Jack: “Dad.” 

Jack: “Daaaad.”

Jack: “Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.”

Daddy: “What’s up, little man? It’s getting late – you should be asleep.”

Jack: “Dad…”, holding his knee with cupped hands.

Daddy: “What’s the matter? It’s late, you need to go to sleep.”

Jack: “My elbow hurts.”

Daddy: (smiling) “That’s not your elbow. Go to bed.”

Jack: “Dad! My elbow hurts.”

Daddy: “That’s not your elbow. Now come on, go to bed.”

Jack: “Where is my elbow?”

Daddy: “Here’s your elbow. Bed.”

Jack: holding his elbow and rubbing it… “Daaaad……”

Daddy: “Jaaaaaaaaack…”

…

…

Jack: “My elbow hurts.”

So, this is the fuller picture version of what has happened today.

As I sit here with a blank screen ahead of me, I haven’t pre-planned what I’m going to type, but before we start, if you’d rather not know anything too detailed, read the first part of this blog effort, which is Baby Oliver. (Actually, that blog post sets a lot of the scene anyway, so is worth reading first).

So, here’s what I want to remember for the future, which doubles up as a blog post for you strange people reading this waffle.

05:50 Claire’s alarm goes off and she gets straight into the shower to get ready. Not allowed the usual “breakfast of champions” that she’s had for the past x number of months, which is that of a bacon sandwich; today, Claire has to starve, as fasting is an important element of having the c-section.

07:15 We (Claire and I) leave the house. Jack is already at his Grandparents house (my in-laws) overnight, as we’d never make it out the door on-time! (Sorry Jack – you just don’t understand ‘urgency’ as yet).

07:50 We arrive at the hospital, check in at reception, and are promptly shown to the 2-bed/bay room in the Labour Ward, which is, rather nicely, empty. (All quiet, still very early in the day for the 13-year old mums to want to get out of bed to deliver their babies, waiting for Jeremy Kyle to finish, no doubt.)

08:15 Midwife Alison introduces herself – turns out, it’s the SAME midwife that was with us all day for Jack, nearly three years ago. Spooky, but not really, considering it’s the same hospital and all that.  Alison checks Claire over and does all the routine stuff that is needed before the operation, such as blood pressure, temperature, blood/sugar tests, etc etc etc. All fine, normal and so on. She tells us that we needed to wait for the doctor to come around to visit us to let us know what time of the day to expect to be done. All good.

08:20 Other couple arrive to occupy the other bay in the small and so far, private, ward.

08:40 Senior consultant appears. Don’t know why, didn’t want to be involved, other than to say he was in charge of the others that would be doing the work.

08:45 Doctor appears a little earlier than expected, visits other to-be mum first, comes to us, and tells us that because Claire had gestational diabetes, this put us (read: her) at the top of their priority list. So, finally, Claire having the headache of having to test her blood 4 times a day for the past several months has materialised into something useful!  The doctor is a big… no, massive bloke, Polish maybe; either way, he was very nice indeed. He spoke very good English and despite this, he didn’t mince his words, but instead described the day’s efforts as ‘I will be doing your … ‘ whilst simultaneously moving the flat of his hand from left to right, indicating a cutting motion that is to chop my bride in half. “I like him already”, Claire says, because “he didn’t mess around saying what he needed to say.” Fair point. Scores are good for him so far. Doc goes away happy.

08:47 The Anaesthetist appeared, asked many of the same questions that the previous chap did and went away happy too. All are now agreed that Claire is first-up because of this pesky diabetes thing, which is pregnancy-related in the first place.

09:00 Claire is promptly changed into her rather fetching surgery gown (the one with the join right up the back) and I’m changed into the blue set of scrub-clothes that I’ve been given, along with a pair of over-shoe covers (that, incidentally, no-one else wore!) and a sappy-looking yellow felt hat to top it. Meh, whatever; it’s not a fashion parade, and me in my XXXXXXXXL baggy trousers wouldn’t do well at either.

As an aside – these bloomin’ scrubs were ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE, I kid you not. The top was ok, but I could have fitted into the trousers and them asked Claire to get into them too, even with her oversized [pregnant] belly AND then still been able to tie the knot on the trousers! Who are they expecting to wear these things?? Giant Haystacks? (a WWF Wrestler)

09:20 And so, we’re off! Claire’s on-board the rolling trolley that Alison (the midwife) and another random nurse are pushing into the operating theatre for today’s cut ‘n shut operation.

Me? I am simply following behind. Can’t help to open doors or anything, as

1. I don’t know where we’re going

2. Some are locked anyway. So, I can’t get in without clearance.

Follow on, it is.

Straight into this operating theatre.

This… cold… huge room, with those funny spot-lights hanging from the ceiling, like you see on Casualty on BBC1.

A single, solitary bed (that looked so funky it’s as though it was intended to be sent to the MIR Space Station) in the middle of the room, surrounded by drip-stands, already hanging with bags of water-looking substances (hey, I’m not med-student – I’m a geek remember!).

A workbench along the far side of the room has a computer on top (albeit running Windows XP… pah!).

Random-looking trolleys are seemingly abandoned in the middle of the walking area in the room, later to be uncovered for our needs.

Oh, and about 7 people lurking around waiting, all in blue scrubs, but none that had the same-style baggy trousers as me. Hmm, interesting.

Add to this, Claire, Alison, the other trolley-pushing random-nurse and myself. Now this room is starting to fill up. 

Claire is sat on the bed in the middle of the room, and I’m given the only chair in the room, which is a red waiting-room-style chair cunningly hidden out of sight, behind this space-aged looking bed.

People are walking around going about their normal business, having a laugh and a joke with each other too, which all helped to take our minds away from the fact that someone that we’ve only just met is going to see something that a handful of people (including myself, I might add) have seen before. Namely, the blood and gut innards of my wife.

Being in this rather daunting room, really helps to remind me (for sure) that this is big bad-ass surgery going on here. As I said in the Baby Oliver post, the notion of c-section delivery method for babies is a commonly known process. A household name, if you like. But when you are actually in a room with what soon totals 10 working people, who each have their own specific job as a well-oiled cog in the machine that is to soon deliver a baby, it makes you feel a little worried. Seriously worried. This is cutting a whacking great hole into a perfectly fit and healthy individual to surgically extract a baby.  A BABY! One of THE MOST delicate and fragile objects that a person can ever hold, and this baby’s safe haven is going to be attacked and sliced open by the myriad of stainless steel objects that are uncovered from those random-looking tables parked strategically in the main flow of the room.  Yes, we’re talking scalpels. Scissors? Yes. Separators, tongs, levers, in their tens, piled high. Add to this, the still-packaged needles, bottles of fluids, bags of saline, blood on stand-by.  Oh my word, did I feel a little out of place.

09:25 The anaesthetist begins his magic and so fantastically crucial work of paralysing my wife from her boobs downwards, otherwise known as the Epidural.

Again. This needs a little more attention than an eight letter word to describe it.

Basically, a six inch needle is used and is inserted into the gaps in the spinal chord to apply drugs directly onto the nerve endings that connect and talk directly to the brain, causing the brain to no longer maintain control of anything that those nerve endings connect. 

Again, deliberately, and methodically PARALYSING someone is not a small task. This needed a local anaesthetic to mask the pain that this process itself caused!  When people have accidents and break their back or neck, it’s the spine that is the critical element, because of those ever-so-important nerves. And we’re going to temporarily recreate that process as pain relief?? Give me strength. To add to this, we was told that there’s so many independent factors to take into consideration here when squirting drugs at a bit of spine to numb the pain; too much drugs could seriously knacker the nerve bits and too little would mean that part-way through the show, the feeling could come back and leave Claire in absolutely excruciating pain when her brain re-connects those processes and realises that there’s a bloody great hole in the lower part of the torso. 

Anyway, we digress.

09:32 We get started. How do I know precisely? Because when I asked the time, the ladies behind me that were using the Windows XP computer (that was being used to log absolutely everything that went on) declared the time, the 12ft tall Polish surgeon announced that we’re to start. But not until the adjusted the Casualty-style lighting rig into exactly the right position and angle.

“Then, we begin.” He declares, as though it’s a safari or a trip through the wilderness. Made me smile.

And we were indeed off.

Claire is awake, but but this point totally numb from the boobies downwards. They checked this by spraying super-cold spray onto her arms (not under epidural) which she can feel and normally react to as being…. well, rather cold.  Then, they spray other areas, such as the legs, body, lower back and so on, looking for reaction from Claire.

None. Good answer.

Blue medical surface-draping is applied all around the new Ground Zero that is Claire’s massive belly sticking out perpendicular from her, as she is by now-laying down her super numb body on the space-bed. 

Not able to see anything at all, Claire only has me to look at (poor bugger, I know!) and the midwife who is constantly checking how Claire is feeling and trying to calm any undue nerves.

Me? Well, being the odd/interested fellow that I am, I kept peering over the deliberate drape-wall that they’ve made to shield Claire from what they’re doing.  I’m guessing that seeing your lower half cut, sawn, snipped, scrapped and sucked would probably mess your head up a little for a few nights in future. 

Of course, I can’t tell Claire exactly what I’m seeing, as they very much are cutting, sawing and scrapping parts of the anatomy. So, I simplify and summarise into the words that I can in the heat of the moment and end up with “No baby yet.”, to which she smiles and without saying it, shouts “no s**t, Sherlock” loud and clear.

Claire’s doing really well. Again, she’s voluntarily laid down in this clinical room with barbaric looking torture devices on the deck. Brave girl. Brave to beyond my means of describing.

I look up again moments after, a scalpel is used, put down and replaced in the surgeon’s hands with a pair of surgical-looking scissors, and he almost looks like he’s hacking away at his teenage son’s new hair-do or something. The look of focus and attention on his face puts me at ease and at worry at the same time, but I take solace in the fact that he certainly looks like he’s been in this situation before.

More brownie points to the doc at this point, as he’s already knee deep in blood that has very obviously come from Claire’s innards.

Claire’s eyes flinch, reacting to the tugging and pulling that they’re doing over there, as although she’s numb, she’s still able to feel someone apply enough force to a part of her body that causes other parts to move too.  I have no idea what he was pulling or pushing on, but this big bloke is putting some serious weight behind it and her whole body moves under the momentum caused.  She looks at me for reassurance, so I do my husbandly bit again, and look at what the bloke and his other surgeon-friend are doing. Again, I give the only response that I can, and that she can handle, which is “No baby yet”.  Claire’s not daft, and already she’s starting to see a pattern emerging here.

Hoses are sucking out fluid, whilst 3 of the other people in the room are monitoring the amounts to quite accurate detail. When I looked, the fluid in the transparent piping on the body-hoover looked clear with an ever-so-slight pinkish/reddish tint to it.  Claire asks if it’s her waters, to which I nodded, not being able to think of anything else it could be.

Grunting, heaving, and more snipping with the razor sharp scissors. If it is indeed a new hair-do, it wants to look fantastic for the amount of cutting going on.

I have absolutely no idea of the time, but at this point, it genuinely felt like we’ve been in there hours, whilst this mountain of a man is butchering someone I know and love, and occasionally demanding that the lights are repositioned between moments of swabbing blood out of from Ground Zero.  Incidentally, each time, I noticed, that he used a new swap, tool, or whatever, there was about three different people, independently watching, counting and returning that implement to the torture-device pile. Another person in blue scrubs records all and sundry on the very low-tech whiteboard in the wall, whilst the two ladies around the XP machine continued to type and talk about stuff.

Suddenly, I look up and see something being held aloft… it’s a spherical looking thing, skin coloured, but heavily dowsed in blood and gunk.

“Chord is around neck. Once.” The man-mountain exclaims and continues to do something which means the spherical looking thing that I’ve assume was my boy’s head, is then lowered back in momentarily, followed by the sighting of a small purple-coloured foot.  I recognised the foot, as I’ve got one myself. But not that small and not that colour. 2 + 2 = That’s my babies’ foot.

I tell Claire… “Now… there’s a baby!”, and with that, the man-mountain-doctor lifts a now-screaming child from the void that now fills Claire’s lower torso area.  A giant look of relief sweeps across Claire’s face, as though to say that knowing that the baby was out AND hearing it cry are two very good resulting points from this jolly activity.  I can see him being carried by the midwife to quickly check all is well with him, and actually go into detail with Claire about this, as again, she’s not able to see very much at all.

I am asked to leave the relative safety of the reception chair and come over to the side workbench and see the blood-stained, purple-coloured baby that has been lifted out and is wailing away to himself, and see for myself that he’s all ok. 

He’s dried off ever so slightly as to not harm his delicate skin, and the 12-18” long section of umbilical cord that the surgeons had removed from Claire, is still attached to the baby’s belly button. Alison clamps it and trimmed it down and announces that she’s going to weigh him, after counting toes, fingers, eyes and ears. “Nine pounds and… THIRTEEN ounces … AND A HALF! Wow, he really is a big boy!”, she says loudly for all to hear.

Everyone is pleased that he’s well and happily surprised of his size and weight, starting more mid-work conversations amongst the almost dozen people in the room.

I went back over to Claire to return to my seat to continue my job of reassurance to her that all is well. She replied with something along the lines of “That’s ok, as long as he’s ok, I’m happy.” To which I had to ask what she thought about being opened up and still laying on the table, and if that was an important job to repair. Daft question in the moment, I guess.

Alison the midwife asks about the name to write on the wristbands, and almost announces to everyone that Oliver is a fit and healthy baby boy, and is wrapped by warm and placed on the non-numb upper section of Claire’s body (i.e. above the boobs but below the chin) for her to start the bonding experience with her new baby boy.

09:45 At this point, I ask one of the ladies the time and they declared the time of birth. 

So, all that work.

All that effort.

The worry.

The bloodshed.

The looks on Claire’s face...

All happened in next to no time at all. What I mean, is that you couldn’t cook a pizza in that time, and yet a man has hacked his way into a human body and pulled out a baby, through various layers of tissues, muscles, guts and gore. Amazing.

Last time, at this point, Jack and I went into the other room, when the the surgeon finished up and put Claire’s inner organs back into place, but this time, we waited with her until the surgeon (who had just scored more points for finding and retrieving the baby) had continued to remove the placenta and begin ‘closing up’. More hose sucking, little more pushing and pulling but it was soon done.

10:00 It was around this time that the Polish mountain-man downed tools and declared the mission a success. The midwife complimented him on the very neat residual marking on Claire lower stomach, namely the wound that will form the scar from the operation.  Anything the vaguely saw the light of day in the operating theatre was meticulously counted and recounted again, by at least two people at any given moment.  Luckily, all seemed to be accounted for, which was… nice.

Claire is slid off of the space-age-looking table that she’s just instantly lost weight on, and onto the ward-bed that seemed to have appeared from nowhere, and is soon driven back to the Labour Ward for several hours of recovery, before we’re even able to think about doing anything else.

11:30 seemed to be here in a flash – surprisingly, this relatively quiet part of the day disappeared whilst watching Alison show Claire how to get Oliver to begin feeding. Nothing else happened in this time, and I was absolutely mystified with the fact that a baby feeds from his mum.  I had just watched the bloodbath from the front-row seat and that was fine (gruesome in places, but still fine) and then when I saw Claire’s face light-up that our new baby had actually started to breastfeed, I actually started to well up. I didn’t cry or anything like that, but it was almost like a compounded ‘thing’ from thee years ago, about Jack not wanting to feed and now that Oliver was, it was sort of magically in a very odd way.  I’m not saying that Oliver will benefit from breastfeeding and Jack didn’t – to the contrary, Claire had expressed milk for seven months for Jack to have, and we were able to heavily monitor his quantities, almost to the extreme.

So, that’s it, coupled with the Baby Oliver blog post.

What a very, very surreal day it has been.

Absolutely and most positively... mad.

But the best outcome, is that Oliver AND Claire are both amazing and in good health.

Hats off to all of the team that helped to deliver Oliver today. I don’t know what some people did, but they obviously did it when needed, I assume, as nothing was missing, out of place, or not done. A very big “9lb 13 and a half”-sized thanks to you all.

Well, as the title implies, we have a new noise-maker in the Rigby family, previously project name Jester, but now a more sensible non-geek name of Oliver.

Background – Oliver’s due date from way-back-when, was the 5th January 2012.  Probably poorly planned on my behalf to even contemplate having a child within close proximity to his/her older brother, Jack, but truth be told, we probably weren’t doing much thinking at the time!

So – As Claire had to have an emergency caesarean with Jack (mostly because of cord being tied around his neck, etc) the consultants were talking to Claire about having an elective c-section, something that Claire was quite happy about, if we’re being honest here.  Last time, it was a gruelling day in labour, and that was just for me; Claire had the baby inside of her that wouldn’t emerge, and then toward the end of the day, she was told that Jack was to born by the good ol’ cut ‘n shut method.  Having this after a full day of failed attempts of labour was a bit of a strain, but she did an absolute marvellous job, and bears the scars of it to this day.

With all of this in mind, them booking a c-section for the due date sounded great, but with the caveat that if normal labour were to take place naturally beforehand (as sometimes these packages get delivered early), then she’d have to go down that road instead, and see where it took us.

We’ve been keeping our senses at high alert over the 2011 Christmas and subsequent New Year, making it a very sober affair in case I had to drive her to the horse-piddle.  Claire wasn’t drinking, but hasn’t really stated her reasons thus far. Something about a baby…

Each day went by. Nothing.

My parents each picked one of the few remaining days left and stuck a virtual tenner of their nominated day, with Claire gunning for the 5th. Maybe it was because she thought that there was money involved that Claire somehow managed to drag this whole thing out, or maybe she was hoping/planning/praying for the knife job. Who knows.

Either way, as booked a while back, on the 5th January 2012, we drove to the hospital to begin the process.

Insert: I’ve been moaned/whined at about the depth and detail that I went into with Jack’s blog post about his birth. So… to silence my critics, and to also get some content up and online asap, I’ll split this into the basic story, for the simple-minded, non-graphic-loving people and finish this blog post as such, with the extended, director’s cut in a further blog post. Why not?

So, Oliver was born today, 5th January at 09:45, weighing a whopping size of 9lbs 13 and a half..! Thats almost exactly a 1lb heavier than Jack was when he was born, and they said that he was a ‘big baby’.

Claire did a truly sterling job of it all.  Bearing in mind, that a c-section, as common as it might appear in the back of your head as they are now almost routine procedures, are in fact MAJOR BLOODY SURGERY.  I kid you not.  Why people opt for this means of delivering a baby, I have no idea. “Doc, cut me in half, surgically remove this alien life-form from my stomach and stitch me back up in time for supper.” Or, “Maybe I’ll try and do what the vast majority of human beings have done since they managed to reproduce, and squeeze it out me bits.”

Anyway, Claire – Drugged up as she was even afterwards, she kept her calm and even managed to get little baby Oliver to breastfeed. From her breast. Try as we (read: she) might, Jack simply was not interested and we (read: she) was forced into providing his milk served up in a convenient bottle-shaped container. Which, I might add, also means that the dad can help in the middle of the night, so thanks for that, young Jack! Grr.

Oliver took about 10 minutes to work out what he needed to do with the huge boobie stuck into his face and got on with it.  We were told that he had to have three or four consecutive post-feed blood/sugar tests of 2.5 whatevers or above. This was actually the only way that we were able to know that he’d been getting boobie-juice out of his mum, by the simply logic of

Poor blood/sugar result = no foodstuffs taken

Good blood/sugar result (of 2.5 or more) = unquantifiable amount of foodstuff taken.

Easy? Yep. Stick boobie into face, aim nipple into mouth and shove back of tiny palm-sized head until mouth is sharing the same cosmic space as boobie. Mouth opens. Natural instinct, somehow, takes effect, apparently, to suck the hell out of it. And he did. Many a time. Well done, my little man!

Incidentally, this whole breastfeeding lark – I can only surmise as ‘grazing’ – lots of little meals throughout the day. Someone’s going to be porker. Oh, wait, at 9lbs 13 he is a big child already.  Carry on.

All in all, I’ve left Oliver and his mum at the hospital, due to the major abdominal surgery that she had (did I mention this?), where she won’t be allowed out until she’s recovered enough to wash dishes and scrub the floor.  Claire’s been able to eat and drink stuff, which is a really good sign. Bit of sick here and there, but she’s doing great, so again, top job by Claire.

If anything, I felt like such a spare part that was constantly just in-the-way.  The most constructive thing that I’ve actually done today, was to fetch jugs of cold water and to bin soiled nappies. Oh, and push the trolley (that Oliver was laying in) out of the operating theatre (used for the major abdominal surgery!) back into the ward and park it up. Then it was in the wrong place. Shan’t bother going next time, if there were to be a next time…!

Well, I’ve looked back and noticed that my last blog post was back in August, which I am both shocked and appalled about. Hey ho. I’ve been busy, but will try to fill in the blanks.

There’s been loads that has happened, but I’ll try to segregate them into various topics and blog them individually.

In short, Jack has grown. My god, he’s grown loads. He’s such a bright, intelligent little boy with a fantastic imagination. I think I’ll write about that individually.

What else?  Christmas – Jack’s first proper Christmas where he was not only aware of what Christmas is, but also who Santa Claus / Father Christmas is, and why you have to be good, etc.

Jack’s been helping the midwife check-over the lump (read: baby) in mummy’s tummy.

And something else… slipped my mind for the moment…  Oh yes, the baby was born today, and was named Oliver. More details in that blog post, methinks.

I’ll get writing these posts now, but this was just a quick summary of the things to come. I’ll even come back and and the links and whatever to this post. Maybe.  Maybe next August, who knows!

When Jack was under-construction, en-womb, I applied a little computer ‘geekness’ to it all and assigned a code-name for the new project, which was that of ‘Juniper’.  The name itself was always intended to be non-gender specific, as at the time, we didn’t know whether the baby was a boy or a girl.

This was always planned on being a gender in-specific name that we could use rather than ‘the baby’, or more to my dislike, just merely ‘baby’ which is how the nurses, midwives, etc all refer to a unborn child, which, to me being a newbie around babies, always felt a little… strange.

So, moving onto the new little Riggers in production, between creative-Claire and I, we’ve mustered up the codename of ‘Jester’ for the new sprog, which will be his project name until birth where he’ll be assigned a name for life, this time of my picking. (Again, evil laugh).

So, yes. Jester.

Why Jester? Well, Claire’s sums show that as the baby is due in January 2012, counting back 9 months means that Claire and I must have ‘gotten jiggy-wid-it’ in April. To me, April is a fairly flat and boring month and the only memorable thing in April is April Fools. April Fools turns into Fools, and Fools leads my little mind on into ‘Jester’. Jester, to me, isn’t really a boy’s name nor a girl’s name, and it starts with the same initial letter as Juniper. Spurious, nonetheless, but…!

And we couldn’t think of anything better. Which is a much better reason. So, Jester it is really. A name until we decide on… a name!

Lots of changes have happened in the past month or two, in relation to Jack and us as a family, in a positive way.  Hopefully!!

The big thing (previously unmentioned on this blog) is that Claire is expecting our second child in January..!  

Yes, yes… I know exactly what you’re thinking. “What is this going to do to the title of the blog..!”

The same thought had crossed my mind, and so I’m going to be adjusting the overall theme of the site to cater for both kidders. And Jack’s website, which is *way* out of date. And the photos website on SkyDrive.  (Just realised that I’m going to have to rename my folders of the 6000+ photos of Jack that we have. Nightmare!!)

Anyway, so yes, another child and it’s another boy! This is great news, as we don’t have to go and buy loads of new girly-looking clothes, as being a boy, he’s inevitably going to get the ol’ hand-me-down-clothes treatment..! To be honest, the relatively little amount of time that Jack has spent in any of his clothes mean that they may have been washed lots, but worn very little, so they’re still very good. And to be even more honest-er about it all, it doesn’t matter if they were thread-bare, he’s going to have them!! (evil laugh…)

Jack is really not how I expected him to be about all of this baby-lark.  Being aged 2 (ish) I was expecting him to be all mardy about sharing stuff with a new baby, such as his toys, books and even his mum. (Didn’t expect him to be bothered about me!) But, on the contrary, he’s being fantastic about it all. He keeps talking to mummy’s tummy, saying hello to the as-yet-unnamed baby and kissing it before speaking. Really funny to watch.

More stuff to follow shortly, I hope.

For the past couple of weekends, men in yellow ‘hi-vis’ jackets that appear from nowhere have been putting up bunting and signs around our village advertising the Carnival day. They pretty much shut the whole village down in terms of traffic, as the floats come all the way through from the middle, turn around and then go back to the furthest point from there, so everyone gets to see and hear it.

It’s always a really good carnival, lots of floats for a small village, Samba bands, bagpipes, dancers and so on.

Claire, Jack and I got all sun-creamed-up and set out literally at the top of our road to watch the carnival procession with a lot of our neighbours and friends from the village.

Part of the same day, is the Sports Day element, which we’ve never really attended as much, which is held on the big football field. As Claire’s not working Saturdays any more and Jack’s old enough, we’ve been asking him all week if he’d like to compete with our friend’s son, Kieran, in the running.

Now, I’ve not seen Kieran run until yesterday, but I have seen Jack run in short bursts, and thought it might have been an even contest, but Kieran (almost exactly the same age as Jack) is like a whippet in practise whilst we were waiting for the floats earlier in the day!

When it came to it, the Boys under 4 years event was filled with about 5 boys with a few mums/dads behind to make sure that they ran – myself and Adam (Kieran’s dad) included.

“Ready…”

By this point Jack’s got the idea on what to do, but wants to go now.

“Set..”

I’m having to hold him back at this point.

“GO!”

And they’re off. 5 flappy-paddle-feet kids are now running a short length of the field, and are probably doing so because their over-competitive parents are gunning heavily for them to win, without a clue as to why exactly they’re doing it.

Some of the older kids came in first, which was an obvious point. Whippet-Kieran was off and did well, I think. Jack would have been last if I weren’t behind him, but to be honest, I wasn’t racing, so yes, he was last, but he did really well!  I was really surprised that they both ran consistently for that length, keeping up the flat-out pace all the way, as normally, they’re running around the house to get something or someone, negotiating corners and toys that they’ve dumped there just moments ago.

And yes, I was both impressed and dead-proud at the same time. He got a medal for participating, which is good, but I’m sure that we’re now in training for next year’s event, so watch out Kieran!

If you’ve read some of my older blog posts, you’ll recall that, particularly during the first few weeks/months of us having Jack, I went through a phase of having a bad night’s sleep, due to wandering around the room/house because of Jack..!  Anyway, if you didn’t know, well, I did, and sort of grew-out of it, partly due to his track-record in sleeping, but also partly due to the baby-gate we put on his room, meaning that he’s confined to that room!!

So, with that in mind, imagine my horror when we (Claire, Jack and I) stayed in a hotel near Peppa Pig World in Southampton, to be woken up at midnight by Claire saying that she can’t hear Jacks’ snorting and breathing coming from his bed just feet away from ours.

At this point, I was shattered, and genuinely thought she was going mad, but, being married to her, I humoured her all the same and went over to his bed to check it out.

She was right, there was no sound, so I thought he must have slipped under the bed-sheets, and as kids can’t regulate their body temperature as yet, they sweat. Big time.

So, there’s me; in the nod, in the pitch black room, leaning over a double-bed with my little boy in it, pulled back the bedsheets to find…. he wasn’t there!

Seriously, I woke up within one of those heart-beats that I’m sure I skipped. It was like an absolute instant hang-over cure.

“How the… hell… do you lose a child in a one-room room!?!” was going through my head.

Logic set in - The hotel room door was heavy, even for an adult, but it was also double-bolted shut anyway, so he simply couldn’t have left the room not without making at least a little noise… yet that didn’t stop it being the first thing that came to Claire’s mind!

Turned out, Jack must have slipped out of the far-side of the bed, between the bed and the wall, and was curled up in a heap under the window! 

Panic over. Call in the search party, cancel the helicopters and give the dogs the rest of the night off.

He was a bit cold, but in a deep sleep somewhere in nod-land.

Incidentally, there wasn’t a thud, or noise, so we can only assume that he did it himself… although, thinking about it now, those floors are made of concrete, with only a bit of carpet on top for decoration, so maybe we wouldn’t have heard it. But then, surely, it would hurt, induced crying and maybe that would have woken him and us!?!

At that point, Claire and I actually debated – and this might make us sound like bad parents, but we’re not!! – about leaving him where he was…(Yeah! I know!! Crazy…) What we didn’t want to do, was to wake him and then struggle to get him back to sleep.

But I did. (Pick him up, that is!)

Partly to get him back to somewhere comfortable, loveable little chap.

Partly to feel a bit better about myself for not leaving a darling little two year old asleep, cold, on the floor.

And partly to see if he could be woken, by way of some sort of childish means of getting him back for the panic he caused us. (ECG results are fine, by the way!)

But no.

Little man just kept snoring, grunting and farting occasionally, indicating that normal service had resumed.

The sheets on the bed muted some of the somewhat-missed sounds, but not as well as the entire bed did when he was on the floor, preventing almost all sound from him! Could/should put him back on the floor but, I suppose, there’s always next time.

Jack was asking about twenty-thousand why/who/what questions the other day, about something or other to do with my work; when he asked where I was going today, rather flippantly, I said ‘Switzerland’. It wasn’t true, but it was somewhere that wasn’t where he’d know, but it (almost) had the desired effect, as he paused for thought about it.

“What’s that?” came the reply, in keeping with the rest of the conversation, and so it went on until  I asked Jack if he could say ‘Switzerland’. 

He tried a little and failed after a decent attempt, bearing in mind that he’s only two years old. And so, Claire stepped in to help him with his pronunciation.

“Swit. Zer. Land" – she said.

Quick as a flash, the little blue-eyed monster replied, “Well done, mummy!”, clapping his hands with a look of happiness across his face.

Made us both laugh, although Jack was looking at us in confusion, as mummy had, indeed, said it correctly.

Priceless.

For those of you that do not know who Peppa Pig is, then here’s a quick lo-down, according to the gospel of Wikipedia:

“Peppa Pig is a children's television programme. Each episode is approximately 5 minutes long. The show revolves around Peppa, an anthropomorphic female pig, and her family and friends. Each of her friends is a different species of mammal - their first name starts with the same letter as the type of animal they are. Peppa's friends are the same age as her, and Peppa's younger brother George's friend Richard is the same age as him. Episodes tend to feature everyday activities such as attending playgroup, going swimming, visiting their grand parents, going to the play ground or riding bikes.

 

The characters wear clothes, live in houses, and drive cars, but still display some characteristics of the animals on which they are based. Peppa and her family snort like pigs during conversations, the other animals make their respective noises when they talk, with some exhibiting other characteristics, such as the Rabbit family's enjoyment of carrots. The Rabbits are also the sole exception to the rule of human-like habitation, in that they live in a burrow in a hill, although it does have windows and is furnished in the same way as the other houses.”

Anyway – recently, Claire and I took Jack to Peppa Pig World, which is a new addition to Paulton’s Park, based in Southampton, and I was bracing myself for something painful.

It turned out to be really good, much to my surprise! Peppa Pig is great for kids, I mean, Jack loves it. For the adult, it’s not so bad, unless you have seen the DVD over and over and over again, and then feel the need to buy another so that there’s some variation in the content!

Peppa Pig World opened only recently, from what I understand, but it was heaving with children and their parents, all pandering to their kids’ desire for the pink pig.

True to the cartoons, the park does offer helicopter and balloon rides, rides on boats, cars and dinosaurs (don’t ask – it’s part of the cartoon), all of which are safe for a two year old to go on, along with his parents!

The rides are (or were) in immaculate condition and the attention to detail in the park was phenomenal. From the music, to the rides, the background scenery, everything really looked great. Not that I was looking to, but I couldn’t find fault there, really.

Being as though it’s a few hours away from our house, it was a bit of a trek; We got there in the afternoon mid-week, had a couple of hours inside there before it closed for the day, and then bombed-out back to a hotel for the night, and then returned the following day to pick-up from where we left off previously.

Apart from the trip to the bottom of the country to go there, I can honestly recommend it as an enjoyable time, particularly for smaller children. The rides would have also entertained slightly older kids too, but much older kids would still have fun in the rest of Paulton’s Park, as it’s all contained within the same theme park.

Just thought I’d tell you that really – won’t bore you with the details, but it was good.