Nappies

You know how it is when you buy a new car and all of a sudden the world is filled with people driving exactly the same car? Well either the same happens with babies or ASDA are giving them away with every £50 spent on shopping; I have never seen so many kids in one place before.

I’ll grant you that I usually do my shopping in the evenings, when the queues are shorter and the bargains more frequent, but on this occasion it was 4pm and we were shopping for an emergency supply of nappies.

When we were expecting Marty to arrive at any moment Leanne suggested we prepare in advance and buy a few packs of nappies. At 48 nappies per pack I couldn’t see why we needed to buy multiple packs; for some reason I had it in my head that 48 nappies would last the best part of a month! How wrong was I!

The thing with new born babies is that they only do four things: drink, sleep, wee and poo. The upside of such a limited repertoire is that it leaves them with plenty of time to practise each task. And practise, so they say, makes perfect. In fact Marty is now so good at the “big four” that he can manage them all... simultaneously. I kid you not!

This of course means that instead of a mere 6 hours of the day set aside for mission critical bowel movements he can now cram in at least 10, occasionally 12, full hours. Now I dare say young Marty is as pleased as punch with his new defecating skills but it’s a sad time for his parents; by the time I’ve removed the old nappy, tidied up the area and put on the replacement I’m left with roughly 5 seconds to admire my handywork before he releases an almighty fart and I have to start the process all over again. To make matters worse little boys are also armed and extremely dangerous throughout this entire process.

The midwives did warn me about this but it was sheer luck that got me through the first attack. I was happily wiping away at the young ones derriere when I heard a tinkling noise. As a plumber my ears are very attuned to the sound of running water so I stopped and had a look around the room; nothing. Yet, there was defiantly this noise and it was definitely the sound of running water. In the end it was Marty’s cries that provided the clue. He had quietly unleashed an astonishingly powerful stream of pee that was arching high up above him and falling down full into his face. I thought it all highly amusing. He was not best pleased. As luck would have it I managed to bathe him before he released another ‘movement’ but I have since taken precautions when he is in the all-together. Leanne thought putting a big pad of cotton wool over his willy was a bit excessive, right up to the moment he got her!