Home for barf time...

Two fairly spectacular projectile vomitings from the lad have enlivened our last two evenings at home. Luckily for me the missus took the bullet on both occasions, although of course I was quick to help out where I could.

Our theory is that he's managing to swallow so much snot thanks to his cold that it's playing his guts up. The old 'hawk-spit' routine will take him a few more years to master I guess...

We're very lucky that he's not a sickly boy normally - clearing up puke is a daily occurrence for some of our NCT-friends by all accounts. I wouldn't fancy that too much, I must admit.

Oh, well, he never seems to mind despite the rather unpleasant new sensation it must be. Maybe tonight I should fabricate a 'Tube nightmare' delay and have a pint in town until the coast is clear...

In the swim...but bugged out

The lad got his first taste of swimming this week, and it seems as though he took to it like the proverbial duck to water.

Indeed the instructor was amazed that it was the first time he'd set foot in the kiddie pool at our local baths, as he happily splashed about. I only have this on the authority of the missus of course, since naturally I was sweating away in the office while all the fun was going on.

Still, my colleague and I escaped for a lunchtime o'booze to celebrate his birthday yesterday, so all was not lost....

But back to the lad, and his love of the water is no surprise to me, since he goes absolutely crazy when we put him in the bath for his nightly splash. In fact it's a wonder there's any water left after he's thrashed it about for the ten minutes or so until my arms are cramping up and I have to haul him out. In fact, "holding on to the crazy bathing nipper" ought to become one of the endurance tests in World's Strongest Man, such is the awkwardness of the task and it's requirement for arm muscles considerably more developed than my own...

Sadly though, his trip to the municipal baths seems to have resulted in him catching a lurgy. The poor thing can't understand why he suddenly feels so rotten and his nose is running like a tap, so he's been in a very sullen mood since.

Given that we can hardly hand him a hanky and tell him to have a good blow, the missus has bought some sort of pipette-like device that's supposed to suck the snot out of his nose, but it doesn't seem to work so she's resorted to a more 'manual' process that's far too gag-inducing to describe in detail here (think snake venom extraction).

Oh well, summer seems to be here so hopefully this will be the last cold of winter in our household...

...of God and things...

If you'd said to me ten years ago that I'd be spending my Sunday mornings in church, as opposed to sleeping off the previous evening's excesses, I'd probably have rolled around the floor laughing.

Just goes to show what difference having a child makes to your life....

It's not that I've ever been particularly pro- or anti-religion, more of a fence sitter really. But for some reason once the lad came on the scene I wanted to have him Christened, even though the missus was quite against it. After all, she was such a self-professed atheist that she point-blank refused a church wedding.

But in the end she came round to the Christening idea, so it was natural to try out our local church for size. It's worth pointing out that (unlike many London parents exasperated by state schooling options) there is no school-oriented cynicism in this move. 'Our' church has no better-quality educational establishment that being a regular member of the congreation helps one's chances of gaining access to.

This probably explains why services are not exactly packed out - that and the fact that it is very 'high' in terms of cermonial, with plenty of 'bells and smells'. In fact the vicar himself described it to us as "high as a kite", provoking some quiet mirth from Yours Truly, who has been no stranger to such sensations in the past, but for very different reasons.

It's fair to say that, while I won't be going out looking to convert any sinners any time soon, I am getting quite into the whole thing. I find most things about our world today quite perplexing, and while it's easy (as I have often done myself) to blame religion for many of these ills, it's not really the case. It's human beings loaded to the gunwales with hate that are the problem.

They seem a nice bunch down there and they've really welcomed the lad, who will be their first baby Christened in a good while, it seems. Plus they've got our names and address now, so we'd better keep going along in the build-up to and after the event or we could get a thunderbolt from on high!

God he's cute...

Not one but two independent witnesses have recently described the lad as "pretty". And, with no hint of parental bias, I have to agree that he is a rather cute individual, despite not having much hair to speak of yet.

Perhaps it's his sunny disposition - God knows where he gets that from, certainly not me, I'm a miserable bastard at the best of times. He laughs a lot, and he happily repeats the "da da" mantra, though sadly not when looking at me so it's fair to say his cognitive powers are not yet fully developed...

He's also close to standing under his own steam, something he seems particularly pleased about but which gives the missus the collywobbles because it means he's soon going to be mobile.

And he's developed a trick of hauling himself 360 degrees around in his cot, so you put him to sleep pointing north and you wake him up pointing south. We're thinking of installing a webcam with infra-red capabilities to see just how he manages this, given that his legs and body are wrapped in a sleeping bag.

Easter is just days away, and it's going to be great - four uninterrupted days of family fun. Bring it on!