and the guilt, worry, anxiety and major stress that comes with it!
This post was inspired by talking to my lovely author friend and fellow blogger, Debbie Ioanna. We have very similar writing styles and it’s obvious that we see many things in the same way. Debbie suggested that we should do a collaboration on our respective blogs. Debbie has recently had her own little bundle of joy and mine ran out of joy about 5 years ago, so we thought we could have a bit of a ‘compare and contrast’ post based on baby versus teenager… here is my take on the whole thing and I shall be sharing Debbie’s for you to check out.
There are so many of those special moments when you stare down into your newborns, innocent eyes, they stare lovingly back at you and you think;
“I love you, my sweet little angelic baby. You could never disappoint me. I offer my life to you. I would lay down over hot coals for you. I would willingly take a bullet for you. you are the most perfect, sweetest little bundle of joy to ever grace this Earth”
Fast forward 14 years…
“Why the f**ity f**k can’t you just listen, for once!”
“You bleed me dry!”
“Will you please, for the love of hygiene, clear the month old garbage out of your room, you scruffy little oik”
“Just please, turn 18, get a job and move out”
Okay so it’s not all like this but we do seem to spend a large amount of our time waiting for our children to do get to the next stage of their life because we think everything will get easier then…
- When they can feed themselves
- When they’re walking
- When they can talk
- When they’re potty trained
- When they start school
- When they can take themselves to school
- When they can cook for themselves
It’s around this time though where you start to wish they’d regress, you suddenly realise that this is it. You’ve done all you ever could, you’ve raised a child into an adolescent, they will soon fly the nest and you will have zero control over them. This is the big test, have you done it right, should you have done it differently. Should you have spent more time running toy cars around the rug? Colouring in their books with them? Sitting on their beds watching them sleep?
Should you have given them more vegetables and less chocolate? Or more chocolate and not worried so much about the veg? Did you pay attention to the hugs? Really?
One of the saddest things I ever read on the internet was that at some point you placed your child down on the floor after a hug and you never picked them up again… Just let that sink in for a second. Yep, really gets you in the feels, doesn’t it? It genuinely makes me want to cry.
I do wish I had spent more time with Christopher when he was a baby and even more when he was a toddler because you’ll never be able to make up for that lost time. We do have a pretty good relationship though so I can’t have done too badly bringing him up…
He thinks I’m weird and embarrassing but he also thinks I’m funny so I can live with that 🙂
Here’s some insider information for Debbie and all the new Mum’s and Dad’s out there… It never gets any easier and they never get any less smelly 😉 and I promise they will eventually grow into their, ears, nose, mouth, face…
Made A Hames 
he is lovely though xxxxx