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.

DAY SEVEN - A GIRAFFE, A DOCTOR AND SHOWING OFF

Sophie – the favourite

DUE to the highly sensitive nature of the situation there was one detail that I hadn't mentioned in my previous notes. For reasons of my own safety, fear of political and socioeconomic fallout, and a simple hope that everything would be okay "if I gave it one more day" I was harbouring a terrible secret... I did not know where Sophie the Giraffe was.

For the uninitiated Sophie is a toy that every child in the land is programmed to be obsessed with and has the ability to calm any human beast under the age of one, even when they are in the throes of a cataclysmic meltdown. Those who are aware of the simple French creation, that has remained unchanged for 55 years, will testify that I'm not exaggerating – the smug-faced rubbery play-thing is, whether you like it or not, an essential item. Milk, wet wipes, nappies, Sophie – she is on the top list.

Since Thursday afternoon (I believe) M'lady had been giving me quizzical looks while being loaded in to the buggy. "Excuse me sir, but you don't seem to have handed me my best friend, the giraffe", said the face.

"You know the drill sunshine, when I'm on awake-time walks I get strapped in then you hand me Sophie and we all have a pleasant day". Oh goodness I was going to be in serious trouble.

I'd set a deadline of Monday lunchtime to find her (her! she's basically got a seat at the table), after which I would have to confess that I'd failed in my duties and also shell out (£12.95, at least) for a new one. Now, I do not believe in any higher being, black magic or outside forces – I'm evidence-led – but praise be to whoever or whatever guided me to the Special One (the giraffe, not Jose Mourinho – we don't need him). The time was 0830 and Saviour Sophie was staring up at me from underneath the City Mini Baby Jogger GT (buggy). I had looked there 100 times but I would not be questioning it.  I would live to fight another day.

Following a bout of unprecedented coughing at odd intervals throughout the night I decided to take A-bomb to the doctor. She's not usually a cougher and these back-of-the-throat sounds suggested she'd done 40 years in a coal mine on a diet of 40 roll-ups a day. A quick check-up revealed that she was totally fine, might have a cold and was indeed a healthy (fat) baby in possession of sizeable thighs. Happy days. The munchbunch was a good lady, lazily sitting there, sighing with exasperation while the professional poked and prodded away.

Next up we took a car journey to Teddington to meet our recently married friends Pedalo/Pete and Lizard – not their christened names. I can assure you that Lizard is simply an hilarious adaptation of Liz. I do not make friends with reptiles and I certainly don't hang around with men that marry them. I digress. A lovely time was had in the sunshine at The Anglers pub overlooking the Thames – decent food and a friendly vibe. The little punk even donned her sunglasses and had some suncream put on before demanding her food just as mine was served. What a precocious urchin (it was exactly her feeding time).

Today was yet another example of how quickly these young humans develop. It was only a few days ago that I mentioned that A-bomb hadn't really rolled over. With a lot of concentration and effort she could move from her front to back, in kind of slow motion. But since that time she is now flipping from front to back with ease and has added moving back to front to her repertoire (#proud). That was an ironic hashtag. What next? Break-dancing?

Back at PedaLizard Towers the suck-up crowd-pleaser was rolling both ways for fun and had also gobbled up all of her Cheese, onion and spinach muffins. She was showing off. "Ooo look at me, I can roll on demand. Please love me!". Pathetic. It was actually an excellent display and she was rewarded with numerous genuine cuddles and three kisses.

Back at the ranch The Lady was stripped of clothes and treated to some "no-nappy time". Turns out they love that. Gets some air into the nether regions and gives them a sense of freedom you don't get in conventional clothing. The Milk Lady arrived moments later and the LO thought that was the best thing that had ever happened. To demonstrate her gratitude for Mummy being home she laid a giant onion-infused brown log on the dry-night mat she was parading on.

A relaxing couple of minutes in the bubbles followed. A-bomb just leaned back while we polished and buffed away. Then came a new move, which I hope doesn't catch on. While reclining like a Brit abroad on a sun-lounger she casually looked to her left and burped out a bit of sick, with cabbage in it. She then assumed her original position. There wasn't much of the vom' and no bits made it into the water because she'd cleverly aimed it on the space reserved for Steve The Sponge. Still, a bit disgusting.

So, a lovely day rounded off with a turd and sick. University students pay a lot of money for that.

DAY 51-59 – TIME ESCAPED US BUT WE'RE STILL HERE

WELL that was quite the extended break from tapping away on the old keyboard wasn’t it?! Hopefully readers won’t hold it against me and the A-Bomb but we have been super busy, what with mastering commando crawls, falling off park benches, eating leaves… And launching a new business venture based on parents getting fit outdoors while their babies play in front of them.

On the crawl front M’lady has effectively shunned the standard technique, labelling it as inefficient and much too ladylike and similar to equestrian dressage. She has decided to perfect swift manoeuvres on her belt buckle in the face of any adversity or obstacle. A development from the chest-down shoulder-slither has been seen, where she pushes herself up to have straight arms while raising onto the tips of her toes to form a kind of “downward dog” yoga move. I am yet to see a full push-up or a spring into a standing position, which is somewhat disappointing.

Sticking with the subject of push-up… I have just launched a Spartans With Sprogs class under the Spartan Fitness London banner (www.spartanfitnesslondon.co.uk), which is an outdoor high-intensity fitness class that parents can bring their babies along to. The babies (all rolling or crawling but none toddling) play with toys on a large mat while their mums (so far we haven't had any dads) train hard with bodyweight exercise, weights and kettle bells. So far it has been excellent, with mums getting a real fat-blasting muscle-toning workout while the so-called “Sprogs” do their own thing in front of the adults. In fact, it appears that watching mummy/daddy run on the spot or hit boxing pads is rather hypnotising and leaves their youngster transfixed on the action. Of course now that I have tested the idea on a small group and witnessed babies on the best behaviour imaginable and on that basis decided to roll it out to a wider audience, the bigger sessions will now see crying meltdowns, turd explosions and crises that I can't even jokingly predict right now. Watch this space.
 

After the first Friday morning Sprogs session I received all sorts of messages from participants, firstly saying how much they had enjoyed it and secondly commenting on their inability to walk because their bodies hadn't been used to exercise. All good news! The aim of the game for Spartan Fitness London is to have people training hard while smiling, so the mission was accomplished for this first session.

A few days later the A-bomb and I went on a drive out to Runnymede to meet my friend Cara and her little girl, Chloe, plus Cara’s mum. During the drive I gave my passenger an in-depth lecture on how, while crawling and sitting in the upcoming field, she should be aware that we were to visit the place where the Magna Carta, one of the world’s most famous constitutional documents, was signed. She nodded and coughed to mark her appreciation for the information.

We plonked ourselves on a picnic bench near the lovely Magna Carta Tea Rooms https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/runnymede/features/magna-carta-tea-room-runnymede and chatted about all the things that now occupy our lives: nappies, wet wipes, children eating soil, the work-childcare balance etc. M’Lady enjoyed her al-fresco snack with me acting as the human high-chair while Chloe ran around in the grass. All the while we were sitting on a perfectly safe picnic bench. Mid-way through our conversation Cara took stood up from her seat next to me to grab an opportunistic video of her daughter in action. Good idea. Moments later, like a see-saw, the wooden seat I was on plummeted to the ground sending me flying backwards to fall on the floor, all while holding the Lumpy Baby. If anything had been on the other end of the bench it would have been launched into the next field. So, there I was, unharmed but very much on my backside, holding M’Lady with straight arms above my head. The other two adults had moved on from the initial shrieks of “Oh my God!” and concern for our (mainly A-bomb’s) safety, to full-blown laughter, while the toddler in our congregation was genuinely upset by the whole episode. A-bomb remained poker-faced throughout but her eyes said: “Seriously Dad, will there be at least one day when you don’t make a scene, this behaviour is rather tiresome”. On dusting myself down and checking the bench for faults – the seat wasn’t screwed in – I was a bit disappointed that a team of judges didn’t emerge from the bushes holding scorecards aloft with me being declared champion of the world. Never mind. Then we got a coffee and drove home.

The next day we, along with the NCT crew, took on a mammoth route around Richmond Park. The sun was out, the deer were running wild and ice creams were in-hand, all making a recipe for a glorious day. I must hold my hand up to confess that as the tour guide, who is a regular at this particular park, I failed to factor in the different speeds of a runner versus a buggy-walker (I usually attend as a runner). Soooo, when our 1-2 hour walk became a whole-day trek, with a few restless babies wanting to be carried rather than pushed and mum's arm's nearly falling off due to the carrying, the blame lied with me. I hasten to add that nobody complained and everyone was pleased with the exercise, but I was quite aware that I had dragged some weary-legged mums unwittingly on a sweaty yomp through the London countryside.

A couple of other updates just to round of this catch-up post…
1) A-bomb has been working on a new drinking technique, when supping from both the Milk Lady and the bottle: three seconds of slurps before swivelling her head round at rapid speed to check she’s not missing out on things, realising all is well and then returning to the drink. It slows things down somewhat. This is a sign that she has inherited the incurable FOMO disease from her parents. Fear Of Missing Out is something that does not leave you, so whether it’s good or bad luck, the Lady will always want to be part of all things at all times and as a result will always be tired.

2) I have realised that female clothing often has buttons or poppers down the back of garments. Hitherto my poor child has been parading an open back in such items #wardrobemalfunction

3) M’Lady now likes to eat anything that lives outdoors – she has really been taken in by Tomee Tippee’s “closer to nature" branding. An example: My good friend Morrey visited for a coffee after I had been at a Spartans With Sprogs session and remarked that it looked like A-Bomb had something green in her mouth.

“No no, she hasn’t had anything to eat yet,” I replied, with a look of "leave the parenting to me, mate"

“Cool, fair enough,” added Morrey, doing his best not to sound like he was telling me what to do.

“Oooh there it is again… there is definitely something on her tongue.”

“Really?! Oh, she must’ve grabbed one of the green vegetables the other babies were eating on the mat,” I ventured.

I squeezed M’lady’s cheeks to check exactly what might be on her tongue.

“Ah. Yes, you are right, she does have something green in her mouth,” I conceded.

“Not a vegetable though… a leaf. Yeh, that’s totally fine. Totally fine.”

It wasn't even a lovely fresh that could double as a salad, it was more of a horrible dirty leaf. Top parenting points for me.

4) According to the Milk Lady, baby bottle cleaners (the rubbery things with soft rubber bristles) are AMAZING for washing champagne flutes.

That'll do for now... more of a catch-up in the next post!

DAY 13 - SING WHEN YOU'RE WINNING...

WITH football's European Championships having just kicked off I thought it would be an apt moment to discuss the importance of songs and chants in the lives of parents and babies. It may be just me, but I think many parents are in the same boat in that EVERYTHING you say eventually becomes a song. No baby book tells you to bring a tune to your words, but that's what happens. Your kitchen floor suddenly becomes the boards of Broadway as you warble about making breakfast.

Much like the football stadiums and streets in France, my house is very much a song-centric zone. I hasten to add that similarities between football fans and anything else that happens Chez A-Bomb end with songs/chants. The Fans aren't really setting a great example to anyone are they? Well done mate, you've spent 20 years growing your belly, you've taken your shirt off and you're hurling racial abuse at a people you've never met... all in the name of 'the beautiful game'. Congratulations on representing your country abroad. Anyway that's the end of that tangent. Back to songs.

Conversations with, and statements to the baby end up in some form of song, either a freshly penned tune or a re-hash of old work. From simply singing (to the tune of Oh My Darling Clementine) "Oh ma goodness oh ma goodness, she's a lovely little poo, doing plopsies on the mopsie, oh ma darlin' little girl" when she's woken up with a filled nappy to "One WEE! She's only done one wee / she's only done one wee" in they style of football's "one nil/ we beat the scum one nil".

Given that everything ends up in tuneful verse I find lyrics from yesteryear popping up at the forefront of my mind and getting an airing in the shape of baby songs. Not that they make sense or resemble anywhere near a good tune, but they're there.

One of the recent favourites, when needing a muslin cloth is "Mus-lin Mus-lin Mus-lin, we're Mus-lin like that... " to the tune of DJ Pied Piper and The Masters Of Ceremonies' "We're lovin' it like that".

Others in the repertoire are, following a bath and a need to rid The Lady of excess bubbles, "Shake, Shake, Shake, shake that booty"(courtesy of KC and the Sunshine Band; "Hey Dir-ty, buddy you've done a plopsie in your nappy, I said hey" (with thanks to Ol' Dirty Bastard); and, if we're practising sitting up without slumping forward like a drunk, I'll sing "Oh sit down, oh sit down, sit down next to me...". Hours of fun.

The fact is the munchbunch (plonker, you're just a munchbunch plonker) really responds to some animated singing, especially if I throw in a little jig for good measure. These little ditties are often the difference between a smiling lady and a whingy one.

If she starts to whine, with a faux cry, I'll belt out "Hey, what's that sound?, everybody look, what's going down" (courtesy of Stephen Stills/Buffalo Springfield). That usually puts an end to the whinge.

Then there are the songs that keep their words but have their style mixed up a bit.

For the all important sleep-inducing sessions singing plays a huge part in the proceedings. As you no doubt know, Twinkle Twinkle is the bedrock of my successful sleeping system, however I do tinker with the style... because I can.

This week I've been busting out Jazz Style.. Twi-nkle Twi-nkle littlestar... howa/ wonda... whachoo are/ Zibbidee pap pap zibbidee staaar. There is also the Ba Ba Black sheep rap and Amazing Grace sung in the style of Elvis, of which A-bomb is a big fan.

The crux of my point is that since having a baby my life has become a genuine musical and with the Euros on everywhere in the background, the football chants will permeate my song choices.

I'll steer clear of a few muggy terrace favourites but all others are in the mix. No talk of managers being paedos or sha*!in' wives with carvin' knives here, thanks. Nice lads, the football people.

In other news, today I turned out for the famous nomadic Squirrels Cricket Club (@SquirrelsCC),  very much a beloved part of my extended family. The A-bomb didn't make the trip due to the forecast of wet weather and likelihood of a cancellation. Needless to say the weatherman was 100 per cent wrong and the sun shone down gloriously on our damp squib of a draw.

M'Lady was asleep when I returned home but I whispered "you could wait for a lifetime, to spend some time in the sun-sheeeeine" through the bars of her cot. Next time she will attend the Squirrels match, rain or shine.