Aunty Lemons

Tuesday witnessed a big event in our house. Aunty Lemons, Fat Chops’ godmother, changed her first dirty nappy. I was changing my 8,453th nappy at the same time so it is difficult for me to get all that excited. It was a big deal for her though.

She doesn’t have a lot of experience with babies so she practices on our boys. It may not sound like an ideal candidate for a godparent but her enthusiasm and exuberance more than make up for the lack of nappy changing talents.

I’ve been threatening to write a post dedicated to her for a while but I have real difficulty trying to explain Aunty Lemons. She is someone who works in banking but used to give my wife her bank card so that she couldn’t get into any more debt. She is someone who has a good degree [somehow ended up with Russian Politics as her subject?!?!?] but didn’t know that popcorn was made by heating corn kernels. She is someone who barely knew what end of a baby the bottle went in but is turning out to be a fantastic godparent. She is, without a doubt, one of the most entertaining people I have ever met.

In no particular order, I present some of my favourite stories about Aunty Lemons;

• We’ll start with nappy changing. Lisa is fine changing wet nappies but baulks at dirty ones. There is a rumour that she was corrected by my eleven year old niece one day when she was doing it completely wrong but my favourite story is one day when she was babysitting the boys with another friend, she refused to change a dirty nappy forcing her friend to do it. Bad enough if that friend wasn’t three months pregnant, suffering from morning sickness and hyper sensitive to smells!
• You may wonder if she is qualified to be Godmother after the previous paragraph but she ran a very convincing campaign during Hannah’s pregnancy. Yes, she campaigned for the title and in fairness has lived up to her campaign promises [if only we could say the same of politicians!]. The clincher was the limericks she wrote;

Lisa lemon is like no other,
Not like your sister or brother
Helping naming the twins,
Watching the growth of their limbs
Who better to choose for Godmother?

Who better indeed?!
• Part of her “Lisa for Godmother” campaign included making friends with the babies early. She used to talk to the boys and sing them songs before they were even born. Sounds ok but imagine one of your friends singing to your belly and then kissing it goodbye. Have you got the mental image yet? Slightly uncomfortable right?
• Aunty Lemons has been campaigning again recently. She baby-sits quite regularly but hasn’t been left alone with them as yet. Reasonable enough since she wouldn’t change a dirty nappy and has limited experience but she does a great job of staying over and then getting up with the boys and allowing us to stay in bed. She’s ambitious though and looking forward to flying solo which prompted this limerick;

There was a young girl who feared poo,
Of dirty nappies she had not the first clue,
But she'll prove them all wrong,
No matter how bad the pong,
Or else teach him to go on the loo

Again, how could you say no?
• She is a creative type. The boys were born in October but Lisa decided that it is too long to go without a present from Christmas to their birthday so she invented a half birthday to be celebrated in May and bought them gifts and a half birthday card.
• She loves playing with the boys. She called in the other night and started a game of chasing in our open plan kitchen/dining room running after Fat Chops and Monkey Boy alternately. The boys took breathers while she chased their brother but Aunty Lemons kept going until she started getting light headed and had to sit down and catch her breath.
• The creativity doesn’t stop there. What do you do when a child refuses to eat from a spoon. Most of us would either try a different spoon or engage in a battle of wills and try and force the child to eat but not Aunty Lemons! One day when faced with a stubborn Fat Chops refusing his lunch she threw him a curveball by feeding him by scooping up food on her finger and feeding him like that. I don’t know whether he was confused or amused but the bottom line is that he ate his lunch.
• That reminds me, she wrote a song for them too. It’s called The Lisa Song and is intended to help the boys say her name. Granted she started singing it to them when they were only weeks old which is a bit over-ambitious but it’s a catchy tune. I often find myself humming it after she leaves but the boys, typically, are refusing to sing along. So far! It’s a little less sophisticated than the limericks but lyrics such as “Lisa, Lisa, Lisa, Lisa” are easy for the boys to remember.

So, based on this and many other anecdotes too numerous to detail here, I’m guessing Fat Chops is going to have a great time on Saturday. I just hope that he doesn’t wriggle too much during the nappy changes.

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