A word for 2015.

Noel's out with the kids and for the first time this holiday I have a bit of time to spend to myself. So obviously I went on Twitter and read a blog written by Annie, which led me to discover a blog written by Ruth, which led me to discover somebody called Susannah Conway.

Straight away I downloaded her workbook Unravelling 2015 and now my day has a deliciously introspective shape to it. I can't wait to sit down and reflect on last year which was, for many reasons, my hardest ever.

Part of the exercise involves choosing a word for 2015, to keep in mind as something of an overarching theme for the year to come.

Before I even begin I know what theme will dominate my 2015, and so my word is….

….of course….

VILLAGE!

At the end of 2014 my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew moved to Singapore. My sister-in-law is my best friend, my brother is about my favourite person in the world that I haven't either birthed or married, and my niece and nephew are Cherry and Violet's best friends and soul mates. We have lived with, or round the corner from, each other since 2008 and our children have grown up together.

Now they're on the other side of the world. My village has flown the village.

And so this year I need to address the loneliness they have left behind. I can't replace my best friends and my children's soul mates of course. But having had close family close by at all times, it's safe to say I've been pretty lazy about making new friends.

So this year I need a new village. Friends. Friends for the children, friends for Noel and I as a couple, and friends for me.

I want company and community. We all do. It's a fundamental human need.

I want to be able to pop next door and ask my neighbour to keep an eye on the girls for 20 minutes while I run an errand. I want to be able to text a friend and arrange a playdate for Cherry if she's driving me bananas bouncing off the walls and just needs another child to be childish with.

I want to look after friends' children so they can pursue their needs, and have the favour returned. I want to talk to friends about the future, find out their hopes and dreams, listen as they work out what they will do next.

I want a house full of laughter, I want friendship and company, connections.

I want a village again.

So, we've kicked off by inviting the whole street to ours for drinks and nibbles on New Year's Eve in the afternoon. So far we have no idea who, if anybody, is coming. Many people are away, many others will be busy with plans and friends of their own.

But even if it ends up just the four of us and one solitary neighbour who has absolutely nothing better to do, it's a start.

Gratitude

I have been reading up on gratitude lately. Having always self-identified as 'ambitious', the concept of focusing on what I do have instead of striving for the next thing felt counterintuitive at first. Shades of resting on laurels, or even self-indulgence. Sitting around slapping myself on the back instead of looking at what can be improved and made better.

But I find myself more and more agreeing that to live in such a way is deeply harmful. Not only does it promote dissatisfaction and a constant sense of deprivation - endless wanting without having - but also it means that, as the old saying goes, you don't know what you've got til it's gone.

Here are 10 things I'm grateful for this week:

1. A family party which has made us all feel warm, festive and loved.

2. Beautiful Christmas flowers from my brother in Singapore.

3. The way Violet holds out her bowl or plate with both hands and says 'Eee-ished' (finished) when she's had enough to eat.

4. Giggling with Noel and feeling really close and reconnected after a long, hard and tiring run-up to Christmas.

5. The kindness and generosity of my late grandfather, which has helped make Christmas a little easier for us all this year.

6. Sitting in our living room with the Christmas lights on.

7. Eating party food for dinner and chocolates at any hour of the day - or night.

8. Planning a New Year's open-house drinks party for our street.

9. A good friend with whom I can be completely open and honest.

10. The boots I have bought Violet for Christmas. They're really more for me than for her.

Fiction and non-fiction

When people find out I am an author they get all excited and squeaky. 'So what do you write? Have I heard of you?!'

I instantly get squirmy. 'Oh, nothing exciting. Just non-fiction. Boring stuff. You won't have heard of any of it and I've hardly sold any….so what do YOU do?'

I know, I want to slap myself too.

My mystery conversationalist doesn't know that actually, I've always wanted to write a novel but I don't feel I'm quite ready yet. Or rather they probably do, because I'll tell them, apologetically, if they ask me if I've thought about fiction.

The way I present non-fiction you'd think it was some kind of inferior option. Writing for those who aren't (whispers) real writers.

The urge to write a novel has been plaguing me for as long as I remember. As a young girl I devoured all the children's and YA fiction, and even Mills & Boons, I could get my hands on. I'll see you a Sweet Valley High and I'll raise you a Saddle Club, The Silver Brumby, Phantom Horse, The Babysitters Club, The Black Stallion, anything by any of the Pullien-Thompsons, Mallory Towers, and Enter My Jungle to boot.

And I wrote too. Thrilling tales of girls and ponies, girls who wanted ponies but couldn't have them, girls who had ponies and went on adventures with them, exciting yarns about misdeeds uncovered by intrepid girls, the misdeeds inevitably involved ponies, you get the gist.

As I got older and added Jilly Cooper and her ilk to my reading list, I would throw a Handsome Man into my writings. He may or may not have been roughly based upon a combination of Liam Gallagher and Ronan Keating (criiiiinge). Our intrepid girl heroine usually stumbled - literally - across this weirdly handsome, inevitably Irish, rather rude ruffian while she was riding her pony, and they would have cross words, and off she'd gallop, fuming at his lack of manners.

But when she got home she'd find she couldn't stop thinking about him…and he about her, of course…and in the meantime, ponies...

A novel is in my future, of that I have no doubt. I have two drafts saved on my computer, both of which need A Lot Of Work. I flit between the two then have long, long periods of not attending to either. I have little creative and emotional energy at the moment for anything that doesn't involve my children. When this will change, I don't know. But I know I will know when I know.

I also haven't had the emotional energy to read much fiction lately. Or more pertinently, the time! But I have read a lot of non-fiction, and I can honestly say I love it as much as, if not more than, fiction.

I always have. One of my favourite things to do when I was younger was read non-fiction. I had a library card and boy did I know how to use it. Having read my way through every single pony book (and magazine) in the South East of England by the age of six, I turned my avid, greedy eyes to anything else I could get my mitts on.

On any given week I would check out of the library books on herbal remedies, yoga, cooking, gardening, beauty, makeup, music, dance, gymnastics, hair care, DIY, design, geography, art, photography, the natural world, reflexology and massage….

Healing, nature and animals certainly featured heavily but I would read almost anything. Once I checked out a book entitled How To Be A Supergirl which was like a pre-teen equivalent of How To Walk in High Heels by Camilla Morton. The ethos was wonderful, here was a practical guide to being capable, a lifestyle handbook dressed up as aspirational.

Another time a friend dared me to find a library book that had never been checked out (we knew how to live) and take it out. The Complete Guide To Beekeeping was duly brought home in my rucksack. I read it from cover to cover and within a year I'd been to beekeeping classes and had a hive kept in an orchard a mile up the road.

I rarely, if ever, delved into anything around politics, economics, history, popular culture and celebrities. If it was historical and involved ponies, it might make the list but other than that these were - and still are - pretty much black holes for me. I can't explain why, these just aren't areas that have ever lit a flame within me in the same way the natural world or, well, ponies did.

Today I still read non-fiction in a kind of frenzy, devouring it until the words are coming out of my ears. I've read so many parenting and child development books I could probably write a thesis. The consumption of parenting books in particular is surrounded by snobbery and finger-wagging and the myth that good parents don't need to read as they somehow automatically just know everything. I am 100% happy in my decision to read as much as I can about the development of the two people I have chosen to bring into the world. After all, reading about what I do, is what I do.

I'm still that girl with the bruised, battered library card. I'm sad that libraries no longer keep dated records of checkouts in the front of books because if I could, I'd find a book that had never been taken out of the library, and I'd take it home and read it to this day.

I don't even know if any libraries hold my books. If they do, they may well be the books that nobody's ever checked out. But some day somebody like me might. They might take home The Girl's Guide to Life on Two Wheels, laughing to themselves. 'Who needs a book about riding a bike?' And they might read it, and fall in love with the idea of getting a bike and riding to work, just as I fell in love with so many things through the medium of words, and if they did, that would be just lovely.

Pix of Cherry circa 16 months reading The Girl's Guide to Life on Two Wheels.

My three new rules of eating: An antidote to Busy Mum Eating Syndrome

Last week I had something of a lightbulb moment when it comes to food and eating.

For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to lose half a stone. The most obvious barrier has always been a strong fondness for biscuits, cake, chocolate and general treats.

The quantity of treats and biscuits I consume directly relates to how busy, stressed, tired, resentful, frustrated and put-upon I'm feeling. When I'm feeling happy I can easily avoid them for days, even weeks, on end. If I'm down in the dumps it's a different story.

But a while ago I noticed no matter how many biscuits, cakes and treats I ate, I wasn't satisfied.

I was often over-full, bloated and even slightly nauseous, but I didn't feel content.

In truth, I barely tasted them.

And then I thought about it and realised actually I barely tasted much of what I was eating.

I've fallen victim to Busy Mum Eating Syndrome.

The meals I sat down to eat with the children were the only meals I ate that I actually noticed.

I was polishing off leftovers clearing the table without thinking. Picking at bits of their dinners without noticing. Snatching snacks on the go, wolfing down entire bars in two or three bites as I herded both girls out of the house and off on an adventure.

In the evenings Noel and I largely ate in front of the TV, at weekends I ate while browsing on my phone. Snacks and treats were consumed in front of the laptop in between updating Twitter and reading blogs.

The volume of food passing my lips that I barely even noticed was quite astonishing.

It's all entirely understandable. I'm a full-time mother of two children under three with a freelance career on the side, a family home to run and friends and family near and far.

What I eat and how I eat it isn't exactly important, is it? As long as I keep it as healthy as I can, can't it just slot in around other things?

Only we all need to eat, to live. And by treating eating as unimportant, something to just shove into my hectic schedule or revolve around the children's, aren't I kind of treating myself like I'm not important either?

In fact aren't I completely and utterly treating myself like I'm not important and that my fundamental human need to eat is nothing more than an irritating inconvenience?

 Pre-children. I still wanted to lose half a stone. SRSLY. 

So this week I decided to try something new and apply the following three rules to everything I eat.

1. Eat when I'm hungry.
Not because it's an allotted mealtime. Not because I might get hungry later but I won't have time so I'd better have a snack now. Not because I feel a bit restless, not because I always eat at this time, not because everybody else is eating and it'd be rude not to. If I'm not hungry, I'm not eating. And if I am, I'm going to eat whatever it is I want - yes, including biscuits - and give myself full permission.

2. Sit down to eat it.
Whatever it is, whatever I'm doing, wherever I am. If I'm going to eat, I want to notice and enjoy it, and standing up to eat is not conducive to enjoyment. The simple act of sitting down signifies permission to stop whatever I'm doing, take time out of my and everybody else's super-busy day, and nourish myself.

3. Do nothing else while I eat it.

No eating in front of the TV, reading while I eat, flicking through my phone, answering emails, having a chat on the phone, checking Twitter, writing a to-do list. NOTHING. Whatever else I want to do can WAIT. And if it can't wait, I can't be that hungry or want what I'm eating that much.

If you're hoping to read that I've lost that half a stone, I'm sorry to disappoint. I don't actually know how much I weigh and I've only been doing this for a matter of days.

But the difference is phenomenal.

If nothing else I have realised just how much I was eating - of all kinds of foods, not just treats and snacks - without registering what I was doing. How much I was mindlessly picking or shovelling my way through while my attention was a million miles away.

How much I was eating, full stop. I was clearing my plate in record time regardless of quantity, not eating what I actually wanted. Just piling through whatever I'd decided we would eat that day, based upon many arbitrary criteria but never 'am I hungry and do I want this?!' as quickly as possible so as to get on with the important business of everyday life.

But possibly the most curious discovery of all is that I often have no idea what I want to eat. I've so lost touch with my body, become so disconnected from my wants and needs, that if I begin by asking myself 'what do I want?' I draw a complete blank. I have to think of a few things and wait for something to pop out at me.

If you asked me, I honestly couldn't tell you what my favourite meal is.

I could tell you Noel's, Cherry's and even Violet's. But not mine.

It's been a bit of a wakeup call that I need to take the time to get to know myself a lot better.

Two children and me

Every now and again I read a blog by a parent of two (or more) children about how much easier it gets. Once you're past the newborn stage/sleep regression/crawling/whatever, they claim, you suddenly realise life is getting back to normal and you're not quite as knackered and feral and dependent on Hob Nobs as you once were.

What really terrifies me is these blogs are often written by parents with second children younger than mine.

I've got to say I don't share their sentiments.

Here's my take on the first year (and a bit) with two kids.

0-3m. Easy peasy

You're terrified about how you're going to cope with a toddler and a newborn but what you've forgotten is that newborns DON'T MOVE. Or talk, or do anything really, other than sleep and cuddle and eat and smile. Well, my newborn did, anyway. My main memories of this golden hazy time involve going to the park with an energetic but happy toddler and a sleeping baby in a sling. We often had lunch out, and lunch for Violet was always on me. Even with potty learning to contend with life was easy streets. I had this two kids thing totally nailed, although I was curious about what would happen when Cherry turned two not long after V hit…

3-6m. Manageable

At around 12 weeks V started to show her personality, which was contented, happy, loving and cuddlesome. At around 16 weeks she started to wake a lot at night. I though this was just 4m sleep regression plus cutting her first four teeth, and I was in general pretty well rested thanks to Cherry sleeping through at night and napping 2-3 hours a day. V also didn't like being put down much but that was OK too - what are slings for, after all? Admittedly leaving the house was a bit of an effort, but other than that I still totally HAD this parenting two kids thing.

6-9m. Intense

Shit, the baby's sitting up. WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN? I'm fairly certain with Cherry I practically had a day chart. I only found out V could sit up when she started doing it EVERY TIME SHE WOKE UP AT NIGHT, which is A LOT. And she's eating solid foods and I'm a baby-led weaning fan, so there's MESS EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME. It's all very well saying 'just leave the mess and concentrate on your children' but it's quite tricky/life-endangering navigating a floor full of Lego, puzzles, books, half-eaten apples, bits of banana, breast pads, drinks, dirty nappies, felt-tipped pens and used potties with a baby in your arms and a bare-assed toddler following you chattering nineteen to the dozen. But it's all fine, once she can crawl it'll all settle down. And once the two-year-old decides that going to bed at night isn't the end of the world. And that in general, one does have to put trousers and knickers on in order to leave the house. But it'll be fine once V is…

9-12. Relentless.

Crawling. Then standing. Then cruising. Cherry can't just go somewhere else now if V's bothering her or if she doesn't want to 'share' with her sister because V CAN FOLLOW HER. I give up any hope of V, and therefore me, ever sleeping again. The mess is unfathomable, the volume of laundry inexplicable. I repeatedly wash a pair of grey knickers that don't appear to belong to anybody at all but are apparently permanently soaked in something that could be urine, could be drool, could be tears, could be snot, most likely is all of the above and more. But that's OK because everybody knows it gets easier once the baby turns….

12-15m. Hardcore.

Ah, the old 'it gets easier after they turn one' chestnut. What part of having a one-year-old and two-year-old is supposed to be 'easier', though? The one-year old starting to walk and being able to talk? The four molars she cuts in three weeks? The understanding what will wind up the two-year-old and doing it, repeatedly, then running away giggling? The firing endless breastmilk into the ether because she's too busy for more than about three sucks a day, but she feeds so frequently at night you've still got the milk supply of a Jersey cow? Both of them repeatedly turning off the Hoover and giggling madly as I frantically try and avoid our home descending into the kind of filth some people would pay good money to watch on the TV? The sheer effort of getting a contrary two-year-old who doesn't want to go out then doesn't want to go home once you ARE out into the few items of clothing she will actually deign to wear, not to mention a constantly on-the-go, wriggling, squirming one-year-old who has FAR better things to do than get dressed, have her nappy changed and put on some shoes? THE TWO OR THREE HOURS SLEEP YOU GET A NIGHT?!

15m+. Mayhem

I can't comment on the rest of this stage as V is approaching 16m and Cherry is about to turn three. But the signs for it 'getting easier' aren't good. I now have two children so bursting with energy and joy and excitement that sometimes it's rather like herding puppies out of the house and watching them gambol away onto the frosty grass. I now have to field questions like 'Mummy, why is my fanny a vagina?' while the one-year-old staggers towards the dishwasher, finger outstretched, intoning 'BEEP! BEEP!', pushes all the buttons to set it on a fruitless rinse cycle, then turns and heads towards the cupboard with the battle cry 'SNACK BAR! SNACK BAR!'. I spend my days quite often laughing until I cry and, occasionally, crying until I laugh. Going ANYWHERE takes 100 years as you might have thought almost three-year-olds walk slowly, but I respectfully remind you they have nothing on almost-16-month-olds.

I now have two fully formed little people and the shoulder-busting responsibility of helping them to learn and understand how to live in the world.

I can honestly say that for me life with two children has got harder. It's not bad hard - it's good hard, the best kind of hard. It's deeply rewarding and joyful. But it's exhausting and emotionally draining and maddening and frustrating and sloooooow and flying by in equal measure.

It could be the age gap, it could just be my choices that are making it harder, not easier. But I suppose life is about choice, and the life I want isn't necessarily what's immediate and easy for myself or my children.

Joy, happiness and fulfilment, for me, don't come from quick fixes and solutions to ages and stages dressed up as 'problems'. I decided some time ago that my career can wait, but my children can't. They will only be this young for a very short period of time, comparatively speaking.

Thank Christ.

Acceptance

Christmas seems to have come very early this year, so I have decided to go one step further and get my New Year's resolution in pre-December too.

For the last couple of years I've written a fairly long list of pledges that have ranged from 'buy a house' and 'write another book' to 'become slamming hotty'.

I don't own a house and my last book was published in 2012. What can I say? At least I achieved the third, yeah?

Every year the list of pledges I don't write down seems to grow. I need to lose weight. Get my hair under control. Become more stylish. Be a better mother. Earn more. Work harder.

The resolutions can also directly contradict one another. Earn more money BUT ALSO learn to appreciate what I have rather than striving for more. Learn to love my body BUT ALSO shape up to the point whereby I could just wander into a Sweaty Betty catalogue. Focus more on my children BUT ALSO get my name out there more and write for the nationals on a more regular basis.

I'm so far past setting myself up to fail it's not even funny. When I think about all the things I have promised myself this year - and every year - I think one glaring theme becomes very clear, and that's that I feel I have to change quite fundamentally.

I've unravelled myself to the point whereby I can clearly see that I am practicing severe self-criticism, masquerading as 'self improvement'.

Every promise, every pledge, starts with the premise that I have to change something about myself for the better.

Every resolution hides a deep dissatisfaction with the state of things, the way things are, the way I am.

This year has been monumentally hard in many ways, for reasons far beyond simply having two very young children. As it draws to a close part of me will be quite happy to see the back of 2014. I will look back at some wonderful times, but some very dark ones too.

And so as I look ahead it suddenly seems very clear to me what my resolution for 2015 must be.

I want to be able to accept what I see in the mirror. Inside and out. I want to accept myself as I am, this moment as it is, my life, as it is.

So I suppose I'm still looking to change, but I think it's a change that is long, long overdue.

Where do you go for inspiration? My online village.

If the plethora of motivational quotes over sunsets and willow trees that pervades Facebook and Twitter tells us anything, it's that we are all looking to be inspired.

I've got a bit of a love-hate relationship with motivational quotes. Some of them are patently absurd, and make no sense. Many are over-used - I swear to god if I see that bloody 'a woman is like a tea bag' quote wrongly attributed to Nancy Regan ONE MORE TIME…

But others do make an impact. 'It takes a village to raise a child', whilst not strictly motivational, has been a huge inspiration for me in recent years. 'Happiness is not a destination, it's a way of life' feels very applicable in my case. 'It is far, far harder to be yourself than it is to pretend to be somebody else' IS JUST STUPID AND MAKES NO SENSE. OK?

Just kidding. I get it. A bit.

I like to draw inspiration from real people. Not celebrities - I'm SO over celebrities. Even Beyonce. Over the last few years all my inspiration has been drawn from real people, most of whom I have met or become aware of online.

And that's the wonderful thing about the internet. You can find inspiration in whatever field you so desire, and in whatever form you desire.

At the moment I am interested in reading, thinking and learning about parenting, health and fitness, mindfulness and holistic therapy, and crafts I can do with a two year old and a one year old whose favourite hobby is finding something messy, toxic, liquid and preferably smelly and highly staining and PUTTING IT IN HER MOUTH then running away giggling.

Here are some of my favourite sources of inspiration in those fields.

Parenting

Aha Parenting - It's no secret that I'm passionately drawn to attachment and gentle parenting, after initially rather scornfully rejecting it as 'hippy nonsense'. Dr Laura Markham's site was one of the first that helped me 'see the light' and it's a regular and hugely useful resource as Cherry in particular moves through ages and stages. The UK-based equivalent, Gentle Parenting, set up by Sarah Ockwell-Smith is just as useful and I find myself nodding frantically along with so many of Sarah's blogs my neck hurts. Her book Toddlercalm was one of the first books I read that helped me understand I didn't have to change my beliefs to be, or feel like, a good parent, and that you could parent with trust rather than control.

Lulastic - Lucy's blog used to annoy the tits off me. I enjoyed reading her extremely eloquent and radical views, but I often did so just to irritate myself. I just didn't 'get' the hippy, attachment parenting vibe and it irritated me particularly that attachment parenting was SUPPOSED to be about sacrifice and making yourself a slave to your children and indulging their every whim and yet she always looked SO BLOODY HAPPY. I kept coming back because I wanted to 'get it' but I was too afraid of moving away from many of the rather traditional, fear-based values I was carrying around. Then not long after Violet was born I just got it. I understood that attachment parenting is based upon connection and respect, NOT sacrifice and martyrdom, and that as a practice attachment parenting is about your attitude, not about slings and boobs and bedsharing per se. Once I'd made that distinction I understood what I loved so much about Lucy's blog. And I understood that the parts of me I'd been almost ashamed of when Cherry was little - the parts of me that refused to allow her to 'cry it out' and so on, weren't weaknesses, they were my greatest strengths. I also found Adele's lovely blog Circus Queen really thought-provoking and useful in helping me understand and separate my true beliefs from social conditioning. Now I find myself the radical, hippy one in many circles of mothers.

Mothering - A really lovely US-based site dedicated to attachment parenting and the practice - the ART - of mothering.

Health and fitness

Bangs and a Bun - Muireann's was one of the first blogs I read properly and I still love it. I have followed this amazing woman online for many years and I never fail to be motivated and inspired by her.

Challenge Sophie - a newer discovery. Sophie, like me, works with adidas UK. But unlike me Sophie lives in Chamonix and spends her days cycling up mountains and becoming an Ironman.

Mindfulness and holistic living

Headspace - yep, I'm a Headspacer and I cannot say this enough, it has changed my life. I meditate every day for 20 minutes come hell or high water, or sleep (often I only have 20 undisturbed minutes last thing at night!) When I began I took the approach that I'd do it 'if I had time' and I wouldn't force or pressure myself. But to see the benefits of meditation you need to take it seriously. Now it's a commitment to myself that I refuse to break. It, and green smoothies, are two habits that have stuck. On the busiest , most hectic and most overwhelming day, when I don't have the time or the energy to shower let alone work out, do yoga or any of the other lovely things I promise myself, I still meditate.

Mama - and more! This is a blog covering all sorts, but it's the way Zaz writes about yoga and the impact it has had on her life that interests me. I check in every now and again to look for new posts on yoga, there's usually something there.

Crafts

Mum in the Madhouse - I follow Jen on Instagram and I absolutely love her! Bursting with creative and crafty ideas, her blog is a true slice of creative family life. Quite often crafting, baking and the like is thought of as something mothers and daughters do together, but Jen shows what a load of old crap that tired stereotype is with pictures of her two boys baking, cutting ribbon, painting and creating.

Capture by Lucy - again I follow Lucy on Instagram and I absolutely adore her sense of style, her positive attitude and - well I just love her. Apparently I really like Lucys in general!

I think what all of the above have in common is that they show me what is possible if you follow your heart. They also show that what we tend to consider barriers to personal freedom and fulfilment - families, jobs, careers, children - are all part of the journey. So I suppose we're back to motivational quotes again, because these individuals all help me truly understand that happiness isn't a destination. It absolutely is a way of life.

Instagram is my current favourite network, such a supportive and caring group of mainly women, beautiful images and constant inspiration.

So there you have it. My little online village.