History already...

Since the lad was born I've been making a few home movies from the video of him we've shot from time to time. These have previously been circulated to relatives, but last night I finally got round to burning some DVD copies for ourselves, and watching them made me realise how much he has already changed, how many stages have been passed even in these few months.

It's made us more determined to be quicker with the camera in future - as once a moment is gone it's gone forever, especially with my sieve-like memory these days!

Looking back at the very early footage, he seemed to specialise in just lying there dozing or not doing very much. He's a lot more of a handful these days, but all the better for it - life with him now is a very interactive experience, his means of communication so much more than sneezes, yawns and yelps.

In just over two weeks he gets his first big moment in the spotlight - his Christening. Although not a massive affair, it is bringing the respective parents together for the first time since our wedding, which should be interesting! Hope they don't fight over time with the lad!

I'll be the one at the back, keeping out of the way, I think

My new best mate...

Mission accomplished. 48-plus hours of solo parenting and both myself and the nipper survived!

More than that, for the first time really, I feel as if we've got to know each other. With work commitments and all I've not really spent much 'quality time' alone with him, and that's really the only way to find out about his developing personality, what he likes doing and what he doesn't (being dressed very squarely falls into the latter category!).

It's just like making friends with somebody, only of course the bonds are much stronger. The whole thing seemed like a sort of holiday from my normal existence, which all the best experiences should be. Of course I'm now trying to pack the missus off for another break so I can have another crack at it!

It also makes me realise that we should be more concerted in taking as much video footage and as many still pictures as we can, because every stage he goes through he'll never go back to. One of my particular favourites at the moment is his very vocal eating style, not perhaps straight out of the Debrett's school of manners but very entertaining and certainly proof that's he's enjoying what he eats.

Oh well, back to the daily grind of work today. Wonder what he's up to this minute?

Home alone...

Is it really almost a month since my last post? My, how time flies...

This is a big weekend for me. I'm flying solo with the lad for the first time, as the missus has gone away to a health spa for a couple of days. Needless to say I have instructions detailed enough to sink a battleship, which is probably no bad thing! I've managed to get his lunch into him OK so far, and obviously bath and bedtime is pretty routine as I've done that exercise plenty of times before.

He's napping now, but soon we're off to the woods for a session on the swings - beats working I can tell you. Tomorrow is Cup Final day, but rather than try to watch it with half an eye while trying to keep the nipper amused, I'm going to Sky+ it and go out for the afternoon with my best mate, his wife and their baby, and we'll then watch the match in the evening once all the kids have been put to bed - hopefully without knowing the result.

It will be just like that classic episode of The Likely Lads....come on you Reds!!

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!

Schools....yes, you read that right, schools

The lad is only just getting used to sitting up, memorising his times tables and reciting the kings and queens of England are but a twinkle far off in his distant horizon....and yet we've already had a look around his first potential school.

Thanks to the outstanding generosity of my father-in-law, junior is going to benefit from a private education. To anyone unfamiliar with the quality of state education in Britain - and London's schools in particular - that might not seem a big thing, but believe me it is.

However, just throwing money at the problem is not, in this case, a guaranteed solution. You see in London we have a glut of wealthy types to whom a few grand a term for young Tarquin or Yolanthe is small beer indeed. Barely more than it costs to run the Range Rover or pay for the full time nanny so mummy and daddy don't have to get their hands dirty with the offspring.

Thus, even among the private sector a clear pecking order has formed, and the school we visited today (which will remain nameless, just in case we get into the mixer for a place and somehow this blog gets attributed to yours truly) is up near the top of it - at least in our neighbourhood anyway.

And very nice it is too. Very nice. But with more than 400 serious applications for 32 places each year the lad's got about as much chance of getting selected for it as he has of going to a madrassa.

In fact the clear message from today's tour was "don't get your hopes up, folks". Our guide talked about their desire to have a spread of abilities, but clearly that spread starts at extremely bright and goes to Steven Hawking.

Fair enough. At least the process of selection seems reasonably fair. The missus was telling me of some schools elsewhere in the Capital where selection is done more on the 'first come, first serve' basis, with a birthday early in the month offering an advantage. Thus some mums are having elective Cesarians to ensure their offspring are born on the first or second of the month, with dad having the application forms ready to fill in while his wife is still being stitched up. What a world we live in today.

From our Middle East correspondent….

So, here I am, away from the family on my annual business trip to the Gulf. Unfortunately, since my last stay here my hotel has been discovered by The Germans. No surprise I guess, given the perpetual sunshine here and that race’s seemingly insatiable desire to sunbathe.

What it does mean, of course is that any attempt to get near the hotel pool or its private beach means running the gauntlet of overweight bodies wrapped in overcooked skin…not that several days of a ‘hotel diet’ have exactly worked wonders for my physique either.

Solo business travel is never a happy scenario for the naturally glum and unsociable, and sure enough the void of human company has been filled with watching too much rubbish foreign TV and pigging out on too much rich food, along with other unsavoury activities….

Needless to say my insides are already protesting vehemently at this onslaught, and we’re only just over half way through the trip.

Missing the lad furiously, of course. The missus had thoughtfully secreted one of his little vest tops in my suitcase, as a reminder of him while I’m away. A nice touch, although I’m sure the hotel cleaner thinks I’m some sort of perv, as I’ve hung it over the suit stand and there’s no other evidence of a childly presence in the room…

If I’m totally honest I’d also admit I’m glad in a way for a few days’ break from the responsibilities of fatherhood, to have only myself to look after (however poorly). I’ve questioned why new mothers go back to work even though it makes little sense financially…I’m now coming round to the belief that this choice comes down more to a need to share the burden of 24/7 responsibility that is a child with somebody else – even a stranger – than to any desire to rejoin the rat race. While explaining it, this still doesn’t justify it in my mind.

The last days will hopefully fly, as will I back to the family seat. Wonder if I’ll be able to look at him when I get home without blubbing???

Every time you go away....

It's been a while since I've been on here - just the usual too many other things to do and not much to say scenario!

But an interesting time coming up - an extended business trip that will see me away from the lad for the longest period since he was born. Thanks to the utter incompetence of Dell Computer my sparkly new machine at home has proved to be a dud, and sadly the old one that I've pressed back into service cannot cope with such innovations as webcams, so my best laid plans for regular videoconferencing with the missus and sprog have turned to dust. Bugger.

So it's going to be over a week until I see him again...wonder how much he'll change in that time? He's just learned how to laugh, well chuckle would be more appropriate, which is disarmingly cute and cannot fail to raise a smile on my own lips.

I'll miss him to be sure. Hope he remembers who I am when I get back....

Part time Dad....

In my group of mates there's an oft-said comment that "working is losing". Not that most of us have a choice of course - when last I checked none of us had a billionaire uncle ready to pop his clogs, nor the likelihood of discovering oil or gas in the back yard.

So work we must - which is a Bad Thing at the best of times, but for me it means being something of an absentee Dad. I go off to the office before the lad is awake, and I get home after he's gone to bed. Only the late evening nappy change/feed offers any chance to commune, and the whole point of that is not to wake him up too much! In any case, now he's starting on solid food (gulp!) that feed will disappear anyway.

It means weekends are precious in a way that I could never have imagined. It's the only time I can get to know him, study how he's changing and play a part in that change. As I stand at the freezing cold bus stop of a morning, I absolutely cannot understand how mums can choose some drab office job - the financial rewards from which are mostly soaked up by child care costs anyway - over being at home nurturing their kids. What is wrong with these people? And more pertinently why did they bother with the whole kids thing in the first place?

My job hardly pays a fortune, but sadly the missus shows no sign of wanting to take over the breadwinner duties, so a life of house-husbandry remains as big a pipe dream as discovering I'm somehow related to the Duke of Westminster...

Waaaaaah!

Now that I've spent some time in close proximity to one for the first time, one of the things that's most surprised me about babies is just how much they cry.

They cry when they go to sleep
They cry when they wake up
They cry when they're hungry
They cry when they're tired
They cry (or at least ours does) at every sudden noise, such as a slamming door or somebody sneezing
They cry when they're bored (i.e. you've stopped giving them your undivided attention for three seconds)
They cry when they're bunged up and need a poo
They cry for no apparent reason at all

It can be rather wearing, but they so easily make up for it when they give you that big smile of recognition as you make eye contact. No adult smiles as much as a baby...which is a pity really, when you think about it.

And a Happy New Year!

Nothing like a busy run-up to Christmas and then all the festive nonsense to keep one away from blogging.

I've always said how lucky we are to have such an even-tempered nipper. Well, we were until New Year's Eve when he started teething! That changed things somewhat...

Poor little mite didn't really know what was going on. Neither, embarrassingly, did we until my sister diagnosed the problem with a quick feel of his gums. To be fair to us, she's been there and got the t-shirt, having two kids of her own.

So we had a mad scramble for some teething gel - not an easy thing to buy at 8pm on New Year's Eve in Great Yarmouth. Luckily a bit of local knowledge prevailed and said gel was secured from a petrol station convenience store (funny, I always thought they only sold engine oil, Cornish pasties and porn mages). Thus we managed to settle him, if not ourselves.

A fun evening was duly had while my parents minded the littl'un, and then it was back home to face a new year of work for me and child-rearing for the missus. Having had a few days of the latter over the holidays, I reckon there are pros and cons to both.

Child rearing is more intense, less well paid but infinitely more satisfying, especially as the 'developmental stages' are passed. I'm sure to miss him rolling over for the first time, his first words, even that first tooth finally breaking through.

Work, by contrast, is just a bit shit really, but at least it allows me to own a fast car and buy pints of beer and CDs more or less when I want to. Who says men are shallow?

Close Encounters of the D'oh Kind...

A couple of days ago we went up at 11pm as normal to give the lad his final change and feed before our bedtime, and when we put the light on we saw he'd got a vivid dark blue mark across his crown - one that proved almost indellible, particularly as that is the soft part of his skull so scrubbing was not an option. Took me almost 15 minutes of gentle washing with a soapy flannel to get it off.

The missus espoused several worrying theories as to how this mystery might have occurred, including the possibility that he'd been 'marked' by aliens for abduction that night.

Turned out it was dye from her new blue sweatshirt, that he'd picked up earlier that evening while cradled in her arms......d'oh!

Still, better to cover all the options, eh?!

What am I like?

I've been thinking about whether fatherhood has changed me at all. It's certainly changed my lifestyle somewhat - I now look upon an evening out with the sort of fevered anticipation normally associated with small children on Christmas Eve.

Has it made me feel more mature? Yes, probably. I take my responsibilities to the nipper seriously, and my desire to be an adequate parent overwhelms all others. I think perhaps it's made me a bit more human as well. I've never 'done' people particularly well in the past, and have sometimes felt that being completely alone on a desert island would be preferable to having to be sociable. But now I can just sit and watch the nipper sleeping and be endlessly fascinated by every tiny movement, shiver or twitch, and I think that this basic human interest is permeating into my dealings with the outside world too.

The need to constantly communicate with him is also a bit of a change for someone who often prefers complete silence, although of course it will be better when his responses develop from cries, squeaks and grunts....

And we haven't even found the precision organisation required to do anything from a family visit to buying a newspaper particularly challenging - neither myself nor the missus are exactly noted for our spontaneity, we're both devoted planners anyway an neither of us particularly like surprises.

All in all it's basically a new life, much like the old life only without the beer.

Taking stock

The missus has taken the littl'un off to the in laws so she can get a bit of daytime support for a couple of days.

I've had the house to myself, which has given me a chance to take stock after the whirlwind first six weeks. It's certainly quieter, and having a couple of nights' reasonably unbroken sleep has been good for the soul. I'll be ready to have him back in my life tomorrow though, I miss the little feller.

The weekend sees him go on his first demo, the big climate change rally in Trafalgar Square. We'll be making sure we get a few stickers to adorn the Baby Bjorn on the day...

He's already smiling at us, and not just because he's about to fart or poo either - genuine smiles. Hopefully he'll remember who I am when we see each other tomorrow night?

More horror stories from our NCT friends of screaming, colic ridden sprogs has again emphasised how lucky we've been so far with our even tempered boy. He might have a hairline that's more receded than mine, and from certain angles he looks worryingly like Buster Bloodvessel, but he also seems to have a temper that goes a lot further as well!!

Famous last words....

I'm loving being a dad, much more than I ever thought possible. There's no way to describe the sense of pride I have when out in public with him - I want everybody to admire him and think he's as perfect as we do. Silly really...

This will almost certainly prove to be famous last words, but...whisper it quietly... it really doesn't seem to be all that much of a struggle so far, either. Obviously his excellent temperament is a big help in this case, but nothing I thought I'd hate (crying very loudly, puking on my t-shirts, nappy changing, etc) has proved to be anything of a burden.

Even the broken sleep, which is nothing new to me anyway, I'm managing to laugh off pretty easily with a few judicious cups of coffee. Although I must admit the missus' sterling night-time duties have played a big part in this!

There, now I've gone and said it. I'll get home tonight to find he started bawling at midday and he won't stop again for another eight years.

He sleeps, he feeds, he cries, he poos, he sleeps again.

Babies don't have a lot of variety in their lives at this stage, do they? And neither do new parents, truth to be told.

Junior is going through the aforementioned routine day after day. Of course he's still too young to communicate in any way with us, or to show any visual recognition, affection or any of that stuff. It'll come though.

I'm worried that he might be boss-eyed. If he is, he'll have got it from me, I had to have my eyes operated on as a very young lad, although they're OK now. My only spell as an in-patient in my life as it goes, and even though I was only about five or six years old, it was awful. I can remember one of my fellow patients was in there because he had managed to stick a pencil into his eye - the nurses had to hold him down mob-handed to force some medicine into him, the majorioty of which he used to sick back up immediately afterwards...little sod.

Anyway, I digress. Despite the lack of real action, we still love him of course. He seems a reasonably contented chap, he likes clasiscal music and Richard Hawley, but not the free jazz experimentalism that I'm quite into just now, which causes him to bawl at the top of his voice. I'll have to play that stuff with the headphones on, methinks...

The point of Dad....

...at this stage seems to be very much a support role.

As a result of her op, the missus cannot lift anything heavier than a kettle for six weeks. Given that we can't live on tea and coffee alone, it's meant an awful lot of fetching and carrying for yours truly, not to mention dusting off my less than stellar culinary skills.

It's amazing what you need to manage a small baby at home - almost none of which we actually own. I'm now on first name terms with the friendly staff at Mothercare after an unbroken run of six successive days' visits, never coming away with less than a stack of equipment/clothing etc etc.

This burden is all entirely fair enough of course, and scarcely matches what the missus has had to put up with. I had no dead weight to lug around for nine months, no agonising pain during delivery, no major hormonal changes to deal with, and no spending hours with my tits out while a small creature snuffles on them like an anteater over a termite hill.

I reckon I'm getting off quite lightly...

The most inappropriately-named blog in the world...

...as I realised in the early hours of Sunday morning when the surgeon held up the small, slimy wriggling blue thing that was - and is - my son.

Right now, I feel as though it wasn't just him that was born at that moment, it was me as well. It's almost as if the whole of my life to date has been pointless, or perhaps fairer to say that from that moment on I have become a totally different person, a child with so much to learn again.

I thought I'd lived a fulfilling life up to now. I've been to some of the greatest gigs in history, experienced the highest highs, visited wonderful countries and cities, enjoyed love, sex and all of that...but you could wrap all of this up in the most beautiful wrapping paper and I wouldn't swap the lot for a minute of holding him in my hands, watching his face pull all sorts of silly expressions as he learns what he can do now he's in the outside world.

Of course this Nirvana is sure to pass, but the point of a blog like this is to capture the moment, and that's how this moment is for me right now, as I sit here at 7am getting myself ready to go back to the hospital (it was a C-section job - more of a case of reluctant son than Dad in the end!).

I'm looking forward to getting him and the missus home - it was very lonely last night, although I guess I should be grateful for a reasonably unbroken sleep.

Bloody hell, who would have thought...certainly not me anyway.

Given how foolish I feel for all my previous reservations, I'm not sure whether I'll continue this blog. Probably will though, it's good to unload my hopes and fears safe in the knowledge that just about nobody is reading it anyway!!