I’m not the perfect mum and equally toddler P is not the perfect child. I sometimes forget this and put too much pressure on us both. I’ve written before about the mum police putting pressure on mum’s and how they raise their children but sometimes actually we’re our own worst enemy.

I worry too much about what other’s think and in trying to raise toddler P as a well rounded, kind and confident individual, I sometimes forget that she’s just being two or that actually she’s not being that bad when out in public. I sometimes assume the people around me are thinking the worst and looking on as if I’m the worst mother with a tear away child in tow. Today was a perfect example, a simple supermarket trip that involved two trips to the big girl toilet for a wee wee…cue child out of trolley seat and able to run free and grab things off shelves. Truth was she looked at one item a bottle of shampoo and when I said we didn’t need it she was so good and put it back straight away. She then just pointed at signs, posters and other paraphernalia that adorned the store, picking out the shapes and animals etc she recognised getting completely distracted the entire way. People weren’t looking on with distain, they were smiling at her and clearly chuckling to themselves at her quirkiness and childish innocence but I instantly jumped to the defence and hurried her along and panicked that she was disturbing other shoppers. In reality, I need to take a chill pill and not put so much pressure on both of us, no one can be perfect, I’m not the perfect mum, I try my best but I’ll make mistakes on the way, as will she, it’s life and it’s learning and it’s perfectly normal to be imperfect.

The thing is, for me, toddler P is clever, very clever but as a result I forget that she maybe clever and intelligent but she still is only two and emotionally a two year old, whilst being clever that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s mature yet, she’s able to do things and understand things but not always able to understand her emotions or those of others which is perfectly normal for her age. I forget sometimes that she needs to work things out for herself, learn by her mistakes and that sometimes she just feels a certain way, just like we all do. I forget to cut her and myself some slack sometimes. I wasn’t feeling it today, I’ve been under the weather and didn’t want to play ball, some days she’s the same and I need to give both of us a break sometimes.

More than anything I forget that all she needs is for me to love her, she doesn’t need me to be perfect and I don’t want her to be perfect, we both just need each other and for each other to be ourselves. Perfect or imperfect, we just need to be us and stop trying to please an unrealistic goal I set for us both.

I need to ease up, I cannot expect to parent as though I do not work and work as though I don’t have kids. I have to juggle and balance things. I cannot expect to be the fun messy play mum and then have a pristine perfectly immaculately clean and tidy show home. I need to stop trying to make everything perfect and sometimes settle for good enough. Because actually, I do a good job at being a mum, I do a good job at work, I do lots of fun, playful and creative things and my house is clean and tidy all be it with some stray toy coins from the till on the coffee table and missing jigsaw pieces lodged under the tv stand. When I calm, breathe and cut myself some slack I actually do a good enough job at juggling everything and manage better then when I’m trying to be perfect.

Nobody’s perfect, so I’ll settle for me and my mini-me wing man being perfect at being imperfect.