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Just For Laughs

From Me, The Beard and The Baby (fb page)

Today my brother-in-law looked after The Baby for a few hours while I went to a meeting. When I went to collect my spawn a few hours later he was in good spirits (The Baby) and Uncle Knobhead was still in one piece after 3 hours of babysitting my wild toddler, albeit a little bit traumatised after dealing with a steady 7/10 on the Shit Scale. A successful morning all round, although when I changed The Baby's nappy later on I discovered it was on back to front. Kudos to Uncle Knobhead because that must have been 10 x harder to achieve than putting it on the right way round...

Anyway, it got me and The Beard thinking about all of things we didn't know how to do when The Baby was born. Let's face it, no amount of baby shopping or nursery decorating prepares you for the moment the midwife hands you your little bundle of joy and rotting umbilical cord and sends you on your merry way to bring it up. Here are some of the ways we've cocked up so far on this parenting pilgrimage:

- The time I ate a spicy curry completely oblivious to the fact it basically turned my breastmilk into vindaloo and terrorised my tiny baby's bum

- The time I fake tanned to make myself feel like I was more than just a pair of tits with a mum bun and transferred an orange ring of St Moriz onto The Baby's face

- The weeks after The Baby was born and I refused to let him leave the house/open any windows because I though babies were like puppies and you couldn't take them outside until they'd had their jabs. I told The Beard he was a thick bastard for even suggesting that he could take my 7 day old baby to the supermarket because ALL THE GERMS HE HASN'T HAD HIS JABS

- The time The Beard got The Baby out of the car and hit his head on the door frame and all three of us had an absolute meltdown, me and The Beard because we thought his soft spot had caved in on itself and The Baby because he'd just been woken up from a nap and thought he was back in the birth canal because all he could hear was me screaming profanities at The Beard

- The time we did baby led weaning and didn't realise how spicy the enchiladas were until the baby took a bite, started screaming, put his hands up to his face in horror and then screamed some more because they were covered in enchilada sauce so his face was now burning as well as his tongue (note to all: Old El Paso mild enchiladas are NOT mild)

- The time the day after the enchilada incident when nursery asked what The Baby has been eating because his poo was horrendous and he had a sore bum and we pretended we didn't know why in case they reported us to the authorities for feeding an 8 month old enchiladas

- The time we didn't think The Baby could roll over until we heard a thud from upstairs and he had rolled out of our bed while he was napping

- The time I thought I was being a mum-who-has-her-shit-together and made The Baby an Oliver Twist costume for World Book Day, only for him to turn up at nursery, Tommee Tippee begging bowl in hand, to find that they weren't actually dressing up and he was the only one in costume spending the day dressed as a street urchin in a flat cap

- The time I was checking Facebook during a 3am night feed and dropped my phone on his face

So, Uncle Knobhead might have put his nappy on back to front but it wasn't the first and it won't be the last time we balls this parenting/babysitting thing up. Keep going fellow parent types, we're all winging it- one shitty nappy at a time!