In praise of Not-The-Mama

In praise of Not-The-Mama

Thursday 21 January 2010

For those of you who don’t remember Dinosaurs, that will mean nothing, and for those that do, yes I did just compare my son to an obnoxious lump of Henderson plastic.

I am now halfway through my second day back at work and have I received so much as an emergency phonecall? No. My husband (or Not-The-Mama as I will now call him) is not only coping with being a stay at home dad, he is excelling!!

I arrived home last night fully expecting Armageddon to have taken up residence in the spare room, so imagine my surprise when I walked into a house that was not only quiet, it was cleaner and tidier than when I had left in the morning!! If I had known it would be so easy to get housework done, I would have suggested we do this years ago!!

Alfie the baby warthog (he’s a little snuffly at the moment) was sitting on his granddad’s knee looking like he hadn’t slept all day (possibly because he hadn’t slept all day!!) with his bottom lip pushed out just far enough to serve as a warning that the high emotion of a full day awake had put him firmly on the edge of reason, from where he was liable to tip at any point: And so he did as soon as I picked him up.

See, I don’t ask for much in life, but coming home from your first day at work you would like to think that you were missed just a little bit, and being greeted by a lusty waaa-ROOOOO as soon as you pick your son up is not quite the welcome one might hope for. I know he’s only 10 weeks today, so I wasn’t expecting him to run the length of the house and launch himself into my arms or anything, but seriously, screaming ab dabs, really?!?!

Anyway, I managed to restore my sense of self respect by getting a smile out of him 30 seconds later (see, high emotion, it’s a terrible thing) while bundling him into the pram, harnessing the dogs and setting off on what I feared might be a husky ride through the town.

Keith had departed for the football so it was either risk going it alone, or put up with the dogs shouting at the neighbours all evening. I chose the former and was truly amazed that we managed to not only get through the whole walk without incident (even when an off lead dog came bounding up to us) but managed to get the small boy off to sleep as well.

All in all it was a very successful evening.

Today the list of Alfie jobs involves some very growded up fings: Firstly, I have just set up an email address for him, because these days you can’t sign up for anything without one and frankly I thought it would be easier if he had his own rather than piggy back on either mine or Keith’s. So if you want to get hold of our son, he can be reached at

alfie dot batsford at gmail dot com

Don’t expect a lengthy response though, his typing still leaves a lot to be desired.

Also I will be opening his first bank account at lunch because the people who manage his child trust fund have taken the stupendously intelligent step of making it impossible to pay in additional contributions to his account unless they are addressed to them, rather than the account holder. It seemed logical to avoid future rises in my blood pressure that we open an account in his name so we can bank any cheques sent in his name now and in the future. Clearly, I have nothing better to do with my life than transfer money about to compensate for the trust fund people’s lack of foresight. It’s a good thing they’re ethical or I’d be taking my business elsewhere. With a flounce.

Oh, last job for the day is to track down some Hipp Organic milk for hungry babies. Not that guzzle guts needs extra food during the day but he does seem to want to eat more than his tummy can hold at night and I’m hoping the extra calories of the hungry baby milk might just keep him snoozling for that extra few hours needed to stop Keith pouting.

If anyone sees any please let me know where, because Hipp seem to have missed a key facet of economics – in order to sell, you must first make the bloody thing available to be bought!!