You think you know what it’s going to be like when you have children. Other parents nod at your first pregnant bump and urge you to “Enjoy the sleep while you can get it!” You realise that your time and your money will no longer be your own. Holidays are likely to change too, not to mention nights out (a lot less fun nursing a hangover and a toddler at 6.30 the morning after). So I thought I was prepared. What I hadn’t realised were all the little things. Stuff that isn’t worth making a fuss about but are, not to put too fine a point on it, annoying. Things like:

• Bashed toes. Why do children jump on your feet? The second I put on a pair of flip-flops or sandals, one or other of my tribe decides to use my toes to give him an extra inch height. My tootsies, never beautiful at the best of times, now regularly sport a rainbow of purple bruises a ballerina might be proud of.
• Stolen shoes. Foot fetishists, that’s what they are. One of a pair of shoes often goes walkies, turning up later underneath the trampoline in the garden or in a pile of Lego in a toy box. Why?
• Stealing lunch. What is it about my lunch or breakfast that looks so much more delicious than theirs? I’ll sometimes sit down with a Vogel bread sandwich packed with smoked mackeral or spinach and chicken, and find myself circled, hyena-like, by three little people, arms outstretched, and mouths opening and closing like cod. Go away and eat your fish fingers. You hate smoked mackeral, and to make you eat spinach I chop it so fine as to be barely visible to the human eye.
• Blocking the way. I need to open the front door, and the children telepathically jump in front of me to prevent me doing so. We reach the top of a moving staircase, and threaten to tumble fellow passengers behind us like dominoes because we suddenly decide to stop. And any time I need to open a kitchen cabinet, fridge or washing machine, there you are standing right in front of me.
• Covering everything in food. I didn’t realise a plate of spaghetti bolognaise could cause such destruction. By the time it’s in my hair, tot’s hair, on the floor and slimed all over the high chair, it doesn’t seem possible that there’s enough left to eat. The children keep on a-growing, so something must be going in, but I could practically feed another family with the detritus.
• It’s a steal. As if to ram home the point that I now officially have less disposable income than in my student years, mine make guerilla raids on my wallet. They’re not after the cash (I’m told that happens once the tots becomes teens), but the credit cards. These are scattered across the house, business cards among them, turning up in the cornflakes weeks later.
• Lights out. Cars are merely moveable playrooms kitted out with all manner of exciting lights and levers. They don’t even need batteries. Oh, they do, as I discovered one day. We hadn’t used the car for over a week, and so many lights had been left on inside it that we weren’t going anywhere until the AA arrived. 

Any other little things you’ve noticed? And if you see my French Sole pump, the one with the sparkly beads, could you let me know?