JAMES SPRATT .org

Dear Frankie,

Last month I wrote how because you’re now such a mover and a groover, we should no longer take our eyes off you, if we were for example to leave you lying on the bed for a moment. Earlier this month I took my eyes off you for about 2 seconds and THUD. Oh bollocks, damaged baby. Head first. Let the 2nd June 2008 be known as the day that Daddy inadvertently dropped you on your head. My monumentally bad for giving you even more brain damage than you had already inhereted.

I am in your computer

Stats
Height: 68cms
Weight: 9.4kgs

Further damage took place when you leaned forward in the bath the other night to investigate the plug twisting device. When I say investigate, I mean jam your fingers in behind it, subsequently cutting your finger on the way out. You whailed in pain. And this, I should point out to any expectant or recent parent, is a new feeling that one gets and I had never experienced before you came along - the heartfelt feeling that when you’re in pain, I would do anything to take that pain away from you. It’s a new one on me and I know you’ll take your knocks and illnesses and this is something that everyone needs to go through but it’s still horrible to look on knowing there’s little I can do to help.

Photos

Show as slideshow

Snippets

• Remote controls and mobile phones are your current obsession, in fact have been for a couple of months. Kid needs entertaining, chuck her the remote. Kid should maybe pipe down a little, shove the Blackberry in front of her. Buttons. Handheld devices. Wow. Although this often means that we don’t get to watch or hear what we were planning to on the television.
• The main reason you’re given a bath is to remove the neck and pit cheese that gathers between your folds of puppy fat. It is a delight.
• You have a hairy back. Yep, I said a hairy back. You’re a cute little baby girl. Who has a hairy back. Mummy mentioned this laughingly (nervously) to the doctor recently, the doctor said that most children are born with a little downy hair and it soon goes away. Your back hair however is increasing and spreading and strengthening and we are marginally worried. At least one day we’ll be able to make some money off you though.
• Your head hair however is now long enough that it gets into your eyes, but we really don’t want it lopped off yet, so Ma sometimes puts a sweat-type-alice-band around your bonce which I think makes you look like a Scandinavian tourist.

Photo courtesy of: Ed Campbell; babygrow: courtesy of my old team at the MoD; eyes: courtesy of your beautiful Mummy

We’ve always been proud (relieved?) of how you’re not a cry baby. But this weekend just gone, your Aunties Edd and Amber looked after you whilst we went down to Sussex overnight for Matt and Bry’s wedding. The report back from them is that you were inconsolable for about 4 hours after we left and nothing would appease your crying. This is highly embarrassing for Mummy and Daddy and must stop forthwith. We’ve another wedding coming up next weekend and you’ll be staying with your grandparents Bretherton overnight. It would be nice if we heard only good things about you from them when we come to pick you up. There’s a dear.

Nana and Pops will both be over from New Zealand and Belgium respectively at the end of next week in time for your cousin’s arrival (this is very very exciting by the way) next month. I’m looking forward to them spending some good time with you and the family getting together as a whole. This is another thing I have realised as a new parent: the greater family don’t spend enough time together as a family and I would like us to more. We’ve very often been geographically all over the shop so it hasn’t always been easy but I will do what I can to try and get us all together all the more often. In small doses of course, BECAUSE OTHERWISE WE WOULD ALL GO NUTS.

Love,

Daddy x

Filed under: Family, Photos

Comments

This is how our Great British May bank holiday went:

Few too many drinks after work with new local chums Ben and Corina; additional lack of sleep as baby was up with a horrific sounding cough; didn’t get my arse into gear to go jumping on the only good weather day of the weekend; another not great night’s sleep as little lady is all but coughing up blood; up early and over to Gloucester to see Kate’s grandma who thinks I look like Roger Federer(!?); outrageously crap lunch at a naff pub – the Air Balloon; then (and this is the only good part) over to Cheltenham to see the family Harrison; looked after very well there again; got moving to the cheese rolling a tad too late the next morning, ridiculous traffic, didn’t make it in time, turned around; drove back to London through torrential rain.

Lessons learnt:

• Do not drink heavily if you’re going skydiving the next day
• Find out exact timings for events and add more time for traffic
• Move to a country with a sensible climate
• Do not waste your precious days off

Filed under: Le Weekend

Comments

Dear Frankie,

7 months old. Holy Moly, that’s actually quite a long time that you’ve existed for. Well done you.

“WAAAHIYAAEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYY”

That’s the ecstatic sound you’ll make for seemingly no reason at all. It’s not the foolhardy whining sound that you were playing with about a month ago, it’s just you being terribly excited about the status quo and wanting to convey this to us and join in with the noise around you. The arms will move in unison up and down, up and down. And then they’ll move up and down again.

Stats:
Height: 68cms
Weight: 8.8kg

When I get home of an evening, Mummy will hear the door open and close, you’ll either be in the lounge or our bedroom (where Mummy often punishes you (she calls it unwinding) for some reason by making you watch Australian soap operas – you must have done something really bad) and I’ll hear her say to you: “Who’s that?!”, I’ll make my way in where you’ll turn around and starting beaming at me. “It’s Daddyyyyy!”. A lovely recent development is that you’ll now raise your arms towards me in an…ticipation of being picked up. This is the kind of thing that gives me (and surely any parent) that warm fuzzy feeling.

Photos:

Show as slideshow

And when I pick you up, you’ve taken to patting me on the arm, like old chums might do, making a nice positive slapping sound. This makes you smile some more because you’re quite chuffed that you can make that sound. This makes me smile some more. Then I return the pat on a free naked bit of Frankie flesh which will make you smile some more. In fact pretty much any interaction between you and another results in your smiles. Which then results in our smiles. There’s generally a whole lot of smiling going on wherever you are. Even from the very second you wake up, you’ll be all beams and the arms will go crazy again when I come into your room to grab you from your cot. Because everything is just such great fun.

I AM FRANKIE SPRATT AND I AM AWAKE AND ALL IS GOOD IN THE WORLD.

We hear many baby books, web sites, TV and so on refer to “the routine“. Whereby every hour of your day is meticulously planned and kept to. If that works for them then great but certainly for the time being we don’t buy into it. There are things that will be the same most days – me getting you up in order to drop you off at Michelle’s. And Ma picking you up some time around 4pm. That’s it though, so why do some parents restrict themselves?

Snippets:

• You now have 2 razor sharp toothypegs (read: teeth). So sharp in fact that you’ve drawn blood on poor old Mummy. Many people refer to the troubles that teething can have on a baby but other than chewing everything in sight you seem to have had no problems so far.
• You’re pretty much there with sitting up on your own now, albeit with the odd strategically placed cushion. But gone are the moments when we can leave you in the middle of the bed for a short while whilst we pop out of the room; it looks like you won’t be a crawler but you do roll with the best of them.
• Over the past month, you’ve been on the London Eye with your great uncle Alan and dinner parties at Roly’s and Champs’.
• Attention seeking seems to be your latest greatest thing. I put you down, you give me a little whinge. Ma and I are talking to each other, you shout like you’re wanting to join in. I leave the room for a mo, you shout for us to return. It’s good to be wanted.
• Mirrors and your reflection in windows have taken your fancy quite a bit recently. We may need to ease off on telling you how beautiful you are for the time being.
• We decided to stop sterilising your bottles. From now on, all your kit is cleaned like ours; you’ll have water for your milk straight out of the tap and you’ll learn to love Bow’s finest bacteria just as we do.
• At long last, Ma had her first night out without you or me with her. Your Mummy loves you like you wouldn’t believe. We’re both so lucky to have her.

And you have another bunch of members in your fan club: Julie and Treena and their Pauls who we met at the Royal Standard in Hackney. They’re all over you and I know they’ll be looking forward to seeing more pictures of you, as above. I think this monthly digest is turning into more of a monthly Frankie fix. Seeing you at home to get mine in about 5 hours. Can’t wait.

Love,

Daddy X

Filed under: Family, Photos

Comments