The other night, I was stood in the nursery at 1am trying to get Sonny Jim back into his cot without him waking up.

As I oh-so-gently tried to slide my arm from underneath his back I heard a group of drunkenly happy people chatting loudly as they wandered along our road.

I couldn’t help but smile somewhat ruefully at how times have changed (while inwardly praying they didn’t wake Sonny Jim.) But it got me thinking how actually, there’s a few similarities between those drunken nights out and life with a toddler…

You’re up all night. You know you’ll be tired the next day, but what can you do?

There’s dancing. And it’s really not very stylish. Or cool. Sometimes you don’t even need music.

There’s always someone crying. You don’t know why. You’re not sure what you can do about it. Hugging seems to help though.

Sometimes someone screams in your face. You have *no* idea what they are so angry about. Then they suddenly stop and they’re your new best friend, patting your face and accidentally poking you in the eye.

You crave bad food. Which you eat waaaay too late at night and you grumph it waaaay too fast (Easter has been my undoing. One minute there’s a whole egg there, the next I’m licking the foil.)

You get all emotional over the littlest things. You don’t know why you suddenly feel so blessed/teary/loved-up, but you do.

Someone always ends up in their pants. Often because someone has been sick on them.

You have bruises in random places. And a vague memory of doing something utterly cringe-worthy when you got them.

There’s unprompted declarations of love. In a voice that doesn’t sound like your normal voice at all. And you keep repeating it. Oh you do. Yes you dooooo.