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View as: GRID LIST

The things i love and loathe about motherhood…..

1
I’ll start with the the bits that drive me absolutely mad, then will finish with the ones I love (in an attempt to finish on a more up beat note, rather than sounding like a sarcastic, moaning whinger!)
1. Other people. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate all people…just the majority of interfering strangers. We will start with the lady who publicly bollocked me in the supermarket for letting my child eat halved cashew nuts. Didn’t I realise that, “one could get stuck in his windpipe and he could die”, or “worse still (in her
SelfishMother.com
2
eyes…though I personally think death would be worse) he could be allergic like that little girl in Coronation Street”. I replied calmly (through gritted teeth) that my son had a full set of teeth and was very capable of chewing a halved cashew nut without choking & was just about to tell her that he is definitely not allergic to nuts either, but thank her for her advice, when she launched into a huge rant about the little girl in Coronation Street again who ate a nut, swelled up and had to be rushed to hospital. She finished by saying, “clearly
SelfishMother.com
3
you didn’t see the episode, because if you did there was no way you would let your son anywhere near a nut, I bet her parents didn’t know that nuts are killers. It’s bloody irresponsible parenting, that’s what it is…”. I pondered for a moment, clearly nut allergies are serious and must be incredibly hard to deal with if your child has one but this woman was attacking me for no reason based on something she had seen on bloody Coronation Street. Not to mention that fact that her child was sitting in the trolley stuffing her face with
SelfishMother.com
4
multi-coloured pick and mix jelly snakes. So, as sheet stood there tutting at me and clearly waiting for me to thank her for imparting her Coronation Street based wisdom upon me, all adult maturity left me and I very childishly replied that, “you think these cashews are bad? Well let me tell you, I often let my son eat huge Brazil nuts (the biggest I can find) washed down with a glass of gin (he just doesn’t like juice like other kids) & we do all this while balancing on a trapeze above a motorway….I like to think of it as natural
SelfishMother.com
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selection….we live on the edge like that”. Just as I was walking off, feeling proud of myself and slightly embarrassed that I’d been quite rude to a stranger, another childish urge overtook me and I shouted over my shoulder, “and…..Coronation Street is CRAP”. I know….the ultimate insult, right? There have been several other ‘annoying stranger’ related moments including a lady who warned me that my dog may eat my baby, a grandma who shamed me for feeling my baby formula (is was expressed milk in a bottle…but why the hell should it
SelfishMother.com
6
matter) & the mum who told me my 8 week old son would be needy because I responded to his cries. Her advice….“just leave him he’ll stop eventually”.
2. Lack of sleep. Bloody hell, it’s just torture. Sleep deprivation makes us clinically insane, it makes rational women behave like loons and ruins marriages. Then just when they start sleeping more reliably, teething hits & we all know what a bitch teething is. Then when all the teeth are through the nightmares start, then there’s potty training and bed wetting…….truth is, once
SelfishMother.com
7
you’re a parent you just never sleep well again. I like to think we get used to it, buy truthfully I think we all go a bit crazy and stop caring.
3. The mum guilt. Ohhhhhhh we’ve all been there. Feeling bad because we leave the little people with their grandparents to do something nice for ourselves (or just go to the supermarket alone!). I spend at least 1 hour a day worrying that I could have done ‘x’ or ‘y’ better, could have played with Henry more when I actually just wanted to do the washing up, shouldn’t have lost my cool when he
SelfishMother.com
8
threw a magnet at my head (yep, it hurt), shouldn’t enjoy going to work on some days just so I can have a coffee peacefully at my desk…..the list goes on. Truth is, I don’t think the mum guilt ever leaves you. However I also wonder if it’s maybe not such a bad thing – surely if we feel guilty about the small stuff it means that we care a LOT.
4. Saggy bits. Post baby, things are never quite the same. You can train hard, eat right and look after your body but it’s never quite the same as it was pre-baby. I’ve seen the Instagram posts about
SelfishMother.com
9
‘loving your body because it created life’ and I totally agree, I do love my body and am proud of it but pregnancy robbed me of 2 bra sizes and I can never forgive it for that!
5. BING. How I hate Bing, with his constant whining and baby talk. For me, Bing is right up there with Donald Trump on my list of ‘people I would happily throw off a cliff’. Some days when Henry wakes up early and we have to watch Bing, I’m tempted to gouge out my own eyes with his bread stick just so I don’t have to watch the moaning little weasel.
The good
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bits:
1. Learning to let go. Pre-baby I was (and still am, to some extent) a bit of a control freak. I like things done my way, not because it’s necessarily the right way, just because I like to do things myself. When the little people arrive in a cascade of sleepless nights, poonamis, sick-up, colic and general chaos you do have to relinquish some control. Putting Henry’s needs before my own has forced me to relax my reins on life a little bit and try to go with the flow a little more. Today we were late to play group because Henry wanted a
SelfishMother.com
11
bath….it wasn’t the end of the world, he was happy & we got there eventually. I’m learning to pick my battles and not stress over the small stuff – admittedly 90% of the time I do still stress over the small stuff, that’s 10% less than I used to so I think I’m getting there.
2. Mum friends. Oh how I love my mum friends. I’ve met some truly wonderful friends since having a baby. Not only are they lovely, funny and generally great to be around, we generally tend to be going through the same stuff at the same times – teething, sleepless
SelfishMother.com
12
nights, toddler tantrums, refusal to wear clothes, hating the car seat etc. Knowing they are there to offer support, and if all else fails just have coffee & laugh about it, means the world to me.
3. Postman pat. He may be a little incompetent, always late, and frankly how he got a pilots licence is beyond me, but I still love him. Every morning bang on 7.25am he’s there & I love him. Go to hell Bing, it’s all about Pat.
4. The uninhibited behaviour of toddlers. I adore how Henry loves to be naked & doesn’t care who is watching or
SelfishMother.com
13
what his body looks like, how he dances and runs about like a crazy thing, how he isn’t scared to tell me he doesn’t like something, how he is so affectionate without being guarded and self-conscious, how he laughs and giggles until he snorts, how his emotions are so raw and uncensored, how he doesn’t care about ‘grown up problems, how he takes pleasure in the littlest things, how he is so untainted and unaffected by the world. I love watching him discover new things as he changes and grows and hope that, as he gets older, he retains some of
SelfishMother.com
14
these wonderful natural traits.
5. How much he makes me laugh. His laugh and crazy sense of humour are infectious. Toddlers, as well as being chaotic, insane little whirlwinds, are actually bloody hilarious too.
6. Love For the little things. I adore how Henry can spend ages playing in a puddle or how seeing the birds eat the seeds he put out for them fascinates him. It’s not about how much something costs, or what label it has on it that matters…..the best things in life truly are free.
6. LOVE. Complete, total, unconditional love which makes
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everything worth it.
SelfishMother.com

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- 3 May 17

I’ll start with the the bits that drive me absolutely mad, then will finish with the ones I love (in an attempt to finish on a more up beat note, rather than sounding like a sarcastic, moaning whinger!)
1. Other people. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate all people…just the majority of interfering strangers. We will start with the lady who publicly bollocked me in the supermarket for letting my child eat halved cashew nuts. Didn’t I realise that, “one could get stuck in his windpipe and he could die”, or “worse still (in her eyes…though I personally think death would be worse) he could be allergic like that little girl in Coronation Street”. I replied calmly (through gritted teeth) that my son had a full set of teeth and was very capable of chewing a halved cashew nut without choking & was just about to tell her that he is definitely not allergic to nuts either, but thank her for her advice, when she launched into a huge rant about the little girl in Coronation Street again who ate a nut, swelled up and had to be rushed to hospital. She finished by saying, “clearly you didn’t see the episode, because if you did there was no way you would let your son anywhere near a nut, I bet her parents didn’t know that nuts are killers. It’s bloody irresponsible parenting, that’s what it is…”. I pondered for a moment, clearly nut allergies are serious and must be incredibly hard to deal with if your child has one but this woman was attacking me for no reason based on something she had seen on bloody Coronation Street. Not to mention that fact that her child was sitting in the trolley stuffing her face with multi-coloured pick and mix jelly snakes. So, as sheet stood there tutting at me and clearly waiting for me to thank her for imparting her Coronation Street based wisdom upon me, all adult maturity left me and I very childishly replied that, “you think these cashews are bad? Well let me tell you, I often let my son eat huge Brazil nuts (the biggest I can find) washed down with a glass of gin (he just doesn’t like juice like other kids) & we do all this while balancing on a trapeze above a motorway….I like to think of it as natural selection….we live on the edge like that”. Just as I was walking off, feeling proud of myself and slightly embarrassed that I’d been quite rude to a stranger, another childish urge overtook me and I shouted over my shoulder, “and…..Coronation Street is CRAP”. I know….the ultimate insult, right? There have been several other ‘annoying stranger’ related moments including a lady who warned me that my dog may eat my baby, a grandma who shamed me for feeling my baby formula (is was expressed milk in a bottle…but why the hell should it matter) & the mum who told me my 8 week old son would be needy because I responded to his cries. Her advice….“just leave him he’ll stop eventually”.
2. Lack of sleep. Bloody hell, it’s just torture. Sleep deprivation makes us clinically insane, it makes rational women behave like loons and ruins marriages. Then just when they start sleeping more reliably, teething hits & we all know what a bitch teething is. Then when all the teeth are through the nightmares start, then there’s potty training and bed wetting…….truth is, once you’re a parent you just never sleep well again. I like to think we get used to it, buy truthfully I think we all go a bit crazy and stop caring.
3. The mum guilt. Ohhhhhhh we’ve all been there. Feeling bad because we leave the little people with their grandparents to do something nice for ourselves (or just go to the supermarket alone!). I spend at least 1 hour a day worrying that I could have done ‘x’ or ‘y’ better, could have played with Henry more when I actually just wanted to do the washing up, shouldn’t have lost my cool when he threw a magnet at my head (yep, it hurt), shouldn’t enjoy going to work on some days just so I can have a coffee peacefully at my desk…..the list goes on. Truth is, I don’t think the mum guilt ever leaves you. However I also wonder if it’s maybe not such a bad thing – surely if we feel guilty about the small stuff it means that we care a LOT.
4. Saggy bits. Post baby, things are never quite the same. You can train hard, eat right and look after your body but it’s never quite the same as it was pre-baby. I’ve seen the Instagram posts about ‘loving your body because it created life’ and I totally agree, I do love my body and am proud of it but pregnancy robbed me of 2 bra sizes and I can never forgive it for that!
5. BING. How I hate Bing, with his constant whining and baby talk. For me, Bing is right up there with Donald Trump on my list of ‘people I would happily throw off a cliff’. Some days when Henry wakes up early and we have to watch Bing, I’m tempted to gouge out my own eyes with his bread stick just so I don’t have to watch the moaning little weasel.
The good bits:
1. Learning to let go. Pre-baby I was (and still am, to some extent) a bit of a control freak. I like things done my way, not because it’s necessarily the right way, just because I like to do things myself. When the little people arrive in a cascade of sleepless nights, poonamis, sick-up, colic and general chaos you do have to relinquish some control. Putting Henry’s needs before my own has forced me to relax my reins on life a little bit and try to go with the flow a little more. Today we were late to play group because Henry wanted a bath….it wasn’t the end of the world, he was happy & we got there eventually. I’m learning to pick my battles and not stress over the small stuff – admittedly 90% of the time I do still stress over the small stuff, that’s 10% less than I used to so I think I’m getting there.
2. Mum friends. Oh how I love my mum friends. I’ve met some truly wonderful friends since having a baby. Not only are they lovely, funny and generally great to be around, we generally tend to be going through the same stuff at the same times – teething, sleepless nights, toddler tantrums, refusal to wear clothes, hating the car seat etc. Knowing they are there to offer support, and if all else fails just have coffee & laugh about it, means the world to me.
3. Postman pat. He may be a little incompetent, always late, and frankly how he got a pilots licence is beyond me, but I still love him. Every morning bang on 7.25am he’s there & I love him. Go to hell Bing, it’s all about Pat.
4. The uninhibited behaviour of toddlers. I adore how Henry loves to be naked & doesn’t care who is watching or what his body looks like, how he dances and runs about like a crazy thing, how he isn’t scared to tell me he doesn’t like something, how he is so affectionate without being guarded and self-conscious, how he laughs and giggles until he snorts, how his emotions are so raw and uncensored, how he doesn’t care about ‘grown up problems, how he takes pleasure in the littlest things, how he is so untainted and unaffected by the world. I love watching him discover new things as he changes and grows and hope that, as he gets older, he retains some of these wonderful natural traits.
5. How much he makes me laugh. His laugh and crazy sense of humour are infectious. Toddlers, as well as being chaotic, insane little whirlwinds, are actually bloody hilarious too.
6. Love For the little things. I adore how Henry can spend ages playing in a puddle or how seeing the birds eat the seeds he put out for them fascinates him. It’s not about how much something costs, or what label it has on it that matters…..the best things in life truly are free.
6. LOVE. Complete, total, unconditional love which makes everything worth it.

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