Aspects of parenthood you didn't think you'd enjoy, but do.

1) When they're ill. Obviously I don't mean leukemia here - but nursing fevers through the night, soothing a sore belly, applying Eight Hour Cream to a sore nose: all immensely satisfying. No-one else would do it better.
2) Homework. Finally - maths I feel competent and supreme in. Although this may change when she goes up to Year Three.
3) Nits. I miss them having nits. They haven't had a dose for nearly years. How I love chasing a bug, fat, burstable bug around their head. I guess it's from being raised on Pac-man.
4) The smell of their dirty pants. Not something a dad could admit to, I suspect, in these post-Gary Glitter days, but I love the smell of their tiny pants before I sling them in the wash. It's all earthy, and alive, and oddly affecting when you realise how incompetent they still are at wiping properly. One day, they'll master that Kandoo, man, and the smells will disappear for ever.
5) Colouring in. Apparently, David Beckham wooed Posh by faxing her coloured-in pictures from The Lion King. And no wonder! It's immensely relaxing! Satisfying! And instructive in just how impossible it seems to be to manufacture a Caucasian skin colour.
6) Instructing them in really hard-core feminism from an early age. Yesterday, I told them the life-story of Mary Wollstonecraft - although, to be fair, the main jumping-in point was sharing with them the fact that her best friend's name was, apparently, Fanny Blood. "Did this happen when it was still rubbish to be a girl?" is their standard inquiry, whenever we start to discuss history.
7) Co-sleeping. "I don't want to share my bed with a child for six years!" despairing parents of newborns would say. Personally, I'm loving it. Dora - 7 - sleeps in her own bed through the night now, but Eavie - 4 - comes and joins us around 1am, wraps her legs around us like we're safety ropes, and sleep is a ride, and promptly drops back off again. Warm and soft and slightly smelly, and obviously very serene. And, what's more, I'm doing Top Level Parenting in my sleep. Result.

Comments

[katie moffat]

Great list, all so true.

[Eluned]

I enjoy the school run. When they come downstairs with one sock on, shirt buttoned up wrongways and hair like Helena Bonham Carter accusing the other twin of nicking her PE kit. And then the lovely walk to school that none of them seem to get bored of and my God how much energy they have that early in the morning.

I love their whinging aswell. They're just so funny doing it, they sound like old men. And how they can be tearing eachothers hair out one minute and then collapsed on the settee stroking eachother the next. I love how the boys are so protective of their little sisters and when they come to me with girl problems and ask my advice. And how the twins are completely identical and yet their personalities are so vastly different. I'm going on a bit now aren't I?

Loved 'co-sleeping' too. Never knew it had a name! The sound of their breathing always helped me sleep like the sound of mine helped them and it felt safer. It made night feeds so much easier aswell.

[Morningpaper]

Ohh I agree with the dirty pants and while we are on the subject (and not peeders, obv) can I mention bottoms? I can't stop squeezing little girls' bottoms. I have one fat one and one skinny one, at my disposal all day and night. They are the most breathtakingly perfect things in the world. I want to put them on my mantlepiece and stare at them until I cry.

[Jane]

Sounds about right!

[Lazy Mummy]

Informal survey of my friends suggests it helps you get more sleep when the child is a baby and less when the child gets wrigglier...

[Jane]

"So, er, Jane, I respectfully disagree about co-sleeping & affection. I'm far more affectionate to my child when I've had undisturbed sleep than when I haven't."

Ah, but if co-sleeping helps you have undisturbed sleep, then it's a double win-win! (But yes, I appreciate some do not find co-sleeping plesaurable.)

[Lazy Mummy]

On co-sleeping, was delightful & helped me get more sleep when the child was an infant; as she got more mobile, she started being a restless sleeper & we'd end up in an "h" position (us the vertical sticks; her the cross-bar) with us banished to about 4 inches of the bed each, on the far sides, and this in a king-sized bed, so quite ridiculous. Now she sleeps with us only when sick, and really, that's just me as my husband always goes to the spare room on those nights. He gets sleep; I'm a frazzled wreck the next day (aided by the caffeine overdoes, to try & stay awake).

So, er, Jane, I respectfully disagree about co-sleeping & affection. I'm far more affectionate to my child when I've had undisturbed sleep than when I haven't.

[Lazy Mummy]

Sometimes coffee / caffeine have the opposite effect from the one we expect. NASA did some interesting experiments on spiders' ability to create webs, depending on what substance they'd imbibed...seriously (I know, you're all rolling your eyes at me now). Take a look:

http://caffeineweb.com/?p=15

(Of course, doesn't imply the same substances affect people in this way but it's entertaining anyway).

[Annamac]

Yeah, J, sythesising, systematising - aaargh, more coffee has not helped in my case :-) Still, it just proves my point about not being able to multi-task. I should just concentrate on my work and stop taking 5-min blog breaks.

[J]

hey annamac, you're just synthesising :) though we are meant to be worried about systematising which appears to mean, do you call your cupboard full of CDs and your wall full of books a "collection" or not.

Agree on shoes and white weddings though have indulged in both in my time

[Annamac]

Sorry for conflating two threads - I promise to pay more attention in future.

[Annamac]

Have to say I couldn't relate to any of the original list of the "enjoyable" aspects of parenthood. But perhaps this is because I'm an "extreme synthesiser" and just not a proper woman at all. Perhaps this is also why I cannot relate to lots of things that women are "supposed" to get excited about - shoes and white weddings, for example, my reaction being eh? and ugh! respectively. I am also unbelievably bad at multi-tasking. I like the "one thing at a time and do it properly" approach. I am quite good at sitting around drinking coffee and yakking, though, so perhaps I am a real woman after all. As for co-sleeping: no, no and absolutely not. I wake up if a fly coughs three counties away, let alone if someone is invading my sleep space. My husband wouldn't notice if our children, the neighbour's children, the dog and next door's chickens shared the bed with him. I just up and off to any spare bed I can find because if I have no sleep it's no good at all. If the toddler is very poorly, I sleep on the floor next to his bed.

[Gipsy]

oh boy, co-sleeping has not been fun for over a week now. Son will only sleep with us when he isn't feeling that great. First, he had a stomach bug and was very disturbed in his sleep, then he got a really snotty cold and was again very disturbed. Finally last night he was well and seemed fine and I thought yay, a night's sleep with no little body in my bed. Except he only wanted to sleep with us and the proceeded to sleep talk, very loudly, all night, and had a really bad dream at about 4am. I can barely keep my eyes open today!

[J]

some people wake easily if touched, some sleep more deeply- I think sleep deprivation wipes out the fun of co-sleeping if you are in the first group.

[AmIreallyamummy?]

Heck at the moment - after 7 weeks of solid, wall to wall illnesses and zero unbroken sleep, I'm not even "co-sleeping" with my husband. Forget contact, what I need is an isolation ward. However hair sniffing - bring it on! If you could bottle it, it would knock Chanel off the shelves pronto. Sort of overtones of hay and honey...yum.

[Jane]

Jane, you can have lots of close physical affection if you don't co-sleep all night.
***

Yes, providing you've got lots of cuddles going somewhere and somewhen, that's fine! (But I STILL feel sorry for parents who don't like co-sleeping!)

[S]

Oh GROSS!!! Smelling dirty underpants??? Squashing nits???? Makes me want to puke. Oh, do you smell that too?

[mumoftwo]

Jane, you can have lots of close physical affection if you don't co-sleep all night. I personally don't like anyone touching me at night when I'm sleeping (like cuddles before bed and in morning from 6 am). I also wouldn't appreciate being woken up at 2 am for a bed-shuffle when I've got to go to work the next day. However, we are very affectionate as a family during the day. I think of this as just a personal preference and the best way to get the sleep I need to function, I don't ever think of it in terms of depriving children of attachment opportunities!!!

[csrster]

Oy, Caitlin, have you got a spy-cam in our bedroom?

[Gipsy]

Pippa, that's really sweet.

[pippa]

It doesn’t end there! My teenage daughter (14 next month), my funny, beautiful, hormonal, untidy, taller than me daughter still waits for me to get into bed. Standing in the door way, she then charges across the room, belly flops onto the bed, rolls over and snuggles under my arm with her head on my chest for a cuddle. Her hair still smells lovely, her skin is still soft. And yes, when her father is away, she still sneaks into my bed. Half my width, she rolls over in the night and flings her leg across, pushing me to the furthest side and snoring louder than anyone else I know. And although my sleep may not be as good as when she is in her own room, I treasure these moments and I love that she still wants to be there with me.

[wendy]

Your man will never be as warm, soft and cuddly as your child is. I love listening to my three year old's soft fairy-like breathing as he sleeps. And when they wake in the morning and put their little arms around you they never complain your morning breath.

good stuff -- from London.

it's the same everywhere.

[Caitlin MOran]

Co-sleeping AND having sex is easy - you put them to sleep in their own bed, have a shag in your bed, fall asleep together, then the kid climbs in around 2am and yer husband crawls off to sleep in their pink bed surrounded by pandas and Wizard of Oz merchandise.

[Susan Russo]

i didn't think i'd like having a child sleep in my bed in the middle.. i was adamant that my first two children learn't to sleep in their cots early however, having a third child - a daughter, ten years later, my husband once said, oh let her stay with us, she'll grow up so quickly just like the others- and it is true. so, when this darling 4year old comes into our bed at 4am or when she falls asleep at night in our bed with one of us parents or sibblings - after her bedtime story - we all feel immensely honoured to share 'this quality, magical time with such an incredible creature'. she smells, delightful, her skin is soft, the pysical contact is constant - be it a foot on your stomach or the pinching of your elbow skin.. our conversations, and prayers, and songs and togetherness - i and we will treasure forever and will sadly miss once she becomes 'grown up'. God Bless our Children and the love they bring. her name is Shannon Dorina and she is beautiful