Snot Fair

Kit has been an easy baby who's never far from laughter, but a cold is now preparing him for a lifetime of trying to elicit sympathy for minor ailments.

Women have long mocked the male propensity for being pathetic in the face of the sniffles. Girls get colds, men get flu and are only fit to lie on the sofa, groaning, with perhaps some Carling Cup highlights and a copy of Razzle.

"Man flu" they call it, to differentiate it from actual flu and mock our feeble resistance to the life-sapping symptoms. Little do they understand how we suffer.

That's why I renamed Man Flu, The Widow Maker, so girls would automatically say "Poor you" and offer me a Lemsip and maybe a fried egg sandwich.

That's another thing that sees sympathy drain away – the surge of appetite that gives the impression that everything is alright and that in fact we might be having a great big laugh. But as my mate, Andy, says: "Feed a cold, feed a fever."

Kit is currently keeping us both awake at night, plus a few neighbours, acting like it's worst thing to ever happen to him. But that's because it is.

Men flop about in much the same way because it's also the worst thing to happen to us, keeping us from our normal pursuit of having a good time.

When I mention to Spud that I feel the foul stench of The Widow Maker's breath upon me, she is wont to bring up the 42 hours of labour she endured to produce our son. Fair enough. That makes it one-all then (I say out of earshot).

Naturally, Kit has passed on his cold to us, so now I must sign off from my death bed and see what's in the fridge. 

Get A Job!

With Kit approaching 11 months it's high time he thought about a career, or preferably, how to avoid one.

I had about as much idea of my future plans at 11 months as I did when first asked by a Careers Advisor, "Have you given any thought to a career?"

"Have you?" I replied, given that his role was to go around schools telling disinterested kids they should join the Army.

I decided against telling him I wanted to be a footballer. Or Spider-Man. Or both.

You're bound to wonder what your child might be when they grow up. Previous generations tended to think along the lines of a safe career, a job for life with a nice pension, like banking. Now bankers have no more respect than pornographers and less perks.

Many kids when asked what they want to be answer: "Famous".  They probably mean X Factor famous – a noble ambition. After all, who else is going to open the Poundlands of the future?

It is hard to think of Kit as anything other than a baby. Mind you, the same could be said of some of my friends.

Now he's crawling he has an uncanny knack of finding the most dangerous thing in the room, which probably rules out a career in the police.

Richard Littlejohn (pronounced kŭnt)

The only physical attribute to offer any clues is his hands. They are massive! Big broad fists on a tiny body, like Barry McGuigan or Mickey Mouse. But no parent would want their child to go into the ring, unless, in my case, it was to pummel Richard Littlejohn's face beyond recognition. That would be ace.

People are often surprised by my love of boxing, as I am clearly a man of peace, if not extreme cowardice. I'm a lover not a fighter - so do be careful if I happen to get you in a clinch.

Boxing though, is in our blood, as my great-great-I don't know how many greats-to-be honest- grandfather was a bare knuckle fighter who is said to have killed a man in a bout and had to flee the country to Canada.

I appreciate boxing is brutal and can't make a strong argument for punching someone's head for entertainment, but while it's still legal, I'll lap it up. Apart from the under-appreciated mental side of the sport, boxing provides discipline and structure to an awful lot of lads who would otherwise fall into crime, or worse, The X Factor. 

The Things You Do For Love

Making furniture selections on the basis of what goes best with chunder is a clear concession to parenthood. Having a built-in fridge in a La-Z-Boy recliner in front of a Sky Sports-boasting telly is no longer a requirement. Something cheap, washable and pride-free is. 

You throw away your dignity when you have a baby, as there is nothing too embarrassing for you to do if it makes your little one laugh that cackle of abandon. 

Being a little self-conscious, I struggled to surrender to baby babble to get that winning gurgle at first. I tricked myself into it by singing a few lines from a Tom Waits song to him while jiggling his belly:

A-zeeba zabba zeeba zabba zeeba zabba zoo,

Skriba dabba deeba dabba, deeba dabba ziy

Luckily he's chuckling his tiny arse off by this point so I elect not to include the next verse:

Cleavage! Cleavage!

Thighs and hips

From the nape of her neck

To the lipstick lips

Along with the verse about Chesty Morgan and Watermelon Rose ("Raise my rent and take off all your clothes"), it wouldn't be appropriate.

Sometimes getting Kit to laugh is a necessity, just so I can fit a spoon in his mouth during a reluctant meal. This also requires an absence of self-regard and may take any number of animal noises, songs about poo, or an impression of a dinosaur eating a muffin. Anything, really. Anything.

I do worry though that it may lead to lifelong laughing phobia in which Kit is scared to guffaw in case someone shovels avocado down his throat while reminding him it's a superfood. But then what are parents if not sponsors of the psychiatric trade?

Attempts to make bathtime fun also require songs and jollity. A ditty that has become "In The Nuddy" to the tune of "In The Navy" announces the slow down of the day towards bedtime, via the bath. I do wonder though, why I bother to mangle songs for his pleasure, when, given his current level of understanding, I could be singing about photosynthesis in a light-depleted environment for all he cared - though that would be a challenge to a Village People melody.

Then there are those other things you do - a whole lot of walks to parks and ponds. When a friend with a baby the same age announced a birthday picnic, I said "Great! Scotch eggs and pork pies!"

"No, there won't be any pork pies," she said. "We're all vegetarians. It will be all lovely vegetables and fruit."

"That's not a picnic," I complained. "It's an allotment."

We met at an idyllic spot in Greenwich Park, with a fantastic view spanning London old and new. As the numbers swelled, the smaller I became, until I was ready to opt out and find a pub just the right size.

When Kit started to get fractious I offered to take him for a stroll so he'd have a nap and I'd have an escape. He dropped off immediately so I headed to the Plume Of Feathers and had a lovely pint in the sun while Kit dozed in the shade. Heaven must be very like this, I thought.

After a while, the phone rang. It was Spud, still at the picnic.

"Are you in the pub?" She guessed, uncannily.

"The pub? Certainly not." Technically, I was outside the pub, doing my duty as a parent whilst not forgetting to nourish myself. I'd like to think we're all winners in this tale.

Holidays With Small People

The prospect of going away with a baby is daunting one for new parents. Even for old parents, like me. There are all the outfits, several for each day as stuff get soiled by food or worse. Then there are all the clothes for the baby.

Babies come with so much equipment that a trip to the Lakes is akin to a Space Shuttle launch. There are millions of things to remember as you need to be prepared for every possibility: being held hostage on a train for days, a nuclear attack or a sudden conversion to Judaism.

"Did you bring the nuclear deflector shields, darling?"

"Of course."

"What if he suddenly converts to Judaism?"

"I brought a kippah."

"Just the one?"

There was also a fear of what we would find when we got there. We were going to the Lake District to stay with my mate Mike, a thoroughly unreliable wastrel and one of the least sensible people I know.

Uncle Mike is known to his friends' children as Druncle Mike, as they never see him sober. Incidents have a habit of occurring around him. He may climb a tree, strip naked, get arrested or attempt a world record at any moment.

One night, when talking absolute shit in a pub, he said to me, haughtily: "I can't decide if I'm a scientist or a philosopher."

"You're neither," I replied. "You're a gaudy dilettante."

And he is. He's a retired TV producer, turned African adventurer/microlight pilot, turned interior designer, whose decorative style can best be described as Boy Georgian.

Mike was to pick us up in Preston. Would he be sober enough to drive? Would he be on time for the first time in his life? Would he remember? Because finding ourselves in a strange town miles from home with a baby, unable to speak the language, is the kind of nightmare that stops new parents leaving the house. Luckily, we had our nuclear deflector shields and a survival pack big enough to take him to his late teens.

I needn't have feared. Mike, and his young girlfriend Robyn, were there waiting for us. The only remotely unusual thing we had to do en route to Coniston was stop to pay cash to a man who had just bought a Russian submarine. Whatever.

Mike and Robyn proved to be perfect hosts and even had a travel cot ready for our little lad to sleep in.  Kit fell hard for Robyn. As soon as her spied her soft blonde hair, he perked up, winked and gave her his 'Get your coat, love,' eyes.

First off we went to a pub to watch the Grand National. We tried to get Kit to dribble on the racecard to pick a winner but he wasn't having it. Clearly he didn’t want to look sloppy in front of Robyn.

Kit was strangely drawn to beer too, but after two more pubs he alerted us to his three-pub limit. Now he tells us. 

Spud and I haven't been out much since Kit arrived so having few drinks whilst continuing with the sleep deprivation schizzle had a debilitating effect.

The next night, having eaten Mike's Beast Feast Barbeque (beef, lamb and venison) we were unable to accept his request to join him for the local pub quiz.

"Pub quiz? I'm from London, Mike. You know, the city with all the… stuff," I bluffed, unwilling to admit I craved an early night more than a general knowledge triumph over farmers.

Mike was desperate to go and to win. He had never won and new blood could help him beat the two teams that always shared the prize. Mike always came second. When he beat Ted's team, Bob's team won. When he beat Bob's team, Ted's team won.

In the morning he reported he had beaten Bob's team and Ted's team.

"Ace! You won, then?"

"No, I came second."

"Who to?"

"Sophie Ellis Bextor's team."

"Oh."

You couldn't make it up. Indeed, why would you?

Mike and Robyn showed us the joys of the Lakes, the lovely walks, scenery, waterfalls, brooks and becks. It really is the most beautiful place in Britain, something I never tire of telling people from Yorkshire.

One morning Mike brought in a newborn lamb, fresh in the world that morning. Kit was alarmed to find it wasn't a new toy and freaked when he it baaed at him. Yet later at the zoo, he was nonchalant when a giraffe leaned down to see if he had any dinner for him, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

It's easy not to go anywhere and stay in your comfort zone but we were glad we left it to go to the Lakes, even if afterwards we needed a holiday we weren't going to get. Having the baby in our room meant no one gets a good night's sleep. Drinking boozes and eating mostly meat also has a price.

But we learned we could go away. That Kit had a three-pub limit, likes blondes and thinks lambs are tossers.

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.