DAY 25 – PINCER GRIP

THE SMOKER'S cough was still around but it looked like it was clearing up. Maybe M'lady took the hint and kicked the roll-up habit. The main thing though was that she didn't wake up during the night and at 0700 on the dot she was full of smiles and ready to be fed.

A-bomb was back in the game, which was great news. It also meant I didn't have to cancel Baby Yoga, which if I'm honest is one of the highlights of my week, never mind hers. Missed it last week due to knife-throwing on the Stag-do, so I would've been more than miffed if I'd had to skip it again because of a cough-cough Tell-Tiny-Tim-I-Won't-Coming-Home-For-Christmas plonker.

I could tell my girl was back on form because she stuffed a muffin in her face, guzzled her milk and slept for nearly an hour in the pram while walking to the pre-yoga breakfast (for adults) location. Happy days.

Yoga was excellent – we did the usual "You Are My Sunshine" routine with legs and arms moving and little kisses to wake the tiny turds up and we practised various poses, which certainly got a few clicks out of my spine, ever-compressed from carrying around The Lump. We also did "The Grand Old Duke of York" routine, which involves holding your baby at down, half-way and top with straight arms as is appropriate with the lyrics... Now I may have mentioned this before, but the fact that A-bomb expects me to lift her, in rhythm, to the Top, Half-way Up and Down, is frankly out of order. I looked around the room and saw some seriously long and lean kids. In comparison I was dealing with a baby cannon ball. I've had a word with A-bomb and she's going on a strict diet of exclusively fat-loss pills*

*CHILL OUT. This little piggy will be eating as much roast beef as she wants. She just won't be getting hoisted up to the top of the hill unless Daddy gets some serious gym work done*

*I jest, I've got it covered. Sure.

It was like having a different baby given the switch from sad-face Thursday to smiley Friday!

Back at the ranch we spent the afternoon in the garden in the play pen (it is our travel cot, which serves EXACTLY the same purpose as a stupidly expensive "play pen" from Amazon) and I was over the moon that my jokes and little skits were once again receiving the laughs they deserved. My revamped "aaaand boo" sketch went down particularly well, with lots of giggles and out-of-control foot stamps. Then, my new bouncy-bouncy questions act also went down well – bounce on knee while shouting aggressively "WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE EU" – although she had zero answers for me, just breathless pants while poking her tongue out. Not too different to when I played with some UKIP voters.

Food time was a real treat for M'Lady because she had the fritters that she didn't eat yesterday as well as Tarragon Chicken, mushroom and green beans. She had her gobbling face on so I was looking forward to a big eating session.

Fritters were a great success as a starter.

I tend to take the approach of not staring at A-bomb while she eats because I don't like it when people do that to me. It happens when you're last to finish and others are waiting for you. "Get out of my grill mofos" is what I might say to that. However, after a good minute of no chicken or mushroom being eaten I took a look and saw a frustrated face. She couldn't pick the slippery stuff up.

"Poor little lovely," I thought.
"She can't manage it"
"Oh look she's picked up the mushroom up by pincering it with her fingers!"

On closer inspection it emerged that on putting on her splash-proof cover-all outift I hadn't pulled her thumbs through, so she was operating with just four fingers. Pretty poor from me and impressive from the youngster to battle her frustration and succeed. Who needs thumbs?

A quick sleep sprint to finish off before a Milk Lady bath time and that rounded off a great day*

M'lday also excelled herself by doing a sneaky slash on her Mum just before the bath. High five to her. 

*aside from the fact that we were mourning the loss of the EU and facing up to a dystopia where the UK has opted to be cut-off from it's old allies and our seven-month-old faces a lifetime of austerity.

 

DAY 23 - THOUGHTS ON EU REFERENDUM

SOMETIMES I can go hours or even days without speaking to another adult.

Of course I say bye and hi to my beloved wife at the bookends of the working day but if I'm talking about seeing and conversing with other real human adults, days can pass without any grown-up interaction.

If as a stay-at-home-look-after-the-baby parent you find and take one second to think about who you have spoken to on a regular day you will often find your chats have been with your baby as well as his or her toys.

I also find that I these days I tend not to speak my usual language, it's more of a gobbledegook noise that is the universal tongue that us adults think a baby understands better than English, or whatever the parents' tongue is.

So, with the EU Referendum looming over the UK, I have found that my discussions and debates on the merits of REMAIN and LEAVE have been held largely in my own head, with the people on television and radio, with my seven-month-old and her friends.  Her friends are, on the whole, cuddly and plastic toy animals.

Now, without becoming too political on what is a blog about being on Shared Parental Leave to look after my baby, I thought it was only right to at least mention a vote that will undoubtedly have a huge impact on my family. For the first time I have had to (well I didn’t have to but I have) think about how the result will affect my daughter, who has no say on things.

It is right that A-bomb doesn’t have a vote, because what she says is largely drivel and in fact, dribble. Nevertheless, if talking unintelligible garbage was a reason to withhold voting rights a fairly large chunk of the population, including members of both the LEAVE and REMAIN campaigns would be denied their ballot papers. The fact is that you only need to be of the correct age to be given permission to put an X in a box and decide a nation's future. 

So after having the various arguments with myself and attempting to work out what truths were hidden in the carpet bombs of lies, damned lies and statistics dropped by politicians via the media, I decided to conduct my own interviews with a cross-section of society that I associate with most at the moment.

Before I set out the thoughts of my interviewees I should give a few opinions on the prominent figures in the so-called BREXIT/BREMAIN campaign:

 - Boris Johnson, a hugely intelligent man, has let himself down for feeling the need to peddle lies on stats rather than give intelligent reasoning

- David Cameron has inspired nobody

- Jeremy Corbyn has shown himself as a weak leader by not speaking up strongly enough for either camp. 

- Michael Gove has excelled himself in making himself even more hated than when he attempted to destroy the education system

- Nigel Farage has done himself justice by sticking to his principles and living up to expectations. He has remained utterly xenophobic/racist, myopic, ill-informed and utterly useless.

Now to the interviews, with the most sensible bunch I could find at short notice:



SOPHIE THE GIRAFFE

I can see what all of the OUT lot are saying about immigration. I agree, there are loads of 'em coming here. But getting out of the EU isn't going to stop 'em coming in. We will have even less power to stop the flow of immigrants if we are acting alone. Also, I don't have a problem with Johnny Foreigner coming in to work... it seems that they're doing a bloody good job at fair prices. There are plenty of BRITISH freeloaders milking the system... can we have a referendum on getting rid of them? Don't get my blue tongue started on the Jeremy Kyle brigade.


WEIRD CRINKLY DOLL FACE

I've listened to all the debates and it seems like a lot of lies have been told, especially about us paying this £350 million a week to the EU. It's simply not true. I'm sure there are other stats that would support an OUT vote but the Out campaign chose to use an untruth. Weird.
Also people are banging on about us losing our sovereignty. I disagree. We have been blocked by the EU so few times in comparison with when our wishes have sailed through.


TWO COWS AND PIGGY

As a collective we find it ironic that a lot of nationalistic, chest-puffed-out Brits want OUT. These are the same people that are proud and humbled by our Armed Forces. Do they not realise one of the key reasons why the EU was formed? It was borne out of the Second World War, when the smart European nations decided to club together to make sure that never again would they fight each other. Its seems to have worked. We are so proud of our current boys and girls in the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force and we are in awe of what their predecessors did in the World Wars... it seems remarkable that we want to opt out of a system that these men and women fought for,  and that has served us well in terms of bringing relative peace.


LITTLE BEAR

Get me out! Bunch of refugees coming in here nicking my porridge. Let's close the borders, get Boris in charge and get rid of anyone without a British passport. Does anyone know if I'll still be able to get into Europe with my current passport? Will it still be easy to fly to Spain?
Actually I've got mates and grandparents that have retired in Europe, will they have to come back the UK?! Can we close the borders if we are just the UK? Will I still be able to get my loft converted by foreign workers?... it's just that they are the best value and get the job done at rapid speed...? I don't mind the Eastern European lot if they're doing the manual jobs because they're top notch and don't charge silly money. And they're on time. The rest can get out though. Except the doctors. And nurses. They're good too. But the others! Bloody immigrants.


SMUG SHEEP

If people are voting OUT just to get David Cameron OUT then they are maniacs. We chose Cameron at the General Election and if we want rid of him now we will have to wait until the next General Election. Yes he is weasel of the highest order but I am pretty certain that Boris is even more of a right-wing nutjob and will systematically destroy the NHS, tighten the purse strings on the poor and will look after his own people. He is a dangerous man.


BLUE WHALE

Farage makes out that he is the champion of fishing while stating that fishermen are better of OUT of the EU. If he's such a hero of the fisherman why did he only attend ONE EU meeting on the matter when he had access to loads? To be honest, I don't think I would be welcome in Farage's country if we're not in the EU - I'm not white and my parents were not born here. Oh dear, all of my lot will be frogmarched out if we don't vote IN.


Good to get a few views from my new mates.

Now to vote to protect ourselves and the future of the next generation.