Jungle Hour (Baby Days)

There comes a time when you realise you’ve popped out the other side of the baby days and the world looks like a different place.

This hit me one day when I ventured out after 5pm.

There were different people out on the streets. Instead of the usual faces – mothers with strollers who you’ve smiled and waved to every day for the past few years on passing, smiley check-out ladies who’ve cooed over and witnessed your children grow up, the elderly man with the lovely manners who delightfully still tips his hat – there are different people walking the same streets. People you’ve never seen before living in your own community because you lead completely different lifestyles preventing your paths from ever crossing.

And if you venture out just after 5pm, they’re in a hurry. Instead of the leisurely pace by day, there’s a slight, more-frantic air as last-minute supermarket errands are carried out amid road rage as everyone just wants to get home from work.

Yes for those of you who are kid-free, let me enlighten you: We don’t get out much after 5pm.

Doing so could be a nightmare. This is commonly known as Jungle Hour in the family home. Witching Hour or Feeding Time At The Zoo are others. It usually occurs between the hours of 3pm-5pm when the tribe decides they’re starving. This is when you don’t listen to one of the many new-age pc rules about not using tv as a babysitter and you turn to it every time without fail out of desperation to put some food on the table and ship them off to bed.

If this is all sounding a little hazy that’s because it is, because you know what? I’ve forgotten!

It’s now a thing of the past and you don’t realise just how inundated you were until you step out the other side - and up a curb without having to always cross the road where there’s stroller-friendly access. Oh the luxuries! 

It’s these small things that make you realise. You see, there’s some of us that have probably missed a whole series of changes to the coloured lights under the canopy bridge. I mean, since when did it change from red for the 2011 Rugby World Cup to blue? (I’m only kidding, it isn’t that bad.)

Self-inflicted sleep deprivation was unheard of in the early days. On the rear occasion I’d venture out, it was hard not to count down the hours of lost sleep before my “alarm clocks” would be waking me up come 5.45am.

But now I’m happy to report I am out the other side and life just keeps getting easier.

...Just don’t mention the teenage years still ahead.