By REBECCA SPARROW
How quickly we forget.
A few weeks ago a friend of mine gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.
Hurrah! Hurrah for the safe arrival of her bald-as-an-egg, chubby-cheeked, smoochalicious son. Hurrah that my friend too is doing well. And hurrah that I have an excuse to go shopping for ALL THE BABY THINGS.
Online shopping for babies is a rabbit-hole down which I happily scamper at 10 o’clock at night.
Squishy fabric rattles shaped like pirates. Exquisite impossibly tiny jumpsuits with ponies and ducklings and rabbits. Maybe I’d buy some beautiful muslin wraps? That first snugly teddy? A copy of Where The Wild Things Are?
Or.
Or I could get something for ‘mum’.
Thick luscious hand cream. A French Pear candle. A pretty tin of Camomile tea. A teacup.
I had one hundred ideas all jumbled in my head. All of them waiting to be wrapped in a big blue satin bow and delivered to my friend.
And then the universe decided to point out that I was an idiot; that I needed a refresher course in new motherhood.
Just days later I was taking my son for his 12-month vaccinations at our local baby clinic. I got there early so that I could beat the queues and still make it to school pick-up on time for my 5 year old.
What this meant is that I was alone in the waiting area – well, alone and balancing a squirming pudding of a baby on my lap – when she walked in.