No, it’s not a typo. Sadly. You discover a whole new set of skills when you have kids. Opening yoghurt pots with one hand. Balancing bikes on top of the pram. Entertaining toddlers for eleven hours in an airport with only a changing room and a moving walkway at your disposal.
All are now on my CV.
But it turns out that these are mere entry-level qualifications. Fledgling skills. Probationary parenting. Tips crammed from Motherhood for Dummies.
This week, I went off the deep end and earned myself a Degree with Honours in Mummiology.
And so to return to – poo diving. No, it’s still not a typo. Sadly.
On holiday in Spain, I was faced with the choice between paying to empty and clean a medium-sized swimming pool or retrieve my son’s poo armed only with a pair of goggles and a sieve.
Before you ask – no, there was not one of those nets on a long stick. Believe me, I looked. And looked.
It’s strange when you discover that you’re really very good at something utterly useless.
“This is very much like,” I thought to myself, as I sculled across the tiles of the deep end, capturing poos in my sieve with the grace and aplomb of a pearl diver, “those people who can write backwards, or speak pig Latin, or turn their eyelids inside out.”
It’s a unique skill that no-one can deny or take away from you. But not one I will be using again.