CHILDBIRTH ISN'T THE MIRACLE - SURVIVING PARENTHOOD IS

Thursday 29 December 2011

Health & Safety

We had an incident yesterday which pretty much sums up my 2011 Family Experience: The Toddler got a book stuck on his head.
It's true. We were having an uneventful day, aside from the usual 47 squabbles and 28 backchats, driving home merrily from a trip when lo-and-behold it all went horribly wrong. Basically, The Toddler was having a jolly old time sat in his car seat looking at his new book, when he decided to see if the front cover would fit over his head. The book has a hole in it, you see:

Once Upon A Trauma
You know that situation when a kid gets his head stuck through railings and can't get out again? Well it was that. But with a Marks and Spencer bear book, ironically designed to sooth and settle.
It took ten minutes of calming him and some crafty scissor skills to remove the book from his head. The Husband was the hero. And he had to be the hero - because I spent the entire time laughing so hard that I peed myself. It was brilliant.
This incident got me thinking about how the experts are always lecturing about Health and Safety around your children. So much so that you spend your entire parenting life thinking that you're going to kill them. But shit happens. And by shit I mean rolling off the sofa, tumbling down stairs and gagging on baby food. I defy any parent to tell me that they haven't spent hours in A&E because their baby fell off the bed.
But what these experts fail to warn us of is the Health and Safety needed to take care of us parents. For example, this book should have come with a warning that if your toddler gets it stuck on their head, you are very likely to wet yourself from laughing.

So I've done a little list to keep you parents safe:
1. You should be warned that wasted hospital trips will cause you to miss your favourite TV shows.
2. Great care needs to taken of clothes when feeding baby food. Broccoli and Uggs are not a good mix.
3. Your hands are likely to get covered in poo when emptying a potty or wiping a bum.
4. Bending down to pick up mess will hurt your back and you are likely to get many scars from stepping on Lego.
5. It needs to be quite clear that the amount of time you spend trying to not kill your offspring could actually be spent drinking gin.

Anyway, The Toddler is fine, in case you were wondering. But I'm not. My new jeans smell like wee.

18 comments:

  1. I nearly wet myself just reading about this, you reacted exactly as I would. Shame you didn't get a photo...

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  2. Haha I saw the tweet from M&S asking you to call the Customer Helpline...did wonder what it was all about.

    As usual a great post!

    Have a great New Year. x

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  3. Hee hee! This takes me back - mine are now 10 and 12 - not exactly 'safe' but a whole new set of disasters that don't involve novelty books and poo! A very funny post! Hope you manage to wash the wee out of your jeans!

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  4. I was in A&E once with MrC and could hear some giggling & general hilarity. Being a nosey cow I took a look around to see what all the fuss was about. A toddler had got a toilet training seat stuck round his neck! He'd put it over his head and then he couldn't get it off again. He looked so pissed off! Ashamed to say a laughed ......a lot!

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  5. So funny. I would have reacted in exactly the same way I think!

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  6. Lol, you should sue Marks and Spencers for that! x

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  7. Your blog totally cracked me up. I nearly wet myself last week when my daughter fell off a share approximately 1.5 seconds after I'd said be careful. The timing was utterly comedy. I could not agree with you more about the health and safety aspect - especially having spent 2.5 hours in A and E one evening at Christmas.

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  8. That is so funny - reminds me of the time my son stuck his head through the banister rails and couldn't get it back out!

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  9. Excellent! who needs professional comics when we have our little darlings!

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  10. Well, they say it's good for kids to have their head in a book...

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  11. I'm so relieved to hear that other people's houses are as up the left as ours is.

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  12. Decided tonight to read some blogs I haven't had a chance to before and after speaking on Twitter I thought I'd have a butchers at yours. I love it! You are bloody funny and that is a great story.

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  13. Awesome! Totally made me have a good laugh. I can definitely see my toddler doing that. (Note to self toss all 'large hole' books now. Thanks for the 5 tips to keep parents safe! ;)

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  14. our kids have been reasonably uneventful.... the eldest (now 8.5) was the only one who seemed to attract disaster as a newly toddling 1 year old.
    On one occation (at about 2)she locked herself in the bathroom... 7 months preggers i pulled the door of its hinge to get to her finding her mouth and hands covered in blue.
    Sje'd opened the toilet and eaten the blue loo block.... well in a fit i called hubbie who drove us to A&E. They were useless.
    I mean I have never considered keeping the packet of a one-use loo block on the off chance i neede to know what the bleach content was. Its like keeping the plastic wrapper off your toilet rolls just incase your tot eats the loo roll and A&E want to know if the paper was recycled or not.

    Anyhoo after looking up the brand they announced all was okay as that particular loo block didnt contain much active ingredient (bleach etc).
    To be honest I was more peeved at that moment that we'd been using inferior brand loo cleaners than anything else. lmao

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  15. I was forever at A&E with my youngest... he'd get crayons stuck up his nose, would fall and cut his head and he even managed to swallow a 2p piece once!

    By the way, I've included you in my list of recipients for the Versatile Blogger Award - keep up the good work x

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  16. I'm still laughing, but sympathising! My children are much older now but for a while we were weekly (and I mean weekly) visitors to our local A & E.

    Plethora of poo stories:

    my best/worst is telling sons they were responsible enough to take the dog for a walk around the village on their own. They duly scooped the poop, and the had the mother of all arguments which involved beating the shit out of each other with the full poop bags!

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