Little did I know

Alex Baker-Nurse - 16 Jan 17

So right now I am sat in a cafe with my 12 week old daughter Pip wriggling furiously in my lap threatening to kick off into full blown, eye leaking howling…she is going 50 shades of maroon and the brow is slightly furrowed – I have about 3 and a half seconds before all hell breaks loose (cue madly emptying contents of mum bag all over the table in a bid to one handedly make up a bottle before full throttle wailing commences – my heart rate is already soaring as I know what is coming and I’m desperately trying to spare everyone else this hideous experience). Assembling a bottle (especially a stupid Dr fucking Browns bottle which is made up of 300 pieces), getting formula out of the poxy dispenser, shaking bottle without the contents pissing everywhere and measuring out reflux meds with the teeniest tiniest syringe from a litre size bottle  (I swear Boots were trying to tip me over the edge with this combo) is a Krypton Factor style challenge at the best of times but doing single handedly whilst dancing around the table on one leg as baby will explode if you stand still for more than a nano second raises this one woman bush fucker trial to a whole new level.

Once you have managed to get formula in the bottle, lid on the bottle, shake the bottle, spill most of the bottle, drop the bottle, swear at the fucking bottle and contemplate pummelling your own head with the bottle,  you then have the challenge of securing the bib around the screaming throat of your precious one whilst they are turning blue with fury and thrashing around like a fish out of water (and who the fuck thought poppers were a good idea on bibs….these people have clearly NEVER had to lasso a demonic newborn in a cafe with one hand….)

Bib on (upside down , inside out and tied maybe ever so slightly too tight with a knot), meds in and spat back out in your face, bottle thrust into purple, screaming angry mouth, choking episode caught just in time…..and peace!

This chaos has become my new reality.  I am slowly getting used to the mixed reactions from Joe Public when you are out with a newborn. These reactions range from older women cooing ‘oh that sounds like a newborn cry, what a lovely noise…how old?’ (they have clearly forgotten how bloody grating that ‘lovely noise’ is when you hear it for 14 hours straight without so much as a pause to catch breath), to other mums who have come out the other side of this phase encouragingly saying ‘I promise it gets better’ (when when when does it get better? Please tell me) or unhelpful people stating ‘make the most of this, it’s the easiest stage’ (WHAT? How much twatting harder is it going to get? Where is the return form?) and then the looks from childless people which without saying a single word scream ‘why the hell doesn’t she just take that baby home and give us all some peace’ (I know this as 13 weeks ago that was exactly my thinking when a baby started crying in a cafe or restaurant). I would stare and tut and think how selfish to come out and inflict that noise on us while we are trying to relax over our morning coffee, why don’t mums just stay at home until their children are old enough to behave in adult environments…I always also thought if/when I had a child there is NO WAY I would ever be that person, that I would be far too self aware to just let my baby scream and disrupt other peoples day out. I thought I would immediately pack everything up and leave the building if my baby so much as squawked in a public place. Truth is, until you are ‘that’ person you have no idea how you will behave and actually when it has taken you the best part of the day to get out the house you are not going to let a few tuts and dirty looks force you to do the walk of shame home again. You also dont realise until you are ‘that’ person that as much as you want to apologise to every one for the horrendous noise pollution your offspring is producing, you are too bloody knackered to actually give a shit what they are thinking. Until you are ‘that’ person there are lots of things you dont know.

Little did I know back then that the ‘selfish’ woman in the cafe had boiled her kettle at home twenty times that morning without successfully getting the boiled water into the sodding cup before the baby held its breath so hard it almost passed out and had to be picked up again.

Little did I know it had taken her all morning and every ounce of energy just to get dressed, in between putting on each sock was a 40 min blood curdling tantrum that had to be dealt with. After shimmying into her M&S 100% cotton size 20 FULL briefs (they were compulsory after the C section but letting them go is proving to be harder than she thought) the small did a mahoosive shit that exploded straight out of each leg hole and hit all four walls of the bedroom.

Little did I know  that poor woman had made 5 cups of tea that were scattered around the house in various states of undrunkeness as every time the cup made it to her lips the baby had a projectile vomming episode all over the both of them so they were on their 3rd outfit change by 9am.

Little did I know that the woman inflicting this screaming baby on us had not slept for 3 whole days and had to leave the house before she went abso-fucking-lutely crazy and lost the plot.

Little did I know that the woman with the unruly baby had to be around other people to save her from herself, without a doubt she would have banged her head ever so hard against a brick wall more than once by now if she had stayed at home.

All these ‘little did I knows’ that I now know all too well..

So next time you hear a crying baby and think ‘I wish the mother would just shut it the fuck up’ please know that she has probably been trying to ‘shut it the fuck up’ all day and however annoying the noise is to you (and I know it is annoying as I HATE the sound of babies crying) no one wants that baby to shut the fuck up more than the mother….take comfort in the fact you can leave the cafe after your coffee and get on with your peaceful day but that poor woman has to take the screaming little sod with her and listen to that noise until it finally passes out from exhaustion, which will not be any time before midnight if I speak from my own experience.

Another extra large, extra strong latte for the woman in the corner rocking back and forth and hitting herself in the head with Dr Browns anti colic bottle please!!

Alex Baker-Nurse

Work in London. Live in Whitstable. Usually ranting about the God awful commute or the perils of new motherhood. When not ranting or looking after a noisy small I can be found on the back of a temperamental ginger thoroughbred or wandering the streets with my camera.

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