Today's post is from Catherine who normally blogs at Baby Genie and can be found on Twitter as @Baby_Genie. Catherine has put together this very funny (but very true) piece about the things that you are rarely told about Motherhood. Over to Catherine...
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- Mothers instinct is a real thing. It’s stronger than a hunch, louder than intuition and is worth more than all the Calpol in the world.
- A hysterical, hungry, overtired toddler weighs about 8 stone. The same child running to you, tears streaming, with a bumped knee weighs about as much as a bag of sugar when you scoop them up to comfort them.
- The breast feeding experience is traumatic. You’re warned about childbirth, teething and the sleepless nights. By why oh why does no one tell you about cracked nipples, leaky boobs and mastitis?! Someone should warn you.
- A gravel driveway (‘ooh mummy looooook stones, loooook’), provides more entertainment than In the Night Garden, a VTech walker, my first grocery shop and all the footballs in the world.
- It is possible to cry at very, very simple little things. A look, a wave, a sleepy sigh. Each one is like winning the lottery.
- When a child eats something you’ve made and enjoys it, it’s like you’ve passed the ultimate test in being a mother. Especially if it contains sprouts.
- Children have some sort of incredible macro vision. How does a child see an aeroplane barely visible to the naked eye? And an ant on a leaf at 20 paces? A dummy passed behind backs. There is no hiding anything.
- Those parents you see before you’re a mum yourself, dragging their offspring kicking and screaming off the Postman Pat ride outside the supermarket – they are normally composed and in control, children just have a magnatism towards them that turns them into hellish mini-beasts. Temporarily.
- It is virtually impossible not to be a teeny bit competitive with friends who have children of a similar age. Especially when it comes to first words. Especially if you have a friend who’s child can pretty much recite the English dictionary at the age of two.
- Sometimes people will give you good advice. Sometimes they won’t. Sometimes we get it right ourselves. Sometimes we don’t. But children bounce when they’re little. And we bounce back. And ultimately, mum always knows best.
Image is © Catherine Warrilow and is reproduced with kind permission