A Week Of Firsts

Well, what a week. First visit to the dentist, first trip swimming and the first time we have been thrown out of a pub.

It’s a shame they waited until after we had bought our drinks to tell us they weren’t “baby friendly” after lunch time, so could we please leave. I wonder if we’d spent a lot more on food if we’d have been allowed to stay?

Now, I’ll concede that in my youth I may have, on occasion, been in a group behaving lasciviously enough to warrant being asked to keep it down. But I have never been kicked out of a drinking establishment before.

And it’s not like she was wailing or knocking glasses over or sucking noisily on a nipple. She was sound asleep. Maybe they thought she’d passed out…

Anyway, her first swim was a lot more successful. Although I did feel a lot less smug about my compact and convenient baby carrier when I realised people bring their buggies so they have somewhere to put their babies while they get themselves changed.

As I lay her on a towel on the floor and tried not to stand on her while I stumbled into my costume, I remembered all those annoyingly prepared girls at school who wore their bathers under their uniform for ease and speed

Worrying about how I was going to manage when it came to drying and dressing us both obliterated any possible concern about my decidedly un-‘beach body ready’ appearance.

I love swimming, and the excursion was probably a rather selfish one as I was dying to get in the water. Though I’m not sure how much I got out of the 10 minute walk around the training pool.

Each 56 pence minute proved worth it though. She loved the water, smiling as she kicked about and floated on her back and tummy. Take that Water Babies and your six month waiting list!

So I whisked her out before her gums began to chatter and the colour of her skin turned as blue as her swimming nappy.

After a speedy warm shower I wrapped her back up in her layers, and tried not to drip on her as I danced my awkward towel and Lycra tango once again, this time in a puddle of water.

Then I endured the dreaded torture of hauling on leggings over slightly damp legs so I could indulge her in a feed to ensure she was back up to temperature. But overall I think we both enjoyed the experience.

We were even less prepared for the visit to the dentist.

I just popped in as I was passing to make an appointment for a check up. I wanted to make use of my free NHS dental care for mother’s with babies under one, before the year whizzes by and I realise I’ve forgotten all about it.

“Oh, we’ve just had a cancellation”, the receptionist chirruped. “He can see you now.”

My stomach lurched. She was asleep in the baby carrier, strapped to my front. “Won’t she get in the way?”, I blustered. “I suppose I’m okay with it if the dentist is.”

He was okay with it.

The receptionist even offered to hold her. However, it seemed even more dangerous to wake her up and invoke the primal scream in a room near silent, but for the muffled sound of drilling…

So I filled in the form and sat waiting my turn, looking down at the top of her head, covered though it was by her bright woolly hat, envisaging a gleaming sharp metal implement piercing her in the fontanel.

Time seemed to drag forever, but eventually I found myself in the dentist’s chair, the whir of the reclining chair ringing in my ears as I fell helplessly backwards.

But all was fine. My teeth required no repairs and she remained fast asleep.

If only the public house had been as accommodating as the dentist.