The beginning

What am I? Who am I? Why am I writing this? I am 30 years of age a mother of a 13-month-old beautiful girl Alessia and currently we are living in NYC.  Trying to do my two favorite things which are travelling and story telling FREEFUN NYC.

Alessia has done more travel than I had done by the time I was 18. By the time she is sixteen months she will have travelled to eight different countries, three different continents lived away for nine out of seventeen months. She will have experienced things that some people will never get to do. I had always heard of people speaking of losing themselves in parenthood, forgetting who they are. No longer doing things for themselves. “Make sure and get everything done before having children”. It sounded as though having a child was almost like giving up, ambition fun social life gone. (Why would you have children if this were the case?)

What I have found is the polar opposite; I have found myself in parenthood. Not that I didn’t know who I was but more I am doing exactly what I want. Spending time with the people that are most important to me, those who make me feel good. It has slowed me down; it got me to reevaluate what I want. It made me get in touch with myself again, to enjoy the simple things and really get into the moment. To figure out what really matters.

         

I suppose prior to having Alessia, I did not decide or think about what type of parent I wanted to be. I didn’t read any books one would say I went into this blindfolded. My career was taking off and it most definitely was not the most ideal time to start to settle down into family life.

I don’t think anyone could have prepared me for what parenthood was going to be like. But all of a sudden you no longer only think about yourself. Your every thought is taken up with the well- being and containment of another human, which you have created. The love and bond is like no other and you fall madly in love.

From the moment Alessia was born, I went with my gut; my natural instincts kicked in and there was little thoughts are thinking. It was as though my whole body had decided to practice mindfulness. There was no way I was missing a moment of this precious time. I was not going to worry about not going out, not sleeping, that my career was on hold nothing mattered. Just the time I would spend with Alessia.

I kept hearing about spoiling babies. That I should not hold her too much, that she needs to sleep in her crib SO ON SO ON. But that all felt wrong, so wrong to me.

I WAS GOING TO MAKE MY MISTAKES NOT SOMEONE ELSES. 

From day one we used a sling, and a boob and 13 months later am still using both. When you feed your baby that is all you can do you sit and feed, and at the moment there is no guilt for not cleaning or studying or creating anything etc etc you just have to be. You are nourishing another human; it has to be one of the most fascinating things ever.

We Co sleep, as for me this made sense, It didn’t make sense getting out of bed every couple of hours, Alessia was what they call a Velcro baby attached to my hip. One thing I was never going to do was allow my baby to cry it out. So a sling, co-sleeping, and bringing her with me everywhere was how we combated it. 

She was a dream, we ate out, we went to the pub, into Dublin for the day, met friends, had dinner parties, we drove to Italy and stayed for a few months. We lived our lives and Alessia fitted into it very nicely. You don’t get this time very often so we decided to use it wisely. 13 months on, and three more trips later we are in NYC, currently deciding will we move here. End of September Alessia and myself will head to India to do a yoga teacher training. So life is defiantly not becoming static because I have a child it is making me do everything I want to do as I can see how quickly life changes.

One thing I have noticed is that there are endless amounts of FREEFUN to be had.

FREEFUN NYC