5 of the 'peskiest' parts of parenting

When it comes to this parenting gig, it’s easy to identify the genuinely hard bits. There’s a verifiable feast of options to choose from, even when blessed with healthy children, food on the table and a roof over our head. But what about those pesky parts that don’t really quantify as being especially tricky but still manage to sneak up behind us and put us off our game. They’re the parenting equivalent of that mosquito that buzzes around and around your head on a summers’ night. No matter how many times you switch on the light and attack the surrounding air with a makeshift swatter, you can’t get rid of the little bugger, and it really, to use the vernacular, sucks. It's the harmless but annoying stuff that often gets your goat in the great game that is parenting. These things may seem superficial, first world-y even, but god it feels good to get them off your chest.

There are five that I rate as being at the top of the pesky meter….

1. Grocery shopping is a rubbish experience once you have the company of a kidlet. I’m one of those people (some may say ‘freaks’) who enjoy moseying down the aisles of the supermarket, selecting produce to fill my trolley and giving myself an internal high five for adding items like chia seeds and almond meal. The process becomes approximately 700 times more difficult when you start shopping with a shadow as you have to decide whether you want to a) wear child AND push the trolley at the same time b) push child in the stroller and carry a basket which will end up weighing more than the child you’re pushing or c) let child sit in the trolley seat and risk having them grab every passing object or list to one side in a desperate attempt to chew the metal seat bars. It certainly adds an element of excitement to the process but also an extra 50 minutes or so.

2. The fridge is no longer my own. This household is a big fan of the monthly meat shop where we stock up on enough of the sinewy stuff to stave off a hungry Lion (should we ever be trapped inside our flat, held captive by an escaped zoo dwelling beast). However, now that my son is eating solids, the fridge has become full with zip lock bags of frozen puree cubes leaving less room for BBQ fodder and even less room for the 1L tubs of Sara Lee I consider to be my life’s blood.

3. The gorgeous arm candy (handbag) I saved six months for and loved hanging jauntily from my elbow is banished and replaced by a bag the size of a small sedan and roughly the same weight. I am not capable of leaving the house without this vital lifeline. On the odd occasion that I do go out without the baby (and need for the small sedan), I usually cannot find aforementioned arm candy and resort to taking a Coles green bag to hold my belongings. Classy.

4. I find myself eating bizarre combinations of food, many of which I do not like in the slightest, that has often been pre-chewed for my dining pleasure. There never seems to be a bin around when I need one nor can I manage to wrangle a wipe out of the small sedan previously mentioned when I need one, so I end up eating the leftovers and licking spoons to ‘clean’ them. Today I have dined on quinoa, yoghurt and pear mash, a soggy square of vegemite on rye and half a spoonful of pumpkin, ricotta and spinach puree. Yummy.

5. I refer to myself as ‘mummy’ and my partner as ‘daddy’. This is kind of cute at home, especially when we perform our nightly dinner-time duet, but verges on the weird when used outside of our abode, especially at ‘grown up’ places like restaurants where I inwardly cringe when I realize I’ve said; “And what do you want to drink Daddy?” When did I forget that my partner had an actual name AND a nickname, neither or which begin with a ‘D’?

Naomi is a freelance writer, magazine gal and mum to baby Oliver and cats Oscar and Felix. A talented singer of nursery rhymes, bircher muesli devotee and lover of all things lipstick, she spends most of her time muddling her way through motherhood and blogging about the results (as well as other scintillating topics). You can follow her on twitter @NaomiCotterill or check at her (fledgling) blog at notjustamummy.com

What rates highly on your pesk-o-meter??