Thankful Thursday

Before I was a mummy, I was a teacher. An English teacher, to be precise. My love of correct grammar and punctuation was actually important, and something I could inflict upon others and be paid to do so. I loved teaching. I especially loved teaching my lower ability classes. At the end of each day I felt I had achieved something. With one class it might be that they could all now use an apostrophe correctly; with another it could be that they were able to construct brilliant introductions to their essays and understand how to include quotations; with one class, it was a successful lesson if I had got them all sitting where I wanted them to, and been able to do the register without interruption! It's amazing how thankful those little things could make me. And I rarely felt that a day had gone by without anything to be thankful for. Even if the kids had been difficult all day, my colleagues were fabulous. (Note here - I'm not talking about working at that dreadful school in Yateley, but the wonderful one in Winchester.)


Now I'm a mummy, it can be difficult to find my achievements in a day. I have got to the point where I call it a success when I've put a load of washing on! Some days we seem to do nothing, and I struggle with that. I used to keep house really well. Now it's a tip and my to-do list is infinite.
At the end of the day I can't always see that anything has been achieved - on the surface at least. I have to dig a bit to unearth my successes. And so, I've decided that each Thursday I am going to blog about the things I am thankful for, the things I have achieved with my week, in a bid to feel the affinity with motherhood that I had with my English classes.

Here goes...

10 Things I Am Grateful for this week:

1. B had her 1 year immunisations yesterday and she didn't even flinch!
2. The power of breastfeeding to calm a crying child.
3. Immunisations. How wonderful that we can live in a world where children can be protected from horrible illnesses. 
4. The NHS - it has its share of bad points, but I'm grateful for it: free immunisations; free healthcare for all; free prescriptions for the most vulnerable and needy, and affordable prescription prices for the rest of us.
5. My husband. He does the housework that I don't get round to and doesn't complain about it. 
6. Waking before hubby and B, which gave me time to read a chapter of a book, sort the washing and get on the Wii-Fit.
7. Gangnam Style - the hubby played it to us this morning and B loved it. She was dancing happily.
8. Our godson who we spoke to on the phone this morning. Well, he wanted to talk to 'Crips', but it was lovely to hear his little voice.
9. Organic vegetables. We've just started getting a veg box delivered and we've had a tasty and varied menu this week.
10. The shooting of Malala Yousafzai this week has reminded me how grateful I am that we have free education for all in this country, and that, as a female I was just as important and entitled to the same quality of education as males, and the same will go for B.

What are you thankful for this week?