10 signs it’s really time to up your ‘mum’ game

Mum fails are perfectly acceptable, okay?

And if you’re like me, then you’ve probably had your fair share of moments when you realise just how hard parenting is. Good things kids are so forgiving … and resilient.

Come on mums, admit it – sometimes we fail at this whole mum thing. Some afternoons the kids draw all over the walls. Some days they smear peanut butter all over their brother. Some weeks they get chips for dinner almost every night. And some months you can’t remember the last time you had a decent night’s sleep.

But for every mum fail, you are learning a valuable lesson about life and parenting. Or, at least you keep telling yourself that.

So, without further ado, here are a few surefire signs that you really need to up your mum game (all of which occurred to me this year). Please tell me I’m not the only one.

Your child comes home with a page from his journal that confirms your awesome parenting skills

What did your kids do today? Mine kicked dirt and ignored me. Failing at parenting. Winning at instilling honesty into my kids …

You forget that it’s school photo day

And your child arrives at school with a stained uniform and chocolate milk smeared all over his face.

Smile! And hide your head in shame when the photos come back.

Bonus points if you’ve also mixed up Crazy Hair Day and sent them to school with hot pink hair a week early.

You send your child to school with leftover cold pizza … or money for tuck shop

Pizza is a food group. Fact.

And you buy store-bought cupcakes for your daughter’s preschool class, place them in your own container to pass them off as your own creation

Yes, I am an incredible baker, thanks for noticing.

You arrive at an appointment for your son, only to realise the appointment is for your daughter

Someone in this household has to see the dentist today. And there’s a 50 per cent chance I will get it right.

Or wrong.

You send them to school on a pupil-free day

And then book it out of the car park at record speed so no teacher sees your car and shakes her head at your oblivion. Why are there so many pupil-free days?! And why am I the only one who doesn’t know about these days?

Your attempt at making a birthday cake looks like someone vomited in a baking tin

SpongeBob has always been a creepy and annoying character. But this abhorrent creation is in a class of its own.

You run out of nappies when running errands

And have to resort to wrapping your child’s butt in a towel and hoping for the best.

You “accidentally” lose your daughter’s life-like whinging doll that could give Chucky a run for his money

I have no idea where the worst’s most annoying doll is. Certainly not in the bin.

You realise in the morning after your son loses a tooth that the tooth fairy didn’t come

And thus you end up giving him double the coin because the “tooth fairy got lost”. It certainly has nothing to do with the bottle of wine the tooth fairy consumed after he went to bed last night …

So perhaps you’re not winning any awards for the world’s best mum on paper. But, hey, you’re doing the best you can. And, if you ask your kids, even if you can’t bake a cake, we can assure you they think you’re doing a pretty good job.