Happy Mummiversary to Me!

Today is a very special day, it’s my 8th Mummiversary!

While Aoife has spent a lovely day celebrating her birthday with friends and received lots of lovely presents, I’ve spent the day internally smug. Praising myself for 8 successful years of parenting (and wondering why this achievement isn’t acknowledged more.

I mean yes, I am super proud that my first born is growing into a wonderful young lady but why does she get all the glory and gifts?
She just turned up….eventually – I did the hard slog.

To be fair, once your cervix has held multiple showings of ‘An Audience With’ for 3 days straight, life is never going to be quite the same again so a new title is fully deserved and ‘Mummy’ is the one we’re given. It’s like a rebirth of sorts and so a Mummiversary makes sense to mark this transition.

Everyone talks about the stuff you expect when you become Mum. I’m not going to say ‘stuff you’re prepared for’ because unless you’re a spy who’s been tortured for information regularly, NOTHING can prepare you for sleep deprivation, loneliness and peeing your pants every time you laugh

Let us, on this Mummiversary, celebrate all those things we never expected we would experience, never mind celebrate.

Body talk

As a Mum you talk about poo more, we all know that BUT once you’ve had a child or two, there is no subject that’s taboo.  If you’ve not shown your mates your wrinkled, saggy mum tum and told horror stories about your shredded vajayjay (or bragged about your unaffected foof) then you need new friends.

Friendships

You start by guiding your child to those kids whose mums look like they enjoy a beer or two. Later this guidance becomes even more specific, mums who like beer and have kids who aren’t shits. You manipulate these situations to your favour whilst explaining to your child they really do need to think for themselves…

Lies

Oh the lies. You consider yourself an honest individual piling up good karma then you get yourself a child and it all goes out the window.  You start small “No, Cbeebies is broken today”, “Nope, there’s no vegetables in that” then after a while you’re bringing out the big guns “I have Santa’s direct number and I’m not afraid to use it!”

Ingratitude

This comes in MASSES once you’re a mum. You throw a lovely party for all their friends – the cake will be wrong. You get married and let them be bridesmaid and page boy, they’ll tell you they’ve had better days. In fact Christmas is better than your wedding. True story.

You can buy them the very thing they really want and they’ll have changed their mind between purchase and presentation. Nothing you do will be appreciated and there’s nothing you can do except suck it up.

Stupidity

You were pretty bright before you had kids but somehow your brain power and knowledge left with your placenta. They ask a relatively simple question like…

“What does sassy mean?”

“Well, um, it means like…sassy. Kinda sassy. I CAN’T DESCRIBE IT WITHOUT USING SASSY”

Being second best

As a mum, you’ll often be cast to second best. You’ll never be as good as daddy, grandma, grandad, that teacher, her best friend or her best friends mum. Don’t worry though, you’ll be first port of call when the shit hits the fan.

It’s all your fault

ALWAYS.

The rain and the sunshine. The lost toy or the wrong film on TV. The way you make breakfast or what you’ve chosen for tea. These are the life ruining mistakes you’ll make everyday, don’t worry – they let you know.

Never would I ever

You have this list of things you’ll never do, EVER.

Before you know it you’re a fully signed up member of the PTA. You’re playing princesses and getting giddy about glitter. Your once celebrated DVD collection is no longer alphabetised and is full of Disney films. You let the TV babysit on occasion, your kids have eaten more cake than you’d like and your social life has actually changed despite all your pre-birth plans.

So there we go. That’s my small list of Mum celebrations in honour of this, my Mummiversary.

NOW tell me I don’t deserve a gift today!

I still wouldn’t change a thing though, well, maybe…