Real Aussie Mum – October

A babywearing busy mama!

Meet Rochelle Manners, mother of two gorgeous kids Julian and CoCo.  Rochelle started Wombat Books after self publishing her first book, and now publishes others under the Mostly for Mothers (for mums) and Even Before (for Christians) imprints.  Her latest anthology, Even Before You Were Born is a lovely collection of reflections on pregnancy and birth.  Ok, so I’m biased because I have two stories in the anthology!  The anthology will be launched next month and you will be able to buy signed copies here if you’re interested.

Here are Rochelle’s five faves, and her biggest struggle as she juggles motherhood and publishing:

1.  Favourite outing with your children – Visiting my mum and dads (the kids’ nanna and grandad’s) house. They have a huge yard, a trampoline and a pool we are looking forward to using in summer. Plus different and exciting toys and it is always a day trip as it is a bit of a drive.

2.  Favourite at-home activity with your children – My favourite or the kids?! I like drawing shapes and letters and trying to help him recognise them, but Julian’s attention span doesn’t last too long and he asks me to draw cars instead! So instead we end up playing cars (which baby CoCo likes doing too). I also like it now that CoCo is getting old enough to be fun to play with for Julian and they chase each other around the house (both crawling).

3.  Favourite family meal - Generally anything easy, but probably is Macaroni Chicken (sort of a pasta bake but nicer and using chicken and a chicken soup as a sauce).

4.  Favourite bedtime story/stories – My son likes all the stories where the animals or characters fall down, cry or yawn so it is pretty amusing when he asks for the “crying” books.

5.  Favourite way to wind down! – Catch up on work – ie my laptop is an addiction! I give myself too much to do, but I guess I enjoy it. Watching TV at the same time is fun too.

6.  Finally, what’s your biggest struggle as a mum? – My biggest struggle is probably balancing it all – work, homelife and the kids – and making sure I don’t feel guilty by ensuring I spend enough time with the kids and keep up with  my responsibilities. I am still learning, but am also fairly efficient at getting work done. It seems like there is always more to do and the kids really are patient when I work. Balancing and making it so I need to work less and can spend more time the kids is definitely worthwhile. (I am going to start on a book about that soon.)