Take a shower while the toddler roams free - how bad can it be?

How bad could it be? Well, the toilet could eat your toddler...

Normally I don't attend to personal hygiene when I'm alone with 2yo. She's too active, too curious, too inclined to climb and far too aware that when I'm in the shower I can't see into the other rooms. What about nap time? I'm on the internet, I can't do that when she's awake either. You can see that I have my priorities well and truly sorted out.

Today however, things were getting a little extreme due to us being on holidays and me being with 2yo full time. So I promised myself it would be super quick, told 2yo what I was doing and dived under the water.

Five minutes later I hear the crash of the toilet seat and figure that she's going to the toilet again (her new hobby) but this time it's followed by a wail, "I WANT MY DUMMEEEEEEE!!!!!!!" 2yo usually only says this when she's been thwarted, she doesn't sound hurt so I yell out that she'll have to wait until I'm out. Normally she would come in to the bathroom at this point and threaten to tear the shower curtains down if the dummy doesn't appear instantly. This time she is mysteriously absent and the wails are getting more and more insistent and even a tad distressed. *sigh* I reassure myself that if she's capable of that much noise she's not in mortal danger and cut my shower short.

When I find her (using the sound detection devices growing on either side of my head) I find her up to her armpits in the loo. The poor tyke had decided she was going to go to the toilet like a grown up, took her little seat insert out, and fell into the toilet bum first. All I can see of 2yo is her head and arms and her legs from the knees down. She's done that folding-herself-in-half trick again. Last time she folded herself in half she fell through the back of a chair bum first. If she hadn't become truly distressed when she saw me I'd have taken a photo. She looked hilarious. I think it might be a while before we can coax her onto the toilet again, she wasn't a happy little girl. Who'd be happy after a prolonged dip in the bog?

While I'm here, I just have to say something about my new iron. It's so good I'm scared of it. I'm scared of making an ironing mistake just in case the creases never come out. It glides over everything, uses steam power rather than heat, and makes disturbing guttural noises as though it means business into the bargain. By comparison my old iron was a hot water bottle. I LOVE good engineering and Sunbeam have won me over again. Good on THEM!

Merry Strawberry Dress

After swearing to myself that this was going to be a stress-free Christmas I go and put myself under enormous time pressure to create a dress for my toddler after a no-complicated-sewing period of about fifteen years.

Here is the result, yes I'm proud, no there were no other colours for the bodice other than white (long story, might update with it later) and yes, the zip is red - that was my insanity.

Christmas Anger Yey!

For those who were worried after my last post, don't. The closest I will get to risking life and limb is taking me, a tent, a week's worth of novels and a box full of fruit to the Ottways leaving my family to fend for themselves.

Today I would be worrying about people in my immediate vicinity - I have a vigorous case of holiday rage going on.

To whoever had the audacity to call me at 8.45am and wake the toddler up on the first day in months that I got to sleep in UNTIL the toddler woke up AND didn't leave a message making the whole waking up exercise pointless:

"I hate you. May 1000 dead camels crush your house."

To the dog groomer who assured me that my dog would be ready at 2pm so there was no need to make a "call me when he's ready" arrangement, only to tell me she was running late when I arrived (out of breath and with my toddler napping unattended at home):

"You really are a retard. Thanks for dropping the dog off a few hours later, but really, if you'd just remembered that the customer is always right, and spent 40 cents on a phone call you could have saved yourself some time and petrol and I might have used your service again. As it is, I won't be back, and I don't care how busy your morning was. I really REALLY don't care. Especially when I've answered the door in half a wetsuit, look hot and bothered, and am slowly closing the door in your face. You're there to make my life easier not turn me into an agony aunt, PLEASE TAKE YOUR EXCUSES AND RAM THEM."

To the Mums who dawdled through Leo's wheeling their prams two abreast so that no-one could get past while nattering about inane celebrity gossip:

"PLEASE GET LIVES and GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY while you are at it."

To the middle aged fat guy who failed to give way to me at the roundabout and gave me a minor heart attack:

A BIG FAT "FUCK YOU".

To the P-plater who was sharing his music's baseline with the entire gridlocked traffic community and who let me in with a nod and a wave when I thought I would NEVER TURN LEFT AGAIN, EVER:

A big fat "THANK YOU", you are a credit to your generation and gave me hope.

I will now cook dinner with a screwdriver while my daughter fills her brain with Fraggle Rock ditties.

Dishwasher gripe - have faith in the engineers.

I have tried to tell the boys in my household that the dishwasher is DESIGNED to handle plates that are stacked one after the other. Very clever people got together, invented it, and tested it with dirty plates. Why then, do they insist on stacking this way??



Have they not heard that it's better for our pocket and our planet if the washer is stacked efficiently? Why do I even bother talking? Actually, I no longer talk. I just sigh, re-stack...



...and vent my frustration passively by "forgetting" to buy icecream. If only they knew...

The living room....

Today everyone helped on the living room. Well, three of us worked while a certain 2yo got in the way and undid everything. Lily Allen's Alright, Still on repeat got us through the worst of the sorting, ditching and cleaning up horrible sticky messes under the couch. We are now relaxing and watching Back to the Future (MJ Fox still gives me tingles) while waiting for our indian to arrive. Our food, that is.

The pics don't really capture the transformation. Note the mantle piece is CD and DVD free and the toys are neatly stacked rather than spilling over the floor...

Before:



After:



What actually happened was that all the toys were dumped on the floor, sorted, and broken stuff chucked away. The board games were all shifted to the TV cabinet and the toy tubs are now shelved so that we can actually open one of the livingroom doors all the way. The whole floor was vacuumed and the inch of dust covering everything was removed. Dust puppies hiding behind furniture were hunted down and exterminated. Yey.

More decluttering... maybe now I'll be able to do the banking?

On Wednesday my desk went from this:



To this:



An indication that I might actually be able to do things like, adjust our banking now that Hubby is being paid weekly instead of monthly (yey!!!!) and maybe, if the stars align.... do our 2007/2008 TAX!!! OMG!!!

Chocolate sauce recipe from things you DO have in your cupboard (if you're me)

I was hunting for a quick chocolate sauce recipe that involved cocoa rather than real chocolate, and didn't require exotic things that I don't have in my cupboard like chocolate, evaporated milk, condensed milk or cream.

Here's one I adapted and it's yummy!

1 cup raw caster sugar
3 tablespoons cocoa
3 tablespoons cornflour
1 cup cold water
half a teaspoon vanilla extract
60 grams salted butter


You can sieve the dried stuff if you like but I just combined them in a saucepan and banged out the lumps with a wooden spoon. Add cold water and vanilla, mix, then dump the chunk of butter in. Stir on medium heat while watching the butter melt (very Zen) and quite soon after the sauce will thicken. Yummo, and in less than ten minutes.

Have just used it to trick my toddler into eating bananas.

You can put the rest in the fridge and it turns into a thick fudge that you can stir into ice-cream for a rather decadent sundae type concoction.

Finally the big de-clutter begins...

Now that there are no distractions such as honours, work, sick mother or funeral I have what seems to be a huge amount of free time (actually a spare five hours a day) w00t! I'm using it to de-clutter and, you guessed it, blog...

Before:



After:



How long will it last I wonder?

Fail Blog and Rachmaninov had big hands

Some funnies for today:

http://failblog.org/

My favourite is still the ship of fail. You have to go right back to the beginning to get it though...

and this:

Rachmaninov had big hands

Is it because I'm a Mum that I can't stand to watch?

People I know find videos like this one FUNNY.

Maybe it's the mother in me but all I can think about are the horrific injuries, the hospitalisations, and the general emotional trauma. How can people laugh at other people hurting themselves? I will never get it.

How to wreck your Sunday - shower in rat droppings.

Today was looking to be gloriously productive. Toddler napping, 11yo about to go to his friend's for a swim, me about to sit down and fill out my PhD application in the peace and quiet.

Only, when I reached up to the tippety-top of our one cupboard to retrieve the swimming gear that had been lying dormant since last season I was treated to an avalanche of something I thought were little black beads. In my face, in my hair, down my shirt. I vaguely wondered why I'd stored craft stuff up there instead of with the crafty stuff and took a closer look. Rat droppings. There must have been thousands. There are no words for how ill I felt. I'd literally been dumped on. 11yo thought it was hilarious of course. As usual Mummy is glad to be of comic service - not. *grump*

I've known that we've had vermin for a while. They sneak into the kitchen and eat left over dog food, provide snuffly chasey entertainment for the dog at night and we hear them chasing each other in the roof and walls. But since they were not actually interfering with anything of ours, e.g. food. I have left them alone. (My husband sees this as 100% my problem just in case any of you were wondering...) But now that they are nesting in the linen cupboard and have chosen the crib cover I made for 2yo for a nest, chewing up the cot sheet that both 11yo and 2yo used as babies to line said nest, they have got to go. Nice Mummy has just been replaced by a rattucidal killing machine. Only...

I have a problem with killing rats. Not mice, or cockroaches, or venomous spiders, just rats. When we had our mouse invasion during the drought and they were eating anything not sealed in metal or glass I was happy to kill the little fuckers. It was a them or us thing. They contaminated our food supply, catching and relocating was not an option, therefore they had to die. It was during my mouse killing spree I found that poison was not a viable solution for us as they crawl away to die where you can't find them, produce unsavoury smells, and breed flies. So, I used traps, and when the traps didn't kill them I drowned them.

The trouble with using this method for rats, is that traps don't always kill them first go and then you are responsible for hours of suffering until you come along and finish the job. And rats, in the degrees of sentience scale, are way more sentient than mice. Rats can count to five, they are social creatures who pass on knowledge inter-generationally. They have been known to demonstrate emotional attachment. Leaving a creature like that in a trap for hours might just be beyond me :-(

But then again, maybe I should just remember how it felt to be dumped on by several generations of ratties before I get too sentimental. That and the fact that I now have to wash the entire contents of my linen cupboard and line the thing with steel wool wherever they are getting in.

So much for PhD application! Grrrr! Ah! Now I've found the anger. Off to Traps-R-Us for a little retail therapy....

From the 11yo yesterday:

About toy weapons that are not sharp enough to be dangerous:

"Mum, if I'm going to have to use my imagination with these things I need a bit of realism."

Nostalgia:

"Do you remember back when we could have water pistols?"

That last one made me a bit sad. Highlights of my childhood include running under the sprinkler on hot days. On especially good days there'd be a big gang of kids with water pistols and water bombs. My children of the drought have been denied the simple pleasure of blasting away at each other with drinking water. Last year, we experienced the equivalent of a Brisbane summer storm during a BBQ with family friends at our house. You should have seen the kiddies, they were so excited! We laughed at them and teased them: "You'd think you'd never seen rain before!" It turns out they hadn't. Not like that anyway.

Then again, when I was a kid computer games were pixelated bleeps and CGI wasn't. You can't have everything.

Things to be thankful for today:

Husbands who give you shoulder rubs.

Mother-in-laws who manage to cook you up some risotto for dinner while baby-sitting a two year old all day.

Radio stations that play "My Sherona" at exactly the right moment in peak hour traffic.

Antics from 11yo during the hospital visit ensuring that my mother fell asleep smiling.

Nice bosses who give you a heads up before your tiny lab is inundated with strange onlookers.

Flowers on your doorstep.

Cards in your letterbox.

Toddler evening naps so that I can have a quiet cup of tea, read the latest on the Decriminalisation of Abortion debate and blog.

The Great Desk Tidy = Disaster for the rest of the house

Ok, I've cleared my desk and it is now home only to THINGS I USE.



Now can someone tell me where all the rest of this shit is supposed to go?




*sigh*

For those who don't know, I am a recovering hoarder who lives with a fellow hoarder in a house with one cupboard.

Bad Mummy is at the airport.

Today marks the blackest day of the holidays for me. It's the one where my son travels interstate as an unaccompanied minor to see his father. Not that I don't want my son to see his dad, far from it. He likes it, his dad likes it, they bond and stuff. The bit I don't like is the part where my son's welfare is suddenly out of my hands for a week.

Control freak?

Yes.

Sue me.

Being a control freak I am now a veteran when it comes to delivering unaccompanied minors unto airlines while coping with the company of fractious toddlers. These are the rules:

1. The airline will tell you to arrive two hours early. Ignore them. Arrive the usual one hour early or you'll face an hour with a bored and somewhat stressed child for company. In my case, I'd also have a bored and restless toddler who fails to see the point of sitting still in airport lounges. She has the vocal prowess of Joan Sutherland singing a high A, only with more stamina than Joan.

2. Write down all your ex partner's details before you leave or you will have to make embarrassing phone calls at check in while the airline staff eye you suspiciously. It also helps if the airline have got the name of your offspring correct, but that tends to be out of your hands.

3. On cold days you may be tempted to wear bulky jackets. Don't. You will invariably be bomb sniffed and toddlers don't like to wait around while you're checked for explosives.

4. Take a pram that can fold up umbrella style and go through the x-rays or no pram at all, otherwise you will be redirected to the wheelchair entry where you will wait for an eternity with the protesting toddler for your pram to be inadequately fondled by strangers. The only time this happened I felt slightly ill.

5. You will be tempted to take the nappy bag for the toddler. Don't. The less you have to take through airport security the better. Take ONE nappy and ONE bag of wipes wrapped in a change mat. This can fold up into the pram when it whizzes through the x-ray, and your hands will be left free to deal with the toddler who thought she was being let out of the pram to run around - when a two year old express her disappointment that her bids for freedom are being thwarted she expresses it to all and sundry, minimise the damage by traveling light and moving away fast.

6. Once you're in, buy the kids iced chocolates. This will get you at least half an hour of quiet while they eat ice cream with a straw. If other parents glare or glance disparagingly at you for giving a two year old such a rich treat I recommend a stony glare back along with wishing them a demon child for their next one. They don't know you're doing them a huge favour by keeping your little blitzkrieg distracted.

7. When it's time to say goodbye to the minor who is going, don't, whatever you do, let the guilty gibbering worrier inside you have a voice. Your child doesn't need to know that you're secretly afraid you're never going to see him again. Be cheery, tell him to spend his money on food instead of hoarding it like a miser, to have fun, and that you'll see him in a week.

Finally, the last rule:

8. After the minors have boarded and you're hanging around waiting for take off, thou shalt not look the other parents in the eye. In this case, pain shared is pain magnified, and pain magnified leads to public sobbing. Keep your haunted look to yourself. Trust me when I say the other parents have it too, you don't have to check.

Only after his little pink face has left with the gaggle of other minors (there's always a group of them) can I let myself succumb to the guilt-monger in my head. The one that scolds me for abandoning him. The one that berates me, "If you'd only been organised about your life he wouldn't have to do this!" The voice that lists a thousand things that could go wrong while I'm not there. The voice that tells me that he's your good one, your little joker, helper, entertainer, argumentative, imaginative bright spark and you've let him get on a plane alone. What were you thinking???

He must be only a few feet away really, sitting on the plane I can see through the window, but already there is a gaping hole in my side. This wound will remain raw and weeping all week. I try not to cry.

The Odd Sock Solution

Today my 11yo helped with the laundry. I told him to get all the dirty clothes out of his room and into the wash, when they were dry, he helped fold. Laundry is so much nicer with company, I find.

Now, I fold with an Odd Sock basket alongside; any sock that doesn't immediately pair up goes straight in and every now and then I go through it and find matches. Today, after a matching session we were left with no less than 35 odd socks, some of them dating back to when 11yo was four. Being the inventive type, he suggested some ways to solve our odd sock syndrome:

1) A Chameleon Sock
This sock could be paired with any other sock, and during its sojourn in the sock drawer it would gradually take on the colour and texture of the odd sock and voila! A pair of socks! The chameleon sock would revert to its distinctive state after washing.

Apparently though, that is too slow, so...

2) The Magic Sock
This sock simply automatically matches whatever other sock you happen to have on. When I asked why we couldn't just have all magic socks he said that magic socks were REALLY expensive, so nobody could afford to have more than one.

But the master solution is best...

3) The One Sock to Rule Them All
A master sock must be created. One sock to rule them all, one sock to bind them, one sock to wear them all, and in the crevices find them. So whoever had the master sock, could locate and pair all the lost and odd socks of the world. Maybe, the owner of the master sock could sell the paired socks back to their owners... or conquer earth with a Lost Sock Army. We were fuzzy on the details...

Afterwards, I followed him back to his room to help him tidy it and found no less than 13 socks just lying around, four of which belonged to his toddler sister.

It's quite possible that the Odd Sock Solution is to have the 11yo fitted for some glasses.

Where to park the pram in the disabled toilets

Occasionally, when I'm at a shopping centre by myself and desperate for the loo, I take my daughter - pram and all - into the disabled toilet.

There is a certain amount of guilt associated with this practise. I'm not disabled, and neither is my daughter. However, I alleviate said guilt with this reasoning:

1: I would not want to go to the toilet in a parent's room where people also go to breast feed their babies. Yuk. (Yuk for the breast feeding mothers, that is.) Shopping centers that put toilets in rooms for breast feeding have missed the point entirely I reckon. One room for poo, one room for food is how it should be. The best set up I've seen (I forget where) had a living room type arrangement with coffee tables and magazines (with some screened off alcoves for the seriously shy), and the toilet and nappy changing facilities were in their own room off to the side. Also, the toilets were big enough to take a pram/gaggle of kids in with you if you needed to. Lovely, perfect, and unfortunately rare.

2: I do not want to leave the stroller with my baby, and my shopping in a public toilet where I cannot keep an eye on them while I relieve myself in a tiny cubicle, and I'm too shy to make leaving the cubicle door open an option. Unloading child and shopping and taking it all into the tiny cubicle with me is also not an option.

So, I wheel the lot into the disabled toilet and do my business in peace, giving my daughter a bonus lesson in toilet decorum.

The thing to remember though, when you're using one of those automated disabled toilets is, Never, Never, NEVER, park the pram near the button that automatically opens the toilet door. I did this today. Nuff said.

Don't child-proof the world, world-proof the child.

This is ace. Striking a balance is hard though.

A bit of TV for toddlers could go a long way...

I often feel guilty about sitting my toddler in front of the Wiggles when I want to get things done or need a bit of "me time". However, when I read articles about this kind of child abuse, I feel ok about it. I'm sure this kid would have wished his mother had dealt with the extreme frustration parenting can bring by sitting him in front of the TV for half an hour - better than a punch in the face.

My first toddler was an angel, a little whisper in his ear brought on the most sickeningly angelic behaviour by my friend's kids standards. So it was hard for me to understand my friend's frustration. Not that I was judgmental; I'd read all the relevant books and I knew how lucky I was. My second child is far more militant, and now I completely understand the screaming red rage that an innocent child can bring out in you just by being their "growing-up", "inquisitive", "discovering independence" selves. My toddler can hit raw nerves using her voice alone - she's a master - by the end of the day I can be an emotionally exhausted wreck. I now view my friend with a deep respect and awe for the way she managed to keep her cool in the face of "very active toddler" behavioural issues.

If I can lose it to the degree that I know my toddler and I need to be separated NOW or very bad things will ensue. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be in that situation and have the crippling disadvantages of drug addiction (read, lack of control over actions) and a lack of parenting education.

If parenting education and drug rehab is too expensive, perhaps we could hand out wiggles DVDs and the means to play them? Wouldn't it be nice if that were a viable solution? :-(

Too much to ask of teachers?

My son's primary school has just redefined "Caring" and "Responsibility" and found a new way to piss off a mum with a logic major.

Dear Principal,

With regard to the converstion we had about the treatment of my son’s injured eye at school on Tuesday.

While I understand teachers’ reluctance to administer all but the most basic first aid on the premises, (in my opinion, even this extra responsibility is not covered by your salaries). I must confess to being more than a little irritated at the reason you gave me for your refusal. Just so we’re clear, I’m not irritated by the refusal itself (though it means my son will have to stay home while I work from home for the rest of the week), I just can’t let shoddy reasoning go by unremarked.

You claim that there are no staff that are medically trained on the premises, so nobody could put ointment on my son's lower eyelid. According to the doctors at the Eye and Ear Hospital, the only qualification required for this simple procedure was gardianship of a child. Of the thousands of medical practitioners in Australia, you would be hard pressed to find one who required that a parent obtained a medical degree before applying eye ointment. In the words of my own doctor, “A trained monkey could apply eye ointment.” So, that you have no medically trained staff is not a good reason for refusing, in fact, it’s rather bad. You could probably get your grade five kiddies to prove this with ven diagrams.

Here are three really good reasons for refusing that I thought were probably lurking in the background:

a) in the rather sad social environment where suing after an accident seems to be the knee jerk reaction of selfish people looking for someone to blame and vent their anger on, and as a result no one wants to take on any responsibility for anything, we’d rather not take responsibility for treating something as important as an eye, besides…

b) haven’t you been reading the news? We’re worked off our feet and underpaid as it is! we simply don’t have time to administer medication as well, sorry… and...

c) if he needs treatment every four hours, should he really be at school at all?

But of course, in this politically correct environment you couldn’t say those things without accusing me of being: a) the suing type, b) one of those thoughtless people who imagine teachers have all this free time on their hands to devote to their child, or c) a bad mother. However, personally, I would have preferred a bit of honesty over a reason that was logically ridiculous.

It amazed me that the doctor at the Eye and Ear Hospital thought it would be best that he go straight back to school, I wouldn’t be surprised if it amazed you too. Maybe she assumed the school would have a nurse, though it is more likely that she didn’t think about the logistics of four hourly ointment application at all.

For me, coming in to the school from university takes one hour out of a precious four and a half hour time slot, so in order to save a few precious minutes I have decided keep my son with me and work from home (while trying to avoid the temptation of the pool in the heat!). His absense will be sad for his buddy of course, but since I have a rather large dealine looming and extremely limited time slots in which to complete my task I see no other alternative. My son will resume school on Monday by which time he will not need the ointment or I willl have taught him to apply it himself. He said that he might be asked to speak about his experience at assembly and I wouldn’t want him to miss out on that.

Kind regards,

me

It will be interesting to see if they make it to the end of the letter and get the vital information :-) i.e. son will not be at school!

For Professional First Time Parents, with love

After a quick search on the web for articles to help out a stressed out new dad I know, I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted. So I wrote this for him. Sorry if it’s a bit rough!

Good parents tend to be 100% relaxed, patient, and have a healthy sense of humour centered on bodily excreta. They never complain, always look chipper and their kitchens resemble an Ikea showroom.

Bollocks.

No parent, no matter what kind of show they’re putting on for their friends, is 100% serene Julie Andrews from Sound of Music. Parents in the know are all secretly aiming for one thing - “Good Enough Parenting” (Shhh! You didn’t hear that from me!). In order to get there, sometimes it helps to remember that good parents aren’t like on TV, that nobody ever knows how hard it is until they’ve done it, that a lot of your friends with kids probably made it look easier than it really is, and that perhaps your expectations were a little high.

Unrealistic expectations are, I’m afraid, a bog ordinary occurrence for first time parents. With my first little charmer, I thought I’d do my exams while eight and a half months pregnant, have by baby in the holidays and be back at Uni for second semester one week later! As you can probably imagine, that plan didn’t work out to well. I ended up so stressed, tired and out of my mind that I threw my precious bundle in a fit of frustration. To be fair, I didn’t throw him very far, and I made sure he landed on something nice and soft. But I still threw him, and I still cringe inside when I think about it. To this day I fervently wish that I’d known then what I know now, so, perk up your ears…

One of the biggest problems new parents seem to have, the one that pops up on blogs and chat rooms all over the world, the one that most good parenting books now devote at least one, if not their first chapter to (believe it or not I’ve actually checked this - don’t ask) is the Bad Bad Parent syndrome, or as I like to call it The Bad Parent Guilt Cycle. The Bad Parent Guilt Cycle is born of expecting far too much from oneself and is most common in professionals who, pre-baby, were very much in control of their lives. These parents beat themselves up for not living up to their own (frankly naive) expectations. They berate themselves with the same zeal and passion for success that they put into their working lives, so they're usually quite successful at reducing themselves to a stressed out blathering mess of weepy guilt and low self esteem. Of course, this doesn't fit their picture of the perfect parents they know they should and can be so they beat themselves up some more... and so begins the Bad Parent Guilt Cycle.

This situation would be bad enough in itself if it weren't compounded by a life shattering new addition to your family who is renown for being sensitive to the mood of the carer. The worse off you are emotionally, the more the little bleater is going to be unsettled, and thus the new addition adds it's contribution to the cycle. You can't settle the little screamer and you beat yourself up some more...

Fear not. There is a cure. It's called coming down from your perfect parent fantasy cloud and being nicer to yourself about stuff. This is harder than it sounds. This is because the desire to be a good parent is for the most part a biological imperative and that's a strong current to swim against. You'll just have to trust me that if you try, you'll end up a better parent.

Here is my list of things you probably beat yourself up about, and probably shouldn’t.

YOU’RE NOT A BAD PARENT IF:

The dishes/clothes/floors etc aren’t done - if you’re sane and the baby is thriving you’re doing a fantastic job. Remember in the good old days you’d be surrounded by grannies and aunts who would swoop in and take over the household chores for a bit

You start giving the pets less attention and develop a neanderthal urge to protect your offspring from them - this feeling will pass and as long as your pets are fed and watered they will survive it

You feel tired 100% of the time - well der

The sleep deprivation makes you bad tempered - sleep deprivation is a form of torture, of course you’re bad tempered

You can’t stop your baby crying - sometimes babies don’t want to stop crying, try thinking of the beautifully healthy lungs your little charmer is developing

You accidentally let your baby sit in a pooey nappy for more than ten minutes - stop beating yourself up! With disposables the way they are these days, you have to actively TRY to get a case of nappy rash, you’d have to let them sit in their poo all day for a few days running, life is hard enough, don’t internally harangue yourself over harmless slip ups. If you need perspective as to what harmless is, call someone sensible

You don’t bath your baby for a few days - as long as a baby’s creases are wiped, they can go for ages without immersion in water

You call a friend and ask them to take your baby for a walk to the park for an hour so that you can sleep - this is not abandonment, this is looking after yourself so that you can be a better parent

…Aaand here is my list of don’ts. I’m guilty of all of them myself….

YOU COULD IMPROVE AS A PARENT IF:

You refuse all help and insist on going it alone, this is not only unnatural for humans; it’s bad for your mental health and therefore bad for your baby.
You blame yourself for the baby’s incessant tears
You blame yourself for not coping with the tiredness
You blame yourself for the baby’s latest spots, rashes, runny nose or hiccups
You blame yourself for being powerless to help the baby feel better
You blame yourself for anything really - beating yourself up about things you can’t control makes you feel worse and wastes energy perpetuating the harmful guilt cycle. The guilt cycles make for bad tempered depressed parents and such parents make for fretful babies. Use the energy you’re putting into beating yourself up to break the guilt cycle (see below)

TIPS TO BREAK THE BAD PARENT GUILT CYCLE:

1. You need to put energy into looking after yourself in order to have energy to look after a baby. Spending a little energy sowing the seeds for your rest time results in a bumper harvest of energy for parenting. Just think, if all the energy that was going into beating yourself up for being a stressed parent was redirected into using your resources to organise rest time, you might end up less stressed and break the cycle. Some useful resources are:

a) get relatives or friends to take the baby for a walk (at least an hour), they’ll be thrilled at the privilege and you’ll be able to sleep. If you’re worried your precious gem will be starved and abused, express milk and make sure the person is trained in nappy changing

b) request food from friends, or get to like baked beans on toast, remember that relinquishing the gourmet lifestyle is temporary sacrifice that will give you more time for sleep and make you a better parent, use delivery services, most local grocers have one now, if your local doesn’t, offer them a delivery fee (average seemed to be $15 last time I checked) you might be their first delivery customer! Coles Online is also adequate for things like shampoo and baby powder (though I don’t know anyone who uses that anymore)

c) if someone offers to do something say YES or rather, YES PLEASE. Delegate, delegate, delegate. Teach friends who drop in how you do your dishes so that next time they can hop in without asking. If they’re going to the shops put in an order. Your priority is sleeping so that you can be a relaxed parent, your priorities are not martyrdom or superparenting - leave that to the loonies. It might help to remember that a lot of people like doing stuff for people with new babies, it gives them a sense of participation and importance (think of it as boosting your friends’ self esteem). Personally I think this sense is as hardwired as maternal hormones, a village survival instinct.

d) perspective is everything, if you think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill, pick up the phone and ask someone you trust (my cousin called several people and took a kind of poll once - whatever works)

AND FINALLY THE SANITY SAVER:

3. Babies have a basic set of needs, food, comfort (dry and warm), and human contact (cuddles). If you’ve met all these and they’re still crying, AND you think you’re about to lose it, the following steps have helped millions of parents:

a. do what you need to do to ensure they’re not sick (take their temperature, call another parent, nurse online, your doctor, maternal health, whatever it takes to reassure YOU)

b. stick them safely in their cot, where they can wail to their hearts content (remove teddy’s and blankets so you know they can’t thrash, roll and smother - you need to know that your little critter will be safe)

c. make yourself a cup of tea, warm milk, or whatever your poison, alcohol is not recommended for people who are already stressed out - sorry!

d. go out into the garden or somewhere where the crying is but a faint reminder of the little charmer’s existence (it sounds odd, but make sure you can still HEAR them, this reassures you that the little blighter is quite alive and healthy and you can relax knowing that if they’re capable of that much noise, they’re not at death’s door)

e. sit, lie down, do yoga, sniff the new lime flowers, pull a few weeds, admire the clouds, stand in the rain, whatever works for you

f. drink tea, sip slowly, try to think about something else, this is YOUR tea time. If you can’t think about something else, pretend to, you’ll be amazed how often that actually works. The cup of tea is important because it gives a time frame for the rest, if you’re fretting about leaving your little critter to cry (let’s face it, who doesn’t fret about it? Those who say they don't are lying IMHO), finishing the cup of tea gives you a “time to go back” and enforces the break. Scalding hot tea that is gulped down like a yardglass of beer on graduation night doesn’t count as a rest!

g. don’t go back until you feel recharged and able to cope, or they’ve stopped crying. The reason for the latter criteria is that if they’re quiet you’re going to want to check that they’re ok. You might be pleasantly surprised to find that your little charmer has gone off to sleep without you! If they don’t stop crying, definitely don’t go back until you feel up to being the patient, loving and comforting parent you want to be.

These steps save lives. If you feel you’re about to explode (and what new parent hasn’t felt it?) being a good parent means recognising the signs and removing yourself from the situation - PRONTO.

That’s it. My times up, my own little cutie is awake. Hope it’s helped! Good luck, and remember, call me if you need something, you’ll do wonders for my self esteem ☺