Dave the Dad 33 - Sleeping Dogs
Tom, my three year old, spent most of the first four months of his life indulging a pastime that many people on ITV daytime seem willing to carry on into their adult lives.His pretty face contorted with pain, his tiny body tensed like Begbie, he would scream into my face for a good few hours every night. The fear this invoked passed relatively quickly and I sought solutions. I would bounce him around to Songs of Praise (no good, cheers God!), would wind him with the rigour of a man freezing to death (temporary relief), or finally I would resort to driving about the lanes of East Sussex playing Classic FM very quietly. This worked a treat. Until I stopped and tried to get him into the house. One whiff of the hallway - a not particularly whiffy hallway at that - and the siren would go off again.
‘Colic!’ everyone said. ‘Can’t do anything about it.’
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Now by most reckonings one of the best guesses we have about colic is that it’s trapped wind. For this reason, as well as that of obvious toilet humour, I was absolutely chuffed when Harry started farting about a week into his life. No colic, I reasoned. Can’t be all bad. It was only then that I discovered the lack of colic simply means that you learn to focus on other things. Like straining.
Let’s go back a few weeks. For the first seven to ten days after coming home Harry slept practically through the night, a routine we were keen to encourage until he was at least married and living in a different city to us. Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t perfect but he would go seven hours without waking for a feed. When this changed we figured it was bound to happen and embraced it in the way that all new parents heartily embrace the utter desolation of one good routine for the introduction of a crap one that spreads ruin and desperation. Still, even then he wasn’t awful. He would wake at four hourly intervals for food but there was no doubt he liked a good sleep. However, that was all until he discovered the joys associated with practicing his lower intestine.
Now when we diligently wrap him up for the night, sneak under our duvet and turn the light off, the noises start. Having him in the room can be like sleeping next to a faulty fridge that keeps switching on and off, or a dog which has just wolfed down fourteen tins of beans. The lad seems to have more wind than the Falkland Islands. The amazing thing is that Harry can keep these straining / growling / pushing / hmmffphing noises up for about two hours at a go before finally the quiet of the night is swamped by a noise that sounds like a huge comedy toad being flattened by a huge comedy mallet. Spike Milligan would be in his element. One evening Harry was perched on my lap as I read Tom a story before bed. The bubbling squwoosh started as a small tremor but by the end of the four seconds it lasted it had taken on enough strength to have sent anyone from New Orleans screaming for the hills. Tom just stared, mildly concerned, as I shifted Harry uncomfortably onto my other knee. He didn’t appear unduly worried but I still have flashbacks every time we get Mr. Strong down from the shelf.
All the same, for all the heaving Atlantic swell of his duodenum, Harry will stay asleep remarkably well. At only three weeks old we went to a wedding reception where the speaker system had apparently been set up by ex-roadies from Megadeth. Harry slept right through, a boon for us as our hands were full of hankies mopping the blood from our ears. More impressively he also managed to sleep through a very decent viewing spot during Gay Pride in Brighton. If you can sleep through 10,000 ecstatic gay men banging their tambourines you can sleep anywhere. And boy, were they banging!
When not sleeping or eating or pushing, Harry does appreciate a good stare. Now Tom is of an age where staring through me at Ben 10 or Batman has become an art-form, and he has perfected the minute movement which blanks me entirely and enables him to access the TV. Harry is still learning his trade. He likes the vacant over-your-left-shoulder-stare although that odd-spot-on-the-ceiling is another favourite. In truth the way he looks at me isn’t always totally focused, as though he’s trying to digest some unfathomable theorem. And then he smiles; a sweet, goofy, curvy grin that says ‘C’mon, surely you can’t be serious!’ I’ve yet to work out what he thinks the joke is but whatever it is, it’s bloody brilliant.
September 2008
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