Dad’s Guide To Changing Nappies

It’s a struggle for everyone but sometimes, Dad’s just have a harder time dealing with the poop than Mums do. Now granted I am no Dad, but I have been an observer of a few of them when it comes to dealing with the nappy situation and sometimes, an eye roll and cringe just doesn’t satisfy my inner mum screaming, ‘are you kidding?’

So if your a Dad, and you are guilty of having put your poopy baby in the bath, one hand on the retractable shower head, the other splashing the water over the baby (avoiding skin to poop contact if possible, at least until the situation has been brought down to a level of poo that you can cope with) whilst looking out the bathroom window trying to think about cars or bikes or anything that makes you feel better? I’m telling you, your not alone. The secret truth though is this: This makes you a top shelf dad! It is only the best of Dads that even get to this point. Some of them find it so disturbing that they run for the hills and others use such unorthodox methods that they end up being banned from baby duty by onlooking mums. A fate I don’t think too many would protest.

As a result? We bring you the new Dad’s Kit and Guide to Changing Nappies. In this kit, you will receive:

1: A gas mask. Sometimes it will not be necessary, but more importantly, sometimes, it will be. Better to be prepared.

2: Protective gloves.

3: Protective clothing and closed toe footwear.

4: Industrial strength tongs

5: A pair of black and white shaded glasses. If you can’t see the shades of green and mustard yellow, we think it’s not as bad.

6: A random bucket. Yes, random. It’s multipurpose. You never know what you might need to catch / dispose of in a pinch.

7: And finally disposable everything. Nappy, change mat, wipes, gloves, the works. We understand that for the world to still be a safe place for you, everything that has been in the room with your baby’s bottom at the time, needs to never been seen again.

The procedure is this: Get the job done, anyway you can, minimal spectacle but resulting in baby clean and changed is good. Anything that avoids mum coming home and saying “why is the baby’s towel wet? Did she need a bath? Why? What Happened? What did you do?” etc… You can see how this is rapidly becoming not only wrong AND your fault but on it’s way to a list of all the things you do wrong and how you don’t appreciate what she does. She won’t notice a gas mask and assorted protection wear under the bed, or maybe she will and won’t think anything more than.. well thats stupid. As a mum, let me tell you, she WILL notice everything else. A towel in the wrong place, water drops on the floor of the shower, baby in different clothes, inappropriate amount of wipes in the bin as well as anything that you have added to the usual washing or laundry. I suggest you wash anything used yourself and separately.

If you fail your mission, and the above line of questioning does eventuate then always remember. “I’m sorry. Your right. Help me.”

Y.K.Y.A.P.W Week 11 Top Ten

1: The sound track to all of your dreams is the token Mozart track that comes with your baby’s mobile.

2: Your a machine with the Glen 20 Antibacterial Spray.

3: You’ve broken at least one law because of your child, usually double parking or something similar in the interest of keeping them happy, and being fast.

4: You can multitask like it is no ones business. You can: feed your baby, cut her nails, pump the other side while taking a work sale on the phone and paying your electricity bill on the internet all at the same time.

5: You wonder if 11 weeks old is too young or too old to be watching Sopranos. You can opnly get away with it for so long before it is off limits for years.

6: You sing the Wiggles “Wake Up Geoff!” in the supermarket… on your own.

7: You look at a poster on the wall and remember the good old days when you could just fly over to Las Vegas, have a few drinks, play a few games, and get married if you felt like it…

.. Or was I the only one who did that?

8: You go to your first kids birthday party and have to buy a present for the birthday baby “with love from” your baby. Who are we kidding? We all know that the baby doesn’t actually go shopping herself. I DO. That’s right… me.

9: You find that dressing your child in outfits that have ears or any kind of novelty hood on them will never get old.

10: You think you may have had sex before, but can’t remember what it was like.

Y.K.Y.A.P.W Week 10 Top Ten

You Know You’re A Parent When:

1: The answer to “Where are the socks?” is “Second drawer, under the Monkey.”

2: You finally get to shave your legs for the first time in weeks and afterwards you notice that they look the same. It’s been so long that you are covered in little hair tan lines.

3: You use the drawstring off of an old pair of shorts to tie your dummy/pacifer/soother to it on one end and to the back of our passenger seat head rest on the other. This way when they loose it yous not swerving all over the road trying to find it. Just pull on the string and it’s yours once again.

4: Your weekly Top Ten lists get further and further behind.

5: You know exactly which one of your neighbors leaves for work at 5am and can time out their exact routine while your up breastfeeding. ‘Now cough… start car. Swear at your sore back while you sit down…’ He doesn’t know that I know.

I know..

6: Eating licorice for breakfast is now totally acceptable.

7: After ten weeks of saying “no no, I will!” You have realized that you will not use your treadmill again and decide to give it up for the space. Why? Because no, no I won’t.

8: You have already established a ban per parent for some kind of kids character. Our house ban’s Dora, I have tested her out and she talks to me like I am a moron. Yes I can see the freaking red balloon. Can’t you? Barney because I have issues with the real kids in that show, they are too cheery. And Lastly, there is a joint ban on Teletubies because they are just creepy.

9: By now you have had at least one explodo poo that has been cause for hosing off (in bathroom, not necessarily backyard so you can stop dialing DOCS) instead of cleaning up. We can all guess not only who’s idea this was, but which parent got to hold the baby under her arms and which one had to actually wash the poo off.

10: You sign the petition that states that only making Jolly Jumpers for kids is bullshit.

Review: Preen – Gets out the poop.

As a parent there are only a few items that you would really be in trouble with out. Something to feed them with and something to clean them with.

Regular laundry for babies is rather easy, there isn’t any food to worry about, mostly just spit up milk. That means no mushed peas smooshed into the arm pits, no coloured juice stains down the front, no glue or finger paint down the shorts and no handful of pet snails (gathered from the garden and stored in the pocket) that were once alive either. The problem that you do have at this age, is…

… (insert jaws theme here)… Poop.

I don’t know about baby boys but I do know about baby girls and if they are laying down it goes backwards and if they are sitting up it goes frontwards. If it didn’t manage to seep upward into the nice outfit you spent 20 minutes trying to get their tiny hands into there is still time. You take off their nappy and it is like they are desperately trying to stamp their feet in it and then wipe them all over you and themselves. As well as finding it hilarious while you try and block their every move.

At some point along the way, be it during, after or as part of the clean up, there will be poo on someones clothes and as a nod to your new schedule of 3-times-a-day laundry your gonna have to get it out sooner rather than later.

My suggestion to you is Preen. A few sprays of this with a roll in the washing machine hay and your baby clothes will look good as new instead of looking ‘was once poo’d in’ like some other stain removers leave them. It’s so easy that all you dads can even do it, hell, my husband discovered it.

I’m finding that now she knows I can get poop out easily, Lily doesn’t get so much joy out of trying to cover both of us in it anymore. But throwing up on me, now that’s always gonna be funny.

Casino Baby

There are few things that you can do when you become a parent to escape your new found sense of adult responsibility and sensibility. In fact, having the balls to step outside your new comfort zone for fear of being seen or judged is mostly the problem.. even when there is nothing to be judged for. In an extreme moment of recklessness like chewing some gum resulting in a ‘chewing noise’ who would know you were a mother and expected to be more refined? We don’t have it tattooed on ourselves anywhere yet, we have this notion that the world expects better of us. Why should we strip ourselves of all the fun?

It was last Saturday that we had my birthday ‘day of fun’. Technically my birthday was on the Tuesday but in the interest of not spending it doing dishes, laundry and dreaming of a shower, it was in part, moved to a more suitable day. It was all very unknown, whats going to happen, where are we going… my husband had his secrets. First up, Fun Day at the local primary school awesome. Although we didn’t realize that no one would have change for a fifty so we only got to have one spin of the chocolate wheel and a good look around. It was fun, and probably for the best because lets face it, my chances of bring back the fruits of fifty attempts at the $1 lucky dip where pretty high. Then we went again, this time to my mother’s where we dropped off Lily and then headed for the city.

Josh turns to me and says, “I tried to think of the most non motherly thing to do for your birthday” and then, we turned into the StarCity Casino. Now I am not a gambler, in fact despite my 10 odd trips to Las Vegas, I have only played a poker machine once in New Zealand and I won $200.00. I have never felt confident enough to push my luck again. But, here we were. Up the elevator and in we go.

Like any classically thrifty new mother, I used the first 10 or 15 minutes spending three dollars on a 1 cent pokie. Then walked away from them very proud of myself having won back my three dollars. Simple pleasures. Josh says it is time to step it up a notch and we head to the roulette tables and screens, yes I mean screens. We play rapid roulette which gives you your own screen to play on and then watch the wheel in the middle. This is perfect for someone like me who is convinced that everyone is starring at her thinking “but you just had a baby” and having small anxiety attacks at each hand.

At the risk of falling even further into the stereotyped new-mum-in-the-casino role, I take the opportunity to bet my money on my daughters birthday, 29, as well as the numbers surrounding. Only in small quantities of course since parting with money these days is like trying to take the taco left-overs out of my dogs bowl after she started eating it. For those of you who don’t know my dog, the reference implies this is not an easy task. She isn’t a miniature poodle or anything. The name of my game is betting on my baby with minimum bet limits over and over again. It was fantastic fun and she won all our money back in the end.

To complete this Mummy-does-gambling story book, I insisted that we leave having won our money back because had we stayed another half hour and lost it all again, I would have regretted it. Once the sensible parent in you has been activated it takes 18 – 20 years to wear off, there is nothing you can do to speed up that process. From what I can see you can only shake it off in time for a belated mid life crisis and spending spree retirement.

With my gambling for the day over, all I needed now was a cigarette, a drink, a few pills and I’d be a very bad mummy. I only got one of those, I will leave it to you to guess which.

Basically it is ok to go out and have some fun once in a while, spin the roulette wheel and see what happens because as long as your betting on your baby’s birthday, it’s allowed.

Y.K.Y.A.P.W Week 9 Top Ten

You Know You’re A Parent When:

1: You start using your kids birthdays as lucky betting numbers.

2: You can pick baby related mistakes in movies like the token newborn baby seat that is more like a 3 year olds booster seat.

3: The hot beverage that you have after a meal in a restaurant is only hot water to heat up a bottle of breast milk.

4: You’ve sat down in the aisle at Toys ‘R’ Us and played with kids toys far older than your child with a sense of entitlement.

5: You’ve found out how many days you can get away with without washing your hair.

6: The novelty of a nursery has worn off and you no longer insist on all the cloth nappies being perfectly folded and put in the basket. Now they are lucky if they make it into the room after being washed but before being used.

7: The Xbox controller you were using as a paper weight has had the batteries stolen out of it for one of the baby toys.

8: You’ve become Fisher-Prices’ bitch.

9: You get baby items for your birthday.

10: Without paying attention, you’ve mixed up the air freshener, hairspray and deodorant aerosol cans all with disastrous results.

Review: Fisher-Price Bouncer Cover ‘n Play

It’s simple, it’s cheap, and yes, once again, it’s Fisher Price. There is no way to get away form these people because they just make the best stuff.

It is probably the simplist of the bouncer range from Fisher-Price. The rest are filled with gizmos and gadgets, sounds and lights. All of that sounds great but after you spend the extra hundred bucks on it, you’ll find your left with nothing more than the cliche mastercard ad where the baby plays more with the packaging than the high tech toys.

A seat, a blanket, a bit of vibration and a three-toy-activity bar is all it takes to keep your baby happy, and if yours is anything like ours, keep them talking, laughing and smiling too. The activity bar consists of a cute tiger/cat, a slightly stoned looking birdie and a blue puppy that rattle a bit when knocked or bounced. Admittedly, it’s not quite Melrose Place entertainment for me, but, Baby seems to be a big fan.

Buy one now. That is all.

Career Mum?

So tomorrow Lily will be 10 weeks old, and I will also be going back to work. I’m sure it will be one of the hardest days of my life and I am dreading it with all my might. I have so many concerns.. I’ll miss her and her now ever-present Fisher -Price accompanying music. I won’t be able to be with her all day. And most importantly, where will I get my cold iced tea from without my close-by refrigerator? Although since I don’t drink the feral diet kind, that could be for the best.

Like every other Mum out there, quite simply, I don’t want to leave my little baby. But, work calls, or better put, money calls and maternity leave doesn’t last forever.. unless you’re Brittany Spears with consecutive pregnancies. I have spent the last ten weeks of my life learning her moves and sounds.. We have a routine down pat and it’s been working very well for us. That being said, I admit she must know that I am going back to work this week because she has chosen these particular few days to change a few things on me. For example, our usual “Poo Days” are twice on Wednesday and once on Sunday.. this has been the way for weeks now and I am told by Dr’s and midwives that as long as your baby has a routine of some sort, most things are normal, especially with breast milk. This last week we had our regular two on Wednesday and 3 unauthorized poos on Thursday, Friday was bust, then two on both Saturday and Sunday. Very uncool. Her sleeping and eating pattern has changed as well, making me less and less comfortable with leaving her. But these are the things we don’t have a choice in. You can’t live close to a big city and own a home in this world anymore without two working parents and shares in Fisher-Price.

I am nervous since I don’t speak either business or english very well now, I do however speak baby grunt and baby body noises fluently. If only that could become an adequate tool of trade. My skill set has diminished from balancing management with the ins and outs of my industry to the finer points of assembling baby swings & nursery accessories and the how to’s of pumping. My daily intake has changed from the office on-the-go types of foods that either come in your handbag or through the car window, to home made sandwiches, fruit, carrot sticks and iced tea on tap. I don’t know that I can comfortably make the switch to a fruit bar and a McDonald’s Diet Coke without some protest. We’ll see.

I will miss my baby girl and something tells me that holding a photo of her while I pump breatmilk tomorrow in the bathroom of my office (like it suggests on the back of the pump box for “Working Mum’s”), just ain’t gonna cut it.

It’s strange, tomorrow I will be back at work, Lily will be ten weeks old, but it will feel like I have hardly even had ten days to be with her before I am gone again.

Happy Birthday to me, literally.

Beach Blanket Baby

It’s 28 degrees Celsius and 4pm on a Tuesday, what do you do? You go to the beach. It is simply a right of passage that all Australian children be exposed to the ocean as soon as possible in their little lives. Dunked in salt water… Freezing temperatures followed by feeling far warmer in the water than out of it… Getting sand in the car… Falling asleep on the way home… The works. So we packed some stuff in the car, put Lily in a little swimmer nappy and costume then off we went. Just for the record, she is not a big baby. Long maybe but not big and the smallest Little Swimmers are 7 kilos +.. They fit her now at 5.5kilos.

On the way we had the usual discussion parents have before they do anything with their baby for the first time. Are we doing the right thing? Is it too cold? Will she be scarred for life? Will someone call child services on us.. It was established that it was fine and the following rules would apply. You can tell which ones my husband added.

1: If she really doesn’t like it even on her feet then we will go before she gets too worked up.

2: If she does like it and we stay, we’ll make sure to leave before she gets sick of it and keep it on a high note.

3: In the event that we get there and she hates it, for whatever reason, (this is expected and very possible) can we still say she went for a swim? We will use the ‘Male Ruling of Swimming’ where you can say you went for a swim if you went in deep enough to get your balls wet. Anything less than Ball Depth (BD) can only be referred to as a paddle, wade or any other wimpy description.

We get there, pile out of the car, down to the ocean and it is freezing! A concerned foreign onlooker volunteers that babies usually don’t like to swim until at least 6 months… She obviously doesn’t understand the Australian way. We decide that since we are here, we’ll dunk her feet in and just see..

Feet go in… She is unsure about this and makes a few noises that translated from Baby mean, “are you kidding?” and “why isn’t everyone wearing water proof pants with Nemo on them?”. She goes in further and further and now without a peep.. granted a skeptical expression on her face, but that’s about all. Before we know it, Daddy is in (BD), up to his balls and hey presto! It’s a swim!

I grin as the opinionated women looks on and we swim further away, us with our 8 week old happy baby, and her with a two year old son screaming because he is afraid of water touching him. Sometimes, life is just good. About 40 minutes after we arrived, we were heading back towards the car, Lily almost asleep on my shoulder and I am just happy. Watching her experience another ‘first’ is just fantastic. It was wonderful that she enjoyed it too, and under the worst of circumstances as well.. she was tired, hungry and grumpy because last I heard, the red frog (from her mobile) broke their relationship off and now gets boo’d when he does the rounds. These crazy kids these days…

Of course she can’t yet call herself a real Aussie beach kid yet.. not until she has fallen over walking on the rocks, come home with the itchies from sea lice, been smothered in Stingoes after being stung by something, swum in the salt water until her hair goes stiff, developed a faint cozzie mark tan, mistaken a dolphin for a shark, mistaken seaweed for a shark and found at least an extra kilo of sand in her pants when she finally gets in a shower.

It’s 18 degrees Celsius on a Wednesday and your daughter just realised she likes swimming.. what do you do? … You go to a heated indoor pool until it’s warm enough to go back to the beach.