Thirteen for Thursday: Thirteen things having children has taught me

1. When washing clothes, and checking laundry, never to plunge my hand into the trouser pockets of my boys, there were dead things in there. Or things that were best retrieved with tongs.

2. If it took three hours to cook they won’t like it. A direct correlation between effort and results. The more work it is the more they hate it.

3. If the food is disgusting, and full of additives they will love it. They will also request it more often.

4. With babies during the first few months .Never put a clean dress on without a towel over you, they are guaranteed to throw up. Usually just as you are ready to go out.

5. If you feel like death and have to face three kids at tea time, be prepared to feel a whole lot worse. They have a sixth sense and take advantage of signs of weakness.

6. The night when you have too many wines is the night one will get gastro.

7. Dirty sports clothes are never found until half an hour before school, unless the nagging is 24 hours a day.

8. Daughters become friends, but only after you have gone through the teenage years without killing them.
9.The dirtiest jeans or torn jacket is just what they want, some are made that way, and costs an arm and a leg.

10.The fact that you were once young is not something they really believe. They think you evolved as a thirty year old.

11. By the time you can laugh at the same jokes, and enjoy the same wine with your kids, most body parts are wearing out and retirement villages get mentioned.

12. If only you kept all those minis, or boots, or flares, or whatever!  it could have been used by a happy daughter. Everything comes back you know.

13. By the time you know it all, and they think they do, it’s too late they have grown up.