Hands off my CDs

I’ve just learned another valuable lesson: don’t leave Harry alone with anything you want to keep safe.

Now I know what you’re going to say: surely that stands to reason. You’d be right of course, but earlier this week I got complacent and paid the price.

The thing is, Harry’s determination to chew, tear and generally destroy everything has waned in recent weeks.

So when I left him watching Chuggington on my computer, I didn’t give a second thought to the fact that I’d left a CD within grabbing distance.

When I returned to check on him a minute or two later, the CD was back on the desk in front of the computer – in almost exactly the same place it had been originally. The only difference was the cardboard sleeve was now in several pieces.

Harry was smiling angelically at me and when I told him off, he just chuckled. It didn’t help that Melissa was stood behind me, also laughing. So while I was trying to explain to him why tearing daddy’s CD cases was not wrong, Melissa simply said: “You shouldn’t have left it there in the first place.”

She was right of course but that didn’t help. Anyway, Harry had obviously worked out I wasn’t best pleased, however, because he came up to me and cuddled my leg, saying ‘awww’.

Rather than saying sorry, though, I think this might have had more to do with trying to shut me up – Harry had obviously had enough of me talking about CD sleeves.

When I returned home later the same day I spotted our house phone in pieces, balanced on a radiator. When I asked Melissa what had happened, she sheepishly admitted Harry had managed to grab the phone and throw it in the bath. Obviously I wasn’t the only one being complacent that day.

Football and dancing

I’m always very proud when people say Harry looks like me. I’m not sure why exactly, but whenever anybody comments on the resemblance (even if it is Harry’s hairline) I find myself smiling away as if somebody has just paid me a compliment.

However, I’m realistic enough to know that Harry being a carbon copy of me wouldn’t be a good thing, particularly when it comes to dancing. Thankfully, Harry seems to have inherited his mum’s sense of rhythm.

Whenever he hears music, Harry immediately starts bobbing up and down, hopping from one leg to the other, spinning around and waving his arms wildly. He also likes to grab people to dance with him and gets particularly excited when he hears the theme tunes to his favourite television programmes, Chuggington and Thomas and Friends.

It also turns out he’s a bit of a fan of sixties music. When he goes to my mum’s for the day, he makes a beeline for the hi-fi. Bend it, by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch seems to be his favourite. Even my nan gets up to dance with him at the grand old age of 94. It’s a remarkable sight.

But Harry’s dancing is not without its problems. Melissa and I took him to a charity tea dance last weekend and he was so keen to join in, he kept running in between couples who were taking the dancing very seriously. They didn’t really see the funny side, unlike Harry who had the time of his life tearing around the dancefloor while I ran round after him trying in vain to keep him out of trouble.

Dancing apart, he’s also developing some pretty impressive football skills. I’ve no idea where he gets these from (it’s certainly not from me ­– I didn’t even make the primary school team), but he loves running around with a ball at his feet before kicking it as hard as he can at somebody or something. It’s impressive stuff from an 18-month-old.

My aim now is to teach him the basics of cricket. It could be dangerous.