Edition 45: "Mission Impossible!"

Good afternoon Negative Soundbyters! It’s a very quiet afternoon in the Hodson household; I am sitting downstairs in my kortbroek (take a guess?), French doors open and yes, actual sunshine is streaming into our extension. It’s the proverbial sun drenched afternoon!

We hosted our first dinner party, or “DP”, last night since the birth of Little Hoddy. Mrs H went into full “hostess-with-the-mostess” mode from about mid-morning when tasks were handed out to Team Hoddy. I was given Rafe to look after as well as a few other menial tasks (bathroom cleaning duty) and Rafe was asked to keep a beady on Papa to make sure that Mrs H’s instructions were strictly adhered to. Nothing is left to chance when it comes to Mrs H and a DP.

Post toilet bowl spruce-up and to get out of Mrs H’s hair (compiling a four-course meal requires intense concentration and no distractions) Little Hoddy and I decided that the best course of action would be to get out for some fresh air. I strapped Rafe into the Baby Bjorn and off we headed for the park, meeting up with a good mate of mine along the way.

Naturally we took a small detour and found ourselves in the local, had a few brews and watched the Bokke play the All Blacks. Rafe was in his element – not that a two-month-old should find “his element” in a pub! – but he had a little sleep, gurgled a bit, looked out of the window and enjoyed hanging with the boys. At one point in the game I got a little excited and had to be reminded by a patron that I had a baby strapped to me – but Rafe didn’t seem to mind – so long as I didn’t “wet” his head with my pint! That said he is not yet my lucky charm; on both occasions, he has “watched” with me, the Bokke have been beaten :(

After the game we weaved our way back home to get ready for that evening’s festivities, which ended up going off without a hitch (big quo dos to Mrs H!)!

Anything of geopolitical importance to discuss this week…yes indeed – Prime Minister Mayhem’s speech to the Conservative Party faithful.

Not even in her wildest dreams could she have imagined what a car crash it would turn out to be. As she launched into her speech, Boris Johnson got stuck in her throat (proverbially speaking) which caused her to start coughing uncontrollably; then a prankster in the audience gave her a P45 ostensibly from BoJo (do you see a pattern here?); then letters began falling from the slogan behind her such that Mayhem was leading a “Country That Works or Everyon"; and to top it off the bracelet she was wearing had small painted images of a Mexican artist, who was a communist! I mean like, come on, seriously?!? She’s making Jezza look positively presidential by comparison. Eish…..

Let’s move off what passes for leadership these days onto more important matters….

Big Love

Hoddy X

Sleep.

This is a commodity that is in variable supply these days – as you might expect with a baba. But I am not sure if you are ever truly prepared for it, but then again how exactly do you “prepare” for it? I suppose going out and painting the town red and then getting up for work with a massive babelas (guess?) gives you some insight, but unlike a boozy evening, which you can either “take-or-leave”, a baba is here to stay; with the sound system to match!

Mrs H generally does the “late-late night show” but over the weekends I try and give her some unbroken sleep and therefore take up the feeding reins from seven when Little Hoddy has his first evening bottle – and then again at 11 – and then again at 3.

A typical 3 a.m. feed might pan out as follows:

The alarm sounds and I fall out of bed. Bleary-eyed I stagger into Rafe’s boudoir and turn the low light on. Rafe is already stirring; I can tell because his arms are alternating between the backstroke and front-stroke and his lips are starting to make a gentle sucking noise, as if preparing for the nipple. His beady eye tracks my progress.

We do a quick nappy change. Rafe is not a fan. I suppose if somebody was taking off my drawers while I was half asleep and exposing my meat-and-veg to a cool, autumn morning, I might also get a bit upset. He lets rip with a short, sharp dose of the air raid siren. That combined with very active leg movements sometimes makes me fluff the nappy change, but so long as it covers his pee-pee and bottom, that’s all that counts!

Multi-tasking is key. While I dress him, the bottle is warming in the “Tommee Tippee” (a logical name for such a device) and the muslin is close-at-hand ready to deal with any milk related accidents – like vomit.

Ping! Feeding Time!

We get comfortable in the rocking chair, I prop him on my arm and bring the nipple to bear. (not my nipple – because that would be a bit weird!) Rafe likes to mess around with it a bit, but then latches on (as they say in breast feeding parlance) and glug, glug, plug, glug…..burp….glug, plug, plug, glug….burp…etc..etc. This is the relatively easy part; the hard part is still to come!

When it comes to putting Rafe “back down” it goes one of two ways; “Well” or “Badly”. “Badly” means the Battle-of-the-Wills; Rafe determined that he will not go back to sleep, Hoddy equally determined to lull him back to sleep. I rock him, cajole him, “sing” to him (my school song and the French National anthem for some reason), pull the hair dryer on him; anything to get the eyelids to droop and the arms to go slack.

That’s not the end of it because now I need to transfer him back to his cot. Well anyone would think I was defusing a nuclear device ala Mission Impossible! I lever him down inch-by-inch and then once on the mattress I freeze; why – because my arm is still trapped underneath his body. The extraction is pain-staking; I watch for any change in his breathing. A small sweat begins to form on my brow. And then I am free! Exulted I punch the air – Hoddy Super Dad.

And then “eh”……”eh”…..and one beady eye opens: “Not so fast New Dad…”

OUT :)

Pic of the Week

Early morning stroll into work...