A Constant State of Indigestion.....

A couple of weeks ago I was visited by a friend who was only days away from having her first child and she was understandably full of questions for me. One of the things she asked me if there was anything that I had that I couldn't live without.

My reply was 'a lap tray'. For those of you who don't know what I mean, it's a small tray with a bean bag attached to the bottom so you can have it on your lap and it's stable as it moulds to your legs.

My friend was a bit startled by my choice but I pointed out that I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of meals I'd managed sat at a table since DD was born and she has an uncanny knack of deciding she is starving just as my food is ready. So basically the lap tray was my only means of fending off starvation until she's old enough to feed herself.

The advantage of the lap tray is that I can feed DD on one side and balance the tray on the other and so get my food, maybe not piping hot but at least luke warm.

There are disadvantages of course. The main one being that you have to either have food that naturally comes served in bite size pieces or you have to have your other half cut it up into those bite size pieces as you only have one hand to work with. It's also not that useful when the baby gets her timing wrong and so is feeding on my left side as, being left handed, eating with my right hand is not as simple.

There are not really any words that can describe the degree of difficulty there is when you attempt to feed your baby and eat spaghetti bolognaise with your non-dominant hand whilst ensconced in an arm chair unable to move any part of your body other than your arm because that would dislodge the tray and the baby...

Another major disadvantage is that you end up with a baby covered in the debris of whatever it is you're eating. I've lost count of the number of times I've had to pick crumbs off various parts of her body with various levels of success. Dry food would, at first, appear a better choice as at least it doesn't stain like spaghetti sauce can on nice white baby clothes, but once you've had to attempt to remove a tiny piece of garlic bread crumb that landed on your baby's top lip and then she conveniently breathed in so it shot up her nose you'll learn to live with stains.

Last night DBF brought home take out. Big mistake as this has to be eaten straight away as it arrives in the house already lukewarm so I'm on to a real loser if I don't. DD was actually asleep when he arrived but by the time the food was served she was awake and sitting in her bouncy chair. As usual, the minute we started eating she started complaining and we found ourselves eating faster and faster in a rhythm matching her cries as they got louder and louder. Consequently we ate in under five minutes, barely tasted the food and spent the rest of the evening with a mild bout of indigestion.

My step-dad said to me, quite soon after DD was born, that the only thing you have to remember is that she doesn't do anything on purpose as she's too little to know what she's doing. That maybe true but sometimes I swear we have a demon child that sits and plots her next move whilst wearing an angelic smile...