Kids are great, until they’re not.
This is important. Remember it.
Every child is like a fingerprint; none are perfect. Or if they are perfect, they won’t stay that way for long.
Something you need to know about kids is: the minute you sing their praises, they will undergo a complete personality refurbishment and you will regret the day you ever opened your mouth.
This message is particularly important for anyone prone to feeling smug or superior about their parenting skills. Kids have a very special superpower, and that is to make an idiot out of you the minute you mention how wonderful you are at this motherhood gig.
This is one of the basic laws of motherhood.
The moment you boast about how successfully you’ve trained your child to sleep is the moment your child goes through a sleep regression that lasts months.
Your eye-roll at your sister-in-law’s inability to get her child to eat anything other than plain pasta is a signal for your child to start refusing any food with colour. Welcome to The Beige Diet.
Your humble brag to your girlfriends about your child’s expanding vocabulary and knowledge of all the colours will perfectly coincide with your child’s wobbling steps over to the crusted bin lid where he will stare you straight in the eye as he sticks out his tongue and takes a big long lick.
What I’m saying is, when things are going well, it’s best to keep it to yourself. Don’t even mention it to your partner. A knowing look could be enough to bring it all crashing down. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
There are some other laws of motherhood. They’re much like Murphy’s Law, but for mums.
1. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
2. The more desperately you need your child to nap, the more strenuously he will refuse to nap—yet the day you need to leave your home at a certain time, he will sleep like the dead.
3. As you carry your gravely ill child into the doctor’s office, she will undergo a miraculous recovery.
4. The more expensive and educational the toy, the more your child will hate it.
5. The amount of love and attention you put into making a meal for your child is directly proportional to the athleticism he will display as he throws it across the room.
6. The quieter the child, the more permanent the damage she is causing.
7. Your child will wet himself exactly two minutes after he promises he doesn’t need to go potty.
8. The more excitement and planning involved in a rare girls’ night out, the more vigorously your child will start spewing the hour before your departure.
9. The more exhausted you are, the more enthusiastically your child will tap-dance on your last nerve.
10. Your child will want nothing to do with a toy until another child touches it.
11. Your child will receive a self-inflicted black eye, fat lip or ragged-nail scratch to the face the day before a big event where many family photos will be taken.
12. The exact thing you don’t want your child to say will become her favourite phrase.
13. In a room the size of Narnia, the only place your child will find to sit is on you.
14. The first night your child sleeps through the night, you will suffer an attack of insomnia.
15. Your children will happily entertain themselves until you step into the shower.
16. The satisfaction you feel after cleaning a room is directly proportional to the speed with which your child will appear at the door to destroy it.
17. The more you treasure that sweet outfit your child is wearing, the more permanent the stains she’ll inflict upon it.
18. Your child will refuse water all day but bedtime will bring a thirst no water can quench.
19. The more deadly/dangerous/poisonous the item, the more quickly your child will locate it and/or put it in her mouth.
20. Your child will pour a full bottle of water over himself on the day you don’t pack a change of clothes.