Things a mother has to do

As a mother, the list of things you have to do that you don't necessarily want to do is fairly long.

There's the, suck it up, you don't have a choice variety, like giving birth, getting up 17 times a night to tend to a yelling baby and having to push swings in a park for hours on cold winter days.

There's the that's gross but what else are you going to do variety, like catching vomit with your bare hands to avoid staining the new sofa, wiping poo off of multiple surfaces using your new cardigan because nothing else is to hand, and eating half chewed raisins because your child wants to share.

There's the this is so tedious I could stab myself through the eyelids variety, like listening to a reception child learn to read chip and biff books, trying to teach a child to ride a bike who constantly blames you for not holding them right, and asking children a million times to eat their food/clean their teeth/get dressed/tidy their room - daily.

And then there's the Of course I'll do that because you're my child and I love you more than anything and am worried sick variety. We had one of those yesterday. As son 1 was getting into the bath, I noticed something slightly odd going on between his legs. His testicles seemed lopsided. So I asked if I could examine them. And I did. What fun! And one side was definitely a lot, lot bigger than the other. One call to NHS Direct and several panic stricken minutes of internet self diagnosis later, I'd calmed down enough to realise that he was in no pain and was fine. It could be sorted in the morning.

Today he went to the doctor. It was awkward, with two grown men trying to make a 7 year old boy less embarrassed but really only managing to embarrass themselves. To alleviate the tension I acted as the intermediary between embarrassed child and embarrassed doctors, warmly introducing my son's genitals to two complete strangers and having to say the words testicles and scrotum quite a lot. Go on, try it. They're not fun words to say on your own, much less in front of other people.

After much prodding, he apparently has a hernia which needs to be operated on. It's not a huge procedure and isn't massively urgent. But still, I don't like to think about anything being operated on 'down there' or knowing that my child needs to go under the knife.

So yes, in the list of things mothers have to do but don't necessarily want to do, closely examining my seven year old's scrotum for a 24 hour period is probably up there. But I'd do it all again tomorrow too. And would do it again for him if he was 40. I don't think there's a time limit on the things a mum won't do for their child, regardless of how much you'd rather not.