A couple of weeks ago I had lunch with a friend in his 50s who has never married or had children. Over lunch he laughingly described a sum of money as being insufficient “to keep you in nappies.” “Of course,” he corrected himself “they must all be out of nappies by now.” “Actually, they’re not,” I said. As a single man with no children (therefore not possessed of the exquisite tact of fellow parents in relation to advice) and distinctly firm views on the rearing of same (in his 50s), he yelped in horror “Three and not out of nappies.”
This made me think and I determined that the time had come to attempt to move the boys out of nappies. For a couple of weeks I trailed the idea of only one bottle at bedtime. When that was successfully executed I moved on to trailing “no bottle, no nappy” which the boys greeted with great excitement. On Friday night we had no bottles and no nappies. On Saturday morning, they were dry. Hurrah. “Tús maith, leath na hoibre,” opined my husband. “What’s that ‘doucement’?” I enquired. “No, it’s Irish, a good start is half the work,” said he. And we had another dry night last night. Could it possibly be that easy?
