Thirteen mother’s days. No actually more like 4745 of them. Before I turned into a master finder of all things lost. Before I turned into a chef, a knower of all things Wiggles, a Lego master builder and nerf bullet dodger. Before I became a Viewer specialist of Nemo, then Cars, then Toy Story…all the way to Madagascar and beyond. 

Before I turned doctor, nurse, diet expert and teacher. Before I turned insomniac and stealth listener. Before I turned psychologist and maker of all things right. Before I turned cycling expert, advanced transformer repairer and costume designer. 

Before I turned storyteller, imagination consultant and mindful creativity enthusiast. Before I turned cross country marathon running spectator guide, goal specialist and singular cheerleading squad…before I turned NBL league researcher, Jacque Cousteau level oceanologist and mechanical expert to rival a Top Gear producer. Before I heard my name called three hundred gazillion and forty two times a day…before all of that plus a shit tonne more…what did I do? No, honestly what. The. Fuck. Did. I do?

Are you nodding your head knowingly? Yeah cos Today might be Mother’s Day butas mums be well aware, so is every other day. 

Before I knew my name would become the second most used word in the English language I might have relished the time I could take a pee in peace without having to find a missing item of school uniform at sparrow’s fart on a weekday morning. I might very well have enjoyed eating whatever I wanted at a time closer to midnight than mid afternoon. I could even have skipped round the supermarket flinging things in my trolley like tofu, anchovies, Camembert and fois grad with gay abandon laughing to myself at my freedom of food choices. Not even a what is that to be heard. I might have slept acrossways in my bed kicking left and right whenever I felt like it. And taking all the pillows. 

Yep. Probably. I could have done all those things. And more. I really don’t know. Because I don’t remember. Who of us ever could? My life before I got this job all but deleted from my memory files…the least paid, most demanding, most heartbreaking, most terrifying, at times even frustrating… yet utterly most rewarding and prideful gig a girl could ever ask for. I have no idea. Time before motherhood has stood still, eclipsed by the enormity of the role I now hold so dear and have done my best to keep these past thirteen years. 

Dunno if I’m good at it. That’s the thing with this job there ain’t no handbook, no meeting with the board to discuss your progress just a blindfold and a hand grenade then you’re set off into the mummyhood wilderness. All alone, carefully negotiating the track so as not to detonate. 

I’m pretty sure I was told it’d get easier but I think they were full of shit. Or they’d never heard of teenagers. Just like when they said the sleep loss would eventually make way for sleep ins. There are some in our household copping a lazy Sunday morning only trouble is it’s not this someone. Even when the lights go out my mind is up late working in the moonlight, worrying, worrying.  

Having now spent a good half a decade trying to convince my body it really truly does have the capability to produce another of these somewhat demanding, yet a whole lot incredible miracles I wouldn’t trade a single second of it. Not a one. Every day has brought a little bit more sunshine into our world I never thought possible. From the times I’d pick up a giggling toddler from his cot to hugs that now squeeze my shoulders in tight…to being told I’m the best mum in the world is praise enough. Even if it is before his request for a fourteenth set of new kicks. 

Just to be given the chance to do it all over again even just once would make my heart even more full than it already is. And oh please oh please Genie, today more than any other I’m asking this one wish…

I’m totally Celebrating the mini human I part created and maybe just one day real soon, might be given another super creature to cherish and you betcha little ass I’m chuffed. Happy Mums Day to the already’s, the passed over’s and the hope-to-be Mama’s out there. Lov’n’hugs always, Lady Mama G xoxo