J-Lo, Channing Tatum and Baby Groups.

It’s Monday at 0817 and I am sitting on the toilet on my laptop. I’m not using the toilet, just sitting on it. And I just watched a video clip by E! Entertainment of J Lo and Channing Tatum dancing. Apparently it is ‘trending’. I couldn’t give a flying shit. Still watched it though.

My child is performing some sort of Lord of the Dance tribute in her swaddle in the crib (cot? crib? Who fucking knows) and we are currently at 29 minutes since I put her down for a nap. I put her down for a nap because she was tired. So tired she was crying. But now she has all the equipment required for a beautiful nap, she has transformed into some sort of acrobatic superstar and is apparently also now trying to acquire the skill of beat boxing.

Why am I sitting on the toilet? Because she will know if I go downstairs. And she will make me come back up again. Then I will go downstairs again. And she will know. And will make me come upstairs again. So because today is already shit (The Man has gone back to work after 2 weeks off), I’m just sitting on the toilet which is a short stroll down the hallway. Why am I watching J Lo and Channing Tatum? Because I’ve already exhausted Facebook, my emails, Instagram and my Showbiz App during the night feeds and now I am lowering myself to this. Too tired and bored to be ashamed.

At some point today, I may get the chance to change out of my dressing gown. Maybe even put on some make up. But who knows? It’s like an exciting daily roulette, fully controlled by a chubby little human who has only been on this planet for 4 months.

Later we are going to Baby Sensory. In a moment of (what I now see as) madness when The Man was off, I got cocky. I thought ‘Oh, we’re getting this napping thing DOWN. We’ve nearly got a ROUTINE. We can TOTALLY hit up some baby groups without having to stress about:

• ·      Getting too tired and kicking off.
• ·      Seeing someone other than mummy or daddy and kicking off.
• ·      Getting overstimulated and kicking off.
• ·      Falling asleep in the car, waking up too soon and kicking off. ‘

HAHAHA!! Stupid me. Now I’m back in the wilderness of alone-dom and the stark reality of baby unpredictability has already slapped me in the face.

As a matter of interest… please enjoy the information below discussing what I THOUGHT baby groups would be like and what I now ACTUALLY think about them:

Pre-having a baby thoughts on baby groups:

• ·      “Ooooo it’ll be so lovely taking my baby to lots of baby groups and help her to develop and interact with other babies. Plus I can make loads of new friends and drink tea and eat biscuits whilst we laugh and chuckle about our fabulous parenting lives.”

Post-having a baby thoughts on baby groups:

• ·      How the fuck are you supposed to commit to a regular baby group that you can definitely fit in around erratic feeding and nap times every single week?
• ·      What if my child kicks the hell off due to tiredness, hunger, boredom, overstimulation, understimulation, just-for-the-hell-of-it, during the group and everyone looks at me and judges me as a bad parent?
• ·      Public getting-my-boob-out anxiety.
• ·      I can’t sing. I ruin the twinkly nursery rhymes.
• ·      Why can’t we sing MC Hammer or Backstreet Boys instead of twinkly nursery rhymes?
• ·      Last time I went to a baby group, my baby actually punched another baby in the face. Oh sure… she doesn’t know they’re her own bloody fingers, but she can throw a Rocky style punch at the well behaved baby boy next to us.
• ·      Last time I went to (the same) baby group, I had forgotten to put deodorant on and was wearing the jumper that always has a slight tang of BO. This was coupled with an increase in sweat due to baby-group-anxiety and thus I quite overtly stunk of BO. I was the smelly mum.
• ·      Last time I went to (the same) baby group, whilst we were splish-splashing in the splish-splash pool, my child vomited in it. The vomit floated around. Other parents removed their children.
• ·      I forgot that I am about as good at making friends as Gina Ford is good at flexibility.
• ·      There are rarely biscuits. If there are.. generally Family Circle. Family. Circle. I’ve only had 2 hours sleep… where are the fucking Foxes??? And there is the psychological struggle of wanting the biscuits.. but not wanting to seem too keen to get to the biscuits.. Waiting for other people to have a biscuit…. Getting angry that no one else is as greedy as me to want the biscuits… Bet in my head that they are all on their post-baby diet… feel like a failure for not being on post baby diet and still wanting biscuits. I love biscuits.

p.s. When The Baby squealed with delight whilst pretending to be a Kangaroo on a bouncy ball, I literally didn’t care if I never saw a biscuit again.

I would care though.

Don’t take them away from me.