I'm at the 'F*** It' stage of my mothering life
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Former model Heather Ness is a blogger at Mum and Moo and a fulltime mum-of-two little girls - Molly and Emily - who moves around regularly due to her husband’s career as a footballer. In her fifth home, here Heather, whose youngest child is just four-months-old, explains how she has reached the f*** it stage of motherhood.
I'm at what I'd like to call the 'f*** it' stage of my mothering life.
I was waiting for the right time to start my blog again and after a long while I've realised there isn't one. There's also no way I could fit almost two years of our lives into one blog but I am so desperately at the stage of needing this.
We are in our fifth new home, our children are unsettled, I know nobody around about me and I haven't been further than five minutes from this house.
I watched Moo say goodbye to her first ever friendships at her nursery and I shed tears with our friends who helped us finally feel like England was our home.
This week I realised that our lifestyle was going to start taking it's toll on our children and I had to be the one to make it all OK, even though my heart was breaking in the realisation that goodbyes are going to become a regular thing in our lives.
My struggles are so trivial in comparison to many but we all have them and are all entitled to feel them.
It's time to introduce the new me - not the one who lived on a boat, care-free, living off pennies and the only worry I had was myself.
It's 6.15am and I'm downstairs with our youngest - who, by the way, is the most incredibly laid back four-month-old bundle of joy I have ever met.
We've cracked it with two babies who slept well after getting by the first three months of grinding it out. When I say grind it out, I genuinely mean it.
Admitting I didn't particularly like the majority of those first months is something I don't feel ashamed to say now, it doesn't mean I didn't love every bone of our squishy little milk guzzling, pooing machines.
Our second kiddo is called Emily, she has already had her first taste of icecream and knock to the head thanks to her big sister, and she's teaching her mummy and daddy that all those small things that got our backs up with our first little kid - well, there is no reason to.
I don't think I would ever have gotten to the 'f*** it' stage with our first; I wanted to be the perfect mum - somewhere down the line I had forgotten that perfect doesn't exist.
I also learned that those mums who try to portray the perfect image are probably the ones who are are struggling the most; in the beginning, I was trying to be one of them and I'll never forget how much I was hurting in the fight to get there.
If your a mum hiding the hard parts, give up the tough exterior and admit sometimes it's hard, admit that you have struggles too.
There is no shame, we are all part of the same team.
My name is Mum now and my language has considerably simplified. My social circle includes Woody, Buzz and Baby. I learned to wee in three seconds and I eat whilst sitting on the floor playing choo choo, while my left leg rocks a baby and my right pushes two large dogs away from breaking the train set and causing severe repercussions to an overemotional toddler.
I drink tea now out of a fake wooden cup and my most used phrase to Molly since having Emily, is "in a minute" which I HATE but I don't have a choice - I can't do everything at once.
I also learned that leg hairs can, in fact, grow longer than 1cm.
When I had Molly I cared massively about maintaining a model appearance on social media. Being the hot mum. The milf.
With Emily... well, that's where 'f*** it' happened.
When I eat, I eat with one hand while the other tries to convince a child to eat too, sometimes that includes a baby on my boob.
When I sleep, I sleep with not one but two eyes open - one watching the baby monitor and the other on our ever growing toddler who's left me all of a few inches in our bed.
When I use the toilet, my baby will sit on my knee while my toddler attempts to open the treat cupboard in my absence.
When I walk, I walk with a toddler 'jumpy, draggy, swing me'ing' whilst carrying the weight of my baby in a sling.
But f*** it.
I have a husband - somewhere. We got married when our first baby was a little over a year, Moo slept in our bed on our wedding night.
We had seven nights to remember what it was like, just us two and we then fell pregnant with our second in that time. Quite ironic really!
Our relationship right now is different. We are best friends and that is where it ends right now, we are no longer the cute couple who has never argued.
There are days where I resent my husband for getting to leave the house and spend hours on himself, playing football - doing a job he absolutely loves and then coming home refreshed to enjoy the quality time with his daughters after encountering some sort of socialization other than kid-talk.
I feel awful for feeling this way about him but sometimes I cannot help it - he knows I love him with every tiny part of my tired body.
I have spent many a shower crying, emotionally and physically in pain. I can no longer walk past my husband without covering myself up because I know that's as far as it goes right now.
There are days where I stupidly convince myself that my husband would leave me for someone who wasn't broken but then he's quick to remind me that I gave him the most beautiful gift he could be given.
After naturally bringing two kids into the world in a short two years, I'm fighting a health battle that visually nobody would know about and although I am insecure about it - I am at the stage of accepting I shouldn't hide it.
Hiding your battles only makes another mother think their fighting theirs alone and guess what, your not.
We don't get date day. Our lifestyle with all of it's perks that I do not take for granted - comes with the downside of not living near family or friends. We have moved every year for five years now.
The things I would love like grabbing a simple coffee, kids in tow with my closest friends who've known every inch of me since I was younger than a teenager, a night out even once a few months or to hand the kids into their grandparents for a few hours don't happen - is not an option.
When I have days where I'm overwhelmed, I can't call my mum to come give me her shoulder or a friend to come laugh my shitty day off with.
But f*** it.
I've learned to find my release by noting the good parts of each day down in my head and replaying them at night: their smiles, their giggles and hitting their next milestones prove that the hard work is worth it.
I don't know what having older children is like but I do know that trying to meet the needs of two children two and under is hard, at times it's impossible to do it the way I want to. Sometimes I have to leave one to cry and those are the times I feel guilt like no other. But then I rationalise all these things and laugh - they won't remember, so those are the moments I say fuck it and get on with it.
The best thing a fellow mum said to me recently was that you pick your battles with your kid a phrase I never truly understood until my toddler hit the terrible twos.
I have two methods to determine what to do in these situations now - if the situation would have an adverse effect on my child to the extent she would either turn into a spoiled, lazy or ungrateful wee shit, I will choose to fight her. However, on other occasions if the repercussions are not to that extent, I admit defeat and accept that some things are best left to the fuck it strategy.
For all the parts that try and test me, they give me some of the most incredible highs I'v ever had in my life.
Nothing compares to watching your child achieve their firsts. Having them stroke your face and call you 'bootifoo' on a day where you felt your worst.
When a tiny hand holds yours at a time where you're truly struggling to breathe.
The moment your baby looks at you and smiles for the first time and you realise you are their entire world. You realise looking down on that faultless little face, that there is no denying you did something absolutely breathtaking - you made a human life.
Last night I came out the bath and was standing naked infront of Moo - out of the blue she said;
"Mummy bootifoo boobies,
mummy bootifoo bum,
mummy bootifoo flower,
mummy bootifoo button,
mummy bootifoo legs,
mummy bootifoo eyes,
mummy bootifoo nose,
mummy bootifoo hair."
Then her daddy glanced at me and said "yes - she is very beautiful, Molly, you are right".
In that moment I felt like the most beautiful woman in the world, I felt like a the beautiful bride again standing infront of my 'to-be' husband.
When we share those moments as parents and as husband and wife, those are the ones that remind me it's all ok, it's amazing, it's everything I wanted.
So here I am. Lopsided, massive boobies, a broken va jay jay and the carer of two beautiful little humans that I grew inside me.
I catch big hairy spiders with my bare hands to show my children there's nothing to fear.
I do nearly every part of DIY in our home.
I teach myself to do things before I look for help and my two-year-old joins in because I want her to know she can do all the things she puts her mind to.
I cry in front of them, so they'll know its OK to show their emotions.
I clean sick and poo up without even flinching.
For all the bits I do wrong, I know there is so much I do right.
The bad parts are when the kids are at each end of the couch screaming for my one body. The good parts are the ones like this.
These parts are priceless.
Deep down I love every single part of the new me and my new life; the new me is selfless, hard core, strong, brave and genius (to a two year old.)
I am 'Mum' now.
I know I am blessed in SO many ways but I am entitled to say, 'f*** it'.
F*** it, I love my life.
F*** it, I love my life.
Former model Heather Ness is a fulltime mum-of-two little girls - Molly and Emily - who moves around regularly due to her husband’s career as a footballer. On her blog, Mum and Moo, she shares the realistic side of her family life - the highs and the lows in an impersonal, personal kind of way. She also uses her blog to let others see that the stereotypes many people associate with a WAG is not something all girls in that lifestyle actually adhere to be.
