Bathtime

Bathtime with small babies is a wonderful, calm, bonding experience. Nice gentle moisturising bubbles, a blue-eyed baby looking up lovingly at you while you sponge its little limbs smiling sweetly. A careful rub down with a new, fluffy, white towel that you have warmed on the radiator, followed by a little massage with oil and dressed in a clean, beautifully ironed babygro.

Sadly, this picture of perfection is but a distant memory in our house. Bathtime has become a splashing screaming mob of children, whose aim is to get as much of the bathroom and their mother as wet as possible. It always seems to me to be at the worst time of day when everyone, particularly the mother, is utterly exhausted. Teatime has been a disaster and each child has virtually been counselled through items of food on their plate. Fights break out intermittedly over which coloured cup or plate they each have. Meanwhile, the baby is screaming at every opportunity because he is frankly just fed up with being ignored. Then, there is the clearing up. Do you do it before bathtime dodging the now fully-fuelled children who are raring to go, or afterwards when all you can think about is collapsing on the sofa with a strong drink?

The next phase falls on deaf ears. At first I remain calm and ask politely if the children would come out of the tent they have now erected in the playroom, for a bath. No response. It is almost as if they have become completely immune to the tone of my voice and after 25 requests, I grab the nearest saucepan and bang it as hard as I can with a metal spoon at the entrance of the tent. My daughter pokes her small head out and says, “Calm down Mummy. You only had to ask.” Upstairs the, “Will you get undressed and in the bath?” question is repeated another 15 times while the children have begun a trampolining competition on our bed. I then re-pose the question. “Who is going to be the winner and get in the bath first?” With that, two children come flying into the bathroom and dive into the bath, creating a tidal wave which drenches the baby and pours over the side of the bath onto my lap. The bathroom is now similar to an over-crowded, public swimming pool with children yelling, screaming and splashing. Another six requests to get out of the bath fall on deaf ears, until I hurredly scoop up each child, rub them down with a rather worn towel and throw on any item of clothing I can get my hands on that vaguely resembles a pair of pyjamas. Once the rest of the bedtime routine has been completed, I pass the mirror on the landing and catch sight of a bedraggled, 30 something year-old woman who looks as if she has entered some middle-aged wet t-shirt competition.

Expectant father

You have spent the last nine months obediently attending every antenatal class, studying blurred scan photos of your little ‘peanut’ gradually growing month by month. You have reassured your wife that she looks radiant and not at all like a large pack horse, and handed her tissues when you find her sobbing on the sofa over Animal Hospital whilst tucking into her fourth Cadbury Cream Egg.

Finally, the momentous occasion arrives. The Bag is packed, the contractions are becoming more regular and you try to remain calm whilst driving to the hospital desperately wishing you had paid more attention to the classes rather than wondering what the football score was. In the delivery room, you see a side to your better half you never thought existed. You try rubbing her back, to which she yells, “Don’t touch me.” You offer words of support telling her how brave and clever she is, to which she screams, “I don’t want to be brave. Just make it stop!”

Ninety percent of fathers attend births in Britain and I feel rather sorry for them. It must be very hard watching someone you love in so much pain and be utterly helpless. A friend’s husband was so tense and stressed at the birth of his first child that he fainted. The room promptly filled with medical staff who wheeled him down to A&E leaving my poor friend alone in her delivery room, riding the ‘wave’ of her last few contractions. Now she is about to have another baby and was more concerned about the ‘energy bars’ she was packing for her husband in the Bag than about the cotton wool and new born nappies.

I have to confess, I came under the ‘utter wimp’ category when it came to childbirth and the midwives must have dreaded me coming. I arrived in hospital in plenty of time, ended up in labour for several days and demanded epidurals at the first twinge. My husband, on the other hand, rather enjoyed it, particularly given the wonderful delivery rooms at Dorchester Hospital. With birth number three, he really settled himself in. He lay on the bed glued to daytime television, whilst I continued with my laps of the delivery ward in an attempt to speed things up. When it looked like the baby might finally decide it was time to arrive, he knew not to stroke my back, wipe my brow or utter a word until I turned to him with relief and handed him his new little bundle.

Bank holiday weekend

Bank Holiday weekend, the sun is out and the children are excited about their Daddy being at home. I am excited too. I have spent the past few days carefully drawing up a long list of jobs that my husband is uniquely qualified to do. Painting, clearing out the shed, replacing the numerous halogen bulbs that have blown, washing the car, mowing the lawn and making several trips to the Rubbish Dump, along with every other father in North Dorset. However, the children have a different list in mind which includes making camps, going to Cool Play, lunch in the pub followed by watching the ‘Shaun the Sheep’ DVD.

Saturday morning begins at 6am, an hour earlier than usual, with the pitter patter of feet along the corridor and into our bedroom. We desperately drag out the next hour by hauling a huge wooden box of cars onto our bed, much to the delight of our three-year-old son who ‘bruuums’ small lorries, tanks and buses across the duvet, over our heads and down our arms. The small cold wheels driving across our skin did not have quite the same effect as a massage with warm stones but at least we are still in the comfort of our bed. After the usual discussion over who is going to get out of bed first, the morning routine launches into action.

My husband shouts from the shower, “The water is cold.” Without taking too much notice, I place The List beside his cereal bowl, and decide to cook his favourite English breakfast, to get him in the right mood. Bacon, eggs, sausages and tomato in the grill pan ready for the piping hot Aga. However, not piping hot at all. Stone cold and well and truly off. Trying to remain calm, I say, “Darling, when did you last check the oil?” My husband appears in clothes that definitely don’t shout “gardening” and says, “Not for ages. Why?” He then spends the next few minutes sticking a bamboo cane down the top of the oil tank and calmly declares it empty. It then hits me. Bank Holiday weekend, no heating, no water and no oven. I become hysterical and fly into an almighty panic, while the children dance around the garden in their pyjamas jubilant about the prospect of eating meals out. I walk back into the kitchen subdued at the thought of my carefully planned Piquant chicken and Fondant potatoes replaced with Cheddar cheese sandwiches and Hula Hoops. My list is scattered across the kitchen floor in tiny pieces and as the dog looks up at me, head turned to one side, with a scrap of paper saying “Dump” stuck in its little beard, I realise that this Bank Holiday weekend was not going to go according to plan.

The weekly shop

The children are all at school, the baby is with Granny and I have a wonderful rare two-hour break – the perfect opportunity to relax in a nearby coffee shop sipping a Cappacino. However, the fridge is looking dangerously empty, the fruit bowl contains a few rather sad looking grapes and we are down to the last few loo rolls. The weekly supermarket shop beckons.

I drive into the car park, turn into a space and then wonder why there is a rather angry looking woman staring at me. I have parked in a Child’s bay, quite forgetting this time that the car seats behind me are empty. After re-parking, I play around with the trolleys, choosing the right size and trying to find one without a faulty wheel. I then rummage in my bag looking for my list, only to discover I have left it on the kitchen table. I glance at the vast array of magazines on display, and move swiftly on to the fruit and vegetables. This is always my most time consuming aisle. There are just so many decisions to make. Organic, English, Fairtrade, Local? Weighing also eats into another precious few minutes. Once I have found some scales that work, I vacantly try to remember the name of the little brown hairy fruit in my hand (ah – yes a kiwi!) and then scroll through items, tap in the name which results in ‘Search Unknown.’ By then I have two people peering over my shoulder, so the pressure is on.

On to the next aisle and I bump into a familiar face. Smiling sweetly and with a confident, “How are you?” I am frantically trying to remember where I know her from and glance into her trolley for any clues. But we are only in aisle two and lemons, lettuce and pasta give nothing away. We pass the time of day and move on. With the trolly now overflowing with the ‘Buy 2 get 1 FREE’ offers (why do I need three bottles of bleach?), I arrive at the checkout. The customer behind me gazes disaprovingly into my trolley at the doughnuts I have thrown in for the children (not for me, of course!). “Would you like any help?” the friendly cashier asks me. “Yes please,” I cry out trying not to sound too desperate. With the bags neatly packed, I steer the overloaded trolley across the carpark trying to avoid any collisions with nearby cars. As I leave, I hear the contents of the neatly packed bags rolling across the car boot and realise I have forgotten the loo paper. Suddenly it occurs to me that the familiar face I had stopped to chat to earlier was in fact a total stranger who I had sat next to in the Surgery last week.

Tennis with a difference

The phone rings. It is a friend asking if I would like to play tennis. I leaf through the diary and mentally work out a convenient time between school pick-ups and the baby’s sleep time and warn her that I have not played since school. Thankfully, she assures me that she too struggles with ‘back hands’ and we agree it would make a nice change from catching up on the latest tantrum or sleepless night over the usual cups of coffee around the kitchen table.

Predictably, the childcare arrangements fall apart at the last minute so I call to cancel. “Bring them with you and they can all play on the side of the court,” she says casually. I am a little sceptical but the sun is shining and I am eager to work off the remains of my daughter’s Easter Egg which, until this morning, had been sitting at the back of the fridge begging to be eaten. Dressed in an old pair of track suit bottoms and a white t-shirt, which has now turned a dull shade of grey, I spend the next half an hour rummaging through the contents of the understairs cupboard searching for my tennis racket.

I arrive with tennis racket in hand, baby on the hip and a small three-year-old trailing behind me. My friend is carrying two large baskets of toys which we take down to the tennis court and set up a mini play area in the corner. Things begin well and I have visions of regular weekly tennis games ahead, with children happily playing beside me. However, towards the end of the first game, the baby begins to cry, so we stop and hand him a drink and the obligatory box of raisins. Final point and the ‘brooming’ noise coming from my son becomes louder as he pushes cars around the court. Two minutes into the second game and my friend lets out a shriek and runs off. She has left her casserole on the stove. The baby’s screams are now at full pitch and I struggle to hear whether my ball is in or out, let alone remember which point we are on. The court is littered with PlayMobil and Lego and for health and safety reasons plus a school run looming, we declare the game over. Despite all the distractions, at least I have made an attempt to shed one mini egg.

Family walk

The preparation for a family walk in our house goes something like this. Wellies on, coats on, hats, gloves (usually one missing) and scarves in winter, sun hats and sun tan lotion in summer. Baby in the back pack, dog on the lead, mini ruck-sack over the shoulder with a few emergency rations, not forgetting the essential bribe in the form of a small box of Smarties. Then there are the never ending ridiculous questions. “Can I take my doll’s pram?” “Can I take my ride-on motorbike?” All totally banned, of course, as we all know who will be carrying them after five minutes, along with the coats, hats and any ‘must-have’ sticks or leaves we discover on our walk.

We are finally on our way and things are looking promising. The sun is shining, the children are scampering ahead beside the dog. Once through the first field, the scampering turns into ‘lagging’. “My legs are tired,” cries the three-year-old. “Are we nearly there?” says the five-year-old. We attempt to encourage them with cows in the next field, a little wood where we can play cowboys and indians, some puddles which we can jump in, a lolly when we get home. From a distance, we look like the perfect family scene, but the reality is we have two whinging children, a dog who was so fed up with the slow pace that she has run off rabbiting, and the baby has been sick on my husband’s collar.

However, like true Brits, we stroll on with my husband refusing to be defeated. Whilst I carry all the coats, bag and hats, he has become a pack horse. He now has the baby on his back and a child on each hip – a truly memorable sight. We see a few friends in the distance waving cheerily at us and wave back trying to disguise the look of utter dispair and discomfort across our faces. We re-load and I take one child and he takes the other two and we drag ourselves through the final field. The dog bounds back, having rolled in something particularly potent. We walk back into the kitchen, unload children and collapse on the sofa unable to speak. Our son turns to us and says, “That was really fun. Can we go on that walk again.”

The star chart

The ‘Star Chart’ has featured heavily in our household during the Easter holidays. No sooner had I awarded a star for good behaviour, I was busy setting the next target.

During term time, there is one star-a-day up for grabs, usually for not having a full scale temper tantrum. However, during the past two weeks the bar was raised and stars were slapped on the fridge door at an impressive rate. A star for dressing by themselves (exceptions made for buttons), managing to choose a breakfast cereal in less than five minutes, sitting (rather than standing) on their chairs for an entire meal, eating their broccoli, avoiding World War III over who has the strawberry over the peach Petit Filous, letting Mummy chat on the phone without being interrupted, and finally, for limiting the number of requests at bedtime such as more water, loo trips, warm milk (nice try) or, “Mummy, I need to ask you something.”

Once they had earnt ten stars each they were allowed to choose a ‘modest’ present. Having given away another star for persuading my ‘naturist’ son to put some clothes on for the trip, we skipped off to the toy shop in Shaftesbury. The children had both spotted toys weeks ago, so our three-year-old son dashed in, took a flying jump down the three steps and held up the last remaining sword on display. My daughter settled on a wooden fishing game to replace the one that had been chewed by Molly, our Border ‘terrorist’. While they were there, they also had a thorough rummage round for the next reward.

On our way home, my five-year-old daughter decided the whole family should have a star chart. How could I disagree? There are now six charts ‘blu-tacked’ to the fridge. My daughter is in her element as Star Manager and life in our house does actually seem a little less fraught. The baby received a star for not dropping food over the highchair, the dog has bagged a few for not jumping up to greet people, Daddy has pocketed one for “emptying the dishwasher for Mummy,” and I am pretty chuffed with my star for “not nagging Daddy to mow the lawn.”