Mummascribbles – Mummascribbles meets…Mumbelievable – Mummascribbles

This week we meet the fabulous Ursula from Mumbelievable. Thanks so much for taking part Ursula 🙂

Tell me a little bit about yourself and your family
I’m a very, very lucky girl. I live in Warsash, a few minutes’ from the gorgeous River Hamble in Hampshire in a beautiful converted barn with Tim, my brilliant (and oh-so-handsome) husband of almost ten years and our funny, gorgeous and so-smart-he’s-already-outwitting-me son, Xav who’s three.  

What do you like doing to be you, when you are not parenting, working (if you do), or blogging? 
Spending quality time with Tim, our friends and family is when I’m happiest. When there was a meteor shower recently Tim suggested we spend the evening out in the garden under the stars to see it. So we put a pizza in the oven, opened a bottle of wine and got the blankets and sun loungers out. It was something I’ll never forget. For me it’s those small things that mean the most.  

Quite often during the week I’ll spend an evening having dinner (read: drinking fizz) with girlfriends and that’s really important to me. It’s precious time and good for my soul. I think it’s so crucial that as mothers we work on remembering all of our other identities – wife, daughter, sister, friend, colleague and so on – because if we neglect parts of who we are eventually we’ll burn out. I’ve been there and it’s not pretty. I used to feel instinctively that it was selfish to spend any time at all on things that were just for me, but now I realise that those things give my life balance and that makes me happier, calmer and better equipped to deal with the demands of each day.      

What is your biggest achievement to date? 
Surviving the past year.  

In 2013 – at the same time as Xav was born early – we found out that Tim’s kidneys were failing. We tried desperately to slow it down through nutrition and natural supplements and treatments, but by early 2015 he’d become increasingly unwell and it became really clear that he was going to need a transplant. He was so lucky to receive a donor kidney in August last year and we were hopeful that it would improve his quality of life and restore his health, but since then he has faced complication after complication. He’s finally on his way to overcoming the last remaining virus now, but it has been the toughest year of our lives and he has had to fight so hard just to get through each day. I’m in awe of him.  

Having this happen to our family has taken a toll on all of us. We’ve had to face things we’d never imagined and even had to say goodbye to each other at one point.  

I think we’ll look back on this year and wonder how we got through it. But we’ve tried to be relentlessly positive and there’s no denying all this has changed our outlook on the world and made the tiniest of moments extraordinary. And that’s a beautiful thing. 

From your own experiences, what do you find the hardest part of parenting and what is the easiest/most rewarding part? 
The hardest part for us as a family has been piecing together the challenges we’ve had with Xav since the moment he was born. He’s always been ‘different’ from other children and in my heart I knew it was more than a case of not comparing him to others. I researched his symptoms and over time I pieced the puzzle together and realised he has Sensory Processing Disorder, which is when there is a disconnection between the nervous system and the senses so the brain doesn’t receive the right information it needs to function normally.  

Because it isn’t commonly diagnosed in this country, our paediatrician isn’t qualified to diagnose it formally, even though every professional we’ve seen is in agreement that this is what he has. Our struggle to get a diagnosis is ongoing, but thanks to our superhero health visitor who has fought very hard with us, we’ve been lucky to be able to access a number of support services this year that have made a huge difference to us all. Xav is learning lots of coping strategies to help him, and my hope is that this early intervention will mean that later in his life they’ll just become second nature to him.  

It’s been hard to cope at times; I won’t sugar coat that. It’s affected our lives quite profoundly and it’s heart-breaking to see him struggle so hard. I think as parents we just want our children to be happy above all else, don’t we? 

The part that comes easiest to me is loving him. It’s effortless. The most rewarding part has to be when he’s trying something new. He gets really anxious about trying new things and is often adamant he can’t do it. It might take a hundred attempts but I try my best to empower him and reinforce that I believe in him, so when he finally fights through his frustrations and anxieties and achieves that new thing, I can’t help but feel really proud of us both.  

I started saying pretty early on that for me being Xav’s mummy is tough and rewarding in equal measure. So for me, the difficult moments are matched by the amazing ones. He’s an extraordinary little boy and being his mummy is the biggest privilege of my life. 

Parenting in itself is no mean feat; how do you juggle everything you need to in order to get everything done on a daily basis? 
Ha! I’m still working on the juggling act. Aren’t we all though? I don’t feel I’m cut out for juggling. I’ve realised fairly recently that I’m pretty tough on myself and set expectations that are pretty unachievable which is why for a long time I felt like I was a catastrophic failure at this mummy gig.  

Now I’m trying hard to become more relaxed about the stuff that doesn’t get done and I’m finally learning (I don’t catch on all that quickly) that it’s just not reasonable to expect to be an insta-perfect mum. Life is unfiltered and very imperfect! 

I’m pretty organised and use A LOT of lists. I’ve recently discovered Wunderlist – an app which lets you create lists for different things and I’m LOVING using it! If I didn’t use lists I’d go crazy as my pea brain can’t hold on to too much and things (well, more things) would get forgotten. And I hate forgetting things! 

Why did you decide to start blogging? 
Mumbelievable originally started as a blog to help mums put themselves first and look after themselves a bit better by getting back into fitness. I’d become really fed up with the fact that before I’d had Xav I used to be in the gym four/five times a week and just couldn’t seem to manage even a ten minute workout now I was a mum! 

So I thought I’d chronicle my efforts to try and prioritise my health and wellbeing a bit more, and maybe try to help other mums do the same thing at the same time. I quickly realised though that the reasons why we find it almost impossible to do anything for ourselves is a much bigger issue and that that was what I wanted the blog to become about. It’s evolved in a big way and has completely changed since I started in July 2015.  

Tell me a bit about your blog? 
Once I changed the blog’s direction in March this year, I chose my values: Confidence, honesty, support and empowerment for mums. Everything I write about on the blog and post through social media reflects one or more of these values.  

Mumbelievable is about helping mums to see and believe how incredible they are. 

The following is growing really quickly now and I’ve got some really exciting brand collaborations, product lines and events in the pipeline – all to help mums gain their confidence back and be empowered by other mums. My biggest enemy at the moment is time. I wish I could work on the blog and everything that’s emerging from it 24/7 because I love it and everything it stands for.  

What do you want your blog to achieve and where do you hope to see it go as it grows? 
My dream is that it will empower women all over the world to see that they matter too, and that nurturing ourselves is a good thing that benefits the entire family. Too many mums battle with themselves and second-guess most things they do, and it shouldn’t be that way.  

We’re doing the toughest job in the world and we’re doing the best job we can, so we should celebrate ourselves and each other. I want Mumbelievable to be the space where we can all do that.  

One project I’m very excited about and pumping a lot of love into is my partnership with a coaching company – we’re launching a pilot series of workshops to help mums return to work with confidence after having a child later this year. As the business grows, I’m hoping that we will be able to help more and more women feel amazing. That’s my big ambition. It doesn’t get any better than that for me.  

What advice would you give someone who is thinking about starting a blog? 
Everyone says this, but for me finding your own voice and writing authentic content that comes from your heart is the most fundamental part of blogging – it’s the only way your audience will be able to properly connect with you. I saw a brilliant author and blogger speak recently and she described replicating the style or content of other writers as being ‘shackled’ which I thought was a totally accurate description.  

Belief in yourself and in the value of what you have to say – rather than trying to emulate what others you admire do – is also something I think you need to have in your gut as a blogger.  

I’d also say that if you feel the need to change direction, go for it. Stay true to what you want to blog about and it’ll become infinitely easier to produce great content. I was worried that I’d lose a big chunk of my following when I took the blog on a different path, but the opposite happened and it’s growing much faster now. It was the best blogging decision I’ve made, I think. 

If you’re in love with learning, you’ll do great. This year has taught me so much and I’m constantly looking for opportunities and resources to help me learn how to be a better blogger. It’s also a great idea to connect with as many other bloggers as you can. There’s so much help out there and this community is so supportive. Connecting with influential people and learning all you can from them is a huge source of power and encouragement when you’re starting out.   

If you could have dinner with three people (dead or alive), who would it be and why? 
My three grandparents. They were all amazing in very different ways. We were very close and they meant the world to me and my siblings. They all died before I’d had chance to truly get to know them as people and I’d love to find out more about who they were, what their lives were like and our family’s heritage.  

Tell me three random facts about you 

1. I can fold my ears in half and tuck them in so they stay folded. It looks bizarre but feels strangely therapeutic. 

2. I went to school in Milan for a few years and learnt to speak Italian in the playground.  

3. I’m obsessed with Elvis Presley and wish I’d been born several decades earlier so I could’ve seen him live. I just can’t imagine how exciting it must’ve been to be around when such significant new genres of music were emerging.  

Along with her blog www.mumbelievable.com, you can also find Ursula over on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.