20 January

I'll confess, I'm a shouter. Nothing like hearing your children shouting at each other to teach you that you spend too much time shouting at them. I want to be a kind and gentle mumma, the sort that is softly spoken and tender and loving at all times. But I have a history of shouting when I get stressed.

I need to do some work on myself to stop that. To take a mumma time out in another room when I can feel my inner temperature gauge pushing up into the red zone.

I want to be more intentional about setting the tone in our house - aiming to calm all of our moods - more soft tranquil background music (I know some people advocate for no recorded music, but I think having music on is such a big part of my life, or at least the life I used to have, before children - I used to wake up to music on my stereo, have music or the radio playing all the time I was at home and go to sleep to soothing classics. Since having the children I haven't listened to music very often at all. I need to). Lighting candles and burning incense. Creating a vibe in which we can be carried.

Slowing down my movements is another thing - since having the children I hurry and scurry everywhere, like Mrs Tiggywinkles. I need to slow my pace and become more deliberate (I think it is a hangover from the b/feeding days, where it was a race to do all the other things before the next feed, but at least, that scurrying about was balanced by times of absolute stillness as they suckled, now I am too drawn into the charging about and the child energy and my own drives of seeking to get stuff done, and there is not enough stillness).

Lastly, of course, the most challenging part is to quiet my own tongue. To stop with the excess verbage, to speak only when necessary and to ensure that the words and the tone convey the message that I want. After all there is no point in parenting unconditionally, in loving them completely if they don't get to experience that - it's their feelings, our relationship that must come first.