Maria and her children.
A quest for information and support on a wide range of baby-related matters has led a local mother of two to organise Donegal’s first baby fayre called ‘Bump and Beyond” in the Mount Errigal Hotel, Letterkenny on April 3rd
Schoolteacher Maria Rushe, who writes a regular mother and baby blog under the title S-Mum, says she was inspired to organise the event when she saw regular online posts from local mothers desperate for information and advice on a whole host of different topics.
“A lot of the time people were just trying to find out where they could get advice on different issues and I thought it would be a great idea to try to put as much of that together under one roof.
“I saw in magazines that there were events like this in other places but there were none in Donegal so I thought I might as well set about organising one myself.”
With her background in musical theatre, Maria is no stranger to helping pull together huge, high-quality events, but this has presented an entirely different type of challenge.
“It can be tough to juggle everything when you are a mother of two small children, but it doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. Taking on a challenge like this has been great. It’s very different from choreographing a show for instance, but it is hugely rewarding to call someone up and explain what you want to do and they buy into the concept right away.”
Maria who is married to well-known health and fitness expert Emmet Rushe of Rushe Fitness, saw her eldest daughter Julia turn 4 this week. Their baby Danielle is just 3 months old.
Her experiences with her babies led Maria to commence writing her blog and she explains that contrary to what people might believe, the ‘S’ in S-Mum doesn’t stand for ‘super’ – although that doesn’t meant that it can’t.
“On any given day the ‘s’ stands for a different word, there have been ‘sick baby mum,’ ‘silly mum,’ even ‘snake mum,’ the ‘s’ is just a letter, it could just as easily have been any letter of the alphabet. It can be a bit daunting to put it out there for everyone to read, but thankfully the reaction has been brilliant.”
If the reaction to her blog has been superb, then Maria says she has been totally overwhelmed by the reaction to her announcement about the forthcoming baby fayre.
“I was delighted to be able to secure BabyZone.ie as a major sponsor for the event and when I made the official announcement on my S-Mum Facebook page, I really couldn’t believe the reaction. As well as information and advice there will now be several baby and family-related businesses attending the event that is very much one for all the family – so dads and children are welcome too.
It is called ‘Bump and Beyond’ because it will cater for parents-to-be as well as parents and the aim is to have as wide a range of information and family resources available.”
Of course that means that there is still plenty to be done in terms of sorting the logistics, but even with her parenting duties to juggle, Maria is excited about how things are shaping up.
“The event will be the first of its kind in Letterkenny and I am working really hard to make it a day to remember, the aim is for the ‘s’ in the blog post to be ‘successfully achieved mission – mum,” Maria concluded.
You can read Maria’s blog here – https://secretsofsmum.wordpress.com/ or visit her Facebook page where more details of the event will be posted in the coming weeks – https://www.facebook.com/Secretsofsmum
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