How to Lose Friends When You Have Babies

When you first have a baby your friends are great. They come to see you with bucket loads of cuddly toys and coo over your bundle of joy. They will offer to babysit “whenever you need a break” and refer to themselves as Aunty or Uncle.
Enjoy this for about three weeks.
Then the honeymoon is well and truly over.

HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND IRRITATE PEOPLE (when you have babies)

Do not go out in the evening.
Do not go out before 10am.
Never arrive anywhere on time.
Blame everything on teething, tantrums, crying, lateness, missing appointments, unruly behaviour, tiredness, vomiting, weeing on the floor. I am pretty sure if World War Three started tomorrow somehow it would be due to teething.
Don’t go anywhere later than 5pm. If you do go out always make sure you are back by 5pm.
Post the following pictures on Facebook (then keep checking to see how many likes they get) -

• Your baby smiling.
• Your baby with food all over her/his face.
• Your baby in adult’s sunglasses.
• Your baby asleep with the caption. “She is so cute – when she is asleep!”

Make sure your Facebook status updates are about how your babies are “still not asleep!”
Always fail to notice that the traffic lights have changed to green because the baby screams every time you stop the car and it is a little distracting.
Ensure your toddler screams loudly at all of your male friends.
The Three Ps: puke, pee and poo. Ensure your baby deposits one (or ideally all of the above) on your friends whenever they visit.
When meeting up with your non-parent friends make your children call them Aunty or Uncle so they feel pressured to babysit, buy them presents and be nice to them.
Don’t answer the phone.
If you do manage to answer the phone, talk for just a few seconds before a) your toddler grabs the phone and hangs up or b) you have to go and tend to a baby.
Take at least three days to reply to a text message.
Forget to lock your mobile so that your toddler can accidentally call your friends at 5am in the morning.

If you do EVER manage to meet up with friends make sure you interrupt the conversation every two minutes to retrieve the toddler from the table, behind the counter and other people’s chairs. Don’t forget to sniff the baby’s nappy, change the baby or take the toddler to the toilet.

Once you’ve done all of that, get your friend to hold the baby “for a minute” while you nip to the toilet then DO NOT retrieve the baby for at least half an hour.
Just when you start to become a little less irritating – have a second baby.

So there you have it. Parents can be a bit annoying, but don’t be too hard on us. We really do try to answer the phone, make it to your birthday party and reply to your messages but it’s not always that easy, because babies take up literally ALL of our time. They don’t care if we have been up all night and would quite like to sit down for FIVE minutes. They don’t give a toss whether we are supposed to be meeting a friend for coffee or going out for lunch. All they know is that right NOW they really want a drink of milk, a wee, a cuddle or just to run around the kitchen naked.
I’ll let you into a secret though – we can’t blame it all on the children. We are just as likely to turn up late because the baby has just said her first word and we spent an hour trying to get her to repeat it. Or we are making the eight-month-old giggle and forgot to check the time. Or because the toddler has fallen asleep on us for the first time since she was a baby and we are enjoying the moment. But we can’t tell you that can we? The thing is, it is these moments that make the sleepless nights, the dirty nappies, the tantrums and the tears, all worth it.
(But it is usually because of teething….)

Have you been irritated by a parent recently? Or are you a parent who has been irritating? Feel free to share your experiences!

Courtesy: [Shared by Emily-Jane and the Years of Stolen Sleep]