The helpful hints you won’t see in any parenting books

By | August 29, 2020

Our kitten Ollie lost two teeth (perfectly normal apparently) and my children were absolutely thrilled and got straight into preparations for the magical visitor who would apparently visit that night and replace the teeth with a new toy (cue frantic text to my husband informing him he would need to make a stop on his way home).

They set up the teeth their special tooth fairy box and sprinkled it with glitter before placing it on Ollie’s bed. Amazingly, in its place the next morning was a shiny new toy.

This event had me thinking about all the bizarre and random things we encounter as parents that no one could have prepared us for. I read a lot of parenting books when I was pregnant. Not one of them mentioned the fact pets have their own tooth fairy.

I went to my local online parenting group and asked my fellow mums to tell me the most random things they had experienced as parents. Things that definitely weren’t in and books or classes and if they had been, we wouldn’t have believed them. I was inundated with hilarious stories.

Here are some of the best:

  • My four-year-old got angry at me because I didn’t give him the toast he didn’t want.
  • Miss Five was sad because she no longer needed the band aid on her foot. This might seem like a good thing, but now the lion band aid had been used, prompting her to say: “I wish I could turn back time so I could still keep this band aid.”
  • My 18-month-old tried to climb into the toilet to pull the wet toilet paper back out of the toilet.
  • Santa bought my son a box of Spiderman bandaids one year. It was his favourite gift.
  • We have going-out socks, the good socks we wear when we go to a friend’s house or somewhere nice. They match and look brand new. Day to day socks are mismatched, stained and are often not even the right size.
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And the very funny and very relatable:

  • Going out used to be hitting the town with friends and going to parties that don’t include cake and pass the parcel. Now my idea of a night out is popping to the grocery store once hubby gets home from work. Sometimes I just sit in my car in the supermarket car park playing games on my phone just for some time out.
  • Christy Kidner is a trained newborn care specialist and mother of two. Visit Christy’s blog at www.motheringme.com.au
This story The helpful hints you won’t see in any parenting books first appeared on The Canberra Times.

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