So, the hard stuff is over – you and the baby are home. Parents have attended and visited, friends have come to coo (and in my case bring pastry goods to keep my husband and I fed and nourished).
Your main intelligence that the outside world still exists is the midwife and the health visitor who visit, check you are feeding your baby (or, actually what I was not doing – therefore spending an excruciating 20 minutes trying to manipulate my mammary glands)…
When the postnatal haze wears off and your partner has gone back to work, the sunlight of a whole new day starts to tempt you outside. I have come to the conclusion that there is never an easy season to go out with a newborn – too cold; too wet; too hot; too windy, suddenly the innocuous task of leaving the house becomes mission impossible.
I recently watched a Michael McIntyre sketch where he mocked the “non parents” who decide to go out – so they do. For parents it seems it will never be that straightforward again – and as a mum it’s even harder as the worry of a baby/toddler/tween actually becomes a nagging pain in the heart.
I never took into consideration that you also become fair game when you leave the house with an offspring. Since I have dared to venture outside with my children, I have had a woman stop me in the street to ask the age of my baby and when I told her proudly she told me to get home as “I shouldn’t be out so early and definitely shouldn’t be walking – what about the stitches??”.
As recently as last week, a cashier at a supermarket took the dummy out of my daughter’s mouth saying “oh you don’t want that, that’s nasty”. I just stared – and nearly screamed. That dummy wasn’t nasty for me. It was keeping her quiet for five minutes, after a tantrum in the car, running away from the trolley and shouting as only a 19 month old can “I WANT A CHEESE STRING” repeatedly. But now YES it is nasty because you HAVE TOUCHED IT and MADE MY CHILD CRY…
Of course I just smiled and looked ashamed. Yes, she did have a dummy, which means that I am a bad parent and plan to go to pacifier jail. Mama Mooti is not passing Go, or the cheese string aisle again.
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