Sunday, January 13, 2013

Are You Ready For Motherhood? Take my 10 Point Test.


How could you not love this?
I am not really a mummy blogger. Call it escapism, but I prefer writing about interior styling, design and cooking. I love my kids and would never want to give them back or God forbid lose them, but if I am completely honest, I do often wonder if I knew what I know now, would I have had them at all? Of course the answer is a big yes, but like lots of mothers, it has been hard for me. I am an only child and looking back now, I was very loved but terribly spoilt. My mother did everything for me and although I had a fabulous childhood, not having to ever lift a finger, was not great training for motherhood. Anyhow I have had a rude awakening as a wife and mother and can now slave away with the best of them.  My mum would probably call it pay back.

This part of motherhood is cr*p

As a result of these questions I ask myself about motherhood and my love hate relationship with it, it was with great interest, that I heard Chrissy Swan laughing about a funny test designed for women to see if they were ready to take the leap into motherhood. It made me laugh and after a major drink spillage this week at the beach house, which just about did my head in, I was inspired to create a 10 point test that I wish I could have taken before I made the decision to reproduce.  It may have given me some inkling as to what I was in for. Here's what I came up with.  Take the test and see how you fare.  If you can do all this stuff, then you will be well suited to all the pitfalls of motherhood. Believe me there are many. If you can't and you still want to be a mum, you will need to learn to suck it up like I am still trying to.

Thankfully they can be very loveable
1. Take two good quality large clothes pegs. Attach one to each of your nipples in 2 hourly increments, 6 or 7 times over 24 hours. Every 5 minutes or so twist the pegs vigorously in a circular direction for several rotations.  If you can handle the associated pain and think you can do it for an absolute minimum of 6 months day in day out, then you are a good candidate for breast feeding.  

2. Get yourself down to the local fruit market and purchase several 10kg bags of oranges. Tie 2 bags together with a length of rope, such that you can sling the bags around your neck. Leave them in place indefinitely even if your knees, back and hips are killing you. This will simulate the weight you may gain during pregnancy. In my case, I would have needed to carry it around for a further 8 years to simulate the time it took to lose it.
Carrying way too much baby weight here.  Yuck
3. Wrap a wet hand towel around the bottom of a 5kg bag of oranges. Set the alarm clock for 11pm. Go to bed at 8.30pm. But wake up at 10pm. Get up. Take the wet towel off the bag of oranges and rewrap with a dry towel. Carry the bag of oranges around for the next 2 hours gently rocking it. Reapply the pegs to your nipples now and repeat the instructions in test 1. Finally put the bag down, reset your alarm for 2am and try to get a few hours sleep before repeating the whole catastrophe again.  Be prepared to repeat similar versions of this scenario, every night for up to 2 years. 

I always tried to keep the toys in the playpen even if the baby refused to be in there
4. Visit the local charity store. Purchase as many toys and kids books as you can. Mini kitchens, plastic toy benches including tools,  dolls prams and cots will be of great significance here. The more broken and chewed the better. Cart them home, toss them around the living room and leave them there indefinitely. Don't forget to put a collection of plastic toys in the bathroom as well. If they are full of water and mouldy, well all the better.



5. Do 3 to 4 loads of washing at once and hang them out several days later. When you bring the washing in in a weeks time, dump the basket in the corner of the living room. Leave it there for some time. It will go beautifully with those toys.

6. Make several cups of tea or coffee throughout the day. Each time, leave your hot drink on the bench top.  Whilst you are waiting for it to go completely cold, crumble the biscuit you were planning to eat with your drink and toss it around the room. Make sure you walk it into the carpet.  Leave it there for at least 24 hours. Return to your cuppa and drink it, but only if it is stone cold.

Do not expect to drink a hot cup of tea for many months after the birth of your baby
7. In a large bowl mix Thai fish sauce, sour milk and crushed prawn shells.  Decant into a shaker and sprinkle the contents through your car. Leave it in the sun with the windows closed for a day. Get into it and drive it around on your daily errands. Have you ever had baby spew/poo in your car? No? Well if you can survive this test you will be able to cope with it, when it inevitably occurs.

Even this chunky thing is way too small
8. Take a large bag, fill it with nappies, baby wipes, nappy bags, dummies, baby toys, a change of clothes for you and the baby,  baby formula and bottles, if you can't face the peg test above. Carry it around for the next  2 years, each time you go out. Gone will be the days where you can leave home with a clutch bag and a bottle of French champagne. Get over it.


9. Get dressed up for a very important social event. Just as you are leaving the house, spray yourself with the same mixture you prepared for the car. Burst into tears, jump in the shower, find another suitable outfit that may or may not need ironing.  It's probably over there in the washing basket in the living room, which has been sitting there for a month.  Get dressed and attempt to leave the house again. Don't forget all the oranges and your big bag of baby stuff.

10. Take one small cup of Nudie juice. That's all you will need to completely ruin the carpet.  If you don't have Nudie juice at this stage, red wine will do. The effect will be identical. Slosh it from one end of the TV room to the other. Get down on your knees and scrub the carpet clean as best you can. Accept the fact it will never look the same again.

And just so you don't forget the pain I was in, here it is again.....arrrgh
And believe me all of this has really happened in my motherhood experience. I could go on and on, but I think the above is a good sample of a few of the realities involved.  I might write another one of these tests for tweens one day.  I would love to hear any motherhood ready tests you could add in the comments. Or are you in the camp who prefers to keep the unbearable bits of motherhood a secret?

36 comments :

  1. You are too funny, Caro. Yes, that is exactly what it's like. I do feel for you with your carpet - as for me; I gave up on furnishings long ago. We have bare floor boards and leather couches and leather seats in the car - it's so much easier to hose down then carpet and fabric. I might write one of these for parenting with teenagers - but you'd be wise not to read it because in my experience, teenagers are ten times worse than toddlers! xx

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    1. I knew I'd get just as many laughs out of the comments as I did from writing this post and I wasn't wrong. Being a teacher I have a small inkling of teenagers. But as with toddlers and war, you just don't get it until you go through it. Instead of driveways, swimming pools and chokable items it's all sex, drugs and rock and roll I guess. I would be very interested to read your take on it though.
      Carolyn

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  2. Just about nodded my head off to 5 & 6 and the worst thing is I still do it even though mine are almost 9 and 11! Funny and honest post Carolyn. Loved it :)
    Cas x

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  3. Too funny but oh so true.You forgot to add the nagging husband who wants some special time with him and who pouts when you hear the kids cry and have to stop to look after the kids.or just when you think you have some alone time with your husband its "mum i'm scared cant sleep can I get in your bed" I would never give the kid part up but the husband ....... well thats another story-love dee x

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  4. Oh, if every want-to-be-mom could only read this! We have a 5 year old daughter, and my answer would be NO! She was a very difficult child, with acid reflux, and cried approx. 16 hours a day for the first several months. And, then, just became an all around cranky baby. Oh, and did I forget to mention extremely moody?! We prayed for her for over 9 years, and she is truly a miracle baby...but now I think I know why God waited so long before He gave her to us. I needed the maturity to handle her! And, would we have done it again, had we known then what we know now? Nope! She is very loved, but she was just too hard of a baby, then child to want to deal with. And, just imagine if I had had twins?! (inwardly growning here, lol!)

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  5. Im still on the dont want kids side of the fence and this post has only confirmed my reasons for this! Plus I dont think I can ever look at a peg without cringing from now on!!

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  6. Oh how I laughed out loud! The washing one is especially true for me, sometimes it's so bad my kids have to come and ask me to find something to wear off the couch! And you throw on something as you race out the door and wonder why it smells...oh, yeah, it sat in the washing Machine for a day or two going musty! Having said that, I wouldntgive up my kids for anything. Bugger the clean house, the extra baby weight, no time to myself, the inability to EVER go to the loo on my own, etc. The day will come when all my four are at school and I'll wonder why the house is so quiet.
    And I love Dees comments, sometimes the husbands are the hardest 'work' of all ;)
    Alison

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  7. I agree entirely, however, I don't think these warnings will work. BK (Before Kids) I thought I knew it all - I was going to be a text book mother, from the birth to the day they left home. I just thought all the bad things happened due to bad parenting. If I had read your list BK, I would have scoffed and thought you just couldn't handle motherhood. HOW WRONG WAS I!!!

    Very funny post Carolyn.

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    1. The world needs people like you Jodie or the species would have died out aeons ago. Perhaps the greens should use this post in their mantra as they are calling for less humans entering the world.

      Oh and take heart that I was a brilliant mother until I had kids. Even started out with cloth nappies......what the hell was I thinking.
      Carolyn

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  8. Thanks for a giggle! 5 and 6 particularly resonated with me :)

    If I'd read this before motherhood I would have thought you were joking, oh how were become resilient so quickly! Lucky really.

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  9. cute kids!
    it's hard work that never stops.
    x

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  10. All so true!! Hilarious Carolyn, I've been sniggering and choking away as I read it.

    I've no idea why we do it in the first place... and then go back for more. It's madness and miracle all at the same time.

    We got deep brown carpets for upstairs and how I long for leather seats in the car. O

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  11. Brilliant post - tell it like it is I say. I don't pretend that motherhood is all roses and cupcakes, it sure as hell ain't and I'm no saint of a mother either. Couldn't survive it without that 5 o'clock wine! Find the whole thing a real challenge at times, and often I say to my husband "that's it, I don't want to be a parent anymore, I'm done. " Good to hear the warts and all side of it.

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  12. Laughing as I read this. I'm so over all this and glad of it.

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  13. Such a cute post, as a mom, grandmother and great-grandmother I have experienced this three times around. (All except the breast feeding.) So funny. Thanks for joining TTT. Hugs, Marty

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  14. Hahaha! So true! This is hilarious :)

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  15. Found you from The Shabby Chic Cottage. If I were brutal I would say now try all that without a husband and be a foreigner living in Italy - homework in Italian!! But actually I think it all gets better, the day comes when they grow up some and start bringing you cappuccinos or a peanut butter sandwich cut in the shape of a heart, while your working.

    Really funny post.

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  16. Great idea :) Although it makes mothering sound like torture. I take the path of least resistance and take care to look after myself. So far I haven't found it too challenging. Maybe I'm just lucky.

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  17. Ever since I was a kid I wanted to be a mother. After miscarrying a baby girl, I had my son at 22. When he turned 5 wks old, I was strong enough(I'm diabetic) to leave my husband and filed for divorce. Took a computer course and was able to get a higher paying job.

    When he was 3 yrs old I moved to Vancouver where I worked 3 jobs(1 F/T & 2 P/T) in order to make it. Now he is 28 yrs old and I have a 21 yr old now in a very happy marriage.

    I would do it all again. Being a mom is the greatest thing in the world(In my opinion).

    Your kids are so cute and the pictures are priceless!!

    Have a great weekend!!!

    Pam
    xox

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  18. Lol great test - i read one by Colin Bowles prior to having children , then someone read it out loud in CHIldren's ward one night ...a roomful of mums were almost on the floor rolling with laughter or running to loo.

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  19. Ha ha very funny! the clothes pegs on the nips couldn't be more accurate. I am currently looking after my own toddler and my 6 month old nephew while they visit us. It is most definitely an eye opener!!
    Popped over from Grace at FYBF :-)

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  20. Lol absolutely love it and thank God for the honest bloggers! I didn't breast feed but can relate to absolutely everything else. Love all the comments - so true that before motherhood we all have this vision of how we are going to parent and how our children will all be model specimens...yeah right! I have 3 boys and some days I think they've driven me beyond the point of insanity! xx

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  21. You are killing me with laughter... so true, so true. Although the breastfeeding thing gets better, and eventually they learn to keep the contents of their stomach IN their stomach! You should add to your list peeling potatoes at dinnertime with one hand while you hold the bag of oranges on the other hip with the radio sitting on top, loudly blaring. Yes. It happened.
    I feel for you with the carpet - I suspect it's about the same calibre as foundation. (We tried warm soapy water, make up remover, carpet cleaner, boiling water (since it seemed to have an oily base)... the list goes on! Hope you find something that will take the stain out.

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  22. LOL! Oh, baby vomit! The smell. The texture...I remember the first time the twins spewed all over me after a breastfeed. The warm ooze going down my jeans and juggling to get two babies off a breastfeeding pillow. But yes, we love them so...

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  23. Oh Carolyn, this is just too funny. The mouldy bath toys, the car smell - you've nailed it all!

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  24. Oh so clever and oh so true! Visiting from weekend rewind

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  25. I love this! I am so glad to find someone else going through the same things... My husband always turns his nose up at the smell of my car. I was the baby of the family and also spoilt. My first baby was the biggest shock, I had no idea what was going on. Lucky I followed it up with the 2nd only 17 months later, so that was easier (I think I may have been so sleep deprived, I actually didn't know what was going on each day...)

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  26. Love it! I'm so glad those days of changing oranges are behind me. Thanks for Rewinding!

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  27. HILARIOUS!!! I just love this and you have hit the nail on the head with this test. Sadly, it's true that there are a lot more things that could be added to this list, but we don't want to make the population become extinct! :-)
    Popping over from The Rewind. Really had a good laugh at this!

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  28. Sigh… sadly I wasn't able to have kids though desperately wanted to. I'm not sure I would have been ready though!

    Deb

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  29. Very funny! Lucky they are just too cute!!!!!

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  30. Ahhh Number 7. Miss 17's room (which is always a pigsty) smelled like that over the weekend only worse - like vomit. We finally tracked the smell down to a cup of coffee that had spilled over a stuffed toy, clothes and her carpet. The smell was the sour milk. Despite washing and bicarb soda and vacuuming it's still a bit whiffy but better than it was. I can't believe I'm saying this but I'm beginning to look forward to my girl moving out!!!!!!!!

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  31. I am a sucker for punishment then. Going back for more orange bag carting and pegging the nipples in August with #3.

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  32. Such a talented humour writer too? Not fair that you get so many eggs in your basket. I can relate so much to this and I can't wait until I no longer have to worry about grubby fingerprints and can throw out our furniture, get new carpet and paint the walls!!!!! Thanks for linking x

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