Anyone else ever wish your thoughts could be written down as you think them? Most of my blog posts begin as a random thought cycle which come to me when I least expect it. Today’s was on my cycle to work, when I realised how different my life is now from when I was in my old job, pre-baby. 

There are some things that I would probably cry about if I didn’t laugh, and in fact I have been driven to tears myself at times, perhaps through exhaustion, or pure helplessness at being able to make her feel better, but I wouldn’t change this life for the world. I know I’ve done a Mumlife a few months ago, but things evolve quickly and so here are a few of the funnier moments of my current world.

Mumlife at 1, here it goes…

1. When, despite baby being fast asleep, you are wide awake because you’re struggling to remember the second line of the theme tune to Postman Pat’s Special Delivery that’s been going round your head. 

2. When a walk only to the end of the road can take well over half an hour because she wants to stop and pick up every pebble/ dandelion/ shiny thing along the pavement.

3. When you get to work and realise you’ve got to spend the day with banana/weetabix smeared on your smart black trousers/shoulder.

4. When getting dressed for work takes 20 minutes – 5 minutes to get dressed, and 15 minutes to clear up whatever trail of destruction she’s created in that 5 minutes. Today it was removing a trail of toilet paper she’d shredded and then stamped into the carpet. 

5. When you aren’t able to even go for a wee without a toddler screaming and bashing at the door to get in.

6. Sleep. Did someone say babies were meant to sleep by now? This toddler has serious FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) so despite her 12 hours of bedtime, she likes a regular wakeup to check there’s nothing more exciting than sleeping happening. Once she has established that there’s no Postman Pat party happening without her knowledge, she contently returns to sleep, but this doesn’t bode well for many continuous blocks of sleep for mummy!

7. When she makes it her mission to remove all installed baby-safety items around the house. Protective table corners are instantly removed (and chewed), electric socket plugs are regularly extracted (and chewed), and although cupboard safety latches were a bit more of a challenge, she worked out how to lift the plastic cover to remove the strap from around the cupboard. She’s working on the safety gates, but at least being drilled into the wall, she’s got to work out the opening system before she can get much further… 

8. Food. I can no longer eat anything. She wants it, no matter how uninteresting it is. If she doesn’t like it she’ll spit it out, but I think the point was that she only wanted it because I was having it…at least it helps with the wedding diet!

9. You begin to compromise. You’ve given up saying ‘no’ to playing with the pebbles, so have to find games involving the refused items. Currently we are on counting games with the pebbles on the garden chairs!

10. She is crafty. She’s started hiding things she has found and knows she shouldn’t have, such as coins under the rug, and pebbles under the sofa or up her sleeve. She will generally extract these when you least expect them, or that split second when your back is turned. It’s this point that when you do go for a wee and she isn’t banging on the door to get in that you start to worry because you know she’s using this opportunity to get up to something she really shouldn’t…

11. The rug always needs vacuuming, even when its just been vacuumed.

12. You’ve given in to a bit of TV after claming you’d never let her watch it, when realising an episode of Postman Pat can give you 13 minutes to catch up on everything. 

13. When your poorly baby finally falls asleep on you but you’re in a battle between being desperate for a pee but not wanting to wake her!

14. When you realise nonsensical texts/ WhatsApp messages have been sent without your knowledge, and apps have mysteriously disappeared off your phone!

15. Mealtimes take a ridiculously long time, partly through the very extended feeding process, but mainly through the clearup operation involved in the food massacre.

16. Now she’s getting bigger by the day, co-sleeping involves us balancing even further onto the edge of the bed, while she spreads herself out even further, and thrusts various limbs into our face throughout the night.

17. Destruction of everything. She needs to work out how things work, finding every way to take things apart, even if they’re not meant to. This can get awkward in public places when her inquisitive side comes out, though I now seem to have a danger radar in new locations, such as spotting expensive jars of chutney at Lily-height, or dropped bottle tops that she will want to get her fingers on!!

18. Tantrums when she doesn’t get her way. Surely this wasn’t meant to happen til at least the terrible twos!!??

19. Never, ever, take her food shopping unless you have to. Unexpected items will end up in the basket. Here we turned our back to reach the milk, and she was busy filling the basket with miniature bottles of orange juice!

20. And seemingly ‘normal’ tasks are now far more challenging:

– washing up: with toddler climbing up your leg or one handed with toddler in other arm

– writing a list: toddler wants pen, and not a spare pen, your pen!

– typing an email: toddler inserts nonsensical words into your sentence

– important phonecalls: toddler runs off with phone and either presses the big red ‘hangup’ button, or babbles nonsensically down it

– laundry: fun with throwing clothes everywhere, particularly if they are neatly folded!

Needless to say, combining a toddler with organising a wedding, buying/selling our house, and starting a new job at the same time, has not been an easy past month!! But would I turn back 14 months? Never!