Pic: “Oh damn, the baby peed on my clothes again!”
Last Wednesday was a very important day in a woman’s life. It was a milestone that every young girl dreams of (well this one anyway). It was a momentous occasion shared by four generations of a family.
Yes, that’s right. Yesterday, my gran, my mum and I introduced the Little Mister (5 and a half weeks old) to the wonders of SHOPPING. And not the boring grocery shopping either. We’re talking about hours of wandering about in a big, shiny shopping centre full of cool shops full of clothes, gifts, gadgets and places to eat! You’ve gotta train them early. Sure, he behaved like most adult males and slept through a lot of it and he was very cooperative until he got hungry and tired…
Now that I’ve finished being slightly sexist…
We were going to attempt half a day of Christmas shopping with the baby in tow. He was pretty calm from the car ride (and a feed before leaving home) and slept for half the day. When he wasn’t sleeping, he was just lying in the moving pram looking about and really taking in all the strange sounds of all the music and people.
The only real challenges were when he needed to be changed. That kid does some explosive number 1s and 2s, with the occasional number 3s if you catch my drift! He especially likes to wait until his dirty nappy is off before he lets loose again with a nice, projectile surprise!
So, I didn’t know this was possible before, but it turns out that babies have superpowers. While feeding the Little Mister, he used these impressive powers to pee MY pants. Somehow he broke through the absorbent forcefield offered by his nappy and peed straight through his outfit, penetrating my dress, so that it dribbled onto my legs.
This all happened at peak lunch hour with a crowded cafe with people looking on (everyone loves looking at new babies and their hapless first time mothers it turns out). I may have exclaimed, “This is awkward!!”
At one point, my mum and gran were looking at me (I think they were laughing a little lot while still trying to be helpful and sympathetic – they only just pulled it off) with a completely oblivious baby in my lap determined to finish his feed (must clarify that I was feeding him from a bottle – boobs were not out thank goodness), a freaked out look on my face and a cloth shoved in my neckline, much like a bib, in case (heaven forbid) he decided to spit up on me as well, and bright coloured hand towels hastily bought by my mum for $2 in the neighbouring store shoved in my lap to absorb the urine! Let’s just say that I’m working on a theory that the indignity of pregnancy and childbirth occurs to prepare us for the indignity of baby wrangling in public! You don’t have a chance to be truly embarrassed – you’re too busy!
I finally managed to grab a minute to gulp down half of my lunch (it’s this new diet where you eat 50% less everything – it’s called having a new baby), which was so not what I ordered (chicken and bacon together is not something I’m a fan of – I don’t like mixing my dead animals too much – I ordered chicken and avocado in my sandwich dammit!) and I wheeled the baby out of there at a rate of knots. As I left the cafe, clucky ladies kept telling me how beautiful my baby was – pretty funny moment to pick, really!
There was no parenting room close by, so I changed the Little Mister in the parent and child toilet while he was in his bassinet. I laid down stuff to protect the fitted sheet in the pram and I had the strap of the nappy bag around my neck like a dangling feed bag (yep – hope you’re having a good laugh at my expense). I could reach into it for everything I needed as there was no bench space! You sure learn how to improvise – fast!
I realised how vastly unprepared I was (awesomely unprepared in fact). I had packed a pretty good nappy bag, but it was missing extra quantities of a lot of things (I grossly underestimated the baby’s ability to decimate many items over a short amount of time) and a spare outfit for myself. I sure learnt that the hard way! Luckily I packed my sense of humour!!! There is sometimes nothing you can do but laugh and think of it as a funny story to tell 🙂
So, what did we achieve that day? Um…survival? Other than that, not much else. I think we bought NOTHING. Between the three of us adults. This is very out of character. Although, my mum did manage to buy members of our family some goats in third world villages and stuff like that. So I guess that’s something. And it’s for a good cause. So yeah.
While it is tempting to just sit at home and buy everyone’s gifts online next year, I know I will enjoy showing the Little Mister the Christmas decorations, traumatising him with a photo on Santa’s lap and teaching him the joy of giving! I’ll just pack our whole house with me when we head to the shops! Or wear disposable clothes and have everything made out of terry towelling…
How is your Christmas/holiday shopping going? What is your gift giving style?
