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Ah, home again. And to remind myself of what I was missing tonight I accidentally kicked my daughter’s potty, having failed to empty it in the heat of trying (and failing) to bathe both kids on my own (don’t worry - they survived and got clean, I just had to call my wife to help me near the end cos it got too complex - yeah, she was pleased to see me fail after three nights of doing this herself) and cold child wee went all over my sock.
You don’t get that in the glamour of staying in a shopping mall in Catterick.
But you don’t care about stuff like this after 3+ years of parenthood. You just have to move on, with child wee on you (I took the sock off and that basically solved the problem). Ernie looked like a different baby even after just 3 days away (I think my wife might have accidentally killed the first Ernie and replaced him with a near lookalike, as if he was a school hamster). He was longer, had more hair, had a different big laugh and he’s growing into his face. He can do a commando crawl now too. Did I travel into space and come back in the future? Also hilariously and brilliantly, Catie has started getting him used to using the loo already and he expects to sit on the toilet before the bath and after breakfast. And he understands what he’s meant to be doing. It’s both funny and impressive to see a tiny child on a toilet. But my wife has always been keen to toilet train at the earliest possibility and it worked very well with Phoebe. You haven’t lived til you’ve seen a 7 month old straining to do a poo on a toilet. I might make a poster of it.
I made some enjoyable if slow progress with the book and felt a lot less stressed out than I have in recent weeks. The end of all of this madness is in sight and the new work on the house is going well and the summer of rest and relaxation (apart from the being a dad bit) seems close enough to touch.
I felt content tonight. Though a couple of beers might have helped. I am glad we've moved out to the countryside and even though that move and the subsequent work and problems have been a bit stressful, I think summer 2018 should be lovely here. Nothing can possibly go wrong.
