Daddy’s girl and the bombshell

Tinytoes has always been a daddy’s girl. Her face lights up when he walks into the room and she screams and screams when he leaves. Without a doubt she has a fantastic daddy, who has an unnerving amount of patience when she’s overtired or overwrought or overly demanding, or all three. But I’d be lying if I pretended I didn’t get hurt sometimes when she pushes me away howling ‘Baba!’ (Daddy) especially if I get up in the middle of the night to offer her a cuddle when she’s teething and crying out in pain.

Last night was one of those times I got a bit hurt. It had been a long afternoon, because 21 month old Tinytoes decided she wanted to skip her precious three hour nap, so I resorted to pushing her and Microtoes around the village in the twin buggy.  DearDaddy got home from work and, seeing me *just about coping* – as I simultaneously breastfed Microtoes and tried without luck to feed a tired and grumpy Tinytoes – decided it would be a good time to install some electrical wiring (!) To be fair there’s never a good moment, but seeing her Daddy disappear and then reappear into the garage was all too much for Tinytoes.

DearDaddy eventually got the hint – Tinytoes isn’t one for subtlety – and postponed the wiring in order to deflect some of the peas being pelted around the kitchen. I’d been hoping to bath Tinytoes, to bond with her a bit, but Microtoes needed feeding again and I needed to finish cooking the supper. I’ve now learnt that what I did next was a mistake. Not to be repeated.

Dinner in the oven and Microtoes drunk with milk, I prepare Tinytoes’ milk and venture upstairs to take over from DearDaddy.  I call through and ask if she’s ready for her milk. DearDaddy mishears my question and replies ‘yes’, when really the answer was ‘no’: she still had her hair to dry, teeth to clean and pyjamas to put on. I walk in with the milk and Tinytoes goes into a frenzy, shouting ‘llet, llet, llet’ (milk in Catalan).

DearDaddy cannot understand why I’ve shown her the milk, triggering afore-mentioned frenzy. He goes downstairs. At which point Tinytoes hurls herself onto the floor, no longer even interested in the milk, let alone having her hair dried, howling ‘Baba, baba, baba!’. Despairing, I eventually join in shouting for him and when he reappears she throws herself into his arms. “Give mummy a goodnight kiss,” he tells her. “No!” she roars, pushing my face away. “Baba, baba!”  So much for bonding with mummy!

I slink away downstairs. Obviously I’ve learnt a valuable lesson: not to interrupt the bedtime routine.  I try not to entertain the idea that if it had been the other way around – and DearDaddy had interrupted me putting her to bed – then she would have had a field day rather than a meltdown.

There’s no point wondering how on earth DearDaddy became such a superstar either. Before I got too pregnant he used to travel quite a lot with work and wouldn’t see so much of her. SuperGranny used to console me by saying “It’s because she doesn’t see him so often. You’re there all the time, so it’s only natural she should find him more exciting.” But he still seemed to be ‘more exciting’ when he stopped travelling and began to get her up every morning and put her to bed at night when I was too pregnant to lift her so easily or play games involving picking her up and twirling her around. SuperGranny changed her rationale to “It’s because he spends more time with her…”

So it was that this morning DearDaddy drops the bombshell. Seven week old Microtoes had slept eight hours straight and we were having coffee and croissants to celebrate. Just as I’m popping the last piece of delicious croissant into my mouth, DearDaddy (not one for choosing his moments) tells me that on Monday week he’ll be travelling overnight with work. He’ll be gone two whole bedtimes before Microtoes is even two months old.  And not only that, but the trip has been cleverly timed to fall when the only other person I know in the village, whose house I walk to at the drop of a hat in search of solace and cups of tea –  SuperGranny – is away on holiday!

Some of you reading this might be appalled by how pathetic I sound; flummoxed at the prospect of coping alone with a one-year old and a sub-two month old. My own children no less. There are millions of single parents out there, parents with multiple babies and those in far less fortunate situations than me. My problem is I’ve been utterly spoilt. By an amazing, hands-on husband who is so often there for me and the babies.  To such an extent that it’s not so much having to look after both babies by myself that is the issue, but dealing with the fallout from an absent daddy. Now that is an issue, for a tiny person who screams blue murder if her daddy so much as leaves her for five seconds to go to the loo.

But you know what? I reckon this will be good for me. If I can survive an unbearable pregnancy (birth was a breeze in comparison..), set up my own company, do a live interview on French TV falling down a ski slope, and run five marathons, surely I can cope with looking after two tiny people for two days? What could possibly go wrong…..?