When small beings make big noises …

Before I had a baby, I had no idea how remarkably touching, tender and special the moment is when a baby stares in sheer adoration into the face of mommy. The first time I saw that look my heart just melted. Then I looked into the face of my squalling infant and thought somewhat bitterly, “How come you never look at me that way?”

When I first heard that my parents’ next-door neighbour would be having a little boy around the same time as Slytherin Baby I envisioned lovely play dates with my pink-cheeked, pink-dressed little princess playing sweetly with the blue-clad, rambunctious little boy. Yes, I know I claim to hate gender stereotypes but, apparently, I’m as prone to mainstream media brainwashing as everyone else. Fortunately, Slytherin Baby is not such a hypocrite. She refuses to conform to the narrow dictates that subscribe to our gendered behaviour.

The first hint I had that my little girl might not be a delicate little flower was the night I stood over her cot watching the little cherubim sleeping, her impossibly long eyelashes casting shadows on her cheeks, her rosebud-lipped mouth half open as she breathed gently. Then I heard it. Her eyes flew open and she stared at me in shocked indignation.

“That was all you kid,” I told her.

“What’s going on?” Himself asked as he stuck his head in the door.

“Well, she’s your daughter all right,” I told him over her outraged yells. “She just farted so loudly she woke herself up.”

I guess her behaviour when she met the neighbour’s kid shouldn’t have come as a surprise. The Other Mom walked in with her baby lying sweetly and gently in her arms, gazing at her with the same look of joy-struck adoration I wear when I see a plate of brownies. My infant was also in my arms; not so much lying as kicking, flailing and arching. The neighbour kid shot an incredulous look at the screaming banshee before turning politely away and returning his eyes to his mom.

“Please sit down,” I yelled. “I’ll just…”

I fumbled frantically for my secret weapon, the one thing guaranteed to produce instant quiet – her bottle. I shoved it into her mouth and enjoyed a blessed moment of silence. Then she started sucking. I glanced at her in horror – I’d never heard anything quite like that before – she sounded like a dehydrated warthog confronted with water for the first time in a month. Slytherin Baby looked coldly back at me, her look plainly said, “You’ll never silence me.” Her tiny hands clutched the oversized bottle, making her look like a frat boy downing a keg.

Once she had slurped, sucked and gargled her way through her bottle, I sat her up to meet her new friend. She squinted at the intruder and burped. Not one of her usual, normal-human burps. As the echo of her epic burp reverberated around the room, I muttered to her, “Why are you this way?”

She glanced at the other baby who cooed adoringly at his mother and then back at me, her look plainly saying that if I wanted a Hufflepuff, I shouldn’t have named my unborn baby Slytherin Baby.

“Are you quite done?” I muttered to her through gritted teeth.

Slytherin Baby cooed up at me, straightened her legs, arched her back and farted. An earth-shattering loud fart. The sort of fart that stops conversations and engulfs the room in its stench. The Other Mom and her Hufflepuff Kid were very polite and barely flinched. The conversation continued politely.

“Your child is gorgeous,” I told The Other Mom sincerely as I admired her child, who flashed me a glance and a shy, gummy smile. Out the corner of my eye, I saw Slytherin Baby turn to look at the interloper. My grip on her tightened slightly – the universal mom-signal of “Don’t you dare.” She ignored me. Her back arched, her legs straightened and a loud, wet explosion rang through the room. I closed my eyes in despair.

Of course, the changing station would be right next to the chair my guests were sitting in. I tried to calculate my chances of braving it out. I forced a smile, which froze as I felt Slytherin Baby straighten her legs once again. Like the aftershock of a massive earthquake, another eruption from my daughter’s pants echoed around us. A stinky miasma engulfed us. Hufflepuff Kid started to whimper. His mom shifted him slightly and he buried his head in her neck, clutched her shirt and calmed down.

Slytherin Baby screwed up her face, which was turning puce. “Sorry,” I mouthed over the howling.

“No problem,” called The Other Mother.

I felt like I was trapped in one of those nightmares where you can’t run fast enough as I pulled wet wipe after wet wipe out of the packet, trying to clean my baby, comfort her and breathe through my mouth. I just couldn’t seem to gain any traction as she writhed and screamed, and tried to kick her poo nappy onto our guests.

Finally, I had her clean. As I turned to deposit the nappy into the bin, I heard the blessed sound of silence. Immediately followed by the sound of a gentle tinkling. I spun around to see Slytherin Baby with her bare legs curled up in the air and a puddle of pee spreading over the changing mat, soaking into her clothes and seeping up into her hair. We all stared at her. Slytherin Baby smiled beatifically up at me and then at Other Mom and Hufflepuff Kid.

I leant over her and hissed threateningly, “I promise, when you’re 16 I’m reminding you both of how you behaved the first time you met him!”

This article was written for and originally posted on the BabyYumYum website here https://babyyumyum.co.za/when-small-beings-make-big-noises/

“Wet wipes!” I typed a WhatsApp to my husband who was at the shops using the knuckle of my pinkie, which was the only part of my hand not covered in baby poo. Slytherin Baby whimpered and whined up at me from her position splayed on the changing mat. “What are you moaning about kid?” I muttered as I used the second to last wet wipe to wipe the poo from off her neck. “If anyone should be crying,” I continued as the last wet wipe was used to wipe poo from inside her bellybutton, “it’s me.” I picked up her poo-soaked vest and baby grow with two fingers and looked longingly at the bin, before throwing them into the wash basket. 

“We had almost half a packet of wet wipes yesterday,” said Himself as he handed over an optimistically small packet an hour later.

“That was yesterday,” I explained patiently. “Since then we’ve had three poonamis. During the last one I used a record-breaking thirteen wipes.”   

“You know, wet wipes are expensive. We need to be careful we’re not using too many at each change.”

“Tell you what,” I suggested through gritted teeth, “next change, you show me how to not use too many.”

“Oh shit!” I heard a few hours later. After a few more minutes of swearing, I popped my head into the nursery. “Don’t forget to go easy on the wet wipes,” I called helpfully from the doorway. Slytherin Baby whimpered pathetically, as she lay naked, vulnerable and covered in poo, no doubt sensing she was about to become a child of a broken home.

I moved forward to reassure her, but then stopped short. “How did she manage to get poo in her hair?” I exclaimed.

“That might have been me,” Himself admitted. “But her clothes were covered in poop and I had to get that vest off her somehow.”

“You do know that the shoulders of the vest can be pulled down so you don’t have to pull it over her head,” I told him. There was a long moment of silence as Himself glared first at me and then at the laundry basket. Slytherin Baby whimpered again.

“This isn’t normal,” I murmured as I tried to find a clean spot to pat my child.

“Obviously not,” said Himself. “If this were normal, the human race would have died out long ago!”

“I think this is diarrhoea.”

“How many poos has she had this week?” he asked.

“I lost count somewhere around Wednesday; but I do know I’ve washed seventeen baby grows, four sheets, a mattress protector and the car seat. Maybe that’s not normal.”

“What have we been doing about it?” Himself wrestled another wet wipe out of the packet.

“We are giving her water, and massaging her stomach, and rubbing her back, and washing her clothes over and over again.”

Slytherin Baby kicked her poo-covered feet against Himself’s white t-shirt.

“We need to call someone,” I fretted. 

“It’s the middle of the night; we can’t disturb anyone now. We’ll just have to white-knuckle it till morning.”

Slytherin Baby glared up at us. 

“You’re right; we need to cut back on wet wipes,” said Himself decidedly. He picked up the baby and holding her a safe distance from himself marched out the room.

“Where are you going? And what are we going to do?” I called after him.

I trailed him to the bathroom where he held Slytherin Baby over the bath with one hand and hosed her off with the handheld shower in the other. 

“We need to change her formula,” he said with great conviction. 

“It’ll never be that easy,” I retorted over Slytherin Baby’s indignant squeals. “Besides we’re using Nan, that’s the one the doctor suggested so it must be good. Maybe I should look it up on Goo–”

“NO! No looking up anything on Google! Phone your doctor friend in the morning, but I’m telling you, we just need to change her formula.”

I rolled my eyes at his nativity. As if a problem could be solved easily! 

“You do know I’m not a paediatrician,” my friend told me the next morning.

“Yes, but you did a rotation in the paediatric ward.”

“I know. And I vowed never to work in that department again. I can’t handle the neurotic mothers. Now, why aren’t you phoning your normal paediatrician?” she asked.

“Because it’s five thirty in the morning. I can’t phone him now,” I replied.

“No,” said The Doctor Friend somewhat drily. “That would be ridiculous.”

“Well?” Himself demanded five minutes later.

“It’s diarrhoea and we’re going to change her formula.”

Himself raised an eyebrow. “If only someone had suggested that sooner.”

Slytherin Baby grunted. I shared her scepticism.

The formula aisle stretched before us like some terrifying test we had to pass. “How do we choose?” I whispered.

“We look for the one that will suit our needs,” replied Himself confidently.

“Which one is that? This one is called AR, this one is HA, this one,” a hysterical note crept into my voice, “is just a number! What does that mean? How many times you feed her? How many times you have a nervous breakdown?” I paced nervously in front of the overwhelming tins. “She’s a girl, so we do we get the pink tin? We want the best for her, do we get the gold tin?”

“This one. We get this one,” Himself picked up a tin.

“Novalac AD. Why that one?”

“AD stands for anti-diarrhoea. Call me crazy, but I think that might be the one.”

I stared doubtfully. No way was any problem involving Slytherin Baby going to be solved just like that. I fidgeted anxiously with my phone.

“No Google!”

“I’m not going to Google.”

“You’re asking your Bad Moms’ group, aren’t you?”

“We prefer our full name – The Badass Moms’ group,” I said stiffly. Himself and Slytherin Baby shared a look, deploring my insecurity.

“Ok,” I said a few minutes later. “Novalac is a good formula.” Himself took off running for the tills with the tin before I could read any more replies.

Slytherin Baby was smiling. I didn’t know she did that. I mean I knew she was physically capable; I just figured she was one of those people who never smiled. Apparently I was wrong.

“A week of normal poos! Can I choose a formula or can I choose a formula? Do you know how much we’re going to save on wet wipes and diapers and washing?” Himself was very excited at the thought as he stood over my shoulder and watched me open a wet nappy.

“Yes,” I cooed at my daughter. “Do you know how much diapers cost?” Slytherin Baby cooed back at me with a grin.

“Do you know, I wonder how much of her personality was just grumpiness at the wrong formula?” mused Himself.

I looked into the eyes of my smiling baby as I used a single wet wipe to clean her. “Do you think we have a Hufflepuff?” I asked, worried, as I slid a clean nappy under her; she helpfully lifted her legs. And then pooed all over my hand and the new nappy. Slytherin Baby smiled and waved up at us.

This article was written for and originally posted on the BabyYumYum website here https://babyyumyum.co.za/choosing-the-right-infant-formula-can-help-with-diarrhoea/

Slytherin baby is gorgeous. She’s a teeny tiny, adorable, female version of Himself. (I just carried you for nine months, gave birth to you, sustain you, but by all means look like your father – I’m just your host.) Unfortunately, she doesn’t look like Himself when he’s browsing car websites, or shooting aliens on his computer; no, she looks like him when he’s doing taxes – very perplexed and extremely concerned.

“She has such an expressive face!” exclaimed a variety of visitors.

“Yes,” I sighed. “It’s just a pity that she only has three expressions: shock, horror and deep suspicion.”

While other babies gaze at their mothers with wide-eyed adoration, mine executes the perfect side-eye.

“I didn’t think I would need to put up with this for at least another twelve years,” I mused as Slytherin Baby swept me up and down with her eyes; her expression indicating she found me wanting.  Slytherin Baby doesn’t gaze at me in wonder; she stares at me as if to say, “I’m not stupid; I can spot a pair of amateurs when I see them.”  And honestly, she might have a point.

Upon carrying our latest addition into the house, I turned to Himself in a panic, “What do we do now? Do we feed it after midnight? Can we get it wet?”

It turns out that she definitely wants to be fed after midnight (and again before dawn, and just after dawn, and then midmorning, and then late morning, and…) and she does not want to get wet. At all. Ever. Baths are bad. Very bad.

For someone who is essentially non-verbal, Slytherin Baby can be very good at making her displeasure known.

When I was expecting her, I had a little meltdown (for a change). “How can I look after a baby when I can’t even keep my pot plants alive?” I exclaimed.

“Don’t worry,” my friends assured me. “Pot plants don’t scream when they’re hungry – babies do.”

It turns out my friends were right. The only problem is that when babies yell, they don’t let you know exactly what’s wrong. “Can you be more specific?” I cried to my screaming baby. “Look the lady at the baby classes said babies only cry for certain things. You’ve been fed, you’ve been changed, you’ve been burped, you’re warm enough, you’ve just had a nap, you’re being carried and gently told what a beautiful baby you are. You may not believe it, but I promise you kid – you’re living your best life.”   

Of course, that isn’t to say that Slytherin Baby can’t be adorable – she can be; she’s just very selective about when she wants to be.

“Be careful what you put out into the universe,” one of my more New Age friends warned me when she heard me refer to my then-unborn child as a Slytherin. “If you keep talking about having a Slytherin, that’s what she’s going to be.”

“Uh-huh,” I replied and politely waited until I was out of the room before rolling my eyes.

“Don’t roll your eyes!” she called out after me. I should have been more impressed with her witchy powers.

“Oh, she’s an angel,” sighed Himself as he walked into the house to see his little girl lying peacefully dreaming in her cot, looking gorgeous completely endearing. “You go rest, I’ll look after her now.”

“Great,” I muttered, red-eyed and white-faced, as I narrowed my eyes at my child, who had been screaming like a little hellion all afternoon and had fallen asleep five minutes before her father walked in.  

“We’re so lucky we have an easy baby,” Himself murmured as he went about his evening activities, stopping only to admire his sleeping child.

“So lucky,” I growled as I finally managed to brush my teeth for the first time that day.

Now this may not sound like a big deal, and it wouldn’t necessarily indicate a Slytherin personality, not if it happened once or twice. But Slytherin Baby is apparently psychic. No matter what time her father arrives home in the evening, or her grandmother visits in the morning, Slytherin Baby calms down five minutes before they walk in.

“This little thing make a huge noise? Never!” coos The Grandmother as she gazes enraptured at the beautiful, wide-eyed baby, quietly sucking her fingers; looking nothing like the kid with the screwed-up, scarlet face I’d been trying to settle from four that morning.

“Slytherin,” I whispered to my child. I could swear she winked at me.

This article was written for and originally posted on the BabyYumYum website here https://babyyumyum.co.za/daddys-little-angel-mommys-little-slytherin/