Trying To Be Good

Sorry I haven't written anything in a while, I'm trying this new thing called "Not spending every goddamn minute on the stupid internet". It's working out pretty well actually. It's amazing how much more you get done around the house when you stop spending hours watching strangers argue. A bit like when Big Brother finishes.

Anyway, another thing I've been trying out for the last few days is Being A Good Mammy. I know the title of this blog may suggest that this attempt is doomed to failure, and indeed many of my previous attempts to do buck my ideas up have not gone well. The reason for this is simple. I am, which you'll know if you know me or have been reading this for a while, not the kind of person from which brilliant mothers are made. I am impatient, selfish, extremely lazy, and have a whole host of other unenviable character traits which do not go hand in hand with perfect parenting. And I often feel very, very guilty about this. So I figured I could either live with the guilt, which makes me grumpy, try and not feel guilty, which doesn't work, and makes me grumpy, or I could actually get off my backside for once in my life and do something about it. So that's what I'm doing, and I don't know why I haven't done it sooner. Because it's really quite simple - when The Toddler is bored, she gets grumpy, when she gets grumpy, she is very annoying, and I get annoyed, tired and grumpy. When she is entertained, she is happy. When she is happy, she is nice. When she is nice, I am happy. Therefore, to make my own life nicer, and myself happier, I need to entertain The Toddler more, and sit on the sofa playing on Facebook less. What a revelation. No wonder people keep telling me I should write a parenting book.

So I'm Trying Very Hard. I am trying to get out of bed when she first asks to go downstairs, instead of waiting for her to get really annoyed with me. I am drawing endless spiders on the Magna-Doodle instead of checking my email. I'm taking her to the park instead of trying to get her to push her doll's pushchair round in circles in the living room. I'm trying to distract her from pulling all the washing off the clothes horse, or putting her fingers in the DVD player, instead of just telling her off and getting frustrated that she doesn't listen. I'm even trying to do housework in the times when someone else is here to look after her, so I don't spend my days annoyed at how disgusting everything is. And so far, fingers crossed, it seems to be paying off, in that we're all a lot happier.

I know that it's only been a few days. And I know that it's helped a lot that these few days have coincided with a bout of lovely weather, the disappearance of the last few symptoms of my stomach bug, and The Toddler's teeth seemingly giving it a rest for five minutes. But I can't help feel that this is the way forward. There are going to be days that test me, and I know I'm not suddenly about to turn into some Miracle Mum who wakes up at 6am to bake banana muffins and spends her evenings designing puppet shows. But I only have a couple more months where it's just us, so I am going to make sure we all enjoy them as much as we possibly can. And on that note, I think I've just got time to clean the bathroom before Husband and The Toddler come back from the park. See, new leaf, being turned!