Welcome to the Parental Class of 2009

It’s going to be a bumpy ride but you will get there eventually. The key to being a parent? realising that you’re making it work even when you will never feel like you are.

For all of those who have been around since the beginning, here is the 12 – 18 Months top ten, for any newcomers, this is what you have to look forward to.

1: You’ve felt a pea being pushed into your ear for the first time since you were a toddler.

2: You will spend more time talking on your child’s plastic flower phone to made up people than you will on the real phone. The kicker is that it doesn’t take very long before you start having quite long and meaningful discussions with yourself on it.

3: The phrase “aww that’s so cute” has been replaced with “Hey! NO! Stop Doing that!”

4: If you thought the never ending drone of the sing song Fisher Price voices were irritating wait unil your toddler decides to use (any) toys as banging objects and furniture weaponry. It’s just more fun if your shape sorter is singing “.. shapes are in my cookie jar..” whilst being dropped from a great height or pressed and dragged across perfect floorboards or leather furniture.

5: If you have pets you will find yourself up against of whole miriad of disgusting phrases that if people who don’t have a toddler could hear, would think you were just really funny. “Don’t lick the dogs mouth”, “Don’t touch the cat’s bum”,

6: You’ve uttered “The baby did it!” and meant it. It’s around this time when your criminal career may begin as Baby decides that in all manner of split second opportunities, they will steal something off a shelf of a supermarket or store and hide it in whatever fabric around them will cover it up. If you have found a half nibbles grape or crayon under your baby’s dress when you’re packing the grocories in the car then you’re not alone.

7: What is yours… is theirs. And this means no longer yours until they decide to discard it. At this point (if not destroyed) it is yours  until they see / hear / sense that you have it again, at which time, once more it will no longer be yours.

8: A little voice calls out a tongue tied half whisper of “mum mum?” and you fall in love all over again each and every time.

9: You spend your afternoons together paying very close attention to pointing out everyones nose. There is Straberry Shortcake’s nose, there is Dora’s nose..

10: It’s not all so scary though.. You Know You’re A Parent When your toddler walks up to you, smiles, puts there little arms round your neck and gives you a kiss. ..

… Of coarse it’s a little more awkward, I didn’t mention the stumbling on the way over, almost hair pulling  at the back of your neck and missing your mouth whilst sticking out their tongue at the last minute for the kiss. But you get the idea..

You Know You’re A Parent When – One Year +, Top Ten

1: Your baby can now chew up food, then take it out of her mouth with slimey little fingers and insist on feeding it to you.

2: You’ve accidently referred to yourself in third person as Mummy when you child wasn’t there. instantly you can judge the background of those around you. Non Parents will think your either stupid or kinky, fellow Parents either won’t blink an eye or assume you were talking about “Mummy” them, not not “Mummy” you.

3: You can recognise the “I’m Pooing” noise in other children in public.

4: Your child can now try and tickle you back, not realizing that we don’t all have the ability to wee endlessly in our pants without consequence.

5: You’ve “Shh” ‘d your child because you couldn’t hear the end of the Strawberry Shortcake episode.

6: Instead of humming the latest hit from the charts in the shower you now find yourself throwing in a high note or two singing “Winnie the Pooh”.

7: Your baby now finds it hilarious to nipple cripple you at every possible opportunity, at this point you can only long for the day decades away when her daughter does this back to her.  

8: You’re now so in tune with the household toys that you can intuitively tell when your child makes one of them sad or lonely and needs to come over and give them a cuddle instead of trying to open the bin and feed the rubbish to the dog.

9: You’ve been told “no” by a person who still counts their age in months. 

9.5: You’ve begun mastering the art of keeping a straight face when all you want to do is laugh. 

10: You find that you don’t have a baby anymore. You have a helper.

Y.K.Y.A.P.W 11 Months Top 5

You Know You’re A Parent When:

1: You find yourself giving some other guy advice on child proofing his kitchen whilst standing in the hardware store

2: You now shop in the “Kids” section rather than the “Baby” section of department stores. it doesn’t take long before you realise two disturbing things about children’s fashion. A: Knee high boots and bikinis shouldn’t be made that small. B: All the kids wear is better looking and better made than that adult stuff.

3: Now you have finally started being able to have your own breakfast and lunch without sharing your baby’s from lack of time and energy when your baby now starts stealing half of yours!

4: “It’s a duck, it’s a boat, it’s a bath toy!… NO, it’s a floating turd!” That’s correct. She’s never done it before and all of a sudden your baby will develop strange new habits like deciding to do her number 2’s when she is in the bath. The Learning curve never seems to straighten out.

5: Baby talk. Talking to your baby at this age is a lot like talking to an adult that doesn’t speak English. They tend to cling to a phrase and nod a lot.

Mum: Do you want to go on the Swings?

Baby: Pie Pie!

Mum: No we can’t go on the slide it’s wet

Baby: Pie Pie?

Mum: It’s ok, we can come back another day

Baby: (Nods) Pie Pie…

Then when you least expect it..

Mum: Lets get ready for bed.

Baby:…. Bottom Pond.

….. ? Who can say, the wonders of children at 11 months old.

10 Months Y.K.Y.A.P.W Top 5

You Know You’re A Parent When:

1: You have woken up in the middle of the night convinced you have forgotten to do the battery run before bed. You get up and go around the house searching for the 6 odd new fangled toys that have fun LIGHTS and SOUNDS (to a parent this just means.. batteries) that haven’t been switched off during the day, only to find that they in fact have been switched off and you are now just cold and awake at 3am

2: You’ve said the words “fine, here, try some then, you won’t even like it!” to a little person with outstretched arms and a ‘why don’t you love me enough to give me some’ look on their face. Problem is, this backfires. Turns out babies like soda water and cheese on toast and paddle pops and sugar free iced tea.. the list goes embarrassingly on. Now you just have to share.

3: You and your baby have sniffed a stuffy sick nose sniff simultaneously.

4: The thoughts of morning sickness, brain frying twitchy leg (RLS), not being able to even look at any of your favorite foods, drinks or pastimes (thank you pregnancy fun police) and the final, mind numbing pain of childbirth with a botched epidural no longer over ride the want to do it all over again and have another one.

5: Your pretty confident that your baby would leave you for Strawberry Shortcake. And we thought all we had to worry about was our husbands when (never) Angelina comes to town…

Y.K.Y.A.P.W 8 Months Top Ten

You Know Your A Parent When:

1: Your breakfast is now the other half of the pureed apples.

2: You now posses the skill of making up whimsical songs at the drop of a hat, using any kind of baby food or toy as descriptive lyrics.

3: You’ve had pumpkin in your eyes and up your nose.

4: You’ve realised it takes a degree in biomechanics and physics to get a baby shoe on a baby foot and a masters degree if you want to keep them on there.

5: You know the least creeky path across your floorboards from your bedroom to baby’s room in the middle of the night. And then a bonus route to the bathroom.

6: You now have your own personal live in supermarket of cleaning products. There are an assortment of stain removers in your laundry for different kinds of food, a storage container full of different types of wipes for bum, hands, face.. etc. Different baby wash for shower when it washes away, and a gentle one for bath when baby tends to get it on toys and then put them in her mouth.. If only you have the convenience of supermarket aisles and 14 year old shelf stackers.

7: You could write a book about baby poo.

8: You’ve been suckered into at least one baby competition where you have to collect an obsurd number of something, then send them in for a prize.

9: A messy, unwashed pony tail or bun is the new black… you hope. Shiny, well done hair is only something you dream about.

10: You’ve played with the baby toys in the bath, when you didn’t have the baby with you.

Y.K.Y.A.P.W Seven Months Top Ten

1: Your idea of gambling now days is to put different coloured dummies in front of your baby and see which one she will skillfully place in her mouth.

2: You finally realise just how much your own parents love you.

3: Your baby has nipple crippled you on purpose then laughed.

4: It takes two adults to clean off your baby after having a biscuit.

5: You go on a “shopping spree” and don’t come back with anything for yourself.

6: You spend 10 minutes feeding your baby and 30 minutes cleaning the puree peas out of her nose and ears.

7: Your dog makes sure that when she comes to visit you and your baby, she keeps her head away from little hands.

8: Your baby has done at least ten things that you could have sworn she would never be old enough to actually do.

9: You have to imagine that you are the host of Dirty Jobs just to get through some nappy changes.

10: You find your baby, having removed her own nappy, thinking that kicking it around the cot is the funnest thing ever.

Y.K.Y.A.P.W Six Months Top Ten

You know you’re a parent when:

1: You and baby just share her food for lunch.

2: You know which smile means “i just pooped”.

3: Your baby sees more of you naked than your partner does.

4: Out of desperation, you would even watch The Simpsons if it meant you could sit down for 10 minutes alone.

5: When juggling the names of dog, cat, baby and husband all at once, you’ve mixed them up more than a few times.

6: You now know how stupid the material insert that came in your high chair is, and have thrown it out with an escaped giggle. Soft, absorbent material… those baby furniture people are so funny.

7: You pimp out your dog to keep baby occupied and entertained when she is grumpy.. All your doggy wants to do is get away from the annoying miniature person and instead you keep calling her back for more help.

8: Motorbikes, coffee, face masks and sleep ins… ? I don’t know the language you are speaking.

9: You now have “tricks” only they aren’t as cool as tricks you imagined growing up as a kid. I may not have x ray vision, but damn straight I can tell you when a bottle is too hot without tipping it all over my arm.

10: “All you need is love…” and a nappy, and a wipe, and a bottle, and  baby food, and a sippy cup and sterile water, and a dummy, and a spare dummy, and a change of clothes, and a car toy, and a stroller toy, and a high chair toy and a blanket and a cloth. And that’s just to leave the house for an hour.

Y.K.Y.A.P.W Five Months Top Ten

1: You either say out loud or almost say out loud, I wonder what this years fisher price theme will be…?

2: You start eating your own food out of the baby’s cups.

3: You attack the supermarket nappy sale like it’s a discount sale at Ralph Lauren… Only, it’s not. They are still just nappies and you’re still wearing clothes from K-mart.

4: OK, other way round, you actually end up eating the left over baby food out of your own cup instead. If you’re one of those parents who has already started the solid food, you can sometimes hear “here it comes, open up, here comes the apple train” with every spoonful you eat too.

5: Your top three people your allowed to leave your spouse for now includes Brad Pitt,  JFK Jnr and the person who invented Jolly Jumper.

6: No matter how annoyed or frustrated you are at the world, there is that one little smile that can light up your whole world and make you forget your plan to rid the world of people who can’t drive with a combination of Macgyver style booby traps and Walker Texas Ranger style of law enforcement that you really have no claim to.

7: There is no more Mr Nice Parent at the shopping centre… I will sneak past you in the line, I will speed up and get the number before you in the deli and if I have driven two hours to get to fucking Ikea, I will creep up and listen when you ask where the wall brackets are then when I hear where they are and there are two left, run to them and take them before you even see me. I am busy, I am tired, I am… Ninja Parent. (waiting on my throwing knives I sent away for in the back of Parenting Weekly too, so look out.)

8: Valentines Day plans include Iron Chef and a Mars Bar.

9: You start sentances with “My daughter…” without flinching and wondering if your allowed to say stuff like that yet…

10: One of you starts thinking about the next one.

Y.K.Y.A.P.W Four Months Top Ten

You Know You’re A Parent When this month’s Top Ten!

1: You reach into your bag to pull out the presentation you have been working on over the holidays and find your baby’s spare dummy (pacifier) stuck in the binder.

2: Your New Year’s Resolution is something parent related.

3: The days when you need to start baby proofing the house draw near. Your baby becomes more and more mobile and you can just tell the honeymoon is over, she is here for good, and you can no longer get away with leaving the sharp knife you undid all your baby stuff boxes with on the floor between unpacking.

4: You know you have to stop swearing in front of baby now.

5: Your book of the month is about how to make your own baby food.

6: Your still playing with your baby’s bubble machine when you notice she has been asleep for awhile.

7: You’ve grown out of that “feeling dirty” feeling. It’s now accepted that your moisturizer has been replaced with the spreading of several of your baby’s fluids in your daily routine.

8: There is more baby furniture in your home than adult furniture, oddly enough there is only 7 kilos of baby and… lets just say a hell of a lot more than that of you.

9: You find an old to-do list from when baby was only a few weeks old and there are still things on there not done.

10: You start using the high chair you have had sitting in your kitchen since you were six months pregnant.

Y.K.Y.A.P.W Week 17 Top Ten

You Know You’re A Parent When Top Ten

1: In the car you blast all your air conditioning past you, through the middle of the two front seats and down towards your baby so she is cool in the scorching summer heat whilst you sit sweating in that hot pocket the air con never reaches.

2: You notice that there are most presents under the tree for your 4 month old than for the 30 family members you bought for this year.

3: Eating dip for breakfast with your finger instead of a water cracker is now acceptable depending on what small number of the AM you got up.

4: You show your soon-to-be four month old the bite Santa reindeer took out of the carrot you left for them.

5: You can make a bottle of formula in the dark but you forgot how to put on a pair of shoes with laces.

6: Your husband thinks it would be funny to let her lick a lemon.

7: You start to believe that there should be some kind of Fisher Price rewards program.

8: The people at your baby store (who have known you by site since before baby was born) now don’t even bother getting you to sign your credit card receipts.

9: You still don’t understand the differences between different brands of baby clothes and sizes, but at least you know now that it’s not you, it’s them.

10: Instead of crying because she is crying, you now think her little turned out bottom lipped sad face is kind of cute.

Y.K.Y.A.P.W Week 15 Top Ten

Ok so I am a few days late with this weeks You Know You’re A Parent When Top Ten.

1: You have a neighbor’s two year old over and realise how NOT ready you are for yours to become mobile. I should have known that my tree and train set wouldn’t walk away unscathed.

2: When the two year old’s mother is picking sticky stuff out of her hair, you start to understand that as they grow up, the habit doesn’t change, just the variety and amount of sticky left in your hair increases.

3: You are on your 6th showing of your sex & the city box set for the early am feeds

4: The delivery man who has delivered all your Christmas online shopping now looks surprised when he comes to the door and you have actual clothes on instead of pj’s.

5: You finally might get to use the port-a-cot in the corner, bought because it was number 2 on every baby “must have” list you saw. Number two my ass. How can you need a port-a-cot when you can no longer leave the house! But that is a whole different post.

6: Life with baby is a balancing act, so, new one hand food items for Mummy and Daddy now include: Crackers with some dip, yes this can be trained to be a one handed deal. Certain types of pasta and spaghetti. For Advanced one handers, try quiche, start with a spoon and work your way up to a fork. And for hardcore one handers begin venturing into the stir fry market. The ultimate Y.K.Y.A.P.W One Hander? Nasi Goreng with Chop Sticks while not only holding your baby, but feeding her as well.

7: You find out how many different colours (not shades, colours) baby poo is available in.

8: You get your first photos with Santa. They take ten photos and in all the ones where Santa doesn’t have his eyes closed (leaving about two) your baby has his beard in her mouth.

9: You catch a cold from your baby and then in a fit of desperation find the only thing to make her laugh on a day when she is sick and cranky is to hoist her up in the air and play “touch snotty noses” bopping her on her nose with yours. Oh to be four months old again…

10: You no longer have the newest baby in your circle of friends. You now start asking Where did my little newborn go and where did this little adult come from?

Y.K.Y.A.P.W Week 13 Top Ten

1: You have become a mad recycler to cope with all the nappies in the rubbish bin

2: Even if you are not a 50 something trapped in a 20 something body like me, you can now sing along with Frankie Valley lawlessly. Well flawless aside from not even close to hitting those ball strangling high notes. Now your a parent, it’s like someone has injected you with the ability to sing all the golden oldies without even realising your doing it.

3: Instead of watching the magic of your lit up Christmas Tree at night, you’re addicted to watching your baby watch the Christmas Tree.

4: You’ve forgotten how to cook rice but you can do the laundry in your sleep.

5: Food that comes through your car window is over and under rated at the same time.

6: Your baby begin teething and you can now add a litre per hour of drool to the collection of baby fluids sporting on your outfit.

7: You read last years Christmas to-do list and laugh whilst crossing off “Bake cookies” and “Write Christmas Cards” without thinking twice.

8: You know now that babies are cute. What comes out of their pants, mouth, nose and lungs, usually isn’t. The best part of knowing this is preying of friends and relatives who don’t. When auntie Mary thinks it is cute that the baby has done a little poop and wants to change her she’ll come back from the ordeal looking like she just saw something dead. You will feel you have passed a secret on.

9: Silence is like your birthday.

10: Finally there is someone who thinks that you sticking your tongue out is the funniest thing they have ever seen.

Y.K.Y.A.P.W Week 12 Top Ten

You Know You’re A Parent When:

1: You don’t even have to open your eyes to feed and change your baby at 3am anymore.

2: The only person with clean clothes in the house is the baby.

3: For the first year in history, only half your Christmas decorations go up.

4: You find mystery objects in your hair and are not surprised or curious.

5: Unless the front cover says “Huggies” you throw out all the non parent catalogs you subscribed to without even looking at them.

6: You wonder who needs tattoos when you have this pretty multi coloured pattern of permanent marks on your tummy? And why aren’t they as trendy as getting a butterfly on top of your ass?

7: You fantasize that for the new year, flabby as pale skinned will be the new black.

8: You go to work after dropping the baby off and realise only half way through the day that you have her dumbo and she has your sales file. Until then, seeing dumbo on your desk just seemed normal.

9: You cry whilst throwing out your one and only tiny little Channel purse knowing you will never be able to leave the house with that little amount of stuff again.

10: You calmly utter any of the following phrases without any form of alarm or surprise:

- “The baby just threw up on me”

- “It’s down my top as well”

- “The baby just pooped on me”

- “Be careful there is s wee just there.”

Y.K.Y.A.P.W Week 11 Top Ten

1: The sound track to all of your dreams is the token Mozart track that comes with your baby’s mobile.

2: Your a machine with the Glen 20 Antibacterial Spray.

3: You’ve broken at least one law because of your child, usually double parking or something similar in the interest of keeping them happy, and being fast.

4: You can multitask like it is no ones business. You can: feed your baby, cut her nails, pump the other side while taking a work sale on the phone and paying your electricity bill on the internet all at the same time.

5: You wonder if 11 weeks old is too young or too old to be watching Sopranos. You can opnly get away with it for so long before it is off limits for years.

6: You sing the Wiggles “Wake Up Geoff!” in the supermarket… on your own.

7: You look at a poster on the wall and remember the good old days when you could just fly over to Las Vegas, have a few drinks, play a few games, and get married if you felt like it…

.. Or was I the only one who did that?

8: You go to your first kids birthday party and have to buy a present for the birthday baby “with love from” your baby. Who are we kidding? We all know that the baby doesn’t actually go shopping herself. I DO. That’s right… me.

9: You find that dressing your child in outfits that have ears or any kind of novelty hood on them will never get old.

10: You think you may have had sex before, but can’t remember what it was like.

Y.K.Y.A.P.W Week 10 Top Ten

You Know You’re A Parent When:

1: The answer to “Where are the socks?” is “Second drawer, under the Monkey.”

2: You finally get to shave your legs for the first time in weeks and afterwards you notice that they look the same. It’s been so long that you are covered in little hair tan lines.

3: You use the drawstring off of an old pair of shorts to tie your dummy/pacifer/soother to it on one end and to the back of our passenger seat head rest on the other. This way when they loose it yous not swerving all over the road trying to find it. Just pull on the string and it’s yours once again.

4: Your weekly Top Ten lists get further and further behind.

5: You know exactly which one of your neighbors leaves for work at 5am and can time out their exact routine while your up breastfeeding. ‘Now cough… start car. Swear at your sore back while you sit down…’ He doesn’t know that I know.

I know..

6: Eating licorice for breakfast is now totally acceptable.

7: After ten weeks of saying “no no, I will!” You have realized that you will not use your treadmill again and decide to give it up for the space. Why? Because no, no I won’t.

8: You have already established a ban per parent for some kind of kids character. Our house ban’s Dora, I have tested her out and she talks to me like I am a moron. Yes I can see the freaking red balloon. Can’t you? Barney because I have issues with the real kids in that show, they are too cheery. And Lastly, there is a joint ban on Teletubies because they are just creepy.

9: By now you have had at least one explodo poo that has been cause for hosing off (in bathroom, not necessarily backyard so you can stop dialing DOCS) instead of cleaning up. We can all guess not only who’s idea this was, but which parent got to hold the baby under her arms and which one had to actually wash the poo off.

10: You sign the petition that states that only making Jolly Jumpers for kids is bullshit.

Y.K.Y.A.P.W Week 9 Top Ten

You Know You’re A Parent When:

1: You start using your kids birthdays as lucky betting numbers.

2: You can pick baby related mistakes in movies like the token newborn baby seat that is more like a 3 year olds booster seat.

3: The hot beverage that you have after a meal in a restaurant is only hot water to heat up a bottle of breast milk.

4: You’ve sat down in the aisle at Toys ‘R’ Us and played with kids toys far older than your child with a sense of entitlement.

5: You’ve found out how many days you can get away with without washing your hair.

6: The novelty of a nursery has worn off and you no longer insist on all the cloth nappies being perfectly folded and put in the basket. Now they are lucky if they make it into the room after being washed but before being used.

7: The Xbox controller you were using as a paper weight has had the batteries stolen out of it for one of the baby toys.

8: You’ve become Fisher-Prices’ bitch.

9: You get baby items for your birthday.

10: Without paying attention, you’ve mixed up the air freshener, hairspray and deodorant aerosol cans all with disastrous results.

Y.K.Y.A.P.W Week 8

You Know You’re A Parent When,

1: You’d rather they throw up on you than themselves, you’re easier to change.

2: Your laptop screen has baby feet print on it.

3: All of the baby gear you own has been held in your mouth at least once.

4: Your day’s “to-do” list is no longer something carefully written in the morning. It’s now a “things I didn’t do today” list that you write at night.

5: You are still holding out hope to find a way to breastfeed and nap at the same time.

6: You’re prepared to watch Eddie McGuire on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire if it means you get 30 minutes to yourself with the baby asleep.

7: You start playing Lotto again.

8: Someone you don’t know, notices your baby-less rocking back and forth in public and says.. “I did the same thing for years after I had my babies..” ..

… years?… oiy…

9: Wearing your hair in a style not safe from the little hands that pull it strand by strand is just a fantasy. Till then it’s headbands, ponytails and bobby pins.

10: The Xbox controller has become a paper weight.

Y.K.Y.A.P.W Week 7 Top Ten

You Know You’re A Parent When:

1: You find yourself putting aside savings money for expenses, Mortgage, Rates, Electricity, $1000 a month baby wipes…

2: Given a sale of 50% off Vera Wang or 50% off all Huggies Nappies and only being able to choose one, you choose Huggies and while the parent in you says ‘Vera Who?” the non parent in you cries…

3: The thought of your baby getting her immunization shots makes you want to cry more than her.

4: The taste of vodka becomes a distant memory that you remember fondly.

5: You give up on any form of respectability and start answering the door in your dressing gown, knowing that you have time to complete only 2 tasks before the person at the door gives up and leaves. ‘Pick up the baby’ and ‘put boobs away’ take up those first two slots.. Leaves no room for ‘dress appropriately’.

6: You’re booking up family visits, 6 weeks in advance.

7: You don’t remember the last time you used your oven.

8: You learn the language of Baby Grunts. Grunt once for shower, Grunt twice for swing. Grunt once, then smile giggle and frown for boob… Poke yourself in the eye and then grunt for mobile to be turned on.

9: You live 5 minutes form the ocean and have forgotten what it looks like.

10: You look at the Real Estate section of the paper, not because you want to, but because your house now has 7 toys for every pair of shoes you own.

Y.K.Y.A.P.W Week 6 Top Ten

You Know You’re A Parent When…

1: 6am is a sleep in.

2: Getting the laundry AND dishwasher done makes you happy.

3: You STILL catch yourself rocking and swaying even when you are not holding your baby.

4 : You catch yourself humming baby songs even when you’re not with your baby.

5: You go to get your baby out of the car seat and then remember you left her with her father at home.

6: You have an opinion on which brand of baby shower lotion is the best.

7: Having a shower alone becomes a distant fantasy.

8: When you finally have a chance to sleep, you end up staying awake thinking about your baby and everything you need to do the next day. With a hint every now and again of wondering why they don’t make more domestically available household robots to do your chores.. one Roomba just isn’t enough considering the magnitude of concept.

9: You’ve watched the same episode of Gilmore Girls at 4am every morning for the last week and only just noticed.

10: You’re too tired to finish your blog posts.

Y.K.Y.A.P.W – Week 5 Top Ten

You Know You’re A Parent When:

1: You stop noticing that wonderful smell of regurgitated, slightly acidic milk that your baby kindly donates back to your face, hands, chest, back, hair, any kind of clothes (yours or theirs) and furniture. When it just becomes one of those things that you no longer notice or think about when you leave the house.

2: The sound of the once infuriatingly upbeat music that accompanies the fisher price swing, now calms you down as much as your baby. And on the other hand frightens the life out of you when you notice that it has stopped as you wonder how many seconds you have to turn it back on before the crying starts.. Will you make it?

3: When you think of your days and outings using nappies as a unit of time measurment.. today is going to be about a 5 nappy day.. unless we go to the supermarket aftrerwards in which case it could be easily end up a seven or a sixer.  “I’ll be home in six nappies huney!” as you run out the door.

4: When you give up on showering for yourself and take your baby in with you, this way anything that gets on you washes off.. both of you. Gone are the days of conditioning treatments and face masks.

5: You finally get some Mummy & Daddy time in the bedroom.. Dads look out! it is time.. You get naked, cuddle in, get under the covers and put the fan on so it’s cozy under there.. Share a few kisses.. But somehow, without noticing it, both of you slowly turn the conversation to unscheduled baby things and to do lists. By the time you realize, you just know you don’t have enough baby nap time to enjoy each other and from there it comes down to a mini nap or the laundry. That is if one of you didn’t fall asleep already.

6: Your shopping trolley is half full of nappies, one quarter cleaning products, one eighth batteries and one eighth food.

7: You catch yourself rocking  and bouncing even when your not holding the baby.

8: You start to think that they should make mobiles for adults.

9: Everything baby is expensive so you start thinking “I’m sure i could make something like this myself.. at least once a day. Before you know it, the worst offenders are DIY-ing paper towel and sticky tape nappies and trying to macqyver a walker out of cardboard boxes and your old bbq’s caster wheels.

10: You get home from a full day and see that you forgot to wipe some of the baby poop off your arm from that morning, and part of you just isn’t surprised or phased..