When Kit arrived, at 6.20pm, on Halloween, he was slung onto Spud by a rough-arsed doctor, like a fisherman throwing a catch ashore.
We were left with our baby under a lamp, like warmed canteen chips, and our mid-wife, a strange but sweet Belgian who had been seriously top notch. We heart you.
She did however, give me more information about her ‘back passage’ than I could possibly have wanted. Spud is screaming in pain in the birthing pool and she’s telling me what might happen to her ass. Then she starts telling me what happened to hers. Do I look like I want to know about your ass? I haven’t even looked at your tits.
Anyway, lady, I’m here to get a baby.
Kit is tiny. 5lbs 13 and a half ounces of nervous impulses. His arms are waving about like Bez doing kung fu. The newborn nappy is so baggy it looks like Bez as a sumo wrestler, yet, in truth, Kit bears no resemblance to Bez whatsoever and I don’t know why I brought him up.
Everybody thinks their baby is beautiful, that’s only natural. It’s almost certainly some evolutionary trick to stop us seasoning them and chucking them in the oven. They taste like chicken, apparently (Note: always add ‘apparently’ when discussing devouring your young).
That's another trick. I mean, I like chicken, but on its own, it's a bit meh. If they said, ‘they taste like cheeseburgers, apparently,’ we’d have a serious population problem in this country.
Or, if you’re in the Portland Hospital and the rumour gets round that they taste like foie gras, apparently, a generation of toffs and celebs could be wiped out. (Note to self: Add to Just Might Work list)
If Kit could see properly, his first vista would have been the Houses of Parliament. It would have been a good first lesson on something that is beautiful on the outside and ugly on the inside, like Sarah Palin, or Myra Hindley's handbag.
He can only look forward to better examples of humanity, unless he's going to get the good burghers of Britain to pay to clean his moat, or be responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people, puff his cheeks out and say: "It seemed like a good idea at the time. Want to buy a book?"
And so, with thanks to St Thomas' Hospital and the NHS we took Kit home, along with the hope that he always ignores Wittgenstein: "I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves." The fool.
Photo by: Maurice from Zoetermeer, Netherlands
