So, here it is – surviving parenting | The Year 3 instalment.

​I really can’t believe two years have passed from when I first braindumped and came up with ‘First year as a first time mama’ – back then I was amazed we’d managed to keep our little human alive for 365 whole days, let alone doing the double – and now we’ve reached the treble. Can these years just slow the hell down please, I’m becoming more aware that I’m approaching my mid-thirties and I haven’t even managed to get from one payday to the next without popping into my overdraft at least two weeks before.
So, my observations of bringing up soon-to-be threenager goes a little like this…
× Kids are still brilliant objects to dress up.
× Threenager, is a definite true thing. Personalities develop and tantrums get bigger – I am not looking forward to puberty coming.
× They say even more inappropriate things, are really inappropriate times.
x They can also ask, out loud, “Why is that lady big/brown/naughty” right in front of that poor lady just minding her own business.
× Their legs still aren’t quite big or strong enough to carry them for a whole day out, so I’m usually torn between ditching the empty pram (laden with shopping bags – tip risk) or running after my child who is currently playing chicken in the road.
× They can decipher the swear word out of the other 50 words you say in a sentence. Like when LagerDad saw lothario Calum Best at Ibiza airport and I didn’t believe him exclaiming, all excited and showbizzed “No way, fuck off is that him” – for my then 2 year old to yell ‘Fuck Off’ across the quiet graveyard of an airport…
x …which brings me to the time we paid £39 (plus popcorn and fanta ice blast) for us to have a nice family morning out to watch the Trolls movie, only to walk out after 45 minutes when our loving angel decided she wanted to start yelling ‘Penis’ at the top of her voice, over and over again. Before being gagged and carried out by a very red faced LagerDad. I’m pretty sure there is no Princess Penis or King Penis troll…though they could have appeared at minute 46, who knows?
× They’re not really into ‘a thing’ – mine just takes or leaves it all. Unless it’s chocolate.
× I haven’t once been asked this year – what his name is. Parenting Win!
× You start potty training, now that’s fun. Also quite irritating, when they need to go – they need to go now. It was easier when they could just wee themselves and you just changed them at your convenience. Also, I’m very grateful to not have encountered an episode of diarrhoea while she’s been ‘dry’
× The pure unadulterated, unhealthy, killer desire of anyone that parks in a parent and child car parking space without a child gets even stronger. And no, a twelve year old doesn’t count as a fucking baby nor a toddler. Pretty sure they don’t have to be squeezed in and out of a Britax car seat whilst it’s raining and my fat arse is getting soaked from trying to squeeze inbetween a ‘normal’ parking space door without dinking the car next door all whilst attempting to harness an eel-like toddler into its straps.
× People start to think you must have this parenting shit covered now that they can see your child walks and talks and looks fairly clean. Unless you’re the big/brown/naughty woman, she certainly didn’t feel that way about my child.
× Staying at home and leaving them to ‘entertain’ themselves gets harder, so you find you really maximise the local attractions. Getting the hell out of the house for every spare second in between wake up and sleep time.
x Unfortunately, my child is the worst mix of me and her dad. “Mummy, go out, I’m having a poo – I’ll call you when I’m ready”….whilst sitting reading the latest issue of the Peppa Pig mag. Or “Mummy, you go into the kitchen, I want to relax on my own in the lounge”
× You can’t skip pages in the bedtime story books any longer. They know.
× If I hadn’t spent most of the last year being pregnant, I would definitely have drunk even more than the year before.
I predicted that 2016 would be the year of bumps and babies – as I type this one I currently have six weeks to go until D-Day on Baby #2, so I got that one right. Let’s see what next years ‘Year 4 installment’ takes us. If there’s one thing I can guarantee, it’s that there will certainly be no more bumps or babies from me.