Time's Up, Shorty

The Curious Case Of Albert Royall

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:24:00 +0000

One of the most rewarding aspects of having a young child is watching them learn new tricks. I suppose ‘skills’ would be a more appropriate description – tricks makes it sound like Albert has learnt to jump through a hoop or balance a beachball on his nose. By the same token, ‘skills’ makes it sound like he’s learnt needlepoint or French, which I can assure you he hasn’t. Either way, it’s been incredibly heartening to watch his progress from a lumpen, immobile flesh bag into a shuffling, babbling little person.

Albert’s development has tended to come in great spurts, followed by long plateaus of relative inactivity. Which is unsurprising really, mirroring, as it does, the stop-start story of all human advancement. The flowering of civilisation in Ancient Rome was followed by 1,000 years of stagnation before the printing press arrived and with it the Renaissance period. Da Vinci’s days were then followed by another great era of inertia, until 2013 and the invention of Oral-B’s Pulsar® toothbrush, the only toothbrush with revolutionary Micropulse bristles. We’re living in the Micropulse Bristle Age now, my friends.

If I were to labour the analogy, I’d say Albert entered his Neolithic period at the turn of the year, having mastered the use of basic tools such as the stone, the stick and the grown up spoon. Not to mention his evolution from quadruped into Homo Erectus.

This inspiring tale of progress, however, was suddenly put into reverse last month when, quite mysteriously, Albert stopped walking. There was no accident or heavy fall preceding this turn of events. There were no signs of injury. No swelling, no bruising. No feasible explanation whatsoever. He just stopped walking. Or, more precisely, he stopped being able to put any weight on his left leg.

The first time it happened he’d been sitting in his high chair, happily enough, spooning food in the rough direction of his face, but after I helped him down from the table, he crumpled to the floor in a heap. While alarming at first, after 40 minutes or so, he seemed to shake it off and was running around like nothing had happened. We breathed a sigh of relief and put it down to a bad case of pins and needles.

Until two days later when it happened again, this time several times in one day. Worse still, in the moments when he was walking, it was with a discernable limp. The next morning we took him to A&E, where they x-rayed him and took blood samples. We’ve been through this before with his various asthma-related shenanigans, but it doesn’t get any easier. Getting the blood samples is a particularly emotional endeavour requiring one parent to hold Albert in a vice like grip, the other parent to dance about, sing songs and blow bubbles like a crap clown, and a team of five nurses to extricate the blood, most of which ends up on the floor, walls and any passersby unlucky enough to be in the vicinity. It would be easier, of course, if Albert didn’t fight but he takes a ‘better in than out’ approach to his blood and I can’t say I blame him.

Unfortunately, once we got the x-rays and test results back, the doctors were none the wiser. There were no indications of a break or fracture. And the blood samples seemed to rule out all sorts of other nasty stuff – like bacterial infections and infant arthritis. He was a perfectly healthy boy, they said, aside from the fact that, y’know, he can’t walk anymore – come back in a few days.

In a few days, Albert had given up limping entirely and taken up crawling again. Our adventurous, little toddler seemed to be regressing back into a baby before our very eyes – like a tiny version of Benjamin Button. And just like Benjamin Button it was incredibly painful to watch. He looked, frankly, depressed. All the strides he’d made in the last few months had been for nothing; his newfound independence, cruelly snatched away. Albert’s fledgling attempts at talking were also aborted, as if there was no point trying anymore. He was going to be a baby forever.

Over the course of the following two weeks, we made another five trips to A&E, two visits to the fracture clinic, and had two overnight stays in the children’s ward. Each time necessitated more blood tests and more x-rays. In fact, the only bones in his body that now haven’t been x-rayed are his arms and his skull. What’s more, after all the prodding and poking the diagnosis was exactly the same. “Congratulations. Your son is a medical mystery.”

Thankfully, this story has a happy ending, although not an entirely satisfactory one. Three weeks after he first stopped walking, Albert decided enough was enough. On a trip to the local playground, possibly inspired by the hordes of other toddlers scurrying about on their hind quarters, he clambered out of the sandpit, raised himself up on two wobbly legs and with all the determination he could muster limped forward a few paces. He could still barely place any weight on his left leg, but it was clear he wasn’t going to settle for a life on all fours anymore. I didn’t cry when he took his first steps, but there were tears in my eyes this time.

Since then, he’s gotten a little bit better every day. In fact, he chooses to run everywhere now – crashing about the house as if he’s intent on making up for lost time. We still don’t know what went wrong and probably never will. Frankly, I’m not sure I care anymore. I’m just relieved to have our little Neanderthal back.

Daddy's Coming Home

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 10:09:00 +0000

Somewhere, in the big rulebook of human behaviour, there’s a chapter on parental duties. This ancient record, drawn up by our forefathers, divides all the household chores neatly into mum jobs and dad jobs. I’m not sure what our foremothers were doing at the time (the dishes, probably) because the division of labour is appallingly one-sided. I don’t really need to elaborate on the details, because you already know what it says. Mum jobs are cooking, cleaning, singing lullabies, dressing the children, organising family outings and wiping food, tears and snot off faces. Dad jobs are mending things.

This poses a bit of a problem for me. I like to consider myself an enlightened member of modern manhood (hehe, member… manhood) who undertakes an equal share of parental duties. And also, I am utterly rubbish at mending things. The fact is families simply don’t operate like that anymore. We’ve moved on. Society has progressed. And yet, somehow, that’s exactly what our family has become. In the 18 months since Albert was born, my wife and I have unaccountably slipped into a pastiche of retro domesticity. Daddy goes to the office and Mummy stays at home and runs the household. It’s like the last 60 years of social progress never happened. We’re stuck in a time warp.

I’ve tried to assume more responsibilities wherever possible, but the reality is that I’ve only got an hour or so so either side of work in which I can pitch in. This means I’m in charge of Albie’s breakfast and, assuming I’m not working late, his bath time and bed time – leaving a whole 9 hours’ worth of domestic drudgery for my wife to take care of. It’s somewhat ironic then, that work is my saving grace. My trump card. My raison d’etre.

I’m a provider.

There’s something faintly risible and self aggrandising about the sentiment, but it taps into an undeniably potent part of my psyche. I know it’s an out-dated cliché, just like the list of mum jobs and dad jobs, but I’m beholden to it. It’s almost primal. I’ll never be rich or powerful, I can’t mend the sink, or put up shelves but damn it, I provide for my family. This, I’m rather embarrassed to admit, makes me feel like a man. I like to picture myself as a longshoreman in depression era New York working the docks under intolerable conditions just to make ends meet. Occasionally, if we slip behind on the bills, I’ll enter an illegal, bare knuckle boxing competition. I don’t tell my wife about the fights but she sees the bruises when I come home. She doesn’t like it but neither does she say anything, because deep down she knows we need the money. And that’s why she married a provider.

Except, maybe she didn’t. Because this week I did something incredibly boneheaded. I quit my job. I shan’t bore you with the particulars but essentially I’d stopped enjoying it some time ago and I decided I needed to leave sooner rather than later, even if that meant not having another job to go to. This kind of shatters my 1930s longshoreman delusion, of course. Dock workers don’t quit because they’re unhappy or some other vague notion of career ennui. Their level of job satisfaction begins and ends with having a job. Which I guess is one reason why I’m a delusional, unemployed writer and not a 1930s longshoreman.

The upside to all this is that I’m about to have a lot more time on my hands in which I can make amends for our uneven domestic arrangements. I’ve got some serious snot-wiping to catch up on, after all. Maybe we’ll even go one step further – my wife could go back to work while I stay at home and look after Albie. Who knows, frankly? It’s kind of exciting. But mostly, it’s kind of scary.

I’m not entirely sure what happens next, but as of right now our family has no provider and a limited supply of provisions. We’re not watering down the milk formula just yet, but if you know of anyone who needs a copywriter, or hear of any bare knuckle prize fights going down, then please do get it touch.

My email address is stuartroyall@yahoo.com

One Night in Luton

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 10:39:00 +0000

Here’s a fun fact. Our travel cot is exactly the same size as the bathroom floor-space in a budget room at the Luton Ibis hotel. Ok, maybe that wasn’t necessarily a fun fact, per se, but I can assure you it is undeniably a fact. As I survey it from the doorway the head of the travel cot is pressed up against the sink, the foot of the cot is pressed up against the toilet, and the far cot wall (‘far’ is a relative term here) is pressed up against the bath Actually, sod it, let me just draw you a diagram.

Here you go.

If I want to go for a piss I have two options, and neither of them are pretty. Option one is to climb into Albert’s cot, open the toilet lid from inside the cot and carefully arc my stream over the cot wall and into the toilet. Option two is to stand in the doorway and arc my stream over the entire width of the travel cot and into the bath. (This is undoubtedly the most flamboyant of my options.) It’s probably also important to note at this point that Albert is currently in the cot and asleep.

Thankfully, I do not need to go for a piss. Yet.

The rest of our accommodation is just as snug. In a neat mirror image of the bathroom our bed fills 99% of the floor-space, leaving a gap either side just big enough to walk sideways down. Our backpacks are rammed underneath the bed, while Albert’s buggy blocks the hallway.

I find myself in these intimate surrounds because we are flying to Spain at five in the morning and it was decided that it would be less stressful to stay in Luton the night before, rather than stay at home in south London and get up two hours earlier. It’s only now that we’re here that we’ve realised the folly of our ways. Any decision you make which involves spending more time in Luton is the wrong decision.

It’s not all bad though. Albert is asleep, after all. There’s a flat screen TV at the end of our bed. And the room service menu promises to “delight and entertain” our taste buds “with flavours from around the world”. In fact, I’m starting to feel like I’m on holiday already. Who cares if I can touch the TV with my feet when I lie down? That’s actually pretty convenient. I turn the telly on with my big toe and we watch The X Factor with the sound off so as not to wake Albert. The X Factor with the sound off is a marked improvement on The X Factor with the sound on. We play a little game which involves guessing which songs the contestants are singing by reading their lips. A group of non-threatening teenage boys perform something called “Quorn Meat Baby” followed by a scruffy looking busker who does a rousing rendition of “Can’t Take My Arse Off You”. This is fun.

I decide to delight and entertain my taste buds with a spinach and ricotta ravioli (“an Italian favourite”) and a bottle of red wine. When it arrives the ravioli is peculiarly grey however the red wine is reassuringly red, and surprisingly excellent at that. My wife has gone down a slightly less adventurous route and opted for fish and chips (“a British classic”), perhaps unaware that our holiday has started already. All things considered, I think we can call the evening a success.

Once X Factor has finished we decide to turn in for the night. I switch the telly off with another ostentatious flick of my big toe and crawl under the covers. I fall asleep while counting planes coming in to land, pleasantly cocooned in our cosy, new holiday home.

A couple of hours later and my stomach rumbles me from slumber. I open my eyes. It takes a few seconds to adjust to my alien surroundings. My stomach rumbles again. A thought flickers to life: what colour is ravioli supposed to be? Kind of yellow. Beige, maybe. Not grey. Definitely not grey. Another rumble. Oh fuck. I think I’m going to be sick. Wait… yes, I’m definitely going to be sick. I quickly slither out of bed and clumsily grope my way along the wall in the dark towards the bathroom. It’s not until I get to the bathroom door that I appreciate the true gravity of my predicament.

I have two options. And neither of them are pretty

... And Breathe

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 10:55:00 +0000

Is it illegal to drink tequila in a children’s hospital? There are no signs anywhere saying you can’t. Maybe it’s one of those things where it just goes without saying. Except it obviously doesn’t or I wouldn’t be asking the question right now. In the absence of any forbidding signs I’m just going to assume that it’s probably frowned upon but not explicitly outlawed. I take a furtive swig from my flask and hand it to my wife who has joined me behind the laundry trolley at the far end of a shadowy, hospital corridor. She in turn presses the metal spout to her lips and snaps her head back just as a night nurse appears from an adjoining corridor some 15 feet away. We freeze guiltily, but the nurse, perhaps more preoccupied with the business of caring for sick children than hunting down delinquent adults, passes by without a word. This act of dubious criminality would be charged with excitement were it not for the circumstances which have contrived to bring us here.

Approximately 12 hours ago I took a call in my office that ran something along these lines:

Me: “Hello.”

My wife: “Don’t panic but I’m in an ambulance with Albert. Can you come to the hospital?”

Me: “Yes, absolutely. I am definitely not panicking. And I will be certain not to panic at any point along the way or, indeed, upon my arrival.”

I may have misremembered the exact words, but I think that captures the mood of the conversation fairly accurately.

Shortly afterwards I arrived at A&E dripping with terror. My last visit to this hospital was just over a year ago when Albert was born. I have fond memories of that occasion but the hospital itself has become freighted with heavy portent in my mind. This is a place where significant things happen. Significant, life changing things. And I’m not quite ready for any more life changing right now, thank you very much.

After a rather desperate interrogation of the receptionist, I managed to locate Albert cradled in his mother’s arms, hooked up to a machine and breathing through a mask. He’s had an asthma attack – except the doctors refuse to call it asthma. They’re not allowed to diagnose asthma until a child is five, but my wife and I (and I suspect the doctors too) know that’s exactly what it is. We’ve been mentally preparing for this news ever since we found out about Albert’s allergies. Together with my own history of asthma it seemed to be a sure thing.

When Albert’s breathing failed to stabilise over the next few hours it was decided that he’d have to stay overnight, so around 11pm I went home to fetch a change of clothes, some toiletries and various other essentials.

One such essential is the flask of tequila that my wife is now trying conceal from disapproving eyes. (I know what you’re thinking, by the way: “Isn’t tequila more of a debauched student party drink?” All I can say is, you try selecting an appropriate liquor for an all-night bedside vigil. It’s harder than you think.) I hand my wife the lid which she screws back on before slipping the flask inside her handbag. We return to the foot of Albert’s bed where we slump into a pair of chairs and contemplate the sleeping creature before us.

Maybe it’s the size of the hospital bed, as opposed to his cot at home, but he seems smaller than usual, cowed by the experience of having to fight for breath for the first time in his life. His little pot belly is still heaving, working overtime to fill his lungs. He’s going to be ok. I’m absolutely certain he’ll be ok. That could be tequila fuelled confidence, but it’s also because whenever we try holding the oxygen mask to his face for his hourly medication he resists it with all the strength of a wild dog refusing to be muzzled. He’s a fighter. I’m sure I’ll come to lament that stubborn streak, but right now, I’ve never been more proud.

The truth is, it’s impossible to feel too sorry for your self in a children’s hospital. You don’t have to look too far to find someone worse off than you, and Albert’s ward is full of little boys and girls who won’t be going home tomorrow. Or indeed any time soon. I feel deeply indebted to the nurses and doctors working the ward and to the NHS as a whole. I don’t know what they’re being paid but I’m certain it’s not enough. Every single person we’ve dealt with has been calm, professional, caring and supportive. Plus, they turn a blind eye if you bring your own drinks.

Baby Steps

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 07:53:00 +0100

Long time no blog, right? Sorry about that. How are you? How are the kids? Actually, don’t bother, I’m not interested. We’re here to talk about my kid, ok? If you want to bore me with tales of your simpering progeny then you should update your sodding dadblog.

A lot’s happened since my last missive so I should probably just crack on. First things first: Albert has turned one. We had a little party for him and everything. We weren’t going to bother initially because, frankly, he’d be none the wiser but then we realised he might ask to see some photos someday so we rustled something together in a hurry. Unfortunately, we then forgot to actually take any photos. If you’re reading this in the future, Albert, it was a lavish affair with elephants, jugglers and Nicki Minaj. We gave you a pet Llama which you loved and cherished for a few weeks before you got bored and forgot to feed it, so it starved to death and THAT’S why you can’t have a puppy.

Traditionally this is where I remark that “time has flown” and “they grow up so fast.” Except it hasn’t and they don’t. Truth is, this has been the longest year of my life. Thanks to Albert’s idiosyncratic timekeeping I have been awake for more of this year than all my previous years – at a conservative estimate I’d say this year has been about 25% longer than the others. Which is mildly depressing because I’ve achieved about 50% less – unless you count wearing a path between bedroom and baby room to retrieve yet another jettisoned dummy, which I don’t.

I never understood those people who describe having children as their proudest achievement. It’s hard work to be sure, but you’re not doing anything that hasn’t been done by literally EVERYONE since the DAWN OF TIME. Well done, you had sex and made a person! It’s not exactly conquering Everest, is it? In the annals of human accomplishments, breeding is quite some way behind space exploration and only just above breathing. Having kids isn’t your proudest achievement - it was just the last thing you did, before your brain turned to soup.

The other big piece of news is that I no longer have a baby. I have a toddler. He toddles. Occasionally he topples, but mostly he toddles; legs bowed, arms aloft, belly out, mouth agape… like a tiny, drunken, ever-so-slightly camp Tyrannosaurus Rex. This, clearly, is a monumental development. People often use “baby steps” to describe incremental change, but as far as I’m concerned baby steps are quantum leaps. It’s what separates us from the apes after all. Actually, some apes can walk, can’t they? And smoke cigars. And wear funny hats. Which is more than Albert can do. Seriously, what is the deal with you babies and hats? We’re not trying to strap them to your head for the good of our own health, you know? I’ve forgotten my point now.

Anyway, Albert is finally up and toddling. To be honest, I was beginning to worry he didn’t have it in him. Every other child his age seems to have been walking for months now, as if it’s some kind of stupid competition – “That’s amazing. You must be brilliant parents. Your child will probably grow up to be a professional walker!” – and it was starting to get embarrassing.

So, as Albert starts to achieve more and I start to achieve less, now seems like the appropriate time to start living vicariously through him instead. I had a decent run I suppose, but it’s over now. I’m too old and set in my ways to achieve anything new. It’s too late for me to become a professional footballer, or an astronaut, or Spider-Man, but it’s not too late for Albert. I almost feel sorry for him. Just as he’s taking his first steps in the world and establishing his own independent spirit, I’ve decided to channel it towards meeting my own dashed ambitions. All those dreams I had but was too lazy to actually achieve are all Albert’s dreams now. Enjoy them, Master Royall. And don’t let me down.

Photo

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:43:51 +0100

Crawl of Duty: Mortal Wombat

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 10:00:00 +0100

Anyone got any cotton wool? I need enough to cover… *makes complex mental calculations*… uh, EVERYTHING. After spending 10 and a half months happily sat on his arse or lying prostrate on his back (not the front, never the front), Albert has finally decided it’s time to give forward motion a try. His initial attempts at crawling were predictably pathetic (lunge, faceplant, cry, repeat). Then, for a brief spell he tried dragging his body across the floor using just his hands in a wounded soldier fashion. But now, after cracking the magic ‘two hands, two knees’ combination, he is scampering about the place like a highly-caffeinated wombat.

Unlike a wombat however, Albert is not merely content with life on the ground. No, he wants to climb stuff too. Like the pot stand and the oven and that electrical cord hanging down from the ironing board. What could go wrong?

As any parent will tell you, having a child can be a series of incredibly complicated challenges. Which is why I’ve tried to pare back my responsibilities to one fundamental task: keep the baby alive. So far this has mostly involved remembering to feed the baby at periodic intervals and keeping the baby’s top end out of the water while I wash the baby’s bottom end. Relatively straightforward stuff, I will concede, but it’s harder than it sounds. This latest development, however, has made my job nigh on impossible. One part of me is proud that he’s learning new skills and building his confidence (if he gets a few bumps and bruises in the process, then so be it) but the other part of me just wants to ‘keep the baby alive’. I want him to reach for the stars, just so long as those stars don’t have any sharp points. And they’re not too high up. Or hot to touch.

Suffice to say I now spend my days following Albert around on my haunches, arms outstretched like a wicket keeper trying to steer him to safety through the power of my mind alone. And when it comes to finding sharp corners he’s like a highly trained sniffer dog expertly hunting down cocaine – if the sniffer dog were to then immediately gorge itself on said cocaine before suffering a massive, fatal brain aneurysm. If you’re thinking of buying a house and you’re a bit worried it could be a potential death trap, I am willing to rent my baby to you. If it’s got a faulty electrical socket he will find it. If the cellar door doesn’t close properly he will find it. If there’s a family of giant, plague-ridden rats nesting in the asbestos roof insulation he will find it.

So far, Albert has managed to drop a slate tile on his hand, trap his fingers in a drawer, eat a garden snail (shell and all), repeatedly smack his face on the glass coffee table and most horrifically of all, pull a lamp off a shelf onto his head. The lamp shattered but thankfully no blood was shed. This last dalliance with death, however, was the final straw for me, so my wife and I spent the next few days babyproofing the house. This mostly involved attaching child-catches to the cupboards, putting covers on electrical sockets and moving heavy objects out of reach. Predictably Albert then found a spare child-catch lying on the floor and tried to choke himself with it. It seems at least one of us is bound for an early grave.

Sick Boy

Mon, 14 May 2012 16:19:00 +0100

Here’s a top parenting tip: don’t have a sick baby. Better yet, don’t have a baby at all. That one piece of advice alone should ensure you many years of happy contentment – but if you really must insist on saddling your life with a squawking, little flesh bag, for the love of god, don’t get a sick one.

It was inevitable really. I’m not the healthiest specimen of humankind myself, suffering, as I do, from chronic asthma, tinnitus and the kind of immune defence system which makes Heathrow Border Control look like Checkpoint Charlie. My wife, on the other hand, is made from much sterner stuff. She runs. She swims. She climbs mountains. She loves all that outdoorsy stuff – and by outdoorsy I don’t mean sitting around in a beer garden (something I’ve come to learn from regrettable personal experience). So when it comes to making a baby, you might think her strong, healthy, mountain climbing DNA would trump my weak, feeble, sofa dwelling DNA. And you would be wrong. Like a single rotten apple I have spoiled the whole baby.

Albert doesn’t get sick – sick is his default setting. Occasionally he might come down with a mild bout of wellness, but it never lasts longer than a couple of hours. Our doctor (a rather familiar acquaintance these days) has told us most babies will get, on average, ten colds in their first twelve months, but Albert passed that milestone with half a year to spare. Add a couple of ear infections, chronic reflux, persistent eczema, sporadic wheezing and a severe bout of flu to the mix and I think it’s fair to say we’ve got ourselves a wrong ‘un.

This suspicion was all but confirmed recently with the unwelcome news that Albert is allergic to milk. And eggs. And nuts. Oh, and dust. We weren’t really planning on feeding him that much dust but the other three are a big blow. I try to keep the tone of these blogs fairly light and breezy but I’m struggling to put a brave face on this one. I keep thinking about all the things Albert will probably never get to eat and then I start getting a bit teary. Let’s face it; all the best foods contain one or more of those ingredients, right? A childhood without chocolate is no childhood at all. Jelly and ice cream without ice cream is just jelly, people.

Just. Jelly.

I know there are alternatives out there, and I suppose he can’t miss what he’s never had but it breaks my heart all the same. It’s only a matter of time before he’s at a friend’s birthday party surrounded by other children, all voraciously destroying a rocket-shaped birthday cake – great fistfuls of victoria sponge oozing between their chubby fingers, ice cream smeared through their hair, chocolate dripping from their demented little faces – while he sits alone in the corner, staring dolefully at his bowl of dairy-free soya yoghurt, trying in vain to mould it into a space ship.

Which brings me to a slightly more selfish concern. How are you supposed to control a child without resource to the usual stockpile of dairy inducements? That was going to form the central plank of my parenting strategy. “Finish your dinner and you can have ice cream for dessert.” “Clean up your room and I’ll buy you a Snickers.” That kind of thing. “Stop strangling that pigeon and I’ll give you a breadstick” just doesn’t have the same ring to it, sadly.

I used to be pretty sceptical of people with food allergies. To my cynical mind, it was all a bit of a modern affectation, a bit… trendy. I’m sure nobody had them when I was a kid. But somehow, over the last 20 years or so, everybody developed a lactose intolerance. Then they decided they couldn’t eat nuts anymore either. Or shellfish. Or eggs. And then, finally, wheat and gluten were off the menu too. Pretty soon, I thought, all they’d be allowed to ingest would be meat vapour and plant dust. (“That plant dust is particle-free, yeah?”). Except, shockingly, it turns out that I was wrong and the doctors were right. Maybe this is some kind of karmic retribution for my smug dismissal? If so, it’s poor Albert that’s paying the price. That boy is going to get spoilt rotten – with all the dairy-free soya yoghurt he can eat.

Boy Meets World

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 12:09:00 +0000

I am a jaded, cynical soul. World-weary even. I am weary of the world. That’s a terrible thing to admit about yourself, but there you have it. The world, after all, is a big place. There’s quite a lot of stuff in it to be weary of, much of it laudable. Bees, dogs, socks, velcro, tree-frogs, lolcats, piñatas, microwaves, Beyonce, skateboarding pets, people called Gary, metamorphic rocks, large hadron colliders, Lionel Messi’s left foot, wasabi flavoured Kit Kats, season three of Mad Men, chicken nuggets that look like George Washington, the angry trombone solo on Diana Ross’s “I’m Coming Out”… you get the gist.

As impressive as all that stuff is, however, none of it really gets my pulse racing anymore. I suppose part of this is a natural consequence of growing up. As I rapidly close in on middle age, there is a dwindling supply of new things for me to discover. I’m not saying I’ve experienced everything the world has to offer, but I do worry that I’ve done most of the good stuff already. I’ll never fly in a plane for the first time again. I’ll never build my first snowman again. I’ll never fall in love for the first time again. And I’ll never listen to Daft Punk’s Homework through a hallucinogen-smudged fog at a friend’s house party in the summer of 1997 again.

How long before I’m scraping the bottom of the experience barrel? I’ve never eaten an artichoke before, but I don’t hold much hope that it’s going to change my life. It would have to be a seriously amazing artichoke. Are artichokes ever amazing? They don’t look like they would be.

Even the things that you’re supposed to acquire a taste for later in life leave me underwhelmed and uninterested. Whisky? Meh. Jazz? Do be serious. Golf? Excuse me while I lose my shit. Is that really all I have to look forward to? Sipping sock-flavoured brown water in a clubhouse with men wearing tartan trousers discussing back pain to a soundtrack of atonal saxophone abuse. Is it any wonder most men go insane after they turn 40, hopelessly chasing new thrills, new cars and new girlfriends.

The glimmer of light amidst this rather depressing catalogue of ennui is of course, Albert. Not that he’s particularly amazing or anything. He isn’t. (The most exciting thing he can do right now is sit up on his own, which is only moderately more exciting than golf.) However I am very much enjoying being able to see the world afresh through his eyes. Even the most mundane objects suddenly become absurdly awesome in the presence of a baby. I like to walk around the house picking random things up and showing them to him. “Here, look at this. It’s a BANANA! Never seen one of those before, have you?!” And it will blow his mind. Not for him the weary cynicism of his father. No, he will hold that banana like an alien artefact, inspecting every square inch of it. He will put it in is mouth, shout at it, dribble on it, bash it on the floor – basically whatever he can to extract every ounce of information from its inscrutable, yellow mass. This game can carry on for hours. “Look, it’s a colander!” “Holy smoke, a doorstop!” “Fuck me, an empty yoghurt pot!” In Albert’s world, empty yoghurt pots are amazing. Imagine how exciting his life must be.

You get the biggest bang for your buck, however, with mirrors. Hold Albert in front of a mirror and you can practically see his brain melting. First he recognises your face in the reflection and gives you a big toothless smile. Then the penny drops and he slowly cranes his head up to look at you in real life. When he’s convinced you’re not an apparition his attention will shoot back to your doppelganger in the mirror, mouth agape, eyes wide. “What sorcery is this?!” I like to imagine him thinking. Only then does he realise there’s a second person starring back at him – himself. This realisation can elicit vastly differing reactions. Sometimes he’ll smile. Sometimes he’ll furrow his brow. Sometimes he’ll reach out and try and smack himself in the face. I don’t know if he recognises himself or whether he just thinks his dad is hanging out with a really small, bald bloke with drool issues. “That’s you, Albert.” I always say. “What do you think?”

I would give anything to find out the answer to that question. What an incredible thing it must be see yourself for the first time. Perhaps I’m crediting Albert with more self-awareness than is strictly possible at his age but imagine taking that tiny step towards understanding, not just your place in the universe, but the very nature of your own existence. That’s got to trump every other experience on earth. I should eat an artichoke though, just to be sure.

This Old Man

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:34:00 +0000

Bloody hell, do you know how old Albert is? Probably not, no. Why would you? He’s not your child, after all. And other people’s children are pretty much the dictionary definition of ‘not that interesting.’ I realise that kind of undermines the whole point of this blog, which is why I try to write about slightly broader themes than just “Albert rolled over!” or “Albert just burped!” or “Albert did the cutest poo in the bath today!” Anyway, for those of you who are interested, Albert is six months old. (If you knew that, congratulations, you are my mother.) Is six months a landmark age? It feels pretty significant and yet meaningless at the same time. Should we bake him half a cake? Give him half a puppy? (Wow, that got dark in a hurry.)

Instead, to celebrate Albert turning the big 0.5, my wife and I took him to one of those ‘Mums & Bubs’ cinema screenings on the weekend (just so we could listen to some other babies crying for a change, y’know, mix it up a little). You would think gathering lots of screaming infants together in one room and then trying to watch a film sounds like a terrible concept, but given the number of families there it is a remarkably popular one.

Once we’d arrived and navigated our way through the crowd I was struck by how much older Albert looked compared to all the other squinty, pink faces peeking out from the cavalcade of pushchairs. In fact, as I exchanged the obligatory nods and smiles with the other dishevelled dads milling around the foyer I began to sense my status was more elevated than usual. Thanks to Albert’s relative old age, I was afforded the respect of an elder statesman. “Look at that man,” I could hear them thinking. “He must know what he’s doing. He’s not killed his child for at least half a year.”

I wanted to sit each of them down, look them in their bleary, bloodshot eyes and let them know that everything would be ok. I wanted to tell them that I too had experienced moments of doubt and fear. I wanted to say “Hey man, it doesn’t matter that you don’t know the words to any nursery rhymes – neither does your child. Just make it up.” Actually, what I really wanted to do was to buy some popcorn and fall asleep in a darkened room. Which is what I did. I’m pretty sure that just by being in the room I gave them all a glimmer of hope though.

To be honest I’m finding my new status as ‘experienced dad’ a bit of shock. I’ve only just gotten used to having a newborn and now, all of a sudden, he’s not so new anymore. He certainly doesn’t smell new anymore. I once likened his newborn scent to freshly mashed potatoes – now it’s more of a combination of vomit and rash cream.

Not everything about him has aged depreciably though. His face, which was one so saggy, has now filled out into cute, puffy cheeks. His ‘cradle cap’ has cleared up. And his hair, which was showing worrying signs of my family’s dreaded ginger gene, is looking blonder by the day. Best of all, he’s developed a rather endearing habit of chuckling like a dirty old man.

I can’t overstate how much of a difference it makes now he’s interacting with us. Everybody kept telling me that after three months he would “start to give back more.” Exactly what he was going to give back, however, was never stipulated. What on earth could he possibly do to repay us for all those sleepless nights, screaming fits and projectile vomits? Was he going to start washing dishes? Take the bins out? Re-grout the bathroom? As it turns out, all it meant was he was going to start chuckling. And it turns out that that’s enough.

Via the brilliant toothpastefordinner.com

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:31:59 +0000

Via the brilliant toothpastefordinner.com

Baby On Board

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:14:00 +0000

There’s something about having a baby that makes people think you’re a nice person. Complete strangers will smile and nod at you simply because you’re carrying a small human around. Having a baby says, “I am a caring, trustworthy person, capable of putting someone else’s needs above my own.” Or at the very least “I am not too proud to wipe someone else’s arse.” It’s not necessarily true, of course – Ghengis Khan fathered hundreds of children and by all accounts he was a total rotter. I bet kindly old ladies still smiled at him when he popped out to the shops for a pint of yak’s milk with a baby strapped to his front though.

I find it strange, therefore, that no one is smiling at me now. Despite cradling Albert over my shoulder in my best impersonation of a responsible caregiver, I am surrounded with enmity. I pace the room, gently patting my child, offering him comfort and succour, while hundreds of pairs of unfriendly eyes are burning into me. I look up and try to meet their dead, hate-filled glares but they just turn away. “I AM A NICE PERSON!” I want to shout at them, but nice people tend not to shout at strangers, as a general rule.

An announcement crackles over the PA. “Boarding for flight EK4044 to Brisbane, Australia will commence now. Could passengers flying Business Class and families with young children please make their way to the boarding desk.”

My wife and I attempt to gather our assorted toys, books, rugs and nappies which have spilled out over the departure lounge carpet and shunt them towards the designated area. The waiting crowd parts to form a contemptuous guard of honour. I can practically hear their prayers. “Dear God,” they silently implore. “Please don’t be seated next to me.” Meanwhile, my carry-on luggage vomits down my back.

We’re boarding a 25 hour flight. With a four month-old baby. Who has just started to show signs of teething. What could possibly go wrong?

We find our seats and immediately Albert begins crying. Our fellow passengers start filing past, nervously checking the seat numbers on their ticket stubs. Eventually a smartly-dressed, middle-aged woman sits down next to us. She looks across at our squawling child and gives us a big grin.

“I just want you to know that whatever happens, I’ll be absolutely fine with it,” she says. “He can cry. He can scream. He can throw up. He can even poo on me and I won’t bat an eyelid.”

“Thank you,” I say with an apologetic grimace. “That’s very kind. I’m pretty sure he won’t poo on you, but there may be some crying.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she says with a warm smile. “I remember when my boy was his age.” And she motions towards a small, blonde scamp sat on his father’s knee across the aisle.

What a nice woman, I think to myself. But then, of course she is, she’s got a child. The natural order of the universe has been restored. I take Albert’s arm and wave it like a puppet at the nice woman’s child. We are in a club now. A club for nice people.

25 sleepless hours later and I’ve decided I don’t want to be in this woman’s club anymore. Her demonic spawn has been screeching his hot little face off for the entire duration of the flight. Worse still, he does this while charging up and down the aisle – head up, gappy teeth bared – bashing into people’s legs like a wild boar desperately defending its territory. “No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No!” he wails whenever the flight attendants try to make him sit down. It seems to be the only word he knows, which is perplexing seeing as neither of his parents ever say it to him.

“Why don’t you do something?” I want to scream at them. “Control your child!” But how can I when his mother was so nice to us? Except she wasn’t being nice, was she? She was being cunning. I’ve been tricked into being nice. I must reciprocate her kindness and understanding, purely because she was nice to us first, the conniving bitch. It’s almost disappointing then, that Albert has behaved impeccably. He hasn’t slept very much thanks to our noisy neighbour but he’s barely cried at all. He hasn’t pooed on anyone either. More’s the pity.

Eventually the plane lands and our ordeal is over. Later as my wife and I gratefully collect our belongings from the luggage carousel, the woman and her son spot us across the conveyor belt. She smiles and waves hello. I pretend not to see her.

Happy (belated) Christmas!

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:49:00 +0000

Sorry for the silent blog treatment. It’s nothing personal, I’ve just been a bit distracted with a few other projects, not to mention a Christmas holiday to Australia. Please accept this family portrait as an apology for my tardiness. In related news I’ve just now decided to collate all of Albert’s photo protests into another tumblr.

I give you CRANKY ALBERT! http://crankyalbert.tumblr.com/

p.s. We are not bad parents, honest.

"Pint?"

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:33:00 +0000

It began, as it so often does, with a solitary word. “Pint?” An innocent enough enquiry, I’m sure you’ll agree, posed to a fellow gentleman via the medium of text message. Nothing wrong with that, is there? I suppose, with the benefit of hindsight and in the interests of factual accuracy, it should have read “Nine pints, two bottles of sauvignon blanc, one bottle of fizzy wine and a pad Thai?” but I am just a mere mortal who cannot see into the future.
The reasons for my query were twofold. First: the recipient, an old friend who now lives overseas, was in the neighbourhood for a few days. Second: a team of highly paid footballers had won a game (of football, no less!) and I was looking for someone to celebrate with. The fact that I had no involvement in this sporting accomplishment beyond bellowing at an impassive television screen was irrelevant. As was the fact that the only reason I had such an abundance of free time all of a sudden was because I’d told my wife I needed some peace and quiet to get some work done. She, being the loving wife she is, had duly obliged by vacating the flat with our baby in tow. And now, here I was in the peace and quiet of a public house packed to the rafters with drunken football supporters swearing joyously at slow motion replays of John Terry falling over. My phone buzzed with a reply. “YES!”

I had forgotten what life was like before Albert arrived. The three and a bit months that have passed since then may as well have been three decades. I couldn’t tell you the last time I went to the cinema, or saw a gig, or went out for a drink with colleagues after work or, indeed, watched a game of football. I had consigned these simple pleasures to the murky recesses of my memory, but now, all of a sudden, some familiar sensations came flooding back. The fizz of cheap, domestic lager danced across my tongue. The melodious theme music to Sky Sports Super Soccer Saturday lilted on the air. My nostrils filled with the sweet stench of stale vomit and beer-sodden carpet. It felt good to be doing something normal again. It felt exciting.

Moments later, my friend arrived and we embraced each other as spiritual brothers. We were free men and all the possibilities of life in London stretched out before us like a great banquet waiting to be feasted upon. We resolved to make to most of this rare opportunity the gods had afforded us. We would sip from the cup of life. We would throw caution to the winds of fate. We would set sail for destiny on a ship called FREEDOM. But first, we would get another round in.

Approximately eleven hours later, with dawn fast approaching and the final strains of the Ghostbusters soundtrack still booming from my living room stereo we decided to call it an evening. Our journey had run its course. My friend disappeared into the milky night and I retired to the warm embrace of bed, where happily I found my doting wife and child had been waiting up for me. I greeted them affectionately before emptying the contents of my stomach somewhere between the bedroom and bathroom, and slithered elegantly under the duvet.

The exact details of what happened that fateful night I’m afraid I cannot speak of. My friend and I took a solemn vow never to reveal our heroic exploits. And also, we can’t remember. My wife remembers though. Oh yes, I’m afraid this is not the kind of thing she forgets quickly.

This Won't Squirt A Bit - Part 2

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 10:38:00 +0100

Part 1 can be found here.

The doctor looks up, first at me and then at my wife. “I erm… suppose I could… ah… take a look at it.” His face is now a vivid shade of hot pink. “Would you mind erm… removing your top please? And umm… your bra.”

We seem to have accidentally stumbled into a terrible John Hughes coming-of-age movie. I start to wonder if our doctor is actually a doctor, and not just a nervous teenager here on work experience. Or perhaps he’s the lucky winner of a hospital radio competition. Have the NHS cutbacks been that bad? Are they plucking random idiots off the street, handing them a stethoscope, a copy of FHM and asking them to cover for the Boob Specialist?

My wife complies with his request. She looks glad to be finally making some progress. I too am glad, although it’s tempered by the acute realisation that I am now sitting in a room with my half naked wife and a man who I only met 20 minutes ago. Worse still, a man who is now very tentatively fondling my wife’s left breast. This really isn’t how I imagined my first threesome would unfold.

“It feels, erm… normal,” he says.

“Not compared to other one,” protests my wife.

It’s true. Even to the untrained eye, her right breast looks much fuller than the left one, which is just as well since nobody in the room is in possession of trained eyes. The doctor considers my wife’s right breast for a moment. He makes a thinking face.

“Feel it,” she says.

The doctor grimaces, and then slowly reaches out his other hand to cup her right breast.

“Be careful!” says my wife mischievously. “I don’t want to squirt you.”

The doctor recoils sharply, hand still outstretched, fingers still holding an invisible mammary. His wide eyes flick urgently between my wife and I, looking for some kind of guidance.

“Just kidding,” she says.

But the doctor doesn’t laugh. For this is not a laughing matter. His face radiates with hot fear. Sweat glistens on his brow. His outstretched hand trembles in the air. Never has a man looked so uncomfortable about the prospect of copping a feel. Granted it’s not every day you squeeze a woman’s breasts while her husband watches on, but I can assure you my presence isn’t even remotely intimidating.

I start to wonder whether he might be waiting for me to give him permission, some kind of signal which says, “Please, feel my wife’s jugs” but then I realise he’s still holding her left breast. Eventually, the doctor seems to realise this too – and so he takes a deep breath, contorts his face into something approaching composure and summons the courage to carry on. Both my wife’s breasts are now in his hands. He nervously scrutinizes one after the other with all the enthusiasm of an airport security guard examining a ticking suitcase.

Silence envelops the room once again as all three of us intently study my wife’s boobs. Finally, the doctor looks up at my wife and clears his throat.

“I erm… think you should ah… make an appointment with a specialist.”

This Won't Squirt A Bit

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 11:26:00 +0100

“Is there anything else you want to ask?” enquires the young, male doctor. Mid-twenties probably. 27 tops. I have officially reached that point in life’s great conveyor belt of clichés where you start guessing your doctor’s age.

“Yes,” replies my wife. “I want to talk about my boobs.”

This isn’t the response the doctor had been expecting. In the preceding 20 minutes we had discussed our baby’s weight, his sleeping habits and the persistent rash around his neck, not to mention the obligatory five minutes of ‘weather chat’. There had been no indication whatsoever that anyone wanted to talk about their boobs.

“When I called to make the appointment, I asked to speak to a Boob Specialist,” continues my wife.

“Is there such a job as a Boob Specialist?” I wonder silently. That sounds like the start of a spectacularly bad chat up line. The kind of chat up line that ends in costly legal bills and a restraining order. Which would be annoying if you actually were a Boob Specialist. Maybe you could get business cards printed to verify your credentials; tasteful business cards with expensive embossing and a nice, serif typeface – probably best to resist the urge to do anything clever with the O’s in “boob”.

The look on our doctor’s face however, suggests that he does not have any such business cards.

“Oh.” says the doctor, his voice pitching somewhere between soprano and castrato. “I’m afraid, I’m erm… I’m a visiting doctor.”

He doesn’t say it, but we’re left in no doubt that he hasn’t been brought in for his mammary expertise. My wife is disappointed but undeterred.

“My left one is broken,” she says helpfully pointing out her left breast to the doctor. “It’s not producing as much milk as the other one.” She then points to her other breast just in case he’s confused. He’s not a Boob Specialist, after all, is he? The doctor glances momentarily at my wife’s breasts before quickly deciding to focus his attention on his shoes instead.

I want to interject at this point, because technically it’s not really broken. My wife has a lazy boob. That may not be the correct medical term, but that’s what it is. Calling it broken implies that her boob has stopped working entirely. It’s still working – it’s just not working very hard. I’m not trying to vilify her boob as indolent or workshy, but there’s no escaping the fact that it’s just not pulling its weight. I decide to let this clarification pass, however, and instead nod sagely at the doctor.

“I erm, ah… don’t really know much about these, umm… matters,” says the doctor to his feet. “Maybe you should, ah… discuss it with a midwife.”

“But this is the whole reason why I made the appointment,” says my wife resolutely.

“Right. I see,” says the doctor. “Have you tried, umm… rubbing… y’know, or erm… massaging the, erm… boob?”

“Yes, I’ve done all that,” she confirms with no small hint of impatience.

My wife really has tried everything to get her milk flowing properly again. She’s tried massaging it. She’s tried manually ‘pumping’ it. She’s tried applying a heat compress to it. She’s even tried wrapping it in cabbage leaves. That last particular piece of advice was given to me by a stranger in a chemist a few weeks ago. He seemed incredibly nice and well meaning, but I’m still not entirely certain it wasn’t an elaborate practical joke. “You have to crush the cabbage leaf veins with a rolling pin first,” he said. “Then tear out little holes for the nipples to go through.” If it was a joke, you have to admire the attention to detail.

“Do you think it could it be mastitis?” offers my wife.

The doctor contemplates this for a while and an uneasy silence descends on the room. There’s only one way he can answer this question and as the seconds tick past it becomes increasingly clear that my wife is not prepared for it to go unanswered.

To be continued…

Suck It And See

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 09:25:00 +0100

Within a few hours of birth, many animals are not only feeding but standing up and walking around. I remember watching a baby foal being born on Countryfile once and marveling at how quickly it was up and drunkenly gambolling about on its long, wobbly legs. By these standards, I think it’s fair to say our baby is pretty useless. He can’t walk. He can’t crawl. He can’t communicate in anything other than the most primitive of fashions. And he’ll never win the Grand National. (Unless it’s on the back of someone else who’s actually putting in all the effort.)

I don’t want keep banging on about this, but Albert still can’t even fall asleep without some fairly substantial assistance. I would have thought sleeping was a pretty basic human instinct – right up there with eating, breathing and laughing at farts. This is stuff that should come pretty naturally, right? I mean, seriously, who needs to be taught how to fall asleep? You just lie down and close your eyes. It literally takes no effort at all. I realize the world can be a strange and scary place for a newborn, but you never see horses furiously pacing round a stable with a foal strapped to their chest singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star until their throats crack, do you. You don’t see cows forlornly pushing prams across moonlit fields at three in the morning. Or maybe you do? I don’t really get out of the city that much.

A few weeks ago, we finally gave up on getting Albert to settle himself and went out and bought a dummy. I know, I know, it’s not something we’re proud of, ok? In fact, for the first few days it was a downright guilty secret. I don’t really understand why. Babies have been sucking on dummies since time immemorial but both my wife and I have been brainwashed into believing this is somehow wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.

Maybe it’s a middle class thing. There’s nothing we love more than pointing out the failings in others – and nobody fails more than parents. You can’t take your baby for a walk through the park, without somebody secretly tutting that you’re pram is too big, or that you’re dressing your child inappropriately, or that you shouldn’t be drinking before 10 am. I know this because up until two months ago I was the person doing the tutting. And now, of course, the shoe’s on the other foot. (In related news, I was so tired the other day I literally put my shoes on the wrong feet. I spent an entire tube journey with my legs crossed hoping nobody would notice.)

There seems to be a number of reasons why most people frown on dummies these days. The first reason is there’s a danger the baby will prefer sucking the dummy to sucking a nipple and then stop breastfeeding. The second reason is that they might grow up to suck their thumb. And the third reason is that it just looks a bit chavvy. (I suspect the third reason is by far the most powerful.) Having taken all these things into consideration however, I’ve decided that it would be better for Albert to be raised as a formula-fed, thumb-sucking chav than to have his parents blow their brains out. You might think differently, of course, and I respect you for your honesty, but that’s the way it’s got to be.

Anyway, the dummy has changed our lives. Or at the very least, given us our evenings back. Previously these would be spent trying to do everything with one hand, while cradling a crying baby in the other. I find chopping vegetables a maddening experience at the best of times but clumsily chasing a carrot around the kitchen with a large knife while a small child screams in your ear is unwise in the extreme. Now however, we can cook, eat, wash up and, if we’re feeling particularly adventurous, talk to each other safe in the knowledge that behind our bedroom door, Albert is curled up in his carry cot with a drool-slicked dummy hanging from his gaping maw.

Thanks to that little plastic piece of magic, getting Albert to sleep is now so straightforward it feels like we’re cheating. Simply swaddle him up, put him down and then, just as he opens his mouth to scream – BOSH! – in goes the dummy. A couple of sucks on that bad boy and he’s cruisin’ for a snoozin’. In fact, sometimes it works so quickly I wonder whether my wife is secretly dipping it in chloroform.

It wasn’t an instant success, I should stress. The first dummy we bought was no good. No good at all. For some reason Albert was unable to grip it in his mouth and it kept falling out. At first, I held this against him as evidence of yet another basic baby skill he had failed to master. However it turns out that dummies come in two different shapes – flat teat and round teat – and Albert is definitely more of a round teat man.

I realize, of course, that we might be making a rod for own back with this dummy business. The temptation is to use it more often than is strictly necessary. We’ve been to a lot of weddings in the last few weeks so it’s practically been strapped to his face like a miniature gimp gag, lest he ruin someone’s perfect day. In fact, I fully expect that in a year’s time I’ll be lamenting it as the devil’s work and that Albert goes batshit mental whenever we try taking it away from him. That’s next year’s problem though. Hopefully by then he’ll be old enough for cigarettes and video games.

I’ll put up a proper blog post in a couple of days, but in...

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 10:27:30 +0100

I’ll put up a proper blog post in a couple of days, but in the meantime, here’s a heartwarming moment between father and son. (Yes, that is vom.)

Whatever Works - Part 2

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 18:47:00 +0100

Part 1 can be found here.

Two hours later, I wake up with a start. Silence fills the room. Sweet, merciful silence. I allow myself a few moments of quiet ecstasy before the inevitable creeping dread invades my consciousness. “Just go back to sleep,” I try telling myself. “He’s absolutely fine.” But already it’s too late. The seed of fear has been planted. “What if he rolled over and suffocated himself?” “What if he choked on his tongue?” “What if he just stopped breathing for no reason at all, as if some higher force simply reached out and turned off a switch?” I seem to spend half my life wishing Albert would go to sleep and the other half worrying that he’ll never wake up.

I can tell you the exact moment when the reality of parenthood dawned on me. It was when I walked out of the hospital and into the carpark. As soon as the automatic doors opened, the quiet sanctity of the hospital was replaced with rushing traffic, impatient car horns and an overwhelming sense of peril. I looked down at Albert, already asleep in the car seat I was carrying, completely oblivious to the latest upheaval in his surroundings. Another person’s life was in my hands now – and never has it seemed so fragile. Matters weren’t helped when our Romanian taxi driver turned up and casually informed us that this was his first day on the job and only his second day driving on the left hand side of the road. “Just tell me if I do anything wrong,” he said with a smile whilst I furiously planted my foot on a brake pedal that wasn’t there.

A good friend of mine once told me he walked into the kitchen to find his 9 month old daughter sitting on the floor holding a bottle of blue window cleaner. The top was still screwed on, but he couldn’t be absolutely certain she hadn’t drunk some. So, what did he do? Unscrewed the top and drank some himself of course – just so he knew what symptoms he had to be on the look out for. Probably not the wisest choice he ever made, but it warms my heart (as it, no doubt, did his) whenever I think about it.

It can’t be good for you, this ever-present dread; this perversely morbid mindset. I wish I could shake it off, but I can’t. It seems Albert isn’t the only new lodger in our house. The grim reaper is dossing on the sofa too. Death lurks behind every corner – behind every cough, behind every rash, behind the wheel of every passing car. And now behind every minute’s silence.

I peer nervously over the edge of my bed into the carry-cot. He’s not moving.

“Don’t do it to yourself,” I think. “Seriously. Just close your eyes and go back to sleep.”

I study the blankets for any sign of breathing. Nothing. I lean over until my ear is right next to his mouth. Still nothing.

“This is insane.” I think. “You’ve spent the entire night trying to get him to stop crying and now you’re going to wake him.” But it’s no use. I’m no longer in control of my actions. I extend a trembling hand and touch the side of his soft, chubby face.

“WAAARRKAARRKAAHHH!” screeches Albert like an angry kazoo.

It’s the most beautiful sound in the world.

Whatever Works - Part 1

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:15:00 +0100

“HEEEENGH! WAAARRGHAAHHH!” exclaims the little man with the big voice before repeating himself just in case I didn’t catch it the first time.

I’ve been listening to Albert cry for an hour now. Listening so hard I can practically see the audio waves. And yet, I still have no idea what’s wrong. My wife only recently fed him so he can’t be hungry. I’ve tried rocking him. I’ve tried changing his nappy. I’ve tried singing to him. Nothing, it seems, can stem this tide of infant anguish. In fact, I think the singing may have made it worse.
It’s a bit of a cliché for first time parents to complain that babies don’t come with instruction manuals (of course, being a man, I wouldn’t read it if there was one) but I could really use some help right now. Unfortunately, I’m the one who’s supposed to be helping. The two of us are holed up in the spare room (I steadfastly refuse to call it the nursery), so my wife can finally get some sleep. This is the fourth night in a row that Albert has declined to visit the land of nod and I’m worried that she’s at breaking point. “Go to bed, darling. Get some rest,” I foolishly suggested. “I’ll look after Albert.” And now here we are, just an hour later: father and son, locked in a battle of wills, a war of attrition.

He’ll fall asleep eventually, I think to myself. You can’t cry forever.

“GAAAARRRGHAAAAARRGHARRRRRWARRAAAAHH!” interjects Albert from his carry-cot.

The last time Albert was my sole responsibility I ended up hurtling around a Tesco carpark with him in a shopping trolley. If I kept above 5mph he was happy, but if I dared drop below that he started crying – like a really low-budget remake of Speed, starring me as Sandra Bullock, Albert as the bomb and a tin of baked beans as Keanu Reeves. I look up at the clock and wonder if it’s too late to go to Tesco. Do they lock the trolleys up after midnight?

“NNNGGGEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! HHUUURGH!”

I suppose there’s no reason why I have to be in the same room with him. I may as well be in the lounge watching TV, such is the effect my presence is having. I do find it reassuring however, to see where the cries are coming from. If I try sitting in another room I can’t help but imagine Albert clawing his face off in distress or maybe being attacked by a rabbid fox. No, it’s easier on the nerves to watch him cry. But it’s much, much harder on the heart.

“AK AGAK AGAKK!” says Albert, sensing he has the upper hand.

I try to emotionally distance myself from the situation; treat it like a scientific experiment. After all, it’s not like the screams are accompanied by actual salty tears. I find this very strange – all that noise and no waterworks. I wonder when his tear ducts will start working? That could prove very problematic indeed. I pick Albert up and give him a cuddle, just to let him know I haven’t abandoned him.

“NET! NET! NET! NET! NET!” he protests, in a curious Russian accent.

I’ve tried looking for advice in the innumerable parenting books that now litter our house like unlucky betting slips in a bookies, but each one suggests I do something different. Turn the lights off, says one. Turn the lights on, says another. Pick him up. Put him down. Swaddle him. Un-swaddle him. Use a dummy. Don’t use a dummy. Say three hail marys and dance the lambada. I’ve slowly come to the realisation that everyone’s just bluffing. They’re making it up as they go along; cashing in on our fears and insecurities. In the words of William Goldman when summing up Hollywood, “nobody knows anything.” If I ever write a guide to parenting it will be called “Whatever Works” and every page will be blank.

Come to think of it maybe I really should write a guide to parenting? Chapter One: What do you do if your baby pees in his mouth while you’re changing his nappy? Answer: Pretend it didn’t happen and don’t tell anyone. Chapter Two: What do you do if you accidentally bump your baby’s head while walking through a doorframe. Answer: Pretend it didn’t happen and don’t tell anyone. Chapter Three: What do you do if your baby won’t stop crying?

“NNGGAAAAARRHHHHH HUUURGH NNGGAAAAARRRHHH HUUUURGH!” offers my new copy editor.

I put Albert back down, only to be met with another barrage of angry Russian abuse. I can’t take it anymore. For the first time since he was born, I start to doubt whether I’m cut out for parenthood. I slump forlornly onto the pull-out sofa that will be my bed for the evening and draw the duvet up around my head. His muffled sobs start to mix with my own. Only one of us will cry themselves to sleep tonight and it won’t be Albert.

To be continued…