My daughter is in the middle of another cluster feeding frenzy. She was latched on to Lynne for just about the whole day yesterday, finally going to sleep at 10pm only to wake again about 1am. I was still up watching a crappy Bruce Willis film. I had little flashes of recognition, so I think I had seen the film before, but I must have blanked it from my memory because it was so tremendously bad. That’s a good thing; its like watching a whole new film. What was also new was that although I was up alone on a Friday night, I didn’t ransack the kitchen for horrible booze. I happen to know that there are the dregs of a bottle of cooking sherry and the arse-end of some Crabbe’s green ginger wine in the top cupboard, but I didn’t touch any of it. Over the past year of unemployment I have necked the Bulgarian whiskey, which smelt of seaweed and turned my pee green, the Bercherovka, a Czech spirit that I think tastes of Christmas but no one else can stomach, and the grappa, a colourless tipple with the ‘nose’ of petroleum that substitutes an acrid burning sensation for flavour. All these and more I have chugged with my late-night pal Bruce. Now something is different. I have responsibilities now. Parenthood has changed me. I drank milk.
But I digress. Lynne and the baby got up at 1am and the baby cried, had a feed and then refused to go back to sleep despite some pretty intensive rocking action, cried again, had another feed. The baby feeds for a bit, then drops off Lynne’s nipple like a sated leech, lying on her lap with a wee smile and eyes closed. This is the Milky Coma of Pleasure, and should never be mistaken for actual sleep. She will undoubtedly want to be fed again and will object to being moved. This cycle can last up to two hours. All this meant that I missed the second half of the film, thereby ensuring that at some point in the future I will sit through it again, thinking I have never seen it.
That was us until 3am. The baby wakes again at 6. At 8.30 I give in and get up, determined that Lynne is going to some sleep. In the back of the cupboard is a single carton of Cow and Gate ready-to-use formula. I put the sterilizer on, full of bottles and that, make some coffee and change the baby. She is chewing her fist and making hungry faces. I go to wash my hands and prepare the formula, but the baby starts crying again, I think of her lying on the changing mat, thrashing around on her own in the middle of the floor and in my hurry cut the carton of formula in such a way that it goes everywhere. Sloppy. Not very unconcerned. I need to stay frosty.
The baby seems willing to take the formula while remaining unconvinced. I am now sitting with a puke rag over my shoulder and a dozing baby in my lap. Drinking from the bottle makes her burp prodigiously, the force of the last one caused her to head butt me in the teeth. She wasn’t happy.
But I digress. Lynne and the baby got up at 1am and the baby cried, had a feed and then refused to go back to sleep despite some pretty intensive rocking action, cried again, had another feed. The baby feeds for a bit, then drops off Lynne’s nipple like a sated leech, lying on her lap with a wee smile and eyes closed. This is the Milky Coma of Pleasure, and should never be mistaken for actual sleep. She will undoubtedly want to be fed again and will object to being moved. This cycle can last up to two hours. All this meant that I missed the second half of the film, thereby ensuring that at some point in the future I will sit through it again, thinking I have never seen it.
That was us until 3am. The baby wakes again at 6. At 8.30 I give in and get up, determined that Lynne is going to some sleep. In the back of the cupboard is a single carton of Cow and Gate ready-to-use formula. I put the sterilizer on, full of bottles and that, make some coffee and change the baby. She is chewing her fist and making hungry faces. I go to wash my hands and prepare the formula, but the baby starts crying again, I think of her lying on the changing mat, thrashing around on her own in the middle of the floor and in my hurry cut the carton of formula in such a way that it goes everywhere. Sloppy. Not very unconcerned. I need to stay frosty.
The baby seems willing to take the formula while remaining unconvinced. I am now sitting with a puke rag over my shoulder and a dozing baby in my lap. Drinking from the bottle makes her burp prodigiously, the force of the last one caused her to head butt me in the teeth. She wasn’t happy.
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