On parenting

Wake, walk, feel better, repeat

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Daisies against a bright blue sky on a sunny day.

If my husband is getting tired of my daily step count updates, he only has himself to blame.

I’d been having a few episodes of low mood. I just felt a bit sad, lethargic and lost. All pretty common feelings during a pandemic, I’m sure.

At first, I let it go and figured it was inevitable when you’re living through a global crisis. If this is the worst thing I experience during this time, I thought, I’ve been very lucky!

I had panic disorder a few years ago, and I think it’s made me think that I need to wait until I feel really bad before I take steps to feel better.

When anxiety ruled the roost, I’d only feel calm for a few seconds each day. I’d wake up feeling OK because I’d momentarily forgotten that my brain was on fire. But then panic would kick back in, and I’d commence my (then) routine of sweating through the day, until bedtime came around again and I could have a break.

Therapy, time, and support from good people got me through it, and I’m fine now. One is never so bold as to say they’ve beaten a mental health condition – because the bastard might hear you and return. But I will say that, for the most part, I’m in charge now, not my panic. And that’s a pretty chuffing big deal.

So, having been through all that, when I feel myself take a different type of dip – like a mood slip or another form of anxiety – I’m not always quick enough to do something about it. I’ll say to myself: But I don’t feel like my head is about to explode! I can hang out with friends without wanting to sprint out of the room at the earliest opportunity! Everything is OK!

But just because the disorder’s in check, it doesn’t mean other things can’t affect what’s going on in my head. And that there aren’t things I can and should do to boost my wellbeing.

A park filled with bright flowers, and a little girl walking through it.

During my most recent bout of lowness, my husband said “Why don’t you try getting up earlier?”

Now, in the interests of honesty, I should admit that my first response was fury. Was he saying I’m lazy? That I don’t pull my weight? Or did he hope that if I spent less time in bed I’d have fewer dreams to bore him with?

But of course he didn’t mean any of that, and he had a point.

Our little girl is almost three and, all being well, she’s usually up for 12 hours of the day and asleep the other 12. So when Leon and I are done eating, tidying, failing to choose something to watch on TV, and sleeping ourselves, there’s a little time left to do whatever we want with (as long as one of us is in the house, of course).

I find parenting so tiring – and lockdown/pandemic era so endless – that my strategy had been to sleep for as long as possible. Because who wants to make these days longer?!

But it’s hard to go straight from bed to full throttle mum-mode. One minute I’m asleep, dreaming I’m already up and powering through my to-do list, and the next it’s MUMMY! CAN I HAVE SOME MILK AND A BISTIC (biscuit)? MUMMY COME IN MY BEDOOOM! It can be quite an intense way to start the day.

So I’ve started going for a walk. Just for half an hour or so, ideally first thing, when it’s still quiet and a bit chilly.

I’ve devised a special route just for this. I walk up the road we aspire to live on one day, around the park filled with pretty flowers and the world’s busiest squirrels, onto the high street for a reminder that buses still go and shops still open, into a café if I feel like treating myself to a hot chocolate or a pastry or both, and then home after doing a loop around the other park that’s nearer home.

I walked around this park when I was heavily pregnant with our daughter, blissfully unaware of what was to come. Then I’d go home and watch The Office U.S bloopers on YouTube all afternoon whilst I still could. Later, we took her there for her first trip out as a newborn in the sling. I must have checked her 50 times to make sure she was OK.

Lots of clouds in the sky above a park.

And now she’s almost three and obsessed with the swings, and we’re there all the time so she can play.

Being in that park on my own is a treat because it’s brief. And, because it’s such a significant place, going there for a walk and a think – and a sit down if I can get away with it – helps me get back in touch with myself and how I feel, and it helps.

When my HOW DARE YOU response to my husband’s suggestion that I start setting an alarm passed, I realised he was onto something. I looked back on the days leading up to my mood drop and saw that I’d hardly walked at all. Sure, I’d done playground trips and nursery pick-ups, and I’d gone to and from the kitchen 900 times. But I hadn’t walked for the sake of it. I hadn’t had time outside on my own.

In lockdown, we got good at helping each other take our daily exercise, as we needed it to survive. And just because we’ve got more freedom now, it doesn’t mean we should stop making the effort to move for the benefit of our wellbeing. We still need fresh air, space and to keep moving to help us stay well.

So I bought a Fitbit, which tracks the number of steps you take each day, your heart rate, your sleep, and other useful health-related info. I wanted something to hold me to account and make me walk – even when I think I don’t want to – and to give me proof that I’m trying.

Leon tolerates my delighted cries of “Ooh it just buzzed! I’ve done my 10,000 steps!” because he knows it’s for the greater good. It was all his idea after all, and I’m grateful for that.

When I’ve finished my morning walk, I head back up our road, open the front door, and am greeted with a ‘Mummy’s back!’ which I love.

I make breakfast, I give out snacks, we play, we go out, we eat food, we come home, I put on films, I clean up, we read books, I find lost toys, I hold my little girl when her emotions take hold, or she’s had a bump, or she’s frightened of a monster I can’t see, or she just wants a cuddle with her mum, and I sit with her in her bedroom at night, and I tell her that I love her and that we’ll have more fun tomorrow, until she drifts off to sleep once again.

And I’m better at it all, and I feel so much happier, because I went out for that walk.

Five things I know about being alive, now I’m 35

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I’m old enough to know that most people don’t give a damn that it’s your birthday. But, seeing as you’re here, I’ll tell you that I just turned 35. *releases single party popper into the ether*

This is the first time in a while that my age has felt significant. I see it written next to other people’s names and think ‘Woah, they must be a REAL grown up.’ And then I see it next to mine – a woman who still can’t let her feet out from under the duvet at night in case a scarecrow bites them – and I realise that’s not necessarily the case.

But that’s fine, I like getting older and being reminded that the idea we’ll have it all sorted out by a particular age is a joke. One thing that is guaranteed though is that the more years you live, you more you learn.

And that’s why for the last six years, the birthday gift I’ve given myself is time to type out the lessons I want to note at this particular point in time. It’s great to have it to look back on. (This was last year’s series of hot takes).

So here’s this year’s big five.

1. Accept your decisions – good and bad – because without them you wouldn’t be where you are

By 35 you’ll have racked up a good few decisions that you look back on and think “What on earth was going through my head when I did that?“ I’ve certainly got a strong number, and while it’s super fun to wake in the night and dwell on my own idiocy, I’ve come to realise that they all form a crucial part of our stories.

If I hadn’t taken that terrible job, or experienced that heartbreak, or had that regrettable hair cut for so many years, life wouldn’t look the way it does now. And I wouldn’t have the knowledge and experience I need to keep making better choices.

I think the same rules that apply to your CV apply to life in general – if you can explain what everything you’ve done has taught you, it doesn’t matter if you made a few ill-advised moves along the way.

2. Those moments when you feel like you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing often mark the start of something exciting

Just when we thought we knew what we were doing as parents of a toddler, we decided to start potty training.

We kicked off and within minutes I went straight back to feeling like I did when I first became a mum – totally unprepared, out of my depth, and terrified things would never get easier.

But of course they have. I realised as the week went on that I wasn’t just afraid of the messy reality of teaching a little one how to go to the loo, but also of what teaching her this meant. Independence. The more she learns, the less she’ll need me, and that’s a scary prospect for a parent to face. But it’s also essential and, when I remove my hormones from the situation, incredibly exciting.

All of the best decisions I’ve made in my life – going to university, making new friends, starting a relationship with my husband, having our daughter, pursuing the career I want – frightened the life out of me.

But it’s often that fear that proves this is something you really want to do. Because if it was out of the question, you wouldn’t entertain it. But if you’ve gone so far as to let yourself imagine the possibilities, it might just mean you should go for it.

When we go on holiday (remember holidays?) my husband and I have a rule that if we’re umming and ahing about whether to go on a day trip/do an activity, we always do it, because then we can’t regret not trying. And applying that to daily life has helped me a lot. I don’t want to regret not doing things, however scary they may seem.

The ‘I have no idea what I’m doing’ feeling doesn’t become any less daunting just because you’re a grown up. But you do at least have enough experience to know that you’ll figure it out before long.

3. The pursuit of perfection will destroy you, so let it go

I want my daughter to grow up knowing that everybody makes mistakes. What matters is that we pick ourselves up, understand what went wrong and what we learnt, move on and do better next time.

It’s a perfectly simple concept for even a two year old to understand, and yet, at 35, I still struggle to remember it.

I’ve been particularly hard on myself recently when I’ve made a mistake or a bad decision. Whether it’s something I’ve done whilst driving, something I’ve said, or a parenting choice that’s backfired, I’ve been giving myself a really hard time about it.

I wonder if the current environment has something to do with it. Life feels more fragile, precious and scary than ever right now, so any false move feels significant while our stress levels are heightened.

I’ve always struggled to forgive myself when my interactions with people haven’t gone exactly as I’d like. Despite numerous attempts to stop caring what other people think, the truth is that the older I get, the more I care. I get so few chances (particularly at the moment) to see or speak to the people I love, it feels like it really matters that it goes perfectly when I do.

But of course we can’t control how things go. The only things we can control – in any situation – are our words and our actions. And there’s a world of other factors that also play a part, so we can only ever do our best.

When it comes to parenting, trying to do a perfect job will not only destroy you, it’ll destroy you before 7.30am. There’s no way anybody doing such an emotional, unpredictable, and exhausting job could get every single element right all the time.

Despite my best efforts I make wrong calls numerous times a day. I also make the right call a fair amount too, but if you think they’re the moments my brain likes to put into a montage to show me when I’m lying awake at 3am then you’ve very much misunderstood the tone of this blog.

But the longer I’m a mum the clearer it becomes that perfection isn’t the goal here. Happiness, safety and good health is. There’s nothing like living through a global pandemic to make you realise that’s more than enough to ask for.

4. Whether you like a feeling or not, at least accept that you’re feeling it

Allow me to share my incredible time saving method.

Instead of beating ourselves up for feeling nervous ahead of a social event, stressed out by a heavy workload, or still scared of the dark at the age of 35, how about we just… accept it’s how we feel. All of a sudden our problems are cut in half as we no longer have self loathing to deal with too. We can focus instead on exploring why we feel this way, and what could help us feel better.

I spend so much time trying to mentally push away feelings that I don’t think I should have. I lose hours feeling ashamed of my fear, frustration, or upset and guess what? It just makes matters worse.

We can’t help the way we feel. The way we respond to each situation is entirely personal. So our time is better spent listening to what that feeling’s trying to tell us, rather than hoping that if we berate it enough for existing it’ll just disappear.

5. I do my best work as a human being when I slow down and think about what I’m doing (don’t we all?)

It’s when I trick myself into believing that everything has to be done in a rush that I make decisions I’ll later regret.

And it’s when I react NOW rather than waiting a few seconds to think, empathise, breathe and then speak that I’ll end up saying something I’ll wish I hadn’t.

Since the world plunged into lockdown, there have been few reasons to rush at all. And though I wish I’d learnt it in different circumstances, the lessons this has taught me about the importance of slowing down are invaluable.

I’m a better mum when I take a moment to consider the world from my daughter’s point of view before responding to her 55th request for a snack before 10am. And I’m a better wife when I stop and think about whether I’m really angry because my husband has forgotten to change a toilet roll, or because I’m tired from living through a global crisis and need to go to bed.

We’re all better people when we try and see the world from other people’s perspectives and consider how our actions could affect others. Right now we’re being shown in the bleakest way possible just how crucial it is that we do.

As I head into my 36th year, I want to keep all of this in mind. To be more empathetic. To make good, thoughtful decisions. And to be kind to myself when I inevitably slip up and learn more lessons along the way.

I’ll look forward to telling you all about them when my birthday comes around again next year. Thanks for reading.

Life lessons learnt in lockdown

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purple flowers and large trees in a sunny park

So it is possible to be organised enough with your meal planning and food shopping to avoid going to the supermarket twice a day, everyday. Who knew?

My husband has done truly wonderful and thoughtful things for our family during lockdown. But I’m sorry to inform you that removing his empty coffee cups, plates and chocolate wrappers from our office at the end of the working day is not one of them.

When I thought perhaps my daughter would enjoy doing an online workout with me I was wrong. She lies down the moment it starts and doesn’t get up until it’s over, and I respect that decision.

Buying a set of houseplants is a bit like having a load more babies to look after. Except these ones come with INSTRUCTIONS.

Though spending so much time at home with a toddler is far from easy, there is no human being on earth who could make me laugh so frequently as she does – and laughing helps.

The best way to check how stressed I’m feeling is to fall asleep and see what my dreams look like. Oh hello ALL OF MY FEARS ACTED OUT IN TECHNICOLOUR. Perhaps I am a little closer to the edge than I realised.

I can write with my daughter bouncing up and down on the sofa next to me, leaning on me, attempting to push me off my chair, saying “Can I help you, mummy” and punching my keyboard… you name it. It’s not my preferred way of working, but I now know I can do it. She is simultaneously the cutest and most destructive co-worker I have ever had.

Related: I have also learnt the importance of the ‘save’ function.

mum and daughter sat on the floor decorating chocolate

My phone is both crucial to keeping me connected to the outside world, and the item most capable of making me feel disconnected from myself when I forget to use it wisely.

There’s a reason everybody is baking so much during lockdown – it helps. You can look at it and say “Well, if I achieve nothing else today, at least I made that.”

…There’s also a direct link between my husband saying he’s going to exercise, and me wanting to bake something unhealthy. My commitment to balance in this marriage knows no bounds.

There is no greater high than coming up with an activity to do with your toddler and seeing them actually engage with it for more than three seconds.

Related: melting chocolate and using it to make chocolate buttons was a great thing to do with our daughter because a) she seemed to genuinely enjoy it (particularly the part where she poured the whole bowl of hundreds and thousands we were using as decorations on the kitchen floor) and b) I got to eat everything we made.

It’s astounding how much simply tidying up a shelf or sorting out the cutlery drawer can do for morale when you’re spending this much time at home. Of course we have little time do such things, but when we do find a window – wow, what a boost!

Finishing the day with a walk by myself with my headphones in and a podcast on – the sillier the better – does more for my sanity than I ever could have imagined.

…And when I feel I don’t have the energy to go on that walk, that’s when I need it most.

Limitations on the amount of time you can spend outside make you appreciate the insane beauty of flowers, trees, birds, the sky… all of it. I won’t be taking those things for granted any more.

orange tulips in a sunny park

If your two-year-old insists on listening to their audiobook of The Gruffalo enough times, you will become able to recite it on demand. I’m not sure this will prove a useful skill beyond my lounge, but I’ll chuck it on my CV anyway.

I can ask my mum to hold the phone a bit further away from her face so that I can see more than just her chin during a video call as many times as I like. It’s clearly never going to work.

Just because you found being a parent difficult today, it doesn’t mean you will tomorrow. Hang in there.

The bar for what classes as a life update worth sharing with other people has never been lower. I’ve got some new address stickers for our wheelie bins! I’ve started adding mascarpone to meals and it’s great, isn’t it! I thought there was a spider on the kitchen floor but it was actually a ball of my hair! I don’t care if you care, I have to talk to someone.

There’s a time and a place to let your husband know how much it irritates you that he doesn’t tidy up as he goes whilst cooking, and the second he places the meal he’s kindly made in front of you is not it.

There’s nothing like spending every hour of every day with a toddler by your side, copying your every move, to make you realise how much of your life you spend with your hands on your hips (the entire time, apparently).

My capacity for guilt as a parent is so huge that I even feel guilty that my child is having to cope with living through a pandemic, despite the fact that I PLAYED NO PART IN BRINGING IT ABOUT, OBVIOUSLY.

I don’t need to spend anywhere near as much time explaining myself as I thought. Don’t want to have a video call tonight? Don’t. Need a night off your phone? Have it. Only free to work at set times because you have a child? It’s all OK. This period has taught me how much better I feel – and how much more helpful a person I am to know – when I own my circumstances and stop apologising.

There’s something touching and heartbreaking about seeing your child step aside to let strangers pass in the park and say “We need to give people lots of space” even though they have absolutely no idea why.

a tray of pink cupcakes

No, I probably shouldn’t be letting my daughter chuck the tubs of water filled with food colouring she plays with in the garden all over the flowers we’re attempting to grow. But I’m just so happy that she wants to help, who cares if the sunflowers come up blue.

It’s incredibly difficult not to let the vast levels of anxiety involved with simply leaving the house during this crisis spill out into your parenting. When it inevitably happens, noticing, slowing down, and taking a moment to be kind to everyone – including yourself – helps.

It’s been said a billion times before but this is unchartered territory. If you feel like you’re not great at this, it’s because there’s no way you could be.

No matter how many weeks and months we spend at home, it will never be enough to get all the laundry clean, dry and put away, so I may as well stop trying.

Our marriage is at its best when we take the time to spot ways to make life easier for each other. And that can only happen if we keep talking about how we’re feeling.

There’s a difference between both being at home all the time, and actually spending quality time together as a couple. We still have to put the effort in and that currently takes the form of a takeaway and a chat on a Saturday night. I look forward to it all week.

A typical day as a mum for me right now looks like this – I’m knackered all day, unsure as to what we should do most of the time, delighted when there’s calm, ecstatic when there’s joy, gutted when there are tears, game for every cuddle I can get, and so very ready for a break when bedtime rolls around. And then the second she’s asleep, I miss her. Get comfortable with feeling 45 emotions at all times and you’ll be the greatest, most content parent there’s ever been.

It is entirely possible to be both grateful for everything that makes your life good and your problems manageable, and free to mention that you’re finding this situation somewhat trying. We are all a lot of things at the moment.

Whatever you’re waiting for – whether it’s the delivery of a new office chair, some much-needed flour, or for the time when you’ll get to hug your family and friends again, it will come. Hold on.

Things I want to keep in mind during this strange and scary period of social distancing

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I had an idea last week to write a list of things I wanted to keep in mind while we all stay at home to help reduce the spread of Coronavirus. I’m so glad I waited until we’d actually experienced a full five days at home trying to live and work and look after our toddler before I wrote it. Optimism is essential right now but so is a strong dose of reality, which I think we all got this week.

This is not an attempt at advice. There is no pandemic experience on my CV. This is just a list of stuff I want to keep in mind to help maintain my perspective (and sanity) in the weeks and months to come.

It’s also an excuse to communicate with the outside world. Hello out there, I do hope you’re OK and staying safe. If nothing else, this should at least help you pass a few minutes.

1.You don’t suddenly have to become a different kind of parent

When this all kicked off, the internet became flooded with tips for things to do at home with children, which is great.

But as always, if we’re not careful, we can suffer from the flipside of social media: comparison syndrome. As I’ve discussed before, since becoming a mum I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time feeling inadequate because I don’t have the exact same skills and ideas as every other mother on the planet.

But I want to remember that I don’t suddenly have to become a nursery nurse, children’s entertainer and Blue Peter presenter all rolled into one just because we’re suddenly spending so much time at home. Yes I will try some new things and find nice ways to entertain our daughter. And we’re adapting our routine to make the best of the current constraints. But that will do. Normal life was working well for us, so the closer I can keep our days to feeling like they usually do, the calmer we’ll all feel.

2. Television is not the enemy

People talk so much about children and TV so I won’t harp on – all I want to say is this: my toddler, just like me and her dad, needs to wind down sometimes. She gets tired, she needs a bit of space, and she likes to catch up with the characters she loves. So at certain times of the day, we let her watch some telly.

This period we’re facing is bizarre, unsettling and weirdly knackering, so I’m sure she will end up watching a bit more than usual, should it make sense for us and her in the moment. An excess is bad for everyone, but the odd dose of comfort won’t do anybody any harm.

3. What I wear has a huge impact on how I feel

I gave birth to our daughter in November 2017 and we were then indoors most of the time for months. That period taught me (along with a million other things) how strong an impact my appearance has on my mental wellbeing. To feel like the day is worth doing, I need to look in the mirror and see somebody who would be happy to open the door to a human being who doesn’t love them unconditionally.

I don’t mean I need to put on a chuffing dress and heels to feel like a person, I just need actual clothes. My pyjamas are the best things in the world at bedtime, but if I’m still wearing them too late in the morning, and I’m not doing so because I’m resting, I start to feel sad. So getting up and dressed like I’ve got somewhere to go is a must for me.

4. We won’t all feel the same way at the same time

At separate points this week, all three of us had a moment when our current living situation proved too much. Leon got stressed out. I had to leave the room as the mess, noise and unwillingness by some residents to just EAT THEIR DINNER was doing my nut. And then – because why should she be left out – our toddler declared, if only through her body language and disproportionate irritation with her snack bowl, that she too was finding this situation to be bullsh*t.

It sounds ridiculous, but I hadn’t realised that we wouldn’t all necessarily be in the same place emotionally at the same time, and that that would be a challenge to manage in itself. Sometimes our daughter just needs us to hold her. Sometimes Leon needs to go out for a run by himself. And sometimes I need to eat an entire easter egg in front of The Mindy Project undisturbed. If we can all just do our best to give each other what we need during this time, it’ll make getting through it easier.

5. Any amount of time outdoors is worth having

We can’t go far and we can’t go within two metres of other people, but we can still go outside. Even just ten minutes outdoors can make all the difference. It’s easy to feel like it’s not worth the effort, that if you’re not going out somewhere proper then you might as well not go out at all, but even just a small dose of fresh air can make everything look brighter.

We’ve started going for a run about in our local park in the morning to let off steam and it’s become the highlight of our day. I hope that when this is all over we carry on treasuring every opportunity we have to play together outdoors.

6. Gratitude does everybody good

It’s good for people to know we’re grateful for the difference they make to us, and it lifts our spirits too to step back and acknowledge the things we appreciate. I said at the start of the year how grounding and therapeutic I find jotting down a list of things I’m grateful for each week, however small. I definitely want to keep doing this, to help me spot all the lovely moments that are punctuating our days as a family during this peculiar time, whether it’s fresh air, good health, cuddles with my daughter, or every bite of Cadbury’s chocolate I can get my hands on.

7. Make time to read

Reading makes me feel calmer than pretty much anything else. Because this crisis is so distracting, I’ve found that I’ve defaulted to sitting and scrolling through my phone rather than thinking about what would be a more relaxing use of time. The more lost or unfulfilled I feel, the more I find myself on my phone but it usually just makes me feel worse. So I want to actively decide to use the rare chunks of time I have to myself to read a book instead.

8. Keep creating

I always feel a lot more fulfilled when I’ve found time to make something. Whether I’ve tried a new recipe, drawn a picture with my daughter or written a blog, I feel better for it. I’m not overwhelmed with free time – that concept flew out the window the second I became a mum – so I want to make the most of any opportunities I have to be even slightly creative. For example, baking a batch of rice crispy cakes could class as a form of artistic expression, couldn’t it…?

9. I will never regret having extra time with my family

Extra time together in all its forms, however tricky to navigate it may be, is a gift. I’ve another blog brewing about how much I already know I’m going to miss our daughter being two years old, so I want to remember that this is actually all bonus time with her. And though I wish it was in different circumstances, having her dad around so much more than usual is great.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re a week in, I’m shattered and would not say no to a bit of space if it was available to me. But there are numerous lovely moments to be found amongst the chaos, and we’re lucky to have them.

10. Make the time to communicate

Just because Leon is working here, it doesn’t mean I’ll know how his day went unless I ask. Sure, I’ll know that our daughter decided to join him for a conference call and serenade his colleagues with a rendition of Baa Baa Black Sheep, but there might be other stuff he needs to unload. We still need to talk to each other.

Our daughter remains a two-year-old and, as such, not the best at articulating how she feels. Although this situation is exasperating at times, I need to make sure I stop and explain to her what’s going on, and help her tell me what’s up too. This will never stop being true, our current situation has just highlighted how quickly things will crumble if I don’t.

And regular check-ins with other friends and family are important as well. Finding the energy to get back on your laptop after a day’s work for a video call is a bit tough. But it’s worth it to share laughs and updates with people I don’t get to see everyday. A pandemic is a crazy and scary thing to live through. I want to remember how important it is to stay in touch and help each other through it.

11. If we look back on this time and our biggest complaint is that we felt bored and cooped up, we will be the lucky ones

There are thousands of people who are putting themselves at risk everyday by carrying on doing their jobs. And there are plenty of others for whom this crisis is much scarier than it is for people like me.

Having to stay home, work without childcare and cope with how strange and apocalyptic life feels right now is hard, and I’m all in favour of allowing ourselves to acknowledge every feeling we experience.

I also know that it will help me to keep going when this period feels endless if I remember that these are all entirely bearable hardships, and that if we all just keep doing as we’re told, we’ll help bring this crisis to an end.

Stay strong everyone, and stay safe.

If you’re happy and you know it, be sure to mention it

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We spend a lot of our adult lives learning how to tell people that we want things to change.

We go on training at work about how to give feedback. We listen to radio phone-ins about how to ask fellow commuters to be more considerate. We read agony aunt column after agony aunt column about how to get our spouse to PLEASE JUST CHANGE THE TOILET ROLL FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE FOR THE LOVE OF ANDREX.

And whilst there is of course value in finding ways to make the imperfect better, my plan for 2020 is to spend more time pointing out the things that make me happy just as they are.

A couple of years ago I started keeping a gratitude list. Every week I make a note of the things – big and small – that have happened that I want to remember and that prove that life is great. I’d seen somebody on Twitter recommend it, so I thought I’d give it a go, and it’s done me the world of good – not just because it’s healthy to be grateful for what you have, but because it’s made me realise what really matters to me.

I kept a list every week in my 2019 diary, and though the exact words differ from week to week, the same themes come up time and time again. Cuddles with my daughter. Seeing her laugh. Time chatting to my husband. Moments to myself to read or watch TV. A catch up with friends. A really excellent cake. A visit from my mum. Managing to stay awake throughout an entire film (this happened approximately twice in 12 months). Proof that I’m keeping my mental health in check. Space to do the work I want to do. Our home.

There are weeks when I’ve noted down special events – new exciting projects, birthdays, trips away – but most of the time, each item on the list is a reminder that it’s the simple things I’m most grateful for. It’s a written collection of all the day to day bits and pieces that could easily go unnoticed, but that are actually my favourite parts of all.

The importance of acknowledging the good became even more apparent to me last year when our daughter got a nasty eye infection. All of a sudden we were in paediatric A&E being told we’d be there overnight so that she could have antibiotics pumped into her little veins through an IV. We caught the infection straightaway and the necessary steps were taken, so all was largely fine, but it was also a bit scary. And it involved spending time in hospital, which is always difficult, particularly when children are involved.

All I wanted the entire time we were there was to go home and back to normal. It made me realise how much I loved our life and that all I need to be happy is to be free to live it, together.

And though that thought process wasn’t new, I wondered if I’d ever actually mentioned how much I liked things, just as they were. I KNEW I’d mentioned how much better life would be if only the bins were emptied more regularly and if we changed a lightbulb more than once every DECADE, but had I said: “Actually, everything we have is everything I want. Nothing else matters”? I’m not sure. So I started.

I’ve tried to take the time to stop and acknowledge when we’re having a nice time, and to tell my husband and my daughter how much I enjoy our time together. I’m an organised person, so I spend most of my time living in the future, planning for the next meal I need to cook, groceries I need to buy, or stain I need to try and fail to remove. And though the world must keep turning, I don’t want to forget to engage with what’s happening now. I don’t want happiness to be something I only recognise retrospectively – I want to notice it in the moment. The future will be here soon enough.

We’ve tried to make it the norm as a couple for us to tell each other when we’re struggling. We let each other know how we’re feeling, we talk about why that might be and what (if anything) can be done, and then we try to move on. It’s not about brushing tough stuff away, quite the opposite. Discussing hard times is as normal as chatting about what’s on TV, so the hurdle isn’t finding the courage to bring it up, but figuring out how we can tackle it together.

And I want it to be just as normal to chat about what’s great. It’s not about living some smug, insufferable life where we pat ourselves on the back all day long, it’s just about making sure we don’t forget that we’re lucky to have each other and that we’ve not forgotten the time when all we wanted was everything that we’ve got now.

My husband reminds me regularly of this Kurt Vonnegut quote, which I love: “And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

So that’s what I’m trying to do, this year and beyond. Notice. Life can be incredibly difficult. Surprising in glorious ways, and shocking in others. So the least we can do is acknowledge when it’s good, and let the people around us know how happy they make us.

And I’ll be keeping up with my gratitude list too. Stopping to note down the funny, touching, meaningful joys I’ve taken from each day is the cheapest form of therapy I’ve ever known, and I strongly recommend it. And it’s a lovely thing to look back on at the end of the year, too.

So that’s my intentions for 2020 officially documented, and I’d love to know what yours are, too. Happy New Year.

Loneliness and time alone and how becoming a mum changed my relationship with both

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Our daughter was born and all of a sudden all those moments of time to myself that I’d never realised were such a big part of my day evaporated. Goodbye solitude, I’ve got company.

You don’t appreciate how many parts of your life constitute alone time until they reduce down to seconds grabbed between feeds, cuddles, and attempts to persuade your child not to dive head first off the sofa.

I look back on all those times I went to the toilet without somebody there to squish my tummy. On all those showers I had where I didn’t feel the need to poke my head out of the cubicle every 30 seconds to shout “ARE YOU OK?” to the little person in the cot in the next room. On all those train journeys I spent reading a book rather than supplying snacks to the small dictator in the pram, perched on the edge of my seat, waiting to see which of the items I’ve selected will be deemed acceptable today. (Fruit, mummy? Really? Try again.) Did I appreciate all that freedom? Of course I didn’t.

Nobody appreciates time until something changes your relationship with it, and becoming a parent definitely does that.

But while I find the lack of freedom hard, having such limited windows to myself has forced me to make the most of the time I do have more than I ever did before.

I’ve learnt to snatch moments to myself, however brief. Ten minutes with Friends on in the background while Leon gives our toddler a bath and I cook dinner. Forty minutes on my laptop on a Sunday morning before everybody else wakes up. Thirty minutes slumped on the sofa on a Friday evening in the gap between my return from work and Leon’s arrival with our daughter after nursery. I don’t mind admitting that I LEG IT home for that sit down. You’ve got to get your rest any way you can in this game.

When time feels so precious, you don’t let yourself waste it. I now know just how much it’s possible to get done in half an hour. Want the house tidied, a tray of brownies baked, and a week’s worth of washing put away? Get a parent whose toddler is taking a nap on the case – and they’ll still have time to negotiate you a new mortgage deal, too. I’ve been amazed and delighted by how the limits on my time have helped me focus my mind and get sh*t done, because I simply don’t have time to fanny about.

I’ve also changed how I think about how I use my days off work. I used to think annual leave had to be used for a holiday or a trip away, or at least for a fancy meal out. And of course it’s great to keep some for those treats, but now I also keep a handful to do the things I can’t do the rest of the time. To sit in a café and write a blog. To go to the cinema by myself. To listen to a podcast with swearing in it without worrying that I’m going to damage the next generation.

I adore my girl and value our time together more than anything else in the world. Being her mum is also the hardest work I’ve ever done, so I do my best to take moments to myself where I can, so I can give her all I’ve got when we’re together.

Because we’re together a lot – most of the time in fact – which is exactly how I want it to be. Nonetheless, one of the other things I’ve found most surprising about life as a parent is how lonely it can feel, despite the fact that you’re in company almost constantly.

It’s the weight of the responsibility, I think. On the logistical front, it’s being the one in charge of deciding everything that we’ll do, when we’ll do it, and what we’ll need to have with us so that we survive the day/avoid significant social embarrassment.

And on the emotional side, the desperation that (when it’s just the two of us) only I feel to get things right for her can feel a bit isolating, too. All I want is to make her happy and to create days that make her feel loved, inspired, amused, interested, and, let’s not forget, sufficiently pooped so that she’ll sleep well, for all our sakes. It’s a lot to be responsible for getting out of a day, and when things don’t go to plan – which is all the time, by the way – it can get you down.

I am of course not on my own. My husband is just as much a parent as I am. But for two days of the week, he’s at work and I’m at home looking after our daughter. And on the days when I do go to work, I do the majority of the childcare around it, because he works longer hours than I do. As a result (and because we live in the society that we do), it’s me who takes responsibility for most of the bits and pieces that keep us going day to day. The meals we eat, the endless supply of milk our daughter requires, the admin that gets our bills paid and keeps the roof firmly over our heads, and so many more things that find their way on and off the ever-growing list that lives inside my brain.

I am incredibly happy and grateful for our life and feel appreciated for my efforts, I just sometimes feel a bit alone in my role, too. I expect we both do.

But as our daughter it getting older (all of a sudden she’ll turn two next month) and she’s getting better and better at communicating, she’s taking an increasingly active role in our time together, and it’s making me feel so much more… accompanied in everything that we do.

She can now express opinions (which, of course, can be inconvenient/tricky to manage, but let’s focus on the positives for now, shall we?), so she can tell me what she thinks of the ideas I have for us. The other day I told her we were going to the farm and she said “Yay! Yarm!” and it made the whole trip that bit more joyous because we were in on the decision to go together.

For a while, parenting feels like something you do ‘to’ your child, rather than with them, because you just have to make decisions on your own. It can be a lonely job, being in charge all the time, so it’s nice to start getting some feedback. It’s most definitely not always positive, but when it’s good, it makes the meltdowns worth facing. And every meltdown teaches me more about how to empathise and communicate with a child who still has so little control over her world.

When you’re expecting a baby, you understand that you’ll probably feel pain during the birth, tiredness after sleepless nights, and a relentless need to go for a wee every 20 minutes for the rest of your life, but you don’t think about what responsibility for your child will feel like in practice. I didn’t realise how much effort I’d have to put into feeling content as an individual (as well as a mum), but I’m glad I have as it’s made all the difference.

Though a lack of time to myself can be trying, knowing that I’m making every moment I do get count helps me feel like I’ve had a break, even if it’s a short one. And when the pangs of mum-life loneliness kick in, I’m lifted by how much more confident I now feel to make decisions for us, to try new things, and to talk about what a roller coaster motherhood can be.

34 things I know about myself and the world now I’m 34

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Every year to mark my birthday, I write a list of lessons I’ve learnt or things I want to say at this point in time. It’s a therapeutic ritual and I recommend it.

So here are 34 things I know about myself and the world now I’m 34 – yet another age that doesn’t feel anywhere near as old as I thought it would…

1. I know that when I sit on the sofa with a drink at my feet and think “I’ll definitely remember that’s there, there’s no way I’ll spill it,” what I’m really saying is: “I look forward to kicking that all over everything in a few minutes.”

2. I know that cheesecake is the world’s most overrated food and I do not apologise for this opinion.

3. I know that there is one person in every group of friends who is in charge of organising get-togethers and who LOVES to complain about how nobody else ever does it and then FREAKS OUT if anybody else ever tries. And hello, yes, that’s me.

4. I know that a solo trip to the cinema is one of the greatest gifts a person can give themselves and I’m just sorry I didn’t realise it sooner.

5. I know that the more energy I put into trying to make somebody like me, the less I will end up liking myself.

6. I know that periods can be a painful, inconvenient nightmare, but there is something undeniably joyful about selecting your biggest, most comfortable knickers to get you through those first, bloated hours.

7. I know that one of the things I find scariest about being a parent is the amount for which your children will forgive you.

8. I know that there’s a huge difference between someone who wants you, and someone who wants you to want them, and that unfortunately it’s not always until you’ve experienced the former that you can recognise the latter.

9. I know that splitting the backside of my favourite pair of jeans open taught me this about clothing: Just because you can do something up, it doesn’t mean it fits.

10. I know that realising I’d done the above just seconds before I left the house to go to brunch taught me you should ALWAYS CHECK YOUR REAR VIEW BEFORE STEPPING OUTSIDE.

11. I know that I sometimes absentmindedly rest my hand on my stomach, trying to protect a baby who now lives out in the world.

12. I know that there will come a point when I have to stop calling my daughter a ‘baby’ and I will get there in my own time. Do not rush me.

13. I know that the way you feel when you see your partner unexpectedly tells you everything you need to know about whether you’re spending your life with the right person.

14. I know that each of us has to take responsibility for our relationship with the internet and to choose to live a life where we feel in control of it, and not the other way around.

15. I know that it’s hypocritical of me to talk to my daughter about the importance of sharing when I find it so very difficult to share her.

16. I know that carrying a yogurt in your handbag is the riskiest game a human being can play.

17. I know that just because you’ve walked into a room and feel like you’re wearing the wrong thing, it doesn’t mean that you are. It’s always OK to dress like you.

18. I know that of all my life goals ‘That I will one day get on top of the washing’ is by far the most ambitious.

19. I know that the more evenly spread the balance of power is between two people, the better their friendship will be.

20. I know that every friend you make isn’t necessarily meant to be in your life forever. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t still worth knowing each other.

21. I know that if you value your time and your energy you shouldn’t even think about chopping a butternut squash. Just roast the bastard for an hour and a half and then do what you need to do with it. Save your blood, sweat and tears for a more worthwhile activity.

22. I know that just because somebody’s on their own it doesn’t mean they’re lonely, and that just because somebody’s in company, it doesn’t mean they’re not.

23. I know that if you want to make a dream a reality, you have to start being able to talk about it whilst looking people in the eye.

24. I know that though migraines are the bane of my life, they have taught me a lot about how much activity, stress, and socialising I can handle. Your body knows what you can take, so listen to it.

25. I know that I’ve never been to an actual swamp, but I have been in the bathroom after my husband has been in the shower, so I’m pretty confident I know what one looks like.

26. I know that it’s always a good time to remind the person you’re spending your life with that you love them just as they are, mess or no mess.

27. I know that you have two choices: spend your time doubting whether there’s space for you and your creative work, or spend your time creating that space by doing it.  

28. I know that the gap between what you imagine putting your child to bed will look like (reading them a bedtime story, rocking them to sleep, singing them lullabies) and what it actually looks like (being repeatedly kicked in the face/poked in the eye whilst you lie down with them to help them ‘settle’, saying ‘Yes, that’s a lovely tongue’ when they choose this moment to show you their entire mouth, getting so good at pretending to be asleep yourself that sometimes you do drift off) is VAST.

29. I know that there will come a time when I don’t sit with my daughter in my lap every night, reading her the exact same books before she goes to bed, and I miss it already.

30. I know that we trick ourselves into thinking that we’re working towards an end point in our lives where our achievements will be added up and evaluated. And I know that the older you get and the more milestones you tick off, the more apparent it becomes that that end point doesn’t exist.

31. I know that one of the greatest gifts my daughter has given me is total abandonment of my sense of self-consciousness. I will sing in the street, I will moo, baa and neigh on the train, and I will dance like she’s the only person watching. In so many ways, she has set me free.

32. I know that the moment things go wrong, you realise just how happy your life made you as it was, but that we don’t have to wait till then to notice.

33. I know that at 34 there’s still so much that I want to do, but that for the life we’ve built so far I am grateful.

34. I know that it never ceases to amaze me since we started our family how quickly our time together passes by. And that all I really want for my birthday this year is more, so much more of it.

8 things to do in Copenhagen with a toddler

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The thing about going on holiday with a toddler, is that no matter where you go or what you do, it’ll still be hard work. Holidays are no longer about rest, they’re about change. They’re about doing your usual billion parenting tasks somewhere else. They’re about picking up your family, going somewhere new, and making lovely memories together – and ideally paying somebody else to cook at least one of your meals each day, and not having to think about the washing up.

We went to Copenhagen from 1 – 6 July 2019 and had an ace time. We were keen to go somewhere that wasn’t swelteringly hot at this time of year, as that can be tricky to manage with a small person in tow. And we also wanted there to be lots of fun stuff to do, so this got a double tick.

I found blogs written by other parents who have been to Denmark with children really helpful, so I thought I’d share what we enjoyed too, in case you fancy taking a trip. I recommend it.

Amager Beach Park

Yes, there’s a beach. I was surprised too! We stayed in Amager, which though not in central Copenhagen, is still very handy for getting to and from the airport and around the city. And a particularly cool element of the area is that it has a beach.

We went on our first day, which was a bit on the windy side, and we were all a bit tired and hungry, but that says nothing about the beach and everything about our ability to plan.

We still had a nice wander around and a look out to sea, and I’m sure that on a calmer day and with full stomachs it would make for a really great trip out. My toddler had a good time jumping about in the sand, because that’s fun whatever the weather.

The LEGO store, Copenhagen

We did the next four activities in one day, starting with a visit to Copenhagen’s LEGO store, because, well, when in Rome.

I’d seen a visit to the store recommended on another blog and I’m so glad we went because our daughter loved it. Of course she did – it’s brightly coloured, there are giant (to her, anyway) LEGO figures to point at, and she could touch and play and run around, which is pretty much all she wants from life.

I thought it was brilliant too. Long time readers will know that I’m not exactly a Star Wars enthusiast (my first ever Star Wars film viewing was embarrassingly recent), but I still thought the LEGO stormtrooper, R2-D2 and C-3PO (yes I had to google the names of the last two) were pretty cool. And I liked Nyhavn Harbour just as much in miniature as I did in real life.

All in all it made for a very fun 20 minute stop.

Hans Christian Andersen Fairytale House

About a five minute walk from the LEGO store is this slightly creepy, but actually very sweet and fun little fairytale house. Again, it felt only right to engage with something so very Danish whilst in Denmark, so in we went.

Right next to Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, this is a small interactive museum that takes you through the life and stories of Hans Christian Andersen. We went with a speedy 19 month old, so anything that didn’t light up or play music failed to get her attention. That meant we passed through the first few historical-focused bits pretty quickly as they were too dark to catch her eye.

But when we got to the sections devoted to each story, she was much more engaged. There were buttons to press and figures that moved (the ballerina she’s pointing at above was a favourite) and she seemed to find it all very entertaining.

The adults were all childishly amused by the proud-looking naked emperor in the Emperor’s New Clothes exhibit whose reflection somehow magically became clothed in the mirror, so that was 180 DKK well spent (it’s 60 DKK each to get in).

They warn you on the door that it doesn’t take long to get around the house, as it’s only a small place, but we still thought it was worth it. You don’t do anything for very long with a small person anyway, do you, so another 20 minutes or so of fun was enough for us before lunch.

Torvehallerne Food Market

I absolutely bloody love a food market on holiday. Can’t get enough of them. We walked over here post LEGO/fairytale excitement and after feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amazing choice of food on offer, we settled on a couple of salmon and broccoli quiches and ate them outside.

It definitely would have been better for us if we’d been able to find a highchair, as our daughter became understandably keen to escape our laps and tear around, but it was still fun to be there and to eat tasty food in the sunshine.

I have this thing for purchasing nectarines whilst on holiday – are they juicier abroad, somehow? – so I bagged us six from the market before we left and then shared one a day with our toddler in the afternoon whilst we recovered from a day out with an episode of Peppa Pig. It became a lovely, if sticky, little ritual.

Tivoli Gardens

After lunch at the market and with a sleeping toddler in the pram, we headed into Tivoli. Not your average theme park, Tivoli doesn’t just have rides and roller coasters, it’s also home to beautiful gardens, which are ideal for a sit or a toddle around.

My husband took the opportunity to go on ‘The Demon’ roller coaster with our friend whilst our daughter slept and I pretended to be sorry not to go on it too (the constant highs and lows of parenting are enough of an adrenaline rush for me nowadays).

When our toddler woke up, it was great to take her for a walk around Tivoli so she could take it all in. There are rides that are suitable for little ones, but we didn’t feel confident she was ready for that kind of thing, so we just stuck to strolling for now, which was lovely. It was an ideal way to spend a couple of hours in the afternoon before we headed home for tea.

National Aquarium Denmark, Den Blå Planet

Aquariums are ace for small children and I thought this one was particularly great. It’s the biggest in Northern Europe and set in a beautifully designed, modern building overlooking the sea.

There’s so much to see, from hammerhead sharks, stingrays and turtles, to tropical fish, piranhas and – my personal favourite – sea otters. I love the tanks that come low enough for toddlers to see everything without having to be picked up by an adult, so they can be free to point and wave and move around as much as they like.

The tunnel through ‘The Ocean’ is a particular highlight for everybody, and our daughter also loved playing in the toy submarine and sitting in a giant neon (fake) sea anemone – because who wouldn’t?

As a Brit who’s used to pretty crappy food options at large-scale child-focused attractions, I assumed there would be nothing worth eating on offer at the aquarium, but I was wrong. The restaurant is great – we sat outside overlooking the sea and ate fishcakes and chips. All round, an excellent day out.

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art

This is the coolest art gallery I’ve ever been to. Not many come with their own sculpture park and a sea view, but now that I’ve been here, I wish they all did. If you have time for a day outside of the city, this is definitely worth a trip. (Take a train to Humlebæk. It took us about an hour.)

From a toddler perspective, the grounds are definitely the best bit. There’s lots of space to run around, huge trees, and interesting sculptures to look at and hide behind. I only wish it hadn’t rained when we were there so we could have spent more time outside.

There’s a great café which, again, sells nice food for everyone, including delicious coconut macarons I can’t stop thinking about.

Taking a toddler around the gallery is fun too as there’s lots to see and long corridors to wander through, but I must admit it was easier when she went into her pram for a nap and we could have a proper look around without worrying she’d somehow accidentally get us thrown out.

So I recommend going when nap time is on the horizon so you can have a nice dose of grown up culture time too. There’s an exhibition by Pipilotti Rist on at the moment and we absolutely loved it.

Copenhagen Zoo

We had such a fun time at the zoo. We’d never taken our daughter to a big zoo before, so it was very special for all of us. And not only does this one have every creature you’d normally hope to see, it also has polar bears. I honestly don’t know which of us was more excited. There’s a great enclosure where they swim right in front of you and over your heads and it’s amazing.

Other highlights included the wonderful elephant house (until one of them trumpeted so loud that it scared the living daylights out of all of us and proved that the noise I’ve led my daughter to believe they make is way too cute), the lions, the chimpanzees and the Savanna, which is home to giraffes, zebras and rhinos.

And once again the food was lovely. Honestly, UK attractions really need to up their game. We ate at FOLK and shared fishcakes and meatballs. Seeing as we obviously couldn’t go out in the evenings and engage in the more grown up culinary delights Copenhagen had to offer, it was a genuine joy to find such nice food to eat during days out.

So in summary, Copenhagen is great. We did a lot, so we were exhausted by the time we got back to London, but it was worth it.

If you go, I hope you have a wonderful time too. And if you have any comments or questions, please feel free to get in touch!

This much I know about toddlers

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That when job applications ask if you speak any other languages, you should be able to get credit for speaking ‘Conversational toddler’.

That preparing a toddler for nursery, transporting them there, dropping them off and then negotiating the buggy shed requires so much energy and generates such volumes of sweat that it should be recognised as an Olympic sport.

That toddlers make you so attuned to risk that even when there are no children around and you see a small object you still feel the need to warn everybody in the vicinity NOT TO PUT IT IN THEIR MOUTH.

That trying to get a toddler to wear a sunhat may be the hardest work you’ll ever do.

That the volume of books you read to toddlers about farms and zoos highlight the gaps in your education when it comes to animal noises. If there’s a Facebook group dedicated to achieving consensus about the sound we should all make to represent a giraffe, I’d like to join it.

That toddlers throw so much food on the floor and you have so little time to yourself that before long you start hoovering up every damp, chewed up morsel and calling it dinner.

That there is no ‘correct’ way to help a toddler eat, sleep, or do anything really, because they’re human beings, not robots. You just have to find a way that works them and for you and resist the temptation to compare it with anyone else’s.

That the confidence and sense of entitlement with which a toddler will steal food off your plate/out of your hand/straight from your mouth is nothing short of inspiring.

That toddlers teach you more about who you really are than any personality test ever could. Mine sighs like me, dances like me, and becomes impossible to communicate with when she’s overtired, just like me.

That toddler demands are generally pretty reasonable. The trouble is that, because they can’t really communicate yet, the process of getting you to understand those demands can feel somewhat unreasonable. I find it helps to remember that it’s the situation that’s difficult, not the person.

That a toddler’s absolute faith in you to be there to save them should they fall off the sofa, misjudge their ability to balance on the bed, or regret climbing into a cupboard is both touching and terrifying in equal measure.

That toddlers make simple things suddenly seem magical. There’s a metal elephant in our garden, left by the previous owner. I’ve always thought it was fine but my daughter thinks it’s AMAZING, so now I do too. A toddler’s ability to get excited about small things is contagious and good for the soul.

That toddlers are little people learning to make decisions. And when that decision is to give you a cuddle, it feels like the best present you’ve ever received.

…But when it’s to empty the entire contents of your purse across a restaurant floor, it feels like maybe letting them look through your handbag was a mistake.

That toddlers are here to teach you that the answer to the question “But how much mess can one small person really make in this house with a yogurt anyway?” is: So much that you’ll wonder if it would be easier to just move out and start again than to even attempt to try and clear up.

That toddler-care involves a lot of jobs: feeding, dressing, changing, washing, translating, lifting, feeding some more. And it’s easy to get caught up in the tasks and lose sight of the little person you’re doing them for, particularly when you’re tired. I’m trying my best not to.

That being the parent of a toddler is the reason I’m now incapable of walking passed a dog without saying “Doggy!” Or that’s what I tell people anyway.

That when it comes to books, toddlers have two settings: 1. I will allow you to read one sentence from this book, close it so quickly that you get a paper cut and then select another; and 2. This is my favourite book in the world, please read it again and again and again until one of us passes out. (It’ll be you).

That there is no need to have a toddler and a gym membership. All you need to do is tell your child that you’re going to put suntan lotion on them and by the time you’ve chased them down and applied it, you’ll have done all your exercise for the year.

That toddlers have the warmest, softest little hands, and that walking about with my daughter’s in mine is my favourite thing to do.

That, if you let yourself, you could spend every second you’re responsible for a toddler feeling scared, worried, exhausted and confused.

But that it’s better for everyone if you focus instead on how joyful, love-filled, and fun this job can be, and just keep on doing your best.

Does parenting get easier? Nope, you just get more resilient

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You’re about to discover just how strong you really are. That’s the sentence I find myself saying to friends about to have babies.

I say it because it sounds wise and reassuring, but also because it’s gentler than saying “That child is going to DESTROY YOU – but don’t worry, you’ll cope.”

The trick to parenting is resilience. Without it, you’re screwed. But the good news is, you can’t help but develop it.

As I see it, these are the three main things that simultaneously test and build your resilience when you’re a parent.

1. The fact that you don’t really have a choice

My daughter is almost 16 months old and at no point in her life so far have her demands been negotiable.

When she wants milk, she wants it now. When she wants a snack, she wants it now. When she wants me, for reasons only she understands, to let her into the bathroom so that she can grab a clean nappy and wear it around her neck like a scarf, she expects this opportunity to come about THIS INSTANT.

Since the moment she was born, it’s been our job to give her what she needs, when she needs it. No matter how tired, emotional, confused, scared, fed up, distracted or lost we felt, we had to keep going.

What it means to be truly at someone’s beck and call 24/7 takes some getting used to. You know that’s what you’re signing up for, but not what the reality will feel like.

I’m grateful that I don’t have a choice in the matter, that it’s my duty to serve her, and that I’m unable to function if she’s unhappy. Because it means I don’t have time to stop and think.

I don’t take a moment at 3am when she’s calling for me, to ask if this particular moment is convenient. And I don’t make time to notice that I’ve made her breakfast everyday for almost a year and a half now and never once has she even offered to make mine.

This is my job and I need to show up for it, rain or shine.

But of course that doesn’t mean your wellbeing isn’t important. Strength comes from giving yourself permission to matter too. To speak honestly about how you feel, to do activities with your baby that fill you both up, and to acknowledge that if you’re happy, they’re happy.

2. The fact that the best and worst bits will be a surprise

Your resilience is tested every time something happens that you weren’t expecting. Which is all the time.

Every single one of our best and worst moments has come out of the blue.

I didn’t expect to find breastfeeding so difficult.

I didn’t expect to realise in the middle of Heathrow Airport after we’d checked in our luggage, been through security, and ordered an ill-advised salad with a well-advised side order of chips, that those spots on our daughter’s ears were chickenpox and we wouldn’t be flying anywhere today.

I didn’t expect to spend 28 hours in hospital with her whilst she had antibiotics pumped into her little veins to rid her of an eye infection.

I never expect her to fall over but she does, all the time.

I often lie awake at night worrying about all the things that could happen and trying to work out how I can become organised enough to ensure that they won’t.

It’s a tough moment when you realise that there are only so many to-do lists you can write and parenting articles you can read. Surprises will still occur. But with every one that does, you gather more evidence that you can and will cope.

3. The fact that your heart lives in your child’s hands, and they can crush it whenever they like

I can find the words to describe most things, but I can’t describe the way I feel about my daughter.

When she was born, the love was so overwhelming that it broke us; more than the sleep deprivation or the attempts at feeding, or the c-section recovery. The hard and fast tumble in love with this baby was almost more than we could handle.

But of course, only almost. You get used to functioning in a world where you feel this way.

You get used to feeling genuine physical pain when your child cries.

You get used to how brutal it feels every time one of your efforts to give them a good start in life is rejected – a homemade muffin chucked on the floor, an attempt to get them dressed that ends in tears, a lovingly-read bedtime story during which they get up and leave the room.

You get used to feeling guilty every time they get ill, sad, hungry, thirsty, too hot, too cold, frustrated you won’t let them eat paper, displeased with one of their socks… basically every second of the day.

All I want on this earth is for my daughter to be happy, but because she’s a human being, she’s going to experience a lot of other emotions as well. As her mum I have to become resilient enough to handle that reality.

Because it’s not just me who needs to be able to cope. I have to help her grow up ready to face the highs and lows life will throw her way, too.