There’s some fairly typical traits that come with this mother gig. Things that only a mother would do.
Sometimes they are almost rites of passage that a mother goes through and earns her the ‘mother’ title. They can be different for every mum. But there’s some certain habits and behaviours that a mother will do out of sheer love for her child that can be recognised across the board. Often these things are for the safety or well-being of their child, others are simply for ensuring the sanity and survival of the mother.
So, in case you weren’t sure, he’s 10 sure ways to know you’re a mother – well they are for me anyway!
1. You’ve touched your child’s nose boogers
If you’ve ever been stuck without a tissue, baby wipe or serviette you’ll relate to this. You may have had to resort to help your snotty-nosed child do a ‘free-blow’ into the world. In a worse case you may have had to pinch your child’s snotty nose with your bare hands, shaking their gobbley boogers loose in whichever manner you can manage to rid your fingers of their sticky quality. But by far the worse case in terms of ‘booger contact’. This involves plucking out a crusty booger culprit. It often has iceberg-like qualities, appearing small on the outside but in fact is surprisingly vast once it has been retrieved from your child’s nostril.
2. You could feed an ant colony out of your handbag.
If you’ve still got small children you’ll relate to this well. There’s not many difficult scenarios with children that can’t be quickly solved with the offering of food. This is why a mother’s handbag always contains food or at least the remnants of food. A cheese stick wrapper, some fruit, a half-eaten biscuit, 17 loose sultanas, and enough biscuit crumbs to crumb a cutlet.
3. You’re Queen of Multi-Tasking
A highly skilled multi-tasking mummy will often be found (but not necessarily) making dinner for her hungry children, updating her Facebook status, tying up a shoelace, writing out a shopping list, turning down the TV, putting dishes in the sink and wiping a snotty nose, and on the phone to her husband on the phone as she desperately wails, “When are you getting HOME!?!”
4. You toilet in precarious positions
I’ve mentioned before that there’s no such thing as going to the toilet alone when you’re a mother of a toddler. This has a certain impact on a mother’s toilet practices. In particular, attending a public toilet cubicle with a small toddler comes to mind. If you’ve been in this scenario you’ll be aware that the curious toddler can wait patiently for you to complete you wee’s in 2 seconds. As quickly as you’ve got your pants around your ankles they’ve figured out the privacy latch on the toilet door. You end up finishing your ablutions perched precariously on the toilet seat in such a way that you can reach forward to hold the cubicle door closed.
5. You’ve groped your breasts in public
Not all mothers are able to breastfeed their children, but for those who have been able to or still do, you will relate to this.
When breast-feeding a small human before the introduction of solid foods the child wants milk, milk and more milk. As their tiny cry splutters to life after waking from their sleep while you’re zooming through the aisles of the supermarket, you find yourself intuitively feeling your breasts to check which side is fuller for bub to feed on next. This process can be interrupted either by the aghast stare from an elderly onlooker, or the awareness of growing circles of moisture appearing at nipple-level on your already vomit-stained shirt.
A mother loses ownership of her body and personal space as soon as she gets pregnant. In time she will regain some of this space, but will continue to share her hip, leg, ponytail, bra strap (really anything that can be clung onto or trampled on) to appease and comfort her offspring for years to come. And that’s without even mentioning the nights your child ends up in bed with you – the things we do for sleep.
- Hearing a child shriek, ‘Muuuumm!’ in a shopping centre to get her attention. Whether the child belongs to you or not you’ll turn around and assess the situation.
- Hearing a child cry-out in pain. Whether you’re engrossed in a text message, enjoying a quiet cuppa or shopping in the supermarket you’ll feel compelled to react and help out. Once you see that their mother is with them you’ll relax and feel OK again.
8. You allow public urination
Only a mother knows the full extent of the mess and stress that toilet training brings. Small bladders are not fun when out-and-about or on extended car trips. A mother will do anything to avoid the responsibility of cleaning up wee-soaked clothes or furniture or worse, not to mention the embarrassment that goes along with a public ‘accident’. A mother will allow a controlled public urination with her assistance (behind a shrub, tree, power pole or letter box). Sadly this will often result in wee on the mother’s shoes, legs or worse, from the urine stream as she does all that she can to avoid her child having an ‘accident’.
9. You exclaim loudly from your bedroom
Whether it’s two nights, two weeks, two months or two years, sleep deprivation is a killer. We certainly grow to deal with it, but that first night that your little cherub sleeps through the night (however you define it) a mother – and most fathers, will jump for joy. “We made it!” they’ll chorus, patting each other on the backs. This will likely be followed by a Facebook status update sharing this grand achievement to the world, and will follow all salutations for that day and continue for up to a week or more,“Hi, how are you? Good? Emily slept through the night!”
10. You seek desperate measures
How true this is, great post!