Someday It Will All Just Be White Noise

We went to see a nursery yesterday morning. It is just around the corner and has a free place for the baby on a Monday. Handy. We read the HM Inspectorate report online, which was good, and went to see them. They seemed nice and they seemed organised, so we are going to put the baby in there.

It was raining when we left. Lynne went to work and I went to the supermarket. The baby fell asleep in her buggy. And here I made my mistake.

Since it was raining I didn’t stay out. I should have gone for coffee or something and left the baby to sleep the morning away, but no, I had to take her home and try and get her up the stairs into her cot. Of course, she woke up and spent the rest of the day screaming at me, pretty much none stop, even managing to scream between spoonfuls while she was eating her lunch.

The baby refused to have her afternoon nap, preferring to writhe about on her blanket shouting. She was so tired and angry that she her eyes had gone the baleful red of a smackhead’s little peepers.

‘Unnnng!’ she cried.

‘I know it’s ung,’ I said. ‘It’s all ung. Go to sleep.’

The bay could clearly sense that I was getting annoyed even though I was trying not to show it. Have you ever tried to pretend that things are great when they are really, really not? For hours? By the time Lynne got home my nerves were shot. I got the baby’s tea ready, handed Lynne the spoon and went out for a pint. As I left the baby grinned, grinned, at me from Lynne’s arms.

‘Don’t bother smiling at me,’ I told her. ‘Now you’ve got your mum you think everything’s cool. Well, it’s not cool at all.’

This morning she screamed at me again. It took me a while to realise that she was sitting in a big pile of poo. I thought she was just being an arsehole again. She is asleep now. Good girl.

D Day

Today Lynne went back to work. No going back part-time, no half measures, no fucking about, she is nine to five from here on in. Me and the baby watched the football.

That's not entirely true. I was working this morning so my mum came round to babysit. The nursery has let us down: their building work is going on for another six weeks so we are looking elsewhere. We might have a place for the baby in a nursery round the corner from the beginning of July, but we haven't been to see it yet.

In the meantime, my mother has stepped into the breach. My folks live 45 minutes in the car away and they do like to see the kid, but I feel bad about getting them to babysit while I go to work. I have volunteered to work every Saturday instead of doing the Wednesday shift to make it easier, but this isn't ideal either bcause that means that I will have to use my holidays to get a weekend off. We have been here before.

The baby and my mum have made friends now. I don't know what the baby had against her, I think maybe she had sussed out that when my folks turn up Lynne and I tend to disappear and leave her with them. Or maybe it had to do with stupid noises. I mak a lot of stupid noises, so does Lynne, but my mum is a bit uptight for that carry on, and maybe the baby found being clutched at in steely silence a bit alarming.

Anyway, my first proper day of being a true hausfrau was fine. I got back about lunchtime, we ate, we read books, the baby chewed the books and we watched the football. I had a fiver on Chile and they won. The baby feel asleep before the end of the match so I missed the Swiss free kick that was their best chance of the game. Just as well, if I'd been watching it, it would have gone in.

When Lynne gets home we will all have our tea. I will put up some recipes tomorrow.

Time's Getting On...

It four weeks until Lynne goes back to work. I am absolutely prepared for looking after the baby single handed, but there is one thing that worries me. Now that I have a wee part-time job the baby will have to go into child care on Monday mornings and Wednesdays. A day and a half a week. We have found a nursery, they are on my way to work so they are really handy, they seem nice, they make positive noises when we ring them up, but they still seem to be building the place.

The work was meant to be done by the end of May, which is now, but the scaffolding is still up. Everything has been so easy so far, I'm just getting nervous that this is where our luck runs out.