The day the table turned

Bosom buddies

Henry was three weeks old yesterday.

In that time he has had so many firsts to tick off that his excitement meter must be going off the scale. Nevertheless, despite all the new and wonderful things he is being introduced to, he still has three favourites: Milk, poo and wee.

He loves his milk. It doesn't matter what type, breast or formula, he's not fussy.  He laps it up, stores some of it in his ever-growing body and of course just presents us with a nappy full of his two other favourite things.


Before Henry was born I had offered mummy a payment of £50 each month to do all his nappies.  This however went out of the window when I had to change his first nappy in the hospital whilst mummy was still recovering. I soon discovered that it wasn't as bad as I had been led to believe and from that moment I decided to keep my £50 per month and get my fingers dirty (literally) each and every day. 

A descision that seemed to be the right one as, for a while, all seemed to be going really well. For the first couple of weeks I managed to have relatively hassle-free changes of Henry's nappies.  On the other hand Mummy was getting showered by his litle fountain of fun on every other change. It did make me laugh but mummy was getting soaked so often that she was beginning to think that Henry and Daddy had a secret agreement. 

Today though, Sunday 29th January, the tables turned dramatically, the smile was well and truly wiped from my face.

I set down as normal to change Henry. He was on the mat, the baby wipes were open and ready, there was cotton wool and a bowl of water, there was a small pot of Sudocrem, a new nappy was open and waiting to go and Henry was relaxed and peaceful. 

As I neared completion of the nappy change I received a warning but I stupidly chose to ignore it; the little pump of wind on my finger should have made me realise that things weren't as normal as they seemed, but I chose just to laugh at the little monster and threaten to pump on his finger to exact my revenge.  I wouldn't be laughing for much longer.  Naively I simply carried on virtually unprotected, save for a tissue-thin piece of thin tissue paper resting between his winkie wooh and my face.  With hindsight I now realise that this wasn't enough, but at the time how could I possibly know? 

I was just about to put his new nappy in place when I noticed a little circle of wee on the tissue.  He was dribbling.  As I removed it to mop up the mess and reposition a new piece of tissue, all hell broke loose. 

A little bit of peanut butter started squirting out from his back side.  When I say a "little bit" this is a complete understatement. It was as though Henry was making Mister Whippee ice creams.

'Oh Sh*t!' This was me screaming in distress and also being completely factual for the benefit of my audience of mummy, Grandma and Grandad.

As I panicked to grab more tissue a new fountain of baby wee started arcing towards my knees.

'Aargh! No!' This was me again. In the back ground I could hear the sounds of mummy, grandma and grandad tittering.

'Help me, I need more tissue,' I begged.

Between titters mummy grabbed the requested supply of extra mopping-up material. 

As I cleaned up and reapplied some sudocrem to the little man's skin, a brand new squirt of peanut butter started to appear from the crime scene.

'Henry! No!

Then more wee started to arc as well.

'Gail help!'

Mummy, Grandma and Grandad were now laughing loudly.

But again just as I got to clearing up the mess there were more poo and wee eruptions. What was going on. It was as if Henry has become some sort of Playdough activity centre with things shooting out from all over the place aimed at daddy.  By now, mummy, Grandma and Grandad were rolling around on the floor with tears of laughter filling their eyes.  Yes, ha bleeding ha! The sight of me trying to hold Henry's legs out of the toxic watse, whilst also trying to mop it up and keep his clothes from being sucked towards the goo must have looked blinking hilarious through their teary eyes.  It just seemed that whatever I cleaned up was instantly replaced by a new supply and Henry's clothes seemed somehow magnetically drawn towards the quagmire. How did his little body hold so much smelly bad stuff?

Eventually, Henry ran out of poo and wee. Even if he had wanted to to carry on squirting me, his reserves had run dry, so he couldn't.  This of course then meant that he instantly began screaming for more food to top up his gunge tanks. 

A whitefaced, sweating daddy was left holding him and sitting amongst a mountain of scrumpled and stained paper towels trying to figure out what had just happened.

The tables had indeed completely turned and if any agreement was now in place it was firmly between mummy and Henry, poor daddy was now the butt of their toilet gags.

So in the wake of this horrific pooey happening am I reconsidering the offer to mummy of £50 per month to change all the nappies? No, absolutely not.  As much as I didn't ever want to be in the firing line of a babies pooey bottom, now that I am I wouldn't change it for the world. I have learned over the last three weeks that you have to take the rough with the smooth (that's not another reference to peanut butter) but one thing is for sure, none of the bad stuff is really that bad and this whole fatherhood thing is the best thing in the world.

So, with a protective apron and safety goggles in place, I am now ready for anything Henry can throw at me - actually, I really hope he doesn't start doing that!