On being a mother

The thing about being a good, kind, caring full time stay at home mother, about doing your job really well is that you can't talk about your successes to other people because all of your achievements belong in the end to your children.

Lets take potty training for instance and all those times you had to drop EVERYTHING you were doing and rush the child to the toilet so you didn't end up scrubbing the carpet with a wire brush and Dettol for the fourth time that day. And then one day, A. WHOLE. MONTH. LATER, the penny suddenly drops, their bladder has more control they get the whole potty training thing but it's too late as you've worn your right hand down to a stub and your carpet smells like your cat has invited all the neighbours cats in for a piss fest in the beds and rooms of your house.

Well, I'm going to break protocol here and blow my own trumpet a little and let you know about the hours I spent with Audrey (7 years old) teaching her to read, to spell, to find the letters on the computer keyboard and about how delighted I was that the changing of font size finally sunk in when she handed me this letter the other day after the ice cream van had left our road.