Son, now that you’ve grown up, I have three things I’d like to say to you: 1) This is what a newspaper looks like. People actually used to read these things. Isn’t that barmy? 2) Whatever you do, don’t go online and read the comments underneath these columns. You’ll end up locked in a cupboard fearing for the state of humanity. 3) If any instalments are missing from this box, it’s because you ate them.
To be fair, my son hasn’t eaten any columns yet, but it’ll happen. Last week, when I glanced away for a millisecond, my son managed to grab the Family section from my lap and cram it into his mouth as if his life depended on it. Quick thinking on my part meant that I was able to save what I’d written, although the last few lines of Stella Grey’s column were sadly lost to the milky wilderness of his digestive system.
My son moves around now, you see. He’s not exactly crawling but, through an ingenious (if violent) method of flinging himself to the ground and wheeling around like a marine, he can more or less go wherever he wants. If something catches his eye across the room, he can stop, drop and roll his way towards it in a matter of seconds.
This is a new and terrifying development. Until now, the boy has essentially been an adorable doorstop. Put him somewhere and, unless it was at the top of an especially steep slope, he’d pretty much just stay put. But now he’s active, and I’ve come to realise that my entire house has been built from nothing but jaggedy edges and choking hazards.
It’s bizarre how different your surroundings become once there’s a curious little dimwit flailing around inside them. All I can see now are cables and plug sockets and sharp corners and other potential deathtraps that’ll invariably result in us running to A&E with his fingers in a bag of frozen peas.
Fortunately, my wife used to work at the British Red Cross. Some of her old colleagues recently offered to visit us for a top-up baby first aid session. The visit ended up being two parts reassuring (because now we know what to do in the event of an emergency) and one part utterly petrifying (because now I’m permanently convinced that he’s got meningitis).
Best of all, though, it also prompted me to download the Red Cross baby and child first aid app. I haven’t had to use it yet, thank God, but knowing that it’s there is already a comfort. It’s up there with knowing where the muslins are and taking a couple of minutes longer than usual on the toilet because it’s just nice to have a bit of time to yourself sometimes.
There’s a lot of work to be done. But, despite all this, the upsides of having an active baby vastly outweigh the downsides. The more my son learns to do, the more fun he is to be around. And if you’re reading this, son, that’s what I want you to remember. That, back in 2015, you were fun. And not that, at some point in 2016, you had to have three of your fingers stitched back on because we forgot to put the scissors away properly.
