A Better You

06/05/2022

How true are some of these there is a few i dont do how many do or dont you do?😂😂😂😂

Being typically BRITISH:
🇬🇧 Having to shout “weyhey” if someone spills a drink or drops a glass in the pub.
🇬🇧Saying “Aaaaaah” after taking the first sip of a cold beer.
🇬🇧 Having to have a beer at the airport, even though it is before 6am.
🇬🇧Staring at your phone in silent horror until the unknown number stops ringing
🇬🇧Hearing a recording of your own voice and deciding it’s perhaps best never to speak again
🇬🇧The relief when someone doesn’t answer their phone within three rings and you can hang up.
🇬🇧 Being obsessed with the weather.
🇬🇧Filming an entire fireworks display on your phone, knowing full well you’ll never, ever watch it again
🇬🇧 Mishearing somebody’s name on the second time of asking, meaning you must now avoid them forever.
🇬🇧 Leaving everything til the last minute.
🇬🇧Obsession with the traffic.
🇬🇧Asking people “How their journey was?”
🇬🇧 Leaving it too late to correct someone, meaning you must live with your new name forever
🇬🇧 Running out of ways to say thanks when a succession of doors are held for you, having already deployed ‘cheers’, ‘ta’ and ‘nice one’
🇬🇧 Wearing shorts and sunglasses the moment the sun comes out.
🇬🇧 Having a Barbecue the moment the sun comes out.
🇬🇧 Insisting the barbecue will still go on despite the rain.
🇬🇧 Changing from ‘kind regards’ to just ‘regards’, to indicate that you’re rapidly reaching the end of your tether
🇬🇧 Realising you’ve got about fifty grand’s worth of plastic bags under your kitchen sink
🇬🇧"You’ll have to excuse the mess” – Translation: I’ve spent seven hours tidying in preparation for your visit
🇬🇧 Indicating that you want the last roast potato by trying to force everyone else to take it.
🇬🇧Knowing that putting the kettle on in a crisis will calm the situation down.
🇬🇧 The overwhelming sorrow of finding a cup of tea you forgot about
🇬🇧 Turning down a cup of tea for no reason and instantly knowing you’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake
🇬🇧 Suddenly remembering your tea and necking it like a massive, lukewarm shot.
🇬🇧Forming a queue for almost anything.
🇬🇧 Finding queue jumping as a serious crime 🤣
🇬🇧 "I’m off to bed” – Translation: “I’m off to stare at my phone in another part of the house”
🇬🇧 Waiting for permission to leave after paying for something with the exact change
🇬🇧 Saying hello to a friend in the supermarket, then creeping around like a burglar to avoid seeing them again
🇬🇧 Watching with quiet sorrow as you receive a different haircut to the one you requested, whilst nodding approvingly as they hold the mirror up behind you, to show you what you can not see at the back.
🇬🇧 Being unable to pay for something with the exact change without saying “I think that’s right”
🇬🇧 Starting a controversial statement with “I’m not being funny, but...”
🇬🇧 Overtaking someone on foot and having to keep up the uncomfortably fast pace until safely over the horizon
🇬🇧 Being unable to turn and walk in the opposite direction without first taking out your phone and frowning at it
🇬🇧 Deeming it necessary to do a little jog over zebra crossings, while throwing in an apologetic mini wave
🇬🇧 Punishing people who don’t say thank you by saying “you’re welcome” as quietly as possible
🇬🇧 Loudly tapping your fingers at the cashpoint, to assure the queue that you’ve asked for money and the wait is out of your hands
🇬🇧 Looking away so violently as someone nearby enters their PIN that you accidentally dislocate your neck.
🇬🇧 Finding nothing better than a Danish bacon sandwich.
🇬🇧 Being squashed on the train by a larger person and pretending you don’t notice when they are half sitting in your seat.
🇬🇧 Being sure to start touching your bag 15 minutes before your station, so the person in the aisle seat is fully prepared for your exit
🇬🇧 Repeatedly pressing the door button on the train before it’s illuminated, to assure your fellow commuters you have the situation in hand
🇬🇧 Having someone sit next to you on the train, meaning you’ll have to eat your crisps at home
🇬🇧 The huge sense of relief after your perfectly valid train ticket is accepted by the inspector
🇬🇧 The horror of someone you only half know saying: “Oh I’m getting that train too”
🇬🇧 “Sorry, is anyone sitting here?” – Translation: Unless this is a person who looks remarkably like a bag, I suggest you move it
🇬🇧 Worrying you’ve accidentally packed 3 kilos of co***ne and a dead goat as you stroll through “Nothing to declare”
🇬🇧 Being unable to stand and leave without first saying “right”
🇬🇧 Not hearing someone for the third time, so just laughing and hoping for the best
🇬🇧 Saying “anywhere here’s fine” when the taxi’s directly outside your front door.
🇬🇧 Getting in a taxi and trying your hardest not to say it, but you know you will eventually say “you been busy mate?”
🇬🇧 Saying “Sorry” for absolutely everything even though it was not your fault.

01/05/2022

27/04/2022

A lot of people find my living arrangements, in particular the fact that me and my 5 kids sleep together in my mums living room weird.
I get it, I am a successful Queen yet I’m living in my mums lounge room doesn’t exactly look like I’m “winning”

I pretty much always co-slept with my babies, I just loved it, I still love it. I still love the way they smell even if they’re telling each other they stink.
In the early days I did however try to separate myself with them, adhering to advice that I was spoiling them or going to give them separation anxiety.
And of course there was the issue of a new partner coming into my bed, meaning the two that were in my bed were all the sudden out and I almost didn’t recognize myself when I said no to their demands to come back in.

Those times felt so unnatural, like I was severing something that I might not be able to repair. Eventually we have all always migrated back to each other.

It’s been almost a year now since I moved in with my mum. And while it’s a 4 bedroom house, 2 of the rooms don’t get used and we have 2 mattresses on the floor in the lounge room surrounded by couches. Last night as I lay on one of them with 5 kids surrounding me, all drifting off inbetween giggling, fighting, dobbing and 4000 “I love you’s” and finally sleep I felt extreme contentment.

In fact, it felt like a win.

Knowing that my children are completely avoiding that part of their lives where they wake up alone and scared from a nightmare, or lying in bed thinking up a plan to get out, another wee, more water, or a blatant tantrum over not wanting to go to bed, is total bliss for me.
It’s not for everyone. It doesn’t have to be.

They all have their natural progressions and regressions, BV comes in and out of our sleep nest now days, Arlo has migrated up to the couch and only comes back down to me to me when he needs me. If Denz is with me I might go and sleep with him, Raja might follow, or he might stay with the pack, Snow likes to wake me up at 3am to tell me about her dreams and often Rumi gets well and truly done with us all and ditches us for my mums bed.
Like every aspect of parenting, it’s fluid.

I interviewed an amazing child whispering midwife once about how Snows fussy eating was so bad I was pulling out my hair and she said
“calm down, dinner time and food is supposed to be an enjoyable part of life, not full of this much anxiety. Keep offering the veggies and if 2 of them need a vegemite sandwich give them a vegemite sandwich, I promise they won’t be ordering vegemite sandwiches for dinner as 25 year olds out for a meal”

And I think I’ve applied a similar ethos to our sleeping routines.

If I could tell new mums one thing that having 5 kids, 4 pregnancies, 2 marriages, a divorce, premature babies, twins, a husbands catastrophic injury that work load wise brought me back to single mum status, it would be this.

You won’t win.

Unless you wrote your own rules.
It’s a well known fact that mums can’t win. We work, we are abandoning our kids, we don’t work, we aren’t being good enough role models, breast feeding and co-sleeping and toddler nutrition and breaking up a “happy family” or staying in an “unhealthy relationship” there will always be a reason why you can’t win.
Because there is no winning “that game” the “being a mum in 2022” game wasn’t written for you, so ask yourself what your game looks like?

What are the important memories for you to create?
And don’t let other peoples perceptions of a good life, a good childhood or a good mum shape that game in any way.
Because to the some people, my life could currently look like a massive fail.

But to me and the rules I’m playing by, living with my brother and my mum who thinks I’m the funniest person on earth, having a husband that loves me but isnt with me everyday and waking up in a lounge room with 5 content, loved little heads and 2 dogs..

Is a win.

24/04/2022

15/11/2021

Family of six travels America in their converted school bus discovering the greatest sustainable yards, homesteads and farms.

19/07/2021

06/02/2021

Please take the time to share and sign this petition. A lot of families have had to start using Universal Credit due to the coronavirus, And a lot were on it prior.
But with lockdowns comes increased costs, for example empty homes during the day now need heating, Children accessing online learning uses more electricity and in some houses extra data etc.
Whilst £15 per week per child sounds like a massive help for children's food, schools deliver those prices because they buy and make in bulk. (You cant even get a meal deal from the co-op for £3!)
and even if you got a sandwich and a piece of fruit that is great, but for many families they relied on the cooked meals so that their children had a sandwich type lunch for dinner
and you cant cook a main meal on £3 a day... maybe if you bought in bulk and could make it and freeze it in bulk, even still that requires freezers which some families dont even have!

Being on benefits means you have one of the lowest income in the country, and society labels you. But now at a time of economic crisis many have found themselves relying on UC,
but people on benefits still have the same outgoings, and whilst rent/council tax may be paid for them, there is still school uniforms, kids clothes, school trips, tv licenses, internet, and other normal things, like insurance etc.

But £1040 is a lot for those who are having to choose how to heat their home or how to feed their kids, Oh and those that are on Income support (mostly disabled and carers of family members etc)
haven't had a penny increase since UC brought out the £20 per week, meaning they didn't get any of the £1040 that people on UC get.

By putting in place the £20pw Universal Credit uplift at the start of the crisis, the Government provided a vital lifeline to low income families & children. It is clear the crisis is far from over. The Government must keep the uplift in place and grant it to all families on benefits.

07/12/2020

Weʼre raising money to support Chamberlayne families at Christmas through providing food or other essentials for those for whom Covid-19 has impacted.. Support this JustGiving Crowdfunding Page.

28/09/2020

They brought balloons to a school.
One was given to every student, who had to inflate it, write their name on it and throw it in the hallway.

The professors then mixed all the balloons.

The students were given 5 minutes to find their own balloon. Despite a hectic search, no one found their balloon.

At that point the professors told the students to take the first balloon that they found and hand it to the person whose name was written on it.

Within 5 minutes everyone had their own balloon.

The professors said to the students:

′′These ballons are like happiness. We will never find it if everyone is looking for their own. But if we care about other people's happiness... we'll find ours too."