Stupid shit people forgot to mention about parenting

[BlahBl4h]

Mine at the moment is just how many times you can be expected to watch the same fucking movie over and over and over and over.

I want to peel my eyes off.

Anyone?

also kids learn from repetition (even most adults do - thats why we do revision for exams lol) so reading a book once to a small child is useless as they will forget it especially if they have to try and retain the next days story and the next and the next aswell.

They dont have tiny eideditic memories, in fact most things the see, here, do before age 3 will be forgotton as they dont even have proper long term memory yet.

Also you would struggle to read a different book every night. I can still recite the Gruffalo without the book 16 yrs later. Children have a favourite and the trouble you find yourself in if you get even one word wrong.

Family and friends coming over to watch the baby constantly telling you to “look what she’s doing now” - YOU’RE here to look at the baby so mummy can have some time off from looking at the baby

infuriates me (especially when my mother pretends to be the baby and says “look mummy, look what I’m doing, look, look, LOOK” - I look at her 24hrs a day 7 days a week I dont want to look right now!!!)

This

That your life has to resolve around their naps. And then they go down to one nap and you still resent planning around it. And then they stop napping altogether which is even WORSE as you used to have one hour a day to have a cup of tea/sit down/actually get things done 😫

That once you start weaning you have to think of and provide meals for them 3 x day every day for the next 18 years pretty much.

Obviously this should have occurred to me but I remember having this dawning realisation when trying to think of something to cook DC1 that she would actually eat and I nearly cried.

@Muminabun - you're not wrong 😆. I'd suggest any preschool age tbf 😱. I remember taking an 8 month old to Italy for a holiday and washing pissy sheets in the sink due to broken washing machine! Also being up in the nights on Calpol duty due to teething. Was a zombie and may as well have been at home 🙄

My DS is 18 in a months time, he has passed his driving test and has his own car I am now free. I can’t tell how wonderful it feels not to be “on call” 24/7.
It does bring with it a whole different set of anxieties but I do feel a sense of achievement to make it to adulthood.
Having said that Covid seriously slowed his independence so I am still “muuum”.
No one tells you just how intensely you will feel about your child’s well-being. Trying to stop yourself interfering in their first serious relationship when it goes wrong is really difficult. You feel the pain as acutely as you felt it when it happened to you, but of course “you don’t understand” and “what do you know about it”.
I am totally in awe of my own parents now I’ve been through it. It’s such a shame that they are no longer around to thank them for the job they did.

She learned to escape her cot and decided to stand next to me, lips pursed, eyes staring, leaning in, to wait for me to wake up so she could give me a kiss. Adorable, yet terrifying

Better than waking you up by trying to open your eyes by grabbing your eyelashes and asking 'Mummy? Are you in?'

Every single night they need to be fed dinner.

Even when they are teenagers and perfectly capable of cooking.

Dinner still happens daily.

Every single day.

Did I mention it's not even one day off?

I had the same dawning realisation a few weeks into weaning my first. I was gutted.

I remember, as a single parent of school-age children (working part time and studying part time) waking up one night having the most visceral rebellion against the thought that for years to come I was going to be required, every single day, to think of a relatively healthy, well-balanced, reasonably priced and convenient-for-me-to-make lunch for each of my children, whilst also taking into account, within reason, individual likes and dislikes. I simply did not want that burden, that pressure, on top of everything else I was trying to do. Those years were intense.

I also distinctly remember the first night of unbroken sleep I had in 5 1/2 years and the utter bliss of waking up actually feeling like a normal person for the first time in years. Long term severe sleep deprivation and its effects is one of those things that you just don’t fully understand until you’ve experienced it. I suffer with insomnia and often don’t sleep well, but it’s nowhere near as debilitating as the lack of sleep was in those early years with young children - I still treasure a good night’s sleep almost more than anything else now and my children are well into adulthood.

"Peel a sweaty forehead off your arm" - this speaks to me so much! That was me and DD this morning.

I was so grumpy at the time as I was exhausted and too hot to sleep but now I'm thinking how quickly she is growing up. I'm sure that's the stuff I'll miss when she is a stroppy teenager that wants nothing to do with me (as described by so many PPs)

School runs.....

😂😂

I'm sure my dd, ds and the neighbours dd did a show for us every fucking day, especially during the summer holidays. If not a show then we definitely got at least song with the lyrics changed

*"Peel a sweaty forehead off your arm" - this speaks to me so much! That was me and DD this morning.

I was so grumpy at the time as I was exhausted and too hot to sleep but now I'm thinking how quickly she is growing up. I'm sure that's the stuff I'll miss when she is a stroppy teenager that wants nothing to do with me (as described by so many PPs)*

My two used to sleep in with me up until they were 8/9 They're now 20/19 and trust me I have never ever missed them being in my bed. It's lovely whilst it lasts, but miss it? Fuck no 😂

That you will become both invisible and inaudible.

Invisible to DC, who regularly bash you with flailing limbs, projectile toys and anything else they happen to have about their person.

Invisible to the rest of the world, who at best will refer to you as “DC’s mum”.

Inaudible to DC when you ask them to do anything or stop doing anything.

Inaudible to DC when they ask you a question but don’t like the answer, so will ask it over and over and over and over and over again until you cry.

Absolutely this, too. Except 2 is enough in my house…and I have 2 girls, so it’s a permanent show.

There are actually scripts, but this comes with endless practice, so you’ve seen/heard it at least 20 million times before it is deemed acceptable to show you “properly”.

That your home will be invaded by rocks, stones, pebbles, twigs, leaves, feathers and anything else the little magpies pick up en route from the park, shop, school etc

Alright...epic whinge incoming...I've been needing to get this off my chest for months...

...that just when they turn 17 and you think you're on the home stretch, they want feckin' driving lessons...and for you to take them out and practice in between the feckin' driving lessons.

I was excited for DD to learn to drive. It's been just over a year since we applied for her provisional and oh my bloody hell the stress!

Applied early last July for mid September birthday. Eventually got it end of November, started lessons December.

Passed theory in Feb, insured my old car which had been off roaded waiting for her. That was a faff. Three drives in the wheel axel snapped on a left turn taking us halfway up a tree and flipping the car on it's side. Fuck knows how but we both got out (or rather were hoiked out) with nary a scratch.

Weeks of insurance faff. Nana lends her car for practice...more faffing to get that insured, then bracing myself to take her out again, even though the accident wasn't her fault at all.

Incessant 'when can we go out to practice' alternating with whinging that despite the insurance payout she'll 'never get a decent car' (tbf shes not being a brat about the budget, there's just not that much coming up).

God only knows how much has been spent on lessons and insurance, not to mention time and stress levels trying to fit all the practice sessions in. Needless to say XH has contributed precisely fuck all in the way of funds or time to the whole fiasco.

Test is looming...if she doesn't pass I think there is a real danger I will actually have a nervous breakdown.

• A year after having a c-section you will suddenly realise that you have not jumped once during that time and you are not sure that you can anymore.
• You will watch something called Bluey and for some inexplicable reason it will make you cry.
• You can actually do your make-up in three minutes whilst someone screams at you. This will indeed become your normal morning routine.
• At times you will HATE your OH.
• You will hear yourself saying you had a "leisurely breakfast" this morning because DC were somewhere else, but what you actually mean is that you had ten minutes to eat a croissant and your coffee was still hot. Nobody was doing a shit in the same room as you, you were not watching Ben and Holly for the tenth fucking time, you were not driving a car at the same time, nobody was climbing on you and your breakfast did not consist of two leftover spoonfulls of cold porridge that your DC rejected an hour ago....
• You will laugh more than you have ever laughed before (sometimes in complete silence whilst hiding so that DC cannot see) at the funny things your DC say and do.
• You simply will not believe that you created someone so amazing (and anyone who disagrees with you is just jealous)
• You will fall in love a hundred times a day
• At points you will feel so tired that you are physically sick
• Some days you will just want to run away from your whole life, but when you do get to go off and do something on your own you can't wait to get back home to DC

@MintyCedricRidesAgain

Yes! Why does no one ever mention the pain of taking your kid out when driving. Whenever I go out in mine, if I do much as flinch or rest my hand on the car door when she's driving, I get a complete lecture about how she can drive, how negative I am etc etc. I was so glad when she passed!

You must know the answer to every single question, no matter what the question is...

"Why are cows/pigs/sheep/anything, called that?"
"Erm I don't know"
"But you MUST know"
"No I'm sorry I don't"
"WHY don't you know?"
<thinking> I have no idea, I just don't, please stop with the fucking questions that not even Stephen fucking Hawkins knows the answer to let alone me, who went to a comprehensive, please please stop, for the love of the pixies , stop." <Saying> " Hmm maybe Grandpa will know, he's much cleverer than me" Sorry dad 😂

DS was hyperactive and did not sleep. I spent the first 3 years feeling like I was the victim of a CIA sleep deprivation experiment while having to answer questions such as 'what colour is electricity'.

I may have mentioned earlier that I have a teen that does not sleep...

I second the CIA torture.