Every Sunday morning for the past month or so, our budding family is up at the crack of dawn for Water Babies class. This, initially, was something about which I was really excited. The lustre has worn off a bit, not just because of the early hour, but also because I’m just not sure if the boy is enjoying it. His Mum says that it’s during his morning nap time, but in order to keep him in the water we’ve got to provide him with a little rubber fish that he tries to decapitate throughout the class. Not the Water Babies model student.
Another part of Water Babies that I’m struggling with is the competitive Dad aspect of the class. All of our kids are far too young for their to be much comparing and contrasting in their performances. But I can see embryonic “crazy soccer Dad” in the eyes of some of my fellow fathers - particularly in the locker room before and after class.I’ve never been particularly good at the whole locker room banter thing - it’s always about sports, girls and other topics at which I have little talent. It has been particularly tough in Britain, where I don’t understand most of the sports that guys talk about. Water Babies adds a whole new dimension, because these are posh dads. Dr. OC couldn’t abide our Zach swimming with the commoners, so our class is held at one of the most exclusive boys’ schools in the south of England. When you get a group of dads together, particularly a group of posh dads, the locker room banter topics are slightly different, among things like engine size of your Land Rover and the cost of your extension, a lot of time tends to be spent on the kids and their particular talents.
Somehow, and I fear it was my fault for whining about the early morning start of swimming class, conversation turned to our infants’ sleep habits - a topic that allowed for competitive boasting. One posh dad smugly declared:
“My Jonty sleeps through the night once we give him his last feed at 10.”
A second dad, with the glow of an imminent one-up, said:
“Well, that’s just great, Maysie* has dropped that late feed and is sleeping from her dinner at 7 through until 6 the next morning.”
The third Dad could barely contain himself as he tittered and said, “I’m just waking Harry up for the first time since his dinner at six last night.”
I was waiting for one of the Dads to say that his kid neither woke nor ate except for the weekly swimming class. I didn’t participate in this particular pissing contest. What could I really say? “Oh yeah, well my kid wakes up every quarter hour screaming for his dummy (pacifier), he pissed on his own face this morning and he the only way he’ll do the swimming class is with a plastic fish stuck in his mouth. What do you think of that!?!”
Posh bastards.
* Yes, these are real names.
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24 responses so far ↓
1 alice // Mar 10, 2008 at 4:20 pm
LOL!
Oh, I think you’ve got the posh dads beat, hands down!
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2 Sinead // Mar 10, 2008 at 4:34 pm
I don’t know why this post made me laugh so much, because it is me who gets up every 15 minutes! I dream of Zach sleeping through the night and feel refreshed when he goes 4 hours between feeds, I can’t even contemplate going to bed at 10 and not being woken before 6 am the following morning.
3 Not Afraid To Use It // Mar 10, 2008 at 4:58 pm
God that sounds like what I had to put up with in Tahoe. My poor husband standing in the kitchen with “the guys” and listening them complain about the shit snow we’d had. Then one suggested they watch the weather in Utah and just “charter the plane” if the snow looked good. Husband walked away at that point.
I don’t know if you have wandered over that way, but go and check out The Blogfathers at http://www.theblogfathers.com I am a fan, and it sounds like you would enjoy them. I found them via AdventureDad.
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4 Jessica K // Mar 10, 2008 at 5:19 pm
If it makes you feel any better about your parenting skills, Grant woke up for a midnight feed until he was almost two years old. So I stink worse than any of them. Also, we resorted to co-sleeping with Grayson, or he would never have slept through the night at all.
We have sort of the same situation going at Grayson’s kindergarten. Apparently it’s where all the doctors and lawyers send their kids. We seem to be the only ones who don’t take ski trips and Disney vacations at every possible school break. We’re doing well to come up with tuition!
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5 Jared // Mar 10, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Hehe! The Water Babies class looks pretty cool. I’m not into bragging and boasting about my sons behaviors, or comparing him to others (except for on my blog)
I like your attitude about the situation…
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6 Nichole // Mar 10, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Jonty? You’ve got to be kidding me. Is it short for something? That’s wacky. (Says the mother of Piper, who probably shouldn’t throw UnusualName stones.)
7 Maggie // Mar 10, 2008 at 10:06 pm
HA!
Yuck.
Give ‘em hell.
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8 Matthew // Mar 10, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Great post. Made me laugh.
9 CDV // Mar 10, 2008 at 11:49 pm
I’m pretty sure that Jonty is short for Jonathan the Seventeenth Earl of Sutton Courtenay.
10 strangescottishgirl // Mar 11, 2008 at 2:14 am
fucking hilarious. cos it’s soooo true. love it.
i bet some people try for ages to piss on their own faces. not. anyways, as you’re leaving, why dont you try and shock them, would be fun, eg. to “my son sebastien sleeps 7 hrs straight and can recite the german alphabet backwards” reply “god, zach only does that when i let him play with the crack pipe” or ” you eeenligh are strange, we americans like to keep our sons awake and drink molsen and watch soft porn til the early hours”. i dunno, would keep me amused
11 Jamie // Mar 11, 2008 at 6:50 am
Strangescottishgirl is right - you have to counter that crap - I like to say “Well, Chloe’s last finger painting looked just like “Dejeuner sur l’herbe,” which is pretty amazing as she has only seen the painting twice.” That is not as good as molsen and porn, but usually ends any competitive bragging - and trust me it only gets worse - at least sleeping is sort of random, soon you will be getting “Our little Ripples already counts to 30.” Ugh.
And Ripples is a real name.
12 Aish // Mar 11, 2008 at 10:19 am
everyone gets sucked into the world of braggin !!…and comparing the development of your child to another is something you will have to get used too … it exists in every aspect of life …child growth curves…schooling…swimming …cycling…it only feels good when your kid is on top of the game
13 SSG // Mar 11, 2008 at 1:45 pm
do parents still compare themselves? ie. i did such and such in the gym or at work? or does everything go on the child as though that is a reflection of them? and does it allow them to brag more as they are only talking about the child and not about themselves? or do you feel it is all about you? just wondering….
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14 CDV // Mar 11, 2008 at 2:40 pm
McMentalist, are you trying to ask if we compare tackle in the locker room? Perv.
15 arizaphale // Mar 11, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Oh tell em to f* ck off!
They probably compare their sons’ tackles in the locker rooms……..
17th Earl of Sutton Courtney
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16 Nathan B. // Mar 11, 2008 at 3:29 pm
I could’ve done without any references to Chris’ tackle…
17 CDV // Mar 11, 2008 at 3:38 pm
All this talk about tackle reminds me that one of Zach’s aunts (who shall remain nameless, but there are only two and it wasn’t my sister) cast aspersions on the, um, dimensions of his tackle. So it’s not the Dads.
18 Jessica K // Mar 11, 2008 at 4:31 pm
I’ll tattle on Jeff. He has most definitely compared our boys’ tackle with their cousins and such.
We win.
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19 Nathan B. // Mar 11, 2008 at 5:01 pm
I would think that it’s more important to win that contest at age 18 though…
20 Sinead // Mar 11, 2008 at 5:19 pm
How did this become a discussion about the size of my 6 month old sons tackle???
21 strangescottishgirl // Mar 11, 2008 at 11:58 pm
lol sorry bout that. but that’s not what I meant! honest! and how do you think your son is going to feel after reading this post when he grows up… I hope you’re saving for the therapy costs…!!!!
22 Busy Dad Mumbles // Mar 12, 2008 at 4:14 am
Oh ! Jolly Good! My home Country bested your home country in a number of military events…..oh my.
My Land Rover.. purchase a Ford Truck and a Budweiser and give me call…
Then when they start talking about sports tell them you have their Premier Cup. Yours and your sons is XXXL.
Make sure you application to another country is prepared. They don’t have a sense of humor.
When Posh kids pee in the pool is it a different color?
Great post.
23 cynematic // Mar 12, 2008 at 9:42 am
Someone should tell Sir Jonty’s dad that it’s spelled “jaunty.”
I’m so bad. I snerked at a helpless infant. Or rather his father.
Zach’s looking mighty cute!
24 arizaphale // Mar 13, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Oh by the way…I am 32% toff on the quiz. I am frightened to take the chav test…..
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