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The curse of the world’s oldest man has struck again. 112 year old Yasutaro Koide died in Japan last week, having only gained oldest man status last August. His reign only lasted five months, but that’s a long time compared to some of his predecessors. Who all share the same terrible fate. I hope I never get to be the oldest man in the world. It’s a death sentence.
I have been a parent for almost a year now and there’s very few positive things to report. I’ve already told you that it’s useful to have a pram when you’re doing the shopping, but you don’t actually need to have a baby in it. In fact with out a baby there’s more room for your groceries, to give you a luxury chauffeur ride home for your tins of tomatoes and crunchy nut cornflakes.
But here’s a second mega bonus of being out with your baby. You can get to use the downstairs toilets in Caffe Neros where the main toilets are upstairs. These downstair toilets are reserved for those with disabilities and those with babies to change and generally it’s frowned upon for anyone else to go in there. And in fact the staff will refuse you the key (unless, as I saw the other day, you just argue that you are disabled and have left your badge at home, because to be honest, it would be too embarrassing to argue against someone making that claim even if you thought they might be lying). But after an early morning coffee in Chiswick I needed to rid myself of waste and even though Phoebe didn’t require the baby changing facilities, I got to get the key to the downstairs toilet. a) because I might be changing her for all they knew and b) even if it was me who really needed the wee I couldn’t leave my daughter behind.
So that’s it so far. Some help with transporting bulky shopping and less stair climbing when you need the loo.
Other than that it’s all negatives, but it’s good to claw something back from this nightmare that I can not escape (without looking like a prick).
I had a fun morning with my daughter. I had to take her with me when I was getting the car serviced and then slowly wound my way home, stopping to write Metro columns and blogs when she fell asleep. It was fun chatting to her and singing as we walked along (really developing the five little monkey narrative), but also excellent exercise. Once home I had to quickly feed her and have my own lunch, before taking her to the nursery. After a bit more writing in cafes, where I was working on some little bits and pieces that we’re going to film in the hope of persuading people to donating to an AIOTM Kickstarter (!) and trying to get a bit further with the sitcom pilot script (which I think is shaping up well), I walked back to Chiswick (I burned over 800 calories just from walking today) and stopped off for tea in that same Caffe Nero. But now, without a baby, when I needed a wee, I had to climb the stairs. It was a telling reminder of what single, childless life had been like. Sure there were the late nights, the boozing and the endless sexual encounters with strangers, but all that stair-climbing just to wee? No thanks. Good luck with your terrible single lives, single idiots. You don’t know what you’re missing.
We’re taking it in turns to be the one who goes down to get Phoebe when she wakes in the morning and also to bathe her and put her to bed at night. It was annoying that today, a non-early rise day for me, I had to get up early anyway to take the car in. But at least I lucked out tonight because she was exhausted from nursery and all the fresh air and pretty much went straight to sleep. Recently it’s taken up to 90 minutes to settle her, because she’s so excited about being awake and being able to pull herself up to stand in her cot. Tonight she tried to get up to her usual tricks, but fatigue overcame her and I was out of there in 10 minutes. Ha ha, bad luck my wife. Looks like I am a winner. It’s small victories like this that are all that keep me going. Being a parent is a living Hell and toilet privileges are not enough. They’re not enough, I say.
