What part of parenting did you not foresee?

[misboo]

For me, it would be the surprise poo i found on the floor this afternoon, and my calm reaction to it.

(It was easily traced back to DS (2 years) who denied it...)

autism. Didn't see that fecker coming!!!

early riser. My Ds still (aged 3) wakes at 6 (ish) am!!!! Didnt see all my lie ins going forever!!!

having so little energy left over for anything else

How much guilt I would feel about working after reading about it too much. I didn't before I found Mumsnet.

Thought I would be mega strict and not burst into giggles when ds is being rather naughty and messy. Can't help it, and have to turn away sometimes to get my mean face on!

they cry
they need to be fed, like, every day an stuff
they don't stay where they're put
they don't sleep
they have Opinions

they make me laugh
they are considerably more intelligent than me sometimes

I didn't think I would be soooooooo boring. I was convinced I would still be able to have some kind of social life.

the monotony of it all

I have oodles of patience and I am very organised.

With twin boys and working two part-time jobs, I have to be.

The extremes of anger/love/joy

The ability to become very very still and calm and retreat to 'happy place'

The obsession that I have developed with knowing where matchbox cars are at all times

The relentlessness of it.

The fact that i'm now living with two new people who are different to me and DH and do there own thing and have opinions. You just think of the babies when TTC.

that dd at not even 2 years would be able to find instantaneously all the things i mislay in the course of a day.

it's amazing, i just say 'x, where did mummy leave her hairbrush/keys/bag?' and she runs straight off and finds it in seconds. she must watch me so intently that she remembers the absent minded stuff i do without thinking. how weird and fantastic

The fact that my four year old can argue more eloquently with me than my DH

oh and also the incurable habit of referring to myself in the flipping third person! all the bloody time. i just can't stop - has anyone found a cure?

catching vomit in my hands so it does not go onto the floorboards and drip between them

keeping blood and meconium stained nighties as a memory of giving birth - i boiled washed them , but still manky!!

having to check on the children half a dozen times each night before i go to bed, even though i am not neurotic

the love i feel, like a physical ache sometimes for these glorious creatures i grew!

Having a disabled child who I'll look after for ever and ever 24 hours a day. Not quite what those soft focus baby mags promised.

The heartbreak and anger when someone does something to hurt the dcs. I could genuinely rip heads off sometimes (although have so far manage to confine myself to verbal protestations).

That you could do the exact same thing for each child and have a completely different reaction.

How much time sorting out squabbles would take.
How much energy has to go into discipline.

Mog - I second the time sorting out squabbles - it is endless, and also the mindnumbingly stupid things the squabbles are about. One of the worst ones the dcs had was over how many arms dd has - dc insisted that she had 2 (quite reasonably) but dd was holding out for 3 and all hell broke loose.

LOL at your dcs GooseyLoosey! I am looking forward to those squabbles, not the rest so much!

The amount of fecking washing and drying and folding up.

The requirement for me to turn into some 1950s housewife who is expected (not by DH but by just about everyone else) to do 90% of houswork, child rearing and producing nutritous home made meals for everyone, whilst simultaneously going out to work 4 days a week and keeping trim. Glad to say I am failing miserably on most counts)

DS himself is lovely, but I find it bloody hard being a mum.

Oh now I have read needmorecoffees post and I feel guilty for moaning

Message withdrawn

The challenge of having an elder NT child and a younger SN one and trying to be fair to them both.....