Ch-ch-ch-changes

So much has changed since my last post and yet, so little. Now seven months old, Kit has been racking up a lot of 'firsts'. First solid food, first cold, first ear infection, first holiday, first fag (menthol, obviously. We're not animals) and first taste of pig.

At first I objected when Spud handed him a piece of crackling to gum, mostly because I wanted it and could see a lifetime of mild resentment ahead, as I'm continually denied the last sausage or roast potato for the Favoured One. But I have to admit, the fuss he made when he dropped it made me proud. Already he appreciates the flavour of swine and craves its fatty goodness. We're going to get along fine.

He's also become more serious, as is appropriate for his more advanced age. No more can old ladies expect an easy toothless smile in response to their happy wizened features. Now, they get the Jedi Death Stare. And if crackling still isn't forthcoming, the finger.

Spud has returned to work part-time so her mum looks after Kit for those days and stays over. I know that for many men this would be too much to bear, but I won’t hear a word against my mum-in-law. She's up at the crack of dawn to soothe Kit, she looks after him while we go to the pub, she brings amazing homemade Indian food and she irons my pants!

They don’t make them like that anymore. I'm not saying they should, I'm just saying it's nice there's still some around. It's no wonder old boys hark back to the good old days – they were waited on hand and foot. They did hold open the occasional door though, let's not forget.

Introducing solid food hasn't reaped the sleep benefits we'd hoped for, though there have been other, more malodorous, developments, often with notes of toxic sludge.

He still hadn't slept through the night until the other night, when Spud and I went out to have some boozes and listen to a reading from I, Brute by its author, Malcolm Bennett. After a fine night of entertainment and Doom Bar at The Glad, we feared the night feed. Happily, we all slept through to a civilised hour. 

Maybe Kit's trying to tell us something – go to the pub with your wonky friends more often. That's how I interpret it, anyway.

Apologies

Sorry, but I've not been able to post lately due to an excess of work. I know.

I will commence once this outrage has ceased.

NCT

We signed up to antenatal classes to learn what to expect, but everyone told us the best thing about it was meeting other people.

"People?" I pleaded to Spud. "Do we have to? I already know some people and they're awful."

And the first thing you do at NCT is a cringey meet and greet with everyone. No one wants to do it, everyone hates it.  But you soon find out that "people" are alright. They're a good bunch and they're in the same boat as you. The Oh Shit boat.

There's a lot of useful information in the classes, about 3% of which is retained. They're good at making the dads feel useful though, which is a very good trick indeed, because we are not.

"What is our role?" an eager dad asked. The answer was expansive, inclusive and comforting but basically boils down to this: bring the bag.

In actual fact there is nothing else you can do. Nothing. Luckily that's something I excel at. Isn’t nature wonderful?

They're very hot on breast-feeding at the NCT. It's what they’re made for, apparently. It was a good job I didn't put my hand up for that question. I'd only written down "Whipped Cream" and "Jiggling About."

In the months to come your new friends become invaluable. And by 'new friends' I don't mean your girlfriend's rapidly expanding boobicles. I mean all the mums, going through the same thing at the same time. You only have to mention your infant's latest quirk. "I'm a bit worried. He's started to make flying buttresses out of tortoise shells…" and someone will say: "Ooh! So has my little Lolita-Jane! She's loves a tortoise-shell flying buttress!"

Instantly you are comforted. Someone else has a child interested in construction from land-dwelling reptiles. It's normal. There's nothing to worry about.

The girls meet up once or twice a week, partly because they are desperate for human company that doesn't fill its underwear with its own waste.

They get together for coffee mornings, baby massage classes, baby sensory classes … I reckon if I invited them to 'Babies: Lightly sautéed with garlic and lemon. 10am, our place', they would all come. Some would be early. Some would bring cake.

I came downstairs one day to find eight women amid a cacophony.

"Ooh, a man!" someone shrieked. It was strangely intimidating. "I have feelings," I lied. "I'm not just a piece of meat!"

But they were too busy looking after babies to undress me with their eyes, unfortunately. I knew I should have worn a low-cut number. Or a nappy. 

I'll be ready for them next time.

Fibs, Lies And Whoppers

Spud and I are really looking forward to the enormous lies we can tell Kit. There's a window of a few years when they believe everything you say. Mwah, ha ha ha!

But with great power comes great irresponsibility.

I'm not talking about Father Christmas or God, nor bearded people in general (though I will be telling Kit he can disregard anything told him by a man with a beard - or woman for that matter.)

Sure, we'll leave out carrots for the reindeer and some crack for Santa. And for the morning we'll make snowy footprints and leave a pile of steaming reindeer poo.

But why stop there, when there's an eager mind ready to be filled with nonsense?

By 7 though, it's over. A neighbour told me his 7-year old said: "I don’t believe God exists, because I know dinosaurs did."

Kids today.

I like Eddie Izzard's little fib, "Bees make honey and wasps make jam." And a friend of Spud's who, when asked where shampoo comes from told his kids that it's made from the poo of an animal called a sham.

Spud has already assured Kit that it's the spiders that make him sleep against his will, but the real problem is the worms, who are their overlords. The spiders, apparently, also perform the role of sock monster, as they have so many feet to warm.

My mate Andy convinced his youngest that he invented rice. Yes, rice.

He also told her invented all forms of motorised transport. And when she asked how he knew the punchline to her Christmas cracker joke, it was because he wrote it. Indeed, he wrote all jokes.

Won’t she be disappointed when she finds that none of it is true, apart from the one she didn’t believe: "I'm Santa Claus. It was me all along."

Sure, dad. Can I have some more of your rice?

Dina Murphy's brilliant 5 Things I Swore I'd Never Do As A Parent includes some magnificent porkie pies, like "Pigs are horses for gypsies" and if you stick your hand down the toilet it will emerge from a toilet in Albania where a monkey will eat it.

Is it so wrong to answer that L plates are only worn by the cars of lesbian drivers?

But the biggest lie we peddle to our kids is the one about the great man with a white beard who listens to everything we say and passes judgement. Rubbish. Rupert Murdoch doesn't have a beard.

Baby Babble

I've got it! Maybe babies are not babbling nonsense. Perhaps they are actually speaking French, the tongue of Baudelaire and Plastic Bertrand.

In such a monolingual society, how would we know? I put this compelling theory to the test by speaking only French to Kit one morning. Being so very English, my French is limited, but I hit him with what I knew.

"Parlez-vous Anglais?"

Nothing. Rien. Or was he just being, you know, French.

I persevered as my French lessons came flooding back to me. I say, flooding. I mean, trickling. And when I say French lessons, I mean, memories of the taut wonder of my French teacher's bra.

"Ecoutez et répétez! Jean-Paul est dans la bibliotheque."

Bibliotheque remains my favourite French word. It sounds like a book disco, something I'd be keen to attend should it ever come to South London. I imagine it full of inquisitive French girls with glasses, many of them bi-lingual, the little minxes.

I digress.

Kit returned a volley of baby babble in which consonants had been comprehensively overwhelmed by vowels. I was immediately transported to the banks of the Seine.

There, I could speak Slow French, only to be left clutching at nouns when a native responded at normal speed. Lost, I would thank them, then agree with them, and if they still wouldn't stop talking, offer them my trousers.

"Alors," I said to Kit. "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."

By the look of Gallic indifference, I'd say we're getting somewhere, but I'm running out of vocab.

"Deux bières, s'il vous plaît."

He looks at me like a Parisian waiter might, had I said "Le" instead of "La", making me feel ashamed, small and unlikely to tip.

Unbowed, I try: "Etre à voile et à vapeur".

Now, I realise the concept of bisexuality may not be appropriate chit-chat with an infant, but it is a lesson in elegance. We say "swings both ways", they say, "navigates by sail and steam." Who's le cons?

At last he makes a familiar sound and we understand each other perfectly.

"Ah, merde. Merde encore."

Our matin is over as the nappy calls.

The Experts

For almost everything you do there's an expert who says it gives you cancer; another who claims it reduces the risk of heart disease; a study that reports it makes you blind and a policeman who tells me I can't do that in public.

There is also a multitude of child-rearing theories and books to guide new parents through the minefield of bringing up baby. Mostly we just want to keep baby happy and healthy, but it would be nice if we weren't blamed for their later neuroses too, like poor Mr & Mrs Larkin.

Back when One I Made Earlier was born the baby instruction manual of choice was Dr Spock's. She turned out brilliant and beautiful yet is still unable to perform the Vulcan mind meld. Consequently I've asked her to leave.

Oprah Winfrey has since propelled the What To Expect… series to the fore. Co-author Heidi Murkoff (why do I always laugh at that name?) has no medical training and early editions included some bonkers warnings on death from hiccups and oral sex (not at the same time, silly, though a study shows this can cause chafing).

None the less, Murkoff's (ha!) woman-to-woman, 'been there' tone strikes a chord and even makes me feel like a natural woman.

Secrets Of The Baby Whisperer is another one. When I say another one, I mean another book with Whisperer in the title, of which there are legion. As far as I can tell, apart from the magical incantation, "Shh", there's not a lot of whispering in it, which is a relief as surely it can only teach children to be secretive and annoying in libraries.

Before Spock, there was much more discipline in child rearing and previous generations would like to see a return to these values; values that include a good clip round the ear.

"I got the cane and it never did me any harm," is a familiar refrain. No harm apart from an indifference to violence against children, you aged loony, no.

The father of behaviourism,  John B Watson (1878–1958), advised parents to retain a degree of emotional detachment. "Never let them sit on your lap," he suggested. He also warned parents against hugging their children. 

"Shake hands with them in the morning," he recommended. He was being serious too. Look at is serious face (above). 

Unlike many of his contemporaries however, he did come out strongly against spanking. I'm right with him there, except in cases of very naughty au pairs with saucy European accents.

Unfortunately, Spud won't let me hire one now we've got a child.

Hold On Tightly, Let Go Lightly

The first and only rule of middle naming is not to give kids ammunition to ridicule your child at school. On that front, we have failed as parents and could face a fine.

The only time a middle name comes up is when some smart-arsed teacher wants to make their day more interesting by reading out the full register, leading to weeks of misery for boys with middle names like Flower, Pendragon, Aloysius or Wang.

It's tempting to pre-empt that teacher by using a rude word, forcing him to read out: "Joshua Robert Howard…? Thomas Titwank Jones..?"

But when you're 12, invisibility is vital – at least in the UK where Embarrassment is an Olympic sport. Mostly, you want to be like the other kids. It's only later you realise how rubbish that is.

My middle name is John. But being ginger, skinny, spotty and speccy, it was not a victory over conspicuousness I cared to celebrate.

Spud's middle name has more letters than the alphabet but we briefly discussed names that carried family heritage, like our fathers'. You can get away with Anil if pronounced 'Aneel', but that is not going to happen with 12-year-old boys. It would be Anil Sex, Anil Probe, Anil Entry (or Fissure if they're bookish). 

It does however mean Lord Of Wind, which could have been prophetic.

My Dad's name had been taken by my nephew, though both Adolf and Enoch are still available.

Dad has now accepted and welcomed Kit, having swallowed his pride over our having a child out of 'wedlock' (an appropriately 13^th century word) and his being a racist fuckwit. He is still struggling with the name Kit, however and asks me every time I see him: "How do you spell it again?" Anyone would think we'd called him Balamugunthan or similar.

"K-I-T!"

"Oh. It's not English, is it?"

Jesus. "Yes, it is. Unlike our surname."

All the way to Brixton to register his name, we debated: Rooster or Rocket. Then we agreed on Golightly - a name and a philosophy in one.

Not from Truman Capote's Holly Golightly, but from a book Spud was reading while pregnant; Mr Golightly's Holiday. OK, we just liked the word.

When I told mates they were incredulous, being au fait with the first and only rule of middle naming.

"You are kidding? Is this a joke?" asked Andy, slightly cross with me. Pete was equally aghast, having suffered with the middle name Magnus for too long. Rock Bob (whose middle name is Bob, I suppose) had a similar reaction. 

But when Andy told his youngest, an actual teenager, she said, "Kit Golightly! That is the coolest name ever. They are such cool parents. I wish they were my parents."

Touché, Andy Moonbeam.