12 days of Buffy : witch

I thought, with today being Saturday, it'd be a doddle to complete day 3 of my 12 days of Buffy challenge. How wrong was I?!

The combination of a disrupted night's sleep, a nap-resisting toddler and baby, a spontaneous visit to see the in-laws, a juddering Buffy DVD and screaming sleep deprived children resulted in the bare minimum of me-time and only a very small window of time in which to try and complete one of the tasks on my to-do list.

As the baby is still awake and I'm yet to have my tea and some quality time with the husband, I'm going to make this post brief. I feel guilty about that but I need to make the most of my evening, rather than my on-line life, before the all-consuming, sheer relentlessness of 2 young, awake children resumes at what I hope will not be some unearthly hour of the morning.

So, in a nutshell, what was episode 3 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer about?

This is Amy:

This is Amy's mum:



Lets face it, with a mum like that, the episode was never going to go well.

That's right people, we're dealing with pushy mothers. And not just any pushy mother. She's a pushy mother who practices withcraft.

In her day, Catherine Madison was a successful cheerleader and she's desperate for her daughter Amy to follow in her footsteps. Frustrated that Amy doesn't manage to earn a place on the cheerleading squad, she casts a spell to switch bodies with her daughter and then picks off several of the cheerleaders so that there's a gap on the squad for her to fill. Fortunately, Buffy saves the day and Catherine's soul ends up trapped within the very cheerleading trophy that she won during her glory days on the squad.

Now you know the plot, own up! Are you a pushy mother? Do/did you have a pushy mother? Are you trying to squash your pushy traits? or are you embracing them?

Husband always jokes that in the future, toddler will be one of "those" that auditions for X-factor with complete conviction that they will get through and who seems to have absolutely no realisation at all that the sound coming from their mouth in no way resembles singing. Then when the judges ask him "who told you you could sing?" he'll say "my mum". And there I'll be in the background, fuming at the injustice of them not being able to see the talent that is clearly before their eyes!

Now I happen to think toddler has a lovely singing voice, along with many other fine attributes, and do I want him to reach his full potential? yes. Do I want him to believe he can do anything he sets his mind to? yes. Will I support and encourage him along the way? absolutely. This then begs the question, what does it take for someone to cross the line between encouragement and pushiness?

I imagine it would be easy to become obsessive about your child's successes and failures if you don't have your own interests and identity. Surely if you only focus your energies on your children, it would be all too easy to slip into micro-managing them and pushing them harder than you otherwise would?

Of course I can only speculate, as I have no real experience....yet! If you have a pushy mother story, I'd love to hear it. Please feel free to share the details in the comments box below and if you have a blog post on the subject, include a link so I can be nosey and visit!

I managed to cross another task off my to-do list today, although I confess I opted for the easiest (take down the halloween gel stickers on the interior window) just so I could make sure I passed the challenge.

 

This is what's left on my list:

 

• Clear the dining room table
• File away all the paperwork
• Put locks on all the "un-safe" drawers/cupboards
• Sort out the big box of books that's been sat in the conservatory for the last 3 years
• Tidy and organise my craft table so if I wanted to, I could actually use it
• Declutter the bedroom
• Put locks on the bedside drawers
• Make the boys some fleece trousers
• Do some batch cooking
• Do the Christmas shopping

And the biggest one of all:

• Declutter and clean the spare bedroom before decorating it ready for the toddler to move into after his Boxing day birthday. The baby will then move into the nursery *sob*

What next?

To find out Nyssapod's thoughts on "Witch", head on over to Audioboo. You can also follow Nyssapod's progress at minibreakmummy.

When you've done that, pop on over to Chapters of Claire where you'll find Claire's challenge updates.

 

We all really appreciate your support. Thank you.

 

Join in!

If you want to join in the 12 days of Buffy challenge then details of how to do this can be found on my previous posts here, here and here. You don't have to be a fan of Buffy - you just have to have a desire to get rid of some of those jobs you've been putting off for a while. It's about clearing the decks and paving the way for your own fresh start.

See you tomorrow x