Reason 1: My love is not equal
The problem: I have three cats. I don’t love them all equally. I love one of them much more than the others. In fact, I regularly pick him up and whisper “You’re my favourite” in his little black ear. I gather this would be a bad thing for a mother to do with her kids.
Potential solution: Only have one child.
Why that might not work: I’ll probably still prefer the cat.
Reason 2: The beauty of order and neatness
The problem: I am a major neat-freak. (Not clean-freak, you notice. I hate cleaning. But everything must be in its exact place and there must never, ever, be clutter lying around.) Organizing stuff is one of my favourite things to do. Earlier this week, I couldn’t sleep because I was so excited about organizing the pantry the next day. True story. It felt like Christmas Eve.
I always do two drafts of my shopping list. The first draft is just a rough brain-dump of what we need. The second is all those items organised into the order I’ll find them in the shop. And sometimes, if the second draft isn’t quite neat enough, I’ll write it out a third time. Again, true story.
Kids = disorder = unhappy Claire.
Potential solution: Have a child who loves order as much as me. When I was a kid one of my favourite games was playing Teacher - I would sit straight-backed and take the register for my imaginary class. My little sister would have to sit cross legged and answer “Yes Miss”, quickly and efficiently, for each of the names. There might have been a clipboard involved. If I had a joyless child like myself it might just be okay. I could even write a blog about being a mum and having OCD tendencies. I could call it Anal Mum.
Why that might not work: Two words my friend. Rob’s. DNA. He’s just so jolly and laid-back, with his “who cares if the drawer is left open” attitude, and all his “life’s too short for folding up carrier bags”. Well his DNA can bugger off. I’ve got carrier bags to fold.
Reason 3: I’m all about the zzzzz’s
The problem: I love sleep, me. In fact, today I got up at 10am. And, no, I’m not a teenage boy. And, no, I hadn’t been out boozing until 4am. (I love an early night as much as a lie in.) Even when I’m out of bed, I like to replicate the feeling of being in bed by wearing (clean) pyjamas all day during the winter. That’s right, I get up, take off my slept-in PJs and put on a fresh pair of PJs to face the day in. You should try it. It’s lush. (Luckily for my colleagues, I work from home and can usually be relied upon to put on a regular looking jumper for Skype calls.)
There’s a rumour going around that babies are not so conducive to sleep.
Potential solution: Man up and just deal with the sleep deprivation. It’s not forever.
Why that might not work: I will cry. Constantly. At everything. It will be like that time I watched Edward Scissorhands after drinking wine - sobbing uncontrollably at the injustice of it all while Rob stared at me in open-mouthed horror. Or like whenever I drive anywhere - like our little road trip to Bulgaria, when it all descended into tears around Munich and Rob had to placate me with cigarettes and Haribo until we reached ITALY. Yeah, it’ll be like that. Except I’ll be too tired to turn it into amusing blog fodder.
