I put my hair dryer in the fridge this morning. Let's talk about finding your bloom

On losing yourself to the scroll, and the small things that bring you back. I stopped fighting the chaos. Here's what happened next. On comparison culture, the highlight reel and why your worst day is probably their best one. Read this if your house feels full of Wild Things. Move over Max, we’re trying to find our bloom. 

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You remember that book Where the Wild Things Are? The monsters, the island, the boy who sailed there and found, to his surprise, that he belonged. Right now, that’s kind of my life. And kind of my house. And, weirdly, I’m OK with it. 

My two boys, Sandy and Ernie (4 and 18M) love to spill milk, draw on walls and climb things that definitely shouldn’t be scaled. Ernie rips pages from library books (only). Everything is a racetrack, the bathwater is everywhere and the noise levels are something that you have to experience to understand. The energy is renewable, limitless and completely saturating. 

I am not managing this island, but am now a part of its tribe. Resistance truly was futile. I fought it for a long time, but now, well, I just belong. Call it osmosis, or maybe it’s the surrender all toddler-adjacent parents fear, but I am at one with the monsters now. I know I’m not alone in this. Sometimes, though, it feels like it. 

It seems there is more parenting content online than at any other point in human history (well, obviously). More advice, more communities, more people sharing their experience in real time. It is genuinely wonderful, especially at 3am when you’re trying to figure out tog ratings. But, sometimes, that not-alone feeling is replaced by something else. A feed that makes everyone feel like maybe you’re all doing it wrong in exactly the same way.

So, enough of the highlight reel 

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You know the posts. It’s the super simple, just-had-these-47-ingredients-lying-around batch-cooking, meal prepping vibe. The kids who sit at the table and sleep through the night. The people who don’t always have to MilkRun a 2L milk just before bedtime. 

Even worse are the targeted ads. While I do rely on them to find me the products I need, they also deliver a steady stream of content evangelising ‘get lean now’ protein powder, a ‘six-week body’ and a ‘how I got my energy back’ pieces to camera from someone who I very much doubt woke up to a Nutrigrain-in-bed party at 4am. But hey, “we all have the same 24 hours”. Right?

And, of course, then there’s real life. The friends with kids who walk, don’t run. Who colour between the lines and don’t need a new shirt every hour and a half. You know, the kids who don’t try to drink from dog bowls.

Comparison culture isn’t always the big obvious stuff, but instead the creep of the small, daily accumulation of everyone else seems to be doing this better than me. 

It is the fastest way I know to lose your bloom entirely.

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The Deadlines I Used to Have

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Here’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Before kids, I had what I can only describe as Big Job energy. Magazine editor vibes. The kind of role you don’t just do, but you live inside. Deadlines were my love language. I knew, with absolute clarity, what a good day looked like, what success meant. 

Then, I had a baby. And the markers kind of… blurred?

As everyone with kids knows, schedules exist in theory and dissolve in practice. Putting shoes on can (literally) age you, and wake windows are fluid. Some days work, and others really don’t. And that’s when you feel like a bit of a failure, because you know what success feels like and this isn’t it.  Especially when you’re dancing with monsters.

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A new motto: be more monster

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There’s that meme (yes, Instagram again, I can not help myself), when they show the day from two perspectives. A mum’s caption is “I couldn’t leave the house, I got nothing done“, while her bub’s is  “I got to cuddle mum for eight whole hours, it was magical”. It’s cliche, but something I repeat over and over. 

That gap, between how we experience a day and how they experience the same day,  is the thing I keep coming back to. For the days I am convinced were just a bit of a disaster. (I hope) they are having some of their best. And that’s not nothing. That’s actually everything.

Finding your Bloom … Especially in the mess

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By no means do I have this figured out. I don’t. I am more tired than I have ever been in my life, and this morning I put my hair dryer in the fridge. But these are the things I come back to, on the days when the island feels too wild, and the Instagram scroll has done its damage:

1. Go outside.
   Not for fitness, not for steps, not for any reason that Instagram would find interesting. Just to move, and breathe, and remember that the world is larger than my kitchen.
2. Exercise, even when I don’t want to.
   Finding 45 minutes for a gym session, or even 20-minutes for a FluidForm at home, can be a real game-changer. 
3. Unfollow.
   Anything that doesn’t bring the good vibes, the bloom. I am going to be on my phone anyway; might as well make it a nicer place to be. 
4. Get down, and play.
   I let the boys lead. Nine times out of 10 it leads to a volcanic explosion, but I’m here for it. 
5. Make, and keep, friends who get you.
   The friends who know crash tackles are part of the MO, who don’t care (that much) if your kids are wearing pants. 
6. Check in with my husband.
   We are on completely different schedules, but at least we’re not outnumbered. A glass of wine at the end of the day or a quick dance party changes everything. 
7. Do the vitamins.
   This sound small, but it’s not. It’s just the little bit of self care I need to claim I have a ‘routine’ (thanks Bio Island). Especially in winter. 
8. Don’t fight the wild things.
   Instead, join in their crazy. Wear goggles in the bath, draw flames on your helmet and dance to Pup Pup Boogie every chance you get. 

I kind of like it here.

Find your bloom. It’s already there …  you just have to stop scrolling long enough to see it.