Love... And Sleepless Nights MAY 2012 (28 page)

‘That’s wonderful to hear. And are you making any progress with your neutronium death ray?’

‘Pibble fluurmy wobba yadda dadda munna.’

‘Excellent. The world will soon tremble with fear at your dainty, pink feet.’

Burp.

‘I couldn’t have said it better myself, daughter of mine.’

‘Meeeble.’

‘What would her highness like for breakfast this morning?’

‘Keeow! Keeow!’

‘Ah, so you’d prefer the thick green sludgy stuff out of a jar, rather than the thick red sludgy stuff out of a jar, would you? A superb decision.’

‘Mibble daada munna hooble daada munna muuuna weeble flurble dadda!’

‘Exactly, I wholeheartedly agree. The Middle Eastern peace process won’t progress until both sides are ready to get round the table and make real, comprehensive changes in their attitudes towards one another. Now open wide! Here comes the horrible red sludge!’

The sad thing is this probably represents one of the most sensible conversations I’ve had with another human being in years.

Pops has reached that stage in her development where things are really starting to get interesting.

When I say interesting, I mean bloody terrifying.

She’s now crawling like an SAS soldier under heavy fire. The turn of speed she can achieve is amazing.

I put her down the other day for a second in the hallway as I had a massive sneeze building. By the time it had made its seventy mile an hour way out of my nostrils my daughter had already reached the kitchen door and was about to high tail it down the garden path into the stinging nettles.

As each day goes by the contents of our house move upwards, thanks her ability to stand and reach. We can’t leave a damn thing at Poppy height, otherwise it’s in her mouth quicker than a starving fat man at an all-you-can-eat-buffet.

I caught her behind the TV dismantling the Sky Plus box the other day.

She’d already pulled the cable running to the dish out and was having a real go at ripping the power cable out as well. I would have put it down to a random act of baby vandalism, were it not for the fact that The Only Way Is Essex was on the TV at the time. Her reaction was perfectly understandable.

Another thing Poppy now does, which creases me up, is move along on her wobbly little feet from couch to chair and back again. It really is quite amazing how similar an eleven month old baby and a twenty year old media student after ten pints really are.

Both are incredibly uncertain on their feet, both have to use every available handhold to prevent themselves crashing to the floor, both have an expression of intense but unfocused concentration on their faces, and both have similar chances of getting a decent job in the next three years.

In babies this moving about from one piece of furniture to another is called ‘cruising’.

Now I don’t know about you, but I thought cruising was an occupation primarily carried out by homosexual men, dressed in brightly coloured clothing that’s too tight for them.

I’m giving what Poppy does a new name to divorce it from the seedy activity of looking for sex with other brightly coloured gentleman in the local public conveniences.

From now on it shall be called ‘wobble-grabbing’, which has a far nicer ring to it. It’s probably the name of a small village in the Lake District as well, but I’m sticking with it regardless.

‘Look Laura! Pops is wobble-grabbing again!’ I exclaim happily to my wife, who gives me a disparaging look from over the top of her Kindle, before returning to whatever chick lit ebook she’s got on the go that evening.

Poppy’s not quite walking yet though.

We’ve got the digital camera on stand-by up on the sideboard, but thus far all attempts at walking unaided have resulted in a very one-sided argument with the carpet.

Not everything’s adorable.

I’m afraid we’ve fallen prey to the age old problem of mimicry.

Poppy is at the stage where she babbles incomprehensibly most of the time, but occasionally she does come out with full words.

We’ve had ‘Mumma’ and ‘Dadda’ for a while now, which makes Laura all misty-eyed. I just collapse in heaps of laughter every time she says them. There’s something delightfully silly about proper words coming from her tiny little mouth. I’ve been so used to Poppy being a wriggling lump of scream, babble and poop that for her to be using proper human behaviour tickles my funny bone in no uncertain terms.

‘I do wish you’d stop laughing at her Jamie, you’re going to give her a complex,’ Laura chides every time I so much as chuckle when she says something funny.

I personally think I’m just going to push her into a career in stand-up comedy, but I try to restrain my chucklesome ways whenever the wife is around.

As I said though, it’s not all adorable.

You may have heard many stories about babies picking up swear words and repeating them, to the embarrassment of the parents and the hilarity of passers-by.

I read a book recently where the guy’s kid wouldn’t stop saying ‘fuck’ in loud, clear tones over and over again.

If only…

No, Poppy Newman decided to go one further and use the brass ring of swearwords - in front of the worst person imaginable.

Now, I’m not saying my daughter began shouting the rudest term for a lady’s parts at the top of her voice one day for no reason. That would just be silly.

No, it was a slow, drawn out process that started three weeks ago.

Here is another Jamie/Poppy conversational transcript by way of explanation:

‘Peek-a-boo Poppy!’

‘Murble.’

‘Peek-a-boo!’

‘Heh heh! Meefle! Meeooowwwn meefle dadda!’

‘Where’s Poppy’s nose? Where’s Poppy’s nose?’

‘Gurnal me forble gurna dadda mibble pew.’

‘There’s Poppy’s nose!’

‘Heeble! Meeble turble curble dibble dadda munna neeble.’

‘Peek-a-boo!’

‘Hee! Meefle moooeeeble cun deeble.’

‘Poppy!’

‘Cuuuunnnn daa.’

‘What?’

‘Dadda purble meeble cunnn da.’

‘Did you just say what I thought you just said?’

‘Munna heeble arble peeble cunnn da. Cun-da! Cund!’

‘Poppy! Language!’

You see? Not really
that
word, but pretty damn close to it.

Babies are basically learning how to form words every second of every day, and as they develop the ability to use new inflections, sounds and letters, they like to get in a lot of practise.

Poppy has caught on how to form the hard pronunciation of ‘C’ – and wants the world to know about it.

Over the next few days she continues to practise the hard C whenever possible.

I am the only one who picks up on the fact that she’s virtually saying the worst swear of all though. Maybe it’s just my filthy imagination, but I seem to be the only one that hears it. Every time we’re in company and Poppy gives off a good
‘cuuunnnn da!’
I pause with a fearful look on my face, waiting for the person I’m with to point at my daughter, call her the Devil’s child and run away screaming.

Thankfully this never happens and I make the mistake of relaxing, thinking it’s probably all in my mind and nothing to concern myself with.

As I’m writing about this in a blog post, you can appreciate this proves not to be the case.

The problem gets worse when Poppy also discovers how to pronounce the letter ‘T’ for the first time.

To begin with all we get is ‘teeble’ ‘turble’ ‘taaargle’ and variations on the same theme.

Then she hits on the fact you can stick ‘T’ at the end of a word as well: ‘heebblleet’ ‘munnannat’ ‘ooort’ …and so on.

The sheer joy of combining ‘C’ and ‘T’ with the appropriate vowel in between only occurs to my daughter when Laura and I are on a day trip to Bath.

It’s another fun filled multiple choice question folks!

See if you can guess from the following options who Poppy says the c-word in front of, while on the streets of the historic Roman town:

A) A German tourist who doesn’t understand English all that well and misses the word completely.

B) A deaf elderly lady who doesn’t hear her say it.

C) A child behavioural psychologist, who knows all about this kind of thing and offers some sage advice on how to break Poppy of the habit.

Or...

Wait for it…

D) A bad tempered police officer that we make the mistake of stopping in order to ask directions to the Crescent building.

‘You need to go back the way you came, sir,’ he tells me, shielding his eyes from the unseasonable November sun.

‘Teeeble heeeertle daaaa,’ comments my daughter from behind my back. I’ve got her in one of those baby carriers that are popular these days. I like to avoid the pushchair after the Lolly incident and these ‘baby backpacks’ are a great alternative. Besides, it makes me feel like Luke Skywalker with Yoda on his back during the second act of The Empire Strikes Back, which is no bad thing in my book.

The copper notices her peaking out from over my shoulder. ‘Cute kid,’ he says with a grunt.

‘Thanks very much.’

‘Do we need to go all the way back to the park?’ Laura asks.

‘Yes, you do,’ the copper says bluntly. Looks like we’ve stumbled on a policeman who missed the people skills part of his training.

‘Cuunnn meeee dadda munna cun,’ says Poppy helpfully.

‘Do we go left or right when we get there?’ I enquire.

The policeman sighs. ‘Right sir, the other way goes down to the town.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Is that everything, sir?’

‘Yes I think so. Thank you for your help.’

‘Not a problem, sir. I’m happy to - ’

‘Cunt!’

Silence erupts. I know silence doesn’t technically know how to ‘erupt’ but by God it chooses to have a good go at it now.

‘I’m sorry?’ the copper says to my daughter, who is still peeking out from behind me in the cutest fashion possible, her eyes fixed on the incredulous bobby.

‘Cuunnn ta!’ she repeats.

Then, to compound matters, she points at him.

Poppy loves to point. It’s her favourite hobby. The world around her doesn’t exist until she’s had a good point at it, it seems.

Laura has gone red. I have gone puce.