May 2006 Archives

Dominic has been busy refining his Morecambe and Wise impression.

As soon as we taught him it, we regretted it (see previous post) and it's taken weeks to get him down to being this gentle. Makes I laff every time though.

The recent trend towards bad behaviour on Dominic's part has ignominiously peaked with Helen being called in for a 'little chat' with the nursery manager before being allowed to collect him. His recent speciality is (A) reducing other children to tears (by whacking, pushing over or merely scaring as he sees fit) and then (B) immediately apologising and giving a big consoling cuddle. We think A is just a means for him to get to B, and have tried to ramp up the consequences of his actions beyond him apologising. To this end, Helen came up with the masterstroke of - on top of the usual punishment - removing one of his beloved cars or trains for each offence. These are then getting locked in our glass-fronted TV cabinet, the theory being that they would act as a constant silent reproach of his actions.

Things haven't worked quite as well as we hoped so far - the cabinet is beginning to look like an overstuffed display in a toy museum and the video remote is only working from a very particular set of angles. I have a nagging feeling that we should be starting to watch supernanny type programs for tips, but haven't the stomach to watch someone else's ill-behaved tantruming child when I have one of my own bouncing around on the sofa beside me. (Also, the reassuring subtext of all these programmes is surely 'my kids may be bad, but not as bad as those little feckers', which is almost certainly unhelpful).

On an 'apple never falls far from the tree' note, his Nan has pointed out that I was exactly the same as a child - personally responsible for several permanent withdrawals of other children from my playgroup. We are undecided as to how much of a comfort this really is...

Dominic has been less than kind (Youtube video link) about my new haircut. Whyioughtta...

There's still a few niggles to be ironed out, but the Accord Singers' website is back up - including details of the forthcoming joint performances with their sister choir, Chantatouille. For the bewildered amongst you, this is relevant since the Accord is the small chamber choir that Helen sings with. Check out the website, better still, go and see them in concert. Friends and family discounts, it grieves me to say, are unavailable.

(A little bit of cultural deprogramming)

(Update Saturday 13/05/06) The pop reference here is particularly appropriate, since that song was #1 when Helen and I were born. How about you?

Making the most of the spring sunshine, and after the success of his first ice-cream cone last week, we treated Dom to his first ice-lolly.

A special message for the liddle ginger princess...

Fantastically, we are expecting a brand new bouncing baby wassock in late October. Whilst Helen is very pleased, being pregnant hasn't been the walk in the park it was last time, with daily morning sickness from four in the afternoon onwards meaning she's now been grumpy for fifteen straight years weeks. It hasn't been helped by (unrelated to the pregnancy) her also suffering from another bout of D&V and currently a sore throat (Helen says 'a massively swollen tonsil causing constant earache, actually') so bad that we've had a conversation about my theoretical ability to perform a tracheotomy. She would like to report that she is thoroughly fed up with feeling under the weather, although Dom cutely wishing that she should 'Get well soon, Mummy' or giving 'Aaaah, it's alright' cuddles has taken the edge off.

Back to baby #2, we've had two episodes of unnecessary anxiety this time around. Firstly, we found out that Helen was expecting whilst Dom was in full-on chickenpox mode, leading to some frantic googling on our part, consulting yer Stoppard and lastly (merely as confirmation, you understand) the doctor. There was, it transpires, nothing to really worry about given that Helen has had chickenpox before.

Secondly, the same doctor at the next check-up threw doubt upon Helen's cast-iron certainty that she was (at that point) eleven weeks pregnant by declaring that she felt more like fifteen weeks. Helen, as flexible in argument as ever, put her straight. The doctor then suggested that perhaps we should be checking that it wasn't twins and booked us in for a dating scan the following week (you normally only get a twenty week scan here). Panic ensued. Whilst we'd born the chickenpox anxiety alone, this time the world and his wife knew what the scan was about. There followed an insomniac week of back of the envelope financial calculations, shaking our heads in disbelief at estate agents windows, squabbling over who would get to give up work and quietly thinking that, actually, it would be kinda great. I hadn't realised how worried I was until the scan revealed just one beautiful, thumbsucking, legkicking, hiccuping baby wassock and I felt all the tension lift from me.

We used Dom to stand people down from twin alert, and his Aunty Jobley managed to save his answerphone message (tiny .mov audio file). So very cute, our boy.