Mondays, eh? But what’s tougher, a grinding, saggy Monday at boring old work, or a Monday at home juggling domestic bits and bobs while caring for your little one?
Well, today I’ve taken the day off, to see how my other half lives – I will be the stay-at-home parent while she spends the hours between 9am and 6pm out shopping and having a laugh with her mates.
Stay at home dad
Helpfully, she has drawn up a list of everyday mumlike tasks for me to complete by the time she gets home:
- Bath the baby
- Do the laundry
- Do the weekly supermarket shop
- Have dinner ready (she’s pushing her luck here, I feel)
and, for full ’50s throwback effect, bake a lovely cake for pudding.
The list doesn’t scare me – these are all areas I’ve had some previous experience in (well, apart from lemon drizzle cakes) and I have a whole eight hours in which to tick them off. Lots of dads do this stuff full time. And anyway, how hard can a day alone with a five-month-old actually be? ‘Don’t forget to eat lunch,’ she pipes as she scrambles out the door…
9am
So, Angus, here we are. Alone. He looks scared. Or maybe he’s just mimicking my expression. I kick off with a nappy change. Not as deft as it could be: we’re using a new type of nappy and I’ve strapped it on back to front.
9.30am
Angus has drifted off for his morning snooze. I have to work fast. Scurrying into a Benny Hill-style fast-forward, I shower, go to the loo, get dressed and attend to the laundry. I hit ‘start’ on the washing machine just as Angus wakes up. Ha! Out-mummed, baby!
10.30am
On a roll, I give him his bath. It goes well, and I’ve got him all dressed and smelling much less like an open sewer well before midday. I’m so chuffed with my morning of ninja-like efficiency that it takes a while for me to realise I should have fed Angus an hour ago. No wonder he keeps trying to drink his own tears. I rustle him up a bottle, and he wolfs it in a one-er, the whole time shaking his fist like an angry drunk.
12.40pm
Nappy change: the right way round this time, symmetrical, snug. A work of absorbent art.
1.20pm
It’s a 20-minute pram wheel to the supermarket. As I join the holding pattern of mums piloting their kids round the aisles, I hit upon a snag. It turns out guiding a pram with one hand and a supermarket trolley with the other is a physical impossibility, like trying to drive two mopeds across an ice-rink.
Just then a mum glides by with a wire basket looped snugly in the crook of her arm. Gotcha. This, it transpires, is a painful and cumbersome way to shop. Things get easier, though, once I lose all feeling below the elbow.
In the cheese aisle a woman shepherding a pair of anarchist toddlers looks in on Angus. ‘Ooh, he’s quiet, isn’t he?’ she remarks in admiration.
‘Only when he’s pooing,’ I reply. She grimaces and veers her family away. Must improve mum-to-mum natter skills.
3.10pm
By the time we get home Angus is well overdue another feed. But not as overdue as I am. While he glugs back his milk I have to resist the temptation of going halves. He burps long and hard, and, finally, allows me to have lunch.
3.25pm
Wait, nappy change first: pure, rancid evil, hastily dealt with. Not my best work.
3.38pm
At long last, lunch: microwave beef stroganoff. It looks a lot like the nappy I just got rid of.
4.50pm
Angus rouses himself from his afternoon nap and launches into his afternoon tantrum. Silly faces and nursery rhymes cheer him up temporarily, but I can’t give him my full attention; I have to get the dinner on – and bake that flippin’ cake.
The rest of the afternoon is like circuit training, spent shuttling back and forward between kitchen and distraught baby. Having to swap chef’s hat for clown’s hat (sadly, not literally) every couple of minutes, I realise this where the real stay-at-home parents earn their stripes. The early part of the day had been a fluke. This is proper, hardcore childcare and it’s a lot like pinball: co-ordination and timing are key – and it’s the multi-ball game that separates the wizards from the hopeless flappers.
6pm
I pop the cake in the oven just as my wife pops through the door. The dinner is just about ready. The baby is smiling (with relief, probably).
However, cake mixture and lemon drizzle are everywhere: on the sofa, the taps in the bathroom, the baby’s forehead. Plus I have forgotten to hang out the washing. And I’m shattered.
‘So how was it?’ she asks.‘I don’t know where all the time goes,’ I bleat. She points at the cot. So, back to work tomorrow? Bring on the boring.
