whskrs on ktns

All I do these days is to emit these dreadful cawing noises with which I really hesitate to lambast the internet for fear of coming home to a row of scarecrows in my comments box. I was earlier going to damn the consequences and spew out a list of the things pudding boy has been up to but then I got a salutary text from a fellow Mum and realised that ultimately, the internet is better off without all my flapping about.

I met girl X while pregnant - we met online in fact, in a forum for expectant Mums and we hit it off. We txted, we dropped e (mail) to each other, we LOLed around and ultimately we met up which was nice, by which I mean that I think we struggled a bit to connect. But it was nice. She's lovely and sweet and all raindrops on roses and a good 11 or 12 years younger than me. She doesn't belong in my creaking, leathery company; by which, of course, I mean that when stood next to her black-belt fitness and clear skin, all my aged glory is clearly apparent.

So, we went back to txting and this was fine. We had a network of other Mums we'd never met who would text each other at 4am "Come in London, RU up? Just doing feed 2" and it was an amazement to me to think of the millions of us awake at 4am with a baby latched on to a boob, just getting through the night.

Soon however, her texts took a turn for the worse. Her baby was bigger, stronger, eating more, sitting up earlier, grabbing things, rolling over, crawling... I don't think she meant in a million years to be competitive but there it was, failure with every text. I started to wrestle with my urge to out-do her and the more I wrestled, the blander my texts got as I steered clear of anything competitive - but it kept coming. If I was tired, she hadn't slept for two days. If Charlie was smiling, her baby was laughing. If we'd been out for a walk, they'd been up a mountain... After two of three months of it I just couldn't do it anymore. My responses dwindled, emails sat malevolently in my inbox chirping cheerily to themselves... Eventually, nicely and naturally, we dropped touch.

Yesterday she texted again out of the blue 'just to see how you are' and immediately I knew: she's pregnant again. I texted back, enquiring and she spilled the beans without hesitation. She's up the duff, her son is big and strong and wonderful and doing this and doing that and... and... oh, internet, I shamed myself... I let the poor girl have it; both barrels. All the caws and the wing flaps and the hoarding of shiny things in two words: 'potty trained'. And there's more, I have more if I need it. Much more. Oh yes.

I am so sorry. I will do penance, I promise. I will clean the damn potty with a q-tip. I will sing 100 choruses of the 'Balamory' theme song. I will play 'Ring-a-ring-a-rosy with my son until my ears bleed and I cannot stand up anymore. I will let him jump on me until I need a new spleen. I will feed him chocolate at 8pm and stay up with him all night reading Charlie and Lola and listening him create break-beats from the siren on his fire-engine.

I will, however, do it again if I have to. Hell yeah.

Better hand me those q-tips.