the adlards

I had the opportunity this evening to look after Sophie while Michelle and Jo went shopping. I very seldom get this chance due to the necessarily close mother-daughter food bond (which I’m pretty sure never ends). After we’d exhausted her vocabulary and my repertoire of gurgles and jiggle-dances, which didn’t take long, we phoned my mum and dad and talked to them for a bit – something else I very seldom do; another treat.

Sophie is a wonderful little girl. Her latest favourite thing is being held so she can try and support herself on her legs. She kicks and really enjoys the resistance – big grins (laughs for mum) for as long as we have the strength to hold her up. Good mid-telephone conversation tactic as it turns out.

Josie turned into a dolphin on contact with the bathwater tonight, splashing and making waves and nosing up to Sophie on her bath-chair. “Not a crocodile, a dolphin“. At the point at which she tried breathing water in through her nose she – instantaneously – became a little girl again. With an upper respiratory tract full of water. People had told us about the pace of change at this age. We had no idea …

Time for a new masthead. You might need to ctrl-refresh to get it because I haven’t figured out how to expire the old image …

There was a woman in Nero’s this morning (I spent my Sunday morning in the office testing the new WAN implementation) who was alarmingly fresh-faced for that time on a Sunday morning. I didn’t look too closely because the well-built Italian barista who was chatting her up (in Italian) might have caved in my cranium with a hot espresso head.

She didn’t look like she was still wearing her Saturday night face and yet surely she hadn’t really been up long enough to create such an immaculate mask of just the right mix of vegetable fat and fine-ground glitter? And on a Sunday morning? Perhaps I’ve seen the nemesis of pharma-cosmetic conglomerates everywhere … personally I prefer the reality I found on the street where faces were bleak and just beginning to turn the corner of recovery as they passed the mid-point of the weekend and moved inexorably toward the new working week, but eyes had a sparkle because it’s a summer’s day and London’s beautiful and life is (mostly) good.

We were the only people in our favourite Chinese at lunchtime today. They always make a fuss of Josie and today they put The Simpsons on the 60-inch plasma for her to watch. Very tired two-year-old absent-mindedly shovelling noodle-bits and sprouts into her mouth (mostly) while glued to Homer desperately trying to find another watering hole to replace the one Mo had banned him from. “That’s right! I’ll find another bar and I’ll drink there, and I’ll get drunker than I’ve ever been!” The logical tension between empty restaurant, personal service, and innapropriate two-year-old viewing was briefly intriguing.

I was reminded of it later in the day when we caught five minutes of a Trekkie documentary in which hominids from impressively diverse parts of the gene pool were assuring us that the philosophy of StarTrek would form the blueprint for the way we play out the 21st century. They could be right. What is certain is that for them the 21st century couldn’t be played out any other way.

We all view the earth from somewhere, this is why we live in society: it affords us the opportunity to gain a measure of objectivity if we want it, but far more important it affords us the opportunity to develop perspectives way wackier than anything we could think of all on our own. Try walking into an empty restaurant sometime. Better still, ask them to put Bart on the plasma.

Brie and biscuits for breakfast and then a quiet draw on the old chalk-board. Being two is tough …

We’re having sort order problems in the gallery. Latest albums currently at the end – that’s bottom of page ten. Being worked on …

[23.42] fixed, I think

Racing through the rain this morning to stand five-deep on a platform to squeeze onto a crowded train to spend a day in perpetual meetings (they seem to continue in another dimension and just feed off me during the periods I’m in the room) then repeat the process in reverse conjured up all the usual metaphors of fuel and fire, arteries and blood, rats and races. Not a single original thought. Perhaps that’s why I’m still doing it.

Lawrence Kenneth Harkness born Friday 12 August at 20.10

Wow, three boys … and I guess that’s Malcolm; when I last remember seeing him he was sitting waist-deep in fallen oak leaves in the days before he could walk. Time does fly, although I’m sure it doesn’t feel that way in the Harkness household today.

Michelle got to read Josie the Smartest Giant in Town.

I can’t b-e-l-i-e-v-e it! I get to read squidgy infant identify-the-animal books, picture books, and “The New Baby”. These books have – I’ll be kind – limited appeal. After the first month of reading them every night, I am:
a) Out of ideas to make them stimulating, or at all useful or entertaining
b) Completely, utterly, mind-numbingly bored

Every night at book choosing time Josie goes through her bedside hoard:
[Dad] Ooh! The Smartest Giant in Town!
[Josie] No …
[Dad] Oh look, the Gruffalo
[Josie] Ummm, no …
[Dad] The snail and the whale? (please God)
[Josie] No … this one (passing me the dictionary which should not be next to her bed)

How old do you think children should be before you read them Lord of the Rings, because it’s about that time of year again.

Michelle introduced a new evening routine yesterday – always risky, but this seems to be paying off in a big way. We got a little bath seat for Sophie and she and Josie had their first bath together at about 6 yesterday. They both loved it – when I got home they were splashing in the bath together – and, importantly, the conflict in bedtimes was removed with Sophie going down while Josie played downstairs. Until now Sophie’s gone down while Josie’s bathed, and if Sophie hasn’t been well asleep by the time Josie’s got out of the bath they’ve disturbed each other. Sophie only woke once in the night, Josie woke up this morning and spent a bit of time singing to herself in bed rather than yelling for Mum, and Michelle and I got to spend a long evening talking on the patio.

We also decided last night on a decking and fencing quote, so that should all kick off in the first week of September I think. The weekend’s drain work has paid off unexpectedly in dramatically improved neighbourly relations (on the other side) and we’re now at an advanced stage of plotting the renewal of the neighbourhood.

Pics of bathtime when I get back home tonight …
[22:08] pics now in the gallery