Thank god for the flannies

Look, I originally planned to write something mildly hilarious about our dog Cooper. He’s really struggled with the fact that he’s no longer the dominant force in our family but to be honest, he should just get over it. I mean, give it a rest mate! Darcey is 14 months old and that’s a long time for anyone to sulk – let alone a dog.

If you believe the theory that one human year is equivalent to seven dog years, then our pooch has been sulking for a doggy decade.

To be fair to him, he’s had to make some serious adjustments. For example, we live in a high-crime area and in the past I’ve always encouraged him to let rip with a throaty roar or two when the Salvos walk by, but Darcey changed all that and Cooper has failed to grasp the new rules of post-baby barking.

‘Yes Cooper you are required to bark when somebody is at the front door.

‘No Cooper, don’t bark when Darcey is sleeping. If Darcey is sleeping and visitors arrive you must paw my leg instead, OK?

‘If an intruder breaks in when Darcey is sleeping, you are free to maul the intruder, but you must maul quietly.

‘Do you understand, Cooper? Do you understand?’

Admittedly, he’s on a steep learning curve, but who isn’t?

I’ve actually learnt that sex leads to babies. I know you’re thinking I should’ve made that connection sometime ago, but until now, I didn’t understand the true nature of sex.

In my youthful innocence – and here I mean anything pre-Darcey – I thought sex was some sort of exotic, recreational pursuit. But quite frankly, nine months after the act when the ramifications of what you have done are starting to hit home, there’s nothing exotic about a vernix covered, new-born baby that’s just been cut out of its mother’s womb.

And 14 months later there’s nothing remotely recreational about a commando-crawling toddler. As joyous and rewarding as Darcey is, she’s messier than an exploding food processor and more demanding than a scrawny seagull. No wonder the majority of couples struggle to rekindle their sex lives after they start a family.

Moments of passion are often sabotaged by a little voice somewhere that says: ‘remember what happened last time we did this?’ It is at this point, that many grown men who once revelled in the joys of sleeping starkbollock naked begin to wear flannelette pyjamas. I have two pairs.

Another thing I’ve learnt since the arrival of Darcey is that my mother is a saint. I know this sounds trite, but I’ve already sent off a recommendation to Pope John Paul II for the canonisation of Saint Elaine. Why?Because she had six kids, worked part-time as a nurse pulling three night-shifts a week, and refrained from throttling the living daylights out of any of us.

My Dad worked long hours, six days a week, but Mum was extraordinary. I look at the way Kate and I flop onto the lounge after Darcey has been put to bed and I try to imagine what it must have been like with six kids. All of us were under the age of nine, all of us were rampaging through the house and all of us were out of our minds on oxygen and milo. Her faith must have indeed been strong. But where on earth did she find the time for a bit of peace?

Ah peace. Remember that stuff? You never valued it much before but now you crave it. When your baby is sleeping, every car horn or slamming door sounds like a seismic shift. The road that passes by our house is
the main route to the hospital and at 6am linen trucks roll down it like a tank convoy. Without failure, each truck bounces over a hump in the road outside Darcey’s bedroom. At roughly the same time, I begin to bounce around a few choice words about linen truck drivers and the council workers who put the hump in the road eight months ago.

Luckily, we’ve found a holiday spot less than an hour from Melbourne that is a little slice of sanity. It’s a small cottage at the very end of a gravel road on the edge of the Wombat State Forest.
It has a wood-fired heater and late at night, when our little girl’s in bed, the only sound you can hear is the gentle clinking of hot coals. We have a glass or two of wine, look up at the stars, take a deep, deep breath, gaze into each others eyes, shuffle off to the cosy bedroom, slip beneath the covers … and snore like hibernating bears.

Thank God for flannelette pyjamas.

By Bruce Atherton

This article was first published in Australian Family Magazine, July 2003.