This man needs a book deal! Matt Coyne first soared to Internet stardom in December 2015, with a hilarious and brutally honest Facebook post about becoming a dad for the first time. Within a week, his musings had been shared hundreds of thousands of times — even grabbing the attention of Ashton Kutcher, who called it “the best description of fatherhood I’ve ever read.” Now, the Sheffield, England-based graphic designer has gone viral again — this time with a sidesplitting account of a trip to Cyprus with his partner Lyndsey and their 7-month-old son Charlie.
Coyne begins the April 20 Facebook post by recounting his friends’ reactions to the family vacation.
“One or two people we a bit judgey about the idea of taking a 6-month-old away. ‘So, you’re taking him on holiday?’ Yeah. ‘Abroad?’ Yeah. ‘Somewhere hot??’ Yeah. ‘On an airplane??’ … By which point I was tempted to answer: ‘No, me and my Lyns will be going on a plane, but we thought we’d get Charlie there by driving him to Dover and firing him out of a f–king cannon,'” the 41-year-old wrote. “What I actually said was: ‘It’ll be fine.’ And you know what? It was.”
The Brit, who also blogs at man-vs-baby, makes several recommendations, the first being: Don’t take an expensive stroller. “The moment you check-in and and that push chair disappears behind the rubber curtain it is collected by two WWF wrestlers who smash it against a wall for a half an hour … before it is transferred to the runway, where they reverse the plane over it a couple of times.” When it comes to sunscreen, he warns, “Let it dry off before picking them up or anything, otherwise it’s like wrestling a seal that’s just left a massage parlour … Charlie was in less danger from the sun than he was from me juggling him like a bar of soap.”
While chronicling the challenges of the flight, Coyne compares the baby-changing facilities to a shelf. “Basically … imagine trying to carve a turkey in a telephone booth… now half the size of the f*cking telephone booth, and arrange for an incontinent dickhead to bang on the door every five seconds.”
But Coyne would do it all over again: “I will always remember Charlie’s face as he curled his toes in the sand for the first time … His delight at being pushed around a hotel pool on the back of an inflatable crocodile … and his fascination as we sat on a bench, hand-feeding a sparrow some crisps, overlooking the deep blue of the mediterranean sea.”
The post has since been shared more than 15,000 times.
“Charlie was really well-behaved on the plane,” Coyne tells Us Weekly. “Although not everyone thought so … just before we boarded he discovered that he could make a new sound, which was a really high pitched whistle that made you want to tear your ears off. So that didn’t endear him to the lady sat next to us. He’s also very grabby at the moment … you can walk down the aisle of the plane with Charlie in your arms and by the time you’ve reached the bathroom you could look down to discover that he’s collected a toupee, a phone, a magazine, a beer. He just grabs everything.”
He wrote the post to encourage other parents to dispel some myths. “Ultimately, I wanted to share our experience … that taking a baby on holiday isn’t without stress and hassle, but it’s worth it,” he tells Us. “There is no downtime. But it’s a different kind of enjoyment. Spending time with Charlie away from the stresses of work and a home that looks like a tornado ripped through it, was incredibly special.”
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