Mum Diary: My parenting New Year’s resolutions

It used to be that New Year’s Day was all about me. I’d wake up determined to eat less cake, take more exercise and read more self-improving literature.

And by the end of the second day I’d be eating a Snickers and re-reading Flashman novels, my good resolutions just a guilty awareness lurking at the back of my mind.

But since I became the mother of two charming little boys, I’m New-Year-resolving for three. Each January I kick-start into a surge of activity that leaves me a nervous wreck within days.

Take food. Each year I resolve to cook more home-made, nutritious meals and rely less on fish fingers and beans to keep my toddler Harry going. I already cook at least four or five meals a week from scratch, but each January I decide that Everything Must Be Home-Made. Everything.

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My toddler cookery books conspire to give me the impression that proper mothers are making everything themselves; breakfast cereals, oat bars, minty lamb koftas (damn you Annabel Karmel). Whenever I resolve to cook more, I spend hours in the kitchen creating dishes my firstborn refuses to touch because his normal diet almost never involves lentils or pilaf.

And the same goes for most other resolutions I’m tempted to make. My toddler doesn’t need me to fixate on teaching him to read before he’s three. My baby is crawling well without me embarking on a baby gymnastics course. I need to fight my helicopter-parenting instincts, not make resolutions that exacerbate them.

So this year I have decided to focus on making a positive change that I can realistically maintain – and one that will benefit both children. I’ve decided to be sillier.

If that doesn’t sound like much of a resolution then bear with me. I realised that I spend a lot of my time very seriously telling my toddler what he needs to do. ‘Harry, come here to do your teeth’, ‘Harry, it’s time to get dressed’, ‘Harry, stop rolling oranges at your brother’.

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Now I have two children to organise, I don’t seem to be as playful as I used to be and certainly not as much fun as I want to be.

“You’ll catch more flies with honey than vinegar” is so very true when it comes to toddlers. If I tell Harry it’s time to do his teeth then he’ll scarper. If I tell him that it’s time to change the wheels on his ‘tongue car’ then he’ll cheerfully open wide.

If I tell him that his clothes are exactly what astronauts wear then he’ll co-operate fully. And if I offer to read him a story or invite him to play Lego, he’ll usually stop tormenting his baby brother. Usually. Nine times out of 10 anyway.

So my resolution for 2014 is to be more playful, more fun and more silly. I’m not just my sons’ main caregiver, or cook, or improver – in these early years I’m their main companion. And I want them to have fun.

I’ve already started implementing my new plan. Just yesterday I needed to wash and box the boys’ outdoor sandpit toys – a collection of mud-caked diggers and trucks that really need to come inside for the worst of the winter.

I’d been putting this off because I knew Harry would make it extremely hard. As soon as I brought the toys inside, he’d want to play with them and then I’d have a choice between a tantrum or muddy tracks all around the house. Then I decided to try a sillier solution.

We turned the bath into a carwash and Harry helped me wash the toys, dry them and put them in their ‘shed’ (a large cardboard box) for their winter rest. The job was done and not only were there no arguments but it kept Harry happy and busy for a good hour. A little toddler-friendly silliness turned a chore into a game – I need to do that more often in 2014.

I have one other family resolution for the New Year and that’s to make more time for my husband. We’ve had two babies in the last two-and-a-half years, and it’s felt like a blur of sleepless nights, nappies and pureed vegetables.

With Olly starting to sleep through at night and Harry at preschool, I think we at least deserve a fortnightly date night – even if all we do is talk about the boys.

How about you? Any parenting New Year’s resolutions? Share your plans with me and other readers using the comments below.