I find the repetitive nature of the days on maternity SO boring, especially as both children thrived on a routine and slept/ate/behaved like shit if I went with the flow and had any fun.
So currently it’s up, nappy, milk, play while we make breakfast, clear up breakfast, nap, milk, class, lunch, milk, nap while I clear up lunch, play, milk playground, dinner, play, bath, milk, bedtime EVERY FUCKING DAY AND IT IS A SISYPHEAN NIGHTMARE OF DULLNESS. Occasionally enlivened by a new tooth so at least you get to add Calpol to the task list, a change is as good as a rest.
But him, the actual baby? God, he’s just the nicest, happiest, chubbiest, cleverest, roly-polyest astonishingly nicest fat babboo that there ever was and I could eat him up, every day. I love every fat inch of him when he kisses me and cuddles me and does that weird thing where they squeeze your upper arm over and over again with their claw fingers; his smile is wonderful. Do I also live for his lunchtime nap and the evening after he goes to bed, so I can read a book and use my brain for something that isn’t Wind the Bobbin Up? Good god, yes.
I think Judith Kerr said small children are interesting and boring in equal measure. It’s fun seeing a baby see something new and you realise that everything in the world is as fresh as a fish if it’s the first time you’re seeing it: the bin lorry! A supermarket! A swimming pool! A cardboard box! And as they get bigger they’re still discovering, and they tell you things, including jokes. But it is also very boring wiping bums and going “oh yes what an interesting sea creatures fact from Octonauts” and “gosh, yes, I’m watching you hop”. It’s both at the same time. The good outweighs the bad, for me, and even on the most stupefying day one of them does something hilarious and lovely or you hug them and smell them and it’s like nothing on earth.