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I think it’s fair to say that it’s been a shit week so far.<\/p>\n
Yesterday really was the pits, it kicked off as usual with me walking barefoot over a mouldy puddle in our carpet which is there as a result of the water tank leaking all over the place while we were away.<\/p>\n
At work, I was so knackered from the weekend that I was unable to use the correct words when talking to people. Plus I found out that a letter I’d sent out to about 1000 people had the wrong information in it.<\/p>\n
But my greatest personal achievement of the day was writing a letter to a woman whose baby had died chasing her up over what is, to my mind (but not to some people I work with) a trivial bureaucratic matter. That kind of stuff makes you feel great on a Monday.<\/p>\n
Needless to say, things carried on in the same manner, the absolute triumph of which was the daughter demonstrating to all and sundry her singleminded… ah… creativity<\/i> and resourcefulness<\/i> by forcing a bead all the way up her left nostril when she was supposed to be asleep.<\/p>\n
That bead was not coming out, much to everyone’s alarm. So we all piled down to the, now somewhat familiar, Homerton Hospital at 8 o’clock. Our luck really being in, it turns out that half the kids in Hackney have decided to do something crazy as well, though unfortunately there was nobody there with a saucepan stuck on their head.<\/p>\n
“Oh yes, you were here a year ago because she swallowed a penny?”<\/p>\n
“Ah… Yes.”<\/p>\n
You laugh nervously because – hey, kids are crazy, innit? But also so you don’t scream out “It’s OK!!! I’m a good parent really! Don’t put me on some kind of orwellian Register! Have YOU got kids, eh? Have you?”<\/p>\n
The daughter’s great contribution to medical science so far is a perfect x-ray of her perfect round tummy, with a perfect little round 1p piece showing through her rib cage. So good, they use for teaching, apparently. No doubt with a picture of me off Hopstial CCTV with “BAD DAD” captioned underneath it.<\/p>\n
So it’s off to the waiting room for 3 HOURS and obviously we’ve packed all of the daughter’s favourite books and toys in a frenzy, but nothing for us, so we are lumbered with a dozen magazines which all turn out to be either about weddings (in the A&E children’s ward?! wtf?) or ski-ing.<\/p>\n
The bridal mags are kind of pornographic in a commodity-fetish sort of way. Like, one of them has about 30 pages of tea cups and saucers, in garish full colour close up. Weird shit.<\/p>\n
Every other parent there is texting furiously, despite all the signs saying “please turn off your mobile phone”. Because what else are you going to do at 10:00pm on a Monday night?<\/p>\n
It takes hours, but we got the bead back with the aid of some uber dextrous lady and her special tweezers. I doubt the daughter will do that<\/i> again, anyway.<\/p>\n
Out into the carpark, relieved, desperate to get home at last. “Babycakes” is blaring out of a car stereo…<\/p>\n