Horse manure

Um...  hello.  (Small voice drifting up from a hole a long way underground). I'm not joking. I really am stuck here. What have I done? I shared my dirty secret. I exposed myself as a big giant wannabe and now I have no chuffing clue what to write about.

Dali's nightmares have nothing on this. The top of my head opens like a hinged box. A huge pile of horse manure spews out. Horrified, I try to grasp at my bits of manure, but they slip away through my fingers, floating off into the blogosphere. Anyone know the number of a good psychologist?

Why would a normally private person do this to herself? Create a blog, call it a mum blog, rant about a few things, mostly off-topic, and then post a link to your nearly 200 friends on Facebook. Nice one, Om in Mom. Pure genius.

Forget it folks. I must have momentarily lost my marbles. How about we just switch off our iPhones, laptops and all other electronic devices and do something a little less futile? Hey I know. Go to the freezer. Pull out a bag of frozen peas. Count them. All of them. Do it three times. And then write a blog about it. Yeah.

OK, rant over. I only posted today because Dan Pearce of Single Dad Laughing said that to build a successful blog you should aim to post every day. (I'd insert a link to said blog if I knew how...) Well, nice idea Dan, but I think I'll be the one to decide the optimum frequency for my self-humiliation process. Thank you.

So that's all for today. (Om in Mom taking a bow and retreating hastily backstage). Doubt I'll be back tomorrow. Got a plane to catch, and an impressive amount of hand luggage to pack.

One woman band and a celebrity spotting

We're home in England for a week. For now I'll just tell you about the journey over, flying solo with my two boys and an inordinate amount of hand luggage. My amazing partner takes us to the airport on his lunch break. He drops us at the check-in desk, pulls out a luggage strap and, with a nifty little knot, he invents a fabulous contraption that enables me to push the buggy with my two year old in, my three year old on the buggy board and all our luggage attached. All with one hand. He's quite something my man.

We say our goodbyes and I make my way to departures, gliding effortlessly through the airport, boys and baggage all under control. A veritable one woman band. I am so pleased with myself and my contraption that I have to text my partner on my mobile using my free hand. Because I can. I bask in the admiring looks and comments as I zip past people who are struggling with far inferior amounts of luggage.

Until, that is, I get to the security gate queue. I eye the zigzag cordon with a sinking feeling. I forge ahead resolutely, taking the corner posts with me at every direction change. Horace goes skiing springs to mind. I receive amused, sympathetic reactions from the people behind me in the winding tailback. As I turn the final corner, I catch the eye of a friendly man, and give him a “phew I made it” look. He smiles. I smile back. And then I freeze. It’s Boris Izaguirre (a Venezuelan-Spanish TV presenter: funny, camp, immensely likeable). Why do I get tongue-tied around famous people?

The one woman band is made to completely disassemble for the X-ray machine and then reassemble again. All bags and boys are on board. Tickets. Passports. Double-check. Boris is long gone. Damn. In a parallel universe we’d have gone for a coffee and I’d have told him about a night in Salamanca five years ago when I went to a party at my literature professor’s house with a bunch of other post-grads. My tipsy prof read aloud some passages from Boris’s (rather steamy) novel. Surely every writer would love to hear about a scene like this involving the reception of their book. Boris, I’m sure you read a lot of mum blogs... If you’re out there could I just say thanks for the beautiful moment. My dynamic, passionate and illustrious literature professor loved your book.

A different kind of picnic

Hello! I'm still here. Just been living in a hole for a few days with a poorly three year old, a stir crazy two year old and a giant to-do list that's growing by the minute. We went to the hills of Segovia over the weekend with my partner's sister, two cousins and all our kids. It was fabulous: paddling in the stream, drinking fresh milk from the farmer down the road, eating free range eggs, feeding donkeys. Good old fashioned fun. Boy did it feel good to get out into nature and recharge a bit of om.

Still no pearls though... Wait, how about this one for tired mummies stuck at home with sick kids climbing the walls? Lower your standards, let your hair down and hang out on the floor a bit more. I did today. We had a lounge picnic. Super simple – blanket on living room floor, leftover chicken in sandwiches, slices of pear and apple. Preparation time: approx. 2 minutes. Fun factor: 10. At one point my eldest decided to lie down to eat his sandwiches. Of course his younger brother followed suit. What could I do but adopt this new sandwich-eating position as well? My three year old summed the whole thing up nicely: “This is a different kind of picnic. It’s a relaxation picnic.” :-)

The critic within

Aaaaaargh! I don't know where to go from here. Over the last few days since my first post, my head has been swimming with ideas, all being crossed out with a big black X by my inner critic. (Crossing out with an X is something my 3.5 year old loves to do when he is angry about something: "X in your face, Mummy").

Why on earth did I claim I was going to deliver pearls of wisdom in my blog? That was enough to make anything resembling wisdom vanish from my head in a big puff of smoke, right there and then. If it was ever there in the first place. I'm feeling horribly naked here, having exposed my dream to the big wide world. (Well, to my three readers -soon to be more, I'm thinking of inviting my mum).

So I think I'm going to have to twiddle with my blog theme a little. With my first post I definitely set myself up to overpromise and underachieve, and not vice versa as an old boss of mine once advised me to do. I feel my blog objectives need amending with this important addition: "Chit chat. Mummy ramblings. And sometimes I'm just going to talk crap." There, much better.

There may not be a pearl of wisdom in every post, or indeed in any posts. But don't de-follow me just yet, OK Mum? Mum! Come baaaaaaaaack!

From Mom to Om

Hi. I'm Louisa, a calm mum wannabe and dream-seeker. Join me on the journey to calm parenting and going after a more fulfilling life.

Ever since I was a teenager I've felt the need to disappear into nature every now and again, and replenish the "om" as an antidote to the fast pace of city life. Now I'm a mum of two boys aged 2 and 3.5, who are continuously finding ways to put my parenting skills to the test, the need to find the "om" within has taken on a whole new level.

Before I began this motherhood malarkey, I never thought I had anger issues. Not easy-going, laid back me? Yup. So over the last few years I've dabbled with meditation, yoga and all things a little bit hippy, in the search for new ways of getting to calm.

My  reasons for writing this blog are to search for and share little pearls of calm parenting related wisdom and to connect with like-minded people. Well, that and to go after my dream of being a writer. Did I really just share that with this giant scary thing that is the blogosphere? Gulp! Can we delete posts? Anyone know?!

Might as well follow that up by embarrassing myself further with a cheesy quote. Here it is, an old childhood favourite from the musical South Pacific: "You've got to have a dream. If you don't have a dream, how're you gonna have a dream come true?" (I should warn you that my cheese-o-meter exploded years ago).

You see whilst I'm on the meandering path towards my dreams, I'd like to reach out to people doing similar soul searching. I'd love to inspire others to follow the direction of their dreams as well.

So that's a bit about me, and what I'm aiming to do with this 'ere blog. It's been hard to take the plunge and actually post here. I've procrastinated on this so long, it should probably be called the "Um in Mum", plus I'm a Brit, so that's how I spell it anyway. Boom boom.

Did I just break the first rule in blogging? Keep it brief. Oops.