"I won't ever do that !"

When Big Boy was a baby we went to a wedding and he was by far the cutest kid there (ok so probably one of the only kids there, but still). Anyway we had been there all day and were only just sitting down to eat at 8pm - a full 2 hours after his usual mealtime. I had given him snacks and fruit, but he wasn't really up for waiting for his meal so I reached into my bag for a bag of organic carrot puffs. A non-parent sitting at our table looked at me, tutted and said, "Crisps ? Before dinner ?" I smiled weakly while feeling shamed and making apologetic noises. If someone dared say something like that to me now I'd retort pretty quickly, "I hope you included your blood type in the RSVP sunshine, you're going to need it."

Before I was a parent I'm pretty sure I would have thought something similar. In fact I had quite a few lines in the sand that I was convinced I wouldn't cross. You know the ideal parenting scenarios that we create when it appears someone else is getting it so wrong. Mine were a bit more generic than that, but parenting has definitely given me a more fluid attitude.

I never left the house sans eyeliner or lippy (I even used the word sans in everyday conversation - don't I hate myself enough for both of us). Now I'm lucky if I remember to brush my hair before I leave the house and rarely look in a mirror so make up is a poor cousin to the whole 'getting ready' drama.

Ok, I accept that drinking a hot cup of tea is pretty much a luxury now, but I swore blind I'd never microwave a cuppa. That is until I realised that I was averaging making 4 cups a day to every half I'd actually get to drink. It is with a heavy heart that I admit I did heat up a cup of tea instead of putting the kettle on again. I'm not proud of it and I don't plan on doing it again. Shuttup - it was an emergency.

Never in a million years would I ever have approached a police officer or a fire officer or waved at a train driver. Now it's pretty much a requirement of my daily life. Today as I walked to the tram stop with Baby Boy we spotted a fire engine so waved at the driver then went up to say hello. At the tram platform we waved at the tram driver and on the tram spotted some police officers and waved at them too. This is my life now.

To be fair I always carried wet wipes in my bag so I was pretty much pre-trained as a parent. I also thought I wouldn't feed my kids beans on toast and call it dinner. That the last thing I'd do would be to allow them to sleep in my bed just to shut them up and I was never going to call Hubbie, "Daddy." How little I knew.

I'll remember that next time I spot a non-parent judging me for taking my kids for a Happy Meal or for drinking a free Waitrose cuppa while they play in the park or for looking at my phone while Big Boy plays on his tablet on the train.

Good for you person without children. You still know everything. 

I am a doofus parent