It is a wonderful thing to have a new baby and to bring up children and there
are all sorts of amazing new experiences that you will have with them. However,
nobody tells you about any of the not so nice ones.
- Firstly, although to start with it really doesn't seem as if it is ever going to happen,
your little angel will finally manage to sleep all night. You will seem to spend the first
year (or even longer in my case) pacing the floor of the bedroom back and forth
until you seem to be wearing a hole in the carpet. Your back is aching,
you are so tired you can't even think straight let alone keep your eyes open. It
just seems never ending. Rest assured that even the most keen night-owls eventually
learn to sleep.
- Enjoy stinky nappies/diapers! Why? Well, at least all the stinky stuff is actually
contained in the nappy. When they are learning to be potty trained, all sorts of things
could be found anywhere around the house. If you are lucky you will find the soggy patch
or whatever else they have left while it is still "fresh". This is as opposed to one of my
sister's children who left a little present behind some furniture and it was two days
before they discovered where the smell was coming from.
- The next problem to overcome is when you have to learn to be a mind-reader. When they
are very little, you are spending a great deal of time guessing why the baby is crying. Are
they hungry? Are they wet? Are they too cold? Are they too hot? Are they tired? Are they
bored? Sometimes it seems to be a never ending list but the day arrives when they
actually get old enough to tell you what the problem is and you can hopefully do
something about it. Unfortunately, this then leads to the following paragraph.
- This is when they actually get old enough to talk and they can then ask you for the
things that they want. Unfortunately, this never seems to be that they are tired and can
they go to bed. It is usually that they want you to get them a drink or some food or some
candy. I think it is easy to see the theme running through this. Yes, it is now
time for you to be at your child's beck and call! So, it seems a good point to mention feeding.
- Breast feeding, while good for the little ones, is unbelievably painful! It may be supposed
to be a bonding experience, and to be honest eventually it is, but with your first child, the
unimaginable pain is all you can think about when they are feeding. And that is apart
from when the baby has been asleep for a few hours longer than normal and hasn't had
a feed for a while and you think you're going to burst.
- Having said all that about breast feeding, I must say I think I preferred it to having to
fill and warm bottles of formula in the middle of the night.
- Then of course, you get to the stage where the children are feeding themselves. This
then results in rather a lot of food ending up on them. Unfortunately, it will also land on
you, the floor, the walls and ceilings sometimes too.
- Then comes the glorious day when they can feed themselves without the food going
everywhere but by then they have decided that they really don't want any of the food
you are giving them anyway.
- Finally, after a few years of it being just you and them, they go to school. It is
heart-breaking to see their little faces being brave and waving goodbye at the school
gates. You know they will have a wonderful time and meet lots of new friends but it also
means this is the first stage of them growing away from you to be their own little person.
- By which time, you are back to being a grown-up again, with grown-up conversations.
Although I do recommend you remember that when you are in the supermarket there
is no longer a child in the trolley, so you must remember not to talk to him/her! I had a
few occasions where I was so used to talking to my children, that when they weren't
there I still found myself chatting away to them!
Now that sounds like a catalog of horrendous moments but in reality while there are
some truly awful times, the overall experience of having children is absolutely wonderful
and there is nothing better than lots of kisses and hugs from your little one.
