When having children makes you laugh!!! - Beck :)

Being mum can be, no let me correct myself, is the hardest job on the planet. It is often a thankless job and one that doesn’t get appreciated until your rugrats have rugrats of their own. As mine are 3 ½ years old and 9 months old I have a little waiting to do until I get my thank-you Mum! It is very easy to run down being a mum and there are days when if you could find the office to submit your resignation you would do it in a heart beat. But then there are days when you think to yourself I can’t believe I get paid for this…oh hang on I was back in the classroom…that’s right we don’t get paid for it! There are days when you have tears in your eyes not because the house looks like World War III has just taken place or your eldest has unraveled an entire roll of toilet paper or has eaten an ice-cream in your bed on your new ‘expensive’ linen, but from laughter.

Before I had children I said to myself “I will keep a record of all the funny things my children say”…this came about from teaching kids for 10 years…. From which you learn one thing, kids can be so funny and I am sure their parents would die if they knew the secrets they were telling teachers! But alas along with the “no child of mine will eat hot chips for lunch” mantra, this promise to one’s self has not eventuated; however, I have been able to store some wonderful insights and comments from my daughter, in what is left of my brain capacity!

1. Greer (18 months) hanging off the side of supermarket trolley (yes I know they aren’t supposed to do that but to ensure my sanity and those of other shoppers I would let my daughter do what ever she wanted just so I could complete a shop in peace!) screaming “I want more cock!”. My daughter at this stage of her language development was unable to pronounce ‘chocolate’ so you can imagine the shock on the faces of some shoppers as well as the tears that were being shed by those who I kept bumping into down the aisles, while my daughter continued to yell so everyone could hear…Not nearly as embarrassing as a friend of mine whose son was unable to pronounce the ‘o’ in Count (from Sesame Street)!!!! As she informed me the “the Count is bloody everywhere!”

2. Greer (2 ½ years): My daughter is a determined little girl who knows exactly what she wants, how she wants it and when she wants it. Watching Nick Jnr (Foxtel/Cable) and Ollie (the Australian muppet) comes on singing the days of the week song, as it was a Sunday he announced so. Greer’s response was to chuck an absolute wobbly, once she calmed down and I figured out what the problem was (because I certainly wasn’t offended that Ollie said it was Sunday) she responded with “I don’t want it to be Sunday, but I can see a little bit of Tuesday (as she is peering out the window)”….if only we could all look at the world that way!

3. Greer (1 month off of 3 years): I was just home from the hospital with my youngest - I did what you are not supposed to do and left my newborn with my almost three old for two minutes to go to the kitchen. Upon my return I come back to find him covered in stickers with my eldest saying “look mummy doesn’t he look cute!” He mean while is blissfully asleep….little did he know that this was to become a ritual of hers!

4. Greer (3 ½ years). At present I am working on my positive parenting skills (I have just read a book by Dr. Matthew Sanders) and so far Greer has responded quite well to mummy being calm and positive…but there are times when things slip. When at Georgy’s recently Greer asked for something without using her manners. I was horrified as it is one of the behaviours that I am targeting at the moment (I sound like the police…this week we are blitzing ‘bad manners). I leant over and said “What has happened to your manners?” Greer looks at me shrugs her shoulders and responds “….Apparently they’ve gone!”


5. Greer (3 ½ years): My husband and I are entering the phase of 1001 questions by our three year old. Last weekend she wanted to know “Why don’t we have eyes in the back of our heads?” Good question really because as a mum (and a teacher) I would love to have eyes in the back of my head! I wanted to put on my science teachers hat and go into the whole spiel of homo sapiens having not evolved that way, but as I have tried to explain physics to my daughter before with no success, I decided to keep it simple. I said “people simply don’t have them, but imagine if all the mummy’s in the world had them…I could be looking out the window whilst yelling at you behind me to stop what you are doing!” Greer looked at me and went “I don’t want you to have eyes in the back of your head”……I guess it is like my ‘Thanks Mum’ one day she will want eyes in the back of her head.