I'm stronger than i'll ever realise

Quitting is for the weak.

Admitting that you can't manage something is a strength. It's a strength that you'd admit in a job interview.

I want to take the boys to classes. It's what mums 'should' do (spot the unhelpful thinking style).

I don't like play groups, rows of mums chatting as if they have known one another since school. Me, there, just being me, trying to look like I am happy-as-larry, engrossing myself in a 20 year old Little Tykes mountain play set, when really, I'm half little lost girl and half bored-adult.

Then I feel guilty for not liking playgroup, I want to like it, all the other mums seem to manage ok. It's just that the amount of strength I have to use for a class or play group is disproportionate to the amount of 'wellbeing' stuff that the boys get out of it. Please remember, 3 days a week they are at nursery 8-4.30, surrounded by their peers, doing messy play and basically being busy.

Today, I am quitting gymnastics. I have learned some bits for the boys' skill level but mostly I have learned that Ewan is rather shy and Noah likes to follow Ewan. Gymnastics put pressure on me to be somewhere at a set time, which I really wanted to help me. I thrive on routine, and MrB's shifts mean I have no consistency.

I'm not quitting gymnastics because it's hard work, not because I can't be arsed. I'm quitting it because it saps what little real enthusiasm I have for being a mum out of me. I don't need that. I especially don't need the coaches telling me that there 'isn't a problem' with the status quo and tat we 'should just persevere'.

I'm stronger than I know, I'm a lot stronger than they know. It's my strong personality traits that help me to string my life of work/ mum/ wife/ me together. I need that strength so i can give the unconditional love that my children deserve and that I know I can give to them.

I will miss it. Lots. But you can only change what you have power over.