Gentle reader, do not be overcome by an attack of the
vapours and take to your bed in Victorian fashion… much like YM did today. You
will be relieved to hear everyone is OK and has survived yet another day just
about intact. Alas some of us are more intact than others, with LP doing rather
better than her mummy and daddy over the course of the day… and what a long day
it was.
The day started at about 2.30 am when LP awoke with coughs,
sniffles and unholy guff’s. As YM has selective hearing it was initially up to
Daddy to make an attempt to negotiate his way out of bed and through to LP’s
room without kneecapping himself. The
winter months are indeed cruel and as the Hood is well above sea level the
temperature is a few degree’s lower than our posh coastal neighbours, so the
central heating is now cranked up to 11. I ordinarily find diving out of bed in
the middle of the night Starsky and Hutch style to tend to my daughter to be
less arduous when I find myself to be enveloped in the warmth of a warm room,
however it is not so pleasant when the radiator is set to 11 and it’s glowing
white hot as my left buttock connected to it.
By the time I made it through to
LP’s room she had gone past the melt down point of no return. Like counting the
seconds between thunder and a subsequent bolt of lightning, she reached the
stage when crying is preceded by silence as, I assume, she inhaled in order to
let rip again. So reaching in to LP’s cot, the room only illuminated by the 2nd
degree burn on my bum cheek, I scooped up a rather soggy faced LP and attempted
to soothe her as best I could. The look on LP’s face was akin to YM’s when she
was informed that the parenting urban myth that Calpol has a sedating effect is
indeed fictitious. I do however hold an advantage over YM as I am considering
telling LP that Calpol does not make her snoozie thus destroying any placebo
effect. LP attempted to snuggle into me and calm down, sadly, we both realised
that the game was a bogey and we would have to seek support from the big guns,
AKA YM, in order to turn that frown upside down. Not wishing to lose face I
cuddled LP and, for some reason, managed to calm her enough to pop her back in
her cot and for me to make my way back to bed without causing myself further
damage.
Lying in bed, listening to the
silence, interspaced by the hound frantically licking her anal gland, I could
do nothing but wait for sleep. 2.45 am is not the time to wait for sweet Morpheus
to take me in her arms, it is a time when every right minded person should be
asleep. Clearly this is not the domain of the parent, well for this one anyway
as YM slumbers beside me oblivious to the burns I have sustained and to her daughter’s
recent meltdown. As I lay in bed pondering whether to get up to make a cup of
tea and again risking further injury, LP stirs once more and raises the decibel
bar to a new and lofty level.
As a Daddy I know the level of my
abilities. As was pointed out to me by a fellow survivor a week or so ago, LP
only spends about 3 hours awake in my company a day, YM has her for
considerably more and therefore has a deeper understanding of LP’s needs and a
bond which, sadly, I will never have. Foolishly I have, in the past attempted
to challenge this bond by questioning the chocolate rich diet of LP during the
day or by making the occasional fashion suggestion. These offerings of advice
have for the most part been treated with contempt and, on occasion, outright
hostility, however at silly o’clock I am in no way keen to argue over the finer
points of parenting and require YM to awaken and assist LP.
My normal modus Operandi (yes I
confess I have done this before) is to gently nudge a sleeping YM until she awakens
. Usually I push her a few times with my bum until she’s teetering on the edge
of the bed and wakes up just before she falls into oblivion. This usually effectively
does the job and YM awakens with a startle and promptly leaps to the aid of LP.
Alas on this occasion I could not adopt this method due to the burns to my
behind. Feeling somewhat guilty I have to advise that I took a rather
Machiavellian approach and gently called to the hound to come over. Ever the obedient
doggie, she jumped up and laid between YM and I. Without further ado I quickly
rolled over causing the hound to let out a bark, YM woke with a startle, I
chastised the hound, YM went to the aid of LP, and order was restored to the
universe.
After mega mummy cuddles, warm
milk and a nappy change, the latter being a joint effort, YM eventually returned
to the cot and slept peacefully until we were again awoken at about 7 pm by the
hound pacing up and down.
YM had been making plans the
night before to meet up with one of the Real Housewives of Broughty Ferry and attend the Boogie Babies chapter house for tray bakes and
bean bag songs. Sadly for YM her plans were to be thwarted, not once but twice.
I had taken a flexi day and was keen to attend Boogie’s for posh coffee and
tray bakes, oh and to spend some quality time with LP. In truth, YM struggles
to attend Boogie Babies with me after some unpleasantness which we shall not
speak of again save to say that that I will never question the portion control
of an Aero Bar tray bake ever again. Alas, if this were not enough for YM it
became clear, by the number of trips to the smallest and after this week, the
most eclectically decorated due to me not realising that patterned floor tiles
follow some kind of pattern (the clue may have been in the name), room in the
house that YM may have succumbed to a LP acquired infection. YM made an
executive decision and, through the chemical and biological suit I insisted she
donned attempted to mime her intentions not to go out in public for the rest of
the day.
With YM temporarily incapacitated
it was time for a quick breakfast of fruit and Pain aux Chocolate for LP and 2
cups of coffee and a Losec for me. So after whipping what I would assume was
chocolate from various orifices, LP was assisted to dress in her best John
Rocha frock.
Soon we were on our way down to
Boogie Babies, our expectations as high as Freddie’s Falsetto as we drove across
town listening to Bohemian Rhapsody. The journey was really quite uneventful.
LP had taken her shoes off, thrown her John Rocha hat to the floor and was
happily blowing snot bubbles. All fairly normal really.
On our arrival Boogie Babies was
starting to fill up with the usual collection of ruddy faced babies and
toddlers. Various mums and dads sat about anxiously waiting for the chapter
leader to enter the hall and whip the assembled masses into a frenzy before, again,
abruptly stopping for coffee and tray bakes. As poorly YM had planned to meet
with her friend Betty and her little person to show her the ropes, I dutifully
waited for her to arrive and then sat with Betty in a misguided attempt to
prevent any incidents.
Sadly, and somewhat predictable,
today did not go without incident. First of all I do have to look to myslf and
see what part I have to play in things. I really should not have positioned LP
and I directly next tho the chapter leader as she commenced the sing song section.
I felt compelled to attempt to keep up with the Leader as she twisted and gyrated,
It was clear that, by the time we got through sleeping bunnies and the bean bag
song that the chapter leader and I were locked in a 1970’s style dance off and
one of us was going to lose. As the introduction to Heads, Shoulders Knee’s and
Toe’s kick in I poised myself, ready to commence the first moves. LP had, by
now, lost complete interest in me and was now trawling the room looking for
stray sippy cups and bean bags. As the music kicked in the chapter leader
cranked up her radio mic in an attempt to sing me into submission. Faster and
faster the relentless movements of head and toes, knees and arms were made,
beads of perspiration formed on our foreheads as the leader and I became
oblivious to the others in the room and became lost in the song. Suddenly the
chapter leader lost momentum as she faltered her moves and fell to the ground,
a quivering wreck. The audience cheered, small children poo’d themselves with excitement
and the chapter leader admitted defeat and threw her radio mic to the floor in defeat.
Victory was indeed sweet……as was
the tray bake I was about to eat if it were not for Betty and her complete inability
to multi task. Betty (whose name has been changed to protect the guilty) said
she would keep an eye on my cake whilst I retrieved LP from underneath a table
and encouraged her to eat her own weight in raisins.
A simple task you might think
however Sarah, I mean Betty was clearly distracted as she failed to see a small
child saunter towards my cake, pick it up in his kleptomaniac hands and take a bite
or three from it. Unluckily for me recidivist child’s mother saw her son and
swiftly intervened by taking the cake of her child and replacing it with a
custard cream which clearly was not seen as a good replacement to tray bake
judging by the child’s meltdown. The half-eaten cake, with the icing still
sticky with saliva was then handed back to me with the words
“It’s OK, he doesn’t
have cooties”.
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