We’ve all been there, some way or another, that feeling of being torn apart, of having to choose between people or giving attention to one thing above another. The guilt that can come with this is immense.

The most vivid example I can you give you of this, in a raw and agonising scenario, is when my second baby came very premature and spent his first days in the Neonatal baby care unit for five and a half weeks. In an unpredictable reality that became almost normal, I had to accept the fact I was not given a place to stay on site and travelled there each day to be with my baby. Forget for a moment the real hardship that in itself brought, for I want to focus simply on the tearing - the tearing apart of a family.

I had to give up my days with my three year old to travel into hospital to see my baby. Then I gave up my evenings and sleep beside my new baby to be at home with my son, catching up on all I had missed. And somehow in the midst of it all feeling like I was never enough, I couldn’t stretch far enough or cover enough on my own. I was never present long enough in one place to truly relax, or to feel as if I had actually been a proper mother. I could not be present in two places at once, and it tore me apart.

There are more normal, everyday versions of this reality. There’s the conundrum of choosing between chasing a toddler who is about to wet themselves or washing your son’s hands covered in mud. The paranoid guessing game of ‘which child is more hurt?’ when there’s been an accident and you’re trying to attend both on your own.

But then there’s the deeper stuff, the things we don’t see as often, that just occasionally remind us of how small we are as humans. The ways we can’t fix everything, or make something better all the time. When we don’t have the answers, or we haven’t got a skill in an area that we suddenly need in motherhood. When we’re trying to be an excellent cook, meticulous cleaner, smart teacher, all whilst attempting to fit the criteria of an excellent wife… and then making it on time to activities and remembering everyone’s birthdays… something is falling short. Nobody can do it all, alongside a busy life, by themselves.

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Of course, if you are blessed, you may have a husband willing to take on a little of the burden. Perhaps it’s the dishes when your hands are full with a sick toddler, or the grocery trip when you’re attempting to pack for a holiday.

Even with this help, it still leaves me feeling the weight of a truth so huge it is often hard to swallow.

I am not enough.

I will never be enough.

Do you know why?

First, because we were meant to learn how to rely on God. Second, because we were created for community, for fellowship, for working alongside others. Third, and perhaps the hardest of all, because we are sinful and we live in a fallen world.

We were never designed to be enough.

We will always fall short of a perfect standard.

It is okay to crave rest, to ask for help, to need the community we were designed to cling to!

And something that sits with me now, that I have to recall whenever these feelings of ‘I am not enough’ whisper at me cruelly, is the strong, calm voice that speaks back - ‘No, I am not. And that is a relief!’

Imagine if you had to do everything, that if you forgot one thing the world fell apart! How crazy would that be? What does that mentality of control and pressure do to someone, to their pride or their obsession to manage every detail?

It is not about me. It is not about me carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. It is not some kind of snazzy burden that I get to be smug about, like I’m stronger than anyone else because I’m trying to do it all. Why has it become so normal to almost brag about how exhausted we are, to be a martyr?

I don’t want to be that person! I want to be someone who has the clarity, the strength and the dignity rolled into one, to say that I let go of some things. That I let go and it was okay. I stopped trying to be everything when I couldn’t achieve it all. I learnt to accept that I have to choose between children at times, who gets my attention first, or that I have to decline one invitation to be at another.

I am not highly experienced in this yet, though I wish I were! But this is what I dream of reaching - this mindset and attitude that recognises my shortcomings, that sees the truth of my inability to be everything to everyone, all the time. To be the woman who is confident in the fact that she isn’t enough - not on her own, not without God, not if she is trying to be everything at once.

And friend, this is what I want for you too.

I wish for you to sit and remember the times you have felt torn, that you have battled guilt and decision fatigue, that the worry and the frustration have overwhelmed that you didn’t do it all perfectly.

And then I want you to let it go. To breathe it all out. To tell yourself, you were never designed to do every single thing, showcase every talent imaginable, on your own.

His grace is enough.

You were never meant to be enough, on your own.

Yet that is freeing!

Sit with this long enough that you do not feel the doubts so loudly, that your inner voice stops saying ‘but… but… I want to be enough!’

I know, my friend, I want that too. And yet we can’t be enough, not off our own merit. And not without those God has placed in our way, to help and encourage, to lift us up like Aaron lifted up Moses’ arms when his strength ran dry.

We will be a blessing for our children, when we accept that alone we cannot achieve everything.

Share Jessica ~ Parenting Outside the Crowd

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How do I begin? What can I even say that will truly describe the love I have for you, the respect, the contentment in being your daughter?

Your provision, your care, the patience you held in teaching me maths when I didn’t understand most of it. How you’d brush and dry my hair sometimes to give mum a break, and somehow you were more thorough and patient! The pride you had in me, without me ever really earning it. The way you’d talk of me, loudly and fondly, to anyone who would listen.

I was your surprise last child, born when you were already wise enough to advise your married daughter and help your son move out. And to me? You were just dad, the one who didn’t really seem to change, who was always ready to tell a story, or make a joke, or welcome someone round for dinner.

You gave me a love of steam trains, a sweet tooth for cake, a curiosity for great fiction and literature, and probably my grumpiness over disliking things changing too! You gifted me more than this; I saw how confident you were, I watched you speak in public many times and lead groups without losing a single person, I listened to your passion about Israel and your kindness toward the Jewish people placed in your path - and all of this taught me how to love others well.

I think of the trips we’ve taken, the people we’ve met, the friends we share, the humour we enjoy. You were so proud of me as I grew up, and yet now it is my turn to be proud of you. I am proud of you as a dad, and now as a Taidie - a grandfather who tickles, notices the little ways the children have grown in character, and remembers to check in and see how I am doing as a mum.

You have seen me through ups and downs, always had my back, and never wavered in your love for me. Out of all the people in the world, your opinion and judgement I hold above almost any other. You are not perfect, and neither am I, but my love for you does not change. Thank you for raising me, protecting me, providing, blessing my marriage and welcoming in my husband. Thank you for watching over me, even when I didn’t see that.

I love you, dad. I’m proud to be your little girl.

To my James; my husband, the one who chose me, my head, the father of my boys

You didn’t think you’d get away without me mentioning you too, did you? I know you aren’t one for sentimental poems, embarrassing anecdotes, or lots of compliments all in one go. I’ll keep it practical, and honest, just how you like it.

I love having your children. Yes, they are nuts, and yes I am sure they get all their mischief, rebellious streaks, nosiness and volume from you, but I love that I can see you in them!

Maybe you don’t notice, but I watch you sometimes. I watch how you play with them, or the patience you show in trying to teach a new thing. I see how you try and manage your annoyance with every single tantrum, and put on a calm voice to discipline. My heart warms when I hear you read them a book, and I laugh as you chase our son on his scooter.

I love how you want to pass down your skills; financial management, football, coding, folding clothes like Marie Kondo - the serious and the fun, all of it, that you want them to learn too.

I remember nine years ago falling for you and wondering, anxiously, if you said no to home educating our future kids what I would do, whether it would be a dealbreaker. Imagine my delight, and disbelief, when you brought it up before me and told me you were adamant it was the way to go.

Your strength, resilience, the way you listen to new ideas. Your ability to adapt, change, learn a new skill, fix a problem - it’s all incredible to me! The persistence you show learning the ukulele may seem insignificant to you, but to me it shows our boys that skills take time, we don’t always get to achieve something right away.

You are a better dad than you give yourself credit for. Thank you for following God on this one, for pushing for them to have a future where they can lead, grow, and enjoy freedom.

Thank you for journeying beside me, for leading our family with protection and provision.

I love you, our boys love you, and we are proud of the man you have become.

Now, as someone who is happily married, I am not prone to feeling particularly wistful or emotional about weddings, however there are a few hindrances that can get in the way of enjoying the day fully, even when you’re married. These have been mine so far!

Firstly, how easy it is to fall into the comparison game. This either leaves you feeling disappointed at how you planned your own special day, or makes room for gossip about which wedding was the best that you attended this year. I don’t want to fall into envy and I also don’t want my friends to feel like I’m scoring their day on a scale and leaving feedback!

There have been a few times over the years I’ve thought, ‘why didn’t we do that?’ and that in itself isn’t necessarily bad, but the process that follows if you let it become a disappointment isn’t good. I have to remind myself that we did our wedding on a budget, we didn’t spend years planning it like most couples seem to do these days, and our tastes aren’t as extravagant as many. I then let my mind wander over what we did do right; the way we felt, the people we rejoiced with, and I realise just how special our day in fact was.

Another thing which modern weddings have brought to my attention, which makes me dread the set services in fancy ‘barns’ or the vows they ‘created themselves’, is how far the ceremony has deviated from what it could be. There is no obedience stated on the wife’s part, no promises to protect and cover on his, and then most recently I realised that they have even omitted the weighty ‘til death do us part’. I think it was replaced with a vague and easily-escaped verse like, ‘as long as we both shall love each other’ or some nonsense. This reminds us of the miserable reality of how high the divorce rate is in the western world. I have to sit and bite my lip when I hear these shallow vows, so unlike my own, and I have to say a prayer that one day their eyes will open to the covenant that marriage was made to be

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The third thing which I struggle with as a mother, is that weddings nowadays are really so very fancy. And fancy, pretty, elegant, sophisticated… are not words I would remotely hold near the description of either of my sons. Lively, curious, clumsy, loud, excitable… yes.

And so we have to manage the sit through what is ultimately a pretty boring service (to little people), with the cleanest snacks possible and the quietest toys, whilst making sure nobody screams or talks at the vital point of, ‘does anyone here have any objections to this union?’ just in case they disrupt the whole moment. Once we are over that part (which was undoubtedly delayed due to the photographer), we have to learn where we are allowed or not allowed to go with our kids, balance drinks and appetisers, attempt to feed them fancy food on shiny plates, with pure white tablecloths. Before the food we also have to escape the rain which has made the outdoor fields a mud bath (because we live in the soggy UK), try not photobomb the couple’s family shoot, remember to use the toilet in time because the kids are in smart shirts and chinos for the day. And once food is over and there is time for guests to chat, lengthy speeches, followed by loud music and dance with bright flashing lights, we have to balance the act of allowing them to experience it with knowing when they are about to crash.

Whilst we the parent are balancing all these things, we are having two-sentence conversations with distant family members, getting half a glass of something expensive, finishing off the kids’ food to be polite, eating our own food cold, digging out the spare clothes we brought and freaking out when a child goes missing and you think they’ve walked toward the busy road (they were actually in the toilet, thank God).

Of course, I have some better experiences at more traditional Christian weddings that hold a sense of humility and aren’t as extravagant or spectacular. But there is still an overwhelming thought that children just aren’t made for weddings, or vice versa. Definitely not my kids!

The fourth, and final, problem I have with modern weddings is the fact that they are pretty much pointless. What I mean by this is… the couples are already living together, they have done pretty much all a married couple would do, they simply want a party and perhaps a name change, if the groom is lucky enough that she’ll deem him worthy to give up her surname. It feels like an unnecessary, ‘Look, we’ve stayed together this long so we thought we’d make it official that we will probably stay together for life.’ And in a way I do have some respect for that, but I also don’t, because it feels as if that becomes the excuse to then spend hideous amounts of money on the biggest party of your life, without any sane reasoning.

Our wedding meant something. It meant that I would no longer be under my father’s care, but that of my husband. It showed our commitment, the covenant we made, the image we bear of Christ and his church. It wasn’t flashy, or overly elegant, and it didn’t have a fancy Photo Booth for guests (which I don’t knock, they’re actually kind of fun). It had instead the ingredients of excitement, of a new life, a journey to take together, and the family to surround us on our way.

And so, all of this said, I do actually love weddings. Or rather, I love marriage. I rejoice to see a couple united under God’s blessing, living out his precepts. It isn’t weddings that I find unbearable, it is the pretence that they are even what they claim to be. I want weddings to go back to being pure, and wonderful, a truly exciting event, like I remember attending as a child.

Where are the couples who get this? Perhaps this is you yearning for it and not yet married. Don’t give up on the idea of a God-honouring day in favour of the most debt-inducing party of your life. I am not telling you how to have your day, or whether to buy that ice cream machine (I would, if I could…) but simply to get your priorities straight first. God, then the day. Christ, then the service. Commitment above the dancing. Vows above the DJ.

I’d love to know your wedding stories too, how you made your day special, whether big or small. I want to hear of the days which made lasting memories, that bring smiles of tenderness and joy.

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So, how do I actually make holidays balance these things, without it becoming one overwhelming see-saw?

The answer is honestly, trial and error!

Over the last few years I’ve noticed what works and what doesn’t - but equally my son’s habits, behaviours and sensory patterns have changed too, so I constantly have to adapt and keep figuring out what works each year.

Some ways we keep things familiar, and stick to habits and structure:

Holidaying at the same caravan each year. This ticks lots of boxes, both for familiarity and layout my son remembers, but also because we as parents trust the owner, it is always left clean, we can easily get hold of him if there’s problems and we like the perks it holds now we’re regulars!

Familiar breakfasts - I try to have some simple ingredients with me (don’t picture me baking for hours, I don’t go that far!) to make their breakfast cookies, porridge for my toddler, bacon/sausage/eggs, maybe even a sheet pancake if I can manage to weigh up the mix in advance this year! This means they get a familiar kind of breakfast, it starts their day how they expect and causes little stress for me.

As for routines, we still do bedtime stories, we pray before they go to sleep, we do vitamins, they have the same kinds of shows or films to watch when it’s downtime, and showers with their usual shampoo and towels. Although the time they go down for sleep can vary, usually due to their excitement and not anything we do to keep them up, we try to keep it a sensible time so they are still getting enough sleep and not complete grumps!

Home comforts: I’m talking like a box of their favourite toys, a handful of books, a colouring book and pens, a teddy, their own bedding instead of hiring it out, and for my son with sensory problems drinking out of a glass I have his straws ready to go.

Trying to ease into the holiday slowly, is another way I try to keep emotions level and not cause overwhelm. What I mean by this is that there’s a temptation to do ‘all the things’ on day one or two, rather than spread them out for the week. This has been a hard one for my son as he sees all the things he loves and wants to conquer them all at once, so having to stop him from overdoing it has in itself caused some problems. But I try to make our outlook and attitude more relaxed, less tick-box or ‘we need to do this today’ in approach to our daily activities. We book a few simple things, like indoor swimming, that we know are great to use some energy and they enjoy, and also help if the weather is awful for outside play!

Now here are the ways that I let go…

…and remove some structure, letting my hand loosen around so much control and trying to actually holiday.

A mix of meals - I tend to cook for around half the nights we’re away, so I know there will be meals with good nutrition, and that my kids will eat at least a part of the dinner! I pick simple things that don’t take lots of prep, like my pasta or curry from last week’s post linked below.

I am not on holiday to spend lots of time getting hot in a tiny kitchen! We eat out for a few meals, have ice cream a couple of times, perhaps a coffee, or noodles for lunch. We eat out more than we would at home, but we enjoy it and do it with intention because we like the cuisine on offer - we don’t do it for the sake of eating out.

This means that my rules about sugar and wheat often have to take a sidestep for a week. I wrestle with this often and I still don’t know if I should allow it in all honesty, but I try so hard at home and it is very difficult to avoid so many things when eating out. I could make everything myself, sure, but then where is my holiday? I want to be present and relaxed, not feeling like it’s another day at home. I’ll be real, I need to have that break from everyday nonstop cooking. So I let my control go here and I know it is for a week, and I tell myself it is not forever.

I try to be free and let the boys lead in a lot of areas on what they want to do. We take opportunities when it’s quiet to use the football area or the playground if we can, or take to the beach before everyone else has finished breakfast. If we don’t feel like swimming then we cancel the session. If we don’t want to go to the arcade after all we change our plans. It’s more of a ‘let’s see what we feel like doing’ kind of holiday.

Screen time - if we are sitting to eat ice cream out and my son doesn’t have a snack (he dislikes ice cream) or is causing trouble because he’s bored, then yes I am going to put some calming trains on YouTube if it means I can eat my tub before it all melts. I don’t stick my kids in front of screens all day, but if there’s a film they want to watch in the afternoon after we’ve swam and seen the beach and survived a meal out… then I’m going to put the film on!

Expectations. This can be anything - from getting good photos (seriously, why bother trying for normal smiles!), to finishing all their dinner out, to sitting still long enough to watch daddy play an arcade game, to staying in the pool the length we assumed we would or enjoying the session we booked to try a craft. I try to let them be who they are and to manage my own expectations so I am not disappointed or annoyed, but can simply put it down to experience and say, don’t bother with this next time. It isn’t all going to go smoothly, it doesn’t look like the movies (or even the Instagram reels) and you’re likely to get agitated multiple times just like you would at home. Here’s a reminder that it’s also okay to need some space from each other - maybe dad needs to get out and do some basketball alone, or mum wants a walk to the gift shop while it’s empty. Maybe the brothers need a break from each other and arguing over the same toy. It’s okay to take that space!

I think we have this unrealistic expectation that holidays will be magical and exciting (and of course they can be!) but ultimately you all haven’t changed, so there will still be disagreements, the usual household grumpiness and likely the added pressure of keeping someone else’s holiday home in one piece!

I’m determined to enjoy our holiday, to let go of my desire to control so many things and to actually try to get down on their level and see the world from their eyes. It’s gonna be hard, I am dreading some of the behaviours we’ve been having from my son when there is overwhelm or things don’t go as he expected. So if you’re reading this and you’d like to pray for our holiday, I would appreciate that so much! Perhaps one day holidays will feel more like the movies… but for now I am in the chaos of boy-life and mothering tantrums, meltdowns, hunger and energy.

What are your balances for holiday? Are you trying to let go or do you have a firmer structure in place? I’m curious to know.

But I also have to toss up if it’s worth the effort for a new meal, especially if it takes a lot of prep or includes new ingredients we haven’t tried before. Enter… five easy weekday meals to give you a bit of newness to your week (without being too scary and needing effort).

It’s really easy to adapt these recipes to the vegetables or even meats that your family likes. It’s also easy to scale them up for bigger families! So without further ado, here are five recipes we have tried and tested for low-prep meals that are still healthy.

Bacon & Halloumi Spaghetti or Bacon & Avocado Spaghetti

For the bacon & halloumi:

Around 6 rashers of bacon cut into pieces

1 block of halloumi

Tomato purée

Single/double cream

Garlic (1-2 cloves)

Seasoning including oregano/mixed herbs

Spaghetti for 3 people

Handful of frozen peas and sweetcorn

Whilst the spaghetti cooks fry the bacon and then add halloumi to the pan to give it a nice golden edge along with the garlic. Stir in around 1 tbsp tomato purée, but start slow, add some cream and do a little at a time if needed. Use enough cream that the puree isn’t too strong and it’s a nice consistency. Add seasonings now or before.

Add the frozen veg into the pasta a few minutes before it’s done.

Stir into spaghetti and serve. (with a little parsley if you’re feeling fancy)

For the bacon & avocado:

Around 6 rashers of bacon cut into pieces

1-2 avocados depending on size and how much you enjoy their taste!

Garlic herb cream (soft) cheese

Lemon zest

Seasoning

Spaghetti for 2-3 people

Optional: parmesan or grana paramo cheese

Whilst the pasta and bacon boil and fry, blend the avocados with around 2tbsp soft cheese, zest of a lemon and a generous amount of black pepper. (For an extra garlicky meal, add a crushed clove to the bacon frying)

Stir into spaghetti and sprinkle bacon over the top for a nice finish. Add some Parmesan or grana padano cheese grated over! Adding some cut up baby tomatoes also makes it look special if you’re serving it for guests.

This meal is super easy and quick for those nights you know you really won’t have time!

BBQ Chicken Drumsticks

1 Pack (around 900g) Chicken Drumsticks

2 spring onions, finely chopped

1 heaped tsp mustard

dessertspoon soy sauce, ketchup and honey

dessertspoon coconut oil, melted

1 garlic clove, crushed

Optional coleslaw to serve:

Finely cut white cabbage, grated carrot and grated/thinly sliced red onion or spring onion, stir in mayonnaise and seasoning.

Blend all the sauce ingredients together, prick the meat with a knife, then spoon thinly over the chicken drumsticks (also works really nicely on pork ribs, so if feeding a bigger family add them in and increase the sauce amount for both). Place on a lined baking tray in the oven at 200c fan for around 40 mins.

I love to serve these with homemade chips (fries) and coleslaw, or for a change-up try simple boiled rice with peas/sweetcorn or egg fried rice.

Serves 3-4.

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Super-simple Chicken Tikka Curry

Diced chicken breasts, around 600g

2 tbsp tikka curry paste

1 onion, diced

Seasoning

1 tin chopped tomatoes

Double cream or Greek yogurt

Basmati rice to serve. Optional: naan breads, mango chutney, veg on the side.

Fry the onion gently in oil, then add in chicken chunks and once no longer raw inside stir in tikka paste and seasoning - to your liking! After a minute or two lower heat and add the tin of tomatoes, leave to bubble for a good fifteen minutes. I normally add double cream or yogurt for the last maybe ten minutes after this. This is again to your liking, it can be creamier or more tomato based.

Serves 3 adults.

Meat & Veggies Traybake

This is super versatile as you can throw in whatever veg your family likes or is leftover in the fridge. I’ll mix it up so we have cut-up chicken breast with it one time and then the next I’ll use sausages. Both go nicely with the feta in my opinion!

650g pack chicken breasts diced or 8-10 sausages

Around 4-6 sweet or regular potatoes, cut into chunks/roast size

1 aubergine diced small

1 courgette diced small

1 red pepper in thin slices

1-2 brown or red onions in slices/wedges

2 cloves minced garlic

Feta and black olives to your liking (optional)

Seasoning and oregano/mixed herbs if you like

Parboil potatoes and place on heated oil on two trays, oven at 200c fan.

Set timer for 40 mins, once it gets to 30 mins add the meat, aubergine & courgette. Stir and add more oil if needed (I use coconut oil). Once timer is at 20 mins add the red pepper and onion. Timer at 10 mins add the feta, olives and garlic. (Can do garlic earlier if you don’t mind it tasting a little burnt!)

Serves 4 adults.

I would love to know if you try out any of these meal ideas, and photos are always welcome! For my fussy, sensory eater I often just plate the meats and any other aspects of the meal he’ll eat, without the sauces. It’s hard work with picky eaters, but at the end of the day mum and dad need to eat well, so these are shared with the parents in mind too.

Enjoy!

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I’m not getting into an argument on whether or not this is true - or in fact if it really does depend on each child - but I want to flip this to a different angle.

What if parenting doesn’t necessarily get easier… but we become stronger?

If I look back at all the little things that stressed me out as a new mum, I can laugh at most of them in hindsight and think, ‘wow, I thought that was hard?! Wait until I had two kids!’ Because for me the reality seems to be that things get harder. My kids are higher maintenance than they once were. Their needs have changed and their fussiness and quirks have grown and now instead of being able to fix almost every cry with a breastfeed, I actually have to figure out what my emotional toddler needs.

Looking back I think ‘that would hardly phase me now’ about some of the worries I had with a newborn. Does this make them irrelevant or me overreacting at the time? Not at all. It simply me shows me that I’ve grown. My capacity to deal with stress, or to know how to handle problems, has increased as my children have aged. In their aging process I too have matured as a mother.

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Now, full disclaimer, I am nowhere near to being a calm, relaxed and zen mum! I have a lot more prayer, patience and practical work to go before I’m close. But there is something to be said for the growth I have seen, not just in my boys, but in me.

Now when my child is unwell I am still concerned, I still listen closely from downstairs for coughs or cries, because I have experienced this escalating and being a prem baby parent never seems to leave me. But when he does get a fever, I reach for my own tried and tested methods. I have my toolkit, or rather my first aid kit, for these scenarios.

Another example of growth is how I handle messes. I have always tried to be patient and calm about spills so they don’t feel shame about making a mess by accident. However I do think I was impatient at times potty training my first. It was hard work! I’m not sure my patience increased as such with my second, but it felt like a familiar sigh instead, one of ‘I’ve been here before. I made it through last time, I can do it again.’

With every trial I am being moulded for resilience. Every illness equips me better for the next time. Each milestone my older son hits teaches me something new for coping better when his little brother reaches the same age.

I am growing. Does anyone else feel like this is a massively overlooked aspect of motherhood?

I feel like I knew on some level I would never be the same, but I didn’t even imagine the ways I’d grow, the tests I’d pass, how I’d learn to simply get on with things that would once have seemed terrifying to me.

Resilience, that mama bear nurturing where we just keep going, because we have to.

And this is not a judgement on asking for help - absolutely do, you should take a break, and you should step back for a minute if you are on breaking point. This is simply an acknowledgment that we are also changing. As our children grow, we too are growing. While we were once slender new trees with fresh blossom, we are now aged with heavy fruits!

So today, as you reflect on motherhood, and the times you look back at and laugh at your woes that have become so different over time, I want you to pause. Pause, smile a little, and remember you too are growing, adapting, becoming resilient.

God designed us for a role which is one of the most important in the world. Is it scary? Yes. Is it insanely hard work? Also, yes. But we are finding our footing, slowly so slowly, and becoming mothers who are starting to look back and see how far we’ve come.

Tell me, what is one area you’ve grown the most and what does that look like for you? How do you feel looking back at yourself as a new mum?

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Between his job, studying, writing and exercise, and my own homemaking, mothering, educating, bible study group, writing, and then the kids’ appointments, we feel as if meaningful conversations are few and far between. We are often catching each other up, filling in information, telling the kids off, reminding the other of upcoming events. We are not pausing to think, dream, ponder, ask opinions and learn about the other.

Oh how times have changed since we were courting! Or even those first two years of marriage. Actually even the first few years of newly parenting one child was still not as chaotic as having two children past the newborn stage. (Oh how I miss when they were quietly breastfeeding!) And so we are left to decide how we should proceed. People say, ‘this time will go quickly’ or ‘one day you’ll have all the time in the world together’ and this may be true. But I think this so-called solution takes away from the blaring fact that right now that is not comforting nor helpful, it does not fix what we are finding broken right now.

Something which shook me up a little recently was a quote about how we need to invest in our spouse, because friends come and go, even children grow up and create their own lives, but we are with our spouse forever. They are the one still present, they need our investment. So I am embarking on a journey of attempting to fix what feels very absent in our lives and to find more time, opportunity and intentionality to connect fully with each other.

I need physical time with people, quality time, because this is one of my highest love languages and how I feel secure and loved and how I show it too. So we are actively asking for more time together without the kids - which this week looked like them having a sleepover at their grandparents’ house so we could relax and sleep in, but also have uninterrupted time to catch up.

Some other ways I’m trying to recapture our time and our focus for each other:

• Being picky about what we watch on TV - is it bringing some education, value or comfort or is it simply repetitive rubbish? If we’re watching together we need to be interested in it. We save films for weekends or date nights and try to watch more documentary or travel vlog content when we do use streaming platforms midweek. We also like to simply have some background music on while we chat or write next to each other.

• Being cautious about saying yes to every invite - for me this looks right now like often saying no to women’s group meet ups at church, fitness classes, birthday parties or other events that cause a lot of time and energy I don’t have. This one is for both our sanity as a couple/parents and also so our kids aren’t overstimulated often. When we aren’t out all the time at things we’re more likely to be relaxed when we are together and can be more present.

• Choosing to enjoy the same things - we chat about Substack, try to read the same book a couple times a year, share videos or articles with each other when we’re apart. Little shared interests that keep us in the know.

• Connection - trying to be more intentional when we are together, like cuddles on the sofa or actively putting away a phone and giving full eye contact. When we’re apart taking a moment to text the other with a funny story, reminder or just something to keep us in touch during the long days we’re apart.

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What else can I do? I am thinking over how we do dinner, because it is highly stressful, our toddler is often too tired to want to eat or grumpy, his brother is struggling with sensory problems over some eating habits or sitting for long, and then we end up with music on often to soothe him. I wish we could find a way to make meals relaxed, intentional and not so rushed. I miss the days with my own parents when we sat and chatted slowly as we ate. I wish I could achieve this!

More than all this, I keep coming back to how we can find ways to connect fully and feel less like we are missing the whole day of the other, because it is hard not to resent his job for leaving him weary, annoyed and frustrated. Work gets his renewed energy each morning and we get whatever is left at the end of each day. Another reason why we’re trying to escape the 9-5! And so again we are back to him job hunting, exploring remote work, trying to make side hustles successful. This in itself is stressful, trying our patience with the process and each other.

Tell me, how are you in your marriage right now? Do you ache for time together and for things to feel unhurried for once? Have you found ways to make this happen, am I missing something?

I’m on a mission to find a way to invest in our marriage more every day. More than the mundane, the automatic, the assumed. To make us sparkle and smile, to give us back our full connection more than just the odd date nights we get if we’re lucky.

Who needs to come on this journey with me?

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Everywhere I looked there was something to remind me to stay in the loop, to keep falling for the illusion of more stuff = satisfaction. Adverts, baby groups with insane amounts of cool toys, other parents showing me all the things they’d accumulated and asking if I had the items too.

And yet, at the end of the day, I was tired of the clutter. Tired of forgetting what we owned, or of losing things in the mess, or simply just the sadness of a toy that never got played with because it wasn’t really something my son was interested in. So with my husband’s ever-ready reminders in my head (for he was way ahead on the minimalism train before I was ready to board), I started to adjust, ever so slowly.

I started to realise just how much fun it was to have the satisfaction of a full charity bag ready to go - or the reality that I didn’t actually miss all the things I was worried I’d regret selling. It was actually easier to find stuff, and clean things, and actually get the toys played with and loved.

So this is my reminder to you that you don’t need everything, in fact you don’t need most things, though it is great to have some reliable toys in the house! And that is what this post is all about; some solid, dependable, wise choices for play that spark creativity and don’t make so much noise on replay that they drive the parents mad.

Outdoors:

My kids own very little for outside, but here’s the list alongside why we like the item. For reference we live in a house with only a yard/stones garden, no grass, but we live within five-ten minutes walking distance of three playgrounds!

Scooters & helmets - teaching balance & steering, for exercise, to make walks more fun.

A kids’ football - to teach my toddler better coordination, increase his speed at kicking it back, and simply because he loves it!

A sand pit with diggers, moulds and pouring jugs - endless hours of play through imagination, pouring & sifting, driving trucks around to move sand as if on a construction site, sensory feel.

Monster feet/stilts (gifted) - teaching balance, hilarious to watch!

A second-hand toy car to push along & ride in (donated to us) - they love vehicles, imaginative play.

A picnic bench with parasol (gifted) - for eating outside in one place, to encourage sitting down when fidgety, and to protect a little from the sun!

A rocking crocodile ‘seesaw’ (gifted) - rhythmic moving is soothing/sensory, they play on it together which increases their enjoyment/bonding.

Inside:

There may be some smaller toys I’ve forgotten, like some little people or random bits and bobs, but these are the majority!

Garage & Race Track, with Toot Toot driver cars & hot wheels - we bought the garage as a 1st birthday gift for our eldest and they both still enjoy it! Imaginative play, vehicles, taking turns, boy fun.

Wooden Train Track and magnetic or Thomas & Friends trains - endless play, I mean literally they make a different layout every day! The creative play options are amazing, from using the level crossing for cars, to transporting farm animals on a flatbed between one end of the track to the other. Sturdy, solid, great for a wide range of ages.

Duplo Table with blocks, vehicles & people - again, for the imagination to thrive, but also because they love using the blocks to build higher train track sets, stairs, stations, anything! Much less fiddly than Lego.

Lego vehicles (gifted) - we have only a few of these and have kept them because we took time to build together and I think as he gets older our son will want to remake them in other ways and be creative. Again, great option for creativity, but for now I prefer Duplo. (much less painful to stand on!)

Big Wooden Dominoes - for building with the trains, for roads for the cars, bridges, tunnels etc. Great for problem solving!

Farmhouse, animals and fencing - pairs perfectly with the trains, an ideal match, lots of ways to teach how farming works, what animals need to eat, endless opportunities to learn how animals behave/eat and how to take care of them. And you can use the Duplo for farm related things too!

Remote Control Bumper Cars - we bought these to encourage their play together, and in fairness most of the time it’s brought out laughs and vaguely helped their skills…. ish. But if I’m honest it was more a gift for my husband and at least they spend time with him using them!

Transporter & DHL Lorry - for fun imaginative play transporting both cars and goods, again they can tie in with the well-loved train set, with the flatbeds collecting from the lorry etc. They both have small noises, but aren’t too annoying and once the battery goes I don’t have to replace them! Nice sturdy toys for my toddler to enjoy playing with too.

Marble Run - this was a birthday gift for our firstborn, and we mistakenly didn’t realise just how noisy the moving chain aspect of it would be as it carried marbles around… but other than that, it was still a solid idea because it has so much scope for imagination and fixing or building.

Educational or Miscellaneous items:

Jigsaws - my elder son adores jigsaws and has great memory for them, so we encourage these a lot. But once they are too used, with bits falling off, we do recycle them! A nice quiet activity to accompany some relaxing music, or to do with a parent as a nice bonding time too.

Whiteboard & Blackboard - for education so I can show pictures, spellings, ideas, and for my son to draw and write and easily correct when needed.

A variety of paper, pens, pencils, paint sticks, chalks, markers, stickers, glue, scissors, sticky tape, card, googly eyes… because, yes, we do like to draw A LOT! And sometimes my son uses his imagination to build tunnels out of card and tape, which is fun. He designs birthday cards and he draws every single day, so we go through a lot of paper!

A Drawing ‘Tablet’ - for on the go mostly, it has one button to erase and a plastic pen to draw with, so it’s easy and aimed at younger kids. (it is rechargeable but I’ve only ever done it once in about 1-1.5 yrs) We’ve kept this one because my older son still uses it on occasion and it’s a nice way for our toddler to learn how to draw without using up all the paper for scribbling…

Tonies Box - we bought this as a shared gift, because they’re pricey! I hoped it would get them to listen to stories, but to be completely honest the most popular thing used on it is the sleepy sheep music. However, this sheep has been a life-saver on many occasions when my son with ASD has felt overwhelmed or wanted to block out an outside noise, as he can put it on and control the volume himself. A good investment to last years!

Soft Toys - over the last few years we’ve been gifted a number of cuddly toys, plus a few we purposely bought ourselves to mark an event or experience. I am still firm about donating any they have never taken a liking to, but I allow them to stay because I know my toddler in particular loves to carry them around and do more role play games. They are sentimental in value, so they can stay!

Books. Plus some books. And then MORE books! - in case you couldn’t tell, we rather like them. We are controlled though, I aim to be intentional with what we do buy because I don’t want it to go unread. So we also borrow a pile of books from the library around once a month, to liven it up a bit and teach new words. But our classics, our favourites, we keep and buy in others if they particularly love a library book. I don’t have a book budget because for us they are vital, so as long as I haven’t bought the entire store my husband trusts that I make good choices and we end up with books they actually like!

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Hit & Miss

Now, here is an honest list of things I have or had in the past, that I am either considering donating or have already done so. These are to show that not every toy is a good choice or actually gives back - some are very much a ‘play with once’ or simply don’t gel with every child.

Toy Hoover - sold online, because apparently no matter how many cool noises it makes or that it sucks up crumbs, the real vacuum cleaner is always better.

Stickle Bricks - 90% likely to donate this month! They often fall apart after building with them, and to be honest they just don’t need more building blocks when they already have and enjoy Duplo.

Toy Till and Foods - this is one I’m 50/50 about. In the end I think I’ll keep it because we just got it at Christmas, and my toddler is now starting to take an interest in it. It’s just been a frustrating gift because it was for his older brother, who has played with it a total of about two times! (I naively assumed he’d love it because he helps me at the supermarket and loves tills) It’s a good idea for kids with very good imaginations already, who like to role play, but not so good for practical kids I’d say.

Wooden Vehicles - we have around 10 wooden vehicles ranging from a tractor to an ambulance, and they are so solid and sturdy, and I love their finish. But the kids rarely play with them, they don’t fit on the garage or with any other toys, and the ones that are meant to do things (like a dumper truck) aren’t really big enough to actually fulfil their job. They also don’t have space for any little people to sit in, so the imaginative side is a bit sad! I’m up for donating these but this time it’s actually my husband hoping to keep them on!

Toy Miniature Piano - because it doesn’t matter how much you wanted them to actually get a love for playing the piano, nobody can listen to Jingle Bells and Oh Susanna blaring out at full volume when it’s not even 7am in the morning. Way too little control for parents, wayyyy too much fun for kids who love to just make a noise for the sake of it!

~

I hope my honesty today has shown you how easy it is to buy toys with good intentions for to realise later they weren’t so great, but ultimately we have to be wise enough to recognise when to let go! I have also had to learn what works and what doesn’t, figuring out what clicks for my boys, and what just isn’t of interest.

Tell me below, what toys have won the test of time in your family?

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I’ve loved getting to know more people on Substack and learning so much through reading new content and ideas. So here is my list of recommendations of writers to go and follow, and subscribe too if you like! Thank you to all who I mention for bringing joy and delight to my Substack feed.

- aka Heather Mullins - writes wonderful, down-to-earth content on life as a boy mama, making her home wholesome and beauty from the garden. So far she has yet to produce anything that didn’t make me smile or pause and reflect. So if you want encouragement and just a little advice and nourishment, this is an account with the wife and mum in mind.

A note from this writer!

(gratefully wild home) is one of my favourite people to connect with on Substack. Her nature is so practical and kind, I find myself smiling and feeling seen and heard all at the same time. I also admire her joy for parenting, even while caring for seven kids and home educating all at once. She is an inspiration! For honest parenting, lots of plain and simple home education, and a beautiful character, take a look at her writing.

A note from Jessica:

, from Eternal Parenting, has been such an encouragement to me. Her words often challenge me to reach for more and to think over the decisions I’m making with my own family. For wisdom in biblical parenting, home education (with her background as a teacher) and pointing to Jesus in our lives, I recommend following along.

Erin's homepage:

has been a real eye-opener for me in terms of becoming better at eating mindfully, learning how to nourish our bodies effectively, and teaching me things I never knew about various vitamins, minerals and foods. Plus, it’s always good to have one writer in your feed who is guaranteed to remind you to keep moving and exercising!

For tips from Vivienne:

- Dwell and Delight - is a fellow mum writer who causes me to pause and reflect often. Her ideas on slow living, intentionality and family life that really dwells in God’s joy, have all brought me more thoughtful moments and caused me to dig deeper into my own rhythms of life. For savouring life and living a little slower and with intent, check out her work.

Sarah's writing:

is a brilliant account to follow, for his honest reflections in caregiving and the warmth, truth and imagery he shares in his poetry to capture this. I find myself fully invested in seeing how Bray Bray’s life changes over the months, any small steps I also rejoice in, and the difficulties and trials I feel as if they were of my own friend. For a community feel from a popular writer, I suggest following along.

See what Chris writes about:

is known best to me for her brilliant ideas on what to eat for dinner! The simple way she shares what their family is eating gives me so much inspiration (while making me hungry!) and it’s always fun to see what other families eat. Her easygoing attitude and natural way of sharing their daily life, home making and gardening, are all things I enjoy most about her writing.

To see one of her dinner ideas...

. This one is a big a plug as any, for this is actually the page of my own entrepreneurial husband! Putting my own bias aside, I know from how many others respond to his work that it makes such an impact to have someone sit down with you and figure out what you truly value in life. So for intentional living, clarity on what you value, and to build a life that actually fits you and your family, I would take a look at his writing.

A note from James:

Shelby, aka , is another creator I have connected with and feel a familiarity with in her view of life and motherhood. She promises daily snippets of life with nine children, and this alone brings me so much joy and even amusement at times, as well as inspiration on ideas for my own family. For solid homemaking, real life moments with a big family and a lot of good classic book ideas, join me in following along for the ride!

To see her writing style:

is my final recommendation for today. Her voice is an honest look into mothering a child with a limb-difference, sharing their journey along the way, as well as the real life raw moments of being a working mum. Her kindness, tender way of being real yet not abrupt, is truly a gift and a wonderful way of sharing with our children how to react to others who don’t look exactly the same as us.

Anna's work:

I hope you’ve found some new people to subscribe to today from my list above! It is such a joy to support the community on Substack and encourage fellow writers who are so passionate about their values and inspiring others.

Who are you following right now who is uplifting you and inspiring you to write? I’d love to know in the comments!

Some people turn their noses up at the term suspiciously, others mock it and still more are just entirely confused at to what it really is. Well, the bad news is it can look like a variety of things so there isn’t just one way to really understand the term - but the good news is… that means you can make it into what it needs to be for you. It is as simple as that.

Minimalism isn’t about taking away everything from you and being miserable. It is about creating space for what is actually important, so you can thrive in the simplicity of life. Let’s debunk some of the myths and show you what it looks like for my family personally.

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What Minimalism Does NOT look like for us:

• Wearing all white

• Having all white walls, furniture, that clean look of Ikea, spotless rooms

• Only having a handful of books

• Wearing the same clothes or colour every single day

• Eating the exact same meals every week

• Wearing the same shoes every day on repeat (that one is me, actually everyone else usually does!)

• Only having two toys per child at one time to play with

• Not celebrating birthdays

• Having an immaculate garage which has nothing in it (perhaps a car)

• Saying no to everything because minimalism means becoming a hermit

• Being so chilled all the time and saying, “yeah man” like we’re super cool and relaxed

• Throwing away all sentimental items from our childhood or our children’s infancy

• Having no scrapbooks or photo albums whatsoever

• Having no TV in the house

• Owning basically nothing

• Being a snob about other people having loads of stuff and judging them for it

What minimalism actually DOES look like for us:

• Keeping gifts to a practical minimum of what we think our kids need/will actually use

• Decluttering on a regular basis, donating things and being firm about what is actually being used and enjoyed

• Seeking the value in things, not just having more stuff, so we actually appreciate what we do have

• Hanging canvas artwork, family photos or handcrafted cross stitches on the walls, not filling every wall with lots of posters or pictures

• Keeping only what we use and need where possible: towels, shoes, coats, bedding, hats etc all to a minimum

• Learning the art of saying no kindly, if we need to keep our week simple, if it’s too much for our capacity right now or if it doesn’t align with the values we are creating for our family

• Not keeping lots of fancy crockery or items for ‘just in case this happens’ and if a need arises just borrowing things or getting disposable items if we have to

• Focussing on toys that our kids can be imaginative with and play with again and again, that are not just flashy and loud, but actually get them creating and learning

• Keeping the kids’ activities to a minimum, only saying yes to clubs or outings that will bring true value to them and us, so we do a balance of enough to keep them growing and learning, whilst not too much that we are exhausted

• Avoiding knick knacks and ornaments! Less to dust, less to break, more room to move and less background clutter that takes up mental space

• Resisting the urge to buy more things because they’re on sale! This is a hard one to learn and I still have to catch myself and say, ‘wait, do I need this? Am I falling for the trap of thinking I’m missing out?’

• Finding styles that work for our clothing as adults and trying to stick to what we are actually comfortable in and removing what we haven’t worn for ages

• Selling on or donating the clothes that no longer fit our youngest child

• Keeping books we love and will read again or reference, while utilising our libraries so we can borrow other books we only want to read once

• Going through old memorabilia and items we’ve collected to see if they still have sentimental value, keeping what genuinely does and donating what we were only keeping out of habit or because we thought we should

• Switching our ‘what if I need it?’ mentality to say, ‘can I just borrow or buy it again if I really need it in the future?’ so that we don’t fall into a trap of keeping random things because we fear we’ll suddenly need them

Minimalism can look so different for each family, so I don’t expect everyone to hold to the same values we do. For us, keeping our choices intentional and aligning them with what we value, means we end up with more headspace, time and energy for what matters most.

We are in no way perfect at this, I am still learning so much as I go, how to let go of what I have clung to out of habit and how to remind myself of what we value when I am making decisions.

What are some ways you are embracing minimalism in your life? How does living intentionally look for your family?

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I’ve always had writing in my blood. As a little girl I devoured books as soon as I could read, happily maxing out my library card with 20 books whenever I possibly could! I read for hours as I grew older, immersed in worlds of mystery and adventure. I started to make up stories of my own. Often they would relate to animals or something I had an interest in, like a topic from my favourite fiction series. My parents encouraged me to explore this further and when I was a pre-teen they helped me edit one of my stories into a little booklet format we printed so I could sell it for charity to my friends and family.

And then I dabbled in writing of other kinds; blogs, book reviews, short thoughts for newspapers, an article for a magazine, prayers for a teen devotional. So my love of writing evolved, as did my passion and my excitement over the years.

But then other things happened. Life didn’t always go to plan. I was suddenly in a rhythm of college and studying, working on the weekends, juggling volunteering at church with my weekly cleaning job. I had other priorities and interests, which became louder and more urgent. My writing became quieter, less often. It was one-offs of ‘ooh, I was asked to review this book…’ once or twice a year, with the occasional piece for someone else in between. And then, I stopped needing to be creative. I was only writing facts, how I’d rate a book or what I needed to recap for my music essay.

I still dabbled in writing, because I am still me and I always find ways to write a little - even if it’s in a journal once a year, or logging the recent book I read in my book journal. But it became a side note. A thing I wasn’t known for anymore. I wasn’t the writer in the family, like I once might have become. I was simply someone who occasionally wrote things. Who helped edit other people’s work, or proofread their manuscripts if they needed a second pair of eyes.

Of course along this journey I got married, and that in itself didn’t stop me from writing; arguably it should’ve helped because I had more to write about now my life was taking on a new path. My husband even bought me a writer’s toolbox of ways to get the creativity flowing for my birthday that first year we were together. And then my boys came along. We moved multiple times in a few years, I became busy with breastfeeding and baby classes, and my focus shifted to the little person who became the centre of every day.

I ask myself this a lot now. I could have made the time, but I didn’t. I am far busier now with two very energetic boys than I ever was with one little baby. I have more to juggle and less uninterrupted time than I had when I first got married. Yet back then I didn’t write.

I don’t have an answer to my why. I simply cannot put it down to one sole thing. It was many little things, I think, which added up over the years, and then when I did have any time I didn’t know what to write anymore. My husband has still every so often said to me, “You could write about that…” or asked me why I don’t try to write a book on a specific topic he knows I already love to read about. And again, I haven’t had a good answer for him. “I just don’t feel like it” sounds so stupid and lazy, but it’s the truth. I just didn’t want to write.

Even these past few months on Substack, I’ve not been filled with the passion I used to have for writing as a teenager. I have enjoyed it, sure, and I have found it relaxing and even therapeutic at times. Perhaps it is exactly what I needed to ease me back into writing… something which wasn't urgent, it didn’t expect too much of me, but just an open space to share my thoughts and test the waters of my creativity again.

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Today I am surprised. Surprised because about ten days ago I picked up my phone and I started to write. Not for Substack, not for a newspaper thought-piece that is due, not even for anyone else to see yet. I wrote because an idea came to me and I liked it. Liked it more than any that had crossed my mind in a long time. I just wrote, and wrote, and wrote. It became fervent, almost unstoppable, like I had to keep going to get it all out before I lost my thought. It was as if my inner doubt was scared that if I stopped writing it would all fade into the background again.

It has been years, if I had to guess I would say maybe seven, since I have written any fiction. And this past week, it has felt like I was coming home.

That boxed up toy from the attic you carried everywhere as a child, that recipe you loved so much you made it every weekend as a teenager; that is the feeling I had when I started writing - creating a story - again.

Not because I don’t want you to know this - I do, I want you to feel the same way about whatever it is you have cared about but lost your passion for recently. I am scared because saying it all aloud feels real. I don’t know if I will make it to the end, if I will finish this tale how I want to, and that is scary right now. I don’t know if my thoughts, my spark, the characters forming in my mind as they evolve on the page - whether they will fade, or become boring to me, or just lose their excitement.

I know that I don’t want to quit. I don’t want to be a writer who could’ve done something special, who had the chance to write a tale she loved but couldn’t make it into a reality.

So this is my honesty, that I am a writer. A writer who lost her passion, almost all of it, and for many years seemed to just get by. And now, it is as if the lid has been pried open just enough for light to soar in and I can see again! I can see just enough of a glimmer of that excitement, now the ideas are creeping back in, the passion is reigniting in my soul.

I write this post for those who have lost their passion. Sometimes we have to let it go for a while so we can do other things, be someone else for a time if needed. But don’t push it down, don’t hide that creativity away if it is begging to be let out.

Write! Draw! Sing! Remember how it felt to be passionate about what you were doing? How you were creating? Let that memory fill you up and push you forward again. Reignite that passion you have left to get dusty in the attic for far too long.

Then come back and tell me what you found - is it just as enthralling as you remembered it to be?

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I love my son, nothing will take away from that fact. Still, in the challenges and the chaos I want to show you the raw effect this reality of ASD can have on me. I hope if nothing else it helps another parent to feel seen and known, to sit with it and feel the relief of realising they aren’t the only one battling the guilty wish for normality.

I WISH by Jessica Siân

I wish you could be different, I wish I could make you new. I would give you all I have if it would let your brain go free.

Shouting.

Screaming.

Kicking.

Overwhelmed, overstimulated, overtired.

Angry.

Confused.

Frantic.

I’m overwhelmed, touched out, tired.

I wish you could be different, I wish I could make you new. I would give you all I have if it would let your brain go free.

Batteries & screwdrivers

Extractor fan & switch

Car & radio

Habits, obsessions, rituals.

Water & a straw

Mario top & jeans

Toothbrush & singing

Familiarity, Comfort, Repetition.

I wish you could be different, I wish I could make you new. I would give you all I have if it would let your brain go free.

Wait.

What if you were different, what if you were new - would you be the same sweet boy, the one who made me mummy?

Jigsaw puzzles

Creative drawing

Baking together

What if it was gone?

Tight cuddles & excited jumping

Amazing memory & detailed art

Captivated bookworm & singing back to me

Would I still have all this if you weren’t really you?

I love you in your difference, I love you old not new. I will show you every day that it’s your heart I see.

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I often forget that to most families without a neurodivergent child these things must seem weird or even concerning when they see them from afar. I’m so used to managing a lot of these on a daily basis that some of them have started to fade into normality for me, I hardly remember that it’s not normal to have to adapt life for these things.

So if you’re curious about what it looks like to care for an autistic child, I want this to be an honest showcase. It’s not all negative, and I don’t want this to come across like a sob story either. It’s hard work being a parent as it is and the unpredictability of autism has driven me to despair on many occasions and left me in tears often. But there are also amazing things happening in my son’s life and I marvel at how his brain works, the memory he holds (which is far beyond my own) and the skills he seems to pick up so fast.

It is very much a rollercoaster, but one you never really seem to get off. Let’s begin!

Food

This is a big one for us, yet over time I hardly think about my approach to it as I have adapted over the last few years and now it comes quite naturally - until we’re eating at someone else’s house, of course!

Food is a sensory experience for a lot of kids, but in particular for my son. He won’t eat anything with a sauce - and when I say sauce I even mean custard, yogurt, basically anything wet. The exception to this rule is his love for peanut butter! Making dinners means leaving meat seperate for him, so no curries or pasta sauces.

Also, he likes his meat to be crispy - bacon, sausages and breaded fish especially. While we’re on crispy, the crunchier the better - he loves pecans and chips, dry cereal and toast, maybe so he can make a noise eating!

He hasn’t grasped the skill of cutting food completely yet so unless we have time to spare I prepare it fully cut into squares or halves. Even waffles need to be cut small because he doesn’t like picking it up, so it needs to be fork-ready. Don’t ask me why, he will pick up toast just fine.

Onto drinks… or rather, the drink. Water. The only thing he’ll have. I’m proud of this because I refused to let him have juice and squash as a baby and it stuck. I do wish he’d drink milk though because I’d love to get more calcium into him. And his water is in a glass or bottle with a straw, no drinking from the cup or glass directly, he won’t have it - I think this is a sensory thing where he doesn’t like liquid to touch his lips.

Noise

My son is hard to figure out. He will happily sit and watch fireworks mesmerised or strum a guitar loudly without flinching, but the second a hand dryer comes on he’s freaking out and humming to cover the noise. It’s not just this - anytime I use the hob we must put the extractor fan on cos it goes hand and hand. Big noise, fine with it. If he hears a motorbike or car engine start up outside he runs with excitement to see it out of the window, same with helicopters and planes above us. He loves to imitate the sound of the train passing by. But when that one episode of Shaun the Sheep inevitably comes on the tv he’ll be humming so loudly to overpower it that nobody can even hear the original. He also has to put the radio/cd on in the car right away and if it’s the wrong tune there’s shouting/kicking. A lot of noise from a boy who can’t handle all the noise!

Out and about

He isn’t a fan of soft toys in the way some kids carry them around and play with them as if they’re real (like his younger brother), but he has this one massive (at least his brother’s size) elephant toy which he must take on all car rides. It even accompanies us into Tesco, Lidl, Asda, climbing centre and the library. It is like keeping tabs on a silent and lightweight child, but with the added worry of it getting dragged in a puddle. Elephant has no other name than ‘elephant’ and he isn’t snuggly with it - it is more of a staple in his habitual routines. It comes because it comes. And that is that.

Habits

I know kids have phases and I’ve seen this in some ways in my toddler too, but the instant change of likes and dislikes, the unpredictable behaviour, is one of the most noticeable challenges in everyday life. My son loves Thomas and Shaun the Sheep, but there have been phases (months even) when he’s refused to watch one of them, or from one day or week to the next he’s changed his mind on whether he likes a dvd or not. What was funny yesterday has him covering his ears today. I know he can’t control how his brain works and I don’t blame him for this, but as a parent trying to keep both kids calm and manage the tension, it can be a nightmare. It is a balance of keeping him calm while also being realistic about what he gets to control - because it isn’t fair or right that his little brother should suddenly be unable to watch an episode he’s halfway through or to stop playing with a toy he loves because his brother suddenly hates the noise.

And so we play the ever-changing guessing, trying, attempting and predicting game. One which we fail at almost every time.

Reflection

And then I look around in the quiet and see an amazing drawing my son did from memory, of his favourite holiday caravan. I find pages of perfectly copied cute Kawaii snacks from the tutorials he’s watched. I realise he finished that 200 piece jigsaw on his own after all. I laugh to see how he’s tried to copy my very simple and inelegant drawing of Jonah and the big fish. And he gives me the biggest squeeze, the tightest hug, and that grin lights up my world. He jumps for joy in the swimming pool and my whole world ignites. I watch him climb even higher this week in his class, gleefully singing to himself, “Climbing!”

He carefully pours baking ingredients into the bowl and sneaks a taste while I’m looking away and I laugh. He chases his brother up the slide and gives him a pat on the head when he’s crying. He talks again and again about his grandad driving a bus, about Sophie driving her new car and giggles about the big fish swallowing Jonah when I act it out.

And as he sleeps and I kiss him good night I sigh, and thank God for the biggest gifts he’s given me. And even as I creep away he’s mumbling in his sleep and I shake my head with teary eyes, thinking about him singing away to himself as he went to bed. My little boy, my biggest challenge in life, the one who made me mummy.

And I think to myself, if I had to go through it all again to get here I would do it in a heartbeat.

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It’s 7am. I groan and try to hide from the light pouring in the window. I can already hear my older son complaining about the wrong music being played downstairs while my husband is trying to put his work bag together. My toddler grins down at me from where he’s wide awake next to my head, looking cheeky. “Downstairs!” He demands, as I make him go for a wee first.

The next hour is a blur as I throw myself into a whirlwind of making breakfast sheet pancakes, cooking bacon and making sure my hubby remembered cutlery for his lunch leftovers. He gives me a quick kiss before work as I realise at the last minute it’s bin day. So out I go in my dressing gown, looking like Mrs Wolowitz from Big Bang Theory, shiftily trying to move the recycling bin out before anyone neighbours come out of their houses and see me.

Once the kids are fed and the washing up is done, oh I forgot to put laundry on, so I run upstairs and find the heavy basket to lug down again. I remember that a pair of my toddler’s trousers had a stain so I get out the vinegar and bicarbonate and give that a scrub before the load goes on. By the time I get round to making myself some eggs my older son is finished with the books and colouring I left out for him last night, knowing it’d give me that extra half an hour occupying him. Now I let him get out the iPad to go on kids YouTube and do his drawing time.

As he’s learning how to draw a swimming pool or a baby tiger, I’m tidying up the living room, sweeping up crumbs and playing football with my wide-awake toddler. By the time I’ve tidied up, he’s done drawing and I’ve set out their clothes for the day, the laundry cycle has finished and I’m outside to hang it up while it’s actually sunny. Again, I cringe to hear the neighbours in their garden but feel relief the fence is high enough they can’t see me in my dressing gown at this angle. By the time I’m back inside there’s drama over a pen that’s run out, my toddler has spilt something and I realise it’s time I took him for a wee on the potty again before it’s too late.

How is it 10am? I’m getting dressed, feeling more put together but still knackered. I know the kids are starting to get angsty and it’s been a couple days since we had proper exercise because it’s been raining and I’ve not felt up to a long outing. So we pile into the car and my older son does his ritualistic leap for the radio so he can make sure the right music is on.

I feel more alive when we reach the park. It’s quiet midweek, just a few mums and their toddlers, so it’s easy to spot where my kids are and I put them in matching bright neon waterproof trousers anyhow. Once they’re looking happy and content, worn off enough energy to satisfy my mum guilt, we head to the library. They alternate between Legos, the tunnel, their favourite books and the snack I brought to calm them down again.

By the time I look at my phone it’s 12:30 and I’m so hungry. I also realise I’ve drunk one half-glass of juice all day, so my head is beginning to ache. After my toddler has a poo in the library toilets we head to the car, their feet dragging but I’m still trying to urge them on with “Ooh, look, the dog is having a walk too!” We see a girl walking her pet ferret and I try not to stare in amusement.

After the chaos of lunch (cries over the toaster plugged into the wrong socket, cries because we ran out of gammon, cries over which table to sit at) I finally drink that glass of water. My older son does a wordsearch in his book, my toddler is playing with the car garage and I’m sweeping the floor again. I sneak to the kitchen for a minute to eat half a flapjack cos I’m craving a dessert, then I hear crying and my toddler has trapped his finger. So we’re having cuddles and I suggest we read a book. He runs off to look at something else two pages in, but his big brother is captivated so we keep reading and finish a pile of his favourites.

I set up some play dough for them on the big table so I can have ten minutes to finish the dishes. I’m halfway through when I hear noise upstairs and realise my big boy is taking apart another toy - how did he find that screwdriver I hid after last time? I’m sighing, pulling off my rubber gloves, and off to hide it yet again. Amid the protesting screams I hear the doorbell ring and remember I ordered toothpaste for the kids off Amazon. By the time I get to the door the delivery guy has left it on the doorstep, reminding me again of the society we now live in where it’s rare to even have a brief “hello” with a stranger anymore.

I manage to find five minutes to post a Substack note mid-afternoon before I have to start prepping dinner. I know my older son won’t eat pasta with us so I wash potatoes and parsnips to make him chips to go with his leftover fish. In between I remember to have a wee myself, another quick drink of water and reply to my brother about the clean I’m due to do at his air BnB tomorrow.

It’s 4:20 and we’re on daddy-lookout. I see his car turn into the street and my face automatically lights up. My older son opens the door by habit and my toddler shouts from the sofa where he’s sitting upside-down clutching his rabbit, “DADDY!” The next hour is another blur as we exchange any quick information, the kids beg for TV time, I finish off dinner and finally we sit to eat.

Then it’s the clear down - dishes, more sweeping or maybe the hoover, tidying up the toys we forgot to clear earlier, a bath tonight because I forgot this morning they are due one. I read two books before my toddler is crying because he rubbed bubbles in his eyes. They get water everywhere and I get annoyed, giving up on the other books and singing some rhymes instead. By the time they’re in bed and asleep and I put away that load of laundry, my neck hurts, I’m too tired to write like I planned tonight and I collapse on the sofa next to my husband. We pick an easy show to watch and he asks if there’s ice cream left in the freezer.

I’ve been trying so hard to avoid excess sugar and I really don’t need it but once he’s eating the ice cream I can’t help it and have a couple of scoops too. We talk about his work problems, news from my mum and remember we need to fill up the cars with fuel. He asks if I want to join him doing a course he’s signed up for, and I say I barely have the energy to even write for Substack right now. He nods, knowing this to be true. We talk about what books we’re reading, or what rubbish adverts there are on TV as we watch another episode before bed.

And again, I’m in bed later than I wanted. I forgot to do a Pilates workout once they were asleep like I planned. I didn’t clean the sink like I said I would and only managed to hoover half of the house before my son was interfering with the plugs again. I sigh in defeat and only just remember to put the leftovers in the fridge for my husband’s lunch tomorrow.

Before I lay down I peek in at both my boys. One is lying half-hidden under his massive elephant, mouth half-open, loudly breathing and still looking adorable. I cover his feet back up and kiss his smooth cheek, my dear firstborn. My toddler is sprawled over two teddies, his soft eyelashes looking innocent when closed, messy curls creating the full angelic look. I kiss his nose and take in that almost-still-baby scent I haven’t quite lost from him yet. I swallow the lump in my throat as I thank God behind blinked-back tears for the life I have. That he saw me and brought two boys into my arms to teach me so many things about Himself.

And as my head hits the pillow I’m fast asleep, ever tired but always knowing I am safe in a home that is held together by a man who leads us closer to God.

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So it’s come to my attention that when my husband and I laugh together and have fun, we’re not only more relaxed and nicer to be around, but we also connect a little deeper and feel more content. This obviously isn’t a coincidence and I fully believe that God created so many things in this world for us to enjoy and to laugh about. God is a just warrior and a firm Father, but He is also a God who enjoys - “God looked at all He had made and it was good.”

There are many other times in the Bible we’re told to “rejoice in the Lord always” and “delight in the Law of the Lord”, as well as verses in Song of Solomon that depict true enjoyment of each other in our bodies as a married couple. I believe we were designed to be humans that thrive off true laughter.

So here are some fun ways we’re connecting over laughter, to give you inspiration in your relationship. Laughter is proven to be a great stress reliever too, so if you’re living a slightly chaotic mum life like me right now, you could probably do with those hormones getting some help in this area!

• Watch a comedy show! Live, on Netflix, or get a box set of your favourite comedian. We’ve been watching Michael McIntyre on Netflix when we need a quick laugh to cheer us up.

• Play a game - the key here is the more embarrassing/the worse you are at the game the better! For me this is Pictionary, as I draw like a five-year-old. Charades comes to mind too though!

• Watch old videos from your own childhood/wedding/your children’s performances, anything that makes you chuckle or groan!

• Read texts from when you dated! If you’re a younger couple you may still have the same phone or some texts saved from back when you dated - it can be so funny reading them again now you’re married, how earnest you were or how much you tried to play it cool, but looked ridiculous! Maybe you even have some love letters like my parents kept, which would at least make you smile and reconnect over the memories.

• Try a new sport or skill that you’ve both never tried or are equally awful at! This is one on my to-do list… I’m thinking a really silly sport, or perhaps something new like archery, but then I have the risk of one of us getting caught with an arrow!

• Feed each other snacks. This is as silly as they get - my husband and I started this by accident and tend to do it in the car… he’ll want a snack from the bag and won’t take his eyes off the road, so I’ll feed him one. The twist here is he likes to make hungry seal noises, which makes it very hard for me to do the feeding without losing it!

• Watch a goofy movie. My recommendations here for laughter and cheese would be: Leap Year, Resort to Love and Mother of the Bride.

• Draw each other! Of course this becomes a whole lot less funny and genuinely romantic if you’re talented artists… but if you’re like me with the stick drawings, this could be a very amusing (and probably insulting) way to spend an evening.

• Go to a fairground! Pretend you’re giggly teenagers again and go on all the rides you’d have tried when you were dating. Buy candy floss, eat too many donuts, preferably do these after the rollercoaster…

• Share your most embarrassing stories. You probably know them already, but reliving them might create some humour. Perhaps extend it to things you did as a child which are highly ridiculous (like the time I tried to eat a snail).

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I wanted this post to be short and sweet, but most of all to highlight the importance of laughter. Our lives are busy, stressful, often full of decisions and practical talk, not often romantic or relaxed, perhaps missing the smiles and softness we had as newlyweds. So I encourage you today to find new ways to connect again over laughter and fun. It doesn’t have to be silly or goofy, but I wanted to include enough options that even the most tired and worn parent has a good place to start!

What is one thing you naturally find yourself laughing over?

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“Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart!” - Psalms 32:11

“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” – Proverbs 17:22

“This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” – Psalms 118:24

“Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy.” – Psalms 126:2

I’m not here to have a cry over it because I refuse to be claimed as one of the snowflake generation! But I am here to say, can we just learn to pause, assess a situation, then if we really have to comment make it uplifting and encouraging?

Sometimes the best thing you can say to a parent in the midst of chaos is simply, “I see you. I know this is hard. I’ve got your back.”

“One day you’ll miss it.”

Oh, this classic, ever pointless phrase. Do they really think I don’t already know that? I’m already suppressing the fear of them growing up, of the cuddles disappearing and my house being empty and silent. But does pointing to the future in this way really help? Does reminding me to be grateful in this moment of chaos really bring calm, or is it actually just pouring guilt onto an open wound?

“Oh he’ll grow out of it.”

Dismissal is one of the most hurtful weapons you can use against a parent, especially a feminine mother. She is already second and third-guessing everything she does, whether she is failing, and if she is really the right person to mother this child. When you belittle her concerns, when she is worried that her son licking every object under the son will make him sick (or make people avoid him, because it’s weird!) and you laugh it off and tell her it won’t last, that isn’t sitting with her in that moment. Sometimes mums don’t need advice, they simply want a listening ear to hear their worry. Someone to give them a hug and say, “Gosh this must be worrying your mind. Let’s give this up to God now.” Because praying doesn’t belittle her, it makes her feel seen, that you are taking her petition to God when she hasn't had the strength to do that herself.

“Children are a blessing from the Lord!”

Firstly, yes. The Bible is clear that this is true and that a man who’s ‘quiver is full of them’ will have a strong generation to proceed him. But this phrase is used so carelessly, forgetting that before a blessing a trial is often fought first. I watched a great clip on this from Doug Wilson and it reminded me of perspective; your children are not automatically going to feel like a blessing from birth. Perhaps they may not feel like a blessing until they’re fully grown, until they get married or have their own children even. But our job is to raise them so that one day we get to sit down and sigh in relief and say, “I’m proud of my son/daughter and who they’ve become.” Like I said, a blessing often doesn't come without hardship first, so quoting this bible passage naively without expanding on it can come across as commanding a struggling parent to enjoy every second. It can feel like condemnation that we are drowning in the tantrums, sleepless nights and illnesses, because we should be glad and receive our blessing. Be careful how you use this phrase when someone is struggling!

“Wait until you get to the teen years…”

How does anyone find this helpful?! Oh yes, thanks, I’ll enjoy my toddler screaming at me now because I know a disobedient teenager screaming at me will be worse…

Firstly, let’s stop putting branding labels on stages of growing up - especially when the kids are old enough to hear and understand it. Let’s learn how teenagers function and help them, instead of mocking and dreading them coming into arguably some of their most vulnerable years. Telling me I will have worse to come when my boys become teens… that’s not very good support! It’s like telling a mum who’s sore after giving birth, ohh it’ll feel even worse when you’re bent over with arthritis at 80. Not helpful!!

“You chose to keep them at home with you all day.”

Now I’ve only heard this spoken to me once, but it made an impression on me and saddened my heart for a while. It was said in a kind, laughing way by a family member when my kids were causing havoc and I was saying, “I need a break!” And they’re right, I did choose this life. I chose to home educate so my kids would have a safe start in life, where they were surrounded by their home environment and where I knew I could adapt to their very specific needs. Yes, I have made sacrifices in doing this. No, I don’t always enjoy it and there are even rare moments I wistfully wonder what picking up my child from school would be like. But simply because I chose a hard option, does that mean I can’t admit it’s hard and I need help? I don’t need someone to send my kids to school for me, I simply need backup for the days when it gets out of hand, when someone is sick or when I am at the point of drowning under the weight of responsibility.

“Oh they’re little angels!”

This is said on a frequent basis by a well-meaning MIL, who even at other times admits herself that my boys have been hard work while she’s taken care of them. But if my husband says he’s done, shattered, needs a break or they’re winding him up, she rebukes him as if he has to be happy all the time and never struggle as a parent. Dismissive nature breeds mistrust. We don’t want to be open and honest and ask for help from people who dismiss us, who make our problems look insignificant or who tell us that we should be grateful, as if it’s a switch we can turn without sitting and rebooting our system first! Let’s remember the truth a friend once told me, “Even children are sinners.”

“You sound like your dad, you best not turn into him.”

I am by no means out to give a MIL bashing session tonight! I love her, she is a great help to me and my boys adore her company. This aside, she does need to work on subtlety and the art of knowing when words are hurtful!

My husband’s parents split up when he was a child and so it has always been driven into him that he mustn't turn out like his dad. There is some truth in this, because I know his dad and there are definitely traits and actions we do not want repeated! But to hear this constantly, to be reprimanded as if you can control who your own father is, and to have a weight of this carried on your shoulders to always ‘do better’ and ‘be present’ and have no failure in sight… it’s too much for a man to handle! Thankfully my husband is a tough cookie, mostly blocks out a lot of what he hears from her on the topic these days, and knows his worth is not based off his father’s. (I also make a point of encouraging him and not interfering in his parenting style) But the fact that I have to write this, to show that parents all grown up are still hearing judgment and still paying in some way for their own parents’ mistakes - well it makes me so sad.

How about we flip this around and instead of commenting on how a person is or isn’t like their wayward father, instead appreciate the ways in which they are succeeding. A kind word here and there goes far. Women get a lot more attention as good mothers, present, caring, etc. Men perhaps don’t yearn for as much validation or affirmation in repetitive words, but maybe just a simple, “You’re a hardworking dad. Keep showing up, I know it’s hard, but you’re doing it. If your boys grow up to be like you they’ll be truly blessed.”

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If you’ve been targeted with any of these phrases over the years, tell me, how did you respond? How do you balance the act of taking in any helpful criticism while throwing off the completely unnecessary garbage? If you’ve got more to add to this list, go ahead in the comments below! Let’s flip these phrases round and start to think before we speak, so when we do say something it isn’t just to make someone laugh in the moment, but it holds weight they can carry with them and be lifted up by again and again.

Socialisation. A word which home educators dread, smirk at or politely nod about. A word which has become so misunderstood, misused and generalised over the years. I could give you many examples of this from my own upbringing, as well as now in my parenting. But instead of getting into that long list, I want to get back to the basics.

What IS socialisation?

According to Search Assist it describes the term as, “the lifelong process through which individuals learn the norms, values, and behaviours of their society, shaping their identity and actions. It begins in childhood and continues throughout life, involving interactions with family, peers, schools, and other social institutions.”

Digging deeper into the more solid foundation of an Oxford English Dictionary, I found this: “Social: relating to society and its organisation. Needing the company of other people: we are social beings as well as individuals. Socialise: Mix socially with other people. Make someone behave in a way that is acceptable to society.”

Well, I don’t know about you, but I laughed reading these. First off - if the act of socialisation means ‘shaping their identity and actions’ so they can look like the rest of society… I don’t think I want my kids to be social after all! “Make someone behave in a way that is acceptable to society"?! I wasn’t aware we were in a dystopian novel, but it kind of sounds that way from these descriptions.

Now perhaps I’m reading a little too much into this and the description simply means that we all need to learn how to function in society. I would agree with that, to an extent. But then the argument that comes to mind is, what happens when the society around has collapsed and has no sense of moral judgment left in it? In a decayed society, of course we will stand out! Yes, our children must learn to love their neighbours, to seek truth and justice, to act mercifully, and to learn the acceptable way to live (like not running around nude in public). But this doesn’t change the fact that I really, really don’t want my children to look like the rest of society!

Let’s go back and look at what else we learnt about the term ‘socialisation’. Above mentions the involvement of family, peers, schools and other social institutions. And rightly so, because these are the biggest places in which your children will be influenced. Babies learn how to talk and to respond to your voice, because they watch you and they listen, they are right next to your face. This continues with the environments our children grow up in. This is one of the many reasons why I couldn’t justify sending my boys to public school in the UK right now. I hear the stories, I see the headlines, I know only a little of what it is truly like in there, but what I know to be true is enough to keep my family far away from it. It is not a social environment I want my children to learn to fit in with.

Think about how we use the term ‘social’ for adults. If I said about my friend, “Oh she’s so sociable, she’s out with her friends at a hen do tonight and then a christening at the weekend,” what would you take from that? You’d probably think, “Wow, she must be popular, she gets invited to so many social events!” You might even assume her character was chatty or bubbly, someone people are drawn to and is friendly to be around. But none of these thoughts match with how society likes to use this term to measure a child’s success.

Random strangers are so concerned that our home educated children will miss out or be the weirdos of society because they don't spend 6+ hours each day with their own age group, in the same classroom. Doesn’t this sound just a little bit nuts? If as an adult I was surrounded by colleagues at work that were drinking, cheating, dishonest in their jobs, or just generally bogged me down or affected me and how I acted, I’d have the right to say, “I’m leaving this job, it isn’t doing me any good.” Yet somehow people don’t see the parallel for children.

Their environment is arguably even more important at their age - they are so impressionable, soaking in everything like sponges, repeating things back. This is the age where we want good influences, role models who inspire, more than a decade where we need them to copy good habits and learn right from wrong. Do we really think the best way to do that is to place them with a group of children the exact same age, with bad habits and backgrounds which aren’t moral and upright, with language we’d never utter at home, and peer pressure we didn’t sign up for?

Socialisation. A word which made me roll my eyes as a teenager. A teenager who went to youth group and Girlguiding, who volunteered at church cafe and in the bookstore, who grew up learning the rare art of being able to have true conversation with anyone, of any age, anytime.

I don’t have to justify my children’s social life to strangers. Do parents of school children get grilled about after school activities or whether their child sees enough of their grandparents each month? I think we’ve lost the art of understanding true socialisation and what being sociable is actually about.

My children will learn to talk with librarians, shop assistants, old ladies walking their dogs, their grandparents, other home educators we meet up with, the crew at the climbing centre and the swimming pool. Yes, children learn by playing with other children and copying. Yes, this can be a good tool to use. But it can also be an open door for bad habits, copying things we didn’t want repeated and never being stimulated by a bigger, wider world, full of all kinds of people and ages and backgrounds.

So if you asked me whether my children socialised, I would nod and smile with an inward sigh and say, “yes, they do.” My children are not hidden away in a dark cave, simply because they are home educated. But that doesn't mean I sign them up for every group under the sun either, just to make sure they get enough exposure to other human beings. My children spend most of their time with me, my husband and our close family. Does this make them sheltered? To the eyes of the public, sure. To the eyes of the God who knows all things, I hope not. I believe God sees that we are building up our children at home, preparing them for the world outside in a safe, secure and regulated space. A home where they are free to be themselves, while learning what is right and wrong, while we model what listening and loving look like, and as we show them how to view the world, not through a societal lens, but through actively living inside that world, in everyday life.

So this one is for you, the parents who are tired of the socialisation comments. And a challenge to anyone on the other side who assumes what that word really means - do you need to relearn it? Or do you need to sit back and decide if being like the rest of this society is actually want we want for the next generation?

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However, I am a parent who’s walked the path of speech delay, who is still learning along the way, but has picked up some good habits from the last few years. I want to share everything I can that might help another parent to feel encouraged and know they can proactively do one thing to try and improve their child’s speech - and even if not speech, at the very least give them a chance to open a whole new world in their imagination.

Books are a passion of mine and you’ve probably heard various professionals and parents harp on about how good they are for kids for a while now. But they really are one of the best tools we have in our kit, especially if you have a child struggling with speech and even more so if they’re in school and you don’t get to actively be a part of their learning very often.

I want to share a few of my son’s favourite books. Often they’ll have repetition, or noises to make, or even the same characters in a series. They also feature a decent amount of vehicles, because he’s an anything-with-wheels kind of boy! These are books that he’s repeated phrases from over the years, that have stuck in his mind and have helped in some way to develop his speech - sometimes simply from repetition, learning how to correctly pronounce words or figuring out what new words mean.

I hope your kids will love some of these titles as much as mine do!

Trains, Boats and Planes

With a relaxed rhyming twang, this book follows a simple story of a train, a boat and a plane taking passengers to a hot air balloon festival. It is really easy for little ones to follow along, there are only short sentences for each page, and the simple language used makes it really accessible for those learning to pick up words. We ended up buying another book by this author called ‘Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry’ which is also great - but this is the one my son comes back to time and time again, laughs over the title and even draws pictures copying the pages. It isn’t overstimulating, but it keeps his attention and fascination at just the right level.

Car Car Truck Jeep

This book was given to us free when my son was tiny, as part of a book scheme to get toddlers reading. Our copy is now battered, with taped up pages! The story fits to the well-known nursery rhyme of ‘baa baa black sheep’, so I sing this to the kids instead of reading and they often sing along. Songs make great repetition and increase the chance of memorising from my experience, so this is an ideal book for that. Again, really simple words and phrases, lots of vehicles too, which is ideal for little boys in particular. A nice book for bedtime, it winds down at the end as the train and bus fall asleep! Another one in this series is ‘Go, go, Pirate Boat’ which follows the same style of singing the words, so a good choice for kids who prefer the sea, boats and sea animals.

We’re Going to a Birthday Party

This book is so sweet - the illustrations are beautiful and it’s so simple, yet effective, as a story. Four bunny rabbits are preparing for a birthday party, and little readers’ hands get to help lift the flaps to find all the things the bunnies need - gifts, party hats, a cake. With repetition on every page and animals sounds, I find this works so well for my older son learning new words and how to sound them correctly, while also being cute for my toddler to enjoy the noises and pictures. They’re such a pretty series, it’s worth getting a few of them - we have the sleigh ride and perfect hug books too, and hope to add the treasure hunt to our bookcase soon.

Mud! Plus other Kipper books

If you’re in the UK you’ve probably heard of (or are sick of reading!) the Oxford Reading Tree Kipper books. These have been used in schools and all around for learning phonics and starting to read, so they have books with progressions of different reading levels. I don’t take much note of what level we use if I’m honest, my son just picks up whatever he likes the look of at the library and at home we start with those he can pick up and read himself after hearing it a few times from me. His favourite from the library at the moment is, ‘Mud!’ - an amusing, very short story, about Kipper falling in the mud. Again, this whole series uses a lot of repetition to build up speech and I find they really help my son with copying phrases. I’ll hear him randomly laughing away to himself saying, ‘Kipper sat in the mud!’ and it encourages me when he sits and reads a book by himself because he recognises the words/knows it from memory after asking me to read it to him multiple times. There are so many books in this series, but if you have a library locally that stocks them I recommend lending a bunch and seeing what works for the stage your child is at/what topics interest them.

This is also a favourite called, ‘The new gingerbread man’, and as I cannot find the Mud! book anywhere on amazon, here is the link for that one instead! There are so many to choose from though, and they’re all funny or silly and engaging for kids.

Thomas and the Elephant, plus more!

If you have children who love Thomas and Friends, this series is right up your street! We find these in our local library, but they seem to be on Amazon too, if your library doesn’t have them to borrow. They are really simple, with only a few words on each page, so ideal for beginners and those struggling with speech or learning new words. They loosely follow the stories on the newer Thomas and Friends - Big world, big adventures series, but there are some minor changes to the stories here and there. Big photos on each page show the story unfolding, which makes it recognisable for kids who love Thomas and still engaging for those who haven’t watched the series. There are key words shown at the front to look out for, plus some very simple parts to fill in/questions at the back. There is also a link for listening to the story read aloud, but because I love reading to my boys and my son likes to try it himself, I’ve never needed to use that part yet!

I hope this list has given you some inspiration to pick up new books to try with your children. Remember, reading happens so much of the time just in every day life! My son picks up the free Tesco supermarket magazine and says, ‘Tesco!’ now before attempting to read a word he recognises inside. Be encouraged, you have many resources at your fingertips to get them used to seeing words all around them.

What books have impacted your kids the most? Have you noticed particular titles they repeat phrases from? If there’s any books that have helped bring their speech along too, I’d love to hear!

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It would probably take a long time to encompass all the reasons why this title resonated with me so much, but I want to stick to the basics. You, the reader, get to learn a little of why I came up with this title and what it means to me as a writer. So, here goes!

I’ve never been part of the in crowd. Growing up I was home educated, which some people deemed weird and nerdy, religiously cultish, or simply didn’t understand. Instead of spending my days with a classroom of my same age I was at home with my mum. I saw my niece and nephew a couple of times a week to do our education together, visit the library, go for walks etc. I went on tours to Israel my parents led, where I’d sit on the coach with twenty to thirty other adults, the lone child, never bothered by this fact but chattering away to whoever was sat near me about whatever they wanted to chat about.

I was not your normal child!

So now, in parenting, I am not normal either. I have taken all of my childhood and I am now attempting to replicate a lot of it for my children; the interaction with adults, learning skills in the home, meeting up with other home educators. I am a mum who is navigating modern parenting with a firm biblical stance. While parents are doing the gentle method, I’m here setting boundaries because I don’t believe a child should tell a parent how things are done. One day when my boys are grown I’m sure our relationship will be more give and take, more friendship and confidant. Right now, they’re just learning what life is all about and that means I get the responsibility of leading and nurturing. It also means I get the joy of being the person they run to in distress and can count on to be there for them as a rock.

In my childhood, and now in my parenthood, I have never been normal.

While I strive to be a biblical parent I am also a mum of a child with a speech delay. I am a mum of a very premature child that is now a toddler, but who knows the torture of leaving your infant in hospital in another’s care for weeks.

I am a mum who sees what the world offers in advice, temptation and selfishness and says, no thank you. I see the Bible has a better way. I am a mother who has failed on many accounts, who is learning what and who to trust in our broken world, how to make our own health a priority, how to heal and detox from the mistakes we’ve made and one who is forever attempting to fix the problems in her children which affect their health.

You see, this is how I am parenting outside the crowd.

I am at home with my children in an era where this is rare. I am not ashamed of being my husband’s support, of keeping the house and the children while he works hard outside of the home. I am doing my hardest to educate them well, to live life fully, with lots of new skills to learn and teach them in turn.

And while I’m at it, I’m a mum who is trying to embrace a minimalist home, a home that says ‘welcome, be at peace here, there is no clutter to overwhelm you at the door’. This one is easier said than done with toys scattered on the floor! But I am working on the mindset that goes with this way of living - of learning what I value and why, of letting go when things are in the way and creating clutter. Of learning the ever-impossible art of saying no!

Am I little bit weird and traditional? Absolutely! These are some things I do regularly.

I cut my husband’s and kids’ hair.

I have made my own bread in the past.

I wear dresses and skirts often.

I like to read books and watch old movies and tv shows.

I attempt to grow my own veggies each year - mostly for fun, never enough to actually stop buying from the shops!

I happily listen to WW2 songs and know all the words.

I prefer the Beach Boys over Taylor Swift, and choose classical or country music over rock.

I don’t have a tv license, but we do watch documentaries and series on streaming platforms.

I’d pick a cosy movie night or baking with my friends over a night out on the town, every single time!

If these things make you nod, or smile, or you simply respect that I do a lot of things the old fashioned way, then you are probably my kind of person!

I write for the weary parent, for the mum who is showing up each day even when she feels like she has hardly an ounce left to give. I share for the mums who are pursuing God, honouring their husbands and working out what life looks like for their families in a chaotic world. For parents seeking a better, natural education for their children.

I also write for those with a taste for good books, moments of life honesty and for supporting a child with additional needs. I will never claim to have all the answers but I can promise you my honesty. And I hope to gain some strong friendships through this creative and community-based platform that is Substack!

Parenting outside the crowd to me means learning how to step away from the crowd and seek what is best for my family. If this idea resonates with you, then I hope you’ll follow along for the journey. I want to share the moments of purpose and joy I find within the hard work and emotional rollercoaster that I’m realising motherhood to be!

If you’re new here, please let me know why you’re following along and what you’d most like to read from my account. I’d love to hear!

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Having kids really brings to light how much clutter is in the home. It springs up in front of your face to wave hello, here I am, your new stress in the form of so much damn stuff.

Now there’s an argument for what actually helps. If the only way your baby will sleep is a white noise machine, by all means keep that under lock and key, it’s precious!

But the excess? The toys you forgot you were gifted? Donate. The brand new outfits you put away until your baby grew, only to realise they outgrew them? Gift to a friend who’s pregnant.

We need to shift this ‘what if’ mindset we so dearly hang onto. ‘What if I need it when…’ ‘But what if I change my mind?’ We cling onto weak arguments because we don’t like to let go of what we own. We like having things, feeling like it’s somehow linked to our worth, what others think of us, whether we’re a good enough parent.

Well I’m here to shoo that myth out of you! Who you are is not based off all the stuff you own! (And using ‘I’m a hoarder’ as a way to describe yourself to new friends? That’s just plain sad.) In fact, I’m willing to bet that by the time you declutter and let go of all that excess… you’ll feel a bit more like the real you. Less stuff = less to occupy your time and your energy, and even your mind.

So, let’s get into some practical ways to actually make this work.

Newborn stage:

Instead of immediately buying cutesy outfits online, start practical and think of what you’re going to be doing everyday. Are you going to be busy with school runs, appointments, other kids running around, travelling, working on your homestead? You probably want a simple choice of babygros that are swift to put on, easy to wash, and don’t need ironing. You can still find really cute sleepsuits or vest & bottoms combos, without being over the top and still practical for everyday use. And yes, still buy that adorable tutu or waistcoat if you know you have celebrations coming up or events you’ll want your baby to look dressed up for.

It’s not about depriving yourself of buying fun things, it’s about being realistic. It’s actually really freeing and gives you back so much time if you’re not doing up buttons on dungarees, or wrestling complicated dresses off in the boot of the car for nappy changes.

Babies don’t really need many (or any!) toys at this stage. A few simple and captivating things will do while they’re figuring out the world - like something that makes a noise as you shake it, anything easy to chew on, or perhaps something musical that winds up. In fact, most babies love to simply lie on the floor and watch their legs in fascination. They also like to watch out of windows, see what their siblings are doing, or simply be held in a sling on you to see the world go by as you walk/work. We hardly bought anything for our babies at this stage, but just kept a few special gifted toys off friends and family.

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Toddler stage:

Let’s be honest, we all know there are toys in our homes that really don’t get used. Things that were bought or gifted with great intentions but turned out to be one-time use or something that the kids didn't find as amusing as us adults did! I remember being ecstatic to buy my first child a toy hoover, because he was obsessed with ours. However, the actual real hoover still held all his attention and so other than those first few weeks after his birthday, it was basically a very pointless and abandoned toy! So think long-term; what can be used again and again? What inspires my child to use their imagination and play with this item in various ways? (for more on toys that spark joy see this post!) Work on a toy box that is actually in use, rather than a cupboard full of pretty items that nobody honestly likes.

I’ve always been told ‘kids feet grow so fast, shoes are so expensive’. For a start, this never applied to my two (I’ll update you once they hit teens if this changes!), as their feet grow really steadily and slowly so far. My older son actually goes through shoes because they’re worn out, not because they don’t fit anymore! However your kids feet grow, keep this in mind: do they really need more than one pair? My boys have one pair of trainers and one pair of wellie boots (a necessity in rainy UK) - the only exception to this rule is if summer comes and I feel their trainers are too sweaty, I may find them a pair of sandals. Other than this, I stick to it and it’s never failed me yet!

Childhood beyond:

I want to talk about bedding for a moment. I do ours weekly because that’s what we need as a family, and although I only have two children it is still a mound of laundry for my modest-sized washing machine! This is another area I’ve been strict in - only two sets of bedding per child. (We also stick to this as a couple, with the exception of a very cosy Christmas bedding set we bring out once a year!) Honestly, there is an enthusiastic part of me which thinks ‘why not just keep one?’ but then I remember that as soon as my child vomits or spills water all over the bed, I have nothing to replace those sheets with in middle of the night unless I own a spare! So two sets it is, one to have on while the other one washes and dries.

Books are great. If it isn’t already clear from my account, I love books. We have a pretty decent amount in our house! But I am still practical about this. If the books haven’t been read and enjoyed for some time, if they’ve never really been opened or if I can’t realistically see them being used in the future, then it’s time for them to have a new home. We also utilise our local libraries, so my son has a much bigger range of books to enjoy without having to actually own them and store them all the time.

Miscellaneous stuff: things like water bottles, backpacks, potty, suitcases, blankets, sunglasses, sun hats, pencil cases… I try to keep only one of these per child. Unless you have a specific reason behind the extra, it just doesn’t make sense to have lots of spare when you only use the same one on repeat anyway.

I would love for my boys to only own one coat each and be done, but sadly because we live in the UK where the temperature changes and the weather is unpredictable (yet somehow predictably miserable for 90% of the year), I have to keep a winter coat, a summer coat, a puddlesuit/waterproof trousers and then sometimes an in-between Spring/Autumn coat if absolutely necessary. I personally only own two coats; one for winter and one for soggy summers!

I could keep going for hours on all the things I’m trying to cut down on, to remove the excess and keep cleaning, tidying and stress to a minimum in the house. I could also keep listing all the benefits of decluttering or minimalism, but quite honestly, if you’ve made it this far it’s likely you’re already onboard, or at least willing to keep researching it because you want this change in your life.

I hope this starting place to minimalism is practical, realistic and inspires you to begin. Let’s make our homes places of peace, intention and much less clutter!

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