Next Generation

Jack (3) and Hamish (1 1/2)

This was my life when I started this blog in January 2008.  It was full to the brim with cuddles, dirty nappies, kids parties, park visits, kids wrestling, breastfeeding, housework, cooking, and basically trying to be super mum. 

It was a very intense, crazy and beautiful time.  But it was also quite lonely.  I no longer had the day to day socialness that work brings, my conversations with other adults were either about children or interrupted by children.  And as all mothers of young children would understand, I lost myself into the world of mothering.  This is of course completely normal and I did not and do not resent any of it.

And so in an attempt to connect I started this blog.  And for a long time it gave me a place to be 'Me'.

Almost a year ago I stopped blogging, it wasn't that mothering had stopped or that I had less to say but my life had changed.  I was no longer blanketed by children, I had regained my sense of self again.  My babies were no longer the babies this blog was about.

Jack (8 1/2)

Hamish (almost 7)

They were kids, little men who come with new challenges but they no longer needed me to be completely smothered in them.  In fact the opposite is true.  They needed me to start stepping back, and I was happy to do it.  I had missed myself.

I have had many times over the last year where I have thought about my blog and had a longing to write something. But I almost couldn't relate to the woman who started this blog anymore.  So I didn't.  I wondered if I should just start a new one, but that didn't feel right.  This blog is an intimate part of me that I decided to share with the world and denying it by starting a fresh feels tantamount to lying.

So today I am going to give something a whirl.  Wondering Willow v2.  It's not a new blog, but its different, just like me.  If all goes well you will notice that I am no longer lonely.  I have filled that 24/7 mothering void with work, rollerskating (still), friends (new and old) and a different sense of self.  I don't know if it will take off or if this will be the big start of nothing big.  But it's worth a try.