Story Of Mum - An Exhibition

Today is my turn to host a Story of Mum exhibition and I'm very excited and honored to be a part of it!

  
Story of Mum: Mums making an exhibition of ourselves is a touring programme of exhibitions and events in galleries and online that aims to put mothers in the spotlight.

The exhibition celebrates motherhood, explores the impact of mothering on our identities, and encourages mums worldwide to share their stories in words, photos, collage and film.

Find out more at Story of Mum
Parallel to the real life events, a virtual exhibition is travelling round the world, stopping for mini exhibitions on blogs - like this one!

 Participants are asked to choose one item from the existing exhibition, create one item to add to the exhibition, and share their thoughts on these and their identity in motherhood.

So with out further ado here is much contribution to Story of Mum...

I curated these:

Firstly I wanted to highlight this lovely piece written by Helen who blogs at The Complaining Cow she talks about how and when she realised that her son was a Highly Sensitive Child, this subject matter is close to my heart as we have also made the same discovery about LC recently. She writes so well here about what it is like as a mother to have a HSC, how life is for the child and how others react to them and your parenting, I can relate to so many things she says, have a look at what she wrote here.

Also on the Story of Mum website there is a Mum's Poem where you can contribute a few words to what you feel a mum is, this is what other mums have written so far...

 Humble, self-examining, never give up-erer!

 Creator of beauty

 Occasional chocolate briber

 Limitless and strong (sometimes)

 Spider catcher

Overwrought, frazzled and shouty 

Twitter addicted tea drinker

Pairer of socks. Sometimes they even match...

Giver of life.

I have loved looking at all the meaningful and quirky ideas about what a mum is in other mums eyes. You can look at the ever growing poem and add to it yourself here.

Lastly I have chosen this picture from the I am a Mum and a... section from the website, this feature encourages mums to show us another side of their identity other than just being a mum. I had the pleasure of meeting this lovely lady a couple of months ago at the 2013 Britmums Live Conference. Lisa and I have shared similar struggles in the past around being a parent and I have been lucky enough to be able to talk to her about this. I can relate so much to the message in her picture as I too am still trying to find myself on this parenting journey, it can be hard sometimes but having someone else around to talk to and who I know understands, warts and all helps so much to keep pushing forward. I know that Lisa is a real champion of her destiny, she is a brilliant mum and an accomplished lady and is an inspiration to me and all women who struggle on this path called motherhood. Lisa blogs at Hollybob's and has already host a Story of Mum exhibition over there, go check it out!

I created this:

Here I am with my mum and my baby, when I'm with my mum I realise that I am not just LC's mum but I am still my mum's baby too! I am the youngest in my sib set and the only girl so I guess I will always be seen as the baby of my family, no matter who old or how married I am or even how many children I end up having!

Now that LC is getting older I find myself becoming more and more like my mum as a parent, I understand her choices and reasoning now and why she did things the way she did as a mum. She has passed on so many great things to me about being a parent and she is still always there for me to turn to when I need her, in fact when I'm really ill I still want my mum sometimes!