On D-day [her first day back at work] G- left the house before S- awoke. I was up not long after her and showered and tidied the house and did a load of little houswork jobs.
These were highly important jobs that really needed doing first thing in the morning, such as emptying out that little drainy thing that stops all the food in the washing up water going down into the plumbing.
No, I’m not really sure what I was thinking, either.
I paced around for 10 minutes. Why? Because I was too early. I’d worked out a routine that involved getting S- up at the same time every day, and by God I was going to stick to it: this childcare thing was going to be done properly!
I’d like to say the pacing helped. It didn’t. Nor did the three cups of coffee I swallowed one after the other. I could feel the tension winding itself tighter and tighter around my chest.
Eventually the time was up. Into the bedroom I went. The next thing that happened was that the blackout blind fell off the window with a huge crash when I pulled on the roller.
It turned out to be one of those days. Things just kept going wrong.
S- likes to give B-, our black labrador bitch, her food in the morning. Today, of course, she spilt the dog biscuits all over the floor.
Later, on the way out of the house I realised I hadn’t folded up the pram, which we keep on the porch. So now it was soaked from the downpour overnight.
We took B- for a walk, and a large dog ran up to S- and licked her all over the face.
When G- came into the lounge that evening she found me crashed out on the sofa, moaning and groaning fitfully. I hadn’t had any rest all day. Rather than lying down when I’d had the chance, I’d spent all of S-’s afternoon sleep time doing more housework.
I just hadn’t been able to get out of the mindset that I’d started the day with earlier: that I was going to be a perfect stay-at-home dad, come what may.
Actually, when G – and I talked it over I realised it hadn’t been totally rubbish. S- and I managed to go to a kid’s party at one of her friends without too much going wrong – unless you count two of the smelliest nappy fills of all time, within 10 minutes of each other.
She also ate nearly all her food at all 3 of the day’s meals, and she went to sleep at the right time like an angel: just took the bottle out of her mouth, gestured for the dummy and then waved ‘bye bye’.
As she often does in the evening, she chuckled to herself as I put her down. Perhaps she was laughing at me and my ludicrous ambition to treat the day as though it was work, with objectives and goals and such like.
I should have realised: it’s much harder than that.
