babies | Girl in Wellies

I’m no stranger to bathing young boys, having three on a dairy farm. Now. There was an evening I gave my first bath to a young baby boy that will remain with me forever. We had our first boy in February, 2009. Yes February. I was a home alone farmer’s wife with a new baby as the cows reached their peak in calving taking the brand new Daddy from my side. I knew it was coming this baby bath. The nurse had made it look so easy. And hey, I had travelled the globe alone, mastered languages, taught fourteen year olds the past tense in French, how difficult could it be? All I had to do was put this small, neigh tiny, wriggly, slippery person into warm water and wash him.

I was away from my family home, making my own home without anyone there to supervise me immersing my little person in a bath of water. I had been given several different bath temperature devices to help me find the optimum warm water; Ducks, sticks, they all eluded me. I rang a friend. I can’t do it, I asked her to come out (a twenty mile trip to help me bath a baby), she would have only she had something on and besides I could do it.

The house we rented first was freezing, it was so cold we lived in one room, our bedroom. So I carried the bath of warm water to my bedroom near but not too near the electric heater. Scary stuff. I placed his little towel on the floor, hood up and reread the chapter on bathing a new born infant from What to expect the first year. I undressed him. I remembered how my mother put an elbow in the water to make sure and then did the same. I’m sorry about this I whispered as I placed his tiny little body into the warm water. I sang. He stared intently at me not really seeing me but knowing me, trusting me implicitly. Eeek.

After a ten second dip, he was wrapped in a towel, sang to as tears ran down my face. As I type, he has just run to me for his morning cuddle, so I am assured that he is well adjusted despite his first bath by an overwhelmed mother. I cuddled him that evening to me and whilst covering him in talc powder, put on a nappy, vest and babygro one-handed and then fell asleep with him breathing gently on my chest.

There are three of them now. The youngest is growing out of his bath now and I know I’ll miss these baby baths. This time to run a cloth over their slippery wet skin and take the chance to cuddle them tightly as I take them from the water. And maybe because it’s Sunday morning but more likely because he says it better, I leave you with Seamus Heaney in memory of that first baby bath and let us offer a moment’s thought for the poor daughter-in-laws out there.

Mother of the Groom

What she remembers
Is his glistening back
In the bath, his small boots
In the ring of boots at her feet.

Hands in her voided lap,
She hears a daughter welcomed.
It’s as if he kicked when lifted
And slipped her soapy hold.

Once soap would ease off
The wedding ring
That’s bedded forever now
In her clapping hand.

It’s a farmer’s wife dreaded time of year. The Spring.

For others, it promises new life, buds pushing through the ground, lengthening days, but not generally for the busy young mother and farmer’s wife. Reality down in the farm, the Spring takes our husbands away. Makes them absent, hairier and more likely to fall asleep in obscure parts i.e. the dinner table.

It means keeping up with paperwork, parenting alone, worry over sick animals, rushed conversations in the back kitchen. This is my eighth spring in Hearthill and whilst I’m becoming used to it’s tempetuous ways, we have not yet made friends. This year especially when the season finds me heavily pregnant whilst running around after two little boys, I’m certainly not a fan.

Especially brutal is the fact that just preceding the Spring are the two months where my husband turns into a househusband, putting the kids to bed, letting me have a lie in, cuddling up on the couch for rubbish tv and generally being there whilst the cows are dried off. Bliss.

So, how this year, do I survive the Spring as I feel the Winter sprinting away from me. My survival kit;

1. There’s still time to hibernate. Catch up on lost sleep, early to bed, late to rise. Long snoozes during the day. Christmas programming means there’s lots of films for the children to enjoy whilst you all snuggle up on the couch and store up energy.

2. Try not to complain about it too much. Ops. Make it pleasant for everyone, though deeply frustrating, we’ve got to play the cards we’re dealt. Even if it means ignoring the fact that your partner may not remember your name during those sleep depraved weeks, try not to complain too much. Instead of mourning the loss of Valentine’s day, make a romantic supper for two for whatever hour he might appear at your threshold, though pinch him if he falls asleep into said romantic meal! Just a small pinch.

3. Take the children to see Dad; there are lots of safe ways to have fun on a farm, if you are blessed with little boys, you know they love nothing more than donning the wellies and getting mucky. Feed the baby calves. Let them see a cow calving. Turn up in the milking parlour to help feed the ration. Later on the spring, bring a picnic to Dad in the fields as he’s fencing. A shared flask and fairy cakes can mellow all the family’s frustrations during that busy time of year.

4. Look ahead, the season can’t last forever.