Kids? Who would have them?

Being a parent is obviously a very serious thing, but sometimes, you have to look at the lighter side.

When you have your baby, and have put the pain of labour and the screaming at your partner to 'never come near you again' to one side, you are left with a little bundle of supposed joy to take home and not really know what to do with. I remember taking my first baby home from the hospital after a very traumatic birth, putting her down in her car seat and just looking at her thinking "what do I do with her now"? Of course, that thought soon went away when she started to cry and I realised all the things I actually had to do. The nappy changes, the feeding, dealing with the changes with my own body.

My daughter didn't sleep, on occasion she would nap, usually when we were in somebody else's presence, as if to make me out to be a liar. She fed.. a lot, in fact I am pretty sure that she spent most of her days and nights hanging off of me like a vampire. And then ofcourse, there was the bottom end to deal with.. she fed a lot so therefore, she also pooped a lot too, nappies brimming over with green brown sludge that leaked out the sides of her clothes, and lets not forget projectile vomiting, which was lovely!

So, having a baby, a bundle of joy, was pure bliss of course. She was loved so much I thought one day I would explode or hurt her because I wanted to hold her so tight. Especially when she was actually asleep, even if that meant I was standing up asleep myself.

3 years later, she still had not slept through the night, not once so we tried to sort this with a very helpful book, using a method that means leaving your child for 1 minute, then returning, then 2 minutes and returning and so on. This enabled me and my husband to sit on the stairs crying like babies ourselves through complete exaustion and sleep deprivation while Chloe screamed and cried and eventually pull her stairgate off the wall.

Eventually however, Chloe did sleep, exactly 3 months before her brother was born, just in time for me to start the whole process over again.

Fortunately, Bailey was a much better sleeper and sleep deprivation finally left us, but out came a new monster. Bailey wouldn't feed. Every mouthful immediately came out and he couldn't breathe properly. Which after a few months of investigation and worry, it turned out he had a dairy allergy, and mucus was stuffing up his lungs. A new diet of soya, and inhalors happily helped him, but it did mean that for the first 2 years of his life we had to walk around wrapped up in towels so we didn't constantly smell of vomit, and eating out could end quite violently when his dinner would end up on someone else's plate!

Happily though, not only do kids give you hell, they also bring you the most heart warming pleasure also, from their first smiles, their first words, their first steps their first questions. Which sometimes can be very awkward conversations indeed. My daughter once came home from school when she was 5 years old and announced she wanted to be a lesbian. "you want to be what"? I asked completely shocked. "I want to be a lesbian" she said again "ok hunny, why do you say that"? she looked at me hard and said "because its not fair that we kill animals just to eat them is it"? Of course, I corrected her mistake and she became a vegetarian, for about a month until she realised that meant she could not eat her favourite sausages. Then, there is my son, who at the age of eight overheard his sister and I talking about being psychic and tried to join the conversation. "You don't even know what psychic is"! said Chloe, "I do"! replied Bailey adamantly. "what is it then"? she asked. "Its someone who is not quite good enough to be a super hero"! came the reply. How sweet!

We are in high school phase now, Chloe is getting ready to do GCSE's and Bailey is getting ready to do his SAT's. Its been a hard few years. Their daddy and I divorced, we have suffered with the death of our beloved dog Sonny and their grandfather and also their 18 year old cousin. Nothing amazes me more than my children's resilience. They bounce back from any set back and continue smiling, no matter how sad they are. They do this for me, they want to make ME happy and that blows me away every day, THEY blow me away every day, my beautiful, funny, clever kids.

So, when people ask me "did you want to have children before you had them"? My answer would maybe be no, but I am so glad I did, they have made me the person who I am today, they enrich my life and I wouldn't have changed a thing, well, maybe only the sleeping and vomiting thing.