My little tri-athlete

In the spririt of trying to post every day I hereby offer you this nothingness. It’s late and I have only just managed to get everything done. Today was a work day and once the Spud is picked up from his childminder it’s already too late to be making his tea meaning that he’s late eating it, late for his bath, late for his bed-time boob and late for bed.

You might think that this would make for a sleepy baby but in the hinterland that is a baby’s head, once one has stayed up past one’s bedtime, one No Longer Needs To Sleep At All thanks Mum and the world becomes one big, manic sports field. Starting with the Boob Olympics. Firstly, there is the fastest latch time followed by a trick dismount. This means that my dear little boy launches onto a boob so quickly that it may not be fully, er, out, at the time or, perhaps I may not be quite lying down (oh yes, we do this lying down… how else would I get my beauty rest?) and he may leap from the bed like a trout after a fly. After he’s done, he sometimes tries to keep latched on while performing a double-somersault and reaching for the alarm clock, or perhaps the telephone. You know, whatever’s to hand. I, for my part, have to lie there as though nothing is happening while what used to be a wobbly, but fairly attached part of my anatomy goes walkabout in a baby’s mouth.

Next in the Boob Olympics is the ‘fastest draw in the west’ section where he tries to drag his dinner of out my toes and I try not to whimper while un-picking my fingernails from the palms of my hands. This is sometimes accompanied by the ‘largest mouthful’ section where things start to feel a little odd and I look down to find him with his cheeks bulging and half of one of my prodigious mammaries sucked into his surprised little face.

Once he’s settled down to a regular feed, the rest of his body starts entering the competition. His legs bicycle, his arms flap and if I’m not wearing the breast-feeding necklace with bells on it (I kid you not) I’m about to get picked apart. The best bet is to get him into his sleeping bag first so that only his arms are a menace.

Eventually we give up and I put him in his cot where we have the lie-down-stand-up competition followed by the ‘who can scream the loudest’ finale. Which I usually win.