Well like any self-respecting young (well youngish) single man, I spent Friday night doing what so many young people do (usually for pocket money), baby-sitting my friends kids. So when I should have been down the pub chewing the cud, or out partying I was sat praying to the patron saint of baby sleep to sprinkle magic pixie dust by the crate full to ensure the said babies remained comatose.
To give you an idea on my baby skills, at one point when I was ‘helping’ their mum get them dressed for bedtime I sat for five minutes wrestling a 6 month old child into her PJ’s and set against that competition I thought that I would win, but I’d have more chance of redpointing F8a than putting even a top on this stubborn baby. Her mum was virtually wetting herself at the sight, but I’ve heard child birth weakens the bladder!
I don’t know how the parents do it, they juggle dressing one child whilst bathing another, and arranging next weeks global budget with the chancellor of the exchequer. Whilst as soon as a child hears the word ‘Mark’ll put your coat on’, the bottom lip goes, there body goes ridged and behind the crocodile tears I am sure I can hear them laughing at their uncle incompetent.
Having got the kids settled in bed its amazing how quickly parents will abandon their children with basically anyone willing to give them a night off. Sure at first they will be all clingy and miss there kids if they have to leave the house for five minutes, then a year down the line they’d happily send them away for the weekend with a serial killer. Like all good baby-sitters I instantly raided the fridge for food and booze, only to find out rather disappointingly for me, but a sensible choice given my position of ‘responsibility’ for the evening, that there is only one beer in the fridge.
Just as I am getting into a film I hear “whaaaa!!!”, for some reason whenever I hear that sound I instantly freeze, as if being totally still and quiet will make a child go back to sleep, anyway it seemed to work that time. However just as Bruce was about to unleash a can of whoop arse on the terrorist the screaming started again.
Venturing into the room, i breathe the manta, ”don’t panic, don’t panic’, and start to settle this screaming cherub, who’d have thought something so small can scream that loud. As I fail in my job of settling, I realise or more to the point smell that my work is perhaps not done, and I am going to have to change a nappy.
Now I have done this twice before with proper adult supervision, and back then I swore I’d never do it again. So I was about to phone the parents to come back up the road and change her, ‘their child, their pooh’, when I realised I’d forgotten my phone and therefore didn’t have the parents number.
So as I started changing my third nappy I was hit by the thought of ‘Oh my god, what the hell do they feed her?’. For someone who outwardly looks like sweetness and light, she can produce vileness that is inversely proportional to the sweetness that comes out of her mouth! That is the sweetness that isn’t the vomit that she seems to save up for her uncle when he’s wearing his favourite hoody.
Now I don’t have a dog because I don’t like clearing shite up, so I try to hold my breathe and get on with it. Realising that I am about to pass out I gasp for air and instantly start gagging, and narrowly avoid following through. Although a part of me feels that puking on a baby might be a sweet form of revenge for all those ruined tops.
Anyway it only took 30 minutes to change the nappy, clean the shit of me and the baby, find some clean PJ’s, wrestle them on and put the now quiet baby back to bed. Just in time for her older sister to start shouting ‘mummy!’
As I walk into the room she looks at me, smiles and says ‘Mark, Pooh-Pooh’
Noooooooo!
Anyway after my fourth nappy, I returned downstairs to catch the end credits of the film I was watching. No sooner had they finished my friends returned and asked if they had behave?
‘Yeah, They were no bother at all!’
NB: NO CHILDREN WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF THIS STORY. IN FACT THIS IS A FICTIONAL PIECE OF A SERIES OF THINGS THAT COULD HAPPEN TO A BABY SITTER. IT WAS MEANT TO BE FUNNY BY THE WAY.