What happens when you listen to yourself? When there isn't any external input happening to my brain via reading, watching or listening to other external inputs. I have a permanently running internal monologue. I watched a lot of TV when I was a kid. I was an early riser, and would wake up before anyone else in my family, head in to the living room and switch on the TV.I turned 35 on Wednesday. For whatever reason, half-decade birthdays have always felt like a significant milestone to me.Sometimes I can feel like I am just going from one demand to the next all day long. Then at night when I really should go to bed I stay up an extra 30 minutes to an hour messing around on my phone simply because it is quiet and nobody is bothering me and I can.I listen to a lot of podcasts and read blog posts about motherhood and parenting. I come across two themes of advice that are useful yet seem in conflict with each other. It was a goal of mine at the start of 2021 to publish consistently to this blog. I've been failing to do that recently. I was for a while there finding time to write in the margins. Now I'm back at work, just about any margin in my life has been squeezed out, and so has the writing.I want matching pantry containers. I watched a few YouTube videos by an influencer with a huge pantry filled with these beautiful matching clear containers with labels, and I've been thinking about it ever since.We’ve just got back from a 4 day stay at Sea World Resort (Australia). The amount of planning, effort and money required to do a holiday with a toddler and a baby is so immense I often wonder pre-holiday if going on a trip is even worth it.My word for the year in 2021 is self. Self is a loaded word because people can take it to mean “self-absorbed” or “selfish”, so I first hesitated to choose it.In Nat Eliason’s post “Be Yourself, Not a Niche" he encourages us to blog about whatever we are interested in, instead of fitting a specific niche.My firstborn spent months in the first year of their life only taking 30 minute naps, while attached to me. After trying every strategy and suggestion to get them to sleep longer or alone, and driving myself to the brink of insanity in doing so, I knew that something had to change.My productivity doesn’t determine my worth. 