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She just wants to eat wires. Its like she knows what are the most dangerous things to do in the flat, and she has some sort of manual she is working from, and is just ticking things off. 1.Scare mum by crawling under her feet as she boils kettle and cooks lunch. 2. Whilst mum isn’t looking, crawl quickly towards mobile phone charger and try to chew on the end of it before mum notices. 3. Climb up onto futon and then head dive off onto laminate flooring using head as a buffer. 4. Pull standing lamp along floor by wire and watch it topple sideways. 5. Put any object, food or otherwise found on floor, into mouth i.e. old bits of grated cheese/blue tack fallen off wall etc….. You get the picture, I hope she has worked through her list and now has another list like THINGS To MAKE MUM HAPPY LIST. 1. Use pincer grip (babies show off using thumb and index finger to grab small objects such as peas at about 7 months) use this newfound skill to help clean the carpet in the living room of food crumbs and fluff. 2. Wear kneepads with Pledge on to dust and shine the floors as I crawl. 3. Use new motor skills to put toilet roll on the holder for her; she never has the energy to actually put it on the holder it just sits next to the toilet roll holder like some sort of statement. I’m not sure what it says, maybe “I’m too run off my feet to do that “ or “”this is way down my list of priorities” When you have a baby, you have to prioritise the workload, washing clothes, and cleaning work surfaces and floors are the top priority. Err and of course maintaining mum’s outer appearance…. showering, make up applying and the essential clothes dressing. Sometimes some of my priorities get a bit mixed up, the washing up doesn’t get done, but my fringe gets blow-dried or eyebrows plucked, but hey as long as I leave the house with clothes on I’m doing well. I actually think I might be getting abit obsessive about the cleaning and tidying, I never used to be, but I now have this thing where I think people are grading me on my ability to be a good mum on how clean and tidy my house is.


The ex’s Nan said to me “he says you keep a nice house” like it was the biggest compliment anyone could ever pay me. It true though especially that for that generation that a clean house meant you were a hard working fantastic mother because it was so much harder to clean the house. They didn’t have Mr Muscle, Hoovers and washing machines. Imagine sweeping the floor constantly with an old broom and washing the bath out with vinegar. That’s some serious elbow grease at work. Maybe they worked out how great a mother you were by how big your triceps and biceps were. I remember my mum used to make us walk on the clothes in the bath to wash them… and then mangle clothes! My dad eventually bought a washing machine since they had been invented by 1976 I think they were just too hippie to want to spend money on machines maaan. But hey at least they had less wires to worry about the children chewing on!