1. Lunch with friends
Pre-kids: Meeting at 2.30pm, somewhere buzzy and fun. Getting stuck into a cocktail followed by a bottle of white wine. Chatting so much that the waiter has to ask you three times whether you’re ready to order. Eating leisurely and losing track of time as you catch up.
Post-kids: Meeting at midday (any later and the kids will get hungry and ratty) at a noisy child-friendly place. Ordering off the kids’ menu before you’ve even looked at what you might have. Having snatches of conversation in between helping to colour in (using the complimentary crayons and colouring sheet) and answer the endless “Mummy?” questions. Rushing through lunch before the kids get bored. Sloping off sheepishly after paying because there’s more food on the floor than in the actual kitchen.
2. The clocks going back
Pre-kids: Yesss! You get an extra hour in bed (or when you were a vodka and dancing loving student: Yesss! You get an extra hour in the club)
Post-kids: Argh! They’re technically up an hour early. And you have to somehow get them to go to bed an hour early tonight. (Suddenly, those conversations MPs have about stopping GMT seem appealing.)
3. Bank holidays
Pre-kids: A lie-in followed by a couple of hours in your PJs watching telly, then going to the pub to meet friends, eating a massive pub lunch and drinking wine in the sun until the early evening. Ahh bank holidays, the stuff of dreams.
Post-kids: Getting up the same time as you always do. Having to pay for childcare even though you’re not using it. Heading to the same soft play (if it’s raining) or beach (if it’s sunny) as everyone else on the planet. Fighting the crowds and the queues. Getting stuck in traffic on the way home. Fun times.
4. Having a bath
Pre-kids: You light some candles, put on soothing music, pour in expensive Jo Malone bath oil and sink in with a book. You stay there for at least an hour, and emerge calm and a bit wrinkled.
Post-kids: You light some candles, put on soothing music, pour in expensive Jo Malone bath oil and sink in with a book. Five minutes later, you hear a loud knock at the door and “MUMMY! I NEED A WEE WEE!” You get out, freezing and dripping wet to help your child go to the loo and then pop them back in bed. Is it even worth getting back in again?
5. Shopping
Pre-kids: It’s Saturday! That means (after your lie-in natch) a trip to the centre of town for a shopping session. You start off in Topshop for a mooch, you head to H&M and try on four pairs of jeans (they all make your bum look huge) then a quick dive into Primark that actually takes an hour because the changing room queue is so long. Just as well you can have a pit-stop in Starbucks with a nice relaxing cappuccino.
Post-kids: It’s Saturday! After your 6am wake up call (“MUMMY! THE SUN’S UP!”) and a marathon session watching people open Kinder Eggs on YouTube, you walk into town (“Mummy, my legs are tired”) and have to select which two shops you want to go into before your child has a full-on meltdown. Just two shops, now! Choose wisely! You then go to Starbucks and use a babyccino as a bribe whilst trying not to be embarrassed when your child shouts “Mummy! That other mummy’s dress is yucky!”
What else would you add to the list?
Picture: DTTST
hahaha, you’re soooo funny…what about those car journeys on your own where you sing along loudly to your favourite songs, but now they start moaning that you should turn it down, you can’t sing, or mama, I dont like that song, are we nearly there yet. The Paris weekend trip that all of a sudden, apart from crazy expensive, is slightly ruined as you find yourself yet again going to the super marche to buy diner and eating it in the hotel room, as the kids really can’t wait till decent French diner time and they are about to break in two from all that walking
I absolutely love reading your blogs, I too have a 3 nearly 4 year old daughter and relate so much to what you write about, I undiagnosed PND, wanting to continue to with career etc but I laughed out loud when I read your daughter watches other people on you tube opening kinder eggs!!! My daughter does this all the time, though now moving onto watching people making frozen themed cakes!! Hilarious! Thank you for such brilliant insights into real life with a little girl!!!!
I thought my child was really strange for watching those kinder egg vids on YouTube but I’ve recently learnt that this is a really popular thing, who’d have thought!! Xx
I love this blog! I actually laughed out loud at the bath one. A similar thing happened to me yesterday when I foolishly tried to squeeze in a speedy shower and my three year old decided this was the precise moment to need a number two. Then she complained that I dripped all over the bathroom floor when I leapt out of said shower to help her. Me-time is a thing of the past! Limiting the shops is so true too. I learnt this the hard way. And, yes, she has watched the Kinder Eggs on YouTube. Thought we were the only ones!
Shopping is definitely at the top of my “I miss the pre-kids days” list. My darling daughter abhores shopping with every fibre of her being, so she just moans/screams/cries the ENTIRE time. It’s good for the bank balance though I guess.
And you forgot how baths are also somewhat ruined nowadays by the fact you feel like you are constantly being watched… by an assortment of ducks, frogs, fish and other toys.
I also miss “getting ready”… you know how you could make that last an hour as you primped your hair and did your make up to perfection. It’s all quite literally a bit more slap-dash for me now. x
As always – spot on! I’m absolutely dreading the clocks going back as twin 2 has decided 5am is a good get up time. I don’t know how I’ll cope tomorrow with 4am ARRGHHHHH
Brilliant! On the flip side, I’ve discovered there are some things I used to HATE that I now enjoy, when the kids aren’t around to bother me. Like last-minute CHristmas shopping (parking and the queues are hell, but without a rugrat whining in your ear it feels like blissful me-time!)
ha ha – absolutely spot on! we also have to watch those kinder egg videos – and also for some unknown reason, B52’s Rock Lobster!!!
You missed off being poorly!
As a mum, you can no longer have a PMT/Flu/migrane duvet with chocolate and some terribly tragic chick flick day!
and not quite sure where this fits in but sometimes I just miss being me if that makes sense?!
Emma x
haha i would add a long lazy breakfast with the newspapers
Obvs I agree. The saddest things about the clocks was defo when we used to go out and go “Yay we have another hour in a club” and this time I wept as I was awoken at 5am. Oh the many sobs. Being a Mum rocks but sometimes? Is crapola x