Are you on Facebook? Are you a mum? Have you been tagged in the motherhood challenge? I pretty much universally hate this kind of thing, but since it’s only posting five happy shiny pictures of me and the boy how hard can it be?

I’ve loved looking at everyone else’s five pictures, and like them I’ve chosen to highlight the good stuff. It’s like a CV of parenting, you accentuate the positive and hide the negative stuff away and hope nobody sees it.

Like when he was 3 weeks old and we were both crying hysterically and we’d run out of tissues so I was so delirious with exhaustion I blew my nose on the duvet and we promptly fell fast asleep.

Or the time when he projectile pooed all over me and then peed on my face when I was cleaning him up.

Or all the cakes he’s coughed and sneezed in while we were making them (plague cake anyone?).

Or the times he’s shouted at me that he’s not my very best friend anymore, then cried out for cuddles before bed.

Or when he was having an operation and I almost tore my heart out with a mixture of fear and anxiety.

Or the times I’ve been too full of anxiety to do anything other than cry and rock to myself until it stopped.

Or the money troubles, the times I’ve not been able to scrape the money together to buy enough food for his tea, never mind the Lego set he dreams of.

Of the things I’ve missed out on in his life because my ruined spine won’t let me kick a ball around with him in the park, or carry him upstairs when he’s sleepy, or wrestle around in the floor playing horsey.

I’m just a normal mum, doing what I can to make sure he grows up to be a happy and productive member of society. My parenting isn’t perfect, in real life it’s not all lovely smiles and cheeky kisses, it’s not been carefully staged for Instagram, with filters applied left, right and centre. Parenting is messy, physically and emotionally, but would I change it? Not on your nelly.