Today was the first taster day at nursery for the child. It was actually only an hour, but the idea was to give her an look at what she’ll be up to on Fridays from now on. Obviously, it’s nothing to do with letting the child see what she’s going to be doing and more to do with showing the parents that their precious baby will be safe even without them there.
Still, I went along at eleven and we were introduced to the staff and other babies in the green room. Not, a green room in the Friday Night with Jonathan Ross kind of green room, but literally a room painted green. It is here that my precious collection of 23 chromosomes, snot, shit and dribble will be looked after as I try and scratch a living out of the English language.
I was worried that the child would simply cling to me and cry with all the noise and unusual surroundings. I needn’t have worried. As I struggled to release her from the papoose baby N began to shift and squirm. At first I was confident that this could be calmed by a soothing hug from her second most trusted parent and once I could work out how to get us both extricated from the seemingly endless collection of tabs, straps and clips she would be fine.
Once I had found the solitary Kwik-release button and freed the 9kg terror I embraced her for that much needed hug. A hug to calm her nerves and to make her feel safe. Of course, she simply squealed kicked me and struggled to escape my arms so that she could go and play with all the other babies. The cow.
There then followed the form filling and discussions about nappies and pureed, slightly chunky or, indeed chunky food options. All the while my precious bundle of joy happily played in the corner with a bowl and plastic leaf. I was pleased to see that in a room full of toys she displayed the same disdain for pricey, colourful stuff when there’s a cheaper option available as she does at home, a true Yorkshire girl already.
I’d worked the papoose out in reverse so it only took about 20 minutes of pushing and poking to get her in and clamped to my chest at an angle which made it easy for her to kick me in the nuts. Clearly this girl does not want siblings. And with a single wave of the hand and a barely audible ‘buh bye’ I was ready to leave.
She returns tomorrow with her mother for another taster session but I feel the real test will come on Friday when we leave her in the morning and don’t come back till late afternoon. There will be tears, but somehow we’ll have to get over that and ignore the fact that she hasn’t even noticed we’re no longer in the room.
