Motherhood.
It changes you. It teaches you. Lessons that you expect to learn, such as how to put on a nappy. The exact way your baby likes to be rocked to sleep. That it is possible to love each child the same, that your heart grows a little bit more each time to encompass that love.
But that's not all.
No.
Motherhood teaches you many, many more things.
Less expected things. Things that, though they seem irrelevant, are actually very important.
Ten Important Motherhood Lessons
1. Baby wipes are the best invention ever, from baby bums to make up removal to toilet cleaning their uses are never ending.
2. Poo can, and does, provide a variety of conversational topics from colour and consistency, to what we find in it, to frequency of going. Both you and the baby.
3. How to drink a cup of hot tea in less than 30 seconds without scalding your mouth (well not too much anyway). Failing that the optimal number of times a cup of tea can be microwaved is three. Anymore and don't bother. Time to chuck it away and start again.
4. Toddlers have selective hearing, they will not hear you bellowing their name telling them TO COME BACK HERE RIGHT NOW. NO I AM NOT JOKING. I AM COUNTING TO THREE..... ONE, TWO..... TWO AND A HALF... but they will hear you from three rooms away when you try to sneak a piece of chocolate. Learn how to eat fast or talk like a ventriloquist.
I attempt the latter.
I fail often. Failure results in sharing. Despite being a mummy now I am still not good at sharing, similar to Joey from Friends
I do not share food
Following on from the bellowing, I am still not entirely sure what happens when I get to three. My toddler understands two and 99 hundredths right?
5. Bribery works. But only when it's something that they want to do anyway. Otherwise you can actually see them snatch the prize then deliberately defy you.
6. That I am slowly turning into my mum. Same sayings. Same empty threats. Same habit of repeating myself in conversations. Still not sure how to break it to my husband that he's basically married my mother.
Mummy?
Yessy
Has my mother written all over it.....
7. There is not much that chocolate won't cure. For you or the children.
8. Soft play is the work of the devil, but in hotter than the sun summer's of Dubai are a necessary evil. And yes. It IS necessary to applaud the Toddler coming down the (same) slide. 50 times. Each time you go.
9. The words to a variety of Disney movies. I could be your pub quiz expert on all things UP, Frozen, Toy Story or Planes. If there is a need for such a thing.
10. And finally, a bit of a slushy one; that there is no better sound than my boys laughing. Unless it's the Toddler telling me he loves me (and I assume the same will be true of the Baby when he learns to talk)
What have you learnt since becoming a mum?
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This post first appeared here.