This has nothing to do with The Magic Roundabout. Sorry.
I was less conscious of the extent to which I love routine. It is perhaps more because of this than my awareness of good parenting practice that we have indeed developed regular patterns in our daughter's average day. In fact, to be fair, it's almost entirely down to my wife's awareness of good parenting practice. But I'm a willing follower of her lead.
Mindful of the remote possibility that anybody hopes to glean hints and tips from reading this, I thought I might outline our daughter's very exciting bedtime routine.
Her dinner usually starts being thrown on the floor at around 5:30 or 6:00pm. This is washed down eagerly with a bottle of milk, accompanied by the requisite episode of In the Night Garden. If the lengthly after dinner clean-up is unfinished by the time Iggle Piggle awakens (in his melancholy little boat in a darkly infinite sea, another vainly hopeful dream of company and joy in the woods ended with wretched inevitability) then we'll set our daughter free on the floor to expend any remaining energy. Of course, careful supervision ensures that the resultant wave of destruction is conducted safely. Before long however, tears of frustration often begin to outweigh our daughter's enjoyment of this last hurrah. This is when we know it's bedtime.
Unless I'm still at work, or occasionally being very selfish when Arsenal are on the telly, my wife and I share the bathtime duties. One of us will get the water running (each of us knows the exact angle to which the tap should be turned to achieve the correct temperature) while the other prepares the pyjamas, nappy and sleeping bag on our bed. Then I'll entertain my progeny as my wife prepares herself for the bath. Our daughter has introduced her own elements to the routine at this stage. Her wind up Winnie the Pooh musical thingy hangs from our bedhead, and she takes great, daily delight in clambering across the duvet and pillows in order to attain a position from which she can grab Winnie before rolling around with him for a bit.
Just as the challenge of preventing our daughter from consuming her new nappy starts to irk me slightly, I usually hear my wife's announcement that both she and the bath are ready to receive the washee. Quick as a flash, I whip off my daughter's clothes (in the unashamedly silly and entertaining manner which is the ambition of all dads) before commencing the weeees.
The weeees are a very important element of this routine, and represent - I am sure - my daughter's favourite use of her father. They involve my holding the now naked baby under her armpits and saying "One... Two... Three" as I bounce her three times on the bed. The grin has usually appeared by this point, but this is just the amuse bouche of the weeees. On three, I begin flying her to the bath. (Not literally: I'm still holding on to her. To do otherwise would be irresponsible.) Each swoop is accompanied by a big "Weeee" from me and a squeal of delight from her. It takes four swoops to reach Mummy in the bath. During the weeees I always have to overcome a brief, irrational fear of accidentally throwing my daughter down the stairs. This has never happened.
The bath itself is really my wife's domain. While I clear away any dirty clothes and nappies I can find, our daughter is being a bit washed and a lot entertained by her mother. A vast array of bath toys are involved, the favourites of which are Duncan the dolphin (whose introduction is always made with a list of all the Duncans we can think of: Peter Duncan, Duncan Goodhew, Duncan from Blue, etc.) and a collection of four stacking cups, each of which has a face, a hole and a name. I can never recall their names, for which my wife regularly and quite rightly scolds me.
Once the cleaning and the playing are complete, the singing begins. The singing is always the same. We begin with:
Bobbing along,
Bobbing along,
On the bottom of the beautiful briny sea,
Bobbibobbobbibobbobbibob
Bobbing along,
Bobbing along,
On the bottom of the beautiful briny sea.
These are all the words we know, so as my wife passes our daughter into my towel-bearing arms, we launch into a bit of Frog Song:
Bom bom bom,
Aiyah,
Bom bom bom,
Aiyah,
Bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom,
Aiyah,
Bom bom bom,
Bom bom bom,
We all stand together,
Bom bom.
By this juncture my daughter and I are on our way back to the bedroom, during which journey I do the whistley bit, which I won't attempt to transcribe here. Then, as I dry her:
Ahh ahahh,
Ahahh ahahahh,
Keeping us warm in the night,
Bobbobbob bombombombombom,
Ahh ahahh,
Ahahh ahahahh,
Something something something,
Holding me tight.
(This stretches my vocal range)
Win or lose,
Sink or swim,
One thing is certain,
We'll never give in.
Hand in hand,
Side by side,
We all stand together
Bom bom.
By now I have finished drying the little lady, and begun to apply generous quantities of cream all over her (always in this order: head, face, tummy, legs, arms, back, back of head, bum.) It is imperative that I make curious slurping noises to ward off the frustration which usually creeps back in to her mind as I perform this creaming ritual. I always feel that another song would be useful here, but invariably forget every song ever written at this very impertinent moment. My wife has dried herself and returned to the bedroom at this point, and we join forces in the struggle to apply a nappy, vest, pyjamas and sleeping bag to a child who was quite enjoying being naked.
With this stage complete, I leave my wife to settle our daughter in her cot with beautiful renditions of Somewhere Over the Rainbow and You are My Sunshine while I disappear off downstairs to do dinner or something. Job done. Until she wakes up screaming half an hour later. Actually this happens a lot less than it used to.
The whole process, from the end of her dinner to the genesis of ours, takes about an hour. It used to feel like a bit of a chore, but is now the highlight of my day.
As I say, I like routines too.
No comments:
Post a Comment