Dental Torture
Never has the phrase 'Be cruel to be kind' been more aptly demonstrated than by the nightly ritual of teeth cleaning.
To say Evan is not fond of having his gnashers polished is a little like saying long-tailed cats don't like rocking chairs.
But it has to be done. It is important to instil the importance of dental hygiene a child, every parent knows that. My soft-hearted arguments that he should be reprieved from time to time because he's only got a handful of teeth and well, he'll get all new ones soon so we'll look after them instead, are tempting but fanciful.
We don't want Evan to be one of those babies on Panorama who cuts black and ready-rotted molars because its parents have never heard of Colgate.
And let's face it, when you consider Evan's rapacious appetite for biscuits that's far from impossible.
No, as fraught as it is, the evening ordeal must be faced and so his bedtime routine runs thus: Bath, babygrow, bottle, brush...bedlam.
It seems odd to me that when the last couple of hours of his day are so geared to calming the boy and preparing him for slumber (stories, nursery rhymes, a bellyful of warm milk) the very last thing we do is engage him in the sort of frenetic physical combat last seen on the Grandstand's Saturday aftenoon wrestling special.
I, Big Daddy, approach the bed, armed with the menacing and fully loaded blue and green four inch tooth brush.
My adversary, The Baby-Faced Assassin, attempts a swift evasive manoeuvre, but, hampered by his sleeping bag and weighed down by six ounces of recently-consumed full-fat milk, is easily caught.
I push the brush towards his mouth, he counters by clmping his jaws shut. Toothpaste is smeared over both cheeks as he throws his head from side to side and grabs at the brush with his fingers. He sreams in distress and I seize my chance to thrust in the bristles and work on those freshly cut incissors, but it's a ruse! He puts those new teeth to good use holds the brush fast in place. It won't budge and now there's a brief stand off as I, gripping the brightly-coloured plastic like an ice pick wait for him to tire.
But what's this? Mum's back in the room and it's tag team time! While she sits astride the prone baby, pinning down those troublesome arms and holding his head still in a vice-like grip I force the brush between Evan's tightly pursed lips and, kind of, jigger it about a bit. Success!
It may more closely resembles a scene of mediaeval torture than one of familial bliss and, not for the first time, I hope social services aren't reading, but as I said before - you have to be cruel to be kind.
Published Date:
08/03/2008
Modified Date:
08/09/2008
The big one
Evan has turned one and the event has been marked with a week of celebratory events. What for most people is a one day of the year affair developed into an extended festival of parties and commemorative occasions for this blessed little boy.
I had took two days off work just to fully appreciate this cultural extravaganza, much as a tourist might dedicate time to a visit to the Edinburgh Festival.
And, like Edinburgh, there is a less-trumpeted fringe event that plays out under its more illustrious relation's shadow. By a quirk of fate my birthday is just two days before Evan's. At least it used to be. Now the date formerly used to mark the celebration of my birth is now officially known as 'The day before the day before Evan's birthday day'. Try and a get a card for that at Hallmarks.
The final and unflinching confirmation of this new way of things came when Evan crushed me three cards to nil on my own birthday. On my own birthday! To nil! And I'm convinced one of them was to wish him a happy day before the day before his birthday day.
In fact cards and presents had been piling up for some weeks before the day itself, which saw us taking a trip to Granny and Grandad English for a spot of fun on the beach. Evan took to the sand well, eating large amounts quite happily, but was less enthusiastic about paddling in the sea. I suppose when you're that short even tiny breakers look like thundering tsunamis.
Exhausting seaside fun was capped off with a mountainous pile of presents from doting relatives and a barbecue under skies which allowed us just enough time to cook the steaks but dumped rain on us as soon as we presented fork to gob.
The following day presented the terrifying aspect of ten one-year-olds, and their handler-mothers, descending on our home like a rampaging wolf pack. Only a couple of them could walk, and some of them couldn't even crawl, but oners working in close harmony are still a formidable foe and not to be treated lightly. I did the honorable thing and retreated to the kitchen to serve mums cokes and lemonades in safety-conscious plastic tumblers.
After two hours that felt like the 100 years war was being waged in our dining room the terrors dispersed for nappy changes and sleepies, but left behind them another astonishing amount of presents.
Evan had so many gifts he was ripping wrapping paper (correction: he was sitting nearby as wrapping paper was ripped on his behalf) for several days after his actual birthday and now we have warehouse style stacks of boxes and plastics built up in precariously topplesome pillars around the house. It'll be a feat requiring a foreman and a forklift truck to get him to play with each one before his next birthday.
Published Date:
04/06/2008
Modified Date:
04/06/2008
Christening
We Christened Evan! What a dreamy day of sunshine and wine. Everyone, including rellies we'd not seen for ages came down for the big induction into the local religion (I'm not a big fan myself put I understand it is quite popular)
I may be biased (substitute 'may' with 'am totally') but i think Evan must be the most beautiful one year old that has ever been ceremonially dunked in the 900 year history of St Peter's Church.
He has blue eyes and a cloud of blond curls and looks so cherubic that he you'd be forgiven for imagining he'd have fallen straight off the ceiling of the Sistine chapel and into that font.
We had a slap up feed at a local restaurant and plenty of bubbly to toast the little man, who everyone agreed behaved impeccably throughout.
He even cried at the right moment, just at the point of being doused with holy water. The vicar said afterwards babies are supposed to cry then because the water is pushing the devil out of his body.
I had no idea my son had previously been in the grips of the Satanic Lord himself but seeing him relieved of this onerous burden made the day even nicer. Food was also good.
Published Date:
15/05/2008
Modified Date:
15/05/2008
They grow up so fast
Is it really February since I last jotted down the exploits of my fast-growing son? He has changed so much since those chilly days you would hardly recognise him.
The backwards crawling has been replaced by proper forward propulsion. And he's quick at it too. Don't let him see an open door or he'll be scuttling across the floorboards like a startled lizard. And certainly don't leave him on your bed unwatched. And, look away grandparents (and social services), don't leave him untended on your bed as one soft shuffle will see him propel himself headfirst over the side. He's only done that twice. No recognisable damage, we think.
Still, locomotion and lemming-dives apart the real news in Evan's life is his first foray into nursery school.
Clare has returned to work three days a week and that means three eight hour shifts away from either parent for the little man.
It would be fair to say things have not gone smoothly. It's the drop offs that are the worst. There have been tears, wails, and all round distress - and Evan doesn't like it much either.
The first couple of times were quite genuinely heart-rending experiences for all parties. The crying is bad, the desperate grasping at your trouser leg is worse but what really catches your throat is his look of bitter betrayal. Those big blue eyes, full of tears, looking up at you in almost imploring disbelief while his little arms stretch out towards you in a gesture that just cries "pick me up and take me home!" But you musn't. And it's all you can do to turn your back on that anguished visage and head off for a miserable and distracted day at work.
Time changes everything of course. Don't get me wrong, Evan still cries but, like the pet going to the vet, he senses trouble long before the destination is reached and his tearful fits are kicking in earlier and earlier. Currently Evan begins crying when we ring the nursery doorbell. Considering the nursery is literally over the road from our home it won't be long before we shan't be able to open the living room curtains for fear of setting him off.
Published Date:
15/05/2008
Modified Date:
15/05/2008
A bit backwards
Progress! Of a sort.
For the last few weeks Evan has been on the cusp of crawling. His battle for mobility for has been a frustrating, and sometimes painful, exercise for him but he has shown admirable perseverence.
Now, after weeks of determined failure, he has made a thrilling breakthrough - albeit with one, minor foible.
The road to locomotion has been long and is littered with prone and tearful infants.
In the beginning learning to crawl for Evan involved little more than tipping his body from a seated position towards an object of desire, tantalisingly out of reach. This would lead to a slow but inevitable loss of balance, the thud of noggin on floor and Evan lying, limbs a-flailing, as immoblie as a beetle on its back.
Strength and motor skills gradually improved until this transition from the upright sitting position to the lying-on-one's-front-ineffectually-scrabbling-at-the-floor position was carried out more smoothly. Still no motion unfortunately, but fewer bumps to the bonce.
Slowly the arms were employed to lever the upper body from the carpet, allowing the head to scan for potential targets. But any attempts to grab identified targets would show a return to the head smacking on ground scenario.
Now, however, after multiple bruises and innumerable rescues we have lift off! I am proud to announce to this assembly that full body motion has been achieved and Evan, almost at will, can crawl.
The only blemish on this hard won skill, although I feel it hardly worth mentioned, is that he can only crawl in one direction - and that's backwards.
He lines up now with great confidence, he eyes his destination with steely determination, and then, with his little arms pumping and his legs thrashing in complicated concert, he sets off in the opposite direction.
Imagine the poor fellow's confusion as he feels the joy of the ground moving beneath his belly, only to see his object of desire drift further and further away at each effort-filled thrust of his arms. Evan's frustration and perplexity can only be guessed at, although his facial expressions offer a revealing clue.
Still, like I said. It's progess. Of a sort.
Published Date:
21/02/2008
Modified Date:
05/03/2008
Contested development
I believe a competitive spirit is a natural advantage in life. It drives one on to achieve, improve and rise above one's peers.
Now you may well ask what the hell I know about any of that stuff. And I suppose you'd have a point.
But I do have a competitive spirit, it's just the sort of spirit that lights a fire of determination in my belly during the Christmas Trivial Pursuit family showdown (unbeaten in five years) or exhorts me to defeat my 12-year-old Godson at table tennis (beaten more times than I care to remember; what can I say? The boy's a prodigy).
Though this is not a worthy character trait I accept it (along with the absent-mindedness and borderline fantasy football obsession) as part of what makes me me.
But even I recoil before my own willingness to use Evan as a tool to fuel my basest competitive urges.
Comparing and contrasting your offspring with those around you is, I think, perectly fine. After all seeing others gives you a useful guide as to how yours is developing.
However, lining up your son's peers in a mental performance table of developments and deficits, is, I think, not perfectly fine. No, it's very unfine. But I can't help myself.
Evan can sit up solidly, stand up against a support and clap his hands. That's not bad for eight months old.
But when Clare delivers the reports from the playgroups and baby-gatherings it seems like he is being left on his backside by class of super-developed, nappy-wearing Einsteins.
"Baby X is crawling everywhere," she says. "Baby Y can wave her hands on command and baby Z can point at a dog and say 'woof'. And he's only ten months old!"
We both look at Evan as he blithely drives a saliva sodden breadstick into his nostril and all but phone a personal tutor for him there and then.
But I tell myself I must be calm. All babies develop at their own speed.
Maybe he will suceed, maybe he will rise above his genes to excel but he certainly won't if I'm riding on his back, whipping him like a racehorse. We'll just have to wait and see.
But, having said that, in the meantime a few hours on animal recognition and noises can't do any harm...
Published Date:
05/02/2008
Modified Date:
05/02/2008
On his own two feet
Evan is up and running. Well, walking. Well, it's more of stumbly stagger. Whatever, it is a huge step forward in his development.
We were waiting for six months for him to start crawling and now he is on his feet and things are moving fast.
The development from clinging certainly to his walker to scampering unaided from one end of the house to the other has been impressively swift.
He took his first tiny steps just three days after his first birthday and now, just a month later, he whips round like a mini Lindford Christie.
His latest skill is to get himself standing from a sitting position via complicated manipulation of his point of balance. Legs splay like a giraffe at a watering hole and arms lever his body up before he juts out his backside to counter the weight of his rising head and shoulders. If that sounds awkward, you should see it. And it doesn't always work out for him, sometimes he ends up collapsing in a scamble of limbs but he's always happy to have another go.
The only disappointing aspect to this is that this is the last big step will see him take for a while. The next big development is talking, but Evan is still some way off stringing a sentence together. (Currently his best effort is a questioning and insistant "eh? eh? eh?" coupled with a vague point in the direction of something he isn't allowed.)
Published Date:
05/02/2008
Modified Date:
08/09/2008
Mornings
It's the mornings that have changed now that we have a baby. And I'm not just talking about the lack of sleep and the loss of leisurely lie-ins. No, I'm talking about the danger of physical attack.
Here's the routine, Evan wakes at 6ish and chunters to himself in a state of increasing agitation for about half-an-hour. (Look I know the parents of most eight month-olds would dream of a 6pm start to the day, and yes he does sleep straight through from about 7pm and I know that's 11 hours of untroubled Daddy slumber but it's still early OK? So shut your noise - if you were better parents your's'd sleep through too)
Once the noise reaches an intolerable level of pitch and decibel Mum drearily rescues him from his cot, brings him back to the parental bed and slaps him on the boob.
This is my favourite time. Peace reigns again and, apart from a few tiny kicks to the temple as the little bossman assumes the position, I can resume my snooze for ten more blissful minutes.
It's after this the problems begin. Daily ritual dictates that Evan is placed in the bed, sitting up, in the space on the pillows between mum and dad.
Now sensible parents - parents with a lesser love of sleep and a greater intuition for self-protection - will have immediately spotted the potential pitfalls of placing a wide-awake, fully-fuelled and ready-to-play baby right next to your head.
It doesn't matter how many soft toys are placed conveniently in reach there's only one thing that baby's going to play with - and that's your face.
And it's not a tappy, touchy, strokey cheeky kind of play. No, it's more your hair-wrenching, eye-ball gouging, nose-nipping, drool-dripping, ear-twisting, nostril-exploration kind of play.
Them podgy little fingers are sharp as talons and there's nowhere they can't burrow into. Nowhere. And it continues on and on in waves of relentless attacks until your driven out of bed, baby attached to your head like a face-eating alien and you're up and he's won. The day is his and your day has started.
Clare and I both know this fate awaits, of course - just because we're too lazy to get out of bed and play with him properly doesn't mean we're stupid. The crux, the hope that lulls us in to this sad charade every morning, is that this particular fate awaits only one of us, and if it's the other one - it's pay dirt.
While your beloved battles with nappies and breakfasts you are left free to adopt the X-postion in the middle of the bed and smile and let your partner's grumbling lull you back to sleep.
This is how it's done:
* Once the baby is placed take great care to lie still and not attract his attention.
* Close your eyes, the appearance of sleep is essential. If eye-contact is made you are lost.
* Stay strong. If you feel the first pats and pokes of an investigatory assault DO NOT flinch. Any sign of weakness will be exploited.
* Look out for signs your spouse may be bearing the brunt of the attack. If you hear: "No Evan, don't pull that!", "Take your fingers out of there", "God your nails are so sharp" and "Ouch!" then you have a first class ticket to Sleepsville. Stay cool and ride it all the way home.
If, however, the little man leans so far towards you that he accidently topples over and head-butts you on the cheekbone. Get out, and get out quickly because you're finished. This game's up and your day has begun.
Published Date:
24/01/2008
Modified Date:
24/01/2008