My words below are from a Facebook post I wrote on 1 October, accompanied by the photos I took that day. Thank you for all the comments I received that day, the encouragement and the “me toos”. We’re all in this together. An extra special thank you to my beautiful sister-in-law (one of the four I’m lucky enough to have in my life) for inspiring the visit to the beach and letting me vent. I think it’s always important to acknowledge the challenges as well as the joys x

I do not feel as though I’m winning at parenthood at the moment.

It seems like a lot of repetitive, relentless, really hard work and some days I’m not sure I’m up to the job, despite how much I love those three boys. And there’s nothing like spending 24/7 with all three of them together on school holidays to make that even more apparent.

I analyse constantly over what my parenting strategies are, what I can do differently, what’s working and what’s not. But some days it feels as though it doesn’t matter what I do, it’s just hard.

Yesterday afternoon, I packed up all the boys and we headed out to Shorncliff to meet my sister-in-law and two of her daughters. It was just a couple of hours of fresh air, sandy feet, interrupted conversations and cousins playing, but it made a world of difference to my headspace.

I came home calm and happy, rather than frazzled and exhausted.

And tomorrow may bring more parenting challenges, but it was nice to have a breather today.

Hope your soul gets a breather today too xx