The mental and physical health benefits of having a toddler

A lot of people seem to complain about how difficult parenting becomes when their children turn two and start throwing tantrums/crying for no reason/insisting on wearing their tutus and nothing else to the shops/shouting out "Jojo made a big pooh" randomly in public. To these glass-half-empties, I say - tosh! Raising a toddler is an amazing opportunity for self-development, saving you thousands on therapist's fees and gym membership whilst helping to hone your mental acuity.

Let me demonstrate:

1) The only way you could be more trim is if you had Tim Noakes living in your kitchen. It's my theory that Usain Bolt trained for his 100m sprint by taking a toddler to a shopping centre. Anyone who has tried to keep up with one of these little fellas as they go blitzing through stores will attest to the intense workout it is; plus, there are the heart-pumping benefits of your windmilling arms as you try to put back the items they have randomly tossed from the shelves. So that's your cardio sorted. As for toning your core, arms and thighs: I could be wrong, but a two-year old screeching "pick me up" fifty times a day will do far more for you than any bootcamp instructor.

2) They give you a reality check. I confess; going to work makes me feel really glamorous. It's probably the lack of child-minders and people under four foot that does it, but whenever I'm putting on my makeup and wearing clothes that are free of food crust and smudges left by pummelling dirty little feet, I feel quite pretty. Thankfully, I have Leya to put me in my place. "Hello, Big Bum," she will boom cheerfully. Or, "Mommy, your boobs are parachutes" (I know my body isn't what it used to be, but I hadn't realised things had gotten so bad that even a toddler could recognise my submission to gravity).

3) They build your resilience. When you are waiting in the doctor's rooms and your child shouts out "I hate Dr Jackie because she's dirty", you realise that the only thing to do is smile.

4) They teach you the importance of an enquiring mind, rational thinking and creativity. I have one word for you: "Why?" It seems that toddlers have one word also. And finding answers for it can be difficult. Like: Leya: What is that?
Me: That's your daddy.
Leya: Why?
Me: Because I liked his green eyes? Because when we were lovestruck youngsters we used to stay up all night to watch the moon travel across the sky? Because no one else makes me laugh as much? Because he was the only guy to ask me out that year?

4) They teach you the art of zen. Let me relate one of me and Leya's more intellectual conversations from the other day.
Me (at the robot, explaining why we can't go just yet): "Green means go, yellow means slow and red means stop."
Leya: "Again."
Me (at the robot, explaining why we can't go just yet): "Green means go, yellow means slow and red means stop."
Leya: "Again."
Me (at the robot, explaining why we can't go just yet): "Green means go, yellow means slow and red means stop."
Leya: "Again."
Me (at the robot, explaining why we can't go just yet): "Green means go, yellow means slow and red means stop."
Leya: "Again."
Me (at the robot, explaining why we can't go just yet): "Green means go, yellow means slow and red means stop."
Leya: "Again."
This went on for a good couple of minutes, before we started discussing the finer points of dinosaurs. And then, to my horror, we drew up at another robot and it started all over again. There is no way you can survive this kind of discourse with your faculties intact unless you are able to retreat into a meditative state. Kind of like when you're doing Ashtanga yoga, and you know the moves so well you're able to drift off while your body does its own thing.

5) They give you an ego boost... There's nothing quite like the happy smugness of being Favourite Parent. My heart trills when Leya tells James that he's not able to dress her/make her tea/come into her bedroom because only her mommy is allowed. In one particularly nasty case of schadenfreude, I laughed for days when he tried to snuggle with her and she told him she didn't like to because "it's stinky". In more enlightened moments I realise she's selected me to be her personal moments, but the Pollyanna side of me thinks its because she loves me more.

6) ...But never let you get too big for your boots. Sadly, the shining glory of being Favourite Parent for a Moment is always diminished by the knowledge that Leya's nanny, Nomonde, is Favourite Person In the Whole Wide Universe, Including Galaxies Still To Be Discovered, For All Eternity And Even After That. I know this because of little reminders like the following:
Me: "Are you my special darling?"
Leya: "No. I'. Nommy's baby."
This doesn't seem fair. After all, Nomonde didn't put on 30kg to bring Leya into the world, nor does she have chips in her wall from when she threw every single one of her shoes in a fit of insane pregnant rage; nor does she get woken up by 5cm fingers prising her eyelids apart. But there, again, is one of the special life lessons that toddlers have for us: life isn't always fair.

7) They can make you feel really, really good about yourself. The other day, Leya asked me to fix her bottle. I jiggled around with it, handed it back, and when she found it working once more to her satisfaction she turned to me and said, "Thank you mommy! Good boy." I have never felt so proud.

Miss Ann Thrope

Just  quick list of things I am hating at the moment:

1) People who call cappuccinos flat whites. For years, everyone was content to call them cappuccinos. When did this change? And why did no one tell me? My dad and I once spent a miserable afternoon at Melissa's sipping Earl Grey and wondering what kind of coffee shop didn't serve cappuccinos. And wondering why we saw the odd foam-topped coffee being swished past us. It didn't occur to us to look out for flat whites on the menu. I still feel poncy ordering one. Or as if the waiter will decline my request on the basis that I am not wearing a beard (see below).

 2) Beards. Let's not kid. These are not fashion 'accessories' (not sure that's the right term, as it is grown out of the body rather than slung on the arm like a handbag). The key word being 'grown'. Yes, it is pubic hair growing out of the face. Not vastly different to fungus, or, if I am saying what I really think, a vagina. Which is what I automatically think of when I see a beard. My days are becoming increasingly harrowing as it seems no one is without one nowadays. I am surrounded by vag faces.

3) People who sign their emails/texts with little salutations like 'love and light', bringing to mind bearded (again: yuck, especially if it's a woman) vegans who embraced flaxseed long before Banting and think that leather handbags are a sin against humanity (I, meanwhile, think that pleather handbags are the sin against humanity). In what I consider the height of irony, Leya's playgroup teacher recently sent me a mail saying "Your child has been kicked out of playgroup until you remember to bring her registration forms, as I have been asking you to do since before she joined us. Love and Light, Sarah". I suppose I should be grateful she didn't add kisses. That would send the passive aggression into stratrospheric heights. Yes, I know I am a shocking mother. Never have a change of clothes. Never have wipes. Never have clean nappies unless they're still in my boot from the last big shop I did. Consider my knuckles duly rapped.

4) Millennial speak. Ironically, I have picked up some of this from my magazine. The other day I found myself saying to the head of a strategic consulting agency, "Yes, I understand if that time is a bit awk" for you. But seriously. I hate it: obvs (What, it takes too much energy to get the 'iously' out your mouth? Ditto for defs and totes.); also, "I know, right?" (too which I acerbically reply: if you know, have the courage of your own convictions and don't look for affirmation) and any bit of digitalia that's made it's way into colloquial speech (wtf might be acceptable when you're texting, as might a hashtag, but they have no place in the real world.)

5) People who call other people babe, especially if they are fellow women. Please. We are not in Las Vegas, and you are not a lounge singer wearing a toupee and Elvis pants.

The ugly truth about beautiful people

Working at a magazine, I know that the jobs that seem the most glamorous are, in fact, far from it.

Exhibit A: In my first year of work, I had to help out on a cover shoot with a well known DJ. I like to throw out the words 'cover shoot' because they make me sound important; admittedly, not in an I-fight-ebola kind of way, but you have to admit that "I am working on a shoot today" sounds way more exciting than "I have to get finished with the year-end financials" conjuring, as it does, images of slim and beautiful people dining on dainty canapés as they swan before a camera.

Sadly, I learned the hard way that this was not the truth. I spent five hours climbing the stairs of the Westcliff Hotel on a 32-degree day, dressed in synthetics, followed by a further two hours crouched awkwardly on the side of an infinity pool, balancing a light-deflecting device and sweating while said DJ sat in the water flicking her hair around and making a face like a surprised, lovelorn meerkat.

This experience really should have knocked the stars from my eyes. But it was only when chatting to the girls in the fashion department earlier this week that I realised how truly, truly unglamorous the world of beauty really is.

Now, I will admit to being hopelessly shallow. I might publicly voice the opinion that models are vapid and uninteresting, but only because I'm really jealous of them and would swap my double-bum for their intellect any day. And I know that what they do isn't important, and I know that there are greater talents in life than being able to smile or look whimsical or even change the way people think about eyebrows. But the reality is that I'm a sucker for fashion pages. Until I learnt these ugly truths:

1) Models smell. Yes. Apparently, they believe that their cheekbones double as anti-perspirant. Either that, or they think that, being so pretty, people will forgive them if a waft of fried onions enters the room at the same time as they do. Hygiene does not top their list of priorities, presumably because they're expecting the stylists to take care of all their nasties for them. Unfortunately this can result in some awkward situations - like the time a model, chosen for a shoot specifically for her long hair, had a bad case of lice.

PS apparently the men are the smelliest. And, while I always friend it hard to take a man seriously if he's fish-lipped and pouting, the idea that he's making the photographer gag while sending a smouldering stare is just laughable. Apparently, most stylists keep wipes on hand because carrying a portable shower isn't an option.

2) They have all kinds of horrid things happen to them because of clothes that aren't washed. Industry rumour has it that, one season, there was a dress that was in particularly high demand with stylists. Trouble was that the dress had a built in bodysuit, and because there was never time to wash it before it went on to the next assignment, all the girls that wore had to visit their gynaes shortly after. Eeew.

3) Stylists have  myriad unconventional uses for panty-liners. Sweaty underarms? No prob. Simply pop a pantyliner underneath that pit and it will be dry in no time. No sweat = no underarm stains on borrowed garments. Ingenious, really.

Hmm. I'm no longer quite so in awe.

Pondering the pronoun

Do any other moms get tripped up over what to call themselves when they're talking to their kids?

I know that 'mommy' is the standard name - and it's simple enough when you're saying "Mommy wants you to leave the room." But what about when things get more complicated, like "Mommy wants you to leave the room because __ on the toilet and it's nicer for her when you're not sitting on her lap." How do you fill in that blank? Saying 'she's' on the toilet feels like we're taking the third person thing too far and we really are discussing someone who has the unfortunate name of Mommy, but saying 'I'm on the toilet' is on of those grammatically awkward sentences akin to saying "We has fun when we go out" or "He have a dream of becoming a pilot". Cringe.

Similarly, what's the rule when the child's other parent enters the picture? Leya loves hiding games, so often James will walk into her room and say "Hmm - I wonder where Leya and Lisa could be?" Again, it sounds all wrong, and I worry that it plants a seed that will have Leya acting like an eye-rolling, precocious teenager who calls her mother by her first name before her fifth birthday - or like a lentil-and-hemp-eating hippie who eschews titles like mom and dad because they destroy the equality that is inherent in each of us as one of The Creator's beautiful beings.

On the other hand, I completely know why he does this. Saying to Leya "Should we tickle Daddy" or - worse still - "let's ask daddy if he's ready for supper. Daddy, are you ready?" feels strangely porny, like I'm some kind of Lolita.

Anyone feel the same way?