11 months, 3 weeks & 2 days into Daddyhood

I am working on greater tolerance. It isn’t easy. Every fibre of my being (he said, perhaps a little over-emphatically) cries out, Dirt is bad! – but I do, I really do, want to overcome this. Ever since being a child myself, I have always had something of an aversion to it. But… dirt is not just not-bad… it is good! Mess is good! Dirt is freedom! It is a better immune system! It is fun!

Yesterday Talise’s mum said, when we were having a bit of family time outside, in the garden, in the sun, that I should, upon removing a dirty nappy, leave the nappy off…! The horror! What if she gets grass on her bits?! (“What if she does?” said Mummy)… What if…? (“What?” said Mummy; “What’s the worst that can happen?”)

So I did.

I left the nappy off.

And you should have seen the smile as her cute little squidgy bare bot touched grass! :)

She crawled… she sat… she played with stones and grass and bits of God-knows-what-else… and what we couldn’t wipe off with a cursory waft of a wipe, we sluiced off in her bath that evening… and all was well and nothing disastrous happened and a pleasant hour or so in the garden was had by all…

I shall now work towards permitting paint, Play-Doh and plasticine…