Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday my Frankie,
Happy Birthday to you.

2 brilliant years; 24 delightful months; 104 hilarious weeks; 730 lovely days; 17520 beautiful hours; 1,051,200 perfect minutes; 63,072,000 seconds of joy.

So what’s new? Comparing where you’re at now to where you were at 1, there’s a massive difference. Maybe the biggest single year difference you’ll make? You’ve gone from a squidgy bouncing baby who needs attending to, into a rather splendid little lady who attends to everything. From the moment you’re awake now, to the moment you go to bed you’re a nonstop chatterbox, into everything, getting everywhere. I love it. Your opening gambit is normally “I woke up”, then a continual stream of what could well be described as complete codswallop for most of the next 12 hours. A lot of this diatribe is playing make-believe, playing shopping (normally for strawberries), playing “cookcook”ing, making us drinks “Cuppatea?” (head tilted, encouragingly). You take great interest in what everyone is doing all around you. “Doing?” is the mantra of choice at the mo. Like most of us there’s a need to be at least acknowledged, you want to be involved, you want to be heard. There are the occassional moments when unfortunately it’s not all all about you and we might be busy doing something else and you’ll crescendo “Daddy Mummy, Daddy Mummy, DADDY MUMMY!”.

Kate: Your nose is looking particularly stick-on today Daddy
Frankie: I fix it later.

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Me: (taking some bread off your plate)
Frankie: I want this one
Me: Oh sorry, I thought you’d finished.
Kate: Naughty Daddy
Frankie: Naughty Daddy
Frankie: I hit him?
Kate: No, we don’t hit anyone.
Frankie: I kick him?

For the record

• You love swimming. You swim in the bath. You wear swimming goggles in the bath. But one visit to the swimming baths at Windsor, whilst we were getting changed, I turned around for two seconds. Just enough time to head dive from the bench on to the floor. Incisors first. Blood, tears. Youch. Poor little mite. For roughly the next 4 years you will have a chip in your smile. Nice one.
• 30th September we moved back into the old/new place in Bow. Not that we’re not grateful to Granny and Grandpa for the past year but it is so good to be back in our own domain.
• 3rd October you moved into a grown up bed.
• 5th October, first time you took yourself off to bed for a siesta. Just toddled off and tucked yourself in. So so cute.
• You’ve been counting pretty well up to 20 for a few months now. Learnt from counting the stairs whilst heading up to bed in the year we lived in Maidenhead.
• And I’ve counted roughly 8+ word from you sentences now.

“I like your body Daddy.” Very nice of you to say so!?

You’re as interested as we are about your sister and quite often will give Mummy’s tummy a kiss or a cuddle and talk about her. I can’t wait or her to arrive and see you two together. You’ll be the best big sister.

Am writing this one from the office in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Have been here for over 2 weeks and it’s really time I got home and stayed home for a while now. You should come to this city some day, I think you’d like it.

All love,

DaddyJames X

This is now a month overdue, so in 19 years and less than 3 months we’ll be celebrating your 21st birthday (yes do ask me for help with your maths homework anytime). I wonder what you’ll look like when you’re older. Cute as a motherfucking button I should imagine.

Month 21 phot

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Conversation transcripts Mumma sent me two consecutive mornings:

F:  Mummaah?
K:  Yes bubba?
F:  Daddaa?
K:  Dadda loves you very much.
F:  Nice

F:  Mummaa?
K:  Yes bubba?
F:  Daddaa?
K:  Daddy’s coming home soon.
F:  Dadda home come

And then a morning after an argument between Mummy and I. You hops into bed with us and the first thing you say is “Dadda loves you Mumma”.

Oh bollocks/ how the what!?

This time I’m spending away is playing on me a bit. It’s far from an ideal situation. Yep it’s unlikely that you’ll remember any of this time, I think my first memories may have been from when I was about three, playing with snow and playing with some wooden toys at ‘Jingles’, the nursery I went to. But I don’t want to miss anything about you. And come to that, I don’t want you to miss out on me too. Have left you and Mummy and #2 (still undecided on names between Bow, Cat, Sam or else) again for two and a half weeks, this time for Czech.

I came home from work early the day before I caught my flight, in order to squeeze in some more time together. Decided it was time we went swimming again so headed over to Windsor. You were non-stop around the pool, squealing with excitement, loving it. No float nor armbands, confident enough for me to just hold you in the water with one hand, but stupid enough to try and let go of me a couple of times. Must do more of that soon after I get back.

Stats
H: 83.5cms, W: 12.3kgs, (historical…)

I had previously questioned the need for a routine but you’ve come up with one naturally anyway. Up at 6:30-7ish. TV and cuddles in bed. Either we drop you off at Wendy’s (the childminder, who you’re always excited to see) or she picks you up around 9ish. Breakfast (toast and honey currently your favourite), pick you up around 4 or 5ish, by which time you’ve normally eaten (well), play for an hour and a bit then you normally call ‘bubbles’, i.e. bathtime and up we go, followed by a book and bed around 6:30. Easy.

You love…

• penguins at the moment, probably started by you watching Happy Feet
• bouncing on the trampoline or the bed
• letting us know who your best friends are. We’re ‘bigged up’ when it’s us
• drinking -  you always have and continue to drink like you’ve just discovered an oasis after being stuck for a week in the Sahara
• making us laugh. A couple of month ago your funny thing was this: looking at one of us with your eyes locked to one side whilst your face is looking the opposite way (like the 7th picture above). You hold it for a few seconds until we burst into laughter then you join in, satisfied that you’ve done your entertainment bit for the time being. And then what’s the second rule of show business Frankie? Exactly.

And as you’ve picked up so much language already, along with it, you’ve quickly become a very polite lady: “Frankie, would you like something to eat?” “Ummm, no thank you.” And you’re also slightly on the hypochondriac side “Hurt” – as you profer to me a part of your body that desperately needs kissing better. And sometimes you speak so earnestly, so definite and so considered. I wonder if words may be your thing too, as it is with quite a few in the family.

Glossary

• Nice warm: warm Ribena
• Bikeball: let’s go and play with the bike and the ball.
• Shake-rolls: being talcum-powdered after bathtimes, taken from the english “shake, rattle and roll”
• Cook cook: make believe cooking, also denoted by moving your hands like a DJ
• Bubba: your toy baby. Bloody hideous thing it is, thanks Helene.
• My Bonnay: your cousin Bonnie
• Grannay: Granny
• Funneshd: finished
• Ahhkayy: OK
• A-ix-Abi: your mates from Wendy’s, Alex and Abi

By the time I next write, we’ll be back in London town. Hoo-bloody-ray. We’ve missed our flat in Bow and can’t wait to get there again. Soon afterwards, little sister will be with us. We talk to you about her quite a bit and occassionally you’ll kiss Mummy’s tummy. Despite the absurdity concept that there’s a baby growing inside Mummy, you have cottoned on to the fact that you’re going to have a sister, saying the word “sister”, saying “bubba Mummy’s tummy”. The four of us went to get the one of us scanned a couple of weeks back. We’d briefed you as to what was going on and as soon as your sister’s image came up on screen, you squealed with delight “Babyyyyyyyyy”. Naturally, I was quietly blubbing away and then you have to go and say “Happyyyyyyy”.

You slay me girl. Love, love, love,

Your Daddy x

Right baby, things have rushed along all too fast. May! where did that come from? “No time, no time.” I now find myself on my third trip away. The current contract I had wanted for about three years; that I started eight months ago, is now in full swing. This means I’m working abroad a lot so I didn’t see you for the majority of your 18th month, in fact so far it’s averaging that I’m away for three weeks then back for just one. So you and I have spent far less time than we should together. This is not cool, but it’s just the way the old cookie doth crumbulate, being torn between wanting to spend as much time as possible with VIPs (that’s you and the rest of our family and friends by the way), getting on in a career of some description, and other things that are important to me such as travel. I did start this letter during my four weeks in Sofia then subsequently spent ten days in Belgrade and now it’s a month overdue.

So this is all far too many days to to be away from both you and your PREGNANT MUMMY. We’ve attempted explaining to you that there’s a little brother or sister cooking away inside Mumma’s tummy but obviously you haven’t got a clue wtf we’re on about.

On picking me up from airport when I got back from Sofia the recognition was immediate, you cuddled in but then held back to analyze me for a moment as I was sporting the classic disguise of a full-on beard and my increasingly weak specs. Mumma did her best to drive us home and you began this kind of chat, which I think is some kind of reassurance device. Or insolence:

You: “Dadda?”
Me: “Yes baby?”
You: “Dadda?”
Me: “Yes Frankie?”
You: “Dadda?”
Me: “Yes beautiful?”
You: “Dadda?”
Me: “How can I help?”
You: “Dadda?”
Me: “What can I do for you?”
You: “Dadda?”
Me: “Yes Frankie Spratty?”
You: “Dadda?”

etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum.

Tanzania
Our holiday in east Africa seems a long time ago already. I’m glad you got to spend a bit of time with your uncle Charlie, he seems to have spent his time out there as headmaster wisely so no longer treats you or other young children as infected, which is a real bonus. Most of the trip was spent beaching it on Zanzibar though, loverly. Which reminds me that we must somehow get to beaching it again somewhere this summer.

Month 18 phot (shot by Mumma, so you’ll notice the photographic improvement)

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Snippets

• In a bar in Dar Es Salaam you’d go up to randoms, playing the ‘name that body part game’, pointing and touching, then letting them know which part of their face it was. Endearing.
• You went through a stint of fiddling with the old fandango whenever your nappy was off. And then putting your finger in your mouth! And then getting in a huff when I’d go to cover you up again.
• You’ll often reverse into us in order to sit down or be cuddled.
• You really have to stop playing with your eyeball. It’s a habit you picked up quite a while back now and you’ll do it mostly when your tired. You make the area below your right eye swell up a tad and I’m sure you’ll do damage if you keep at it. Stop it you nutter.
• First sentence: Mumma sit please.
• First four word command: Mumma gone, Dadda come.

Vocabulary
Explaining the difference between a seagull and a duck or say a donkey and a horse to a one and a half year old is a challenge. I’m pretty inarticulate at the best of times, you try it one day. Your language otherwise is coming on well. I was going to list your vocab here but it’s already pretty much too many to keep track of. Sometimes we’ll say a word and you’ll come straight back with it. So what we definitely did not do whilst lying out in the garden in Maidenhead after work one day was take advantage of this by encouraging you to say THE C WORD then high five each other when you did. Nosireebob we did not do that.

Chats
Whilst I’ve been away, Mumma and I have been chatting online quite a bit but neither of us is particularly good at distance comms. Some transcripts though:

Kate: …Loving rolling around in the grass. When eventually she came in this evening she demanded we go upstairs but not before she walked into the lounge, kissed my computer, waved and said bye bye… She quite often points at it and says “Dadda?”

Sent at 22:03 on Wednesday
Kate: …she asks for a drink and then i have to show her a variety of cups until i have the one she wants. Then she gives a very definite nod. I then hold ribena in one hand and squash in the other and she points at the one she wants.

Sent at 22:05 on Wednesday
Kate: it is similar at bed time. I hold up a book one at a time. She is empathic in her no’s and when she gets to one she thinks she ones she tilts her head to one side raises her eyebrows then nods like a lunatic.

Stuff like that melts me bleeding ‘eart.

Of an evening you’ll now decide when’s a suitable time to retire (regularly earlier than what we had in mind) with one of these commands: “Teeth” or “Bubbles”. Then early mornings you’ll summon one of us like so:

Mumma, come?
Mumma, come.
Mumma, come!

Right now am about to hit the sack for the night here in Port of Spain, Trinidad. Can’t wait to see you in 3 weeks. Really wish you were here.

Love,

Dadda x

Frankie for President

And this is how Frankie fills a penny jar. I just like the head nodding halfway through.

Discipline I from James Spratt on Vimeo.

Discipline II from James Spratt on Vimeo.

Discipline III from James Spratt on Vimeo.

The night before 1st birthday from James Spratt on Vimeo.

There are a lot of angry people out there who have really taken umbridge with it though, and call me naive but I genuniely didn’t expect this. Comments on the YouTube page such as:

“Cannibalism… Thats inhumane”

“I will never enjoy anything ever again. Thanks for that.”

“I think you’re a complete nutcase.”

“Jesus-fuck that was disgusting…..drop dead hippy “

and then the chucklesome:

“I just crapped my pants.”

“Cheers, Frankie. I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.”

At the end of last week the vid took a recent boost in hits from… the Philippines. It was very briefly featured on a TV show out there. Drag the bar to about 2:10. My face on Philippino TV, woot!