Nautical Terms

More glorious late summer. Sun warm enough to bake with slanting in through the trees over Skansen Kronan, heat-dazed tourists lining the sides of Haga Nygatan and desperately sucking aid from the expensive boutique ice creams sold there.

There is a lovely corner of Haga, not far from our house, where there's a little triangular flower garden dedicated to the famed Swedish botanist Linneus. F and I were taking in the afternoon sun and admiring numerous examples of A. mellifera and B. terrestris as they went droning about their daily chores. There were lots of them. A full gamut from A to B, in fact.

The garden is also decorated with little concrete sailing boats with triangular metal sails. Not quite sure why, maybe Linneus did a lot of travelling by sail? I thought most of his journeys were on land, but I'm not an expert on his doings. Wikipedia tells me he went round the Gulf of Bothnia as a young man, which I guess is hard to do with dry feet.

Anyway, F was sailing one of these boats (as captain, of course. I was helmsman, Bunbun was AB, just to maintain that line of jokes) perched inside the sail, with a foot either side of the cut-out interior. She was gazing formidably into the middle distance, eyes set on either some disappearing French ship of the line or on the mysterious cities of gold, I forget which. It was a very particular look, anyway, one I have come to recognise with a heavy heart.

"What are you doing, F?"

She gave me a slightly shifty look. "I'm just sorting Bunbun out," she said, bustling abruptly to life.

That there was evasion being practised was discovered by two sets of natural phenomenon. Chanelling Carl's spirit to aid my botanic skills, I noted that

• the smell of privet had been displaced by an altogether earthier smell, as of night soil, and
• the air was suddenly thronged with multiple specimens of C. vomitoria seeking nourishment

Further investigation showed that following this foul wind, the boat now had brown sails.

I took F home (she needed showering), and then like any good citizen, went back out with a roll of Torky and some Ajax to restore the fragrance of the garden. Swabbing the poop deck indeed. Good to have both defaced and defaeced a public monument in one fell afternoon.

Misapprehension

The end of summer has arrived. As the leaves start going yellow and brown, so do the Swedes, lapping up a skinful of sun in advance of the winter. The streets are full of tall, lithe, tanned blondes. It's like walking through streets populated by vanilla ice cream cones.

I knew that using the word 'willy' would come back to haunt me.

Potty training is still hit and miss, but the hits are slowly going up in number. I was only on the receiving end of one number one and two number twos this week (the latter both courtesy of C, of course, and both delivered pre-0600). "I weed on Daddy!" F announced in horror as we relaxed on the balcony last week.

"You did," I said, masking my equal horror with paternal calm. There wasn't much else to be said.

As a result of this, F is frequently found roaming round the house semi-clad. She can take trousers off and on now, a simple step up from knickers, and in the late summer swelter is quite proud of the ability. As all of us are no doubt aware, roaming around a house naked tends to lead to a certain amount of self-inspection. For me, this is a nervous glance at my gradually swelling paunch in the mirror as I hastily pass, anxious not to catch its eye. For F, it's the marvel of her genitals.

"This is my bottom," I heard her announce to V the other morning, somewhat inaccurately referring to the other side of herself. "Daddy doesn't. He has a funny bottom instead."

"Yes, that's right," V told her. "Boys have those."

"He bought it at Willys," F went on, "when he was little."

As a gag, this works best if you're Swedish and understand that Willys is a supermarket chain, so I apologise for botching it for everyone else. I'm very tired, what with rehearsals in a black box theatre all day and then immediately having to hit the dettol and floormop beat the minute I get home. The heat is disagreeing with me, I find myself staring out of the window and into the middle distance for long minutes, only to discover I'm facing the wrong way and gaping moronically at interior walls instead. I believe this is called introspection.

Comparisons

C is about twice as long as when we first met now. Not literally, just, well, I don't know, just that she's been growing a lot. There is a person there in the bouncy chair, rather than a protoplasmic red blob of screams.

She is chattier than F, and already much more social. C likes loud noises, like washing machines, hoovers and her older sister. Lucky, that. F used to scream in horror if you tried to clean the flat, or if you woke her up by being noisy. C will occasionally scream with horror if the flat is otherwise too quiet, or if you leave her alone in a room for any length of time.

F did weeing on people, C does her hosepoops. C wants to be wrapped up in blankets even on stifling summer days, F didn't like getting too hot. F was much quieter when she was tiny. C chats nonsense quite a lot already, as well as making an amazing array of alien grunts, hisses and pops. It's like having a talkative snake in the corner of the room.

Can it be that not being the sole focus of your parents' attention is actually good for a baby? C seems very cheerful and calm, less nervy than F. Better at grabbing your attention, perhaps, seeing as she has to compete for it. She smiles a lot, and waves and babbles hellos when she's at the height of her awakeness cycles.

Maybe she just seems cheerful and calm compared to F, who is currently often sulky and argumentative. She threw milk over the kitchen twice last week, because she wanted something else. She's learned to say sorry after such behaviour, but finds it outrageous that you might still get a punishment even after apologising.

They get on very well together, luckily. F was blowing long raspberries at C over breakfast today, something she usually gets reprimanded for (unless they're really funny ones, then it's hard not to join in. Consistency as a parent is a tough line to walk). If C finds it hilarious, who are we to disagree?

V and I are far more tired than we were with just F around. Even if C is up to six or even seven hour blocks of sleep, she has timed her wakening shouts to the deepest parts of my sleep. There's that magnificent feeling at 0230 when you stagger out of bed and into the nearest wall, wondering why you are mobile, what awful catastrophe has triggered your instinctive panic this time.

Then you open the nappy and discover it.

A Light Evening's Entertainment

We are camping for the first time. Because we spent some money puchasing things like bed rolls and mosquito repellant, and because the world is at best a perverse and cruel place to live, this of course means it has rained solidly for a week. It is raining heavily now. It will rain tomorrow, and quite possibly never stop again.

We are on Daftö, an island in the North West of Sweden, sharing a four-man sommarstuga with V's family (a total of ten people). It's an attractive holiday destination, V described it as the Swedish equivalent of Brighton. Yes, if Brighton was in the Outer Hebrides. Or an attractive holiday destination. To help save space in the tiny cottage, F and I are going to sleep in a tent near the door.

F has not slept in a tent before.

F has not slept in the same room as her parents for over a year.

F is quite excited.

2000 - We say a final night night, and sing Little Cat, traditionally our 'close of business' bell toll.
2005 - Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
2015 - We say a final night night, and sing Little Cat, see above.
2030 - There are some flies on the ceiling. Daddy shoos them away.
2035 - 'Flies and Shooing - A Short History'. A fascinating tour of this age-old pastime in which we explain how flies are shooed, why shoes are not the same thing and touch on the mysterious providence of flies in tents.
2045 - 'Flies and Shooing - Continued'. The practical half of this delightful talk, featuring a chance for the audience to shoo flies themselves
2050 - We manage to kill the last of the flies, peace reigns. We say a final night night and sing Little Cat.
2055 - Goldilocks and the Three Bears, second sitting.
2100 - 'On Rain' commences the next in our series of natural history discourses, in which we consider puzzles that have fascinated the curious since antiquity - What noises does it make? Why doesn't it rain inside? Can you see it from here daddy? and Why Rain?
2120 - Goldilocks and the Two Bears, third sitting.
2125 - 'Reflections', where we remember the day that has passed. A meditative talk for those of tranquil and calm mood, focussing on the precious memories the day has brought, like when we nearly went to McDonalds in the shopping centre on the way here and then didn't instead, or the elderly selection of toys discovered in a mouldering paper bag at the summer cottage we're sleeping beside. Sorry, lying inside a tent beside.
2135 - Shirley Hughes' 'When We Went To The Park', a recitation from memory.
2140 - Julia Donaldson's 'The Gruffalo', a recitation from memory.
2145 - Goldilocks and a Bear. There once was a little girl and the baby bear said 'and she's still here!' The End.
2146 - We emphasise that this is night night and sing Little Cat in a cautionary tone.
2150 - 'How Tall is Your Tent?' An all-new interpretive dance piece. You'll be amazed at where the sleeping bags end up!
2155 - This is definitely the last night night and look, daddy is a bit grumpy now but still somehow willing to talk about the health benefits of a good night's sleep in a reasonable tone of voice. Semi-reasonable. Repercussions are explained as a concept, in case they need to be used.
2200 - If you don't go to sleep, we won't sleep in the tent, okay?
2205 - Bunbun is upset about something and cannot sleep.
2210 - Bunbun can't stop crying because Bunbun doesn't like tents and doesn't want to sleep in one any more. The rain outside redoubles.
2215 - I get dressed again, put F inside her sleeping bag and carry her like swag to a nearby caravan, on loan from the cottage's owners. Uncle D and Cousin V are sleeping in here. Like any well-maintained elderly holiday caravan, there is a welcoming atmosphere of humidity and mould that beckons one inside like a decrepit hooker. Nevertheless, F has never slept in a caravan before and is quite excited.
2220 - After running back through the rain to collect my sleeping bag and running back to the caravan to install it, I realise I have left my mobile phone in the goddamn tent. The rain outside redoubles.
2225 - We growl night night and sing Little Cat very quietly because D and V are sleeping just over there and we can't wake them, okay? Now go to sleep.
2235 - There are windows in a caravan, did you know? And you can see out through them. And drum your fingers on them to make a noise like rain. It goes 'pitter patter pitter patter pitter patter pitter patter', Daddy, did you know? I don't want to sleep, Daddy, I want to play! Play with me, Daddy! I write a new musical called 'Wishing I Was Sisyphus', featuring the number 'I'd Roll That Boulder Over My Balls (Before I'd Have Another Child)'
2240 - We sing Go To Sleep Now Or Else, traditionally our 'Close of Business' bell toll.
2245 - Requests for a final round of Goldilocks are quashed.
2250 - F discovers you can make another kind of pitter-patter noise without drumming your fingers on the windows, because that's been forbidden. You can do it by lying on your side and running your feet up and down the caravan walls.
2255 - Or up and down Daddy's back.
2300 - F starts stroking my face and cooing at me in an attempt to engage a fond paternal reaction and a commitment to more play.
2305 - F takes a firm double hand of beard hair and attempts to tug a fond paternal reaction out of me.
2306 - F strikes me hard in the bridge of the nose with the heel of her hand in a last-ditch to get the old fond paternal reaction thing kickstarted. Repercussions commence.
2310 - D and V are probably not sleeping, although I nevertheless invoke their names as reasons that howling is not acceptable right now. Does Bunbun want to go back to the tent? Because Bunbun is going the right way about it. The rain redoubles.
2315 - Daddy is cross, do you understand? You must go to sleep. Right now.
2320 - You are being naughty, F. You are bad.
2325 - In lashing rain, I carry my screamingly repentant daughter across a pitch-black quagmire to the dubious shelter of our tent before her misery wakes D and V again. In our absence, a deep pool of water has gathered in the outer porch. Fortuitously, my trousers absorb it all before it can do us any harm. I have remembered my mobile phone this time, but still need to go back and get my own sleeping bag. The rain quadruples on the way back.
2340 - F tearfully apologises once more, sings Little Cat in a tiny voice and goes to sleep.
0200 - I wake up, expecting to have to change and feed C, and then lie awake for two hours listening to the rain trying to nail the tent roof to my face, occasionally twitching as mosquitos brush my face.

The lovely irony is, of course, that this is still the best night's sleep I've had in two months.

Shitstorm

What? A month gone by? Already? But I only just went to sleep. Five minutes ago. And it's your turn to write the blog anyway. I did it last time.

C has advanced to sleep blocks of four hours or so. They usually come in the late morning and afternoon, and then she is starrily wide-eyed as the evening rolls around. Come ten pm, there's nothing she wants more than to be carried back and forth from room to room, brightly staring at the walls. Heaven help the man who stops gently narrating this journey, or tries to sit down for five minutes. Or doesn't anticipate whatever the next twist in her demands happens to be.

Meanwhile, F is beginning to grasp potty training. Once she realised that you can't just wee wherever you happen to be, she decided to sit on the potty all the time, scooching it noisily from room to room so she could be near the toy of the moment. We explained carefully that the bathroom was really where the potty lived, so she decided she would live in there for a while and that we'd stay in there, to 'help' her.

So we explained that we'd help her sit on the potty, and maybe even read her potty training book through once ('The Princess and the Potty', a classic of the genre), and then we'd come back once she was done. Every time we went out, there was a cry of "Hjälp!" So we'd go back, and be presented with the book again, because she needed help reading it.

The next escalation was to say we would only come back in if she was ready to come off the potty. And then we bribed her out by eating biscuits noisily in the next room, and gradually she accepted that you could go round the flat in knickers. Every five minutes, she's been proudly patting herself and declaring "There's no poop or wee coming!" like a scatological town crier. Three o' clock and all's dry.

F settled in on the potty again this afternoon, with Bunbun, and after the book was duly read, we got on with feeding C. "Bunbun needs help!" F shouted through, this being the latest gambit to get us back in. Bunbun can't read the book by herself, you see, and F can't read it to her properly yet. I went to talk myself out of this, but only because C needed changing after one of her colossal hosepipe blasts (luckily contained in the nappy this time). I'm not a total pushover to toddler wiles. Just about 45% or so.

"Bunbun is doing a Daddy Stare!" F told me from her potty as I switched nappies on C. "Look, pappa! Look!" Daddy stare is family code for blank-eyed gawping at the middle distance, often slightly cross-eyed. It predates C's arrival, so I can't even hide behind exhaustion. I'm just pretty vacant these days. Wondering quite how F was manipulating the rabbit to produce this effect, I turned to look.

Over my shoulder shot an inch-thick metre-long cable of electric brown squirty poop, courtesy of C. It landed squarely on F's head, coating her, the potty and the bathroom carpet in an unhealthy dose of goo, and leaving an almost perfect silhouette of big sister on the wall.

This was awful.

F was in shock almost immediately, shivering and retching. I was on the brink of tears as a result, V rushed through to help in a panic. C was in the blissful state of abdominal calm that a recent voiding brings, but that didn't last. If we were all screaming, she wasn't going to be left out.  F wailed the greatest tragedy of all the loudest. "Bunbun! It went on BunBun!"

Perhaps one day we can look back and laugh on this, the fateful day C completed her poo-hosing of the whole family. For me and V, the greatest shame is that both of us felt the urge to get a camera to immortalise it.

Fifteen minutes of showering, screaming and scrubbing later, Mormor and cousins A and L arrived to play, and luckily this proved enough of a whirlwind distraction that everything got forgotten fairly quickly. Now, in the calm of the evening, I find myself reliving that explosive moment of delivery like something from a war movie. There are still orange-brown spackles on the shower curtain, and indeed, my soul.

Bunbun, it should be noted, was washed and tumbledried by V with perfect timing for bed. She seems fine, outwardly. Perhaps her mental scars run deep.

Namely

What? That was a whole month? Already? All I remember is about three or four hours worth of screaming, all of which seemed to be happening at about three in the morning. I may have slept for the rest of it. Either that, or my brain isn't working properly because of sleep deprivation. Although that could just be the sleep deprivation talking. Apologies, one paragraph in and I'm already rambling. There's too much going on in my head to be coherent, and all of it is the equivalent of insane monkeys trapped in a cupboard and biting each other.

The baby's name is C, after some discussion. I realise that my stylistic use of capitals isn't terribly helpful here, but there you go. Even F took this on board after a couple of weeks - she's not much of a one for naming things, usually. Her rabbit is called Kanin ('rabbit' in Swedish, although BunBun in English at least), the baby doll C gave her as a getting born present is called Baby. "The baby must love me very much," she said, on getting this last item.

(She has also, in passing, picked up V's tendency to refer to stuff she's temporarily forgotten the name of as 'thingy thingy', as in 'hand me that thingy thingy over there'. F uses this for anything she doesn't know the name of yet, which covers a lot of ground. If I ask her what she's doing in our room after a long, suspicious silence, and get "I'm going to put the thingy thingy in the thingy thingy" as an answer, it doesn't really leave me much wiser.)

I vaguely recall the three months or so after F was born. These shadowy memories are only present because I wrote about them at the time, in this very blog. Without that, I'd have nothing. Unravelled care sleeves and nothing else. Quite a few parents of multiple kids told us during the pregnancy that having more than one kid doesn't make a big difference, it's not really much harder. This can be put down to the same brain damage, it's utter cobblers.

It's no more worrying, that's fair. I'm not suffering extra night terrors as I imagine roaming bears devouring my young, for example, in the same way I did when F was born. I have a rough idea of what's normal for an infant, which way up to hold it, how to change a nappy without barfing, that kind of thing. So I'm no more stressed than I was before.

I'm doubly exhausted, though, which helps nobody. V and I grouse and snap at each other as we lurch through the days, each sourly jealous of any rest the other gets (at least, I speak for myself here - V may be too tired to care). Everything feels like it's always your turn to do it, even if it's clearly not. This is particuarly irrational in my case when it comes to breast feeding.

C is sleeping in two to four hour bursts, mostly. Broken nights are tough. Getting pooped on regularly during them is even tougher. C can poo clear across a room, in a stream like a WWII flamethrower. She's sprayed me out in public. She's replastered the bathroom at 0400. I want to wear a butcher's apron when I go to change her, but I'm afraid it might send the wrong message as a parent.

She sleeps between us in the bed, she's made it very clear she doesn't like being alone. So I've been woken by a stream of milky vomit being deposited into beard in the middle of the night. It's a sadly depleted beard, I had to trim it for a job earlier in the month. This is a lucky escape, I think. It was rancid enough without yoghurt stalactites being added to the mix.

As F is now on her summer holidays, we can't really rest while C sleeps in the day, as we could when F was little. Instead, we  cook unsauced pasta one more time because that's what F wants for lunch. Or pretend we're going to clean the house properly ever in our lives again, that kind of thing. Or sit on the floor and play Playmobile People Go to Hospital.

I do, at least. F is still very much the Pappagris. V isn't allowed to help, show affection or (sometimes) talk without permission. Actually, neither am I, but I'm also the go-to parent for any problems that might be ongoing. This is tiring, even if it's also endearing. V only gets the tiring end of that stick.

F is very fond of her little sister, at least. Hugs and kisses all the time, especially when C is asleep. Screaming Ambush is one of her favourite games right now, that's another great one to play with baby during afternoon nap time. C doesn't mind in the least, she's clearly interested in F already. She'll scream blue murder if I can't warm up a bottle in under two minutes, but F can bellow 'YAAAARGH' at her out of nowhere and she just gazes intently, as though filing it away for later use.

F's favourite bit at the moment is nappy change. She knows babies get angry when you change them, so she comes to help sooth C. Mostly by shouting "No!" at her to try and defuse the situation, but the intent is there. She's religious in her attendance, though, perhaps because of a renewed interest in bowel movements.

Yes, we're doing potty training again. Because we're bloody idiots, and not cleaning up enough crap at the moment, clearly. Some mild successes so far, after a limited start which needed three dress changes in twenty minutes. F has taken on board that grown ups don't wear nappies, but is quite cross about it. Doesn't see the point, maybe.

She insisted on following me to the toilet this afternoon to watch. "What are you doing now?" she asked. Well, I'm sitting uncomfortably whilst waiting to poo, thanks. How are you? And then came one of those dreaded questions.

"What's that hanging down underneath daddy's tummy?"

Say penis. Go on, daddy, say it. It's not a bad word, it's an anatomical label. Nothing to be ashamed of, not even yours, and a usefully clinical term in later life. May as well start with it.

"Er, well, it's a willy."

Not even 'my willy', you massive copout. Just somebody's willy, that happens to be hanging about under your paunch. It just wandered in here and hopped into your lap, did it? Or maybe you're looking after it for a friend. Idiot.

F considered this intelligence and then laughed. "Ha ha! It's funny," she said, and then wandered off. So much for pride.

At least the name has stuck with her. Names in general, in fact. Now C is offical nomenclature, she's started naming her toys. This has begun with her smurfs. She's called one of them Adolf. Okay, Adolf after Starke Adolf, the strongman in Pippi Longstrump, but all the same, it's not an auspicious start.

Mothers' Day 3/3

Sunday the 31st, B was born.

(B still stands for Baby, we're still at an impasse on names, which means F is currently right after all - she's being saying it would just be called Baby for months.)

Just to add dramatic weight to that, it was Swedish Mothers' Day. It was also Uncle J's birthday, F's Godmother L's wedding anniversary. Brooke Shields was born on this day, people, it has cosmic significance.

June 1st, we got the news through to F.

We did phone her several times on the Sunday. In Mormor's care, she'd gone out to Lek och Buslandet, a soft play area. We got to hear Aunty M asking her to come to the phone, and we got to hear the screamed response ("NO!") several times, and that was it. However exciting a new sibling is, it isn't a trampoline. There is no comparison.

But she did understand. We've been explaining it to her for ages, and she's interested and excited. If her priorities aren't quite ours, that's okay. She is only two and a half. Even so, she understood about the baby. When I woke her in the middle of the night on Saturday to explain that she had to go to Mormor's house now because the baby was ready to come out, she was confused.

"No, Daddy, babies must grow and grow and grow first," she told me, rather pityingly.

"Well, it's done that already, and now it's ready to come out," I said.

"Pop?" she said, because that's the sound effect we do at the relevant stage in her book. It's a good book, as kids' books go, but the pictured bursting amniotic sac does look like a cheery balloon. It's been hard to know how much F has taken on board, and not entirely reassuring to discover she thinks childbirth and Cheggers make the same noise.

"Yes, pop," I said. V threw me dark glances. "We're going in Mormor's car," I added, because F was still dubious about going anywhere with a man with such a poor grasp of the basics of partuition.

"Let's go!" she said brightly, hopping out of bed. She likes cars.

And then suddenly it was Monday afternoon, and I was waiting with her downstairs from the maternity ward. V was feeding B, and I was trying to prepare F for her first encounter with her new little sister. I'd done this in three stages, which I'd like to record here as a template for all parents:

• Bought her a Kinder Surprise containing a toy car that in turn contained a toy plane, both of which represented a significant choking hazard for a newborn
• Fed her the chocolate egg so she got hyperactive and then pooped herself vigorously
• Dropped one of her shoes on her face while changing her so that she got a fat lip

When Fathers' Day rolls around again, I may go presentless.

"Here's your little sister," we told F, as V came out of the lift.

And she jumped up and down and laughed, and looked at B's tiny pink toes, and wanted to hold her hands and hold her up she could teach her to walk, and told us that babies could only sleep and eat and poop, and everything else she's learnt from her book. All retained, all understood, and all very happy.

V and B should be home before this post airs. I don't doubt F's joy will get patchy in places. Hell, I'm sure V's and mine will - I dimly remember the nappy-ridden early days of this very blog, and I am in no hurry to repeat them.

But we will, and we'll find something shiny and worthwhile in amongst all the crap, as one always does in life, and F will be helping us do it, just as she does every single day.