This morning wasn’t a good morning. I was trying to run a tight ship and get me and toddler P out the door on time with the washing hung out, my HIIT workout complete and the bed she’d decided to wet made with fresh bedding. What actually happened was…

She refused to eat her breakfast, the milkman dropped off a broken bottle of milk, toddler P sneakily put on her muddy wellies and trailed through the house with them leaving a trail behind the Hansel and Gretel would be proud of, my 30min workout took 45mins as I kept having to break of to sort another disaster and I ended up losing my shizzle, telling my friend that we weren’t dressed, the picnic wasn’t made and we definitely weren’t going to make our ETA by a long shot.

To be honest it’s often quite like this on a morning for us, work days were never that bad as a rule but social events where we usually have a bit more time to get ready have always been a problem. I’ve tried numerous times to figure out where I’m going wrong. Am I trying to fit too much in? Am I mentally allowing us too much time to get ready? Do I need a better routine? Or is it simply that there’s more time allowing little miss P more time to get distracted and engrossed in games and toys? Or is it me and my mindset.

My friend laughed, she took the Micky out of me whilst basically saying, “so we go later? Now repeat after me, I’m *insert name* and I’m easy breezy” and we both giggled as this is a phrase I’ve been telling her to coin as she overthinks and worries. I know pot kettle eh? We’re both as bad as each other. She was so right though. I just need to let it go and in general as a mother stop trying to be perfect. I need to stop causing myself what me and this friend call fake stress (more on that in another post) we were off to flowerpot hunt and have a picnic in a local country village, so we might’ve been a bit later on? So what? Who cares? If either of us needed to be back for anything we could’ve cut the event short or rearranged for another day. Yet instead I got worked up into a silly frenzy, become frazzled and over stressed but for no real reason.

We chatted about this as our little ones ran around on their flower pot treasure hunt spotting Winnie the Pooh, the Tin man and a very very random lady in a pink wig (not sure what character those pots were meant to be. As we nattered it became very clear that this unnecessary frustration and stress I get is as a result of the trauma I went through in my marriage, it’s as a result of the conditioning I was put through and it’s taking some time to unlearn that behaviour. She reminded me that it takes a long time to rewire your thoughts and form new habits and that continuing healthy outlets such as chatting with friends and channeling my thoughts and emotions through this blog are a big help. But most importantly she reminded me not to chastise myself for getting in a flap.

This friend is a wise friend (although I have quite a few wise ones) and she really helped me remind myself that things are no big deal. That running around like a headless chicken doesn’t help and that being late for a walk and a picnic does not matter. It doesn’t mean I’m a bad mum, the single mum that can’t cope, the one that’s terribly disorganised or anything else. It just means that I’ve a two year old with her own agenda (with muddy wellies included) that spilt milk happens (literally) and that we just need to be easy breezy about this little mishaps but that’s it’s ok if the muddy footprints tip us over the edge and we decide to say, “right naughty step, we’re not going” even though both are a lie and breaking the Supernanny rules.

Most importantly she told me something I’ve been telling myself for awhile but hearing it from her helped me really start to listen and believe it. I need to stop trying to be perfect and get everything “right”. She told me to stop putting so much pressure on myself to be Wonder Woman because that’s also putting pressure on toddler P to be Wonder Kid and neither are realistic or achievable. That’s just being ok at stuff, or even cocking up once in awhile are ok too. Normal in fact. She told me to take a deep breath and try to remain easy breezy but not to beat myself up if I’m ever not.

I’m me, this is toddler P and we’re easy breezy!