It is one of life’s great injustices that having a
baby presents some wonderfully funny moments practically every day, and yet
there is rarely anyone there to witness them. From the entirely expected
(getting pooed on) to the completely surprising (the joy of watching a baby
calm down and drift off while listening to ‘Super Sharp Shooter’), there is
much to laugh at in baby-rearing. But there is also much that is boring,
frustrating, and a bit embarrassing; especially when you’re trying motherhood
out for the first time. And ridiculous or embarrassing things only lose their
sting if you laugh at them, which can be hard to do alone. Much like trees
falling in forests making no sound, comedy that can’t be shared with anyone
over a year old often doesn’t feel like comedy at all.
Yesterday two ridiculous things
happened to me. Firstly, whilst having some work done on the conservatory
(very Abigail’s Party) I managed to lock myself out of the
house. In bare feet. With the baby inside. I had to rush along the street and
down the alley of doom, which was muddy, slippery, and littered with a million
pieces of sharp broken concrete and a trillion crisp packets. I then had to
open the back gate and walk across the wet lawn, past the conservatory men, as
if that was what I had intended to do all along. In an effort to style it out,
when I reached the back door I trilled, “I was just checking something! I
didn’t realise how wet it was!” When I returned to the house and the baby, a
little shamefaced, my feet black and cold, I immediately texted C to tell him
what had happened. Why? Because it didn’t seem funny until it was shared.
Putting life’s little failures into words renders them less embarrassing and
much more humorous.
Later in the day I was preparing to leave the
house, which takes at least twenty minutes longer than you anticipate when you
have a baby in tow. It was for this reason that I found myself, at 12.10,
trying to assemble the buggy in time for a 12.15 departure. And I. Could. Not.
Do. It. I couldn’t get the flipping thing to fit together however much I tried.
In the end I resorted to banging it on the hall floor and yelling ‘for fuck’s
sake’ at it, over and over. I had to take my jumper off I got so hot. At 12.25
I resorted to brute force, which resulted in me attaching the seat entirely
incorrectly and getting it stuck. I couldn’t bring myself to cancel lunch based
on my inability to achieve even this most basic task, so I left the house with
the baby strapped to a seat which had acquired see-saw status and was, essentially,
on a wonk. I knew there was a buggy shop on the way (delightfully named ‘Great
Expectations’) and I had to go in and ask them to fix the mistake. I stood
holding the baby and saying “God, I’m a tit” over and over again while two
women wrestled with the buggy for five minutes. They did not disagree.
What made this fiasco bearable, even at the time,
was that I knew it would make a funny story. It became a silly anecdote as soon
as I reached the restaurant, and my sense of shame/ineptitude completely disappeared
(hastened by consuming an enormous glass of Sauvignon Blanc). That is why it’s
so important to spend time with other people when you’re raising children, and
it is also why I started this blog. Even though the ability to laugh at
yourself is a good thing, it’s much easier to achieve if you have someone to
laugh along with you.
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