of course we all realise at some point that this is simply not true and children need their Daddy just as much as their Mummy but I wonder how many of us have stopped and thought that without our men, we wouldn't even be mothers?
It is often said that "the greatest thing parents can do for their children is love each other". Easier said than done, parenting is hard work but it becomes ALOT easier if we constantly remind ourselves that we should be facing the world together, not facing each other wondering how did we get here?

I would be hard pressed to find a mother in today's world who is not aware of positive parenting. Most of us try to do it and if you haven’t come across it by now, don’t worry...start daycare/pre-school and you will soon be exposed to it...As mothers, we are encouraged to praise our children, actively LOOK FOR and NOTICE the things they do right, pick our battles with them, for every NO or negative interaction, to have 5 (or whatever the number is) positive ones etc etc Carried out consistently...it really works!

So I propose the following...Positive Partnering! Take everything above and apply it to your interactions with your husband/partner. It won’t be easy, its not easy with the kids either but when you do it, you see the benefits immediately in the kids and yourself! So imagine the benefits of doing the same with your husband...Lets try it together for 1 week and if it doesn’t impact positively on your home life by next Monday, you can write to me and never read my blog again...believe me, if it doesn’t I will be the first to write about it....

I am confident it will though... just like we need to look after our children’s mother, we also need to look after their father too....NOT in a mothering way of course but by having a great marriage/relationship. Its hard to imagine NOW that one day your house will be empty and it will go back to being just the 2 of you. We give sooo much attention everyday to housework, bills, work, email and dare I say...social networking sites like facebook, twitter and yes blogs he he yet how much attention are you giving to your children's father?

I wrote a few weeks ago that we give time to what we value. Invest time and love into your most important relationship....the one you have with your husband/partner...the father of your children!

*IMPORTANT NOTE: At this point I have come back to add that it just occurred to me that there may be some single mummies reading this post and obviously this is written from a partnered perspective. I am not pretending for one minute that I know how hard it is to do the job of both mother and father, and certainly our society needs to recognise that there are many single mothers (or fathers) and their children who are viable and positive family units. The purpose of this blog is to encourage Mummies to look after themselves first. From time to time there will be a post on father/husbands etc and it may or may not apply to you. However, it is my hope that you may read the above and feel that the same principles outlined can be applied if your ex is still actively in your life and that perhaps doing so may create a more positive parenting relationship for you and your children.

Everything has season...

Being the 1st day of Spring I woke up at 4.40am excited with the newness of another season and just had to do another post...

Sometimes us Mummies need reminding that a situation we are in or stage the kids are in, will not last forever...Everything has a season. There won't always be broken sleep, there won't always be breastfeeding, there won't always be tantrums, there won't always be packing nappy bags etc etc

When your in the trenches of early motherhood, its hard to imagine this Mummy gig will ever get any easier...stages end and new ones begin, all the while we are learning new skills and being prepared for next stage or season in our lives.

Too often we focus on the 1st of everything...like today is the FIRST day of spring YAY but how many enjoyed yesterday and thought of it being the LAST day of winter for another year? Likewise with our children, when they take their 1st steps...do we pause to think about the fact that right before that, was the last time we will see them crawl all over the house? I am sure you can think of many more examples..

The point is this, lets not be in a rush to move from one season in our life to the next. It will happen anyway and whether a particular time in your life seems enjoyable or not, all you need to do is remind yourself that it is a season and it will not last forever. If there is a situation in your life right now that is not going well and all you can think about is how to get out of it or solve the problem, try to remember that sometimes there are no solutions, sometimes we simply have to learn to adapt to make the situation more tolerable until the season is over...

I can't remember the name of the song but I believe we can all learn from one of the lines in it....Every beginning is always another beginning's end!
How true...

Enjoy your beginnings and your ends, your seasons and the changes they bring, for this is truly what life is about....HAPPY SPRING :)