Mum phrases and how they have come back to bite me in the arse (I mean, bottom)

It's funny how our vocabulary changes once we have children, don't you think?

I don't only mean how “SHIT!” becomes “SHHH…UGAR!”, or how “Oh, BOLLOCKS!” becomes “Oh, BOLL-DERDASH!” (okay, actually not everyone's language might have been as ripe as mine was), I mean the little phrases that creep in and seem to constitute about 50% of everything we say during any given day.

Here are my top 10 phrases I never thought I’d use with such frequency (and how they come back to bite me in the arse. Oops. I mean bum. No, bottom).

10. “STOP!”
The trouble, I find, with saying this as frequently as I do is that it ceases to have the gravitas it really deserves when I walk into a room and find my two-year-old half way up a bookcase. Especially in someone else's house.

9. “Don't make me come over there…”
Yeh right! OBVIOUSLY they are going to make me go over there. They want me to go over there. Because that would kick start the very 'funny' game of 'catch me if you can'.

8. “Have you done a wee?”

For some reason the autopilot me seems to think my daughter needs to do a wee about 400 times a day. I've included this one because I think it gives a little insight into my future nagging mother/huffy teenage daughter relationship, when Ava sighs and says: “Yeeeeeees, mummyyyyy. I HAVE done a weeeeeeee.” And then sighs again. It doesn't stop me though.

7. “I'm going to count to three! One. Two. Three. RIGHT…”
And my children are thinking 'Why does she always let us have an extra three seconds? I'd have just made us stop it straight away. Thanks though.’

6. “Teeth! Teeth! TEEEEEETH!!”
The word teeth means nothing. I might as well be talking a foreign language. The word 'TEEEEEETH!' however, is understood to mean 'open up and brush’. Why do I even bother saying 'teeth'?

5. “Gently!”
Used for all manner of situations! Touching other people's babies and animals, drawing with crayons (to save the table underneath), TEEEEEETH brushing, play / pillow fighting, stirring ingredients and so on. I must over egg it though. I could be using the touch of Thumbelina and I'd still get, when combing their hair: “Gently, mummy. GENTLY mummyyyy. MUMMY, you are NOT being GENTLE!” I am being.

4. “Just a minute!” Or the alternative. “Two minutes!”
Big mistake, this one. They not only repeat the phrase to me (for example, when it is bed time and they need 'just a minute' to continue jumping on the sofa), they also apply the 'time has no meaning' rule. Which they have learned from me. *Fail*

3. “Say please!”
And here begins the process of children trying to understand something that they just will not understand for a long, long time. It's painful for everyone. Because if they say 'please', they CAN have another drink! Or an apple. Or a book read to them. Or a picnic in the garden. But if they say “Please can I have a Mars Bar?” or “Please can I wear your make-up?” or (at 8pm) “Please can we go to the park?” the word means nothing. It carries no weight. Neither does 'pleeeeeeeease', or 'please please please!' or any variations thereof. 'Please' is a rubbish word. It's no wonder they can't be arsed (oops, bothered) to say it half the time.

2. “Calm DOWN!”
A natural thing to say when my toddlers are running amok and need a bit of wind down time. An infuriating thing to hear from one of THEM when I am rushing around, trying to get ready to leave the house, in a faff, because we are late… because of them.

and, at number 1, of course, is…

1. “No.”
The word I say the most, and hear the most. Although my youngest gives it considerably more punch with an elongated NNNNN. 1,000 times per day: “Shall we [insert anything that does not involve going on the swings or eating cake/chocolate]?”

“NNNNNO!”

What are yours?!