The endless struggle to be good enough...

Today I had the best intentions to be the 'perfect mother'. We did water play this morning for all of 5 mins until my children got bored. We did the food shopping quite nicely until my 2 and a half year old son decided he wanted random things off shelves and then had to put them back in the exact spot he got them from.

This afternoon we have done a bit of painting- until my daughter (16months) decided to paint her face and dive onto the cream sofa.
I've shouted, I've bribed good behaviour and I've screamed into cushions a lot. I give up.

Perfect mothers with perfect children who bake cakes all day, never misbehave and have to listen to Mozart as their children dont like tv don't exist. This a fucking horrible image cultivated by advertisers to make mums (and dad's- I'm an equal opps blogger!) feel shitty and crap. I hope anyway because if you are one of these women please know that I quite like having unpredictable, 'quirky' kids and one day we will look back on these days and laugh. Or cry.

So now they are both asleep and I have a tidy yet lived in home I plan on putting my feet up with a large coffee and a pack of giant chocolate buttons and flicking through the copy of the mumsnet rules that I bought this morning.

Right up until the kids wake up and the playing, shouting, bribing cycle starts all over again.

Fuck the coffee, I think I may need wine!