Horror stories

While most friends who are already parents couldn’t be more supportive about our impending initiation into the world of sleeplessness and shit-filled nappies, there are a few who seem to take a sadistic pleasure in scaring the pee out of us. Our neighbour who, to be fair, has survived two years with the screamiest child I have ever encountered, cackled somewhat maniacally when we told him the news. Then he said something which I think reveals a little more about his relationship than it does about parenting in general – “You’ll find yourself biting your lip a lot,” he said sagely to S, casting me in the role of unreasonable harridan, and S as the heroically long-suffering spouse. Interesting. I had always had his wife down as the kind of unflappable, capable type and him as a slightly feckless twat who sucked down can after can of Tennants like it was some kind of surrogate nipple. Gosh, how wrong I must be.

Then there’s my brother and his wife who, to be fair, had no intention of scaring us. It’s just that as veterans of a tag team of twin girls who never, in the first 18 months of their lives, managed more than about 90 minutes both asleep at the same time, my brother and sister-in-law have done parenthood in a way most people can’t fully conceive. Their reminiscences are like the scene from Jaws in which everyone compares their horrific shark attack injuries. The way my brother describes it, juggling twins is like grappling with some kind of human Catherine wheel which is spraying projectile vomit and liquefied poo everywhere. Then he gets started on the snot stories and his wife cracks her knuckles, ready to step in with the tale of ‘the tummy bug that took out the entire family, twice.’ Fortunately, they are both so exhausted that they fall asleep by about 9.30 so we are spared the part of the conversation that deals with kids, and the horrendous freak accidents that can befall them.