Baby Brain (noun): A condition which begins in pregnancy, is often worsened in the early days of child rearing and continues for the rest of a woman's child bearing years. Symptoms may include but are far from limited to: feeling "foggy headed," forgetful and incapable of completing the simplest tasks. Speech and thoughts may often be incoherent and the ability to follow simple instructions greatly reduced. Condition often worsened by breast feeding, colic or infant illness. There is no known treatment or cure.

I blame it on the hormones. Pure and Simple. There is no other explanation for it. Why else would you find two heavily pregnant women and their snotty, overtired offspring (one of them, guess whose, clad in nought but a onesie and a heavily soiled t-shirt with a shitty nappy hanging to her knees and snot coating her face) gazing at a 7 foot tall locked gate discussing the best means by which to get over it.

Not my finest hour.

The day began promisingly enough. After a morning spent ransacking the local supermarket where everything was marked half price in their relocation sale, I returned home laden down with nappies, wipes and enough canned goods, washing up liquid and cereals to see us through the apocalypse. Or at least get us by the first few weeks with a new baby.

As the lovely Jen was visiting along with her daughter crazypixie, I decided to forego putting away my items in favour of simply unbagging them on the counters and leaving the organization for later.

Had a lovely afternoon spent talking and laughing over great food and a surprisingly pleasant bottle of non alcoholic wine whilst the small ones frolicked in the sun and gibbered away to each other in a language only they understood.

After a few hours though, their happy shrieks turned to tired tears as nap time approached. After several falls and an accidental kick in the face, we decided to call it a day and so packed up our dirty divas and headed inside. Jen and Crazypixie grabbed their gear and I, holding the quickly fading Snot Queen walked them out to their car to say goodbye. The little ones, upon discovering this fascinating new world known as "the front yard" got a second wind so we let them run off the last of their energy while we chatted away some more.

And that's when it happened.

My heavy, wooden, self locking front door swung shut with a bang. Which wouldn't be a problem had I the keys with me. Guess what? I didn't. No bother, the back door was open, we'd let ourselves in that way! Ummmm... good plan, if the side gate wasn't bolted and locked and the key wasn't on himself's keyring a good twenty minutes drive away.

Which brings us back to two heavily pregnant women staring silently at a 7 foot tall locked gate and wondering which of them was less likely to break the recycling bin if used as a ladder.

Luckily, one of the neighbor's was outside cleaning his driveway and when approached by two highly hormonal and heavily pregnant women bearing filthy, overtired offspring, was more then happy to grab his wife and head off to ours where we all stood gazing at the gate.

In the end, it was decided that he and not I would do a manly leap over the fence and so would enter the house from the back and let myself and the snot queen in the front door.

It wasn't until We'd said our thank you's and farewells and I'd re entered my house that I realized something. My beautiful home, which had been spotless that morning, now looked, thanks to several mountains of canned goods and nappies as well as an afternoon of laziness where the motto was "don't worry! I'll clean up later!" like it had been invaded by squatters.

My daughter, who had started the day sweet smelling, beautiful and clad in the sweetest of sundresses was now half naked (the sundress disposed of for easier romping in the back garden) with a teary, snot encrusted face and a full nappy courtesy of the giant poo she'd done whilst talking to our new hero's lovely, clean and most likely does not have a home which looks like it was invaded by squatters, wife.

So much for first impressions!

Glass of Non Alcoholic wine anyone? Make mine a double.