Mummy = maturity??????

You know you have hit the grown up years when you look around you and your friends and realise that no one has had a pregnancy scare in years!!! Instead of buying condoms you are now buying fertility prediction kits and are actively taking folic acid instead of the pill. You are crossing fingers and legs that your period doesn't come each month rather than rushing to the bathroom every five minutes praying that twinge was the start of 'the curse'!!!

Now, producing a baby is not a definitive marker of adulthood - looking around these days it could be classed as kiddihood!!! Giving birth is impressive, i grant you (look what I made!!!) but being mature and responsible is even more impressive.  And Im sure thats what we are all striving for, right? Yes you can be a young mum, energetic mum, older mum, lazy mum, or a mum that spends all disposable income on shoes!!!! (thats who I want to be!!!) but the fact remains that when push (ha ha) comes to shove you are more likely to put the needs of your beloved infant before your own.

This selflesness is the very essence of adulthood, of maturity and responsibility, even if in your mind (like me) you are still a teenager.  So its ok to laugh as your child somersaults over their own feet as long as you wipe the tears and tell them how brave they are, its ok to take those embarrasing naked baby pictures and use them as ammunition later in life as you are just highlighting the beauty of the natural form!!  Its ok to go head first down the soft play slide and into the pit of balls because you are just guiding your child in the ways of play (and not having a good time in the process!!!).

There is a fine balance to this parent hood malarkie!!!

Not only is being a parent to your own child intimidating, but then someone throws a curve ball at you and asks you to be a GODPARENT!!!

Now you are old enough to have friends with their own sproglets but you are obviously old enough (Old?????) and responsible enough (did they not read what I do to my own kids!!) that they think you are a suitable person to lend a hand in their babies spiritual development!!!!(sorry I laughed so much then a little bit of wee came out!!!).  Which includes buying age appropriate presents and being interested in school reports etc........ sorry never gonna happen with my god kids Mrs B. I want them to love their fairy godmother not look on her as 'mummy' so its sweets, chewing gum and 12rated dvds!!!

And then on top of all this maturity and grownupness (don't think its a word but it should be!) comes the phenomenon that is 'turning into your mother'. 
Now for me this is not a problem , as those that have met her will concur that my mum is practically perfect (that and the fact that she reads my blog! Hello mummy!!!)

It starts of small, little idiosyncratic ways, hand gestures, pained facial expressions.  It may be the emergence of phrases that have lain dormant at the back of your mind for years but are increasingly being used in everyday conversations with your little ones 'am i talking to myself?' 'Im not doing this for my own good' ' because i said so!' Then there is the desire to enforce  those insane and illogical rules that your mum once held so dear!!!! arrrggghhhh!!  Try to think of this occurance as the continuation of an anciet tradition - you are like your mum, she was like hers, etc..... because if you start crying now you'll never stop!!!  You can recognise these signs, you can hide from them but sooner or later you will look in the mirror and it will be your mum looking back at you!!! And no amount of antiwrinkle cream, or wine is going to stop it!!! (But hey, we have the luxury of picking out the best bits and dumping the rest!! sort of!!)

So whilst we try to reconcile the conflict between being this mature, sensible 'mummy'  and wanting to retain the freedom to act like teenagers you can rest easy in the knowledge that no matter how old, mature and mother like we become we will never forget how to sing into a hairbrush infront of the mirror!!!!!!!!