New Year New Me? Not here! I think it’s more same shit different day…
2017 was a big year of change for me. This was largely born out of necessity as I was literally losing my mind in 2016 and something had to change. So last year I had to take time for myself and learn to be a little more selfish so that I could sort myself out, be more myself and in turn a better human as I was being a right pain in the arse and was no fun to be around! That change meant eating better food and working out a whole load more as well as starting to run. Just doing something to improve myself helped to make me feel better and losing the baby weight after 6 years made me see ‘me’ in the mirror and so helped me to regain my sense of self. None of this helped the crazy anxiety that I experience, but distraction does work and I have four littles for that!!
Anyway I digress… that was 2017 and I felt way better for the steps taken then so I feel like just more of the same is the order of the day for 2018. However, as it approached midnight on the 31st December it did occur to me that this is going to be the year that the twins start nursery. Now, I have been virtually counting down the days to this as it just seemed so out of reach when I was at home with 4 under 4, but now it is here all too quickly. So on NYE I suddenly found myself in tears at the thought of not having the littles at home anymore. It could have been the night nurse talking as I was feeling truly awful on NYE and had been asleep and in bed for much of the day and evening, but I did genuinely feel slightly desolate at this realisation. The husband, helpfully, just laughed at me and in the end I laughed at me too as the thought of time alone is rather blissful, but god it does seem daunting too.
Being at home with littles ‘IS’ me. I have been doing this for 7 years so being their mummy and almost always having at least two of them with me has become my identity. My entire life is built around their activities including when I can work and when I can work out.  Pretty much all of my opportunities to interact with other humans apart from littles and my husband come at playgroups. So the question is what will I do once they are not hanging off my ankles driving me insane with endless chatter and squawks of ‘mama’? In September this period of my life will start to end with the girls going to nursery for half the week. From there it is only a year until they start school and so for me it seems that this year will be my transition year as well as their transition year.
I need to work out what comes next for me and who I am without the Littles. I know it isn’t going to be a return to my old working life as I still want to be there for school drop offs, pick ups and all the other activities. However, I can’t just sit around waiting for them all to come home. We can’t afford for me to redecorate every 20 minutes so what would I do? I don’t want to wait for this to hit me so I think whilst it won’t be New Year New Me it is going to have to be a year of change and progression for all of us. We had best get used to it! I’m looking forward to seeing the boys grow more and see how they will develop over the year and to seeing the girls become more independent and little girls instead of toddlers, but I do miss my babies and slightly mourn the end of that period of our lives.
