Our day: Up bright and early, quick breaky with mum before getting in the car. Ava immediately looked bummed when she realised Nicky wasn’t coming to swimming lessons too. I was a little bummed that Ava was bummed. Bummer.
Swimming lessons. Ava rocks out like a boss. She’s getting confident in the water, so I let her stay under a few seconds longer than I normally would each time she jumped in, to get her closer to ‘getting up’. We’ve taught her pretty well how to get in the water… but not so much how to turn around and get out yet, which means she might actually be in more of a dangerous position right now than ever before: fearless with water, wants in bad, still can’t swim. Nevertheless, swimming lessons without mum = winning.
Back in the car, homeward-bound. Ava reminds me that she needs to be watered and snacked by pointing to the bag and whingeing. I threw some fruit in front of her, put on a VeggieTales CD and all was well. Nana. Mmm… Nana.
Home. I read the instructions Nicky had left me on the kitchen bench.
How it was supposed to go:
- Read a book;
- Give her a drink and then tell her she is going to ‘cuddle teddy’;
- Put her on her back, pull up covers and slowly walk out and close door;
- “She should sleep for at least 1.5 hours.”
How it actually went:
- The moment I give Ava a cuddle, she switches onto what’s going on and immediately breaks into something out of the exorcist.
- I soothingly try to calm her down, give her cuddles, then put her in her cot and give her teddy.
- “Cuddle teddy! There there!” Ava just proceeds to spider-crawl and screech.
- I pretend it’s all supposed to be like that and make a lame attempt to put the covers over her. I then slowly walk out. Back away… baaaaack away.
- Ava cries for ten minutes. I give up and walk back in.
I put her on her feet on the floor and she immediately stops crying. She walks over to teddy and giggles.
“Seriously? Only a moment ago you were Pavarotti!”
I then try a different tack: classical music. Ava seems to like the sound of it and gets fixated on pressing all of the buttons on the CD player. I change the CD to Lullabies and hope it softens the mood. Maybe in ten minutes things will be a little different. I lie down on the floor and cuddle teddy on the pillow. It’s a sneaky ploy: lead by example, maybe she’ll get the hint.
Time to have another crack. I pick Ava up again into the ‘cuddle’ position. It’s on again. Like Donkey Kong. This time, it was pretty much exactly the same as the first attempt, but this time to classical music. The covers go over the top a bit faster this time and I walk out frustrated. I sit on my bed, listening as the doors rattle from Ava’s direction.
Back in we go for round three. I walk back into the room and instantaneously get punched in the face with a thick aroma of cabbage. Oh no.
Nappy time. OK. It’s gotta be done. I try and plan the steps out to have the least amount of exposed poo-splosion as possible.
I lay down the new nappy. I get a nappy bag ready. I find the wipes and have a few ready. I lay Ava on top of the nappy, take off the nappy… HOLY MOTHER OF GOD. Ava then starts struggling and putting her hands all over the poo, now I’m wrestling with her not to touch anything, especially now not anything ELSE, while I try and simultaneously wipe things away and hold my guts in. Dry heave. New nappy that was carefully laid out gets covered in poo. Open bin. Bin is full. Try and put pooie nappy in bin. Pooie nappy falls out on floor onto my foot. It’s the a-poo-calypse. I go through seven wipes trying to clean things up. New nappy. Much easier once things are de-pooed.
OK. Maybe the pooey nappy was the reason that she was not going to sleep?
I hold her in a lay-down position in my arms and start rocking her to sleep. She bends backwards and objects for the next 15 minutes. This time, I’m firmer. Maybe if she realises that there’s no two ways about it – she’s going to sleep, that she might find some comfort in the ‘boundaries’. They always say on the radio that kids like boundaries, right? My biceps start burning from the weight of Ava’s head. An eternity of rocking. It’s working. The thumb! The miraculous, magic thumb goes in her mouth. Her eyes start drooping. Ava takes her thumb out three times and cries, but each time gets less and less spirited about it. It’s finally working!
I sneak over to the cot, lay Ava in it… Nope. It was all a ploy. The fire engine starts up again. I walk out again and close the door, PLEASE… PLEASE just go to sleep this time… you’ve gotta give up eventually. I would give anything for a set of boobs right now.
Silence. Sweet silence. She’s found her thumb.
Lexi barks. Lexi gets murdered.
I then tippy-toe around the house back to my own bed.
Ava was down for a grand total of 45 minutes. It would do.
Wake up time, lunch time. A hearty lunch of grapes, crackers, ham and avocado.
It’s Nicky’s birthday the next day. Nicky’s away getting pampered by her friends, so this is the last day I have to go and get her a present. I wonder if I’m actually going to be able to do it, because I’m already feeling wrecked; my entire day had been consumed by this one toddler thus far. I reconsidered ever calling being a stay at home mum ‘easy’. I shuddered at the reactions I know I’m going to get having ever admitted so.
OK, Travel Pack Time. Three nappies, check. Wipes, check. Snacks, check. Water, check. Time to get dressed.
I open the cupboard. What the heck do I put on this kid? How do I know which are the ones Ava fits and which she doesn’t? I just take a guess. I put some pants on her. They’re way too big. Fail. Toss them aside, have another go. Ava walks around the house in just a nappy. I dive back into the cupboard to find another pair of pants that will fit. I take another stab, find some pants, find Ava, begin pulling the pants onto Ava… “Oh, you’ve undone your nappy!”
Pow! My face again. If the last cabbagey episode was the a-poo-calypse, this… this was the crap-ture. It’s suddenly that horrific moment when you discover the nappy that is currently half-off is full to the brim with a bad kind of chocolate. Argh! I pick her up, throw her on the change-table and try to begin the nappy changing process. It’s not good. It’s the opposite of good. It’s bad. In fact, it’s so bad, it’s reached critical mass and it’s breaching the hull.
“Woah! You’re coming with me.”
I pick Ava up, leave the nappy on the table, keep Ava in a frozen lying down position as I carry her, one hand under her back, the other holding her ankles straight out toward me; gotta keep the chocolate part off my chest! We promptly head towards the shower room. I need to put her down so I can open the shower door. I lay her down in front of the shower door. Now I can’t open the shower door. She sits up. Poo on the shower mat. Awesome. Arms up, shirt off, door open, shower on. I get into the shower fully clothed. A deep breath. Crisis over.
Dress up time, grab bag, pile into car, fiddle with annoying booster seatbelt that always looks like it’s twisted, shut doors, drive to Plaza.
As I’m entering the carpark, I awkwardly pass a pink ‘pram’ carpark. I realise only just after I’ve passed it that I’m actually allowed to park there today. I do a circle of the carpark, but by the time I come back, I see another car reversing into the same spot. There’s three adults in the car. No kid. No pram. No babyseat. I growl. Ava mimics me and growls like a lion in the back seat. I drive halfway down the back of the carpark to get the next closest park and get everything ready with the stroller. As I pass the car that took my park, I consider pulling all the windscreen wipers in awkward directions and re-positioning the mirrors. That’d teach ‘em. I chicken-out and keep walking into the centre.
Shopping. I open up my list that Nicky has written out of presents she is hoping for. As it turns out, none of them can be bought at Grand Plaza. Curses! I order a coffee at The Coffee Club to at least make the trip worthwhile. While it’s being made, Ava starts getting restless in the stroller so I let her walk about. I chase her halfway around the shopping centre; she skilfully slaloms in between fast moving trolleys like a startled bit of soon-to-be-roadkill. I snatch her up again and put her back into the pram, as I clip her back in, the clip pinches my hand like a friggin’ snakebite. Curses!
I walk back out the way I came, coffee in hand, stroller in the other. I again pass the car that stole my carpark. I think about pouring my coffee all over their windshield. I take a deep breath and remind myself of the whole ‘Judgement-Free Love’ philosophy I’ve been pondering on and keep walking. Ava gets piled from the stroller to the car seat again. Drive to new shop. Unpile from carseat, pile into stroller.
I walk into a shop down the road that Nicky had picked. As I walk in, I hit a bump at the entrance and pour my coffee all over the stroller. Whoops. I turn around and ask the doorman where I can find what I’m looking for. He takes one step to his right and I’m staring at a wall behind him filled with them. Oh thanks! I’ll take two.
Back in the car, repeat pile-in process, new shop, repeat pile-out process. New present. I immediately ask for help, get taken to the right aisle, then ask for the least likely item to get returned by a woman with a strong sense of style. White it is.
De-pile stroller, re-pile car. Homeward. The job’s done. The day’s almost over. Nicky’s almost home. Thank God.
We spend the afternoon playing with blocks and shapes in the toy room. I mention food and Ava starts nodding enthusiastically. She walks down the hallway into the main room, sits at her miniature table and chairs and waits for me to serve her up. Just ridiculously cute.
After dinner, we watch a Jam ‘deebee’ together. Ava gets entranced by DVDs, it’s as though nothing else is going on around her. I take the occasion to surf the ‘net looking for something that we could put on that wouldn’t be so non-interactive. I’m OK with them being babysat by a box if it’s actually going to be good for them. I discover the Xbox Kinect Dance game. Intriguing concept.
Bath time. Ava and I spend the time playing with the bubbles and repeating back what each foam letter sounds like. What’s F say? “ffffffffffff!”
Just enough time to get Ava out of the bath, into her brand new pyjamas, and Nicky arrives home.
I pretend the day was fine. I was a stay-at-home dad. Like a boss.
Don’t know what women whinge about, really.