Today, thanks to Little Mummy, is the day of many bloggers swapping blogs.
Yes, its 'Guest Post Day'. Drum roll...
So you will find Tara of Sticky Fingers fame here and I'm hanging out at hers for the day.
Tara has, in her words, two 'lovely little munchkins', aged 7 and 4. And although mine have long since passed this stage, I love reading about her 'munchkins' as it reminds me of how my now, hormone overloaded teenagers, once were. And trust me, with rampaging teens in the house I need all the reminders I can get.
And so, gently does it, try not to scare her off with all the possible horrors of teenagedom!
Please be upstanding for Tara...
"I have to chuckle when I read new mums talk about the cheek burning embarrassment of being caught in a trendy clothes store with their nipples leaking or walking into their posh office with baby puke on the shoulder of their work suit.
They are the sort of moments that make you want to turn to drink, or turn to stone or just turn and run away.
But I want to say to these women: nipple leakage? That's just a start. Wait until they grow up!
I have two young children. 7 and 4 (going on 14).
I know that once they hit their teens or tweens I'm going to be pulling my hair out because even now the embarrassment levels are dangerously high.
I remember when I was breastfeeding and a Savoy cabbage leaf popped out of my bra while I was at a posh spa hubby had treated me too. It was all white coats, minimal decor and scented candles. I like to think the tall, willowy, twentynothing assistant could recognise a breastfeeding mum suffering at the hands of a particularly hungry baby, but the look on her horrified face said otherwise.
Then we reached the Terrible Twos and my toddler managed to be violently sick in the children's aisle of a Wilkinsons megastore - all over his pushchair, clothes, floor and, mortifyingly, the display of books nearby.
You can actually feel the red hot burn of disapproval from shoppers boring in to your neck as you're down there on your hands and knees trying to mop it up with the scrap of tissue you managed to find at the bottom of your changing bag.
You can actually feel the red hot burn of disapproval from shoppers boring in to your neck as you're down there on your hands and knees trying to mop it up with the scrap of tissue you managed to find at the bottom of your changing bag.
And don't get me started on when they can talk.
Walking hand in hand with my son around Ikea behind a particularly large gentleman he stage whispers to me: "That man is so fat, mummy". Of course, to a toddler 'stage whisper means say it as loud as your lung capacity will allow and what actually came out as was "THAT MAN IS SO FAT, MUMMY"
Then, while sat round a camp fire with new friends on a camping trip, my angelic little man is clearly bored with the conversation as it doesn't involve Ben 10/chocolate/him so randomly declares to all: "My mummy has two bottoms. A front one and a back one."
Walking hand in hand with my son around Ikea behind a particularly large gentleman he stage whispers to me: "That man is so fat, mummy". Of course, to a toddler 'stage whisper means say it as loud as your lung capacity will allow and what actually came out as was "THAT MAN IS SO FAT, MUMMY"
Then, while sat round a camp fire with new friends on a camping trip, my angelic little man is clearly bored with the conversation as it doesn't involve Ben 10/chocolate/him so randomly declares to all: "My mummy has two bottoms. A front one and a back one."
Supermarkets? Why do we not avoid them like the plague, because we know, we absolutely know, we're going to have an inquisitive child demand 'what the hell is that?' when someone slightly different talks to them (yes, yes I've been there too).
Ah leaky nipples, those were the days . . .
I know, I know, there are probably a whole host of you rolling your eyes and saying 'she has NO idea of what's to come'.
So tell me - gently - what is to come?"
