Thursday, 1 April 2010

Raising The White Flag


After my chat with Judy at Karitane, I must tell you, I felt empowered.

Prior to that, my stamina was waning. I was just thinking I would give in to Tiny. I was that plum tuckered out. Matt's studying, I'm kind of half-assed solo parenting except for when I have a meltdown. Giving in seemed... better.

But Judy... Well Judy changed me. She gave me back my power as a parent. She basically told me what I needed to know, and probably already knew but needed that gentle reminder. That gentle guide to say - hey lady, this is what you do, this is how you do it, and you can do it.

Go Judy. Go me.

So last night I did manage to get Tiny to go to bed at 8:30pm. This was an additional 2 hours of faffing about on her behalf, but seriously a huge improvement on the previous midnight.

I went in to check on her before bed. I opened the door - and - well, I couldn't open the door. There was a heavy boink. Oops. Tiny was asleep on the floor at the door. So I had to carefully manoeuvre her out of the way without rousing her or hurting her and popped her back into bed. But she was asleep! Triumph! Trumpets! Fanfare! Pomp and circumstance, puh-lease!

Do yourself a favour (and everyone in your life), if you need help, if you need to raise the flag, raise it. It's so worth it. To realise that you're not alone, and that there is help available. And in Australia we are so, so lucky to have so many free resources available to us. Such as:

- or your local Early Childhood Nurse

Use them! That's what they're there for, that's why they receive funding, and the more people who utilise these services, the more funding they get and they can grow bigger and better.

AND I also think that airing your problems is not to be frowned upon.

When I was speaking to Julie-Ann of Tresillian at the Pampers Perfect Night's Sleep evening, she reiterated this: you'll be surprised if you say, I am having a crummy time, no sleep, no support etc, how many people will pipe up and say 'oh me too', or if you say I have depression, there are lots of other people living with depression who will come forward too, or it could be 'I had a miscarriage' and a lot of women have lived through the pain of a miscarriage and grieved alone. In my experience a whole other world exists - so many people suffer in silence rather than feeling like they can talk about it or to someone because of the stigma attached.

So ladies, let's dissolve these stigmas.Let's break it down. Some of them try to rhyme but they can't rhyme like this. Starting from next week I'll be dipping into stigmas. It will be deeply engaging. A cutting edge report. Stay tuned. Stay close to your 'puter. And stay uber cool. Deal-io?
images via Scout Holiday - she makes the most beautiful leather necklaces - I likey.