Saturday 15 September 2012

The female of the species



If you imagine my neurosis as a new mother then double it, this is what it's like when I get together with a female relative of mine. We have a regular play date with our babies but somehow it turns into mission-must-do-everything-at-100mph.
I think the babies know this and have a cunning plan to make a game of tag team: while one sleeps, the other wants to play, then one wants to feed when we try to go out while the other is content. 'Right, you put the kettle on and make the tea while I watch them' is usually the first thing that's said as one of us piles into the house with all the baby paraphernalia.

On one occasion it was nearing the baby witching hours so we decided to play the guitar and sing to them. Utterly unimpressed with our attempts, they both looked away and yawned while we were manically singing and clapping in their faces. They were the most difficult audience we'd come across - even Simon Cowell would have given us the sympathy vote.

When we do eventually get out of the house, the prams inevitably get knocked into each other as we aim to steer them in a straight line. The other day we had a few errands to run in town; including getting the babies weighed, whilst trying to time both their naps, feeds and changes as they happily played relay.
We ended up charging around like two lunatics with these huge buggies thundering up (and barely fitting on) the path; people were swerving out of our way when they saw us approaching.
On arriving back at the house, grocery falling everywhere and out of breath, we looked at them - both blissfully tucked up in their prams - they simply smiled at us and looked a bit bewildered.

All we could do was laugh at our frenzy - it would have been so very different if the dads had them for the day. Mind you, (sorry guys) half the things wouldn’t have got done; men and multi-tasking aren’t two things that are generally associated together. 

So kettle on, the manic mummys sat down to drink our second cup of the day and the four of us even managed to have a kip…for all of 20 minutes, until the relay started up again…

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