There’s No Such Thing As A Pink Monkey

Admit it: you totally thought I’d just do one of these weekly diary posts I promised, and then forget all about them for the next four months, didn’t you?

Er, yeah, I thought that too, tbh, you’re not wrong. Here we are, though: it’s 7am on Saturday morning, the baby’s finally gone back to sleep after his first feed of the day, I have my coffee in a special thermal travel mug to keep it warm (THANKS, DAD), and here are some things that happened this week…

Terry and I went out to dinner

We didn’t do anything for Valentine’s Day this year (Or, you know, ANY YEAR), but we do enjoy any excuse to go out for dinner, so on Sunday afternoon my parents came round to babysit Max, and Terry and I took ourselves out to the Chop and Ale House in Linlithgow for a rare baby-free meal. I did my usual crappy job of food photography here, but if you’re ever out that way, I can HIGHLY recommend the Brie and Bacon burger, which was NEXT LEVEL AWESOME. I still think about it now, actually.

This week we also went out to lunch with Terry’s sister Lila and her husband on Wednesday, and with my parents on Friday; there was a visit with our friends Keith and Linda on Monday, and a flying visit to Starbucks later in the week. Oh, and we went out for coffee on Thursday, too, but had somehow managed to forget the place closed at 3pm (Which, seriously, WTF? WE ARE LIVING LIKE SAVAGES HERE, THIS IS INTOLERABLE.), so we just had to have coffee at home, instead, like paupers.

That little fail aside, though, we’re so far managing to get out and about more with the baby than we did before he arrived, and it’s been really good for my mental health just to get out of the house on a regular basis. Next week I’m hoping to start going out walking with Max in his pram, because, yeah, all of these lunches and coffee dates aren’t really helping my bid to get back into my pre-pregancy wardrobe, are they? No, they are not.

In other news…

Max farted in a doctor’s face. Yes.

This week Max and I both had our 6-week checkups at the doctor’s – yes, even although Max actually turned 8 weeks old on Friday. The good news is that Max was given a clean bill of health, and is doing really well. The not-so-great news is that while the doctor was examining his, er, private parts, Max decided to make like Rusty the dog – he of “pumping” fame – and let rip with an almighty fart, right in the doctor’s face. WHOOPS.

(In related news, Terry and I are now Those People who talk about their kid’s bowels all the time. Like, quite a few of our conversations lately have included the phrase, “But what kind of consistency was it? Colour? VOLUME?” Kinda hate myself right now, seriously…)

Another doctor might have just laughed this off, or assured us it happens all the time, but this, unfortunately, was Stern Doctor, so it just ended up being quite awkward, really, in a, “I am trying so hard not to laugh right now, because I really want to seem like a responsible parent, who is totally a mature adult, but LOLOLOL you are so lucky it wasn’t a pee instead, dude!”

While we’re on the subject of inappropriate peeing, though…

(This was not at all an appropriate place to fill his nappy, but Max doesn’t care about your lunch, so he did it anyway. And yes, they DO have the same haircut…)

I changed my first nappy in public

Er, it was MAX’S nappy I changed, obviously: just realised that my lead-in to this one kind of made it sound like it might be my own… Also, I didn’t do it IN PUBLIC exactly – like, I’m not trying to turn it into some kind of performance art – but I DID have to change a nappy in a public place: namely the garden centre we had lunch in with my parents on Friday.

(Because, when you have a baby, you randomly start spending a lot of time in garden centres. Look, they have nice cafes, OK? Also, most of them seem to sell Jellycat toys, which is handy, because my mum has moved on from burp cloths, and is now on a one-woman mission to buy Max all of the Jellycats ever made. This week: A PIG:

“This will be the last one I buy,” my mum promised Terry, who feels that Max has more than enough stuffed animals as it is. (AF IF you can have enough Jellycats, though? WHERE DOES HE GET THESE IDEAS?) But then she turned and winked at me in a way that suggested that she WILL track down that Jellycat lion, and maybe even the lamb.)

(Also, shortly after this photo was taken, an argument broke out between my parents, Terry and I, over whether this is, in fact, a pig, or, as my parents would have it, “a pink monkey”. “You don’t GET pink monkies?” I pointed out in vain, but they’d also tried to insist that the Jellycat lamb was “a white monkey”, so I’m thinking it’s more of a “thinking everything is a monkey” issue than anything else. I will keep you all posted on this important debate…)

Anyway! It was during this outing that it became clear to me – and, indeed, everyone else in the vicinity – that Max had filled his nappy and would need to be changed. I’m actually amazed this hasn’t happened sooner, given how much we’ve been taking him out lately, but I guess we’ve just gotten lucky until now – or kept our excursions short enough – because this was to be my first experience of a public baby changing facility.

It was OK, actually: like, if you’re going to change a nappy in a public place, I’d definitely recommend Dobbies Garden Centre, who have a large, private room with a door that locks. REALLY not looking forward to having to do this on one of those pull-down shelves in a public bathroom, but I know it’s coming. The facilities might have been fine, though, but unfortunately, although I’d left it a few minutes to try to make sure Max had finished his, er, business, before I changed him, the little rascal managed to catch me out with what we call a “live” poop (QUICK! WE’VE GOT A LIVE ONE HERE!), which he then followed up with a Pee Fountain.

(Yes, we know to cover him up while we’re changing him, but what can I say: he wriggles. Also, I AM NOT ABOUT THIS LIFE.)

By the time I’d finished changing both his nappy and his pee-covered vest, I was a hot, sweaty mess, and my sunglasses, which had been perched on top of my head when I started (YES, IT CAN BE SUNNY IN WINTER. AND, ER, INDOORS.), had slid down over my eyes, so anyone who’d walked in would’ve seen a crazy lady with a bright red face and a hairdo like Einstein, wearing dark glasses to change a baby in a dark room. Not really my finest moment, all things considered. Max thought it was HILARIOUS, though, so, yeah, glad to have been of service, little dude, thanks for that…

Anyway. I’m pretty sure something else happened this week that made me think, “I must remember to put this into my diary post, because it’s WAY more interesting than the rubbish I usually write there!” I’m dammed if I can remember what it was, though, so you’re stuck with all of this stuff about pink monkeys and my child’s bowels, instead. Sorry about that.

How was your week?

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