Watching my No.1 son tower over me (which is no mean feat when your Mum stands almost 6′ in her socks), I can’t help but heave a sigh of nostalgia.
I know we all say it, but how does it happen? How is it that you turn around twice, and that small blonde giggling boy who’s got “Lotsa Jobs Ter Do, Mummy” is now 6’1″, tripping over his size 12 feet, and terrifying you in the night when he looms out of the darkness (funny how they don’t grow out of the sleepwalking toilet trips) and grunts deeply.
Back when he was born, I was lost. 200 miles from home, friends and family, I was working out this parenting lark on my own.
AND without the power of Google at my fingertips to help navigate me through these strange waters (I KNOW! How the heck did we manage back then? I’ll tell you how – we simply stayed awake at night worrying over that odd-looking rash on his leg instead of photographing it and crowdsourcing a reassuring answer from 10 online friends who are also thankfully online and sleepless at 1 in the morning)
So we relied on the things we knew, and things we remembered from our childhood. We fell back on the familiar and reassuring in this time of scary newness.
And I remembered walking hand-in-hand with my mother into Boots as a small child; I could describe to you the old-fashioned tiling on the floor of the doorway, the hard, bright, white way the shop was lit, the way it smelled, and the feel of the wooden handrail that curved its way upstairs.
Me with baby no. 3 – image courtesy of Courtenay Photographic
And so, when I left hospital to go home with my two day old baby boy, and realised with rising panic that there was NO BOTTLE WARMER WAITING FOR ME* (Oh, the mad rush of hot stress), we of course knew where we were headed.
Because, of course, Boots was there, just as it always had been, waiting for me with a smile.
Well, actually, it was waiting for the husband.
I stayed in the car, nursing my soreness and watching the miracle-person in the baby seat in case he stopped breathing. Whilst keeping one eye on all passing cars in case someone decided to randomly crash into our neatly parked vehicle. Or walk past and try and steal my baby from the back seat. Either/or.
(what d’you mean I was hormonal?)
And the reassuring presence of Boots continued as my family grew.
It was Boots that had the first brilliant baby club which meant I earned valuable, genuinely useful ‘points’ when I ordered nappies – and better than that, who delivered the boxes of nappies-for-three To. My. Door.
Remember this was 12 years ago – long before internet shopping was the norm. It was miraculous, I tell you.
And I know they’re a shop. But they’re a cornerstone of memories for so many of us parents. You don’t even think about it, do you? You just… know. Boots has it covered for you.
And this year they celebrate ‘just getting it right‘ for 125 YEARS!
To celebrate this landmark year, Boots baby have created the #BootsBaby125Years celebration film – a look back through the archives and the personal journeys of families through the years. Do watch it – it’s properly lovely.
With 125 years of helping to care for the nation’s babies, Boots Baby is rooted in the belief that all Mums and Dads deserve the right to feel good and be the best parents they can be. Boots baby offers a range of effective and reliable baby products that deliver on their promise, at an affordable price. That’s why they’re trusted and recommended by parents around the country.
* That oh-so-necessary, can’t-go-home-without-one-or-my-poor-bottle-fed-baby-will-STARVE piece of equipment? Used for a week, left to gather dust on a shelf for 6mths, popped in the loft to wait for baby no.2… and moved from the loft to the bin a year ago…
