Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce myself. I am Mother. Not THE mother. I make no claim on that, and leave it to the divine. But I have, for the last 10 months been nothing else but a caretaker, milkfactory and a diaperchanger. That, I believe, qualifies me to make the above statement. Plus, of course, the fact that 10 months ago I shoved a living creature the size of a watermelon through my private parts and into this world, something that amazes me until this day, and which I have no desire to experience again (to all the women that boast about a wonderful experience, and who would do it again in a heartbeat, I say: Go back to the planet you came from and leave us earthlings alone. We are overcrowded as it is.)
I have not always been Mother. In fact, there was a time when the very idea of motherhood scared the living daylights out of me. This time lasted for 33 years. When I ran out of excuses to my husband, I stopped the pill and eventually peed on a stick which showed a cross instead of a single blue line, something I was NOT expecting. 19 months later I am following the world news, but find them quite uninteresting, in comparison to my daughter's bowel movement, which, it has to be said, have been quite dramatic today. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the very beginning, which, as Julie Andres would put is, is a very good place to start.