More Sweaty Dreaming

Strange dreams again this morning. I dreamt that me, my dad and my cousin who I haven't seen in years, were all in charge of security at the Kelvingrove Museum. There was a display of rare blue diamonds we were guarding but someone kept stealing them and putting them back, moving them about and stuff. Really irritating. On a more mundane level, though it seemed equally pressing at the time, I dreamt that I had put some soya milk in the freezer and forgotten to take it out.

'I'll give you a fiver if you give the baby her breakfast.'

That was Lynne's voice. The sun was streaming through our curtains, Lynne was looking really cozy and determined to be asleep* and the baby was lying on her belly, headbutting a puddle of drool that lay on her blanket. I went into the kitchen to mix up some baby rice with mashed banana. I was really feeling the sweaty waking-from-a-vivid-dream bamboozlement. The dreams are the product of waking early in the morning and then going back to sleep, my id going wild in the extra snooze-time. The baby has been waking at about 4.30am these light mornings, depending on how much milky pudding we can shovel into her after her dinner. The more milky pudding, the less she wakes up in the night.

Of course, I have no intention of taking that fiver off Lynne. I give the baby her breakfast most mornings anyway. And of course, I know you think I'm having anxiety dreams because Lynne is going back. to work soon. In two weeks to be precise. But you amateur psychiatrists don't know it all. I mean, just because I like my CDs in order doesn't mean I like to push things up my arse.

*She later told me it was the first morning since the birth she hadn't woken up with a sore back and she was really comfy. Just think about that for a second if you are going to have a baby, folks. It will be seven months on Sunday.

Dead Fox Hand

We had vegetable lasagne for dinner, the three of us, the baby's mashed up roughly with a spoon. The move onto solid food has been surprisingly easy and the baby seems willing to eat whatever we put in front of her, which is pretty impressive seeing as how she has no teeth.

When we were finished Lynne glanced out of the window and said, 'Oh, the fox is dead.' Looking out I saw a fox lying on the opposite pavement in broad daylight, it's head at a funny angle.

'What should we do?'
'We can't leave it there.'

I went out with a bin bag. It was odd that the fox was just lying out there on the pavement, foxes usually take themselves away to some little den to die in private, so I think there must have been some violence involved. It was lying among some little broken pieces of polystyrene and in the gutter was a length of metal, like a kick-stand broken off a bike, with a twisted bit of spring round one end and tape round the other. I don't really know how the fox would have been killed used these bits and pieces, maybe it was just hit by a car. This is as far as my forensic investigation took me.

I picked up the dead fox by the tail. It was absolutely rigid, and its fur was unpleasantly wet. Bear in mind that I am a city boy here. Its tail stuck out stiffly so that the corpse wouldn't fit in my fucking bin bag. I shouted up to Lynne, who was looking out the window.

'I need another bin bag!'

She didn't open the window. She waved.

I mimed putting the fox in another bag, double-bagging if you will, and held up two fingers. Lynne disappeared from the window. I stood there, with a dead fox half falling out of it and my hands held out awkwardly to my sides. I felt like they were streaked with vermin and death. It looked like I was surrendering.

A woman walked by. 'What's that?' She winkled her nose.
'It's a dead fox.'
'Did you kill it?'
'No, I'm... I'm waiting for my wife to get me another bin bag.'

I was sad about the fox. I used to see it cutting about in the street at dusk or early in the morning, and I liked that, those times when there was nobody about but me and the fox. It's not all bad though, the other day I saw a fox cub in the window of a derelict flat. There was work being done on it, and some vixen must have made a den in there when work stopped for winter (or the recession) and littered amongst the scaffolding and pulled-up floorboards. So it all goes around, I suppose.

Teletubbies Vs Big Tone

I came home from work today and slumped on our new sofa in front of the telly. It took me a couple of seconds to realise that Lynne was talking and that I was supposed to listening.

‘Today me and the baby watched the Teletubbies on YouTube,’ she said.
‘Oh? How was that?’ I replied.
‘She didn’t laugh or anything, but she watched it.’
‘Good.’
‘But that said, I left her watching an interview with Tony Blair while I made tea. She didn’t laugh or anything, but she watched it.’

Essence of Dog

The baby and I are friends again. The whole thing was forgotten about by the time I got back from the pub. I was upset at the time though; I even had a scotch egg on the way home. To anyone not au fait with this particular delicacy, it is a boiled egg wrapped in dubious sausagemeat, dipped in bright orange breadcrumbs and fried. It is served cold, wapped in cellophane. If you find that hard to imagine, think of an ovary wrapped in a testicle and you won't be far wrong.

I don’t know why she wouldn’t take her milk; maybe the bottle was sitting next to the blue cheese in the fridge and she could taste it or something. But it has encouraged us to do something that we haven’t done since before Christmas, that is for Lynne to express some milk in the evening so I can feed her in the morning while Lynne sleeps in. We let it lapse because the baby has started sleeping through the night!

I hadn’t mentioned that had I? The baby has started going to her bed at about half ten, eleven and sleeping until eight in the morning. The rings under Lynne’s eyes have completely disappeared!

Other important news: today Lynne accidentally referred to herself in the third person as ‘mummy’. She was mortified. Also, the baby has a crunchy head. This is a common condition called cradle cap. Like all baby ailments it has a needlessly brutal Victorian sounding name, but all it really is a bad case of dandruff. We tried rubbing baby oils into the kid’s crispy scalp, but the thing that really works is olive oil. The only thing is that this makes the baby’s head smell a bit like dog.

This is ok. I like dogs. Sometimes I rub the baby's tummy as well.

Quote of the Day

Lynne has been trying to express milk. It involves a manual pump with a little bottle hanging underneath.

'But I'm not a cow,' says Lynne in a small voice. She has started saying this a lot.

Quote of the Day

Lynne left the house yesterday. She went to Boots to buy some nappies. I stayed in the house with the baby because I am ill. When Lynne came back she said,

'I'm glad we didn't take her on her first trip outside to Boots. I saw a drunk man. And some litter.'

Clearly this outrage cannot stand.

Quote of the Day

Well, quote of Friday actually. We are walking down the street when Lynne says,

'Imagine if it was your job to audition cute puppies for adverts!'

and then looks delighted that she thought of it.



This is what that would be like:

'Yes.'

'Yes.'

'No, no, NO!'