Vomit

It was bound to happen sooner or later, I suppose. Of all the bodily fluids I've had vented on me, this is still the one I dread most. The smell, the instinctive gut reaction to copy the action, the howling.

Lucky, I suppose, that it was just me vomiting and not F.

There's a bug in town at the moment. V had it earlier in the week (and is still recovering, grimly), yesterday was my turn. F didn't seem unduly bothered by the fact that daddy couldn't get off the sofa without changing colour. She just left me there and occasionally bought me things to read or do. Nothing to help your roiling intestines like being smacked in the face with a copy of Den Här Lilla Grisen, I find.

The actual vomit didn't happen until late in the day. I thought I'd got away with it, but no, round five o' clock I had to flee to the bathroom. F followed me in some distress, making 'oh no, daddy! what is this! what is this dreadful happening!' noises. She undermined this touching concern by then craning her neck interestedly to see what was in the toilet bowl and saying 'oo!'

The second set of heaves hit me while I was trying to feed her. I was already anxious that I was a walking plague pit, smearing germs on everything I went near, so I'd been extra OCD about preparing her food. Having to dash out as she ate it was a bad moment; she shouldn't really be left unsupervised in her high chair, for example, but she can't quite squirm out of it yet (as far as I know). So leaving her there for a minute or two was probably more child-care-conscious than spewing into her dinner.

I tried to reassure her I was okay inbetween retching. It is a low moment in anyone's life when you're incapacitated by illness but still more concerned with someone else's well-being. "Bu?" called F from the kitchen, sounding a bit anxious. I wiped my face and hurried back, but I needn't have worried. She'd just seen a bird at the window and wanted me to look at it.

Febrile and slightly confused, I tried to have an early night but really just rolled about in a twist of blankets, alternately shivering and sweating. My fever broke at about three in the morning, loudly enough to wake me out of the half-sleep I was in. It was almost as though I was getting an after-action report from my immune system.

"Yeah, so, what we've done is, we turned all the heaters up to full to blast the bugs out, so you'll need to top up your wet and dry fuel reservoirs, not much left there I'm afraid. Sorry about the smell. Your throat's taken a right pounding, all that coming and going, so you'll want to take it easy on that for a day or two, just until it's settled, and you'll probably find a lot of dead bugs gathered in your kidneys, so if your lower back feels sore for a while, no worries, that's all normal. Bill's on the kitchen table, give us a shout if there's anything else you want done. We'll let ourselves out, cheers!"

We now wait the likely horror of F getting the same bug. I can't see her being quite as equitable about that, somehow.

Reading Age

F is almost fifteen months old. She can read, apparently.

Through the rosy tint of fatherhood, at least. She has been particularly interested in her alphabet books in the last week or so. And I was getting over-excited about the fact she was pointing to the letter O, just as I'd been patiently doing on demand six hundred times in a row, and saying 'O. O.' Except she was also doing the same for the letters G, Q and D, so maybe not quite there yet.

But yesterday we went over to V's workplace, the logo of which is a large, stylised capital F. And apropos of nothing, F pointed to it and said 'Effffvvvvv' very emphatically.

I give you, therefore, Ladies and Gentlemen, the amazing reading prodigy that is my daughter, and damn you all if I look like the preeningly proud parental idiot I most certainly am.

She also counts, very enthusiastically. She counted the first star in 'Mumin räknor stjärnor' about fifteen times before moving on to the next one this morning. Whichever language 'bam bam bam bam bam' is, I'm not entirely sure it counts.

Ho ho.

-

It's been sunny and warm all week. This brings winter-crazed Swedes flocking out of homes and offices to lie over any available pak bench like IKEA-themed Dali clocks. For the first few moments, at least, then they get all organised and picnicky.

This means we've been out in the parks even more than usual. Plikta is my favourite, up in Slottskogen, where, amongst other incredible constructions, there's a gigantic exploded whale to climb around in, tiny working construction diggers, a set of descending waterways with drains and paddlewheels and a fifty-metre-long tunnel slide.

Of these manifold joys, F's favourite is a concrete step. She ascends and descends over and over, screaming at me and slapping me away if I try to help when I'm not wanted, or screaming and slapping at me if I don't help when I am. It comes up to her waist, and it's about three metres away from a set of much lower steps that she can get up and down perfectly easily. No challenge there, I suppose.

-

I put fruit in the porridge this morning, blueberries and chopped grapes as I have most mornings this week. For some reason, she took against this particular blend this morning, and I had to wash all the porridge off again before she'd eat it.

I suppose if you're going to be a genius, you're allowed to be particular about some things.

Frejish, a brief introduction

Da or Ga - The thing I am pointing at
Pappa - Daddy
Mamma - Mummy
Kom - Come here/I am coming
Caw Caw! - a bird on land or in the air, sounds like a raven's call
Kwa' - a bird on water, sounds like a duck
Du' - a duck
*snort - a pig, sounds exactly like bloody Peppa Pig, and hence
Peppa Pi' - bloody Peppa Pig
Ipa' - I will require use of your ipad in the near future
Ba ba - Bye Bye, accompanied by waving usually about thirty seconds after whoever you're waving at has left
Haluh (occasionally with virtually any household item alongside head) - Hello, I'm on the phone
Crrrr - Cracker or similar biscuity, crunchy foodstuff
Brrrm - The noise a car makes as you push it along the floor, hence also the noise a picture of a car makes as you push it along the floor as though it were a car to show you've understood what we're looking at here
Gr' Gr' - Frog and/or the noise it makes
Googir - Good Girl, i.e. herself
Curl or currel - a cuddle, now please
A-aaah - Teddybear
A-aaaaah! (loud, shrill) - that's the giant teddybear outside the sweetshop on the way to the park!
Aa - I am excited about the thing I am indicating right now
AAA! - I am very excited about the thing I am indicating right now, which is often a bath
AAAAAA! (piercing) - Behold! Daniel Tiger/Pipi Pupu and Rosemary/Wibbly Pig/Timmy Lammen/Byggare Bob/bloody Peppa Pig (delete as appropriate) is on the TV!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (heartrending) - It is midnight, please pick me up and place me in your bed until I tell you otherwise (new all this week)
Uh uh uh - This mechanical device is making an unexpected or alarming noise, I will require picking up now
Ne - No
NO (with vigorous head shaking) - I do not require any more of this foodstuff
No No NO NO NO - I am not currently sleepy and would prefer to continue playing with this bucket at the present time
Pla' pla' - I will now play the piano for you
Gunga gunga gunga gunga gunga (rocking) - that is a swing/swings are fun/I am swinging/that is a playpark/I am on a rocking horse, see-saw or other related item/I would like to go to a playpark (delete as appropriate)
Gubba gubba gubba (repeat indefinitely) - We are having a conversation
Bugger bugger bugger (repeat indefinitely) - We are still having a conversation
No (talk to the hand gesture) - Conversation over

Silhouette Recognition

F likes my T-shirts. I've got a whole bunch of increasingly elderly ones from when I was last a student. The usual kind of stuff - a few smart-alec quips, iconography from 80s kids' cartoons and other assorted geekery.

She points at whatever the T-shirt de jour is, and I read out whatever it says. Or explain the picture, or do some kind of minor performance appropriate to the garb. Standard 'dance monkey dance' father-based entertainment for her, to be done on command and then repeated for as long as it pleases her.

She learns very fast now, she's got a lot of vocab already (probably not far behind my Swedish, sadly). Even if she doesn't speak so much as babble, she certainly understands plenty. So she can point at the Thundercats logo and say "Ho!", of which I am justly proud. Sadly, Mr Benn's shopkeeper, who is on a big yellow and red circle about the same size and shape as the Thundercats' Cat Head, gets a little frown and a "ho?", so she's not quite there yet. Unless Mr Benn is currently cosplaying as Lion-O.

V recently bought me a T-shirt that says 'What Part Of Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn  Don't You Understand' (look it up if you don't). If you do the cultish chanting bit in appropriately octopoid burbles, really hitting the gutterals, that always gets a good chortle and an indication to repeat.

All well and good - basic shape and sound associations, bonding with daddy, etc etc. However, her absolute favourite T-shirt is my Trapdoor one, the claymation series that Willie Rushton did the voices for. As featured on No. 73 in the mid-80s. She knows all the characters names, as featured on my stomach. Which means I've taught my daughter to point at Daddy and say 'Burk'.

Good.

Playdate

Our friends A (a few months younger than F) and J (a couple the other way) came over to visit for lunch the other day.

I had visions of a cheerful meal followed by both children playing together under the warm and relaxed supervision of their parents. There was a dream of a glass of wine.

Which was always going to be ridiculous, let's face it.

F had only just woken up as they arrived, and got a bit thrown by the extra people in her lunchtime routine. Or something. I'd rather believe that than believe that she is as dramatically antisocial as she pretended to be for the next hour and a half. Every time friendly baby A came to cuddle her or say hello, she burst into howling tears and threw herself on the nearest parent as though we were a divan in a Victorian melodrama.

Okay, having a chap you've only just met rush up to you and pat your bum is perhaps more forward than most young ladies would appreciate. But the degree of weeping seemed excessive, even to me, and I'm a right drama queen.

You can tell when F is being melodramatic, because she can shut her waterworks off the moment she gets whatever she's after. In this case, as long as she was the beating heart of Daddy's world to the exclusion of all else, there would be no more screaming. Even if she is exactly that on a moment to moment basis, I'm trying very hard not to let her know it at the moment.

So I tried to behave as though lunch was proceeding as planned, wine, pleasant conversation, jolly playtime and all. No mean feat with the equivalent of a sonic landmine clamped to my legs. I thought I managed it with great aplomb.

After an hour and a half, by which time even A's cheerful attempts to socialize were looking a bit woebegone, we went out to the park instead. Where F repeated her performance with someone else entirely.

A little girl came up to her, smiles from ear to ear, and tried to shake hands. F brushed her off and turned away, clearly far too busy, important and socially superior to have time for such a frivolous encounter, although she did accept the girl's brother's kindly offer of a stick. Brusquely and without thanks.

At least she didn't scream at them. Perhaps she frowns on public displays of emotion. She's part Swedish, after all.

Pappagris, they say in Sweden, of little girls who cling to daddy, Daddy's pig. The sooner she goes to day care and gets used to playing with other people, the better, I don't want her turning into a shut-in. She's very obviously fascinated with other kids when we're out, but she doesn't really know how to play with them yet.

I'm sure she'll learn, and quickly too. And I'm equally sure I'll rue the day she started at some future point when I'm knee-deep in 8-year-olds trying to have a sleepover.

Tidy

I can see now, with retrospect, where I've never had a problem with tidying. Much to the frustration of many, clutter, dust and generally disorganised living space have never bothered me.

It's not that I actually like mess. It's just that until a certain level has been hit, one where you can actually feel the motion of the dust mites under your feet as they lift you out of what is now their room, I don't notice it.

Apart from anything else, tidying has to be one of the most tedious and irritating chores in life. There's always something more interesting or enjoyable to do. Unless there's something really really important that you really don't want to start, tax return sort of thing. Then tidying is great.

Now that my ankles are overrun by a much larger creature, tidying has gone way up in my great To Do list of life. I thought having my wife make sarky remarks about the dust bunnies rankled. Makes you feel like you aren't doing your share of the household tasks, especially when she's out earning all day. Having my daughter hand one to me with a faint frown, however, was much worse.

So I tidy, quite a lot. Especially in the kitchen. So much that F plays 'wiping tables like Daddy' when we're at the playground sandpit. Her attention to detail is excellent. She gives the appropriate sighs and grunts as she scrapes the table clean. And she puts the mounds of dirt on the table first, of course, so that there's something to wipe.

Here's my main gripe with tidying. It never ends. Once you've sucked the Sisyphus of dust up the hoover, it's only going to start coming back. And once you start looking for mess, you can't help but find it. A single one of my chest hairs reduces a clean bathtub to a dirty one. I walk over a clean floor, and I can almost hear the skin cells hitting the parquet. This is why I rarely started in the first place, to preserve my already feeble peace of mind. A thin excuse, I agree, but all I've got.

OCD seems like an easily acquired state of mind. I suppose this is for the best. F won't be wading in a sea of germs, even if her Dad is a bit twitchy and deranged. Speaking of which, I must go. The ceiling needs bleaching and I want to lay new kitchen lino again before the weekend.

Daddy's Little Helper

You get sort of inured to nappy changing after a while. Handling faeces becomes just another part of the day, a sort of ho-hum mental wallpaper task that you do without really thinking about. Meanwhile your brain can use the time for other, better, things, like planning what kind of kidney bean-based concoction your daughter can fling at the walls for dinner tonight, or whether or not you can get away without mopping the kitchen floor again today.

At which point, of course, some fresh hell will develop to wake you from your torpor.

F has decided that it is her solemn duty to aid in the wiping of her own bottom. This is most excellent in many ways, a real testament to her developing sense of altruism. In other ways, it's more similar to her recent discovery of how to use crayons. It's a very all-pervasive medium, shite. Long-lasting and attention grabbing. I can see why the UK government uses it in so many of their policies these days.

She likes helping. At least, she likes helping you do things. She doesn't like being helped. Usually because I get her intention all wrong. Shouldn't that sock stay on your foot, I might helpfully suggest. No, daddy, no, you are a bad person. Go away now. Or shouldn't you try and drink from the end of the bottle with the beaker spout on it? No. No, don't be stupid. I'm not trying to drink from it at all, moron, I'm trying to shake milk on table so I can draw with it.

F takes things in and out of the dishwasher. Or the washing machine. I brush my teeth at the same time as her. She grabs the handle to make sure I haven't missed my tonsils. Considerately, she will open doors that have been shut or shut doors you've left open. There is a high-level plan regarding air flow through the house at work here, I'm sure. Too high-level for me to fully comprehend, but still a plan.

Pushed for time when reading a book? F can cut your story in half, by helpfully turning ahead to the end, or even taking the book off you to read it herself, thanks, you're not doing the voices right, everyone knows owls sound like this: 'ming ming ming ming ming.'

Sandwich eating a real grind? Not anymore, with F! See the crusts you hated vanish under the table! Which isn't to say I try and feed my daughter the bits of my sandwich I don't want. There are no such bits in sandwiches, for one thing. And if there were, they wouldn't be the bits she asked for anyway. No, her taste in food follows one of two patterns, expressed by the following illogisms: -

F likes sweetcorn. 

I have prepared lunch with sweetcorn. 

Therefore, F no longer likes sweetcorn. 

F is enjoying her food

I am eating something different

Therefore I am no longer eating 

It's just amazing how much time we save together.