Baby + 200

The nice thing about being a baby - this requires some imagination - is that the froth which occupies adults has little or no bearing on day-to-day life.

Take this evening's news, and in particular a story on an apparent shortage of bananas about to test the world's mettle. I was not clear why there may be a shortage, but that seemed less important than the four minutes of assertions as to why this would be a major problem for humanity. The reporter was keen to observe that this shortage will have a big impact on Britain, where each of us consumes 80 bananas a year (an average, of course). To make matters worse, the poorest countries would be hit hard by the loss in production caused by the mysterious source of the shortage, thing, phenomenon, er...

Had the reporter polled the world's babies I suspect she would have received the simple response that they would be quite happy with a pear or apple, and thus any shortage was immaterial. Economists would call these items of fruit substitutes, and possibly pointed out that a shortage would lead to higher prices, which could be good for producing countries (assuming the intermediaries didn't siphon profits from growers). Either way, a panel of economists and babies would have rightly put this alarmist news into a proper perspective.

I have a more basic dislike of bananas which stems from an assessment of their ability to produce very smelly baby pooh. Apples do not do this, nor do pears.

Newsnight (www.bbc.co.uk/newsnight) is running a very interesting series at the moment called Ethical Man. Being an impressionable soul, I crawled into bed after the 15 May edition, in which Justin Rowlatt and family got rid of their car, and suggested to Mrs M that we might consider relinquishing our family estate. After all, we live in Central London, and we use the car rarely.

There are some things it is better to regret before it is impossible to lose any discretion over this emotion. I felt, and still feel, I raised the issue in a sensitive and considerate manner. However, it is unlikely I shall be able to tell you, my reader, that we will soon end our affair with the internal combustion engine. I shall, however, consult my daughter. I suspect she cannot be anything other than an ally on this issue. If not, I'll look for an amenable economist.

Baby + 191

A tale of two chairs.

We are now the proud owners of three smart chairs. The first was an intentional arrival. The second two were accidents. I will explain.

Ikea may be a very unpleasant place to visit, and an even worse place to shop, but it does sell well-designed products. I think this is true of Scandinavian design more generally. The wonderful wooden houses of Stockholm or Copenhagen are much to be preferred to the fussy architecture of Rome, Milan or Paris. Straightforward, modest lines are a good thing in this author's opinion. Spare me the fuss of a Baroque or Rococo building.

So, it was with some delight that I arrived home from work this week to find a wonderful gift from our daughter's grandparents: a Stokke high-chair.

From a distance this chair radiates solidity; it is a Volvo of chairs - it looks grave and weighty. I immediately imagined it being dropped from a passing Jumbo with no ill-effects to its structure. I speculated that a passing tank might cause but barely a scratch to the Stokke's brushwork. It is a chair in which a redoutable judge of Her Majesty's Courts Martial might pass sentence.

Our daughter approves the Stokke. It has made her an equal partner at the dining table, and it offers a vantage point that is excellent if one is intent - as she is - to grab any loose items. I hope it will be a long time before she is too big for her new throne.

I think that the Stokke has made a big impact on me too. I say this now that I am aware of its effects, but were you have to asked me this morning if the Stokke would change my life I might have eyed you quizzically. However, this was before a visit to Heal's (a swanky furniture shop [temple to Mammon] on the King's Road), and the discovery of two rather Stokke-esque (the esque is important) chairs.

The rest is history, or at least a longer credit card statement. I had no idea that a chair could command such a price!

A reflective reader might ask what business I have purchasing chairs whilst Donk Donk lies silent in the spare room. It is a good question. It is a question that could precipitate a moral crisis. Buyer's dissonance? What buyer's dissonance?

Baby + 180

Mrs M has kindly reminded me that an anonymous commentator asked at Baby + 139 for more information about baby massage.

First, I apologise for this oversight. Second, I apologise for being unable to write anything of substance on the subject of baby massage. I know that it is a good thing, or at least I assume it is so based on Mrs M's supportive statements. Of more than this, however, I am ignorant. I am reliably informed that the excellent Sure Start schemes now operating across the UK teach baby massage. So, if you want to learn more you could try Sure Start.

I remain in two minds whether it was fair to expel delinquent rabbits and Daily Mail readers in Baby + 179. If my daughter were old enough to express an opinion I imagine she would want to save the rabbits. I could not demur.

For Donk Donk fans, I am sad to say that his battery - nay, his life force - is yet to be replenished (and perhaps brother-in-law could see his way to help here now that he is in the power generation and transmission [not sales, you understand] business). As soon as he (Donk Donk) is vocal again I shall report on his well being. Rest assured though that not unlike Ted Hughes's crow, Donk Donk is stronger than death.

Baby + 179

Er, I have been lazy. Two and a bit weeks have gone by since the last blog update, and yet so much has happened. I'll give you some headlines:

1. Our daughter is on the verge of being able to crawl. She finds her inability to propel herself very frustrating. If she had any chance of understanding the difference between the short and long view, I'd tell her not to be worried that it all isn't clicking now.

2. Hair. She came with hair, she lost most of that hair, but now it is returning. As hair changes our perception of other people, I am pondering whether her follical growth will add to the sense that she is less the baby and more the little person.

3. Noise. Wow. Progress or what? Mrs M thinks our daughter is a regular user of the word "Mamma". I am less sure, but there has been an amazing expansion in her vocal spectrum. It is clear that these noises are linked directly to her emotional state. My favourite is the wheezy yawn and accompanying roll of the head.

4. Diet. After months of milk - mother's and mass-produced - our daughter now consumes avocado, sweet potato, paw paw, banana, and carrot. Much of this carefully prepared food ends up on her bib, clothes, or her parents' clothes. However, I sense that she appreciates the new variety in her diet.

5. Sleep. I am loathe to add this to the list - unecessary superstition, but superstition nonetheless - but there has been a big change in our daughter's sleeping habits. Yes, she still wakes for a feed at 10pm, but she sometimes makes it from this feed to the dawn chorus. Bliss.

If there were any doubt that we are bourgeoise parents through and through, our holiday in Dorset and Wiltshire is proof positive. I can't think that being pushed across England's footpath in a pram is relaxing, but we have a rather simplistic assumption that time spent in our bucolic countryside is intrinsocally good. So, without our daughter's consent we marched her across this beautiful area, lifting her across stiles, and pulling her backwards across fields full of cows and their two-dimensional waste. The health benefits are immeasuarble.

Dorest and Wiltshire were good places to be as we learned that the nation is being terrorised by foreign criminals. (Technically, I suppose, said foreigners are foreign, but may only be foreign criminals if they had a criminal record from another jursidiction.) As respectable householders up and down the country locked their doors for fear that Johnny Frog or Fritz might seek to make off with a kitchen applicance, we were faced with nothing more taxing than illegal parking (by others) in Shaftesbury. This is a small town, with narrow streets, and if anyone does park on a double yellow line (no red routes here...yet) it is a source of great frustration to other road users, particularly buses. Fortunately the offenders were Anglo and Saxon in origin, so there was no danger that anyone smelling vaguely of garlic or cabbage would be dragged from their Xantia and beaten senseless by the good burghers of Dorset.

I am waiting for someone to suggest that we expel rabbits - which are, of course, not native to these islands - for centuries of criminal damage. Rabbits and Daily Mail readers would be first on my boat for the exiled.