Tuesday Morning

The baby woke up at 5am this morning. She wasn't hungry or anything, when I looked into the cot at the end of our bed she lay there grinning and wriggled a bit. She just wanted a chat.

'Ummm ummm ummm,' she said. 'Grrr-ohh, nah um da!'

She jabbered on like this for ages. Despite the presence of actual syllables in her banter, she is only six months old so it is far too early to expect any real talking from her. That means I have to listen to this cobblers for months yet.

'Ba bab bab bab ba,' I say.

She replies, 'Errr eh eh, ummm muh muh muh.'

I lie back and hold her high over my head, and a thin line of drool falls to connect our chins. She reaches out with her Fully Realistic Grasping Claws, grabs my ear and twists it, then attempts to chew my cheek. It's time for her banana and apples.

Mmmm... Singing

I finally cracked and went to baby bounce and sing at the library. Not sure about it really. There were a whole bunch of other parents there with their tiny children and we sat round in a big circle on the floor singing ‘The Wheels on the Bus’, ‘Incy-Wincy Spider’ and that sort of thing. My daughter is obviously a bit young for singing, or even for knowing what is going on, but she seemed to like gawping at the other kids.

I had to do all the singing for both of us. This was difficult, I think I am more of a solo warbler than a sing-a-long in harmony kind of guy, or maybe it was just my shameful inhibitions kicking in, but sitting round singing nursery rhymes in a public place seemed to me a pretty grim thing to do.

It’s a bit dodgy as well. If one of the kids starts crying it can set them all off in a wave of woe that spreads inexorably across the room. And that’s appalling. The library has a wooden train in the junior section for the kids to play on, and a little girl fell on it, smacked her head and started screaming. All the parents froze in horror, but not because of the little girl. I looked down and saw the baby’s bottom lip start to tremble.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ I said. ‘Give it a couple of years and you’ll think that’s hilarious.’

I admit that that is not the nicest thing I could of said. Luckily no one else heard me. And the baby doesn’t know what the hell I’m talking about anyway.

Watch With Baby

We went to see Clash Of The Titans today at the Grovsenor. They do a 'watch with baby' screening at 10.30 in the morning, where you can take your child to see the latest films full of sex and violence and no one minds because they have all brought their kids as well. The price of the ticket includes a tea or coffee. 

The film was ok. I have fond memories of the original 1981 effort with it's Ray Harryhausen monsters, mostly because I think that it was the first film that I ever saw a boob in. Yes, a boob, on the telly, in the afternoon during the Easter holidays. That's brilliant when you are a wee boy sitting on the floor surrounded by half-eaten Easter eggs. 

Anyway, we sat in the dark, ranks of parents with their tiny tots, and my first impression of taking the kid to the cinema was, 'Christ's sake, its's a bit loud isn't it?' but I soon realised that there was a reason for this. All the babies were quiet for the first half hour or so, but then they started kicking off. You would hear, in an aisle somewhere behind you, a tiny 'waughh.' Then another, closer this time, away to the right. 'Waughh'. Then another, Jesus, it's closer this time, and another. Then another, 'Waughh!' God Almighty, it's right behind you! Then the giant scorpions attack with a thunderous soundtrack of crashing boulders, the screams of dying men and bombastic music. All the babies are stunned into silence.

Good job.  

The Threshold of Self-Propelled Gnawing

The baby cannot have any gluten or dairy products before she is six months old. She is six months old on Friday, so today we bought gluten-free baby pasta shapes from Boots. It will be much easier when we can just whiz up a bit of our dinner in the blender for her, but for now we just need to get enough food into her to make sure she doesn’t wake up hungry in the night. I cooked up a tomatoey sauce with red pepper, onion and courgette. No garlic, no herbs, and certainly no seasoning. It was all right actually, which is just as well because I made enough for a weeks’ worth of the baby’s dinners. The baby chewed her pasta shapes enthusiastically with her little pink gums.

The baby is on the verge of having a tooth. There’s a sore looking patch on her upper right gum with shiny white enamel showing through. She drools almost constantly in a thin string of clear wetness that soaks her clothes, my clothes, Lynne’s clothes, the baby’s bed, our bed, my pillow, the sofa, and all other soft furnishings that you can imagine we would have in our flat.

The tooth must move in waves, because sometimes the baby grins and chews her giraffe (whose limbs have been felted by this treatment), while other times she screams horrendously. We have some Bonjela, that aniseed horror, to soothe her tooth, but when it is irritating her she thrashes around quite a bit when we try to put it on. This means that I have to hold the back of the baby’s head with one hand while I heartlessly thrust my finger into her gob. It does the trick though.

The baby’s new trick is to roll onto her front when put down on her back. She then flails wildly, looks about smiling, or just lies face down in a puddle of her own drool. Today she hoisted her bum into the air and worked her knees as if she was trying to find a purchase on the rug. It’s time to baby-proof the flat – she’ll be crawling soon. Watch this space.

Some Logistical (un)Concerns

Last night I made a job lot of baby food. Sweet potato boiled up and mashed, put in to little pots and frozen. Regular potato and lentils, likewise. We are now out of little pots. The little pots are pretty useless anyway, we bought a load of them thinking they would be meal sized for the baby, but after only a few days on the solids she was chowing through three or four of them at a time. We need bigger little pots. (Hint; a handy little pot would hold at least four good desert spoons).

Even so, I have just tried to make stewed apples, despite having no little pots to put it in. I chopped up the apples, put them in a pan with a bit of water and left them on a low heat until they were fucking burnt.

The apples were shit anyway. They were the supermarket savers type, thrupence a tonne, and when I cut them up they had gone that fluffy way inside. I should have known better; I mean, russets in April? Please.

In other feeding news the baby has stopped waking up in the night wanting to be fed, which is good news for Lynne. A few times I got up in the night and tried to feed the baby some formula, but the baby would have no part of this, and would cry piteously until Lynne gave in and got up. The baby has been waking at about 5 or 6am, and I either take her through to the living room and feed her baby rice or mashed banana, or take her into the bed with us for a little further snoozing. I know this is spoiling the child and I shouldn’t really make a habit of it. Also, it is hard to continue sleeping while the baby is punching me in the face.

Reaping The Whirlwind

Tonight, the baby suffered the consequences of eating so many bananas on Wednesday. About half an hour after I put her to bed she woke up crying, a salty little tear running down her cheek. On investigation I found she had done a massive poo, and, even as I watched aghast, she continued to curl out further quantities of bumrope after I had taken the nappy away. I thought it would never end. All I could do was try and hold her legs out of the line of fire. Her pyjamas were put out of action almost immediately.

The baby was mortified. Even after she had stopped crying she stared at me seriously for a long time. I don’t understand it. Having a hug poo is definitely in my top three favourite things to do.

Banana Binge

It would be easier to feed the baby with a foot pump and a funnel. This evening for her tea she ate a good portion of butternut squash followed by two bananas. And she still wanted more. Ok, two bananas, you say, you could eat two bananas. Well, think of the size of her. It’s like you eating two bananas that are each the size of a gas cylinder you can get at the petrol station, or a bag of golf clubs, or your own leg or something. That’s right. It’s a lot of food.

Little fatty.

Hopefully going to bed with a bulging belly will mean she will sleep through the night. The past few weeks she has been waking up at 2am, and then again at about 5am. This sort of coincides with starting her on solid food (in fact, the main reason we started her on solid food when we did was that the baby seemed to be hungrier), but it could just be a growth spurt. Either way, the baby refuses point blank to have anything to do with formula milk when she wakes in the night, so maybe it’s just a comfort thing, wanting to be breastfed back into unconsciousness.

The sooner she is sleeping through again the better. Lynne is starting to get a little resentful of the amount of sleep I have been getting.

Fucken...Hingmy

It’s been a tough week to be going outside by myself. I must look like a chump, or maybe in my fur-lined, red chunky knitted hoodie people are mistaking me for Father Christmas, wandering down Dumbarton Road merrily distributing fags and change. Yes, that really is what I have been walking around in. And of course it’s fake fur, I’m not Joan Collins, I even think the wool bit is polyester, but I think it looks cool, ok?

Anyway, on Monday morning I left the house to go to work and as I was crossing the road there was a guy in a tracksuit standing on the other side as if he was waiting for me.
‘Got a pound?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said, though in fact I did have a wee nugget in my pocket, but I needed it for the bus.
He must have sensed the presence of the pound about my person, however, because he squared up a little and said sternly, ‘You’ve definitely not got a pound?’
‘Definitely,’ I snapped.
He didn’t look as if he was satisfied with this reply, but just as I was steeling myself for a mouthful of abuse and/or physical confrontation the wee burd he was with pulled on his arm and said, ‘C’mon, we’ll get a pound off someone else,’ and the guy sloped off after her.

On Tuesday afternoon I was on my way to work again and a steamer rolled out the boozer just as I was walking past.
‘Alright mate,’ he wheezed as he fell in step beside me.
‘Alright,’ I replied evenly.
‘Here,’ he continued. ‘Have you got…’
‘Fuck’s sake,’ I muttered, quickening my stride.
‘I was only going to ask you for the time!’ he shouted after me.
‘No, you weren’t!’ I called back over my shoulder.

Tonight was the best though. The baby had gone to her bed and we were about to settle down with a glass of wine to watch a DVD when I decided that since it was Easter we should treat ourselves to some crisps as well. I put on my hoodie and ran out for some Pringles.

As I was coming up to the shop on the corner a guy in a cheap leather jacket came out of the close in front of me, a fag in one hand, rummaging in his pocket with the other. He looked up at me.
‘Got fifty pence?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said, walking past him.
He hurried to catch up. ‘Got any change at all?’
‘No.’
He blew up. ‘There’s no fucken need to say it like that!’ he screamed. ‘I’m fucken sick of cunts' fucken…hingmy!’

I was getting pretty sick of cunts' fucking hingmy too, but I didn’t tell him so because he had started to kick the shit out of the bin outside the shop. I slipped past him into the shop and bought a tube of Pringles, slightly worried that when I stepped outside again the Pringles would reveal that I had in fact had some change in my possession the whole time. I might have to fight the guy and spill my Pringles. They were sour cream and chive as well.

Outside, he was gone. I saw him further up the street, harassing other people and shouting, stopping every now and then to root through his pockets.

What is it about me that attracts bams? What is it that I am doing wrong? Is it because I respond when someone speaks to me in the street? I could just blank people, but that would be miserable. Maybe I should try wearing my flat cap more often, you know, go a bit more incognito.