Okay, so she’s 15 weeks old so there’s not a lot of actual evidence for this claim, but she does watch them until they are out of sight when out in her buggy (a bugaboo bee, buggy-fans, I can’t recommend it enough). Also she will quiet down when presented with a gently swaying mass of leaves. I’m hoping this will continue and be a “thing”. Like “Oh, yeah, she really loves trees”. That’s cute in a toddler. Ok, maybe not in a grown-up.
Is it really only a week since I did that BB update? Gosh, seems like ages ago. How fast the summer recedes. How I’ll know it’s summer if no-one picks up BB for 2011, I have no idea.
E has a cold. Her first illness! She’s not suffering too badly, bit of a snuffly nose. The odd sneeze. The biggest problem is that she can’t breathe when placed on her back, which means she can’t sleep! No sleep for little baby. Therefore, no sleep for mummy and daddy. Except that she slept for about 10 hours last night, but that’s thanks to the magical power of Olbas Oil and a well-positioned crib. But the night before, before her very clever mummy worked out the problem, was a dreadful night! I was standing in the middle of the room, holding her against my chest, in the dark, at 4:30am, thinking “This is it, this is how I am going to have to say for the rest of the night!”.
Madness. I forget how I solved that. Maybe I’m still there.
Big Brother ten ends tonight, another summer of excellent telly over. This year’s show has been one of the most interesting for some time, a subtle ebb and flow of win and fail muddying the waters and making it impossible to call a winner until the very last minute. It has also – despite their having been around 18 housemates overall – felt small, intimate, with a fixed “cast” which dwindled down to the final five in a soapy, satisfying narrative unafraid to shamelessly play with the emotions of the viewer (usually, to be fair, anger, hatred, pity and more anger). Early favourites were exposed as trivial annoyances, those who made a bad first impression have emerged as front runners and for the longest time there seemed to be a distinct possibility that the winner could be a man who looked like a flabby Wolverine and did nothing all day but swear and masturbate, ensconced in a duvet.
For a show fighting for an audience – indeed for its very survival on the channel of its birth, a fight it lost before it even aired – it has been very low-key and lacked the OTT attention-grabbing antics of earlier series. If anything, it was closest to perhaps the second series; after the show had found its feet in series one, it was building to the twat-a-rama of the later seasons while still new and shaky enough to feel fresh and innovative, populated with housemates with more idea what to expect than their predecessors but still defining what it is to be a Big Brother contestant.
This time, of course, everyone knew the score. Some much better than others, of course, but all eyes were open. So it became a battle of wills between the participants and organisers, a redefinition of the rules of engagement was in process. The freakshows were being done away with, replaced by almost a new format. Rules were bent, broken and abandoned. Nominations discussed openly, with permission, and frequently didn’t happen. Housemates left the house on day trips. Written communication with the outside world (in the form of Tweets) occurred. There was a massed breakout into the camera runs. The authority of Big Brother was questioned, disputed and ignored. It was a different show. A new show.
And next year, it’s over. Our loss.
Next Tuesday (the first of September) marks our seventh anniversary, or, to put it another way, our second wedding anniversary. Also on the 31st of August our beautiful daughter is 3 months old.
Yup, I’d say things are going well. I actually couldn’t be happier*. I can point to two memories which have that golden glow about them in my head from just the two years since the morning of our wedding – 1) walking to the reception, laughing and joking with my family and friends and 2) being handed a towel-wrapped, bright red baby… who promptly pooed all over the floor.
Matrimony, fatherhood – states I can recommend. If you’re unable to be a father, motherhood is no doubt good too. I’m not pressing these choices onto you, of course. I’m not one of those people**. I don’t think everyone should do it just because I think it’s great. But if you’re considering it, and you’re not sure, I can chime in here and say – do what feels right. When they’re the one, you’ll know. The one you want to be with, the one you want kids with.
You’ll know. I knew.
*Well… I could have Sky plus, I guess. And a bit of sleep. Ooh, and a pony!
**I am a bit.
It’s amazing. All my life I have disliked sport because, well, it’s boring and I don’t really care. But thanks to maternity leave, I have a wife who has watched the cricket this summer with avid interest, and since it’s always on, I have been watching.
It’s a revelation. Walk up to a group of men and start a conversation with something like “I can’t believe Flintoff was out for seven! Seven! Still, he really shouldn’t have been playing”. Or “Bopara’s finally been dropped from the squad – which is good, because he couldn’t handle it, but you have to feel for him, really”. Or anything like that and you can just breeze on from there through an entire conversation. Amazing, properly amazing. It’s like we have something in common. These same men who wouldn’t *ever* chat about Big Brother or America’s Next Top Model. It’s like that episode of The IT Crowd – “Did you see that ridiculous display last night?” – once you know the manly conversation shibboleth you’re instantly someone else. You’re a man with opinions which can be listened to, and thought about, and commented upon. Not just someone babbling about telly.
WHAT THE FUCK, world? Why did I spend the last three decades ignoring sport? I could’ve been doing this for years.
I’m a bit tired. Also I have a horrible sore throat. I spent my lunchtime whizzing a friend’s baby daughter around outside a pub. She’s 11 months old, so I felt a bit more willing and able to turn her upside down and run around with her held aloft. I look forward to being able to chuck E about with such abandon. I think she’ll enjoy it.
She took her first trip on the tube this week, on the Victoria line down to Oxford Circus, and then out to John Lewis. She was very well behaved, all things considered, and it was a nice day out. We even ate a cooked meal! Us! And I tried on slings, and then bought one. Soon I shall be able to wander round with a baby attached like it’s no big deal. Cool.
John Hughes, 1950-2009. Man responsible for The Breakfast Club, one of the defining films of my adolescence. Defining film of millions of adolescences. And Weird Science. And Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. And Planes, Trains & Automobiles. And so on. Man was a genius.
I’ve said it elsewhere, but I want to say it here. If it caught you at the right time, The Breakfast Club spoke to you so clearly, like it was written for you, but it also seemed so universal, like it was written for everyone. Which gave me the start of some kind of insight – no matter how isolated it feels, being a teenager, no matter how much you feel that this has only ever happened to you, it happens to everyone. And here we all are. Locked in a vacancy.
Man was a genius.
Oh, man, Bookworm Adventures is back to take over our lives. Forget having a baby, Bookworm Adventures 2 is the real time-hog. Oooh, can we get a better word than “froggiest”? Is it worth using a blue tile on this guy or saving it for the boss? WHEN WILL THE CHESHIRE CAT ACTIVATE?? Is the baby crying? Just put it in another room, it’s a boss battle!!!!1!!one!
That’s PopCap for you. They can’t help but make great games. Bookworm Adventures, Plants vs Zombies (though I’m finding that quite hard), Peggle, Peggle, Peggle Peggle Peggle Peggle, Chuzzle, Bejeweled, Peggle, Talismania… I don’t begrudge them a penny I’ve spent on their games. They are charming, addictive, clever and rewarding.
By the way, I am **JOKING** about the neglect. We pay a great deal of attention to little baby E.
You don’t know tired until you have a baby. I did not believe this, but oh boy I do now. I have literally never been this tired in my life. I fall asleep anywhere. I’ve fallen asleep in such weird positions that I have now experienced pins and needles in my head. My head! That shouldn’t happen. I am wondering now if I have a concussion or something. Something has to account for my typing today!
She is lovely, though. I probably say this about a hundred times a day. Even when she’s keeping me awake for hours, she’s still beautiful and wonderful and all those other things. It astonishes me just how much I love this person who I’ve only known 8 weeks. Less than two months! And I would kill every single one of you for her. Well, I mean, not if she just commanded me to like some sort of louche Bond villain, but maybe if you were going for her with a pitchfork.
I apologise, no-one should get death threats just for reading a blog. But you started it, with your pitchforks and flaming torches and… oh, wait that was the opening sequence of Van Helsing.
Office 2007 has been installed on my work machine. It’s grate, although I’m still attempting to work out what’s where and if I can do certain things (some things – no, FROWNY FACE). But still. Outlook 2007 kicks ass, and Excel? Peachy stuff.
This is what my life has come to.