Babies are an enigma. Looking after them is a bit of a guessing game, because they can’t tell you things like, “The tag on my onesie is scratching my neck!” or “You’ve put three blankets too many on me tonight and I’m boiling” or “That teddy keeps staring at me and I think it may be plotting to murder me in the night!!”.

But just because you can’t read your baby’s mind and no-one expects you to (except him), that doesn’t stop you from looking around for someone to jump out from under the cot and hand you the Worst Mother in the World Award when you get it wrong.

The other day I headed over to a friend’s place for a cuppa and I thought having a 4-month-old little muppet along might be fun. How wrong I was. He whinged. And he grizzled. And he whinged and grizzled some more and did his best to hijack our attempt at a conversation, until finally I apologised and bundled him off home for a nap, slightly embarrassed, but accepting it’s all part of having a bub.

Once we were home, the attempted ‘nap’ was not well-received. In fact, it’s probably safe to say it was utterly rejected. Whingeing became grizzling became crying became wailing, despite a clearly very tired baby. We eventually gave up on the nap and tried various other placatory activities. Dummy: spat. Toys: ignored. Cat: squealed at. Pram: abused. As the afternoon wore on, the whingeing did too, and the irrit-o-meter began to rise, until finally I decided to call in the reinforcements for a break.

The husband had him for a whole 5 minutes before he called me.

“Hey hon, look, are those teeth coming through at the front there?”

I froze. My mind raced back over the day – the dribbling, the hand constantly in the mouth, the chewing on anything and everything.. and…there they were. Two faint, little white bumps emerging from his gums. The little man had started teething and I hadn’t noticed. Worst Mother in the World Award. Hand it over.

Big hugs, a buttload of Bonjela and a dash to the chemist to buy 72 teething toys hopefully helped.

Another incident happened while I was out and about with the Arch-man in the Baby Bjorn. Now that he’s all neck-supporting and interested in the world, he has graduated to facing outwards. The first time I put him in that way he screamed heartily, attracting various stares and glares from onlookers. He soon realised he wasn’t floating in space but was attached to my person, kind of like a mini conjoined twin, and he’s loved it ever since. Sometimes I swear he’s dancing in it.

After doing a spot of shopping, we were heading back to the car when my foot caught on the edge of a garden bed. It was one of those moments that happen in slow motion while a hundred thoughts fly through your head at once: “Oh gosh, I’m falling, I’m falling, I’ve got the baby on, oh you idiot, you should have just gone AROUND, surely people have fallen over wearing a Baby Bjorn before, oh gosh what do I do what do I do, actually it would probably be worse if I was carrying him because at least now I’ve got my arms free to stop myself, PUT YOUR ARMS OUT!! AARRGGH!”

Worst Mother in the World Award, coming my way. Probably from a policeman.

Of course, my arms automatically came right out and stopped us both from doing a faceplant. When I got organised and righted myself, heart beating like the Dickens but mightily relieved, I checked over my boy, who was looking a little startled, but was otherwise unscathed. But the shock of the jolt made him begin to scrunch up his little face. Before you could say jingers, I’d whisked him out of the Baby Bjorn and wrapped him up in a great big cuddle, and he’d barely uttered a cry before he was in Mummy-Cuddle-Happy Land, all nestled in and smiling. And I thought that perhaps I didn’t need the Worst Mother in the World Award after all.

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