Photo by istock
I have entered back into the world of working and have worked out that I need my kids more than they need me, here's why:
- When you have a child/children the world is a friendlier place where people smile, they give loving looks to your baby and toddler and say things like, "I would love mine to be that age again", "Enjoy this time as they soon grow up". People stop and chat - they even chuckle when they hear your toddler's funny comments, it could almost be compared to be walking around in a Mary Poppins type film. When you don't have children with you no one smiles and god forbid any type of conversation, they give you the look of , "you've let yourself go" which brings me onto my next point.
- Your appearance is totally excused when you have children. Bad hair, no make up, bad nails, dirty clothes, generally looking harassed is all fine with kids attached to you somewhere. If on the odd occasion I make it out without the kids and I do happen to get into a conversation (which is rare) I make some reference to having children, mainly I do this in a gym class just to excuse appearance and lack of effort.
- When you have children it's totally acceptable to drive everywhere, even if it's to the end of road because the hassle of getting the pushchair and buggy board (which is sometimes the best thing I have brought and sometimes the worst) out is just too much effort, but just popping the kids in the car is easier and results in everyone being warm and dry.
- Gives you motivation to go to the gym and enjoy it, yes when you only have three hrs a week spare there is no "I will go tomorrow" excuse as tomorrow everything could have fallen apart, illness could have struck, someone might be having a bad day.
- You can park in massive spaces that have room around the edge, I'm really bad at parking, bit of a cliche but when I passed my driving test (which took five attempts) I got my car stuck in a multi storey car park and had to ask a stranger to move it for me! I have even worked out the best parking spaces for size to open doors with enough space to get the children out, I'm fully aware this is more of an elderly past time of liking to park in the same place but when you've got kids it's just practical, right?
- You can act like a bit of a tit by singing, dancing and watching loads Disney/Pixar films.
- Mums love chatting to other mums, it's like you have joined a club once you have given birth where you just chat as you are all in the same boat and sometimes you just need to offload. It's not often before I had children I would talk to a stranger about poo, sick, wee etc everyone is so open.
- You can force your children to like Lego and anything you failed at as child, just get your children to do it to fulfil your dreams.
- When the dentist asks if you floss everyday and you answer no, you can mention I just don't have the time, I have kids.
- I never really knew about anything cool before but now I have got the prefect excuse because I've got children it's totally ok to be out of the loop. Boom (isn't that how the cool kids communicate these days?)
- It's totally fine to have old ikea furniture from your pre children days because as far as I'm concerned until they grow up it's a free for all and something will always get broken.
- Probably the biggest thing is I wouldn't have anything to blog about and laugh with about, because before children the memories are starting to fade but I was pretty much either drunk or hungover and always saying I will go to the gym tomorrow.
Here's to wearing the my mother jumper on my 1st day back just to make it crystal clear.