Nappy Pants - The Beginning

It all began when he was hoovering the stairs. Well of course it had happened before that but that was when we became aware of it. And as for him hoovering the stairs, that said a lot, of course, about him being a New Man, ready to get stuck in with the housework, do his share, be a Hands On Dad. Because at that precise moment I walked out of the bathroom with a pregnancy test in my hand and there were two blue lines forming themselves into a big plus sign. It’s positive I said, feeling very light and very woolly all at once. I wasn’t sure if he heard me. He was looking at me with a bemused expression. I wasn’t sure if it was shock or concentration. But then I noticed he was staring at the pregnancy indicator, his face was a freeze frame of joy and fear. He didn’t know what to do with himself. In a catatonic state he kept hoovering.

Fast forward to now. This instant. The baby has climbed the stairs and found me in the study. And my heart stops because when they are very young you can almost see the moment certain wires in their heads connect, when they Become, reach a new level of awareness.

The baby hears someone else coming up the stairs, calling him. Then suddenly he says ‘What?’ He is no longer parroting our words and phrases, he is actually engaging in a conversation. He is nineteen months old and is answering his sister. Because this is not the first baby, the shock on the stairs. This is one of four, the surprise child, a November bookend to our first November baby with exactly seven frantic years in between. And that’s what I’m going to tell you all about. Then and Now.