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Stealthy Little Ninja
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Last night I put THE CUTEST LITTLE GIRL EVER into bed at about 10:30pm.
At about 01:30am Kate and I woke up to see her sleeping soundly between us. In our bed.
Not a clue how she got there.
The stealthy little ninja.
Dear Frankie, Month 5
Dear Frankie,
Hello monkeynuts, how are you my angel? This is the lowdown of what’s been happening with you recently…
The majority of your fifth month was spent in South Africa. We flew out on the 22nd Feb and you whimpered not during the 12 hour flight there nor the flight back. That’s generally what they call ‘unheard of’. Literally. We were bulkheading next to another couple who had a one and a half year old. She screamed and cried a lot whilst we mostly sat polishing your halo.
Your growth stats as at 18th March:
Height: 63 cms
Weight: 7.7kgs (1 stone 3 pounds)(let’s keep it metric, right)
Therefore BMI = 19.4 (normal)
So what did we do in South Africa? Drove from Cape Town via a luxurious hotel treat in Swellendam to your maternal grandparents SA residence in Plettenberg Bay where we were looked after outrageously well. We spent most days playing in the pool together at some point. Every time I lowered you in, for the first 30 seconds as you acclimatised to the cool water temperature you looked petrified and struggled for breath, then as you sat properly in your inflatable, you smiled, relaxed and started guzzling at the water like it was your home. You spent some good time getting to know Uncle Chris and Nicky w ho came up from NZ and have now flown on to Thailand. You stroked an elephant. Every beer bottle I held at the same time as holding you became a teething ring. You spent time getting a little sun on you which has lightened your hair and given a lovely glow to your skin. Uncle Edd also joined us out there and he continues to rate you almost as highly as we do. Then the last couple of days you got to meet our mates Terry and Anna back in Cape Town. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me saying that just you being you brought genuine, bona fide tears of joy to Terry’s eyes. You can have that effect on people my love.
This month has been one of many firsts and some relatively large changes in your lifestyle:
- 22nd Feb: 1st flight (not including the ones to Barcelona and Sudan when you were in your gestation station)
- 22nd Feb: 1st country visited, South Africa
- 23rd Feb: 1st swim
- 27th Feb: Last breastfeed, consider yourself weaned
- 7th March: 1st grape
- 8th March: 1st banana
- 9th March: 1st avocado
- 15th March: In your cot in your own room
You took all of these fairly monumental changes without blinking an eyelid. There seems to be some kind of recognition with the new tastes however, then the rabid grabbing at the bottle or spoon to get as much in your mouth as quickly as you can. I have no idea where that trait may have come from.
Nail cutting continues to be the worst part of parenting, due to the risk of cutting you so your nails don’t get clipped as often as they should do. You let us know your displeasure at this by scratching and gouging divets out of your face. Self-harming at 5 months. Oh bollocks. Mea culpa.
Some points that other new parents may be interested to know:
- Pampers make your wet pantaloons smell of Marmite soldiers
- The books and web sites about babies and parenting generally paint a worst case scenario. We happen to have a best case scenario.
- A two-man nappy change makes life so much easier. Not only because one of the tag team can hold your legs while the other sorts out the business end, but also it makes light of an otherwise horrendous situation. Jeez you can stink sometimes Frankie.
- For fathers, the ability to take part in feeding really is a priviledge. Holding your baby so you can see her being salvaged from malnutrition is a wonderful thing.
And finally, you often sleep with your eyelids slightly ajar. This is excellent. It lets us know that you have adopted to your surrounds. Living in London’s ‘hard-knocks’ eastend is tough so keeping your eyes peeled 24hrs in case of any hint of trouble is highly intelligent and well developed. I can sleep soundly knowing that you are ready to jump into action at any moment.
You are the best thing ever Frankie and you have two fully smitten, doting, besotted parents.
Love,
Daddy x
Dear Frankie, Month 4
Dear Frankie,
Right, 4 months in and I’ve started letting you down. You’re actually 5 months today so I’m a month late posting this and I apologise for that. But monkeynuts, you fill our hands every waking second of every day. I absolutely love that you do that, I genuinely couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do than have your beautiful self girgling and chuckling and smiling and dribbling and farting and playing and ‘talking’ and generally being your cosmic self but it just ain’t exactly conducive with doing ANYTHING ELSE in our lives. I knew this would be so and I know this is so and it’s great. Polarizing us into your loony world is phenomenal. But. Surely by your age you should be standing on your own two feet; bringing home some bacon; at least contributing in some way to the family. Children these days.
Those stats (as of the 18th Feb):
Weight: 1 stone or 6.35kg
Height: 60cms
Hair: Light brown with blonde highlights if patchy in parts
Current nicknames: The Beauty, Bamberilla, Frankenstone
Attitude: Cool as the cucumber
At the beginning of month 4 you started being able to stand up just you holding our hands. I know it’s these kind of things that we’re currently in awe of that will all too quickly pass by and you’ll be turning down Mensa applications soon enough but these things, the little things, do fully persist in blowing us away.
Your Mumma (Your Mumma) continues to send me regular picture message updates during the working day. Then when I’m using the tube or walking along the street, I’ll sometimes take up the majority of the journey simply flicking through the pics on my phone, gazing in amazement at your image – occassionally there’s an opportunity to show people these pictures to unsuspecting-non-Frankie-aware people. Everybody must see this girl of ours.
You have had 3 rather groovy godparents (yes, note the small ‘g’) bestowed upon you. Don, Mick and Emma. They’re were all obvious choices and I think are chuffed about the idea of their new calling. Do however make sure that when/if they ever look after you that you’re as naughty as possible.
Most days you meet new people and you’re more than happy being passed around, checking out this and that, but a smattering to be noted from this month incluces StevO, Champs, Lizzie, Nathan, Fran, Ben, Rashad and Heather. Naturally you were as good as gold and they all dote accordingly.
The only toy we’ve got for you so far is a gollywog. We were on our trip up to the Peak District last year whilst you were busy gestating, driving through Buxton, spotted a window full of them and just couldn’t turn down the opportunity. Among the many soft toys that have been given to you, Uncle Edd gave you your new best friend, a bear who you rather cleverly named Grylls. Your face lights up when he comes on the scene, it’s hilarious.
Other snippets:
- The torrents of saliva continue to drown us.
- Everything that you like, you move towards your mouth.
- When left to your own devices for a while, those devices normally turn out to be both of your feet, grabbed simultaneously.
- Very occassionally you’ll feign distress for no reason at all. It goes something like this: “Heeeeeeeeeiiiyyyyyyyyyyyyyy”. It sounds and looks pathetic so Mummy and I laugh AT you.
- We said goodbye to your auntie Aly as she then flew to Oz for a year, she also gave you a lovely bear who sits rather nicely with Grylls.
- Your shiny 1st passport arrived eventually. It says “The holder is not required to sign”.
I aim to write these letters every month but I don’t promise to. I mean we live together anyway, plus you can’t read, plus I tell you how much I love you every day, plus the general public maybe don’t need to know the details of the development of our relationship. During the evening I try to STAY AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER as much as I can, and it would be nonsensical for me to be tap-tap-typing away whilst I’m in the same room as you, when what I could be doing is putting your bib on you the wrong way round whilst you’re wearing only your napster then flying you around the room a la Super Baby so that you may then come to a rest and blow chunks over me. I will however try to keep taking pictures and document as much of these days as I can.
A note on your smiles: Your smiles make us melt even more than we were doing around you already. When you smile, you don’t just smile, your whole body convulses because whatever is making you happy has had such a genuinely profound effect that your whole body smiles with you. This is called ‘The Bodysmile’ and your Mummy and I will stop whatever it is we’re doing at the time in order that we don’t miss out on any of these. Smile on.
Love,
Daddyo x
