Living with Post-Natal Exhaustion

‘HONEY! That mad old bag’s shitting in the garden again!’

‘Are you sure it’s not the foxes?’

‘Of course it’s not the bloody foxes! She’s right there now with her knickers round her wellies!’

I retrieve the baby wipes from the fridge and the pleasantly chilled bag of spuds from the chest freezer. We’re too tired to work out who is to blame any more. I wonder if throwing the semi-hardened spuds at the mad old bat squatting in our garden will scare her off but they always said don’t feed the animals. She may come back for more. At this rate I may invite her in.

‘I’ll get her hon.’

I line up a Maris Piper at her imaginary forehead.

After the shitting incident it’s bath and bedtime. This shambolic military operation is executed daily with varying degrees of Gallipoli. Tonight the boys are in a naked, pushy mood. They grapple in the bath like miniature sumo wrestlers – neither giving ground. I check my phone for an escape route but then one of them bloody well slips.

‘Oh my god is he ok?’

 How did she know all the way from the kitchen?

‘He’ll be fine.’

‘But what about secondary drowning?’

‘Huh?’

‘They can drown later on, the water just lies there in their lungs.’

‘So does that happen when they’re drinking too? Secondary drinking drowning? Should we ban milk and Fruit Shoot?’

She didn’t appreciate that one. Maybe it’s because I mistakenly gave her a dose of the baby’s reflux medicine yesterday. I held the syringe out and she opened her mouth so what was I supposed to do?

Usually the depths of exhaustion bring out the best in me: flippancy, paranoid snapping, a shrug and smirk when I can’t figure out precisely which bodily fluid I’m sporting today, but not this evening. Every humorous barb, every expertly timed quip and devastatingly rakish comment is met with silence. I figure it’s down to her. I’m fucking eloquent when I’m tired.

After the bath it’s time for PJs. The little one is slippy so flies out of his onesie and clonks on the floor. His elder brother laughs,

‘Sissy daddy!’

‘I’m not a bloody sissy, I had you didn’t I?’

No rapturous applause. No raucous laughter. No fawning reviews in The Guardian’s Sunday supplement. Tough crowd. I’m wasted here.

My eldest removes his fresh nappy, straddles his favourite gro-bag and proclaims,

‘My fafa baggy on my wiwwy!’

Ah well, I sigh to myself. Only 18 more years of this.