The thinks you can think

...Or rather, the thinks I think (although I am pretty sure that almost every other parent has had these thoughts run through their heads at some stage).

1. Thank heavens for Afrikaans.  I guess other countries have their own second languages but, really, what would we do without Die Taal? How would we complain about the kids while they're standing right in front of us, relate goss that's really not for little ones' ears, or talk about people they know? The only drawback is that one can get so into the habit you start using Afrikaans to talk about other adults around you, forgetting that they understand it, too.

2. I hope no one is looking at me. Back when James and I were firm-bodied and childless, we holidayed at a resort where we spent an afternoon laughing at a woman whose favourite pastime appeared to be throwing a stick at her son and watching him fetch it. "Why doesn't she just get a dog!" we chortled. Ah, there is no laughter so loud as that of the child-free. Fast forward ten years and there I was last Friday, in a restaurant nogal, throwing sticks while my daughter and nephew crawled on all fours, barking and panting as they raced to fetch them, then carrying them back to me in their mouths. Nonchalantly I rubbed their stomachs and scratched behind their ears, pretending all the while that there was no difference between them and the children seated quietly on their chairs, sipping milkshakes. And on that note...

3. I don't really like my dogs any more. Before you get all judgey and SPCA-ish, let me inform you that my dogs have never been well-liked. Just ask our neighbours, who mounted a 'Leave the suburb' campaign against us, prompted by their incessant barking (it ended in a particularly nasty email exchange during the festive season, with the final word going to James: "Just remember, Steven, people might complain about our dogs but everyone in the whole road actually hates you. Have a nice Christmas".) It seems that Sherpa, in particular, is engaged in a contest against himself to see how much he can irritate me: loudly scampering with his clattery claws on the wooden floors as he follows me to Leya's room when I am bringing her in from a nap drive, having just driven through three suburbs listening to 'Sophia's sleep song' on repeat. Puffing out liver-coloured clouds of foul air, and following me from room to room when I try to escape them, robbing each new spot of its oxygen. Licking Jessica's face shortly after he has routed her pooh nappies from the bin and feasted on them. Proving the futility of a home exercise programme by mounting me from behind when I try to do the plank (thanks, but no). Shedding so much fur that white hair is found everywhere, even in the folds of Jessie's several chins, where they remain stuck thanks to her prodigious drooling.

4. Will I ever be clean again. (Skip this part if you are easily grossed out). I can handle the vomit crust that permanently bedecks my left shoulder; have become accustomed to it, even. But Jessica really took things a bridge too far the other day when, while she was sitting on my lap, I heard a sound like a truck backfiring. We were in a book shop at the time - a quiet haven for literary types seeking classical music and the gentle rustle of pages to block out the world's bustle. Instead, they received a front row ticket to the aftermath of the poohcano: it took 15 minutes and a packet of wipes to clean up Jessie's liqui-pooh, all the while trying to shield the books from the spatters sparking off her windmilling feet. An ordeal, yes, but nothing in comparison to the walk to the car wearing a dress with a 15cm brown wet patch. And, just in case I thought no one would notice, Leya set me straight: "Mom, everyone can see you and they're all laughing," she assured me. For a three-year-old, she has a highly developed sense of schadenfreude.

5. What is that thing in the mirror. At my university residence, there was a mirror placed in the hallway where I would always give myself one last look before heading out for a night out at the Union. I was always amazed by the body swap that took place without my knowledge during the night, so that the girl who left with all her makeup in the right place came back with mascara on her upper lip and chewing gum in her hair (apparently, I find it impossible to be well-groomed and tipsy at the same time).

A similar metamorphosis has taken place during my adulthood: I started off with everything where it should be, but just the other day, my boobs brushed my belly button while I was brushing my teeth. That shouldn't happen to anyone. And speaking of belly buttons: mine looks like the epicentre of a volcanic explosion - thanks, stretch marks. And the actual stomach itself blobs about like those moving bits inside a lava lamp. Then there are the eyes, as haunted and staring as those of a war victim, thanks to the fact that all four of us (yes, even Jessie, who refuses to sleep unless she is on my chest) now camp out in one bed, and the exhaustion that ensues. Admittedly, I don't have it as badly as James, who regularly sleeps with his head on his bedside table because of Leya's star-fishing.

The Haves and the Have Nots

I could also have called this post 'thoughts parents have when talking to their non-parent friends'. And just a heads up: they're the kind of thoughts that may be expressed as delight at the vicarious titillation we get to enjoy through your exploits, yet deep inside they're really a boiling pot of envy. After all, when you're a parent, especially one to a new baby as I am, even a night that involves nothing more addictive than popcorn seems hopelessly glamorous.

This point was driven home to me when I was recently visited by a dear friend from the UK, whom I shall call Helga because it is close to her real name while being unattractive and inelegant. Because she is the exact opposite of these two qualities, it gives me great pleasure to think of her thus.

Now, I am already jealous of Helga because she lives in London and I have a weird thing about the UK. I know it's one of the most advanced societies in the world but I still picture residents in home-cabled cardies serving each other tea biscuits over melamine tables as they did in the war, an image I find quaintly endearing. Also, Helga's career is such that, while I have, in the name of work, been forced to phone gynaecologists and say "Hi there! I am writing an article on whether you should steam your vagina!" (and have to keep a stiff upper lip in the face of the inevitable giggling that ensues), Helga travels the world, interviewing presidents and staying in ice hotels.

My latest bout of jealousy was sparked by the fact that Helga is newly on the single scene and enjoying a good bout of debaucherous fun. I could not help but draw analogies between our lives:

1. Helga spent the night with an Austrian aristocrat, hopping from one techno club to the other, until the sun comes up. Now, I must state unequivocally that I would hate to listen to a minute of techno, let alone a whole night of it. But it's the idea of being awake at 4am for purposes other than breastfeeding that is undeniably alluring. Just think: she was out! Actually out the house! Wearing something that doesn't unzip or unbutton at the top. And if she did have to get her boobs out quickly, it sure as hell wasn't for someone who would later vomit on her.

Now, often people require some sort of stimulant to keep going for a night on the town. Again, I can't really identify. That said, there is a lot of snorting going on in my house - not of cocaine, but of the nose Frida. For those not in the know, the nose Frida is a tube you use to suck out your infant's snot. Yes, I actually said that. It's a hideous notion but since poor old Jessica has a loud honking snore you'd expect more from a hirsute truckdriver than a sweet four-month-old, de-snotting her is a necessary process. It's also (gloves off) one I have come to enjoy in the same shameful way one likes squeezing pimples - a challenge of the grotesque over the functional.

3. Helga smells of perfume. I, on the other hand, smell of spit. That's because Jessie is the moistest baby I know, coating my arms in little gloves of spit when I carry her, as I often do, on her tummy like a leopard. My skin is getting sensitive from her digestive enzymes breaking it down. I used to get furious with the dogs when I saw the little puddles dotting our floors, then I realised it was all due to Drooly Julie, as we call her.

Yup - it's glamour, glamour, glamour all the way in my house.

Rude realisations

The other day I was looking through my wardrobe, and noticed it contains a lot of white. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I purchased these items, as wearing white implies a) that you are about to star in an ad for tampons; or b) that you are about to have a during which you are certain not to encounter chocolate ice cream, grass stains or tomato sauce - neither of which apply to me. Clearly, the unsuitability of white as a sartorial choice is something is a lesson that I have yet to fully internalise. However, there are other small things that I have heeded, and these I will share with you:

1. When you have a toddler, you will end up eating a lot of chips. Anyone agree that a fat slap chip, drenched in so much vinegar that it stings your eyes, and salted to tongue-curling perfection is a thing of beauty? The same cannot, however, be said of the oven chips dusted with that weird seasoning served at kiddies' restaurants throughout the country. For a food that I actively dislike, I ingest a lot of this stuff - because Leya always orders it and it sits there, undelicious yet strangely irresistible. I end up cramming these things into my mouth with the same unconscious, repetitive movement as a player at the slot machines. Leya's chip obsession has also resulted in Realisation Number Two:

2. When you have a toddler, it's highly likely that your signature scent is tomato sauce. You now how magazines are always urging you to identify whether your fragrance preferences are chipre, woody, green or floral? Never once do they mention the distinctive tang of tomato sauce - for good reason. Everyone has their own views on the stuff, but mine are not favourable - and yet, if smells were soundtracks, this would be the tune my life is set to. Some people's homes are redolent with Jo Malone diffusers in tasteful combinations like bitter chocolate, lime and ginger, but mine smells like a takeaway packet that's been left to marinate in a hot car, thanks to my daughter's habit of wiping sauce-daubed hands and face on every surface.

3. There's really no pleasing them. 'Eggshells' is not the word. The other day, I watched while my sister spent several seconds artfully arranging a pizza on a plate. Bemused by the care she was taking to make the food look as if it hadn't been touch (much like you might spend hours in front of the mirror to create an 'I woke up looking like this' makeup look), I asked what she was doing. Trying to stave off her son's anger at the fact that his sister had taken a slice of pizza, was the answer - scuffed around as it was, he might not notice the missing slice, and his anger may be averted. Her luck had run out, though: when he sat down, it was the number of slices that infuriated him, but the fact that they were wet. Quickly, my sister soothingly pointed out that they weren't, in fact, wet, whereupon he bellowed in rage: THIS PIZZA IS NOT WET.

There's no winning. In which case, one may as well resign oneself to one's fate and get on with it - or wear the white dress and accept that you'll look like a Jackson Pollock later.