little white truths

Hello and welcome to another monthly positives post!

I figured that today was a good day to write this because my husband is in New Zealand on business and my family is overseas, meaning it's just me and my 2 and 3yo children. Yep, things are dicey, especially because I had both of them in bed with me last night so I haven't slept. Foo. It's definitely time to think positively.

Let's see what I can rustle up this morning...

The tennis is on

Every year I look forward to watching the Australian Open. It's the only time of the year when I have the TV on for something like twelve hours a day, and I enjoy being lazy and sitting back to watch matches when I would normally be working or doing domestic duties.

This year I've especially enjoyed watching some of the new players coming through, and at the moment I'm obsessed with Tsitsipas. I want him to win, and I'm glad he beat Federer. Yes Federer is an excellent player and a good sportsman (he's a great role model), but I feel that he's been dominating the game for far too long and I want to see some different players do well. Plus I've always been a Nadal lass anyway ; )

Go Tsitsipas. If he can take the title, I'll be so excited. Otherwise I'm going for Nadal, as always.

The house is looking more organised

As you may know, I start decluttering the house every year as we head into Christmas, just to make room for all the new toys that my kids will invariably be receiving from everyone. And when I do that, it encourages me to address the rest of the house and remove what I can.

This year I've gone harder and I'm even doing things like going through the filing cabinet to remove any documents that are too old or no longer need to be kept. The kitchen and spare rooms have also been done, and at the moment I'm going through my own wardrobe and donating anything I don't need anymore (which admittedly isn't a lot, since I don't have many clothes).

My aim once we hit February is to face 2019 with less stuff, and therefore less stuff to clean and put away each day. I've never been a hoarder but having children has brought so much junk into the house that it gives me headaches. I'm getting there. Things are looking better already.

It's birthday season

Not only are my husband's and daughter's birthdays coming up in the next two weeks, but it also appears to be birthday season generally and we've had birthdays on every weekend lately, with more to come.

Yes that makes our weekends super busy, but it also keeps the kids happy because they love birthday parties. My daughter in particular doesn't want to do anything else on weekends. All she wants is birthday parties. It's pretty funny, and happily at the moment we can cater to her needs.

It's also a good opportunity to catch up with other parents who have kids that are close in age to ours, and this means enjoying the newer relationships we've formed over the last few years. Hip hip hooray.

We're reducing plastic waste

As you may know, I'm big on the environment and I've written posts before on how to save water and gas/electricity, and also how to recycle and reuse household items for children.

This year I'm focusing on plastic. We've always reused plastic bags and we're not people who use a lot of cling film, but I know there are ways we can get even better on the plastic front. Indeed, I have some ideas for a post around that but I'll need some time while I continue to explore how we're doing things at home and what can be improved.

Not only are we reusing plastic packaging (eg the plastic containing our nappies gets reused to line the nappy bin, and the plastic over the bags of carrots we buy gets reused in place of cling film), but I'm exploring soap bars this year to see if I can replace things like bottles of shampoo and body wash with items that come wrapped in paper. Watch this space.

My daughter is resettling into kindergarten well

Any parent with a child born around this time of year (my daughter's birthday is in February) will understand the struggle when it comes to either putting your kid through to school as a younger child, or keeping them back for an extra year of kindergarten to give them more time to grow before they face the big world.

It was a line-ball call with my daughter, but ourselves and her kinder teacher agreed last year that she would benefit from repeating 3yo kinder. So that's what she's doing, and I was rather worried about how she'd go with all her friends moving up to the 4yo room and her staying to meet new kids in the 3yo room.

She's doing pretty well. Yes it's been confusing for her, but she understands that she's staying in her old room and she's been slowly forming bonds with the new kids. This year was the time to do the repeat because she likely won't remember it, but it was still a hard decision to make and we knew there would be an adjustment period. 

We're getting there, and I think she'll be so happy to spend an extra year there: it's a wonderful kinder and it's so close to home, which makes things easier for us too.

In sum

Them's my positives for the month!

It wasn't that easy to find positives this morning, given how tired I am, but I got there in the end. I'm flying solo for another three days so there's not much rest ahead of me, but at least the kids haven't behaved too badly so far (fingers crossed) so that's a plus.

That's all from me. Hope you have some monthly positives of your own - do let me know in the comments if so - and wishing you a happy February ahead.

Hope all's well with you, and speak soon x

* All images courtesy of unsplash.com