Mrs Helicopter Writes

Got small kids? It gets easier. When I had my first baby, I noticed that whenever he appeared to be peaceful, certain people couldn’t WAIT to tell me what awful things I had to come. Not sleeping through? WAIT til the terrible TWOS! Terrible twos? Wait til he’s a threeanger! You think you have problems now, wait til they’re an ACTUAL TEENAGER! BE GRATEFUL. Actually, this is not very helpful thing to a new mum. Or in fact, ANY mum. You may be greeted with a wan smile if you say this to someone but inside that person will be swearing at you. Because NO one wants to hear that things get worse. Stop it! I often think about whether or not I actually would have wanted to know how hard I found EVERYTHING from pregnancy onwards. I’ve had many a conversation since with fellow parents starting “no one ever tells you …. *insert awful realisation about parenthood here*…” But would I have REALLY wanted to know?     Would I have wanted to know that: a) Pregnancy is sometimes