Louisa Simmonds

Bubba courtesy of crakerk69 at http://www.flickr.com

Kurt and I are going on a mini break together to meet his newborn cousin today.

He is very excited. I have some concerns.

My son has never met a real, live baby before. I am trying to put the concerns I have about his preconceptions about them to the back of my mind.

Here are a few random ones:

He thinks they are born with a full set of teeth.

He still believes that taking a baby for a walk involves a leash.

He refers to her as ‘it’.

He doesn’t understand why we can’t leave her at home when we go out.

He is still confused about whether she is his niece or cousin.

He can’t remember her name.

His biggest fear is catching sight of his auntie’s nipple while she is breastfeeding. My sister is a raging hippy and will definitely whip them out at every opportunity, so I have tried to prepare him.

My other concern centres around traces of illegal substances, lighters and weapons being found in his bag at the airport so that I look like a ‘bad mother’ in front of airport security – like I did during the BB gun incident in Bali.

English: Security checkpoint at Seattle Tacoma (SeaTac) International Airport (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have had to put a post-it on my bag that reads ‘no tweezers’ because I always forget and I ALWAYS get stopped and searched. It’s one of the few times in the new, middle-aged existence where I am not ‘invisible’. It’s like I have this beacon on my head that says ‘search me – I could do with a good grope!’

We are both highly anxious people and flying is not our favourite pastime. The last time we flew together, Kurt projectile-vomited all over me as we stepped off the plane and he has been hyper-focusing on the Malaysian air tragedy since it happened and keeps asking me about fly-zones.

I have had to run through our schedule at least twenty-five times already this morning and he has asked me to check his bag daily since he began packing two weeks ago.

I have six wiry, new grey hairs that have defied the bleach.

I have caught myself looking longingly at the wine rack several times since breakfast.

New babies, flying and ADHD.

#Flying #newbabies #Anxiety #Humor #teenagers #ADHD #MentalHealth #Parenting