James Spratt .org

Dear Frankie,

I miss you.

You’re now in SA and I’m about to go to India for 10 days. I’m then back for a day then heading south to come join you. We skyped each other this morning before I left the house. Occassionally I catch a screenshot of you in our skype chats:

Handstand demo (Alex looking on)

Right this second I’m sitting on the upper deck of a 747 bound for Mumbai. I’m listening to ‘101 Power Ballads’ (Queen: ‘I Want It All’) and outside my window it’s pitch. I tell a lie, I can see city lights down below, let me just look at the map of where we’re over… Iran. 2 and a half hours until we get there. I’ll try to keep the info included herein only up until the 18th January and will pre date the blog entry for neatness sake but it’s actually the 17th February today. As I sit down to think of it, there’s been quite a bit going on since you turned 2. The biggest being yours sister’s arrival, then Nana and Ottoo visiting, Christmas and me working in Jordan.

I take no pleasure in telling you that the tantrums have increased (that’s yours, not mine), in regularity and absurdity. You may wake up, call us to come get you (you’ve only worked out once so far that you can get out of bed and leave your room of your own accord), “I want nice warm ‘bena” I look at you expectantly/encouragingly waiting for you to complete your sentence: “…pease.” “OK”. I go get you a drink which you guzzle down within a couple of minutes. You’ll then say “I want telly.” … “…pease.” … “It’s still night time.” I say, nearly lying (although at 06h30 it is still dark) “Waaaaah” “Please don’t wake your sister, go to your room if you want to cry.” “Waaah”. And the morning’s off to a roaring start, Kate and I giving each other WTF glances. But you do tootle off to your room where you can revel in your own fruitloopiness.

Stamping of the feet, screaming, high-pitched squealing, forced or real tears, which all come on so instantaneously, you work yourself up into such a frenzy. To be honest, it’s fairly fucking nuts. How the where the who the? But when you’re done you want to be our friend again, literally, saying “You my best friend.”, “…in whole world. Ever, ever. I want cuddle you.”

Crunchie Nut from James Spratt on Vimeo.

For the record

• 22.11.09: Your longest sentence to date: “I don’t want to take my finger out of my nose Mummy.”
• You seem unable to pronounce the letter ‘O’. Instead you’ll say ‘oo’. Therefore: pianoo, tomatoo, Dumboo, Uncle Ottoo, ‘cadoo (avo) and pilloo.
• Favourite colour: Green. You still don’t actually know your colours, but you want the green one all the same. That and the middle one too.

You’ve had some nasty skin issues which seemed to arrive when the bad weather did. Chapped lips that took ages to heal; then your sucked thumb lost the nail and the skin turned wrinkly, this does mean though that for the time being you’re no longer sucking it; your eye, the one you play with got quite gunky, but this also means that you’ve all but stopped playing with that; and your skin is not its beautiful baby-smooth self. The winter weather has taken its toll on you.

Quotes of the Day

[desperate, earnest]: “Please help me.”

[complaining]: “Mummy, Daddy’s trying to help me.”

[imperative]: Kate: “No Frankie.”
You: “Erm, I think yes.”

“Oh no. Poor us. What are we going to do?”

Some evening, we stop and listen through the baby monitor to the rot you come out with after you’ve been put to bed. For maybe up to a couple of hours after you’ve been put to bed you normally merrilly chat away to your self, interspersed with the odd gurgle as another drink gets necked. Like some voice in your head is prepping you for the student years to come, you Zulu warrior. You sing a bit of  Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Baa Baa Black Sheep, talk about Mummy or me or I don’t know, wahtever, but it’s incessant nonsense. Keep this up, it’s absolutely beautiful stuff to listen to.

Some time before Christmas we had the decidedly sad thought that you will never love us as much as we love you. Hold on, I’m not trying to be morose here, I’m just stating what I think is fact. That’s not you in particular, but parents and their children in general. And if my parents were to ever read this, I don’t want to take anything away from them, because they’re great an’all. I hope they’d know what I mean. I guess it’s all in the programming, but you have taught me about this unconditional love since you and now Alex were born. I’m guessing within 30 years you’ll be learning about it too. It’s pretty consuming and it feels good. That said, if you did turn out to be the next Hitler, you certainly wouldn’t be getting any Christmas pressies, I can tell you.

Speaking of which, we had our first Christmas as a four. Mummy, Alex, you and me á table. It also snowed around the Christmas period too which made it all the better. We went out into Victoria Park around the new year period and built a snowman. To be fair, it was a travesty of a snowman but you seemed to like it all the same. We had watched ‘The Snowman’ soon before building one so you love the concept of snowmen. At the end of the movie though, when the snowman melted away, you cried. My little sensitive lady, how outrageously sad.

Skype snapshot: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the pianoo

It’s now the 26th of Feb and I’m nearly at the end of my Indian trip. You must come to this country at the earliest opportunity. I came here first when I was 19 (unless I count the 24hr stopover in New Delhi on the way to Singapore when I was 7). It’s my favourite country for travelling in. So many reasons why: its vibrancy, its antipodal difference from our country; the friendliness of the people; the excellent weather; the sheer size and therefore domestic geographical difference of the place; the way these guys shake their heads; the rickshaw rides; the food; the soda and lime; the density of the populous; the mythological side to the religions; I could go on, I will go on when we’re on a more level playing field. All I’m saying is: do this place.

I miss you and cannot wait to come and see you and the rest of our gang in Plettenberg Bay. Only 5 days to go. I hope you’ve been looking after your sister and helping Mummy where you can. Looking forward to seeing how your kick-kicking is coming on in the pool.

All the love,

Daddy X

Dear Frankie,

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.

Show as slideshow

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