The Top 50 Things A Mother Should Do Before Your Child is 11 and Three Quarters

So, alright it's not a snappy title but in response to the National Trust's 50 Things To Do Before You're 11 and Three Quarters, it's the best I've got.

I've already helped out The National Trust once but now I have selflessly decided to expand their entirely fantastic bucket list idea so mothers all over the country can fulfill their own bucket lists too. Get your clipboards, a marker pen and get ready....

Hurrah.

*Fanfare*

The Top 50 Things To Do Before Your Child is 11 and Three Quarters*

1. Learn how to make salt dough
2. Spend an existentialist half hour once a week wondering where all the socks go
3. Forget to turn the bath off
4. Forget to turn the bath on
5. Go three days without food because you can't find time to eat any
6. Papier mache a balloon
7. Remove three hairclips and seven pieces of Lego from a washing machine filter
8. Tolerate other people's children 
9. Forget to look in a mirror for a week and a half
10. Have a tantrum (Preferably in a supermarket)
11. Spend 72 hours without sleep
12. Learn to love gin
13. Cry when someone mentions going on holiday
14. Jump in a puddle
15. Forget your own name
16. Forget your husband/partner/significant other's name (This can sometimes have HILARIOUS consequences)
17. Know the name of every CBeebies presenter
18. Eat chocolate until you are sick
19. Despair at advertising on TV
20. Wonder how to remove nail varnish from the carpet
21. Wear jeans EVERY day for two years
22. And not notice
23. Struggle down the street with an (almost) lifesize castle made out of cereal boxes
24. Start blogging
25. List "colouring in" as a skill on your CV
26. Reach for a glass when you see a rash
27. Go on a wine diet
28. Wonder what happened to your breasts 
29. Collect Disney's entire film oeuvre
30. Visit A&E
31. Get lost in a shopping mall
32. Ride on a steam train
33. Scream yourself hoarse
34. Listen to five conversations at once
35. Develop a crush on Dr Who
36. Understand the life cycle of the headlouse
37. Remove someone's ankle skin with a pushchair
38. Know the name of EVERY Thomas the Tank Engine train (Beware: that's a LOT of trains)
39. Cry in public
40. Spit on a tissue 
41. Feel guilty
42. Understand "number chunking" (Anybody?)
43. Unblock something (toilet, plughole, drain, child's nose) 
44. Think about running away
45. Bite your tongue
46. Eat more chips than strictly necessary
47. Bury a family pet 
48. Develop 1,763 ways of saying "NO"
49. Sneer at lycra
50. Worry.

*in no particular order