Wanted: One “Pass” For The Snip

So last week I did indeed go to the GP and set in place the steps to get a vasectomy on the NHS

*hides every machete in England*

It was a normal-ish chat, except for the part where she again asked me if I was sure ‘just in case the worst should happen’, but she soon began the referral process. This involved one thing I was a little surprised about. Before anyone was giving me the snip my wife had to ring the GP and confirm she agrees with the decision. Yes, I need my wife’s permission to have my joystick amended.

Now let’s stop and think what would happen if this was the other way round. For comic effect let’s do so in a much more unenlightened era.

*puts on a large brain altering hat that gives the wearer the ability to think only in stereotypes*

*changes location and date to 1970s London*

Scene 1: A front room in a terraced house in black and white. Terry is having a Watneys Red Barrel. Enter Sheila from stage left.

S: Darling, you know we’ve talked about not having any more kids…

T: Fackin’ ‘ell shaat up. I’m tryna watch 3-2-1

S: Well I really think you ought to consider having a vasectomy

T: Fack off. Get my nob snipped? No fackin chance. Why don’t you get yer tubes done? (studies Dusty Bin)

S: Well, er, ok, if I must…..

Scene 2: At the GPs

Local GP: Sheila, before I refer you there’s just one thing, you’ll need to get Terry to call me and say he agrees to the process.

(Sheila rolls eyes and trembles a bit).

Scene 3:  Back at the black and white terrace, 3 days later.

S: Er, Terry? Darling? Have you rung the doctor’s to talk about my surgery yet?

T: Have I fackin’ what? Later! I’m watching The Professionals. (whistles The Professionals theme tune)

Sheila storms out and commences writing a long letter to The Guardian.

Scene 4: The Offices of The Guardian on Fleet Street. Enter Women’s Affairs Editor and Editor. Editor is clutching a glass of scotch and smoking Rothmans.

WAE: This letter! Have you seen it? Men have to agree before a woman can be sterilized! Men! Agreeing! Other stuff requiring an exclamation mark! It’s like we never burned our bras!

Ed: (wearily) OK give me 500 words by tonight (takes huge drag on Rothmans and wonders how it was he got here)

Scene 5: A sped up montage is shown of the article causing outrage throughout liberal Britain. Campaigns are started. GP’s surgery’s are stormed. Questions are asked in parliament. Muesli is spilled on sandals. A bra is burned in arty slo-motion which somewhat contradicts the sped up nature of the montage.

Scene 6: Back at the black and white terrace 5 weeks later.

S: Terry? Love? Have you phoned the doctor?

T: Fack off! I’m watching The Sweeney. (Terry opens another can of Watneys Red Barrel).

Fade to grey.

FIN.

*takes off stereotype hat*

 

Words

*sings* “Words, don’t come easy, to me…”

Actually that’s the problem. They do. But reading my blog back I’ve realised I use a few of them a bit more than I should. There’s ‘slightly’ obviously. Then there’s ‘gibbers’ but gibbers is my second favourite work after ‘foofaraw’ and only Louis de Bernieres can use that and get away with it. Then there’s a very naughty one beginning with ‘F’. I use that loads. Too much.

To explain. I hate swearing at or near children. It rubs me up totally the wrong way. I have, however, sworn at ours a few times when they’ve been really, really naughty and I’ve been really, really frustrated. I’ve regretted it instantly and continued to regret it for weeks but, as I wrote to another blogger, it was in lieu of a smack and verbal violence is just about preferable to physical violence. We also have little habits we need to cut out. Mine is ‘oh bugger’ while the wife refers to the toys on the floor as ‘piles of crap’. However, most of the time I make like Mary Poppins. Baby just had a poo that’s leaked out of her nappy? “Oh SUGAR”. Boy left crayons all over the kitchen floor? “Oh FIDDLESTICKS”.

My previous outlet for all my pent up swearyness was football as previously mentioned. I sit in a fairly rowdy bit and there’s a good deal of swearing all round. There are no young children around us and anyone taking a young child in to that arena really should know what to expect. There is a family stand where swearing is not tolerated. Should Boy ever want to start coming with me when he’s old enough I will have to move there and then I will be Football Poppins. “How did you not see that Linesman you MELON FARMER?”

But then I started blogging. When things annoyed me or occurred to me in everyday life I would start writing a post in my head. Silently. You can swear in your head. You can swear a very great deal indeed. And out it all pours on to my laptop sometime later. Now a good swear here and there for comic effect or to emphasise a point I maintain is fine but I’ve wondered if, at times, I’m gratuitous. I’ve decided to set myself a challenge to find out. My next 3 posts, after this one, should contain absolutely no swearing at all. And as it’s Saturday Caption Day tomorrow that’s really 2 posts. Should be a piece of piss. Ooops.

The Buggy Spaces on Buses Are For Buggies

*puts up another rant alert poster*

The buggy and wheelchair spaces on buses are for buggies and wheelchairs.

They’re not for your shopping trolley on wheels really. I know plastic bags are evil but everywhere does reusable non-plastic ones these days. A shopping trolley is either ostentatious or Old School. Either way don’t store it in the buggy bit. That’s for buggies.

They’re not for your suitcase either. Who the fuck takes a suitcase big enough for a 2 week holiday in Florida on a local bus trip anyway? I used to do a weekly commute with a case smaller than that. If you are going on a 2 week holiday to Florida, presumably it cost you a bit and you can afford to get a fucking taxi to the station. You’re not even getting off at the station are you? Anyhow, if you really, really need the case there’s a luggage rack for  it. Over there. Away from the buggies. *points*

They’re definitely not for you slouching teenagers. When I was a teenager and I went on a bus I slouched properly by GOING UPSTAIRS and slouching on the BACK SEAT. That’s what’s wrong with this feckless, flaccid, flatulent X-Box and PS3 generation. Can’t even be arsed to go up to the top bit of a double decker and slouch properly. The skinny trousered, floppy haired James Blunts.

It could be for you Old Lady struggling to get on but here, why don’t you have my seat. Don’t give me that filthy look, I’m getting up for you. “Have my seat”. I said “HAVE MY SEAT DEAR”. Oh. You’re getting off again. I forgot your free bus pass positively encourages you to ride the bus for one whole stop. Bye Bye. I said BYE BYE.

The buggy and wheelchair spaces on buses are for buggies and wheelchairs..

Baby’s Birth Story

So Actually Mummy is collating Birth Stories at http://www.actuallymummy.co.uk/2011/11/15/share-your-birth-story-2/

It’s a linky so there’s still time to add yours! On Twitter last night she said she wouldn’t mind a Dad one which is good as I’d already written a longer version of the below for my local NCT magazine. However you will soon see on reading we’re far from the ideal NCT poster children despite being members…..

It’s important to set this story in context. Back in 2006 Boy was due. He ended up over two weeks late and so Mrs S was induced. Since it was November I spent the first two days of my paternity break, stuck up a tower block in Kemp Town watching the wind destroy the Marina and listening to the registrars give diagnoses to the other women in Maternity Level 12. We had tried everything in those overdue 2 weeks to get him out, though perhaps overdosing on spicy food had been a mistake. As one of my football mates helpfully pointed out “he’s getting Chicken Tikka Rogan every night, he’s not going to willingly swap that for breast milk”.

Fast forward to 2010 and our delight at Mrs S being pregnant again was tempered by some minor complications. The pregnancy became highly medical with Mrs S having to attend a clinic every two weeks.  The Doctors also insisted that she should be induced on her due date. Since this was in the autumn we once again faced the prospect of being up a Tower Block in autumn watching the wind and listening to more diagnoses.

One thing that we knew we would need from first time around was a plan in case Baby was premature. Since I was working in Surrey and had taken 3 weeks off post birth this involved me training a colleague while monitoring a mobile phone.  One morning, not long in to the training, I had just settled in to my desk, taken one bite from a bacon sarnie and was about to start on a leisurely day explaining things when I got a text that just said ‘get home now’. The well brought up amongst you will notice the lack of a ‘please’. The female amongst you will notice the urgency. And if you’re male and reading that and you’re not already shuddering well done. Sarnie down, vague instruction to colleague to ‘just show her stuff’, run to station, jump on train, run at Redhill for connection, run and jump at Gatwick for connection and brisk jog from the station meant I made it door to door from Reigate to Portslade, in an hour. To find out Mrs S had a stomach bug. Another mental note made to cross Chicken Tikka Rogan off the menu this time round.

And so it was to no one’s great surprise when the induction date rolled round and Baby was still rolling round inside the wife’s tummy. Still there was one small change this time round. This time we got to wait in the delivery ward. Lucky us eh? So yes, we swapped 2 days of diagnosis for 2 days of other women’s labour noises. The noises. Christ the noises. This was a 2 day practical refresher on bearing down and transition. I haven’t heard so much screaming and seen so many ashen faced men since the last time Julian Clary was drawn against Mike Tyson in the all-star charity wrestling. It was like a 48 hour episode of ‘One Born Every Minute’ only without the seeing the baby bit. Compared to that, the two days we had locked in a general ward in a storm with a Crystal Meth addict before Boy’s birth were a breeze.

The other thing I remembered from Boy’s birth is that for all the pre-Labour assurances Mrs S wanted that I would not abandon her, the first thing she did when the contractions kicked in was kick me out. She does not share pain well with others – worse if they happen to be midwives and husbands. Still she had let me back in eventually last time round. I was to discover later that this was only because she’d had an epidural but I digress.

The third day of induction dawned and the midwives decided that it was high time they stopped trying to break the waters and got the registrar to do it. ‘The Regi’ turned out to be a big, male, young, good looking if casuistic Central European who’d have got a bar fight out of me if he’d tried putting his hand inside my wife at any other time. But this was a hospital, my bravado was disappearing at the thought of a third days out of context labour noises and luckily ‘The Regi’ did the trick. Within an hour we were in a delivery suite, Baby was on her way and Mrs S was hiding from the midwife and me in the loo. She eventually came back in but ordered me immediately out and so Baby’s birth became, for me as easy as reading The Guardian. I sat directly outside the room and worked my way from Sport to Comment while my wife made noises I was now immune to. Except one. My darling feminine wife demanding that ‘a FUCKING epidural come NOW!’. What I could see however (and she couldn’t) is that the anaesthetist was going to be tied up all morning in an emergency C section. Baby was coming ‘au naturelle’ whether we liked it or not, a fact I was keeping hidden behind the Review section. When the anaesthetist finally came to offer his services Baby was nearly out and he was sent on his way by a now coping wife!

Mrs S did indeed do the whole thing with just a bit a gas and air.  Baby, being a second baby arrived less than four hours after ‘The Regi’ did his stuff. I was graciously allowed back in as Baby was about to peep out (I believe it would have been called touching cloth had Mrs S had any on). Whereas Boy had arrived via vontousse and therefore turned up cone headed and with a look that said ‘what the FUCK just happened’ Baby popped out winking. It was the first time she stole my heart. It certainly won’t be the last.

Baby winking

If you think the above means I have a very negative opinion of the Royal Sussex County then while the Thomas Kemp Tower is a little dated, and while the fact there are only 2 tiny lifts up to 4 levels of maternity care is a joke, the staff are wonderful. The midwives who were with Mrs S looked after her so well, got Baby out safely for everyone and hardly batted an eyelid at the fact I’d been reading the paper for 4 hours. The after care was nothing less than excellent as well and I can’t properly express in words my gratitude for the staff, which, for me, is frankly unheard of.

What’s more the recovery time after the natural delivery for Mrs S and Baby was so much better than when she had the epidural with Boy and I know she got a real sense of achievement out of it at the end. I also know, however, that if the anaesthetist had been available she’d have taken the drugs in a heartbeat.

New Born Baby!

P.S. We had already named her before the birth as being scanned that many times kind of gives the sex away. One day when we discussed names with Boy he told us “I think the baby should be called ‘Concrete Mixer’”……

Shambles

Sunday was a good day. Baby had her last ever Little Dippers (of which more later) and we went round some nice independent shops and some horrible chain stores, then I met Mrs S and Boy for lunch in a local Japanese. There we discovered that Boy can eat his own weight in salmon and Baby likes  prawn tempura like she likes wanton destruction. We came home and there was stew in the oven for later, rugby on the telly and plenty of time for me to have an enormous tickle fight with the kids. Sounds idyllic right? Well that’s what I thought too. Mrs S went for an early night and I celebrated my Dad pride with a glass of wine. And then another. And another.

Monday morning and the alarm goes for work at 5.30am. I use my phone and can normally wake up just using the vibrate but on THIS Monday I forget to silence it and it did the full Marimba, waking up Baby who shrieked louder than the phone. Mrs S fixed me with a look that could burn the Pacific Ocean and settled Baby while I grabbed work clothes. In the dark. Here’s what I grabbed. Blue trousers. Pink shirt. Green jumper. I was going to work dressed as Harlequins RFC without the mud.

Time for a shower and shave. This all went well till I dropped the shower head reaching for the gel, making another loud bang and waking Baby back up. Then I found I had no razor blades left and I had not shaved at the weekend. While my body was rocking ‘confused rugby substitute’ my face was rocking ‘hirsute tramp’. And Baby was still screaming.

What would bring some much needed gravitas to this situation were my work shoes, the black important looking ones. Which were downstairs by the front door. Or at least I thought they were but now they were nowhere to be found. At least Baby’s howling was drowning out my screams of ‘where the FUCK are my black work shoes, the ones that bring much needed gravitas to difficult situations’. I looked everywhere. Under the TV cabinet. Behind the sofa. Round the back of the fridge. In the cupboard under the stairs. By the door again. The important shoes had magic-ed themselves off somewhere like Paul Fucking Daniels.

At this point Mrs S and Baby got up.

Baby looked like a Cheshire Cat at a Whiskas eating competition. Mrs S looked like she’d spent all night in a bad Dubstep club. It was not a happy reunion.

Baby at 6.05 am

Still at least I could go in to the bedroom and look for my black shoes. These were (and still are) missing. But I did find my old brown ones, thus completing the look of ‘colour blind vagrant’ rather nicely. With 2 minutes till I had to leave for my train there was no time to change. I left, walked down the street and suddenly felt, heard and smelled the unmistakable squelch of solid shoe on squishy dogshit.

I had gone from Daddy Cool to John Terry. From Lord Coe to Eddie the Eagle. From pigeon to statue. From King of all I surveyed to a fucking shambles.

May Contain Traces of Nuts

So it’s #sunfun Sunday funny day this week hosted by actuallymummy where you can link up whatever makes you laugh. Events this week had already caused me to write the below but I thought I’d save it up for Sunday……

*Puts up ‘Rant Alert’ sign*

This week one of the Mums at Boy’s school got in trouble with them. She is a good Mum. Her school-age daughter’s name is prefixed by the word ‘lovely’ by everyone from the teachers to Boy (who may have a secret crush on her) while her younger daughter goes to the same toddler group as Baby. They’re the sort of family you’re glad to have as friends and yet the telling off was a serious one as she transgressed something that had Previously Been Put In Writing. Specifically she put a peanut butter sandwich in her daughters packed lunch.

Now I grew up in the 70s and I’m not about to write a long essay about how we should return to an era when football violence, sitcoms based on casual racism and guitar solos were socially acceptable. However I am about to write the ultimate fuddy-duddy phrase. This wouldn’t have happened in my day.

When I was at Infant School there were only about 3 kids who had packed lunch and each of them brought in a fish paste sandwich and a packet of Monster Munch because that was what constituted packed lunch in the 70s. The rest of us subsisted on grey gristle, vegetables that had been boiled since yesterday and semolina. When I moved on to Comprehensive school and could choose my own food I had chips and baked beans for lunch every day for 5 years. At no point did Jamie Oliver pop up over my right shoulder and offer me a tasty mousaka, nor did the school write home to our parents despite the dangerous afternoon methane levels and noxious classroom odours. And I’m pretty sure at some point there would have been a nut or two around.

When I got home there certainly was. Almost every day of his working life my Father (who was a music teacher) would celebrate the departure of his last pupil with a can of Webster’s Yorkshire Bitter and a packet of dry roasted peanuts. The dangerous lunatic bastard. Except not really since I’m still alive and writing this.

Boy’s school is Ofsted Outstanding. One thing you will come to learn should your children be lucky enough to attend one is that you get a LOT of information from them. Everything needs permission. Newsletters come out twice a week and you drown under your own weight in text messages. The ‘no peanut butter’ missive came out in September and we are now in February. How people who are generally juggling work (or trying to find it) with demanding little ones are suddenly supposed to remember all this shit when they get up after 2 hours sleep with only Peanut Butter in the larder is anyone’s guess.

But it’s good right? We’re protecting vulnerable kids aren’t we? Nut allergies are potentially fatal. Well I sort of agree and sort of don’t. The only way you can fully protect children from peanut related peril is to ban them altogether – at which point, of course, the Columbian cartels would ditch the marching powder and start cultivating legumes. The rule exists mainly to protect the school and the local authority from being sued by ambulance chasing lawyers. Yes I know in the most serious of cases the allergy can be triggered by touching a peanut but then isn’t the danger of that present anywhere and everywhere? Perhaps one of the properties of an ‘Outstanding’ school ought to be to properly supervise lunch times so that children who don’t have allergies don’t share their food with children who may? Just a thought.

I’m not advocating the ditching of Health and Safety per se. Lots of it is very necessary and little of it falls in to the stuff reported in the likes of The Sun, most of which is apocryphal. Just reading this back makes me feel I’m being a bit David Cameron and this makes me want to hit myself with a hockey stick. But are we in an era where greed and paranoia are getting a very good parent in to trouble for something mine wouldn’t have thought twice about?

The Judgemental Parent

Having been a parent for over 5 years now and having 2 of the little feckers darlings there have been many occasions where their behaviour or appearance in public has left just a tad to be desired. Like when Boy dressed himself for the first time. When he hid in a packed Sainbury’s. When Baby took an enormous teething dump on the bus and we still had 30 minutes till my stop. When Boy freaked out in the middle of a packed Haven show because a soft toy was scaring him witless. The first time I dressed Baby. And other stuff. As a result I thought I had become far less judgemental as a person, particularly towards other parents. Today proved I haven’t completely eradicated it.

Today I had the Dentist part 2 (my two fillings) at the amusingly annoying time of 2.30 (yes really) so was once again at home this morning. So I volunteered for the school run. And, man, was it cold. Colder than a well iced G & T up Mont Blanc. Colder than Genghis Khan’s heart. We left and a polar bear padded by. Torvill and Dean were practicing their new routine on number 33’s fish pond. Brass Monkeys looked terrified. You get the picture. Having safely deposited Boy in to Red Class I headed home. To get home I have to pass another school which Boy does not attend owing to it being Catholic and us not being. And heading for that school was a mum with her boy and he was wearing school shorts (the kind that look like school trousers but end above the knee). And Gus Poyet have mercy on my soul I judged her. Specifically I thought ‘what the FUCK is she thinking. That kid’s going to get hypothermia’.

Having thought a bit more since then though there are some explanations. I have boiled them down to this.

1)      As they were running late (I was heading home) he may have spilled breakfast on his only clean long trousers. If that were me though I’d have stuck Boy in jeans and apologised profusely to his teachers. Therefore this scenario disturbs me because it suggests the Catholic school prefers uniform to common sense.

2)      The shorts were the only school uniform available to her, reinforcing the conclusion to 1 above but throwing child poverty in to the mix. Not at all a pleasant thought.

3)      He wanted to wear the shorts and having spent ages trying to talk him down she gave in. Kids do some pretty mad things after all. If this is the case I hope she packed a pair of long trousers to change in to and the number of a good child psychologist.

4)      He has some weird kind of below the knee skin condition

5)      He’s training to be an ascetic. This week shorts in the cold. Next week up a pillar like Simeon Stylites.

6)      They’ve just moved down here from Newcastle.

Seriously, am I wrong to judge here (I suspect I am)? And can anyone come up with a better or at least less depressing reason than the six above?

The February Sunshine Award

*puts on Penguin suit* *orders Krug* *emails Ricky Gervais*

I have only gone and won a blooming AWARD! Thanks to sahdandproud and his brilliant blog which you should visit immediately. Or rather immediately you have finished reading this. The February Sunshine award, however does not involve me going anywhere near LA or a tux. Just answering a few questions and passing them on. Easy as erm, erm*

Favourite colour: My wife says ‘eggshell’ and who am I to disagree?

Favourite animal: Cats. I admire their independence and good looks. My favourite is Charley Cat from next door. OK, he looks like Fu Man Chu and he once did a poo on my chives but he lets children put party hats on him.

Favourite non-alcoholic drink: Orange Juice. Who can’t admire a drink that counts as one of your 5-a-day thus reducing the risk of exposure to broccoli.

Facebook or Twitter: Twitter. I’ve only been on it since October but I am hopelessly addicted. I’m on Facebook about once a month.

Favourite number: Infinity plus one.

Favourite day of the week: Sunday. I get up early with the children then I take my daughter and go and dunk her in a warm swimming pool which she loves, the little lunatic. Then I browse Brighton’s independent shops. Then I cook the world’s most chaotic roast and after I clean up to Elbow or Terry Callier. Perfect.

My passion: PassionS. S. My family, Brighton and Hove Albion, cooking, reading, writing. Family first with the rest in no particular order.

Getting or giving presents: Getting but only because giving involves shopping and that involves me going in to a Cath Kidston shop and asking for “the one with the flowery pattern”.

Favourite pattern:  Cath Kidston flowery ones.

Favourite flower: Daisies because when Boy was small he used to pick them and make you put them in your hair. Easier for Mrs S than me.

So now I have to pass the award on and nothing gives me sunshine more than chatting on blogs and tweets. So my 5 winners are….

Expat Mummy http://expatbabyadventures.wordpress.com/

Mutterings of a Fool http://mutteringsofafool.wordpress.com/

Mum of One http://jbmumofone.com/

Actually Mummy http://www.actuallymummy.co.uk/

Random Pearls of Wisdom http://forty-not-out.blogspot.com/

If you’ve already done this or want to pass that’s fine, as I’ve said before I’m not the Meme police but I think you’d all do a very fine job.

*thinking of a metaphor quickly

Cooking Doesn’t Get Tougher Than This

I must admit that I have some values that can be regarded as variously fuddy-duddy or Middle Class. I accepted the fuddy-duddy when I realised I owned several cardigans (see yesterday’s post), while I accepted we’d finally “achieved” middle class the day my wife texted me while I was on the train home to complain that we were out of Creme Fraiche However  my strongest held belief of all of these is that, whenever possible, meals should be taken together as a family and at the table.

During the week this is not possible as I am still coming home from work. Mrs Slightlysuburban feeds the children or rather she put food in front of them which Boy eats and Baby treats as a cross between nourishment and a missile. We eat when they’re in bed. On odd Saturdays the football also gets in the way of meals. Luckily there is Sunday.

On Sunday afternoon I cook and on Sunday afternoon I make The Family Meal That We Shall Eat Together. 99% of the time this is a roast and 100% of the time everything is from scratch. This goes against every common sense instinct I have, not because I don’t know what I’m doing but because the children join in.

Boy can be some help especially if there are Yorkshire Puddings to be made for, with a bit of help, he’s an excellent batter maker. Baby, however, hinders. She will open the pan drawer you just closed and close the vegetable draw you just opened. She has a habit of coming in and demanding to be picked up which is difficult when one of my hands is holding a sharp knife and the other has just been inside a chicken (odd as we’re having beef). But to NOT pick her up invites a 220 decibel shriek so I wash my hands and pick her up and she looks at the knife as if to say “I can’t WAIT till you show me how to use that”.

Another trait is to run round the kitchen in ever increasing circles each time coming slightly nearer to the oven than the last. So you put everything down and she stops and makes a beeline for the knife you put down in order to move her. She is also just the right height to adjust the oven temperature and fiddle with the timer buttons, greatly increasing the risk of burned potatoes and chicken sashimi. There is only one thing left to do and that is to strap her in to her high chair. It’s true that no-one puts Baby in the corner but in our house, eventually someone will put Baby in the high chair.

Once prepped and cooked we sit down to eat and a whole other ritual ensues. Boy will only eat his carrots if I have cut them up but insists on trying to cut up his own meat with a blunt 2-year-old’s Mickey Mouse knife. If I make the schoolboy error of putting Baby’s plate on the table when the food is too hot she will want it NOW but if I leave it till it’s cooled she will just play with it. Whatever you think she will start on, food group wise she will pick the opposite. For a while we thought she was vegetarian, which is hardly in character, but the other week I made shoulder of lamb and she attacked it like a prop forward who’d been nil by mouth for a week.

And as you all know far more ends up on the floor than in tiny bellies. The floor,has been cleaned up more times than Olly Murs’ voice and yet still it has a vague hue of carrot, gravy and yoghurt. Along with the high chair it forms slightlysuburbandad’s first law of directly inverse proportion. The longer they take to clean in minutes is exactly the number of minutes you can knock off Baby’s sleep before she wakes up demanding milk. Or rare steak.

So next time Masterchef is on and Gregg says ‘cooking doesn’t get tougher than this’ I’m going to have to disagree. Forget making nitro ice cream in a 3 star kitchen or feeding Jay Rayner. If you want to give ‘em a really tough test they should do the invention test while holding a grouchy, oven-changing toddler and answering the question ‘why are carrots carrot-shaped?’..

A Yorkshire Pudding Last Sunday

Is it a Boy or a Girl?

A mildly amusing (some may say gentle comedy) rant about old people and babies as part of the Sunfun linky ting going on at actuallymummy.

I realise that this is not exactly an original subject. In fact I’m getting flashbacks to Mother Venting’s marvellous Ears post just typing this. That’s because very often babies seem to be an ok signal for strangers to come up to you and talk to you about them. Some of these people are nice. Some are bonkers. As they’re mostly elderly most are nice AND bonkers.

Anyway today I got on the bus back from town with baby in her Snow Suit. Admittedly the main colour of her Snow Suit is blue but it’s a very light blue, almost aquamarine. And here’s the thing. It’s covered in fucking huge pink flowers. The women next to me starts asking questions about baby to which I reply in the gender specific  because I’m, y’know, normal. Bonkers Woman isn’t .

BW:  Is it your first?

Me:  No she is my second. Her brother is at home.

(At this point my answers are irrelevant. She’s spotted the blue bit of the suit, ignored the flowers and decided Baby is a boy).

BW: He’s very big isn’t he?

Me: Yes, she’s tall. (97^th percentile on the Health Visitor ‘make parents feel like shit’ scale).

BW: He is a boy isn’t he? Boys are such hard work. *descends in to unintelligible babble*

And so on.

Baby is most obviously a girl. Her hair may have not grown long but it was covered by the hood which is covered in fucking huge pink flowers. She has long fluttery eyelids. One of her first words was ‘shoes’. She can spot bling at forty paces. She’s a girl and God help me she looks like a girl. Just because we don’t deck her out in uniform pink every day of the week with a Little Princess sticker on the back of the buggy and ribbons in her non-existent hair and…..   *beats head on wall*.

Bonkers Old People of the world. I think I am a nice person and I will happily answer any question you have regarding my children. Just listen to the answer would you? Ta.