Dot writes: the following conversation took place yesterday. Hugh was getting some things straight.
Hugh: “Mummy got big nipples.”
Me: “Yes, I’ve got big nipples for feeding baby.”
“I got small nipples.”
“Yes, you have small nipples.”
“Daddy got big nipples.”
“No, Daddy has small nipples because he’s a man.”
“Where’s Dot?”
“I’m Dot.”
“Dot got small nipples.”
“My name is Dot and I’ve got big nipples.”
Pause.
“Mummy, why you laughing?”
Dot writes: to do her justice, the doctor did offer one more specific suggestion as to what was wrong with Frank: if, when the fever had passed, a speckledy rash like measles should appear, then what he had was Roseola, also known as Sixth Disease. Although the rash has not been extensive or spectacular Frank did get one, so we now think that’s what he had. I’m also pretty sure this is what Hugh had that time I took him to Norfolk and he was so miserably ill in May 2009; he got a fairly impressive rash after the fever had passed.
Frank seems to be on the mend, though still fretful and lacking appetite. This gives me leisure to reflect on the name ‘Sixth Disease’. I remember Hugh having Fifth Disease, which is also known as Slapped-Cheek Syndrome because of the characteristic flushing of the cheeks. But what are the other four diseases? In Frank’s case they’ve all been colds.
Note: I looked at the wikipedia page for roseola purely to link to it, but as tends to happen when you look things up on the internet it has given rise to slightly alarming reflections. Frank’s fever was lower than expected for roseola, and much lower than expected for measles. But judging by the wikipedia description, in other respects his symptoms seem more like measles: a rash on the face as well as the trunk and neck; pink-rimmed eyes (cleared up now, though); some coughing (over the weekend). Hmmm. Children under 18 months are supposed to retain measles antibodies from their mothers, but I’m not sure I’ve ever had it myself. Fortunately Hugh has been vaccinated.
Dot writes: Hugh loves to play guns. He’ll point a stick at us – he’ll point a toy hammer or the cardboard tube from a pack of kitchen paper at us – and make an explosion noise for the shot. He also delights in swords and other edged weapons. His toy axe has had to be quietly retired (it snapped), but he has two swords and a little cutlass that are still going strong. None of these are even as hard as moulded plastic: they are spongy foam rubber efforts and rather less dangerous than his train set.* Still, he does enjoy whacking people with them.
I have very mixed feelings about this. It’s one of my weaknesses as a parent: always being able to see both sides of a question. On the one hand, I know toy weapons are pretty high up on the list of Things Middle-Class Parents Disapprove Of, and I am sensitive to disapproval. (I have put my foot down and said he can’t have a toy gun. Swords are more…gentlemanly, like bare-knuckle fighting and fox hunts. Also, the guns are not foam-rubber.) Further on the negative side, we are trying to teach him not to hit people but the main way he plays with his swords is by hitting people, and even in the cause of pretending to be a Musketeer there’s something a little contradictory about this. The swords mainly come out when he is playing with the bigger boys next door, and recently it has always tended to end in a quarrel, though usually between the bigger boys themselves.
On the other hand, I remember how much I loved playing with toy swords when I was a girl, and I haven’t turned into a violent sociopath. (Yet.) That’s not one of those “my parents sent me up chimneys and it never did me any harm” arguments: the swords were props in all sorts of thrilling imaginative games. I was inspired by stories about the English civil war, by Tolkien, and by the same Musketeers films Hugh loves so much. My sister and I tried to recreate proper fencing-type duels, though not with much success; swords also belonged to the romantic world of Romeo and Juliet, which I knew chiefly as a ballet, and were part of the equipment of tragic love, noble suffering, and men in intriguingly tight nether garments. Hugh’s make-believe games aren’t very complicated as yet, but there is a genuine difference between simply aggressively hitting people, because he’s frustrated or angry, and swiping at consenting eleven-year-olds in a spirit of good cheer and general rumpus. There are rules involved (under negotiation), and he is learning about sharing, and it works off a lot of energy ready for bedtime. Nor is there any point in throwing up one’s hands in horror at the streak of aggression that little boys (and little girls) do have: better to direct it into a game, give it structure and a friendly purpose, than try to squash it altogether. A measure of well-controlled aggression can be an asset in adult life.
It all sounds terribly rosy, doesn’t it? Actually, I advocate putting the swords away for a bit. They seem to be creating dissension between the neighbour’s boys, which is embarrassing and not fair on her (lots of arguments about whether Elder held back when Younger was weaponless but then Younger is going for Elder with all he’s got, that kind of thing; not helped by Hugh having both a sword and the cutlass, like a seventeenth-century duellist with rapier and dagger). Let’s hope we can keep them happy with football.
P.S. A confession: I’m a card-carrying urban liberal lefty and I believe in gun control and all that, but I would really love to keep a pistol in my handbag. No particular reason. I just would.
*Come to think of it, he likes to wave sections of wooden track around and pretend those are swords or guns.
Dot writes: yesterday for the first time Hugh managed a whole day with no accidents, even doing the tricky no. 2 in his potty. He has also been successfully without a nappy for the last four nights. I don’t imagine we have seen the last of little unintended puddles or of lumps in the pants (Hugh seems to be shy about mentioning imminent poos), but it’s quite an achievement. Our first day of training in earnest was Tuesday of the week before last, so he has taken just over a fortnight to get to this stage. Now we have to cure him of demanding smarties after every success:-) (You’ll be relieved to know that he only occasionally gets them.)
Dot writes: I hear there’s some sort of kerfuffle going on across the pond (not the big pond with Bermuda in it, the small pond with ferries in it). Asked to choose between three almost identical parties, the British electorate haven’t, and now the least popular of the three parties – the one I usually vote for, as it happens – has to choose which of the other two wins. I had a clever idea for a post about this in which I would argue that the Queen should ask Frank to form a government, because he would obviously unite the country in a way no other candidate could (everybody likes babies), and he would be unlikely to ruin the NHS. I thought I could go on to list all the policies he might be expected to support, such as longer maternity leave, investment in brassiere manufacture, and incentives to avoid car journeys. But then it occurred to me it was a silly idea. He is much too busy.
He’s not quite crawling, but he is exercising furiously pushing up onto all fours, doing baby press-ups, and occasionally managing to hop forward slightly on both knees. As of Thursday he can get from his tummy into a sitting position. Between sitting back, pushing forward, twisting and rolling he can cover a lot of ground, but never in quite the direction he wants. He makes cross “mmmm! mmmm!” noises as he struggles, but he keeps on going.
He does occasionally take a break, however, to mouth the many exciting objects in his infant world, and enjoy (or not) the company of his big brother. Here they both are in the garden this afternoon. By the way, Hugh reached two-and-a-half years old today.
Dot writes: my mum has just been to visit us for a few days, Wednesday to Sunday. This is the first time Hugh has learnt to call her ‘Grandma’. Visits to and from family often make me aware of these little milestones. When Grandma left Hugh wasn’t upset, exactly, but he definitely wanted to know where she’d gone. Because we only have two bedrooms she elected to sleep in the living-room, and Hugh liked finding her there when he came downstairs. He was asking for her this morning.
When we spend time with my mum she always takes lots of pictures, which I gratefully upload to our collection, but of course she isn’t in them herself. However, I did manage to capture the elusive Grandma on film in a few rare shots. The following family group was taken at Glendalough. It dawned relatively sunny in Dublin on Saturday, so we drove forty-five minutes to somewhere much cloudier and colder and had a picnic. Here we are going for a brisk walk to thaw our feet.
Grandma and Hugh enjoy the blow-up mattress:
Grandma plays ride-a-cock-horse with Frank as an alien ball of light starts to envelop her foot:
And some of Grandma’s own pictures (the first shows Ken part-way through his first full-mash brew):
Taken on Saturday.
Frank in his hanging bouncer. The red mark on his forehead suggests he may recently have whacked himself on the doorframe:
It’s a pity this one came out blurry because it would have been gorgeous:
Hugh is rather hard to photograph at present as he’s convinced he should be on the other side of the camera:
Dot writes: I was just looking back at a post from last August in which I proudly listed all the words I’d heard Hugh say. I don’t think it would be possible to do this now, but I do have some favourites. His longest accurate word is probably ‘helicopter’ (which he says pretty clearly) but I am very fond of his version of ‘octopus’: ‘apple-a-puss’. There was a giant inflatable apple-a-puss in the swimming pool on Sunday, which we all found most exciting.
He has plenty of phrases and even sentences too. Some typical efforts: ‘Look a giraffe’; ‘sssh, Daddy sleep’; ‘Baby cry’; ‘more book’; ‘throw the ball’; ‘a MY coat’ (when demanding something he often starts with ‘a’, and I’m not sure if this is the indefinite article or a kind of ‘oh’); ‘ ‘I like x’ is a popular format, as in ‘I like chocat’ [sic]; if we sneakily try a substitute for the chocat he knows what to say: ‘I no want it.’ He is getting pretty good at colours and also learning people’s names. Frank is now Frank, not just Baby, but if you ask Hugh his own name he is likely to reply ‘Boy’.
Dot writes: a typical dinnertime conversation with Hugh (good mood version).
“Look, Hugh, carrots!”
“I like carrots!”
“That’s great. Eat them up.”
“Tasty! Lum!” Big smile. Then he doesn’t touch them.
Meanwhile we have started Frank on solids. Current guidelines say you should wait until six months, and Frank is just shy of five, but he is a very large, hungry baby – I’ve just had to bring out the 6-9 months size clothes for him – and he was noticeably interested in our dinners; his sleep also had deteriorated. So on Monday night I tried giving him some mashed banana. He pulled a horrible face, but it all went in. Tuesday night, a whole pot (a whole pot!) of fruit puree. Wednesday, some baby porridge: this was a bit less popular, though he took a respectable portion of it; those baby cereals are terribly bland and my little piggle wants TASTE. Yesterday we were in a cafe recovering from some shopping and Frank was on my lap. Two little hands came up and grasped mine, and with surprising force he guided my raspberry muffin to his mouth.
Dot writes: nobody’s pain is as real as one’s own. I refuse to believe that anyone else in the family has felt as ill over the last few days as I did yesterday. I couldn’t even keep water down. Aching, cold, shaky, queasy – I was very sorry for myself indeed. I still feel a bit wobbly. Meanwhile, Ken, who was on the mend, made the mistake of ordering pizza for himself and Hugh last night and wasn’t able to stomach anything more until a couple of minutes ago (it’s now lunchtime).
Hugh of course is fully recovered and pinging with energy. He made a very sweet attempt last night to get me to come down and have some dinner, coming up to the bedroom where I was doing my imitation of a used-up dishcloth, and exclaiming encouragingly “Meat! Puhtits! [=pizza] Come with me, Mummy. Just try it!” The “just try it” part was a bit garbled but I was delighted by this latest foray into real sentences. Then he got onto the bed and bounced on me.
Ken and Dot's Allsorts 