Andrew Ward Has A Baby

You would be surprised by the amount of people who have said to me
Who are you? And what are you doing in my house?
But you would also be surprised by the amount of people who have said to me
You'd make a great father, Andy. This keeps happening because ever since my
mid 20s more and more of my friends are having kids.
So this had me thinking, what was I doing in that house?
Ummm.... And also, would I make a good father? Am I
good with friend's children because they're not actually mine? I can just leave after
20 minutes if they get annoying. And why is it my friends are always tired
and they don't seem to have time to hang out with me anymore?
I mean, how hard can it be? Surely looking after a baby can't consume your whole life.
To prove that you can still live your own
life with a baby (and to find out if I really would make a good father) I will be getting
myself a baby. For a week.
And of course, with a baby comes a government funded baby bonus! And we all know what that
means. Free plasma TVs!
Of course I'm joking. I'll be spending this money decking out the
place with crap for my new baby boy, who I will call Bobbery.
I've allowed myself two days to prepare for Bobbery's arrival.
The first morning I began by installing his car seat.
This took me a little longer than I expected.
My final day of preparation was spent setting up the basinet, the playpen, the walker, the
bottles, feeding equipment, toys, the jolly jumper, and bath so everything would be perfect
for his arrival. Of course nobody would be stupid enough to
give me a real baby to look after, so I'll actually be looking after a child development
doll. (baby voice) Hello everybody!
These are typically given to teenagers at high school to get a taste of what it's like
to be a parent. (baby voice) What's wrong with my eyes?
So, it's time to be a responsible parent.
I had so much planned on my first day with baby Bobbery. I decided I would take him for
a walk every day. After our walk, I stopped off at the park
where we played a few games. Ready? Fetch!
He cried a couple of times but I just shoved one of the keys in his back to stop him.
After lunch we had an excursion to the city.
Aware that they only stay young for so long, I wanted to get some professional photos taken
with Bobbery like so many other parents do.
Hi, umm I'm here for the baby photography? Ahhh, yeah, look I'm really sorry we don't
do babies or families. We're commercial photographers so if you don't mind I'm really going to have
to ask you to ask you to... Take a seat? Okay, cool. No worries.
After the photo shoot we returned home to retire for the evening.
During the night Bobbery got a little needy so I plugged the attention key in and made
him sleep on it. Of course he still cried a bit so I didn't
get many hours of sleep that night. By day two Bobbery was already starting to
get on my tits. He wouldn't seem to stop crying no matter
which key I shoved in his back. We went for our daily walk and I threw him
in the jolly jumper hoping it would calm him down.
That evening Bobbery let loose with constant crying for what felt like 12 hours.
The following morning having slept through my alarm and more of Bobbery's attention seeking
crying we were running late all day
We still went on our morning walk but I was late for my game of tennis I arranged to play
with a friend. I hold Bobbery personally responsible for
me losing this game. A solid nights sleep would have meant I won for sure.
Extremely tired and still quite pissed off about the tennis match, I really wasn't in
the mood to go to swimming lessons with Bobbery, and I'd like to say I went because I was being
a responsible parent, but the truth was I'd already paid the fees for the term.
(baby explodes) In typical Bobbery style, he had an issue
with swimming. I tried to check the refund policy before
I left, but it didn't look promising. At home it soon became apparent that Bobbery
may have swallowed some of the water. He was sounding quite unwell and was burning
up. This night was the most difficult to get through.
If Bobbery (who now sounded like the child of Satan) wasn't crying,
I was being kept awake by the smoke detector who was in overdrive from Bobbery cooling
down until the early morning. As always day four started with our morning
walk. In the park, while Bobbery played, I reluctantly
canceled my days plans with friends because he still appeared quite unwell.
So we jumped in the car and headed to the doctor.
So what seems to be the problem today? It's my baby Bobbery, I think there's something
wrong with him. Okay, well let's have a closer look then.
Umm, you realise Bobbery's a girl?
Oh. Really? Determined to get a good nights sleep I decided
it was time for Bobberina to spend a night in the nursery I'd set up for her.
I decided we'd skip our walk on our final day together.
I couldn't do it anymore. Bobberina or whatever it's name was was doing
my head in. It consumed so much of my time and energy.
It took away my life. There was only one thing I could do.
How much for the baby? Why's it making that noise?
What noise? So what have we learnt from this exercise?
Kids aren't just for Christmas, they're for life.
You have to feed them, and walk them, and look after them.
They consume so much time, and energy, and money, and stuff.
There genuinely was more work than I was expecting because the fact is, there's no switching
off. It's not like a job where you finish at 5pm
and you can put your feet up for the rest of the day.
I had no life, no sleep, and no life. To all my friends who have kids, I'm sorry.
I now understand why we can't catch up all
the time. I understand why you're always running late.
I understand why you've let your self go.
I mean. Having kids is something that clearly shouldn't
be rushed into. It's a massive life changing commitment.
So, am I ready for kids? No. Would I make a good father? You be the judge.
But you know, as difficult a week as It was,
I really did get something out of it. A plasma TV.
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