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7 Tips For A Romantic Wedding Anniversary
Your wedding anniversary is a major event. Prepare for your wedding anniversary celebration in advance so that everything goes smoothly.
1. Start off right. Get up before she does to prepare a quick breakfast. Serve her breakfast in bed. You...
Advantages of a sheepskin underlay for babies
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Baby Shower Gift Ideas 2
Selecting a present for a new mom or dad can be a challenging task. Baby showers are a great way to help support a new mother with her new baby. New mothers can sign up at a gift registry to avoid duplicate gifts and to indicate her gift...
Buying Genuine Beanie Babies
With the popularity of Beanie Babies, there is a problem with counterfeit or copy beanie babies on the market. Some copies are easy to spot, but some are getting quite clever in their attempts to sell less than true quality products. To be sure...
Tanning Is Great! But Get Some Sun Protective Swimwear.
Summer is the season of fun at the beach and there is plenty of sunlight making it imperative to put on sun protective swimwear . Whilst the great pastime time during this period is sun bathing, the greatest danger lurking along beaches and swimming...
The ABC's of Raising Twins
The ABC’s of Raising Twins As a mother of two sets of fraternal boy/girl twins, I am often asked, “How do you do it?” I do not have an answer. I am just a regular 27 year old who has never known it any other way. Most people come home from the...
The Chinese Year of the Horse
The Chinese Year Of The Horse.. If you were born under the Chinese year sign of the Horse, you're great fun! Horses are usually strong, handsome people with bags of energy, natural athletes often drawn to outdoor sporty activities. Not suited to...
Using Music To Calm Your Baby
Music is a wonderful way for you to calm and soothe your baby, especially during the first year. How many times have your heard parents say that there was nothing that they could do with their crying, fussing baby until they tried music. This is...
What to Look For When Choosing Baby Furniture
If you're a new parent, be aware that you baby will probably spend more time in the nursery than anywhere else. So you do need to make it absolutely safe abd comfortable. Make it attractive and well organized too. To get started, decide...
Your child's 1st year development - month to month
The first year of your child's development is an ever-changing and exciting time for both you and your child. See the differences month to month.
1 to 2 months:
After nine months in the womb, your baby will be familiarizing himself with his...
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A Man and His Baby
When a couple steps forth with a baby in tow everything in life is stable and normal. People hold open doors, hard shopkeepers “chuck” and go all gooey before catching themselves and generally life is an easy ride. But gentlemen, when he who dares to step-out with a baby in tow (minus the wife) life becomes a series of obstacles that never ceases to surprise.
I don’t mean a trip to the corner shop, “no siree”! I mean a fully-fledged trip into town, pram, milk bottles and spare nappies to boot! Small things are immediately noticeable, like that hard and mean-looking grocer down the road! When my wife goes in to his establishment he goes all gooey, in fact he doesn’t notice me at all; just talks to my wife and son and ignores me as if I was the invisible man. But walking in to his shop with only my son, an apple to buy before the days outing ahead and he became meaner and harder. In fact he noticed me for the first time, glared at me as if I had just stolen the kid and was on the run and said “hope that’s not for the little one”! I felt like saying what’s it got to do with you mate but ……………on the bus the driver who suggested that I sit near the front instead of upstairs was nearly out of his seat and taking the part of usher before realizing that this was not really in his job description!
Somehow some basic human instinct suggests that ‘man’ is neither capable nor fit to look after a baby! This instinct immediately raises the hairs on the backs of people’s necks, images of disaster loom in their minds and unseen forces push them forwards to offer help. They do not see a happy and carefree father pushing his laughing baby along in the pram, they see a harried father who is at his wits end and who is desperate for help. They see a tormented and unwilling baby, screaming and kicking in desperation, a father who is pulling his hair out and desperately looking around for somebody to just show him what to do.
Once in town and in the department store I headed straight for the baby changing room! Same routine as always except minus one cog – the wife! I did what I had done so many times before whilst my wife had sat down to read a magazine. Well, the plan was the same as all those times before, make the milk give my son the bottle, lay him down on the nappy changing “thingy”, change his nappy, etc! I did not even get as far as the hot water dispenser! One mum, before I had even entered the room stopped me in my tracks and in a very serious way informed me that the seat belt on the pram was not fastened. One has to be polite in situations like these; I myself planning ahead as always had removed the seat belt just then in preparation for lifting my son out of it once inside the baby room. I did not know of the golden rule that one cannot unfasten the seat belt until well inside closed doors!
Inside the room, some mystical being ran around the room telling all of the mums that a
‘father-alone’ was out and about! Upon entering heads swiveled in my direction, a series of forces pushing bodies towards me and unwanted advice started to escape from mouths. Once past I could hear whisperings, stories being generated and past on; a fictional myth growing in reality to become truth in mind! I shut myself off, warded off the numerous hands that where heading towards my sons cheeks like locusts, barged through with forced smiles and “no thanks”, and managed to get to the water machine. I smiled politely to the lady who showed me how to press the button for hot water, grimaced when told that the milk I had made was too hot (how did she know?) and nearly barked when asked “is the wife in not well dear”!
These kindly mums, whose husbands obviously knew nothing about how to change a nappy or feed a baby his milk, had my son crying within five minutes. He doesn’t like attention in the form of searching hands. He especially doesn’t like getting his cheek pinched or chin chucked! I felt like shouting “give him air” or wading in with elbows to rescue him but they were all so well-meaning, these poor mums! Needless to say that as my sons screaming and bawling intensified to maximum pitch the mums turned to me as one as if to say “look at the poor man, doesn’t know how to look after his baby”.
Naturally as they confirmed their belief that I was totally inept and useless, wandering hands gained purpose and started to lift my baby out of the pram to offer him comfort – my son hates strangers holding him! Well, I made a run for it, I grabbed the baby in mid-air, swiveled the pram around on a sixpence, closed my eyes tight and charged for the door, throwing aside mothers like pins at the bowling alley!
I went to the men’s toilet to change my son’s nappy! At least in the sanctity within, nobody talked to me, no advice was freely given and no insects to ward off. Naturally, looks of sympathy and confusion were issued freely, stories would abound later as husbands rushed to tell their wives about the “poor sad man with the baby” – but who cares, just don’t talk to me about it.
I suppose all is not so bad! A new dimension opened up, one that it would be best if my wife knew nothing about! I have never in my life had so many young ladies (ones who wouldn’t know what the inside of a baby changing room looked like) surrounding me; albeit they were cooing at my son but ……… something about single men with babies must be an attraction. Anyway, I always enjoyed their reaction when saying loudly, “ah, here’s my wife coming now”, the desertion was abrupt and complete! I know how to handle that one; it’s the rest that bothers me!
About the Author
Author and Webmaster of Seamania. As a Chief Engineer in the Merchant Navy he has sailed the world for fifteen years. Now living in Taiwan he writes about cultures across the globe and life as he sees it.
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