The pain of parenting doesn’t just stop at childbirth

While we in the chesticle region, do I even need to mention teeth while breastfeeding? Thankfully my kids were late teethers but I have to admit, even without teeth, they managed to draw blood by swivelling their heads to be nosy while still having a feed.

All too often, the focus on the pain when you become a parent is centralised on the birthing process.

Whether down the chute or out through the sunroof, there is always an element of ouch involved in the arrival of a new life.

But you don’t have to be a parent to understand one of the most common forms of torture associated with childhood – Lego.

Even just talking about the pain associated with standing on a stray brick makes your toes curl automatically as you sense the pain, beautifully described this week as being akin to ‘‘being shot in the foot by a knife soaked in wasp venom’’.

Youtuber Simon Whistler decided to investigate, in scientific terms, just why Lego is so painful and a lot of it is to do with how a GREER BERRY single Lego piece can support around 426kg of weight before it compresses. That is one nasty piece of weaponry.

But it’s not just Lego that is a weapon.

I have discovered that a mere 12kg little boy can cause pain not too dissimilar to his own birth.

Some of his favourite ways include the unexpected head-butt, the boob punch, the spine attack and my all-time favourite, a literal kick to the teeth.

The unexpected head-butt was mastered at a young age. Basically it begins almost from birth, as they eagerly lift their tiny wrinkly heads to get a look at their new world, but with just the support of a useless jelly-like neck.

Their head rolls around like the last peanut M&M in the bowl before, bang, it makes contact with some part of your face, usually a chin or cheekbone.

The pain takes your breath away, but then you realise how helpless they are and you struggle to stay angry with them for longer than half a second.

Once they gain slightly more control of their bobble-head, another favourite move is the sitting strike.

This is where bubs is sitting on your knee and without warning, jerks backwards smashing the back of their skull in to your jaw and front teeth.

Again, the pain is palpable. You can quite literally taste it (and it tastes a lot like blood).

With sitting come other new motor skills, including gaining use of their arms and legs and the awakening that they are attached to their body and they (sometimes) have control of them.

One sure fire way to bring tears to the eyes of a new mum – and let’s be honest, there are no less that 6398 ways – is a swift punch to an engorged boob.

There’s nothing quite like the pain of the nerves of a swollen breast, although I was once told by a doctor when a copped a soccer ball square to the chest that caused me to throw up on the spot, that it is a similar feeling to when a man cops a knock to the balls.

So maybe there is a pain just like it.

While we in the chesticle region, do I even need to mention teeth while breastfeeding? Thankfully my kids were late teethers but I have to admit, even without teeth, they managed to draw blood by swivelling their heads to be nosy while still having a feed.

Then throw a sibling in to the mix and then you have a doublebanger type of pain, caused when a toddler wants attention so badly that they jump behind you on the couch and practice Riverdance on your spine with their heels while the baby is on the boob but pulling your nipple an extraordinary length out from your body so they can catch a glimpse of the dance show.

In this unique situation as you find yourself in so much pain that you actually can’t work out which part of your body hurts more.

But then, once you think they’re finally growing out of their reign of terror, comes the war known as trying to put a nappy on a ferocious toddler.

In what I like to call the double barrel pike with a half twist, fullpain, terror buck, my son has perfected a move worthy of a rodeo scene in a movie.

Laying on his back on a bed, feet together, and nappy-free, the new-found freedom leads to a recoil of the legs before a dip in the back propels both feet forward before they make contact with my bottom row of teeth.

In an instant, you’re stunned in to silence before usually screaming in utter pain and waiting for the teeth to fall from your mouth like blossoms on a spring tree in a wind storm.

It is, what my friend so perfectly describes, life as a parent pin˜ ata.