Surviving the first year of dadding

So this time last year I was blogging about ways to keep Mrs Mcdadface entertained whilst preggers. Bingo was popular as well as multiple trips to Mothercare to kit out the nursery. We would often sit happily passing the hours having coffee and fantasising about how magical parenthood would be.

Since then I only go to bingo in my dreams! Now mini Mcdadface is here we have NO TIME TO DO ANYTHING EVER AGAIN!
Our lives have been changed FOREVER! Gone are the days when we could sleep until late morning and pop out for breakfast at Frankie and Bennies. God I love their pancakes! Oh no, now we're lucky if we sleep more than 4 hours. If you don't have kids and claim you're tired, I will openly mock you! You don't know how lucky you are! I often wonder what we actually did when we had entire weekends to ourselves.

To demonstrate my point further let me paint a little picture for you. I thought it might be fun to compare weekends before and after kids.

Weekend A: Before kids.
Saturday: Wake up around 9am, lay in bed until 11, shower, get dressed, have lunch/brunch around 3, go for a leisurely stroll around shops, park or other kid free related activity, get home, have a drink, perhaps meet friends for meal? Get home, have a cup of tea whilst watching a whole TV program! Go to bed and sleep soundly for 8 blissful hours!
Sunday: Much the same as Saturday.

Weekend B: With spawn.
Saturday: Wake up around 3am. Mini Mcdadface has decided to throw dummy out of cot and as a result is screaming. This has also alerted her to the fact that she has a nappy full of piss and is starving hungry. Walk downstairs, trip over a singing Mini mouse book and battle piss soaked nappy in the dark. Nappy changed- Phase 1 complete.
Phase 2- Prepare bottle, warm bottle and administer bottle. All of course in pitch darkness to avoid waking mini Mcdadface further.
30 mins later feeding complete, attempt to gently move from sofa to upright position without waking child. I can only compare this is to disarming a highly volatile bomb. One false move and you're screwed. Now slowly moving towards the stairs, avoiding the singing Minnie mouse book and gingerly begin ascending the stairs. It's important to note at this point that our staircase is the noisiest staircase known to mankind. Every fucking step creaks. If all goes to plan I am now at the summit and edging closer to the promised land of sleep. Place ticking time bomb... sorry I mean child into cot and retreat as quietly as possible. Return to bed.
Wake up again at 7am (if lucky). Enter Mini Mcdadface's room to be greeted by the biggest smile! 3am shenanigans instantly forgiven. Pick her up for a big cuddle only to be greeted with the overpowering aroma of shit.
Take child downstairs, change nappy, Change childs clothes. Make bottle, play with child for an hour, prepare solid food for child, feed/bathe child with porridge. By this time she's getting a bit cranky because she's been up for a whole 2 hours. Time for a nap. Only Child doesn't realise she needs a nap and battles harder than most war veterans before succumbing to sleep. Navigate the noisy staircase and place child back into cot. Have a shower!! Ironically this is around the same time as Weekend A.
Jump out of shower, throw on clothes and if really lucky have breakfast.
child wakes up.
Prepare child's lunch, feed child trying to avoid getting child's clean clothes dirty, play with child/put washing on.
Having got child's clean clothes dirty, change child
If time permits and if me, child and Mrs Mcdadface have managed to feed, wash and dress ourselves we can leave the house! (This is by no means guaranteed!) Leaving the house normally means going to the supermarket to buy more food for child.
Return from the supermarket, feed child, change nappy and bath child. Dry child off whilst singing we are the cheeky girls, we are the cheeky girls, touch my bum, don't be shy. Prepare bottle, administer bottle........ CHILD IS ASLEEP!!! Don't get too excited though, we still have the noisy stairs to navigate! If there are no unscheduled interruptions i.e diarrhoea, temperature, teething, wind etc then she should be in bed by 7.30 pm. This leaves us just enough time to eat and then do absolutely noting as we're too exhausted.
Sunday: Repeat Saturday

So there you have it. How things have changed! I will leave you with one last little anecdote.
Picture the scene... Mini Mcdadface has just eaten/painted her face with pasta bolognaise. Before long the familiar scent of shit begins to waft from the nappy. Time for a change.
All was going well, nothing out of the ordinary. Until that is I removed the nappy and took a double take. The shit was actually staring back at me! I mean actually staring back at me! With eyes and everything! Turns out my little bundle of joy had got rather hungry at the child minders and eaten 2 googly eyes!

On that note I will leave you to enjoy whichever weekend you have planned! Oh and before people get on their high horse and say I shouldn't complain about having kids.... I wouldn't change it for the world.