Loose nappies sink ships when it comes to keeping secrets from nurseries
DOUBLE TROUBLE FOR A FIRST-TIME DAD OF TWINS
“THEY probably won’t catch it but there’s a nasty bug going around,” Kathy the nursery assistant whispered in a conspiratorial voice.
“They’ll be fine, they’ve only just got over one, I’d be surprised if they were ill again,” I replied in a wildly optimistic fashion. The nursery was certainly a few babies down, which implied that the threat had been isolated.
Indeed the next day, it looked like Thomas and Emma were some sort of genetic superbabies.
This theory was tested when I collected them and Kathy said they’d had a few ‘loose nappies’. Initially, there was confusion over the terminology. I thought ‘loose nappy’ might be a specific complaint about the construction of the product.
In fact, a loose nappy is not a technical matter but a physical one. We chose not to panic yet though because the twins were still smiling and ate dinner without any kerfuffle down below.
Until Thomas’ cod and spinach in cream sauce made a surprise reappearance.
Again, I wasn’t worried. I pointed out to Victoria lots of people might be sick after eating cod and spinach in cream sauce.
And he was coughing a bit so that provided an adequate explanation. It was definitely something stuck in his throat.
Despite this positivity, I could sense there was tension as we both pondered the possibility of missing work to look after a couple of vomiting babies.
Even on a bad day, working is far better than caring for babies with a vomiting bug.
The morning would provide the answer and it replied with
nappies so loose, they were almost non-existent.
To add to our woes, nursery was on lockdown, they’d adopted a zerotolerance stance in a bid to halt the spread. If there was one, just one, loose nappy then we would be summoned to collect the twins and take them home.
I explained that they seemed fine, had incredibly firm nappies and made a run for it.
It was only a matter of hours, maybe minutes before one of them blew. We were living on borrowed time and we both had stuff to do. Time ticked very slowly but we made it to 10am, then 11 and then I felt a rush of optimism. Midday rolled around so maybe they’d managed to keep a lid on it. And then at precisely 1.42pm the nursery phoned. The game was up; Emma had been sick on the climbing frame and Kathy was struggling to keep up with the volume of their movements.
It was time to cancel all plans, stock up on wet wipes and brace ourselves for the apoo-calypse.