The ‘funny’ things parents do
I was inspired to write this blog as I was having a morning wee, sitting with the door wide open, ears listening out for the kids in the playroom and having that realisation that I rarely go to the toilet in private anymore.
When we become a parent, a whole world opens up and we find ourselves living in a bit of bubble; from binging on children’s TV (I am back at the ‘In The Night Garden’ phase …still find this creepy and trippy!!), to putting rubber corners on every single surface to make them safe.
I sat and pondered some of the funny things I now do as a parent, things that have become so etched in my DNA that they actually seem normal. Will life ever be the same again? Ha ha
Below I have compiled a list of 15 things that I am convinced that a massive proportion of parents do — even if you don’t want to admit the truth! So here goes.
The ‘funny’ things that parents do:
1. Go to the toilet (yes sometimes a number 2 even) with the door open, or with your little one navigating the bathroom and even holding onto your leg (slightly uncomfortable I admit!)
2. Learn to shower in nano-seconds! Yep I often put my little one in baby prison as I call it, joking it’s his cot/playpen so I can have some hot water hit my skin in order to feel half human having been woken in the night and at 5am!
3. Eat their leftover food. Yep I hate to think of the amount of spoonfuls of germs, I mean left over items, I have eaten from their plate. When you see how my kids eat, it is actually rank to think of it. But those yummy kids Ella’s Kitchen chicken nuggets, or the Annabel Karmel ready meals (yes we have them once in a while in our house — #CONVENIENCE!!!!!!) are just too damn tasty!
4. Sniff our kids buts — and I don’t mean just babies. It’s a daily occurrence with my 18 month old to give him a good sniff to see if he has done a stinky poo poo but even my 5 year old was offered a sniff recently after informing me that he had a poo at school, and after wiping, a bit more came out which he just left there all afternoon. Yep what a glamorous life I lead.
5. Forget that we have the rights to our TV and instead let them take over the programming every second they are awake. Heaven forbid mummy watches ‘The Home Edit’ or ‘Emily in Paris’ during this time. That remote would get whipped away from me quick smart or they would moan so much I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it!
6. Enjoy simple pleasures of picking matching outfits — or should I say in particular matching socks. In my house, firstly the laundry is never bloody ending! To the point where some days I want to get rid of everything and only have enough clothes for a 7-day cycle! But seriously where do the socks all go? When I match a pair it’s like winning a golden ticket.
7. As much as we encourage our kids to tidy, we pick up toys and tidy them away about a million times a day just to have a brief moment where we feel we don’t live or work (in my case as I work from home) in a playcenter.
8. Start enjoying your babies fruit pouches as one of you 5-a-day….they are just so easy to use and delicious.
9. Get starry eyed at the kids TV characters. Hear me out before you judge me but I often find myself thinking, he or she is good looking and suddenly it hits me I am watching Blues Clues with Josh!
10. Get obsessed with whatever your kid is into. Louis is in love with dinosaurs so whenever I go into a shop, my Reticular Activation System (RAS) goes into overdrive, picking out all the amazing things I really shouldn’t and don’t need to buy, but then convincing myself, he hasn’t got “this” version has he.
11. Go into panic mode when a trip to your mates with the kids becomes a health and safety risk assessment. What can they hurt themselves on? What can they break — glass tables, ornaments? What can they get dirty? Until you hear the words “oh don’t worry they are fine.” you don’t even begin to relax, and even on hearing these words you are ‘pretending to relax’ whilst inside screaming “DON’T BREAK ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
12. Steal their chocolate. I try not to buy chocolate because unfortunately it makes me feel yucky and brings my skin out in either eczema or spots (lucky me) but on occasions I still can’t resist it. The other day I shamelessly opened Louis Terry’s milk chocolate orange that he got for Christmas and I ate half of it! What was worse is that I totally forgot to hide the evidence and so he caught me red handed the next morning. Whoops.
13. The smell of milk becomes familiar. I realised the other day that even now my youngest is 18 months, my dressing gown still smells like gone off baby milk. I do wash it I promise, but every so often, after giving him night before bottle and cuddles, it must leak on my dressing gown, fester overnight to release that sour odour the following day.
14. Feel comfortable wearing stained clothes. So many times I look down at my jeans, or the shoulder of my top and can see clear remnants of my kids snot or finger marks where he grabbed my leg whilst eating a handful or dribbly oat bar. Instead of running to the wardrobe to change, I literally just dab it off with water. What is the point? I will only be messy again in 5 minutes!
15. Choose to do the washing up instead of being with your kids. This sounds awful doesn’t it but so many times, after being with the kids all day, me and my hubby James fight over who is going to wash-up after dinner and who is going to play with the kids. Rock, paper, scissors is played…best of 3 if I lose first time! We are fighting to wash-up. It’s a chance to put on some music or a podcast and just escape the world of pretending to be a Carnotaurus or a train that has run out of coal!
So that’s my top 15 funny things parents do and I am sure there would be many more if I thought even harder.
If you are reading this and the above resonates or you have your own funny behaviour to share, I would LOVE for you to share it. After all, this blog is all about sharing the real side of parenting.
