"Run for your lives! There's a shit cloud coming!"

My little ladies.  One slightly shittier than the other. — My little ladies. One slightly shittier than the other.

Mila, if you’re reading this from the future, I apologise. Perhaps someone has dredged this up on your wedding day and decided to embarrass you. Perhaps that someone is me! To be fair it does sound like something I would do, and in that case I apologise again, but this week you’ve had diarrhoea. A lot of diarrhoea. Basically our week has been a huge tsunami of baby shit from start to finish and it all came out of your little baby butt.

It started just before we went away for a few days. I’m not at home, but I get a WhatsApp message rom Zsuzsa…

“She just had a Niagara Falls of poo!”

I put two and two together and decide that Zsuzsa’s talking about Mila, not her mother who she’d been speaking to earlier.

We’d planned to go away for a few days to visit the in-laws, and despite our worry that this is just the beginning of a vicious assault on our senses, we decide to stick to our plans.

A few shit filled days later and we return home. It hits us instantly. A wall of stench.

“What the hell is that smell!?” asks Zsuzsa.

“Smells like someones shat in our radiators!” I gasp.

“There must be a rogue shitty nappy somewhere in the flat.” Zsuzsa deduces.

And so we set to work. We search every nook and cranny of the flat. I’m surprised as I previously didn’t realise how many nooks that our flat had. I've often suspected that our flat had more than its fair share of crannies, but not so many nooks. We search for about half an hour, find nothing, and eventually give up. We are beginning to accept that we will always live in a bog of eternal stench, but we’re hoping that eventually, we will become accustomed to the smell. Dinner parties might be a hard sell though.

The next day, I escape from our cloud of shit particles and head to the office. A few hours later and I get another WhatsApp message from Zsuzsa…

“Her little bum is red and sore and her tummy is still upset. I’m using a camomile tea infused Muslim to wipe her butt.”

I’m guessing the Muslim is probably equally as upset as Mila’s tummy is, perhaps even more so. Zsuzsa will later accuse autocorrect, saying that she meant muslin (cloth), but I have my doubts. I’m blaming Donald Trump.

It’s now Friday. We eventually found the rogue nappy (hiding in the bathroom bin). Mila is supposed to have a swimming lesson and to be fair her shit festival appears to be coming to an end, but just to be safe we decide to give swimming a miss. Instead, like some kind of wild, rock n’ roll rebel, I’ve decided to pop Mila into her buggy and visit the local shopping centre to buy a pepper grinder.

Feeling like Iggy Pop I'm now in a kitchen utensil shop looking for pepper grinders, but something catches my eye. It’s a massive glass piggy bank. I instantly decide that this is what is missing from my life. This is the item to complete our joyous existence. I pick the piggy bank up, pop it under my arm and head towards the counter. Being the conscientious Dad that I am, I look in the buggy to check on our little shitty cub. A glassy eyed, motionless baby face stares back at me. I look closer. Still no movement. My heart begins to pound. I wave my free hand back and forth, millimetres from her face. Nothing.

“Oh my God! Mila!”

I’m panicking. With my free hand I slap her chubby little baby cheeks a few times. Mila turns and looks at me, a look of shock on her face. She had for some reason unbeknownst to me, decided to fall asleep with her eyes wide open. I was gentle with my slapping, but her expression tells me that this was not how she wanted to be roused from her slumber.

So, if you happened to be in a kitchen utensil shop in Budapest on Friday morning and saw a man, holding a massive piggy bank with one hand, whilst frantically slapping a baby with his other, that was me.

And Mila, I apologise again, this time for waking you up by slapping your little baby face, but now it’s time for you to apologise. You need to apologise for sending me in to a blind panic by sleeping with your goddamn eyes open in a kitchen utensil shop in Budapest on January 27th, 2017! Who the hell does that!?

Happy wedding day by the way. Enjoy the rest of 2046.

Déjà Pooh

This little face hasn't been this worried since her last bath-time.

“Honey! Can you please stop watching the election!? Mila keeps looking at the light on your phone and won’t go to sleep!” Zsuzsa whispers loudly.

“But it’s the American election! A historic moment! I just want to watch it until some of the results come in so that I can sleep soundly knowing that The Donald isn’t going to win.”

I’m actually watching an iguana fight a gang of snakes on YouTube.

“Okay, but at least go under the covers or something so that Mila can’t see the light.”

Under the covers I go. Things are not looking good for the iguana.

I have been watching the election. The reptilian battle royale was just a brief respite from the political, potential catastrophe. For the last couple of days I’ve had a horrible feeling that the orange, leather faced, sex pesty one was going to clinch it. The polls and the bookies all suggested that Hilary was going to reign victorious, but we’ve been here before haven't we? My impending doom sensors had been tingling. Less than five months ago I lay in the same bed in our Budapest flat, heavily pregnant wife beside me and watched in horror as my home country slowly committed hari kari and voted to leave the EU. Now, I’m lying here again, twenty percent poorer due to the bastardly Brexit, wife and three month old baby by my side, worrying about the state of the world in which little Mila will blossom.

"Run you crazy little iguana! Run as fast as your scaly little legs will carry you! You must escape the clutches of these slithery beasts!"

It’s been a funny day full of anniversaries and achievements. It’s exactly a year ago since my first book, Ferocious Dennis was published, and also exactly a year ago since Mila became more than just a twinkle in her mother’s eye. I’ve also started a new job at a funky media agency in the beating heart of Pest. I should be happy and proud, but there is an ominous orange shadow hanging over me, breathing it’s foreboding breath upon the nape of my neck.

A few minutes later and I’m still under the covers clutching my phone. Things are not looking good. The iguana is hopelessly outnumbered as the dastardly snakes attack! As well as that, the first results from the first few states have trickled through. Trump is leading 19 to 3. I quickly check The New York Times forecaster. They are still predicting a Clinton victory with an 82% likelihood. Good odds, but I’m still uneasy. Maybe it’s the sense of déjà vu engulfing me.

“Honey! Mila can still see the light through the duvet! Please! I need to get to sleep and you’ve got work in the morning.”

“Okay, okay.”

“How’s it looking?”

“Well Trump is ahead, but the forecasts are still predicting a Clinton win. Maybe he was always predicted to win these states.”

I don’t know who I’m trying to convince. Zsuzsa or myself. If it’s myself I’m doing a lousy job.

I watch the iguana make a miraculous escape, decide enough is enough, put my phone down and try to go to sleep. It takes a while, but I eventually drift off. I dream that I am in Wales. I’m in my recently deceased Grandma’s house. Donald Trump is sitting in her chair. He’s wearing an ill-fitting t-shirt with a Welsh flag design. He’s just sitting there, staring at me with his stupid face and silly hair flapping about. A snake slithers passed. I hear a baby cooing and I’m yanked from my dreamland. It’s Mila. She’s decided that as it’s 0600 it’s time to wake up. I reach for my phone, check the news. Bum. This is like Steve Brookstein winning The X-Factor all over again, but much, much worse.

A few hours later and I’m in the office for my second day at work. I’m sitting on the toilet reading the outpouring of woe on social media. I reach for the toilet paper. Holy mother of God! There isn’t any! Armageddon has already begun! I sit there panicking for a few moments trying to work out what to do? What would Batman do if he was stuck on a toilet, on his second day at a new workplace? I decide that he'd probably keep some spare toilet paper in his utility belt, the uber prepared rubber suited prick! Well screw you and your utility belt Batman! I'm going to do this my way! So, absolutely terrified, I stealthily make my way across the toilet room floor, shuffling like a penguin with my trousers around my ankles. I successfully complete my mission. I will be clean! I will not have an unspeakable second day at work that will haunt me forever!

Back at my desk I ponder the events of the last twenty four hours or so. Things are looking decidedly bleak, but then I remember our friend the iguana. Things didn’t look great for the iguana, but did he give up? Did he fuck!

Maybe that's the answer! Maybe we should all be more iguana. Either way, I'm sure things will be alright in the end.

They will won't they?

The most thrilling action sequence of all time?