Having a baby is a real relationship game-changer. On the one hand, I’ve gained a whole new level of respect for the guy who stays so calm after Miss O’s 1458th tantrum of the day (this is usually the point at which I stomp off to sit in the car with a Kit Kat to calm down) and who happily gets up at 5.30am with her so that I can get some extra shut-eye.

But on the other hand, we do things that drive each other absolutely bananas. A lot of these are things that we’ve always done, but hey, if things got a bit tense pre-baby, you could pop out for a nice pub lunch somewhere, or, I don’t know, have an impromptu weekend away in Paris (we never actually did this, but it’s what you like to imagine you’d be doing instead of watching a Peppa Pig marathon, idly wondering why someone hasn’t turned that annoying little oik  into sausage rolls yet…)

These days, it’s all a bit more stressful, and frantic, and there’s Lego f*cking everywhere. So those once completely brush-offable bad habits have become REALLY BLOODY ANNOYING.

For the sake of fairness, I do have a number of habits that really wind J up:

• I never finish the last sip of a drink; there’s always that last bit of liquid rolling around the bottom of the glass (unless it’s wine, obvs).
• I fill the bin to absolute capacity, so that you can’t actually seal the bin bag, mainly because I really can’t be arsed to take it out.
• I always go ‘off-list’ in the supermarket, then end up never actually using those must-have extras (like the time I bought loads of brown rice so that we could be super healthy, then realised it took 50 minutes to cook… f*ck that for a game of soldiers!)

So, conscience eased, now I can crack on with the things that really bring out my inner mum rage:

The laws of drying
1: You should always let sleeping dogs lie. And, apparently, soaking wet towels:

2: Unless your clothes horse is buckling under the weight of at least 10 layers of washing, deftly laid on top of each other like an elaborate game of Buckaroo, then you just aint doing it right…

3: If you really, really want to avoid the whole messy business of drying things, just leave them to ‘soak’ – about a week should do it:

(The eagle-eyed amongst you may have also noticed that EVERY BLOOMIN’ DOOR AND DRAWER in the kitchen is open…and that we have a tiny ambulance in our cupboard, but then who doesn’t?)

Stack-em high…
The fun doesn’t stop there; head into the kitchen for a quick round of Refrigerator Jenga (first prize – salmonella):

(and yes, the mushroom ketchup IS weird – it was in an Annabel Karmel recipe, she seems to know her stuff, and I was convinced it would be the special secret ingredient that would FINALLY convince Miss O to eat something that wasn’t coated in breadcrumbs or chocolate) *spoiler alert* – it wasn’t, so the rest of it is doomed to ferment in here forever…

The floordrobe
Any one else’s other half have one of these, because apparently, it’s sooo much easier to find everything? Strongly considering burying his iPhone in here later for some Friday night japes:

(In case you’re not familiar, the orange chap in the left-hand corner is Noo-Noo, the poor sod that has to clean up after the Teletubbies. He’s on permanent time-out in our bedroom, mainly because he’s a noisy little fecker who makes mummy drink more.)

And finally…
He absolutely refuses to go to the Doctor, right up until we’re on the verge of an A&E visit. Take last week for example; his feet are basically a mess and have been for months, it turned out that Plan A (ignoring it) and Plan B (going at them for an hour with only a vegetable knife and kitchen towel to assist him) didn’t do the trick, so one emergency operation and £75 later…

All in all though, if the worst you can say about your other half is that they could do with a trip to tidy boot camp and some legally-enforceable medical check-ups, you’re probably doing OK!

Right , I’m off to squeeze a bit more rubbish into the bin whilst J isn’t looking…