Life doesn’t come with a manual, it comes with a mother.

How do we make our way through this journey of motherhood, how do we know what do to half the time? We know that we want to do our best to give our little minis the skills to handle life in the most well-adjusted way. But how do we get it right when we’re filled with raw human emotions, when our cups are full and we burst into primal expression?

I’m a mom to three amazing girls; Sienna, Scarlett and Ruby-Rose. They’re each unique in every sense like no two snowdrops are the same, their personalities are the sum of their genetic code that is assembled from one experience to the next. They challenge me in different ways and I’m not always proud of my in-the-moment reactions. I often wonder how I shape their belief systems that are forming their attitude towards life.

It’s Saturday morning, I’m sitting on my bed with my MacBook on my lap, my bedroom doors are open with a fresh breeze coming in from the garden. The baby girls have unusually left me in peace. I asked them to please give me time and space to write this post – which by the way is my first post ever – hello💗. But before this idealistic moment, it wasn’t so quintessential. Let me rewind to 45 minutes ago…

I was in the bath with the baby girls, I hadn’t intended for it to be a communal bath with Ruby sitting on my stomach and Scarlett on my legs. As I drew the water I imagined a tranquil sanctuary with water soothing my body after a pretty hectic week. I had my sanctuary for about 2 minutes before my body become a bench for little bums. It was too hard to deny their enthusiasm to get in and relish in the inviting warm water that had aromatherapy terpenes exploding in their brains.

It feels like mom-life is one sacrifice after another that we do so willingly. Like when we go out to buy ourselves panties and come home with unicorn socks, a water bottle with cat ears on the lid and a packet of rainbow sweets – it’s because somehow their joy takes priority as if it were serving our wellbeing. And although there is truth in the wellbeing part, we do need to take moments to give ourselves hommage… now back to the bath.

We were enjoying a sugar scrub that Scarlett had brought home from school for Mother’s Day and the moment was so sweet. It was beautiful, bonding, and awkwardly uncomfortable to breathe or move my legs but the exchange was worth every second. Eventually, I asked the baby girls to please get off me and let me relax a bit longer on my own, and they happily granted me my wish.

They got out and joked and played around the bath. It was funny watching them prancing around with toilet paper draped around their bodies pretending it was high fashion. We were all laughing.

But then in an instant, the joy switched when Ruby lunged a bundle of toilet paper into my bath. I reacted like she had thrown mud in the bath, it was symbolic to me like crossing a boundary and denying me sanctuary. I mean it was just toilet paper but my reaction was wounded. With fully loaded frustration I said: “Ruby! No! That’s horrible, please respect my space” and while the words left my mouth I threw the disintegrating wad of toilet paper at her. It hit her chest with an animated splat and although it was soft, she burst into tears and ran out the room.

I lay there feeling awful! My irritation and head at war trying to justify that it was ok what I just did, because “I should have boundaries and I deserve my sanctuary and to be respected”… but truthfully was that how to model boundaries and respect, by disrespecting her? I’m always reminding them to use gentle-loving hands and I just reacted like a 5-year-old myself. I was disappointed and sad but decided to make this right, in my head I was like, “I can salvage this”.

Ruby uneasily sidled back into my room and peered at me in the bath, her little face looking forlorn, this was my moment, “Ruby come here” I said softly. She held my gaze and then ran away. She was deeply hurt and going to make me work hard for redemption. I stood up dripping, half-dried myself, and quickly got some clothes on while in my mind trying to rehearse what I would say to her. But no amount of planning could have groomed me for the moment to come.

I found her sitting on her bed, still naked with dejection slumping her body. I kneeled down in front of her and as I met her down there in her sadness, her hurt became mine. Looking her in the eyes with tears filling mine, I said: “I’m so sorry, please forgive me”.

She cupped her little hands on my face and wiped my tears away with her thumbs. Then she flung her body into mine wrapping her tiny arms around me. It felt like time stood still. Our hearts touching. There in that moment so much more than my redemption took place. I may have felt like I had fallen from grace but that gifted me the opportunity to show her the power of “I’m sorry” and for her to feel the reunion of forgiveness.

So how do we know what to do half the time especially when motherhood doesn’t come with a manual? We do what our mothers did, we just do the best we know how and feel our way through this gig. Through being perfectly imperfect we find the gems that make motherhood such a beautiful human experience. 💗