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So I finally earned that elusive badge.
The one all parents secretly yearn to achieve yet are repulsed by. I changed a child’s dirty nappy without them waking up.
You might not think that is a very big deal, but in the land of parentdom, it’s HUGE. Suddenly, things that we would have been disgusted by before having kids instantly become the height of success in the minefield of parenting.
I was SO proud of myself. My son is a notoriously bad sleeper so the fact that he didn’t wake up was like a double award for me.
It got me thinking how many seemingly silly and slightly disgusting yet strangely skilled tasks we find ourselves performing as parents of little ones. Like the time I fished a poo out of the bath. Tick for the ‘Fish a floater’ badge. The time I literally just held a child and voluntarily allowed them to vomit. On me. Twice. All hail the ‘Got boaked-on’ badge. Or the time I deftly held a child out vertically and the vomit missed me. There was my ‘you’ll never get the stain (or smell) out of the carpet’ badge. And there are countless others.
Some not quite as disgusting, you’ll be pleased to hear. There’s the ‘piggy back’ badge, the ‘play doh’ badge and the ‘lego’ badge, all very pleasant badges to earn. The ‘just got them to giggle their little socks of badge’ is one I’m genuinely proud of – especially with the additional ‘Gave them the hiccups’ bonus badge.
There’s also some tricky ones, like the ‘got them to eat a teeny mouthful of broccoli’ badge sometimes swiftly followed by the ‘got broccoli spat out on my jeans’ badge. I’m also quite proud of my badge for ‘creeping out of the bedroom like a silent ninja’ badge at bed time.
Anyone out there received the ‘can’t believe I just said that to a doctor’ badge?
I did very recently. “Yes doctor, he and his sister thought it would be funny to pull a pink wooly bobble hat down on his eyes and run full pelt, giggling manically, into a wall. Yes I was there. He was just too fast for me.”
Don’t tell my husband but I’ve also been awarded the ‘I like the way you read stories better than daddy’ badge. But its okay because he won the ‘tickle them until they squeal’ badge ages ago.
I’m not fun enough for that one!
I genuinely think there should be a version of the scouts for parents so we can actually have meetings and receive our badges with pride and get a little round of applause.
Oh, and there should be wine.
How else could we get our ‘never drank this much until I had kids’ badge?
Dib dib.
Amelia's Mum 