Today, I am mostly being curmudgeonly about everything

What has curmudgeon to do with motherhood? Shouldn't a mother be full of the joys of Spring, sniffing daffodils, perhaps, gambolling as lambs through meadows, laughing gaily at the day's trials and tribulations, dealing swiftly and deftly with disagreements (few and far between, surely?) and generally tripping merrily through life, her beautifully-behaved cherubs toddling along behind?

Sod that.

Motherhood is a fierce thing, not something to be lived as a giggle. The lioness protective instinct, trite and cliched though it is, kicks in as soon as the placenta's out. Yes, there's mirth along the way, but at the base of it all is the natural desire for one's children to succeed, not just as doctors (why is that thought of as a good job - surely you just see ill people all day?), but as decent human beings. And in this day and age, it'd be nice if they made it to their dotage free from stab wounds.

So, why am I curmudgeonly about it? Do I hate my children? No. I'm just sick of all the "extras" that, if an alien landed on Earth (you mean they're not already here, presenting ishoo-based chat shows?), they'd think were de rigueur for bringing up children.

So babies must have black and white mobiles (to stimulate their eyesight), they need a separate ickle plastic tub in which to bathe (the stinky blighters, flobbing around in their sleepsuits, niffing gently from the exertion of lying down and occasionally doing a bit of milky dribble) and they would probably never do anything without special toys made from brightly-coloured plastic to help them sit, walk and bounce about idly.

As for toddlers, they must attend lessons in running, hopping, jumping and crawling through tunnels and waving parachutes about (aka fleecing parents weekly for providing toddlers with the opportunity to do stuff they do anyway in a draughty church hall. Except maybe the parachutes). Oh, and toddlers have to attend nursery/not attend nursery/have a mum who works/have a mum who doesn't work/any other guilt-inducing load of stuff that's not actually relevant to your own situation that's just crammed into a newspaper because an editor had an awkward-shaped gap between the ads and/or stuffed into a book because some judgey, worthy person parenting expert thinks they have a point and wants to tell every other parent to follow exactly what they say for fear of Dire Consequences (usually involving sleep and rods for backs).

And older children - well, they must just have Everything They Want. Especially if it's trainers or Bratz dolls.

Anyway, it's late. I must trip merrily to slumber. I might have my favourite dream, the one where I have a cleaner, a chef, a nanny and the ability to pretend I do it all myself. Tra-la-la.