Fun and games

Babe head-butted me this morning and gave me a nosebleed. It was extremely painful and not, I think, an accident. One minute we were singing ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star’, laughing and jumping, (on the bed, 6am, Other Half pretending to be asleep so that he wouldn’t have to join in) and the next he had lurched towards me and biffed me on the nozzer.

Shocked and in pain, I grabbled a tissue from beside the bed and wondered how to respond. I decided to do what Babe would, and curled up in a ball, stage-crying. Peeking out from between my fingers, I saw him watching me and smiling, with his finger up his nose. So I decided to up the ante and yelled a few times in what I thought could be described as pain. At this, Other Half shoved me onto the floor and I landed uncomfortably, on a small wooden engine. This really did bring tears to my eyes.
‘That hurt!’ I yelled. ‘Say sorry!’.
‘Sorry,’ said Babe, and leant over and rubbed my arm.
Other Half gave me a look that had not a whiff of apology, and I felt angry and confused. Which pretty much set the tone for the next couple of hours, for all of us.

Thank god Babe goes to nursery. He knows how to mind his ps and qs I can tell you. What's more, he can count to ten, tell us to ‘Stop, please’ with appropriate hand gesture to accompany, knows the difference between shreddies and weetabix and can describe this in words and shapes, and has recently started asking to sit on the potty, as long as I sit on the toilet at the same time. He even comes home with his hair brushed, where I had just started calling him ‘Sonic’ and resigned myself to him having dreadlocks before long. I think my work with him is done.

He is also taught the concept of ‘time out’, which he had to have today, because he was throwing the toys around and not helping to pick them up. I could tell they’d had enough of him when I went to pick him up, but for my part I was just glad he was doing something normal for once.

Seriously, though, he does seem to benefit hugely from going to nursery. He was a very quiet, reticent little thing before he started (at six months’ old, when I returned to work) and now he rules the roost. This makes me glad, because I do want him to be able to stand up for himself, as he’s got a tough time ahead with us for parents. (I use ‘us’ in the loosest sense of the word.) I am also hoping that he will have a Mind of his Own and be prepared to stand up and be counted, and do something about the State of the World, but we shall have to see.

I did say to Other Half, in an offhand manner, some months ago, ‘I do hope Babe won’t be one of those children who is bullied at school.’
‘No son of mine will be bullied,’ he said.
‘And how do you know that?’ I retorted.
‘Because he will be big and very strong. I will teach him to defend himself.’
Right. So the onus will be on me to build his self-confidence. And make sure he understands, despite the best attempts of his father, that he is not living in a communist state, does not need to fight for survival, keep supplies of diesel in the shed with the tomato plants or tins of lentils and bottled water in the roof. It’s a blessing they check the contents of your baggage at airports, or we’d probably have Grandad Filipe’s Kalashnikov hidden under our bed instead of his, and little cousin Armando’s hand grenades (which he tried to give me once as a leaving gift) in the toybox. Some cultural differences take a while to dissipate.

Anyway, back to the theme of fun and games. We have had a brilliant evening together. I have always been a lover of games, coming, as I do, from a family who likes to play games together at every opportunity. Christmas at home is a whirlwind of pic-up-sticks, connect4 knock-out, and quizzes and IQ tests. All of which my eldest brother has to win. But his competitive spirit has made him a millionaire, which isn’t something we complain about during the season of goodwill…

Other Half approaches games with reticence and healthy cynicism. But then he grew up having to fish and catapult pigeons to help his mum put a meal on the table, and at military school was forced to ski naked and sit in snow until he froze, within eyeshot of a huge burning bonfire.

My idea of a perfect evening would be a few rounds of Ludo, and I can’t wait until Babe is old enough for one of those ‘Simon Says’ games, as I’m in my element on that. But tonight we discovered a whole new plethora of family evening entertainment. I’ll list the ideas here, in case any readers who are parents who may like to try them out at home:

1 Fit the shapes into the spaces (you know, the sets of cut-out wooden shapes that you have to slot into the right place on the board) – who can place them all correctly in the shortest time?

2 Fit the shapes into the space with your eyes shut (as above, but in the dark)

3 Guess the nursery rhyme (which is coming next, by putting the CD player onto ‘random’)

4 Hunt the bear (i) (ie favourite bedtime toy, one of you hides it five minutes before bed time, the other has to find it)

5 Hunt the bear (ii) (hide it and then go out on the razzle)

You know what – I’m going to stop here, as I can see more publication potential appearing before my very eyes. Oh, so much talent and so little time. Talking of which, I better dash, as have got to get bags ready for outing to buy new sunglasses in sales after work tomorrow, while Babe has sleep and then eats the many canapés I am about to prepare for him to keep him occupied. Will report back on success or lack of, and may even offer those of you who have my Facebook details a pic of the purchase.

So, as Babe would say (accompanied by wave and firm look in my direction, in the style of Queen Elizabeth from Blackadder, and usually whenever Other Half picks him up): Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!