MagicMum's daddy blogger Colm O'Regan on... topless dads and dealing with 'ick'
MagicMum’s Daddy blogger Colm is clearly going from strength to strength with this whole fatherhood lark. He’s learned which way round the nappy goes, how to deal with ‘ick’ and what the deal is with breastfeeding.
However, with parenthood comes existential wonderings, and our Colm is no different…
Is the Aldi animal waving at me?
One of the most enjoyable things about fatherhood has been acquiring new trades. And you have to learn them. There’s no asking for a meeting with HR to plan your career path and see if you could “move into a more dynamic role with more room for progression”. This kind of job is like one from an era when “Work Life Balance” was called “Work”.
Some vital skills were learned early on.
Skills such as knowing the front of the nappy from the back. For that you need to know that either the Aldi little animal is waving at you (the front) or in a huff (the back). Then you need to have the flexibility to work it out on a different nappy brand as well. This is the sort of stuff that needs to be on your CV along with Knowing Where On The Babygro the Buttons Change Direction.
The ‘Best Father In The World’
Some skills are more nebulous – like Discovering What Today’s Thing Is. A lot of babies will have a Daily Thing: the Thing that makes them laugh and when you work it out, you’ll briefly think you’re the Best Father In The World.
Briefly though, because the Thing often only lasts for a day. Like temporary Wi-Fi access, it expires you so have to relearn. Some Things last for longer but there’s no telling when they’ll run out. So ‘bot-bots’ – gently nudging our baby along a slidey floor on her bottom with your foot – ended yesterday after a couple of weeks of success.
Muscular fathers cradling babies
As a new father and not-very manly man, lack of technical skills are a bit of bugbear. Facebook memes don’t help. You know the ones where there’s a semi-naked (from the waist up) but obviously very muscular father cradling a little baby. The message is that he is powerful yet he has the touch of a feather when it comes to the ones he loves. Like an elephant that can rest its foot on its mahout’s stomach without wearing him like a slipper.
Usually underneath it will say, “The most important career you will ever have… is to be a father”.
It’s always a muscular man as well. You never see wimpy lumpy men like me wearing their pyjama-T-shirt and Tesco boxers.
I agree it is the most important thing but there are times I’m pushing a buggy down the street past a building site and there’s lads there driving dumpers and using Kangos and I think “yeah ‘fatherhood’ and all that but those men have Kango Hammers and are breaking the ground. “
The European Central Boob
But recently I’ve become a bit more useful.
Our baby has been breastfed. From a selfish point of view, that makes night times easier for me. It’s just bring baby to boob, doze, replace baby in original position. (But definitely don’t snore.) But it also means that when it comes to soothing, I’m lacking some basic armoury (or ‘marmoury’ I suppose.)
My wife is like the lender of last resort, the ECB in the house. In times of crisis, she was the only one who could supply liquidity to the consumer. So I was like a national government forced to call in the troika. All talk and control over certain things but when there’s a crisis, I’ve to bring it to the European Central Boob.
The baby seems to recognise this. She will often give me a look that implies she’s dealing with an underling.
Dealing With Ick
At least she did until this past while, because weaning has started. So I’ve taken on a bit more at work. And some new skills. Skills like Dealing With Ick.
Ick is the technical term for what happens to the food when a baby eats it. My daughter, like most babies, wants to handle the food that she’s eating. Handle it a lot. Yesterday she was eating a Petit Filous – don’t worry; I caught the Filous myself and it was grass-fed so it’s all good – and she would only eat it off the outside of the container. I know there’s a tendency for parents overstate their child’s intelligence by ascribing adult motives to what may be just random baby carry-on. Still, I do think that by eating from the outside, she is challenging our very perceptions of what a container is and redefining inside and outside which have been imposed upon us by the Establishment.
Or maybe she doesn’t like being spoon-fed. I understand. Spoon-feeding makes me feel a bit uncomfortable too. I understand it’s a good way of giving someone a taste of your food. But sometimes it’s overplayed as romantic gesture. Like on First Dates when it’s as if the director shouted “SPOONS” and everyone has to swap crème brûleé with someone they’ve just realised they can’t stand.
Zero-f*cks-given food orgy
Anyway the baby likes to get messy with the food. Walking in on a feeding session with her with sweet potato on her ear and Ready Brek on her toes, she could be a debauched emperor having a Last Days of Rome, zero-f*cks-given food orgy while the barbarians are already audible in the streets.
We’re doing a bit of baby-led weaning but as far as I can as see our entire lives are baby-led so I don’t see the nuance. This means she’s eating foods that I didn’t eat until I was in my 30s – like avocados. I bet though when she’s thirty she’ll be blogging about the days when people had to eat avocado and people thought eating locusts was pure notions.
My increased involvement at the food stage has also meant that I’ve been putting her to bed more because the ECB has been withdrawing the liquidity a little bit.
I’ve a bit more confidence now in the actual nuts and bolts of fatherhood. I know that even though she’ll be saying AAGGH I DON’T WANT TO SLEEP YOU FOOL” she’ll be all ‘ZZZ-Zzzz-ZZzzz-hngGGggh-Ppbhww-zZZzzzZZ’ after a few short / not short minutes.
I think the confidence has extended into other parts of my life. One day last week, I fed the baby, put her to sleep even though she was cranky and in-between put up shelves that were sort of level.
So I’m off now to my topless photoshoot with baby in one hand and my Makita 18V cordless in the other.
I’m going to caption it: 'FATHERHOOD – IT’S NOT A DRILL. BUT THIS IS.'