Where do all the odd socks go? The unexplained mysteries of motherhood
Before I became a mum, I had many questions. Who will my daughter look like? Will I be pregnant forever? And labour’s not really going to hurt that much, is it? Our very first NCT class was entirely devoted to discussing all the questions that we had (top one from the mums – what do I wear to give birth in? And from the dads – is there an iPod Dock in the labour room?)
If pregnancy is nine and a half months of question after question, it should be no surprise that motherhood itself presents a different set of mysteries. But there’s some that don’t seem to have any kind of logical conclusion, and remain as the great unsolved game of childhood Cluedo.
So what are the great puzzles of parenting? Here’s my case in point:
- You have loads of work to do that evening; your child is still happily wide awake at 9.30. Your to-do list stretches off endlessly into the night…
- The first night in months you plan to go out, they won’t go to sleep. How. Do. They. Know?
- Then the one morning you have to be up and about early, they’re still sleeping at 7.30 (this happened to me last week, after a week of 5am starts. Bitter, me? No – just knackered).
- Where do all the odd socks, hairbands and tiny hairclips go?
- How can such a little person generate so much washing? And what exactly does the bottom of the washing basket look like?
- How can the hours between 5am and 7am drag on for what seems like three days, yet naptime speeds by in about thirty seconds?
- Why is it that any item of clothing that’s vaguely nice – mine and hers – is instantly a magnet for messy hands?
- And finally, why will children often refuse the lovely food you’ve put a lot of effort into making? (We have somehow been blessed with a fantastic eater. Yet at the weekend I made her a delicious and elaborate pasta concoction which was met with a firm ‘no’. She ate two Babybels and a bowl of sweetcorn and cucumber slices instead. So it was fairly inevitable that today’s nursery report read ‘Eliza enjoyed the lunch pasta so much she ate two bowls’)
Does anyone have a clue? Answers on a postcard, please…