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

Press play on this while I give you the lowdown here….

Gracie, Ben Folds

…(you just need to replace every instance of the name Gracie with Frankie).  If I could write songs and if I could choose the style of how I’d like those songs to be written, I’d choose to write like Ben Folds.

On moving from monthlies to quarterly letters you cunningly accelerated the amount of developments and notable points I now feel compelled to take down for/about you. You’re now THE most entertaining being and are doing more than ever before.

Stats
H: 76.5cm, W: 10.7kg.

Nicknames
Pumpernickel, Pumpkin Pie, Prookum Chank, Prink, Prinkle, Ladyhead, Sausage, Sausage Monkey, Monkeyhead, Frankielicious.

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Snippets

• 06.11.2008: My fingers can only just touch each other by circling them around your torso.  I don’t know why I need to test that.
• 27.11.2008: 8th toothmpeggery coming through, soon followed by your first premolar (upper right) . At time of going to press, you’re now up to 12.
• Your fontanel is down to about the size of a ladybird now. I like the fact that I can locate it straight away whenever I feel the need. Which is more often than you’d suspect.
• When you’re not stood over your toy box throwing things from it back over your shoulder, trying to find that one elusive toy, like a dog digging for a bone, you like to sit in it. It looks terribly uncomfortable.
• When you’re sitting chilling, you can often be found shoving your index finger under your eyelid so you can stroke your eyeball. Extraordinary.
• You’ve started on the odd bit of irrational behaviour. The vast majority of girls do this, you just need to learn to temper it. Ooh controversial. Other than the little tantrums that never last any longer than a minute really, there’s just two examples so far: 1. Freaking out at the sound of a hair drier and 2. freaking out when near a phone cable. Weird shit.
• You’re so obviously testing boundaries. You’ll give us a knowing, checking look, like when you’re opening a draw or dropping food. Quite often you’ll even raise your eyebrows questioningly. It’s a real ninja test for Mumma and me not to fold into creases at your cheekiness.
• Walking: you’d been making first steps just before you turned one. You had it nearly nailed down about a month after that. Now you walk around like the cartoon character that you are. It’s a bit of a waddle and you’ll fall over ocassionally. Just watching you walk has us in stitches too.
• We had a really good xmas. A continual stream of Spratts passing through the house with Mumma doing you and I proud on the catering front. On xmas day you couldn’t work out how to unwrap but by boxing day you’d worked it out and were unwrapping like a professional unwrapper.
• Food: you continue to have the appetite of a weight trainer. Currently some Italian biscotti that Auntie Mary left us are your favourite thing. When I say favourite thing, I mean I’ll be holding you, you’ll go “HMM” rather sternly and point towards the kitchen, we’ll walk with you towards the kitchen doorway, you’ll go “HMM” and point towards the other end of the kitchen, we’ll walk to the other end of the kitchen, you’ll go “HMM” and point to the packet, and then because I’m such a bloody nice chap, I take you to the packet you reach your hand in and starting munching on some biscotti. You biscotti muncher you.

Vocals

The chat’s coming on. Your vocab currently extends to: Mumma, Bubba, Dadda, gone, book, dog, cat, bird, bear, BEAR, BEARRRRRRRR. And you’ll mostly respond accordingly to lie down, food, bed, dinner,yes and no.

17.01.2008:  First two syllable word as we were reading another book for the 756th time. It was ‘tortoise’, only pronounced ‘tutu’.

Plus you do animal sounds:

Me: “How does a snake go?”

You: (purposeful pause) “Ssssss”

Me: “How does the cow go?”

You: (purposeful pause) “Booooo”

Cute.

Bedtimes

You’re still regularly waking up in the middle of the night. Around 1a.m. ish one of us comes and grabs you and brings you into bed to sleep with us. Supposedly this is what they call “making a rod for our own backs” – but fuck it, that snuggling is worth 1,000 back rods. Mumma tells me of my sleeptalking recently: “Yes but that doesn’t happen when you’re walking down the street Frankie.”

You love your books and you love your bears. Your favourite book was the one about counting Teddy Bears, but now it’s the one entitled ‘Noisy Animals’. It’s really not as good as you try to make out. Reading you your bedtime story is a full on privilege that we look forward to most evenings.

At any given moment we can get you to dance, a bit like a chained bear really. BEARRRRRRRR. We just put some beaty tunes on and you’re away. Or we say the magic words “Dancing, dancing, dancing” and you’re off, giving it some. Funniest is to do this in bed at around 6:30a.m. when you’ll normally be found sat on one of your parents heads. Your other equally comic parent will call “Dancing, dancing, dancing” you’ll gallop up and down, squishing your overflowing pants and laughing all the way, as it is quite rightly the funniest thing.

Toilet Humour

06.11.2008: I picked you up from childminder Wendy’s around 5:30pm, “She’s got a thing about toilets, well she took her socks off and threw them in the loo.”

You will often be found with your finger shoved firmly up your hooter. When I picked you up from Wendy on Monday evening she informed me that you’d had a nose bleed early today. How? By picking your nose so hard. You total eejit monkeynutjob.

Sometime around mid November you just grabbed the potty that’s been sitting in the corner of the downstairs loo and brought it over to us. Self taught potty action – another example as to how you’re just so very advanced. And on the last day of 2008 you got the order right of calling it and then providing us with your first crap in your potty. Naturally you clapped your hands in self-approval. The sooner you take over wiping your own arse, the better though. You have caught on to the fact that farts are the funniest thing too. You’ll let rip then search us out for an approving nod and smile.

Travels

Early December we caught the train over to Belgium to see Pops. It was necessary for you guys to see each as it had been a few months. You got your first experience of snow out there and in the place where he was living (I say was as he’s subsequently returned to blighty for a stint) there lived a stuffed marmot. Whenever you caught a glimpse of said overgrown squirrel your eyes would light up. A better story is this though: I put you to bed as  normal then carried on talking and drinking with Pops. A couple of hours later you woke up crying. I left you for a short while to see if you’d pipe down, you didn’t so I went to you, switched on the light and went to cuddle you. You immediately stopped crying and smiled at me looking all mop-topped and cute. And there, hanging out of your mouth was a good 2cm of spider’s leg . No sign of any spider though. Gulp.

Then mid December, Ma you and I took another little trip around Europe. You’ve now been to France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and South Africa. 7 countries by 1¼. Long may this rate of coverage continue, although don’t ever say to Mumma that you’ve ‘done’ a country. One has never ‘done’ a country, you should know that by now Frankie.

Thursday 20.11.2008 was a good’n as I got my first kiss off you. You’ve had so many kisses showered over your chubby little cheeksters over the past 15 months that maybe this was more of a retaliatory move. But now you’ve started and regularly dish them out and your kisses Frankie, are something else. And as I finish this for another while, you’re sleeping 2 floors above me and your Mumma’s about 4,674 miles away in Tanzania. She’s over there for work (meeting the Prime Minister amongst other things, no less) but we’ll be seeing her in Dar Es Salaam this Friday so until then it’s the Daddy and Frankie show. Every now and again you’ll look at me and say “Mumma?” – it’s only been 3 days but crikesome that’s heartbreaking. It’s gonna be an excellent trip and I can’t wait for us to get amongst it.

Love you,

Daddy 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!

I thought this was lost forever more until my sister Em just called saying she’d looked it up to show brag to my brother-in-law Neil about it.

Recorded at the Teddington studios in February 1994. To our right of Dani Behr is stood m’chums Pete, Rick and Foz. Foz recalled the infamous quote from Rick’s father David Way soon after: “Heath, you’re a f***ing disgrace! Chewing gum on television!”

We also got to see Nirvana, Blur and Soul Asylum whilst there. They were some good old days.

And I hadn’t previously associated that performance with this recent one. Oh dear oh dear, he doesn’t change does he.