‘You mean nobody ever mentioned. . .?’

So, while I was simultaneously trying to feed breakfast to the Krays, checking my work emails and impaling my left foot on an unattended Skylander, I stumbled across the interesting question, ‘What things did no-one tell you about being an adult?’

And as I wiped up a pool of sodden Coco Pops, glanced dolefully at the list of work I had to mark online and gingerly inspected the bloody, cavernous hole in my foot, I pondered on a more pressing question,

What do people not actually tell you about being a PARENT?

My list was comprehensive. 

The back of your car will never EVER not be covered in shit. Your kids will only ever be staggering round, dying of dusty-mouthed thirst at bedtime. You will be able to recite the whole of ‘The Gruffalo’ and ‘Room On The Broom’ in your sleep. Backwards. You’ll never drink a hot brew or properly chew your food again. Your hangovers feel like they have been hand-delivered by the good man Satan himself. The fact that no matter how long or short the car journey, they will, without fail, fall fast asleep thirteen seconds before you arrive home. 

And so the list continues.

Which got me thinking.  In my seven years experience of being a parent, what were the major shockers? 

So. Here’s my ‘Top Six’ things nobody tells you about being a parent. Please feel free to add your own in the comments 🙂

1 Post-birth wind

I thought I’d done the hard bit. Rookie error right there.

Three trimesters impersonating a beached whale, three months of crippling Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and three weeks of Heinz Beans and Sausage on half a loaf of bread. Every day.

Two weeks overdue, two failed inductions, two infections during labour. Two epidural ‘blind spots’, two hundred trainee midwives gazing interestingly up my foo with some sort of hideous vaginal telescope while someone (could have been anyone in my drug-induced haze) scratched blood from the top of Kray 1’s head and two broken gas and air mouthpieces, I’d sucked so hard. 

One emergency C-Section, one night in High Care off my tits on liquid morphine but at the end of it all, one cup of tea, one piece of toast and one gorgeous (9lb!!) baby boy.

Or so I thought.

Twenty-four hours later, happily munching on yet another round of toast and butter ( HOW much toast do you actually eat in hospital?!) and winning ‘Catchphrase’, I suddenly felt an all-too-familiar rip of excruciating pain across my stomach. A contraction. A proper, proper contraction. 

Like, a ‘desperately-punching-the-red-buzzer-for-a-midwife-right-fucking-now’ contraction.

(WARNING: I was still drugged up on morphine at this point as well as having antibiotics pumped into both arms. Just saying.)

The conversation, I think, went something like this.

Midwife: Is everything ok?

Me: No, it definitely is not.

Midwife: What’s up?

Me: I’m having a contraction. I’m having another baby. Why am I having another baby?

Midwife: You’re not Lisa, I promise.

Me: No, I am. I really am. Like ow ow ow ow ow ow ow………

Midwife: Awwww love, it’ll be wind.

Me: Wind? Nope. Nopety, nope, nope. This is labour and it’s hurting. I need more drugs… MORE DRUGS I SAY!

Midwife: (Smiles sympathetically, exiting stage left) I’ll just pop off and get you some Windeze…

Bloody Windeze?

She busied back with two of the magical minty chews and the love story began. They were to become my BFF for many a week afterwards, while my poor mangled, stitched and stapled layers of stomach recovered enough from their ordeal to tentatively release some apprehensive, yet undeniably satisfying little pumps.

The glamour.

2. Poo

Not MY poo, you understand (although given the above, my inability to poo for a good few days after my C-Section is a story in itself), but baby poo.

Now, I wasn’t completely green heading into this unknown – I’d had family members and friends who had babies before me and let me tell you, I had wiped a fair few arses. I’d seen all the ‘You’ve Been Framed’ videos of babies shitting all over elderly family members at weddings and others who are literally smeared head to toe from one seemingly innocuous nappy. But this isn’t about the amount…this is about the colours and the consistencies.

NO ONE tells you about the black poo, the mustard poo or the bright yellow poo. They also don’t mention the orange poo, the greenish tan poo or the dark green poo. Or even the runny poo, the mushy poo, the tarry poo or sticky poo poo. And don’t forget the pasty poo, the peanut-butter poo, the snotty poo or the poo THAT JUST ACTUALLY NEVER COMES!!

Unfortunately, I was well known at my Doctor’s Surgery for rushing down there in a state of mild to moderate ‘new-mum’ panic with a shrieking, naked-bottomed baby in one hand, a stinking nappy in the other and making the lovely, long-suffering receptionist take a look (I can still hear the apprehensiveness in her voice when I phone now, seven years later).

‘Has he got a cold, love?’

‘Er, he’s a bit sneezy, yeah.’

‘Yeah, it’s snot that, love. Just snot. They can’t blow it out so they swallow it and it comes out with everything else.’

They kind of do the same now – just off the end of their finger. 

3. You’ll never ever again piss alone

I can honestly swear that I can count on one hand the amount of times I have successfully negotiated a successful operation to use the bathroom. Regardless of the need, my light, tiptoed footsteps to the bathroom are like a mythical Sirens’ song to my lads’ ears. It seductively lures them from miles around with silky sweet promises of the destruction of any realistic chance of five minutes childless peace. 

Instead, I sit on the loo, staring back at two small, inquisitive faces whilst being inundated with those life-affirming queries about why I sit down, why I don’t own a penis and does this mean I wee out of my bumhole.

I am, as we speak, scouring the dark web for one of those mosquito alarms they use outside of shops at night to deter loitering teenagers from, well, loitering around and pestering old people to buy them vaping liquid, or worse, paracetamol.

Might get me a minute’s bastard peace.

4. You’ll never use all those white ‘New Baby’ albums

Cute? Yes. Thoughtful? Also, yes. Practical in a digital age? Not particularly. 

Instead, you’ll have a thunderous, full-to-bursting iCloud, no storage left on your phone and a constant feeling you’re going to throw up worrying that those 33,256 pictures you took in the first two months of your child’s life are going to disappear into, well, thin air. Hard drive, anyone?

5. No parenting book in the world actually works

So there are reportedly around a billion parenting books published. An actual billion. Surely in itself this proves conclusively that they are all pretty shit if it needs this many people to have a go?

Clearly, no one has it right yet.

In fact, research shows that these books can actually be quite damaging to new mums and can have a very negative impact to their mental health my adding to their stress rather than helping to combat it, leading to an increased risk of developing postpartum depression. Sad times.

In my experience, all they seemed to do for me was reinforce the way I felt about myself at the time – as a mum, a person or a partner.

Which was pretty rubbish most of the time, to be honest. 

I didn’t have skin-to-skin with my newborn due to unceremoniously haemorrhaging all over the operating theatre and spending the next twenty-four hours so drugged up my eyes were whizzing round my head like the barrels in a slot machine.

Shit parent. 

I unashamedly gave both my boys dummies from birth, clearly enthusiastically increasing their risk of both not only growing up to bear a striking resemblance to Roger Rabbit, but also running the risk of them being unable to form a comprehensible word for the rest of their living, breathing existence (chance would be a fine thing.).

Shit parent.

Eagerly chucking mountains of Morrisons own grated cheddar cheese at the boys rather than perfectly-sliced, organic Royal Chantenay carrots while in their highchairs, in the vain hope of getting them to pipe the hell down while I was trying to get their bloody tea on the table.

Shit parent. 

And do you know what, even as I type this, my two are on separate Xboxes where they have been since 10.30 am this morning ‘cos it’s pissing down and I have a raft of online marking to do.

Shit parent shit parent shit parent.

Anyone who knows me knows I like facts and truths. While I’m sure some people find parenting books useful, for me there are no truths. The only truth in all of this is that we are all winging it – arguably the most important job in the world, and we’re winging it. And doing a bloody brilliant job.

So chuck the parenting books.

Write your own.

And finally,

6. You will actively dislike them a lot of the time.

They answer back. They piss on the floor in the bathroom and leave it there for you to stand in. Barefoot. They fight – proper punching and everything. They lie literally to your face, as naturally as breathing. They say ‘whatever’. A lot. They can’t switch off a light. They are always so bloody grimy. and dirty.

However.

Despite all of this, there is one thing people DO tell you. And strangely, it always comes at the least likely moment you can be arsed hearing it.

When you’re lumping your 8-month-old bump round, with your lank, unwashed hair, hellishly swollen ankles and desperately fighting the uncontrollable desire to fall sobbing to your knees in sheer exhaustion, feeling the least pregnancy glowy you’ve ever felt, someone will whisper,

‘It’s worth every single second.’

And it really, really is.

Just don’t ever tell the Krays I said that.