Paul Davidson
Weeknotes 050: It tickles my bum.
We took part in our own Great North Run this week. Not out with the joggers, but at home with the potty.
Piglet’s reaction was to fuse her hand to her arsecheek, as she wandered about in a state of nappyless wonder. The book The Chef had read on the matter1 advised to treat it like poker: watch for her tells, give nothing away and if she pees at the table to pick her up and plop her on the potty. (I think I remember that last one happening at a late night game in The Bay once.) This was made difficult by her tell being playing with her arse (see above) and her pee lasting all of a gushing second.
Still we felt we made alright progress on day one. I was at work for day two and could hear the setbacks though. I took over at the lunch nap and left her to self-settle. She instead elected to jump around and crap her pants. At least The Chef had some friends over in the afternoon to lower her cortisol. Piglet is firmly in the toddler, “No! Mine!” stage of sharing. We’ll have to plan for a few more visitors to smooth that out.
Day three something clicked and we mostly hit the potty. The evening I read a story to her while she stared fixedly into my eyes, puce, and did her business. From there we’ve only improved. Chatting to other parents, that was a quick training.
I’m still in the spare room while The Chef fights off the remnants of her cold. It means I’ve been up through the night while Piglet teethes(?). I accidentally confined her to bed when I asked her to try and sleep while I lay down. I left her for an hour and she looked up as I returned and asked if she was allowed to leave the bed to play. We continued the story of the little boy on his bike. He’s become a cypher for her to process her experiences.
At work, my tiredness has been amplified by a week of contracts, paperwork and admin. These weeks have to happen sometimes, but they’re bloody dull.
The constant up-and-down did give me the chance to finish reading the Tiffany Aching stories. The final back matter which describes how Pterry was a beloved writer still hits.
We finished the week with a Chef birthday / friend’s wedding one-two. I bunked off to go for a delightful meal out complete with champagne and chablis for The Chef, while I nursed sparkling water. My revenge was to inflict the woohooctopus playlist on her during the drive. She fell asleep, upset by the jarring tonal shifts, but pleased at the banger ratio.
I’ve never managed to get Scotch Corner’s electric chargers to work and there are only three at Wetherby. It meant lots of waiting round and polite small talk while queuing. For petrol sales to stop in 9 years, infrastructure is going to need some major work. Good job we’ve a competent government who are up the task…
By the time we got down to Derbyshire we were well past mingling mood and hid in the AirBnB with wine, junk food and Yasmin Williams. The place was a converted barn and the definition of quaint. It was providential that we spent the evening relaxing there because we woke to a “Thank you for your stay” note. Turns out we’d booked one night instead of two. We managed to book a Travelodge for the night. A downgrade to be sure, but in terms of time to screw it up, a post-wedding, child-free night with no plans the next day is about the best we could ask for.
The wedding itself was a marriage between two small Yorkshire villages. A background soundtrack of thees and thous through the day. The boxes all ticked: happy couple, tearful parents, good speeches, easy table company2 and catching up with people not seen in the flesh since pre-Covid. The lack of masks indoors wasn’t entirely comfortable and when the band shorted the power with a rousing Jailhouse Rock, we took our chance to slink away and let some of Yorkshire’s finest hit the shots.