Some of you may have thought that I was a bit too harsh in my Ben ratings last week. Some of you may have thought that I was holding a 4 week old baby to impossibly high standards. I won’t argue with you. I’m not saying I was wrong but I know there are people who disagreed with some of the ratings.

Ben was one of the people who disagreed with the numbers. He cried when he looked at them. He may have been crying about something else and he just happened to look at his ratings at the same time, it’s hard to tell. I was convinced he couldn’t read yet since he can’t see very far and his brain is still mostly mush, but I got word from an intermediary that he wanted to write this weeks blog post himself because he wanted to set the record straight.

I’m pretty tired this week so I decided to let the kid have a crack at it. What’s the worst that could happen? He’s too young to have any controversial opinons, he can’t get ‘cancelled’ before he’s 6 weeks old can he? So I’m going to give my login details to him and let him get his thoughts on my performance as a dad on record.

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Thank you Dad. Yes, this is Ben. I won’t be able to write much, I will invevitably soil myself at any moment and I’ll also absolutely lose my mind with hunger so I’ll strike while the iron is hot as my dad would say. Do other people say this? It’s dumb, it makes no sense. I decided that since Dad gave me 4 week ratings that I would give him 5 week ratings. Let me explain my thought process.

Cuddles – 90. I will admit, I enjoy napping on dad. We’ve spent hours watching Mad Men, Football and WWE all the while I’m drooling all over his favourite tshirts and jerseys. He grumbles a bit about the tiny, tiny amounts of spit up that I leave on his clothes but I don’t understand why he’s wearing nice clothes when he’s feeding me! I could puke or poo on him at a moments notice. Even I don’t know when the nappy evacuations are going to happen or, in what direction they’re going to go. The other night, I was sitting up, staring into space cause I’m a baby, and then someone must have flicked a switch or something because out of nowhere there was an eruption in my nappy. Even though I was sitting up straight, the contents of the eruption somehow travelled north, defying gravity and all that is holy and exited my nappy at the highest point and came to rest on my..well everywhere. I tried not to make a big deal about it. I casually stared into the middle distance waiting for him to notice that my baby grow had changed colour at the back. Then he started saying ‘oh no, oh no, Ben what have you done’ over and over again and I thought ‘Dad it’s pretty obvious what I’ve done, you can literally see what I’ve done on my back. The better question is how did I do that because to be honest I’m still trying to figure that out myself’. Anyway, he changed me and grumbled about it the whole time which I thought was unfair. As a sign of my gratitude for cleaning me, I didn’t scream at him when he changed me. In fairness to him he did compliment me on that. So yeah. Cuddles are great.

Nappies – 50. So that one time I was just talking about? I didn’t scream and cry at him that time because I felt bad about the ungodly mess I had made but generally I absolutely hate getting my nappy changed. I don’t want to be held up by my ankles! I don’t want to be stripped! I know I’ve made a mess and I’m fussy in said mess but still, leave me alone! He gets props from some people for changing nappies because apparently Dads don’t always change nappies? Mams have to do it? That seems unfair, I love Mam and I don’t want to scream at the food gatekeeper. I prefere when it’s Dad changing me because I can scream bloody murder at him and when we’re done? He’s going to bring me straight to the food source! He also thinks he’s being clever because sometimes when he’s beginning the change process he stalls because he thinks I’m going to pee. When he does this I try my best to hold on until he’s sure I’m not going to and then BAM, pee everywhere. Some men just want to see the world covered in pee.

Jokes – 35. I won’t lie, I’m still developing my brain but already I can tell this guy’s jokes are not going to be funny. He thinks he’s hilarious though which is cute but let me be clear, cute does not mean hilarious. Sometimes he thinks he’s said something that’s made me laugh but in reality I’m just brewing something to explode into my nappy or wherever I want.

Singing – 06. The guy is atrocious at telling jokes but he is 1000 times worse at singing. He must have read somewhere that you can sooth a baby by singing to them when they’re distressed? He tried it with me a couple of times but his singing couldn’t sooth a dead horse. And the songs! Absolutely miserable. I swear he’s just making them up as he goes.

Patience – 12. Right, so he said I had no patience didn’t he? Thats rich coming from ‘mister I’m going to have a meltdown if you don’t fall asleep immediately’. Every night its the same, I know he wants me to settle down and fall asleep but he doesn’t seem to care about what I want to do. I want to whine, headbutt, eat my hands, stare at nothing, make them wonder what I’m smiling about, I don’t want to do what I’m told. And so help me, he takes me on walks around the house to try to help me sleep, it never works but he keeps trying it! I can’t sleep when my face is lying in the spit up I left on his jersey 20 minutes ago. Also, he sings to me when we’re walking! That won’t help me sleep ya dummy!

Strength – 99. Ok so I’m heavy and getting heavier by the day. I have no context for how heavy anything else is because I haven’t, as of yet, been able to lift anything but my parents keep telling me that I’m enormous and that apparently I have five chins? I can’t verify that because I can’t see and don’t own a mirror. If I am as heavy as they say I am then my Dad’s strength rating must be 99 because he can pick me up no problem at all. I can hear his knees cracking and he makes what he calls ‘old man noises’ when he gets in or out of chairs but it hasn’t stopped him from lifting me up. I’m purely talking about physical strength by the way. Not emotional strength. He cries all the time. He cries watching Mad Men, football and WWE. He cries when he’s tired, which apparently is all the time, he whinges when he’s hungry. We’re actually a lot alike, him and me, he’s just a taller baby.