So, why?
 Babies don’t talk in meaningful ways. Tom has full-on conversations with himself and his toys every morning to the stage where he can now effortlessly communicate with several farmyard animals. And yes, I do recognise that this is also a trait of many inmates in Strangeways. Still, my favourite is ‘Doodledoo’ and if you don’t understand then you should be getting out less. All the same, his animal-lingualism is far from perfect and there’s a chance some of the more chippy mammals might think he’s Horseist as he can sometimes Moo out of turn, but then they shouldn’t look so much like cows in animated books. They’ve only got themselves to blame, coming over here, eating our hay, bossing our stables, jumping our English fences, who do they think they are!
Babies sit there, drool, smile (or fart – interchangeable) but don’t express themselves. Tom has personality. In buckets. Lovely, of course, even though sometimes those buckets, verily, they do runneth over. One example that shows Tom developing his own ‘Weltanschauung’, as he calls it, is his mature understanding that TV is in fact much more an adjunct to reality than any of us care to admit. His possessive love of books is well documented but last Monday we hit a peak when he protested vehemently as Max sat down with the Tweenies to read ‘My Birthday’. Tom went bananas, nuts, butternut-bonkers, pointing furiously at the lanky, bald, waistcoat-wearing thief like a speeded up film of the Munich Olympics, angry, confused and all the time just a bit peckish. Very little throws Tom off the scent of a nice snack and even as he flung his right arm at Max his left hand stuffed sesame-seeded breadsticks into his mouth. Finally I had to reach for his own version of the book and show him that Milo and Co. clearly had an inferior copy which was also, crucially, NOT TOM’S. This placated him long enough to make a start on the raisins and take a little nibble out of an apple coated rice cake. Oh and a gingerbread biscuit.
Babies are impatient. Mornings are so much more relaxed now that Tom’s toddlerfied. Mostly we hear him chattering away to himself from about 7am onwards. One morning we checked on him just before, found him still asleep and left the door ajar. Half an hour later we returned to find him haranguing the cat about the best way in which to squeeze your arm through the bars of a cot in order to upset the Bear Chair. William didn’t seem too fazed that Pooh, Neutral, Blund and Dudley had been sent sprawling but he was certainly transfixed by Tom’s delivery. Many mornings, without the cat to command, he heads straight for the windowsill. He has a nice wave at the street first but we’ve also started leaving said assorted animals within his reach. Sometimes the first we hear of him is a resonant clanging through the central heating as Bobo the Monkey chases Miquet the Cat right off the end of the sill and onto the radiator.
Babies laugh, at best. Tom’s now an all-out action figure with realistic moving arms, gripping hands and booting suddenly in the nethers feet. I must admit I love this, especially the growling / snarling / chasing / running / screaming / hands clawed / legs bent / ohmygodheshidingaroundthecorner games. I’ve even started introducing Tom to the wonderful mythology of Star Wars way ahead of schedule by pouncing on him suddenly from behind a door and intoning ‘Tom, I am your father’ in my huskiest baritone. He thinks it’s fabulous, shrieks and clomps off at speed, but has so far fought off my prompts that he should fall to his knees and wail ‘Nooooooooo.’
Which brings us to the exception that proves the rule. Tom’s general excitement levels over Christmas and his burgeoning desire for interaction have long made us accept that he’s growing up. So there we were assuring his nan that he’s a little lad, independent, a self-feeder, that at times he’s stroppy with impatience at his parents’ feeble attempts at entertainment. And so my mum, coming from a long line of mums herself, says, ‘Oh he’ll still like a good cwtch.’ Now I’m not sure if this is how you spell this distinctly Welsh word, which means ‘cuddle’, but Tom knew what she meant immediately. One minute we’re telling my mum to just sit him down with a good book because he sometimes gets like that when you stop him climbing into the oven, and the next he’s lying in her arms; still, calm, at ease and on the verge of sleep. Nan Fouracre’s not huge and the resulting soothing tableau did remind me slightly of a polar bear getting a damn good cuddle from a penguin. But she loved it as much as her beautiful, silent, serene grandson despite the fact that Tom’s 8 stone frame cut off her circulation after sixteen minutes. Even on the verge of black out, as she felt herself slipping away, she had the good grace to smile at how sweet it all was.
28 January 2007
Dave Fouracre
Dave Fouracre aka "Dave the Dad" is a regular feature writer here at thebabywebsite.com.
Read more about his hilarious experiences as a Dad. |
