Edition 57: "Room 1-102"

Good evening Negative Soundbyters! I wish I was scribing in rude health but I have one of those annoying head colds and itchy throats that doesn’t make you feel weak but at the same time you feel like any sort of exercise would put the ticker under a bit of strain and at my age I need to be watchful of these things! Ha…. But it’s not like the Hodson’s haven’t been on the move this weekend…

We decided to go and visit Mrs H’s family in the “north” as I describe it (which might as well be anywhere past the M25 in a northerly direction!). This was our first major road trip with Rafe so you can imagine that Mrs H went into full planning mode at the beginning of the week as to exactly how this trip was going to unfold, given that she and the little man were going to stay on (I came home this afternoon). Rafe hadn’t been a massive fan of the previous car seat that we had bought – he sort of looked like a plum that had been crammed into the top of a soda bottle – and so we had headed down to the Mecca of Motherhood aka Mothercare to replace it with something more to his liking. He tried them all out and when he sat in one and didn’t lift the roof off the baby warehouse, we acquired it instantly (on payment terms akin to my mortgage! – almost!).

It had to be raining on our targeted departure time – this is the UK after all – but Mrs H wasn’t going to let freezing rain get in the way of our schedule and so while I packed the car with about 100 bags (I am more a Sherpa than Husband these days :) ) Mrs H inserted a very bubbly Rafe into a seat that wouldn’t look out of place on Airforce One – more padding and straps please!

So off we go. Needless to say it took us just over 30 minutes to drive about two miles. I would like to blame the traffic but no sooner were we officially “on-the-road” than Rafe was looking for a way to climb out of his car seat – and yes, he is only just over 5 months. He just wasn’t digging the straps and when they wouldn’t succumb to a good sucking (because everything is first tried orally) he manoeuvred his arms, Houdini style, from the straps so that he was hanging out of it with just under a mile under the belt. Mrs H was not happy; at least I wasn’t in the firing line this time! Stop Car. Get out in rain. Open door. Catch Rafe. Insert Rafe back into car seat. Tighten Straps. Back into car. Start engine. Drive. I would like to say this was the only time, but no sir, he tested Mrs H again this time with a few yells thrown in. I kept a very low profile in the front seat (I don’t know how to work the car seat with Rafe in it…ooops) while Mrs H gritted her teeth and…Stop car. Get out in rain. Etc Etc.

Having had his fun testing Mrs H’s patience, Rafe settled into his seat and promptly went to sleep until he had to be woken for his milk about 40 minutes from our destination. Cheeky little bugger!!

Once again I seem to have run out of space to comment on the world around us. Oh well, I’m sure the above entertained you. Let’s move on then….

Big Love

Hoddy XX

Hotel Rooms.

In true Mrs H fashion she booked our room well in advance including a travel cot for the little man. Thankfully they had put it up for us; one of our neighbours turned up with one at our place and then left it with us to pick up the following day – you think I would have been able to “fold” it up for collection. Not on your life. I had to leave it on our front doorstep erected (we were going out) as I couldn’t for the life of me work out the mechanism that would collapse it! Proper New Dad….anyway I digress…

We were meeting up with some of her friends so I was responsible for getting the little man watered, bathed and in bed on the appointed hour. Ever since implementing the “3-minute-controlled-crying” approach (see Edition 56) Rafe has been going down like a little legend, so I didn’t forsee any difficulties even though it was a new environment for him.

Key however was travel cot placement; and given that we were in a rectangular room there weren’t that many options. I opted for the darkest corner – unsurprisingly.

So we went through all our bath-and-bedtime rituals and I then plopped him into the travel cot. He tossed a bit, sucked his pyjama sleeve for some comfort, gurgled, did a small cry and then silence. I was like, marvellous. However at home I turn the lights out in the nursery when the job is done and if I was going to stay true to form, I needed to do the same here.

Black out. No jokes I could not see my hand in front of my face. The room was about the darkest room I have ever been in. Perfect if you are about to go to sleep, like Rafe, but it was six thirty and I was wide awake! I thought well he is not that sensitive to light – let me try the corner desk-light and see what happens. Um no. Stirrings from the cot and a few grunts. Light off.

Okay, Plan B. Netflix on my iPhone. (The TV was a complete non-starter; at 65 inches Rafe would have been bathed in sunlight the moment I switched it on!) I didn’t want to go into the bathroom and sit on the toilet seat so I opted for lying on my bed. As luck would have it I had forgotten my earphones so I basically had to lip read the entire movie which is surprisingly hard to do without appropriate training, especially when the screen is the size of a postage stamp. That said it was a cheap-and-nasty horror/slasher flick, so I got the general gist of it. Everyone was either stabbed or strangled by the end….job done.

Mrs H got in a few hours later. She had eaten a dodgy prawn. That feeling combined with trying not to damage her shins on low hotel room furniture is not how she really wanted to spend the first night of her road-trip but that’s what comes with travelling in a party where not all participants are in their own rooms – minus the prawn of course!

Rafe woke up bright and breezy at five thirsty the following morning. We didn’t.

OUT 

Pic of the Week

Just messing with you Mom!