WHAT I'VE LEARNT ABOUT...parenting lessons

The other week, the enormity of parenting came at me via a carton of Big M flavoured milk.

- CHRISSIE SWAN

My 14-year-old had ripped the carton open at the top, straw jammed in the flaps like some kind of milk vampire. As we pulled out of the servo, I casually enquired as to why he hadn’t used the little straw-sized hole under the cardboard latch. He blinked. “What straw hole? What latch?”

And suddenly I was winded again by the endlessness of it all.

As I breathed deeply into a brown paper bag (metaphorically, not literally), I wailed at him, “How could I have not told you this before now?”

AND WHAT ELSE HAVE I FORGOTTEN TO MENTION?!?

At first, parenting is all about survival. Instinctively swinging out your arm like a ninja to stop their heads colliding with coffee table corners. Deftly curling your index finger around a magnet/marble/LEGO man you’ve spotted from across the room in their little mouths and jettisoning it out of there in 0.01 seconds. Googling at 2am whether grapes are a choking hazard (spoiler: yes). It was a happy day when I didn’t have to cut those slippery little suckers into quarters anymore.