(To be sung to the tune of ‘My Favourite Things’ from The Sound of Music) 

Spontaneous cuddles and whispered I love yous.
Unprompted pleases and nights when they sleep through.
Times when they’re playing and sharing their things.
These are a few of my parenting wins.

First stumbling footsteps whilst holding their brick cart.
Pictures of mummy drawn inside a red heart.
Infectious giggles and teeth-missing grins.
These are a few of my parenting wins.

Watching them sleeping and hearing their breathing.
A tooth popping out after three weeks of teething.
The joy in their faces when they’re on a swing.
These are a few of my parenting wins.

When they tantrum. When they won’t eat.
When they wake at five.
I simply remember my parenting wins
And then I know I’ll . . . survive.

 

 

One day I won’t remember the exhaustion of this morning.
Their night time trip to my bed which has left me tired and yawning.
Instead I will remember how they looked when fast asleep,
And how it felt to wake to their warm breath upon my cheek.

One day I will forget the mess of their latest glued creation.
Instead I will recall their smiles, their faces of elation.
I won’t bemoan that carrying them would leave my back a wreck,
But remember instead the gentle weight of their arms around my neck.

One day the sibling arguments will have escaped my mind.
And all I will remember are the times that they were kind.
I will forget the tantrums, the screaming and the tears,
And just recall the laughter, the giggles and the cheers.

One day I won’t recall the mess when their toys were everywhere,
Because I’ll feel a sadness that my lounge floor looks so bare.
And I won’t recall annoyance at hearing “Mummy!” on repeat,
Because I’ll wish to hear again, their lisping voice so sweet.

One day is coming quickly, in no time they’ll be grown.
Gone to live their own lives and leaving us alone.
One day I won’t remember they were difficult at all,
And that day I’ll wish for this day, when they were still so small.

Emma Robinson 2016

I am a schoolteacher, so questions are the tools of my trade. With my students, I think carefully about asking the right questions, aimed at the level of the child I am speaking to, so that I can get the appropriate response. The key part of this is that the questions are different every time so that I can gauge their understanding, support their ideas and extend their thinking.

As a parent, I ask the same five damn questions every flaming day.

1. Can you get dressed?

I’m probably not phrasing this question correctly to start with. Of course, they can get dressed. The issue is that they are not choosing to. When I have the energy, I try to make it into a game or a race. But there are many mornings when I am scrabbling around the fridge for ‘healthy’ packed lunch ingredients, trying to think up convincing book titles to write in their school reading journals and working out what to do with my hair which I haven’t had time to wash, and I just need them to get their blasted clothes on. The sight of them wandering aimlessly into the kitchen wearing only an inside out polo shirt and a pair of socks when we have five minutes until we leave the house has been known to cause me to rephrase this question by inserting the words ‘just’ and ‘bloody’ and raising the volume accordingly.

2. Will you eat your dinner? 

After half an hour of “I’m starving! When’s dinner going to be ready? Can I have a biscuit? But I’m starving!” I place dinner in front of my children, they eat a forkful or two and then . . . stop. For the next 20 minutes I am then asking the above question on repeat until we get to the bitter end. Dan doesn’t do this. If they aren’t eating their dinner, he reminds them once and then just takes it away and they get nothing else until the next meal. My issue with that is, thirty minutes later, the “I’m starving” mantra begins again and, although the rational side of me is fully aware that they will not waste away after missing just one meal, it pushes some primeval button in my mum-psyche and I just can’t bear it.

3. Have you flushed the toilet?

Really. How hard can it be? You do your business, wipe your bottom, flush the toilet and wash your hands. My six year old son can build an entire spacecraft following Lego instructions, but he can’t master that process. Sometimes we get two out of four, even three. But rarely are all four parts of the routine completed. I’m not sure what’s worse: going to the toilet and being greeted by a two-hours-old poo or knowing that they are wiping their germ infested hands around the living room.

4. Are you tired?

This one does not go down well at all. Usually provoked by a grizzling child who would clearly benefit from an early visit to bed, the suggestion that they are tired triggers an outraged response: “I am NOT tired!” Is it that they see an admission of weariness as a sign of weakness? Do they think we are going to start having the most tremendous fun as soon as they close their eyes? Is their ‘shut down’ function faulty in some way?

On reflection, if someone asked me the same question, offered to brush my teeth, put me in some warm PJs and read me a story I think I would also start weeping. With grateful happiness.

5. What did you do at school today?

I’ve tried all the tactics I can to find out what my children do for the six daylight hours we are apart. “Tell me something new you learned today!” or “Did anything funny happen?” or “Just tell me anything you did and I will give you a packet of Haribos.” William is the worst for divulging information. He always tells me “I did a little bit of everything” and assumes that should cover it. Scarlett is slightly more forthcoming but she gets halfway through and then forgets the vital bit of information. “I got a tickled pink sticker but I can’t remember what it was for.” It’s like reading a mystery novel with the last page ripped out.

Strangely enough, they will be much more likely to give me a fully developed answer, right down to what they had for lunch and which child had the humiliation of being on the red spot that day, when it is time for bed. Surprising, that.

In the morning I will love you,
But now it’s for the best –
If, please, you could go just go to bed
So I can get some rest. 

And my head’s begun to throb. 
I want to lay it down
upon the floor and quietly sob. 

Checked you’re not too hot or cold.
In fact, I’ve gone right through the list
of all that I’ve been told. 

Then quietly start to creep.
You yell for me pick you up. 
Why do you hate to sleep? 

I think that you’re terrific.
But if I can’t get just forty winks, 
Tomorrow will be horrific.

And wait for sleep to come. 
In the morning, if you let me rest,
I will be much more fun. 

There are few requests which fill me with as much dread as “Can we make cakes mummy?” I can usually fob them off for a while by telling them we don’t have the ingredients but sometimes the guilt gets to me. As I remember making cakes with my own mum, I feel duty bound to provide the same memories, albeit with slightly more under-the-breath swearing, for my own children. 

As my youngest child is now over four, it has been a while since I have perused the range of products available to pregnant women. This may explain my utter shock when I saw an advert for the Babypod Vaginal Speaker.

For those of you who are as yet unaware of its existence, this is a system which enables you to play music to your child in the womb by inserting a speaker inside of yourself. That’s right. Because giving up alcohol, subjecting ourselves to regular blood tests and getting haemorrhoids isn’t enough. Now they’re suggesting pregnant women stick a boom box up their front bottoms too.

I don’t think so.

Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to do everything I could to give my unborn child the best possible start in life. Before he was even conceived, I wouldn’t let my husband so much as raise an eyebrow at me suggestively until I’d taken my folic acid capsule. I didn’t eat anything from the banned food lists. No pâté. No blue cheese. No alcohol. I even got an earful from a waitress when I explained that my eggs were too runny and could she please cook them for longer. (She stomped off with my plate muttering how they didn’t have “all these funny ideas” in her day.)

Frequently I could be found singing to my bump, reading it stories and stroking it lovingly. I was almost late to work a couple of times because the baby was moving around and I didn’t want to stop its fun by getting out of bed. I was fortunate to have two pleasant pregnancies and I look back on those months with fond memories.

However, there are times during pregnancy when your body no longer feels like your own. Your skin is stretched so tightly it feels like shrink-wrap, your boobs are big and sore and the weight of your bump forces you to walk at a 45-degree angle. On top of that, you are getting undressed in front of more strangers that the staff at a brothel and, just like them, you begin to no longer care who is looking at your private parts.

But there has to come a time when we have to put up our hands and say, enough is enough. And surely that begins with the Babypod Vaginal Speaker.

For a start, I’d bet you a tube of Lasinoh nipple cream it was invented by a man. Quite a few pregnant women play music to their babies in the womb, but I doubt very much that any of them have ever thought, “I know where I’d like to put this speaker if I could.”

What will they ask of us next? Easy-to-swallow Lamaze toys to avoid baby getting bored in the amniotic sac? A rocking appliance to stick up our bottoms so that baby can be rocked gently whilst we watch TV? Milkshake powder dispensers to stick on our nipples so that baby can choose to take their breastmilk in chocolate or strawberry?

We need to stand together on this one and reclaim at least some control of our bodies and what we are expected to do with them. If these techno geeks want to put their brains to good use in order to help pregnant women, there are many other things I could suggest. Like a vitamin drink that tastes of Prosecco or a robot to help you roll yourself out of bed in the ninth month. As far as the Babypod goes, I can tell them exactly where they should think about sticking it.

 

 
Whilst one king whacked the others,

 
And even though poor Jesus fell,
When the manger somehow tipped.

 
Her mummy just looked straight at her

 
That she didn’t have a ‘proper’ part