Dot writes: admire the amazing athletic achievements of Frank (aged 12 weeks):

Dot writes: when I am plunged into gloom over the latest parenting blunder I’ve perpetrated against our firstborn, Ken is wont to console me with the thought that he won’t remember any of it. But it’s interesting to notice how he is starting to remember things, and not just where the chocolate lives when we have any. Yesterday his parents had a little Frank-related nostalgia: we reprised the walk up Three Rock Mountain that we did the day before Frank was born. In retrospect this was my pre-labour burst of energy, the one other women use for cleaning the sink. Back in September my bladder was under a certain amount of strain, and on the way down I had to leave the path and find a discreet spot behind a tree. This time as we passed that spot Hugh pointed towards it and exclaimed “pee-pee!” We were really rather impressed. That’s evidence that he remembered a fairly trivial incident (sorry this anecdote had to involve bodily functions) for almost three months. (Though maybe in his world watching his mother pee behind a tree counts as excitingly novel. Back in September he insisted on coming with me.)

I hope Hugh doesn’t remember yesterday’s walk for too long, though, as by one of those clever moves in which each parent assumes the other has packed it we managed to leave his warm coat at home. It didn’t seem too cold – I only had a fleece myself – so we set off with Hugh, hoisted aloft in the back-pack, in just a hooded jumper. He is a very hardy child and tends to refuse outer layers when I think he ought to have them, and he didn’t complain. When I asked if he was cold he said “no coat”, which I took to mean “I don’t want a coat.” Unfortunately I think it actually meant “I don’t have a coat”. We’d been wandering at the top for a few minutes when we realised he was shivering violently. Happily we had an extra jumper in the pack; and Ken took off his fleece and wrapped that around him; and we made sure he had his hat on, though he balked at the mittens; and then we retreated down the hill with Ken cuddling Hugh against his front, under a cloud of awful guilt. As I’d forgotten my boots and mac and Ken was now in a light shirt under his gortex the only person properly dressed for the trip was Frank.

from xkcd

Dot writes: this is Hugh having his nap last Thursday:

Note that he has nodded off over a book: Baby Touch and Feel: Trucks (Dorling Kindersley), for those interested. As far as Hugh is concerned our sleep situation is really quite good these days. If only he hadn’t had a relapse to 5.50am this morning. And if only Frank hadn’t still been up at 11pm last night…

Dot writes: I’ve been reading again, thanks to a family trip to the library which allowed me an unaccustomed escape from the children’s section. I read Single and Single, by John Le Carre, The Telling, by Ursula Le Guin, Nothing is Black, by Deirdre Madden, and now another John Le Carre, A Perfect Spy. It’s supposed to be his best or one of his best (jacket blurb, imperfectly remembered) but so far, although I’m enjoying it, I also want to give it a bit of a shake and tell it to get to the point, you irritating book. Why all the stuff about this man’s childhood and why can’t it decide whether to be in the first person or the third? His masters in spying think (I think) that he is a double agent who has done a bunk, but he seems in fact to be hanging about in a lodging house in Devon getting an old lady good deals on her groceries. Something awfully exciting is going on, apparently, but what is it? Why must the wretched book go on like a well-educated gossip who talks beautifully and for hours without ever being indelicate enough to state in plain terms what the hot news actually is? I have this horrible feeling I may never be well up enough in Le Carre-speak to find out what Pym was doing.

I mentioned that I’ve also just read a novel by Deirdre Madden. She happens to be one of my colleagues at Trinity and I saw her this morning as I was going into college (for a meeting, accompanied by Frank). I felt oddly queasy meeting her, as though I’d been doing something rather sticky and underhand by reading her book; as though I’d been passing by her house not entirely by chance and peering through her windows. Which is silly, given she’s a published writer and is employed at Trinity because she is a writer and presumably wants people to read her books. But there is a dissonance between the rather slight degree to which I personally know her (and her air of being self-sufficient and somewhat quiet and utterly unvulgar) and the great intimacy of borrowing her novelistic perspective on the world. It feels a bit like spying.

Ken writes:

The words ‘here’, ‘there’ and ‘where’ belong to a regular structure that is shared by a number of other words. I’ve arranged the ones I’m familiar with in the table below.

As you can see the pattern is not entirely regular (as befits a real language). The H-cases are missing for explanation, immediate succession and at a time themes. (In my opinion, the difference between ‘therefore’ and ‘wherefore’ lies is whether the claim it applies to is already known in advance. If so, it is merely being explained so ‘wherefore’ is used. If not, it is being proved, so ‘therefore’ is used). The Wh-case is missing for the from-time theme and only the H-case exists for the up to this time and the after this page themes.

Can anyone think of instances for these missing cases? Are there any more themes that display the H, Th, Wh pattern?

Dot writes: now we’re back in Dublin, here are some of the pictures from our trip to England.

Becky, Jeremy and Clem, who kindly hosted us in York.

Hugh meets a cat.

Dot and Sprout at Thrigby.

Hugh's first haircut.

The excuse for our trip was that my parents were giving a party. Hugh had spent much of his time in Norfolk staging dramatic protests over meal times and refusing to eat, but he miraculously regained his appetite in the vicinity of chocolate cake.

Now you ask, I do feel a bit peckish.

What exactly has Grandma just said to Frank?

Someone mentioned milk.

Dot writes: I was writing a post to explain where we are (Norfolk) and what we are up to (trying to make Hugh eat something) but I’m typing one handed with Frank on my knee and somehow I accidentally deleted the whole thing. So I’m giving up in disgust for the present. See you soon.

Dot writes: am I the only parent who gets desperately nervous before developmental tests? I know they’re meant as a help – an opportunity to pick up any problems so the nice HSE people can say “we see your child would benefit from the early intervention programme, but we’ve just cut the funding” – but I’m afraid the signal they send to me is EXAM! EXAM! And it’s really important to pass exams, or preferably to come top in them (I was swotty at school), so I get really nervous and I try not to communicate my nervousness but at the same time secretly coach Hugh (and soon Frank, no doubt) by brightly exclaiming “look at the RED car!” when I see a red car and making him name his body parts and taking every opportunity to count things and… you get the picture. But he still did ok, which shows what fundamental strength of character he has. Even though his test this morning was scheduled just before nap time and then delayed, he cooperated quite nicely in attaching names to pictures and his speech was pronounced to be satisfactory for his age. He was also weighed and measured and is in the 75th percentile for both height and weight. I am pleased about this as I always worry that he is a little on the fat side; but evidently not, and hurrah for that. He didn’t get an opportunity to show off exotic words like “concrete” and “bulldozer” but never mind. There isn’t actually a bursary hanging on this.