DAY SIX – GANGSTA BABY

OBVIOUSLY as parents we are hoping our baby is on a path to greatness and will be a world hero in both academia and sport. However, I also hope that our six-month-old protege doesn't yet have the capacity to remember today's car journey.

The household was all packed up in the car, with the essential 15-tonnes of baggage for a quick trip to the park, with A-bomb cruising in the back in her Maxi-Cosi with us parents up front. It was 0900 so perfect for nap time on the move. Noise doesn't tend to bother the "LO" (touching every bit of wood I can see) so the stereo volume was cranked to a rebellious 12 out of 30. It was Sunday and we were rollin'.

Both the Milk Lady and I were "singing" along to a track, which just happened to be playing via my car's CD-player (yes I rock a CD, not an digital wave machine) and it was a good minute before we registered that our completely impressionable baby was also in the car.

I think the precise moment we turned to each other with look of "yeh that's not appropriate for now was when Dre nonchalantly belted out "So ?uck y'all, all o' y'all; if y'all don't like me, %low me!".

If our precious girl was listening up to that point she would've also learnt that if you wrongly doubt someone who has actually proven himself you had "better bow down on both knees". She might have also absorbed the valuable cultural lesson that it was Mr  Dre  (one assumes that he's made consultant by now) that brought us the "oldies" including the excellent toe-tapper "Motha?uck the po-lice".

Despite some serious life lessons being handed out in that gem of a track, it probably was bad parenting to blare it into the our pre-toddler's brain at such a young age.

That said, if my wholly middle-class, won't-wear-outdoor-shoes-indoors wife is known for anything it's her rap skills (should probably be banned for hustling in rapeoke comps) and once Dre had started spitting his rhymes that was it. The window was down* and L fired out Eminem's chorus like the ghetto* mum she is.

"Nowadays everybody wanna talk like they got something to say / But nothing comes out when they move their lips / Just a bunch of gibberish / And ?other*uckers act like they forgot about Dre... ". Poor little munchbunch was being subjected to this, but what can you do? If your Mama comes from Compton or a leafy suburb of Bristol, gangsta will be in your genes as well as your (ironed) jeans.

*up
*John Lewis card-carrier

Never fear, it was back to twinkle twinkle for bed time, albeit the two-step version.