Mr. Waffle

I like to publicise my birthday. Otherwise, how can you expect anyone to remember it? Nevertheless, I was surprised by the record number of people who remembered my birthday last Wednesday. It was non-stop emails and cards. Even our babysitter brought me flowers. I was most pleased. In this pantheon of virtue, I would like to give special mention to my brother who replied to my birthday reminder email as follows:

“Of course I knew today was your birthday, it’s deeply embedded in my subconscious, it’s a survival instinct, sort of like the way you instinctively know not to jump off the top of a building.”

Thursday and Friday, however, were grim. The Princess came down with a rotten cold and was very miserable. She likes those around her to share her feelings so it was pretty miserable all round. At night she couldn’t sleep because of her cough. Our little baby sounded like she had a 40 a day habit. She spectacularly threw up both Calpol and Nurofen (which, as the drier has died again, has incidentally created a mound of wet bedclothes). Since I was trapped indoors with a sick baby, Mr. Waffle went to the chemist to get baby remedies. He came home clutching two packets of suppositories. The Princess felt that this was the final indignity and screamed accordingly. However, they did the job, her temperature came down and her cough eased. A bizarre, and not entirely unwelcome, side effect is that her dirty nappies smell of eucalyptus.

Saturday morning and the Princess was largely better. Mr. Waffle kindly? inded her all morning while I slept the sleep of the just, having had a sick baby in my arms for about 48 hours on the trot. At lunch time, we had the following conversation:

Me: Would you like to take off this afternoon and do something on your own?

Him: Um, no. Do you like surprises?

Me (warily): Good surprises or bad surprises?

Him: How would you like to go shopping for the afternoon with your friend D?

The doorbell rang and there she was having flown over for the weekend for my birthday. How cool was that? She came clutching gifts for me and the Princess. She got the most beautiful little dress for the Princess, have spent half an hour looking at it open-mouthed this morning. My scarf is very nice too, I hasten to add, but the dress is phenomenal.

That evening the three of us went out for dinner. Only it wasn’t the three of us, it was loads of people that Mr. Waffle had arranged to have there as a birthday surprise. I had a wonderful time and made a spectacular present haul. Excellent.

My evening was, however,?overshadowed by the knowledge that I have NOTHING planned for his birthday on Friday.? I am now paralysed by fear. A friend suggested that I should give him a moral victory. I passed this on to him in jest. He is distressingly taken with it. Yes, how about we do more recycling (he is very “save the planet”) or buy the Princess another sling? The Princess hates sling things but Mr. Waffle fancies himself as modern parent with a baby in a sling…every time we pass another father with a baby in a sling, he sighs in a pointed way (a difficult sigh to master). For reasons that have never been entirely clear to me, he is convinced that I have put her off the sling.? This is most unfair, I am just against making her cry when it’s not strictly necessary (yes, sometimes it is, see paragraph on suppositories above). I am rapidly arriving at the conclusion that I am not a good enough wife to give him something he actually wants. Probably a book and a CD then.

In no particular order:

*The Princess will never learn to crawl (10 1/2mths and still no joy)

*The Princess will learn to crawl (and we will have to clear out everything at ground level)

*The Princess has a slight temperature this morning – could this be the start of chicken pox? Incidentally, the evil chicken pox carrier rang yesterday, he’s just back at work. He was mildly contrite. He said “you know it’s good for her to get it out of the way”.
“Not when we’re just about to go on holidays it’s not.”

“No” he conceded.

“And Mr. Waffle hasn’t had it.”

“Oh dear”

“And I haven’t seen anyone for a fortnight and Mr. Waffle has warned people at work that he might be incubating chicken pox”.

“Yeah” he said “I was going to ring you to tell you to do that but I was too sick”.
Has the man no shame? I did not express my annoyance as eloquently as I might have done at another time as a) she has apparently not got it and b) she was screaming blue murder so I had to get off the phone.

*Mr. Waffle will freeze to death on his bike. This morning I heard him rummaging about in the hall. I saw his swimming goggles on the bedroom floor. I thought to myself “ah, today must be swimming day” and appeared with them in paw, saying “Are you looking for your goggles?”

“Yes, oh no, not those goggles, I’m looking for my skiing goggles”

“Do you really need to do that now?”

“Yes, it’s snowing”

“Good grief, let me give you a lift”

“No, no, it’s fine, I’ve found my goggles now” said he unearthing them from the depths of the large bag in the hall.

So he set off into the snow looking like the creature from the black lagoon. Poor Mr. Waffle.

*The Princess may be developing a new and alarming sleeping pattern. She seems to wake up for two hours in the middle of the night (typically 4 to 6) and want to chat and play. Frankly, this is not the joy it might be to her parents.

*The remote control for the nightlight thingy that plays a tune and sends her to sleep (yes, really, only works at bedtime though) has disappeared and, for reasons that I can’t quite explain, I am terrified that I have inadvertently thrown it in the nappy bin (11.23 – one worry less found the remote under her cot, but, alas, not until after I had searched in the nappy bin).

*I will never get more than four hours sleep in a row again.

*I will never find any job.

*I will never find a job that I like.

*Mr. Waffle has volunteered to organise a family thing. I love Mr. Waffle’s family but trying to organise them is like herding mice at a crossroads (in normal circumstances, this is part of their charm). Mr. Waffle is no good at mouse herding, he expects people (yes, including his family) to be as organised as he is. Nobody is as organised as he is (for example, he has left me this morning a list of things we need to pack for skiing). I see challenging times ahead.

*It is snowing today (see above), so I’m not sure that the Princess and I will be leaving the flat and I will go insane. I suppose we could go for a drive in the car but I’m not sure how stimulating that would be for either of us. Suddenly the large out-of-town indoor shopping centre is looking very attractive. You have no idea how depressing I find it that I am pleased about this.

Last night we went out for dinner for Valentine’s day.  Mr. Waffle’s parents had kindly agreed to babysit, the Princess was almost entirely recovered from her bug and things were looking promising.

Then I got a phone call.  A friend had been in Brussels during the week and had spent an afternoon with us.  When he was here, he mentioned that both of his children were down with chickenpox.  It never occurred to me that he might be infectious.  I assumed he had had it.  I would never in my wildest dreams go to visit a small child where there was the slightest risk that I might give them something.   I assumed that, as a parent, he would apply the same standard.  Apparently not.  I am incandescent with rage.  What a stupid, thoughtless thing to do.  Mr. Waffle has indicated that this man is never coming near us again without a medical certificate.  On the plus side, it appears that chicken pox in children is usually not very serious, on the negative side our internet research reveals that it is most infectious in the day or two before the spots come up, i.e. exactly when this wretched man was visiting and sharing biscuits with our Princess, so, odds on, the poor thing will get it.  Furthermore, the incubation period is 10 to 20 days, so she will probably get it when we were supposed to be going on our skiing holiday, so no skiing for us.

Armed with this alarming information we went out to dinner.  We could only get a booking for 9.30, so we were both kind of hungry.  I had come down with the Princess’s cold so I had a sore throat, headache etc., slightly improved by paracetemol consumption.  The restaurant was (understandably) heaving.  We had to wait to be escorted to our table in a distant and less glam part of the restaurant, nobody took our coats which sat on the radiator alongside us for the duration (except when the slid down on top of us).  Our wine failed to materialise until we had nearly finished our main course.  When we asked where it had gone our waitress gave us two glasses of white.  We had ordered red.  We had been given someone else’s bottle.   The red, when it finally arrived, was almost undrinkable. We had ordered water but never got glasses for it despite repeated efforts to grab a waitress.  Starters were expensive and mediocre, main course was, in fact, fine.  However, when we were offered the dessert menu, for the first time ever, I said, no just the bill, thanks.  To get to the bathroom, I had to wait for two members of staff to finish a blazing row (apparently some people had left without paying the bill – could you blame them?).  Naturally, our conversation over dinner related almost exclusively to chicken pox (which, I concede was not the fault of the restaurant) which is not romantic, I think you will agree.  We had a miserable time. I’d rather have gone to Mona Lisa Smile again.

Things are much better today, you will be glad to hear. Princess is completely well again (except for the threat of chicken pox, of course) and weather is lovely. I am on the mend and the Princess has gone out for a walk with her father and grandparents leaving me the run of the house, the Sunday papers and a couple of croissants.  It could be a lot worse.