A Father's Confession

Object etiquette

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:56:00 +0000

My boy's so polite at times - he'll say "bye bye" to folk in shops, wave to people who smile at him and is beginning to get the idea that adding "peese" (aka please) gets him more things.

I gave him a bath tonight and after he had got his fill of picking up the bubbles and blowing them all over the bath, tiles, himself and daddy, it was time to come out. So I pull the plug and lift him out of the water only t be smothered by 2 metres worth of towel (you gotta go overboard - it's the only way to sail). Just before we headed out the bathroom, he does his "IH" noise that means he sees something he wants, so I turn back and he's pointing to the bubblebath stuff I use (smells like raspberry... even though I don't like eating raspberrys). You know what he wanted?

"bye bye bubbles!"

He was waving to the bubble bath!!!

Dinosaurs invade

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:14:00 +0000

My boy's right into dinosaurs right now, well, he calls them sawrs but I know what he means. I was into sawrs when I was a kid too. He has this DVD "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story" which is pretty good, not too long and lots of dinosaurs in it, anyway, he loves it to bits and just wants to watch it all the time (that or In the Night Garden on CBeebies).

After we'd watched it (and I can now play the parts in it) we went through to his room to play with his duplo bricks. Being the creative beast I am, I decided it would be cool to build a dinosaur from duplo (rather than the big cars, big faces or big house that you can generally only build from duplo). So daddy set about building a T-rex out of Duplo whilst the boy passed him pieces and tried to sneak the odd block onto the construction.

I must admit, I was fair chuffed with it! The boy smiled and then went back to his other toy, which was a bit disappointing.

Eventually he got up to play with daddy's masterpiece and I sobbed as he did what he does best - destroy things...

Millions of years of killer instinct and it comes undone from a little boy with a soft football :(

Softplay Chronicles

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 07:59:00 +0000

Last week I took the boy to a new softplay centre. For thos eof you who don't know what one is and if that's you then slap yourself for me, a softplay centre is somewhere that has a climbing frame with slides and ball pits and it's all padded so kids can't hurt themselves - they're great fun! Anyway, I thought we'd try a different one and see good it was.

It was busy as hell, that's what it was. Schools are on holiday and there were all these women there with their kids. I probably shoulda had a field day with all the mums there since the ratio of girls-to-guys was about 30-1 but knowing who's a single parent and who isn't seems out of my league, plus I was there to play with the boy, not chat up women :)

He was so, so excited and could barely wait whilst daddy paid a hefty amount for him to get in (but I was testing the place out so it was okay). There were no free seats anywhere so I found a bit of wall, claimed it as daddy Gurn's and put our stuff there. The boy was desperate to get in so I lifted him into the place and went off to take my shoes off. Of course, his enthusiasm was replaced with a little bit of nerves so he hovered at the edge shouting on me all the time.

Once I was in there with him he was loving it.. until someone came across and told his daddy to get off the frame because "adults aren't allowed on it". I hate that :( I wanna play with him on it and what if he gets stuck up on the top?? Stupid rules :p

Good fun and he threw a big tantrum when we had to leave but I don't think we'll be back, it's quite pricey.

Super praise robot

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:28:00 +0000

I took my boy swimming at the weekend there which must be the first time in many, many months - he always seems to come down with something when I wanna take him. Anyway, we had a ball and decided to come out and get dried and dressed. He's all dressed after a wee bit of frantic drying and trying to make sure all of MY clothes don't fall onto the wet floor when a mother and two kids walk into the family cubicle next to me.

I can hear her start getting her kids ready and she must have a wee one too (toddler age, probably a bit older than my boy) and everything he does is followed with a serious case of exuberance from mother along the lines of..

"OH WOW! Look at you, you managed to take your shoe off!!!"
"That's SUPERB! Look at how well you managed to sit down!"

That sorta over-the-top praise that some folk do.

Well, I was getting myself dressed listening to all of this when I noticed the little kid's feet under the partition.. then I noticed lots of liquid splashing down by his feet.. then I realised that he had decided to pee there and then.

"Oh, well.. that's not so good is it?"

says mummy.

The annoying thing? She didn't do anything about the pee on the floor!

Da-da digivolve to..

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:27:00 +0000

This morning my son upgraded me from "da-da" to "da-day" :)

I've got that all-warm and fuzzy feeling that you can only get when you have children

Scared shitless pt3

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:10:00 +0000

It was suggested that we keep him in the hospital overnight and we both reluctantly agreed. We were given a room which had a cot, a single bed and a chair but the boy wouldn't sleep on his own in the cot and so slept on his mother on the bed whilst Dad took the uncomfortable chair.

Thankfully the boy managed to get some sleep and the extra ibuprofen they'd given him was starting to work and his temperature was dropping. It was awkward being with his mother for this length of time given our history but my son's always more important and past history is something I've always wanted to shelf - it's not forgotten or forgiven but it's not at the forefront of my mind. Both mother and son managed to get some sleep with the latter getting the most. I on the other hand, sleep lightly normally (so I can hear ninjas coming) and with the ward randomly bursting into life with someone's kid crying or screaming, I was lucky to get an hour and a half at most.

The day came eventually and I was beaten down - so, so, so tired but the worry was still keeping me going. He woke up and was a bit groggy but after a few hours of waiting for the doctor to do her rounds, he was back to his happy, little self :D He was mucking about on my shoulders a lot and even had some food which was a first for two days.

When the doc did come round, she and the consultant concluded that it wasn't a reaction to the mmr but he'd probably picked a bug up from his brother's dad (timberwolf was dying of a stomach flu or something). To be honest, we both knew at the start that that was a likely cause but we were taking no chances especially when he had just had his MMR.

So I took him home and I was beaten and shattered. My family came up to look after him for me and I went for a nap but it wasn't long or very good. Still, it all worked out in the end even if I had to go through hell to get there :p

Scared shitless pt2

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:46:00 +0000

I had the boy Saturday night and whilst he seemed like his usual, happy self, there was still a slight bit of worry in the back of my mind especially since we had been at the hospital that morning. Anyway, bedtime came and I put him down without any complaint. I would keep checking on him and then started noticing that he was getting hotter so I stripped him down to his nappy and left him asleep.

At 10PM he awoke crying and I rushed through to him to find he was burning up and shivering. God this made me panic a bit but had to change his nappy so it was "focus Dad, focus!" With that job done I found he just wouldn't leave my arms and just wanted to hug me but he was so bloody hot. He'd had some medicine (ibuprofen and calpol) so I didn't know what else to do or what was wrong with him.

I ended up phoning the NHS 24 helpline where the call handler had issues with me. Because my son is resident with his mother, my address didn't prove squat.

Her: 'So what's his address normally?'
Gurn: 'Oh.. I can't actually remember?'
Her: 'Right, do you know his mother's phone number?'
Gurn: 'Not off the top of my head, it's in my phonebook on the phone I speaking to you on so I can't get to it.'
Her: 'It's just I need some way of proving identities'

I felt like shouting "HE'S GOT THE SAME BLOODY SURNAME AS ME AND HE'S BURNING UP ON MY FUCKING LAP SO I THINK THAT FUCKING PROVES HE'S ACTUALLY MY SON AND NOT SOME RANDOM CHILD I'VE KIDNAPPED!!".. but I didn't (I was getting angry at this point)

Her: 'Okay, do you know who his GP is?'
Gurn: 'I have no idea.'
Her: 'What about the name of the GP pratcice he goes to?'
Gurn: 'He used to go to the one in ZZZZZ but he's moved since then and I've not been told.'
Her: 'Eh.. hold on.. does he have a middle name?'
Gurn: 'Two'

And with that I was finally taken seriously

So the nurse I was eventually put through was very nice and asked me to bring him into the hospital at 00:40. I met his mother there and we waited in the foyer for the doc. There were a few other toddlers there, all of which looked REALLY sick so that did nothing to alleviate my fears.

Finally we saw the doctor and she gave him a thorough examination. Her conculsion? Might be related to the MMR or it might be a viral infection, OR it might be a VERY nasty viral infection that could fuck up his kidneys. She made us take him straight up to the Sick Children's hospital and I remember worrying that little bit more.

We got there and were told they'd do some tests on him to rule out some things but they'd need a urine sample first. "oh, right" I thought as if, yeah, I can make my son pee on command? I even took him to the toilet and let him watch his dad pee as sometimes that's made him start peeing.. and laughing but that's nothing to do with anything you're thinking about :p It didn't work and just served to make him cry more (he was still burning). They took his temp and it was over 39 degrees which caused them some concern. Thankfully he took a drink and pee'd.. whilst sitting on his mother :)

Next came the blood test and I swear I have never been more scared in all of my life.

Never

He'd had cream on the back of his hands to numb them so he wouldn't feel the needle. He'd had this on his hands for the better part of an hour and when the two nurses came round to take some blood, they couldn't find a vein. They saw one on his arm and asked if they could use that instead and that they could take it now or we could do the cream thing again (would be another hour with his arm in an awkward position and lots of crying) so we said to just take the blood now.

One nurse held the needle
One nurse held his arm to make the vein more prominent (this caused my son to start screaming the place down)
His mother held his arms still so he wouldn't writhe about
Daddy kept talking to him since he was face that way.

Daddy had the worst of all jobs :(

I had to watch his face shiver in fear and pain as the needle went in and he just kept screaming "DA DA DA DA DA DA" over and over begging me to take the pain away from him. I'm never going to forget that moment because I couldn't do the one thing I'd promised him the very first time I held him - to protect him. Here I was, watching him try to get to me but unable to do anything because I knew they needed his blood.

I was almost in tears.

It was over in a minute or so but he took a good 10 minutes to calm down. After that came the snot test which required them to put tubes right up his nose to collect snot. I had to walk out because I couldn't take another reaction like the blood one. I took the opportunity to go to the lobby to phone my sister to let her know how he was but I could hear him screaming from there and I had to head back to him. It was all over when I arrived.

So with all the tests over they started coming back with results and all of them were negative.. thank god. But we still didn't know why he was running a fever.

Scared shitless pt1

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:36:00 +0000

It's Saturday morning, just gone 6AM and I'm sleeping off my alcohol-filled birthday nightout when my phones goes off with a txt from the ex. She's worried about my son's temperature saying it's too hot and she's waiting to hear back from the doc. I lug myself out of bed and go take a piss then I sit down to try and get brain working enough to send a reply. I don't even get to start when she phones me saying she's been told to bring him into the hospital.

Oh shit!

So with a renewed panic I got myself a shower and then got ready (minus the breakfast). She picked me up since I was still wasn't completely sober and therefore unable to drive and we headed to the hospital with sleeping boy in tow. He seemed happy to see me when he woke up but his temperature was normal by the time we arrived. Still, the doc checked him out and said he couldn't see anything wrong with him. We both noted however that he wasn't walking properly and was staggering with a few steps but he advised us to just keep our eye on him.

Now I know what you're thinking - paranoid parents but here's why we were both worrying. 3 days prior he'd had his MMR innoculation which has been fairly controversial in this country. It vaccinates against Measles, Mumps and Reubella and they used to give an injection for each but now they have this all-in-one thing. The controversy has come about due to some side-effects but the government's official stance was that it was advisable to get it. His staggering seemed to disappear later on so all seemed fine.

Big Foot

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:39:00 +0000

Popped out to the local shopping centre to visit Clarks shoe shop so I could get the boy's feet measured (his mother had asked me since I was on holiday). As usual, the wee yin drew smiles from all the women around and I'm convinced that if I'd left him alone for 20 seconds, he'd have been abducted by one of them. Anyway, the last time I bought him shoes, he was a 4.5 F in both feet (this is bordering on bra sizes methinks), this time the young lassie told me he was now a 5 F in the left foot and still a 4.5 in the right. The worry is.. what happens if he keeps growing JUST in the one foot??? ;)

But at £30 for a pair of shows I can barely get my fingers into? How the hell do they justify that, especially when he'll only be in them for a few months? £30 would be the upper limit for buying shoes for MYSELF so the amount of material they must save when making smaller shoes must equate to cheaper prices.. surely?

Nope, just another proof that the toddler industry is a money-grabbing whore :)

Fun in the bath

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 20:06:00 +0000

the boy hadn't poo'd all day which isn't really unusual, just means the next morning there's a load of the stuff :( It was bath time though and so I took him into the bath with me and he played with his toys whilst daddy washed him. It dawned on me that his stomach was totally massive and that I was in for a horrible nappy tomorrow morning however he had other plans and I found myself staring at "the face". This is the face my boy does when he's pushing an unholy mess out of his bum.

That's right, in a few seconds the bath was awash with a mass amount of shit! I shouted for my dad (we were visiting today) and he came up to see me holding the boy out of the water (as best I could) whilst I watched his crap float towards me.

God it was awful!

Ballad of a poo collector

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:39:00 +0000

For the love of Odin, how can something so small make so much crap?!

The boy's had a stomach bug of some sort, even though it hasn't affected his mood or appetite. What it has done is give me a seemingly endless dirty nappy job to do. I might only get one full nappy of crap in a day or maybe two half-ish ones but so far I've had about three over-flowing cauldrons of the most vile examples of human excrement :(

I know it tends to be Dad's job but when you're a single parent it's ALWAYS bloody dad's job. Normally I just have to monitor my breathing (something that sends the boy into giggles) and I can change the nappy without too much hassle but these ones, jeez, I've found myself wondering if I was going to be sick? And as usual, it's not a nappy change unless my finger accidentally touches it or his finger touches it whilst I have his legs in one hand and a baby wipe army in the other. If he touches it it's pretty much all over as I have to fight him with the baby wipe to stop him putting it into his mouth.

These nappies, when I do finish gettin' them off him, are like bloody shot-putts!

Mini-hulk

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:26:00 +0000

The boy has hit the "terrible twos" at 16 months :p It's actually quite funny to watch! He sometimes picks up the tv remote and after a "give that to daddy" he hands it over but he said "no"..well it was more a sound that I knew meant no. Plus the way he turned his little chest and brought the remote closer to him kinda hinted at his stance on the matter ;)

So I took it off him and then he exploded in a fit of screaming and crying, his little face getting buried into the sofa just to really make me know he wasn't happy. He's such a good wee boy too so it's funny to see him act like a hellion :D

The second incident came about when he went up to the tv and started switching the damn thing off and on. I do my best not to shout (not angry shouting, just trying to get his attention) at him for this because he has the nasty habit of thinking daddy saying his name in a sterner voice is somehow funny.. and a game and I don't want him to keep doing it to "play" with me. Anyway, I became conscious that it might not be the healthiest thing for my tv to be constantly switched on and then off without getting a chance to show the static, so I said no to him.

He looks round at me
His face turns inside out
He starts crying
He starts screaming
He falls onto his knees and buries his face into the floor
Daddy laughs (couldn't help it)

Another incident (can't mind what I took away from him or maybe this one was down to daddy stopping him punching the crap outta daddy's face - something that's beginning to hurt), involved the tantrum on the sofa and he added thrashing his legs about to his already impressive repertoire.

I got a txt from his mother telling me he had started freaking out with her when she took things away from him so yeah, he's at this stage now - oh joy :D

Blanket phobia

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 19:19:00 +0000

They say to you when you train to be a parent that you must put your child at the foot of the cot so that they can't wriggle down, under the blankets and suffocate in the middle of the night.

They repeat this when they test your child hours after it came into this world.

I've heard it that much that every morning I wake up and my son's here, I ask myself whether he's breathing or not? The only reason I don't panic at that point is because the common sense in me tells me that my boy will be lying as far away from the blanket as humanly possible.

The routine consists of putting him down in his cot (anywhere in the cot and you'll understand why in a minute), tucking a blanket around him and down the sides of the mattress, then leave to make a cup of tea.

I can almost guarantee that by the time I've made my cup of tea and come back to check that he's sleeping, he's lying face down at a funny angle and the blanket is crumpled at the foot of the cot. I'll then put it over him again, careful to make sure I tuck it around him (my brain tells me to do it really tight so he can 't possibly move but I shake that idea out) and then leave him to sleep.

An hour later, I'll hear a bang which will be his skull battering off the wood as he will now have found the top corner of the bed and once again, the blanket will be keeping sod-all warm.

He just doesn't want a bloody blanket! I have NO idea how I'm gonna keep him warm when the winter comes in but I keep telling myself that he'll grow out of his blanket fear and embrace the warmth.

Crack open the paint

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 19:17:00 +0000

As you may have noticed the blog has had a face-lift. I've put so much time and effort into my other blog that I didn't think there'd be any spare to re-decorate here but I had that "urge" (different from the other "urge") and just had to do something. It's okay - hasn't really impressed me but it'll do 'til I get an idea for something better.

Mobile and on a mission

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:57:00 +0000

The past month or so has seen my boy take his first tentative steps. It started with him holding both my hands and standing for a few seconds before his legs buckled, then it progressed to walking with both my hands/his baby walker without falling over. Then he let go of one hand and walked although I quickly realised he couldn't walk without waving his free hand about like he was trying to flag down a passing plane.

Last week I let go of both of his hands and he took two or three steps to me before falling on his arse. But today, oooo, I went to pick him up from his granny's and not only did he start barking "DA DA!" when he saw me coming, but I put him on his feet and he walked across the livingroom to me! Oh god was it a brilliant feeling :)

It's funny, I still remember him being a tiny, hungry baby who could fit along my forearm and now he's walking about.. well.. toddling about but let's not argue semantics. So now comes the part where I have to nail everything down and put all my action figures, ornaments, etc up higher. Also, he's developed a fascination for opening and closing drawers which sees me finally embrace the "parental panic" part of being a parent.

Something's missing

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:31:00 +0000

My boy's been taken on holiday by his mother to Germany for 10 days and this is the first time I haven't had him for any length of time. It's weird because he's not there to smile at me in the morning or fuss when I take him away from climbing the stairs, or get hyper when I bring food near him.

I really miss him and it doesn't help that I was going through photos and uploading some onto my bebo account (ugh.. I'm starting to like bebo too). Found this one and it made me feel even worse :p I like it because he's got that little frown going on as there was about 15 people all smiling at him. Plus, that's one of the few pictures where I actually look like a responsible dad ;)

And I like this one mostly because he's so happy behind the wheel and I look seriously worried.

Looking forward to Friday though - I'm getting him for the full weekend :D

The first birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Sun, 18 May 2008 19:43:00 +0000

It was my son's first birthday yesterday. Can't believe a whole year's passed but then I go through the hundreds of photos I have on my computer and see him get bigger and more like a wee boy and I think, yeah, he is a year old now.

Since I didn't get him til yesterday evening, I celebrated his birthday today by heading out to an animal/adventure park way out east with his auntie, grad and grand-dad. The weather was gorgeous and everyone had a brilliant time including the birthday boy - who couoldn't stop pointing and getting excited at all the animals, chasing the girls about the soft-play area and flapping about in fits of giggles on the trampolines. God knows how he managed it all 'coz he hardly slept all day :p

I even made him a birthday card like I've done in the past for a few people. I've had "that's really cool!" or "that's freaking me out" comments from those who have seen it :)

Today couldn't have been any better :D

Your mother sucks milk in hell

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:39:00 +0000

It's 07:15 and I've just given the boy his morning milk. I'm rubbing his back in a nice circular motion to help him burp whilst shaking my head at the news presenter telling me it's gonna rain all day. But wait - the boy coughs once.. twice.. three times.

And on that third time he coughed extra hard and half his milk comes chucking out of his mouth. He coated himself and his shocked father in stinky milk and I had something like ten minutes to completely change him and myself before he was getting picked up.

God it smelled awful :(

Breaking the rules at 11 months

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:34:00 +0000

The great authority of the majority say that it's best your baby sleeps on his/her back and they're placed in the cot with their feet at the foot of the bed. I think this sounds fine.. if you baby sleeps on his/her back. My son likes sleeping on his side and rolls all over the blood place making putting a sheet over him difficult. I've adopted a strategy of only putting the sheet over him when I go to bed as he's usually settled into the "all night" position.

The problem is the little bugger's wriggled all the way up to the other end of the cot so I have to put the sheet that far up. Yeah, there's a chance that he'll wriggle down under the sheet during the night but I can't let him freeze and if I move him he wakes up and we're there for a while ;)

In saying that, he hasn't wriggled down yet and more often than not he kicks the sheet off anyway. It's also fun when he gets his legs trapped between the bars of the cot and can't free himself because he's asleep.

Dad to the rescue!!

He's fast approaching his first birthday so I'm gonna start trying to wean him off bottles and onto cups as well as giving him a spoon. Oh yes, let the messy fun commence :D

The mobile biting unit

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 11:31:00 +0000

My son can fully crawl now... well, on carpets anyway. On my laminate and my folks' wood floor he can't quite get one of his legs under so he kinda drags it like some kinda broken, crawling Action Man.

But on carpet he's a machine! I played fetch with him the other weekend and it was so funny because he did that freaky burst of speed thing that I've seen in the movies or on tv. And here I was thinking that was just a movie thing - see, ya learn something about parenting every day :D

He's also got a lot more teeth and decided to show his daddy just how many he had and also just how strong he could bite. I almost lost my finger :( I even screamed when he bit into the top of my pec. He got a shock mind you and hasn't done it since but christ was that painful!

Beware when they get teeth on both the top and bottom for they know not what they do.

Face down NOW!!

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 11:19:00 +0000

My son doesn't sleep like a normal baby (I think) which shouldn't surprise me since I know what stock he comes from but still, sometimes it causes problems. He loves falling asleep on me and now sleeps face down in his cot. This, naturally, has me worrying like a woman since I think "oh god what if he can't breathe because he's face down on the mattress?" then my male brain kicks in and says "well, he'll simply move his head" and I'm fine.

But I put him to bed on his back and he bursts into tears because a)he doesn't like sleeping on his back and b)he doesn't want to go to bed. Tears become floods and my fairly tough heart starts cracking because he's properly upset so I go pick him up and as soon as he's on my chest, he's asleep. I give him five minutes, lay him back into the cot on his back and guess what - yup, he's wide awake and screaming at me.

This repeated itself quite a few times one night 'til I put him down on his stomach and rubbed his back. He did scream but it was that over-tired kinda screaming that dies in volume with every breath.

I checked on him just before I went to bed and found him up at the top of his cot, still face down but sleeping on his knees and elbows! It's hard trying to muffle laughter when you're trying to be a serious dad :p

Dad = Human bib for hire

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:57:00 +0000

It seems dads just gets hammered with all the icky jobs. I was forced to watch CBeebies on tv and they had a programme on with strange coloured people, wearing over-sized heads. The story was about the mum about to give birth to a new baby and how the rest of the alien kids would cope. Of course they showed some real footage of newly born babies and there was a bit of narration over the top of it like "and the baby drinks the mother's milk" and "now the mother is putting the baby to bed". Finally came "and here's dad changing a dirty nappy".

Oh yes, dad for crap, dad for puke, dad for sneezes/snotters/drool/pee and anything else that mother doesn't want to do.

Naturally I've gotta do that since I'm a single parent but today my boy's nose was running better than my car and his favourite trick would be to use his hand to "collect" the snot and then "deposit" it into dad's mouth. Why's my mouth open at that point? Well, I'm usually either talking to him in my language, talking to him in his language or acting like a spastic mime artist to try and get him to laugh. No matter which I do, my mouth opens from a fraction of a second and he pours in as much nasal fluid as he can.

Then, just after lunch, instead of spewing up his dinner, he sneezed it up (well, a little bit anyway) and shot it at my chest to give my dark blue jumper a new smattering of orange and red which complimented the wet drool marks and the dried milk. I don't know why I put a bib on him when it appears that I'm just a human version of one!

Showing off

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:50:00 +0000

The boy has now mastered the art of rolling and is using it to great effect, so much so that I have to be constantly by his side to ensure he doesn't roll off surfaces or hit his head on things in the process. His language is building really well and whilst actual words escape him, he enjoys nothing more than shouting abuse at me(well okay, not abuse because he's smiling when he does).

I took him with his grandad to the local swimming pool where he had a really good time. Oh yes, water didn't seem to bother him at all, not even when it went into his mouth! But then his true nature showed as he caught sight of three girls in the pool as well and began smiling away at them and trying to attract their attention/show off his sophisitcation by making the biggest splashes ever. So it appears he has inherited his mother's natural flirting ability which is good because his dad can't flirt for toffee. But he has his father's eye for the ladies which will probably combine with the flirting to make a monster.

oh dear :p

Learning and drooling

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:08:00 +0000

The boy's learned how to wave his hand although more in an up and down fashion as opposed to a rotating thing. Of course he's waving at everything and nothing now :D

Then again, he did the most disgusting thing to me so far - he drooled into my ear and when I stood up with him going "euuughhhhh", it ran out, down the side of my face and under my chin. God that was a totally manky experience :( I do have more to blog about him but I feel shattered right about now (he's been running me ragged all day and all night last night)

"For democracy, any man would give his only begotten son"

noreply@blogger.com (Gurn) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:55:00 +0000

I've always loved that line from Metallica's "One" video - like I'm gonna give my son up to a war :p

I got a txt from my son's mother on Monday evening saying his granny was too ill to look after him on the Tuesday and that she couldn't take any more time off work. This meant I had to travel back through to Edinburgh and look after him, which I wasn't complaining about - meant I got to see my son some more although I would miss a few uni classes. I also had his sister which was weird for me since everything that had happened last year. Both of the kids were working on funny sleeping patterns and both ended up missing lunch.

I'm sure my boy did that on purpose since I had just warmed his spaghetti bolognaise when his head started flopping about and he started that "I'm tired" whining. So it all went quiet for a long time in my flat then I checked up on his sister (being the most ill of the two) and found that she had pee'd in the bed. Yup, idiot here had forgot to put a nappy on her before she fell asleep. Naturally she woke up crying from being all wet and smelly and I had to throw her in the shower (not literally).

Later she was twirling about with a shawl sorta thing and I heard a BANG. I rushed through to see one of my dragon figures on the floor and in two bits. Damn - and it was one of my favourite ones. I told her she needed to be more careful because she'd broken my figure but she burst into tears and wouldn't calm down no matter how much I told her it was an accident. Was strange that she went off the deep end about it.

Anyway, as hard as it was for me, it was fun having her back in my flat. I must admit, I'm slightly annoyed that her dad can't look after her when this sort of thing happens but that whole situation is none of my business. I did it because someone needed to look after that girl and I was there. Oh and my boy was his usual laughing self :)