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Being in charge of the baby...on your own!
- Dolly's life with little people
- Sep 1, 2017
- 4 min read
Cast your mind back to your first job.
On the outside you are calm and in control, you are so grown up and can obviously do this job. In fact, to be honest, you are over skilled and your employers are lucky you chose to take this job.
Then they put you on the checkout (in my case) walk away and that’s it. They believed the hype, they honestly thought you should be in charge of operating a till. Ahhhhhhh.
My mother’s well-meaning comment of “Ermmm do you know how to add up money and find change?” We had to do it all mentally in my day. Do you want to have a practise dear?” is ringing in my ears and the fear that I have been squashing is rising to the surface. That fear that says “Did you see my hippy education? The politicians at the time had a lot to answer for. Of course I couldn’t add up all the prices mentally and then find the change. Ahhhhh.
The panic starts rising from the pit of my stomach, constricting my chest, making my palms sweat. I look around. Nope, no one is coming to take over I am the one in charge here (God help us all) O.K. I am going to have to pretend I know what I am doing and hope I make a good job of this. Thankfully they have a scanner and till that adds up all of the prices and finds the change. Result!
Or when you pass your driving test.
You come home all excited telling your parents that you did it. You ring up the insurance company and tell them to upgrade your insurance as you have passed your test and are now a fully-fledged driver. No more provisional license for you. Oh no. You’re in the league with the big boys now.
Then you proudly announce that you are going to pick up your friends and go shopping. You swipe up the keys in one smooth confident motion and start to swagger towards the door. As you are nearing the door your pace slows, you crane your ears waiting for the “But you can’t drive!” or similar. Your hand touches the door knob and you say “See you later then.” “Bye” they reply. “I’m going to drive my car….” You repeat assuming that they must have missed this important piece of information. “O.K.” they call.
You take a deep breath, open the door, walk through the door, shut the door. You linger for a moment on the doorstep before you come to the conclusion that no one is going to stop you. You are actually going to drive the car, on your own! You start the engine and think mirror, signal, manoeuvre and off you go. Silently saying a little prayer that when your driving instructor asked if you knew what MSM was, and you replied in the affirmative, that they continued with good so you already know about the importance of checking your mirror, signalling your intention and then carrying out the manoeuvre instead of you thinking he was referring to the text message. Which actually was an SMS anyway and not a MSM!
Well nothing can prepare you for that moment when they give you the baby.
You’re looking at this tiny little person thinking I am amazing I grew you, gave birth to you, I’ve fed you and now it’s home time. Wait! Do they mean home time as in… on my own?
Ahhhhh. I literally wanted to be sick. Ok, so I know I manged to pull off those other things but seriously this is a baby. An actual human being. Really? Really? Oh my goodness. Yes they are actually sending me home with a tiny helpless person who can’t even tell me what he needs and I’m expected to be a mind reader and work it all out.
People joke there’s no manual. That’s not funny. Trust me, when you are in that situation and it’s the middle of the night and the baby is crying and you’ve tried everything and your husband turns to you and asks why they are crying. And you look at them like they have no brain cells what so ever as you reply I don’t know, if I knew I’d fix it as I’m not particularly enjoying the crying. Especially with the hormones making you feel guilty for not fixing the baby as that is your job. The species wouldn’t have survived without that hormone but man it is annoying in the beginning!
Anyway like the other times before in your life there is no adultier adult than you so you take a deep breath and pretend you know what you are doing. And before long you DO know what you are doing and suddenly you rock at this baby malarkey. Your baby looks up at you as if to say Whoop whoop go mum, you’ve got this.
Phew!
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