This week I’ve been labelling and ironing Polly’s school uniform ready for the next big adventure in our family life, obviously it’s got me looking back on 4 years of life with her and her siblings and one of the things I realised was how different expectations are from the reality of parenting- I know I’ve done at least one post on this before but I thought this would be a good time to add to the mix with the new experiences we’ve picked up.

While I was thinking all these thoughts (and messaging Auntie Jen the possibly stupid question of ‘what do I do about the socks?!’) Polly was trying various things on and she got a bit stuck on the buttons and I was reminded that these are the things they don’t tell you that you need to teach them. You think you’ll spend hours practicing ABC’s and that, but in reality you might spend 10 minutes of your day trying to get them to recognise their own name and then an hour practicing buttons, zips, putting socks on. Call me stupid but before becoming a mum I did not think I’d be spending 5 minutes each morning teaching someone the easiest way to put their socks on . Maybe I’m just buying the wrong design of socks!

Sticking with the clothing theme there’s the time where it switches to you encouraging them to pick their own clothes out and even dress themselves- this stage proves equally stressful as it does hilarious. However, I didn’t anticipate having arguments with a 4 year old that go along these lines-

Me: “You need to put trousers on too.”

Polly: “No I don’t, I’ve got my long socks on today.”

Me: “Yes but they are exactly that- socks, so you need something else on if you want to leave this house.”

It went on for a full 10 minutes before she finally gave up and put some shorts on.

Now we haven’t reached the joy of teaching her how to tie shoe laces yet, (I’m happy for her to stay in Velcro shoes till she moves out) but it turns out that’s jumping the gun way too early anyway. First of all you must go through the stage of teaching them which shoe goes on which foot- for weeks and weeks.

Pre children you might envisage joyfully spent time with your inquisitive child pondering great questions like ‘Mummy, why is the sky blue?”- the reality goes more like this, “Mummy, why is that man bald?” And in case you’re wondering, yes, yes they will ask these questions loud enough for the whole street to hear.

Another thing you might dream up is mornings spent with blocks teaching your child to count. This might have happened with Polly and I was all ready to start with Seb when he decided to jump the gun massively. We were playing hide & seek the other day when he stood up and proceeded to count to 10 with no warning. I mean I didn’t know he could count to 3 let alone 10! I know I shouldn’t brag but it’s nice to be able to have a little brag when a lot of my stories involve something disgusting or embarrassing!

Obviously the toilet teaching area of parenthood comes with its ups and downs, I didn’t think it would take almost 6 months of persuading to get a 4 year old to realise their arms are ‘strong enough’ to flush the toilet. She now thinks it’s hilarious and proudly declares that she’s flushed everything away.

In pre children times I also liked to think of afternoons filled with arts and crafts- with laughing and I’m guessing minimal mess as how hard is it to keep things tidy during arts and crafts sessions. Turns out they only need precisely 30 seconds of alone time to wipe that smug fantasy firmly out of your brain. 30 seconds is enough time to draw a masterpiece on the wall. 30 seconds is enough time to glue the table then pour a whole pot of glitter onto that sticky patch. Imagine what they can do when you get distracted for 5 whole minutes- the light blue laptop definitely needed some orange steaks to improve its look.

So you also think you’ll be watching lots of wholesome kids tv provided by the likes of CBeebies. In reality while your child is sat absorbed in the twirly woos you’ll find yourself opening the can of worms that is questioning kids tv- just don’t do it or you’ll find yourself googling things like “how does Peso operate a stethoscope with flippers? Where are Bing’s parents? What the actual frick is In the Night Garden about?” Because you’ll soon find yourself reading disturbing threads on mumsnet about Iggle Piggle and co that might just scar you forever.

Of course one of the great things about having kids is that you have the perfect excuse to watch all those Disney classics again. Although I didn’t expect to have a heated discussion with a strong willed 4 year old who thinks ‘Butch’ from the Lady in the Tramp is pronounced slightly different (God knows what the neighbours thought that afternoon when Polly spent 10 minutes shouting “it’s Bitch bitch bitch”).

Covering the topic of going out with kids could have it’s own blog filled with hilarious anecdotes of the realities but I’m not setting another one up so instead here’s a picture of what happened when we went for a catch up with friends this week…

Then we have the hot topic of food. The expectation when you’re weaning them is one of smug satisfaction when they are smiling away eating anything you put on the high chair tray. The reality is that no matter how you go about weaning them they will hit a certain point where everything is yucky instead- or ‘dusty’ (covered in sauce or even just sitting too close to some sort of sauce) if you’re Polly. And it can escalate rapidly from just turning down broccoli to turning down whole meals. “What do you mean you don’t like lasagne anymore? I have photos of you literally wearing it from 6 months ago?!”

And then we have bedtime. I could write a whole post on bedtime alone but I think a lot of it has probably been discussed a lot so I’ll just pop in one last little anecdote to sum up what it’s really like. You might have conjured up scenes of being all cosied up together creating magical stories about dragons and mermaids. In reality you might just find yourself pretending to phone up Jake Peralta to come and round up all the bad dreams and take them to jail.