Let’s do this together

“Parenthood is exactly what I expected,” said no parent ever.

I just wish someone had warned me the toll it would take on your heart, your bank balance, your sock drawer – and even your reputation with the neighbours.

I bumped into a friend from our old street, after we moved round the corner a few weeks ago, and he asked how The Dark Lord was.

“Oh yes, we’re fine, just fine. Although she’s still quite noisy,” I replied sheepishly.

“Yes,” he said drily, “I used to hear her explode. It was like a bomb going off, followed by the most awful wailing and crying like she’d lost a limb.”

“Oh it was far more serious than that,” I said. “I’d just taken her iPhone away.”

Then waiting for the school bus the other morning, The Dark Lord told me for English this term they were reading a book all about a boy who gets neglected by his mum.

“Where was his dad?” I asked, outraged that even the most right-on teenage fiction still forgets to hold absent fathers accountable.

“Dunno,” she replied, “but his mum went out t and left him without food or electricity.”

“Are you trying to make a point?” I asked, archly.

Recently I’ve started popping out locally for an hour or so, leaving Jesse at home alone while I go for dog walks or to the gym.

The freedom to leave the house on my own has been genuinely life-changing for me.

“Yeah it’s fine,” she shrugged. “But as long as you never leave me without electricity to charge my iPad – that really would be child cruelty.”

Please keep your stories, memories and photos coming to siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.