Nuisance phone calls

Harry has, from a very early age, had a thing about telephones. He loves playing with mobiles and, if he gets the chance, the house phone.

At my mum’s, Harry’s even been known to call people using the redial button (which flashes green). On one occasion, my sister thought she was the victim of a nuisance phone call; it turned out it was just Harry heavy breathing on the other end of the line.

Now he’s started to talk more, he’s even more determined to get hold of the phone.

Last week, Melissa called me while I was at work and Harry managed to wrestle the phone off her. Harry and I then had a conversation of sorts, with Harry chatting away on the other end of the line. I’m not sure what he was trying to tell me but he was very excited.

It struck me again how quickly Harry is growing up – there I was sat in work talking to my son on the phone. It was another one of those ‘pinch yourself’ moments.

What’s even more entertaining, though, is watching Harry talking to somebody else on the phone. Harry’s obviously been studying me using the phone because, like me, he doesn’t stand still for a minute, preferring instead to walk around the room chatting away and nodding his head intently like an old man.

The problem comes when you try and take the phone off him; he just doesn’t want to let it go. Sometimes, for a quiet life, I let him carry on talking – goodness knows what Melissa will say when the bill arrives.

Full time dad

I’m currently recovering after spending four full days looking after Harry on my own.

Melissa decided to get away for a couple of days with her mum and sister, leaving me in charge. Now I’ve done the odd day here and there, but never for that length of time so I was a little bit nervous.

I was also slightly concerned about Harry’s reaction. Although he’s not particularly clingy, I did wonder what effect his mum being away for four nights would have on him.

Thankfully, I needn’t have worried. Harry did say “Mummy, gone” a few times while shrugging and raising his hands, but that was about it.

My tactics were simple: tire him out as thoroughly as possible during the day so that he would sleep well at night. This seemed to work pretty effectively – although the fine weather helped – and I even found time to do a bit of housework just to prove to Melissa that I haven’t forgotten how to use the washing machine and iron.
I did get quite a bit of help along the way from my mum and nan, who were on hand to provide tea, cake, support and so on when I wanted some respite.

There were also a couple of minor disasters along the way. On the first evening, while I was wrestling with a zip that had got stuck on one of his coats, Harry managed to find a way through the gate at the bottom of the stairs and was half way up before I managed to grab him.

One another occasion, he managed to get hold of some of Melissa’s make-up and was in the process of colouring our bedroom carpet before I stopped him.

All in all, though, it went very smoothly even if it was tiring. On Sunday afternoon I took Harry to Ty Mawr for a walk. Half way round, Harry decided he wanted to go on my shoulders. It was a warm day and quite hard work. When we reached the car park, Harry wanted to go around again – which meant my shoulders took some more punishment. I’ll say this though, it was more enjoyable than going to the gym.

And the hardest part about the whole experience? Going to back to work.

Now Harry’s a bit older, playing with him is a lot more interesting. At the moment, one of his favourite activities is playing with large building blocks – a bit like giant Lego.

In recent weeks, Harry has learned how to put the blocks together and is now creating fairly complicated – and often quite tall – structures.

This isn’t without its hazards, though. I’ve lost count of the number of times Harry has built a tower only to push it over in my direction. He obviously thinks watching me scramble out of the way of falling blocks is entertaining. As I’ve said before, being a dad does nothing for your dignity.

Anyway, there was one particularly exciting moment last week. One evening while playing with Harry, I built an aeroplane (a very basic one, I should add) out of the blocks.

Harry thought this was great and was soon running around the room with the aeroplane making a ‘brrrrr’ noise.
The following morning, Melissa and I were sat having a cup of tea after breakfast while Harry was playing on the floor with the blocks and, much to my surprise and delight, he built his own aeroplane.

I was truly amazed, not to mention very proud, and spent the rest of the day battling with that ‘I want to tell everyone about my brilliant child’ syndrome that bores everybody else silly.

Since then I’ve been busy trying to encourage Harry to build giant castles as well as aeroplanes but he doesn’t seem to share my enthusiasm. Instead he wants to build aeroplanes and then fly them at my head. Melissa says it serves me right.

Christening fun

We took Harry to a christening last Sunday and what should have been a relatively calm experience turned into one of the most hectic half hours I’ve had in a long while.

Harry was pretty well behaved when the service got under way, largely because he was munching his way through a packet of Quavers – Melissa’s cunning plan to keep him quiet.

Unfortunately, the Quavers were soon demolished and, after spending five minutes trying to wrestle the hymn book out of my hand, Harry decided it was time to go for a wander.

Of course he had his reins on, so I was pulled along behind him. The vicar had said at the outset he didn’t mind children walking around during the service and had helpfully arranged an area complete with crayons, mini bouncy castle, toys and books.

That kept Harry occupied for all of ten minutes before he became destructive and started pulling all the books off the shelves.

While I was frantically trying to tidy up behind him, Harry seized the opportunity to escape and explore the church properly.

I’m not sure what the congregation made of me sprinting after Harry during communion – but I didn’t have any choice.

After managing to catch up with him, I finally found something that kept him quiet – the organ and organist.

So for the final ten minutes of the service, I had to stand next to the organ while Harry pointed and shouted with excitement every time a note was played.

Melissa found it all very funny – and I admit I was a bit flustered by the time the service finished. She doesn’t know it yet, but Melissa’s definitely on duty the next time we go to a christening.

Haircuts and swimming lessons

Last week was a momentous week for Harry (even if he doesn’t know it) – he had his first haircut and his first swimming lesson.

The haircut was, to be honest, long overdue. Although Harry doesn’t have a thick head of hair (he gets that off me), he’s been getting increasingly ‘tufty’ in recent weeks. Some days, his hair would stand on end all day, giving him the impression of being permanently terrified.

Melissa had cut it herself a couple of times to get the worst of it under control but things were nevertheless starting to get a bit out of hand.

Thankfully, that’s now a thing of the past.

Unfortunately I was in work so I couldn’t take him to the hairdressers but it all seemed to go surprisingly smoothly.

And having his hair cut has suddenly made Harry look a lot more grown up, which is a somehow a little bit sad – he’s no longer a baby, but a little boy.

Anyway, the way his hair’s growing he’ll need another haircut in a couple of weeks’ time so I’ll hopefully get the chance to take him.

The other first this week was his swimming lesson at Waterworld in Wrexham. I managed to pop along to watch it in my lunch hour, and spent the whole half-hour with a big grin on my face.

Watching Harry (and Melissa of course) performing the various exercises was fascinating. Best of all, though, Harry was obviously enjoying himself even if he was a bit reluctant to let the little rubber duck go when the teacher asked for it to be returned.

He behaved really well throughout the lesson though and I returned to work feeling ten foot tall.

Harry might be growing up but he still makes me feel like the proudest dad around.

Hungry ducks...

I’ve mentioned before that Harry has a good appetite. Although we went through an awkward stage just after Christmas when he had tonsillitis, getting him to eat a balanced diet has never really been a problem.

He’ll even eat his greens. The other day we went to a garden party and Harry, despite having already eaten lunch, wanted an egg and cress sandwich. However, before eating the sandwich he opened it up and started picking out the cress and munching away on it. Only when he’d finished all the cress did he eat the rest of the sandwich.

Harry has definitely got his mum’s sweet tooth, though. At the same garden party he demolished a chocolate brownie in seconds; milk chocolate buttons are also the most effective means of encouraging Harry to cooperate.

But I think Harry’s love of food might be going a bit too far. We took him to feed the ducks the other day but Harry spent most of the time eating the bread rather than throwing it to the ducks. Thank goodness I didn’t take stale bread.

To be fair to Harry, he did give some bread away but not until he’d eaten one and a half crusts. Honestly, sometimes his appetite amazes me.

When it comes to food, the most difficult aspect is trying to stay out of the firing line at meal times.

Harry is feeding himself most of the time now but it can get a little messy when he decides to whirl the spoon around his head. Believe me, it’s no good getting changed into smart clothes before feeding Harry – nine times out of ten you end up with debris all over you. As for the kitchen floor, it requires constant cleaning – I’m just grateful we’ve got tiles rather than carpet.

Talking time

Harry is starting to understand a lot more about speech and is now using words and sounds to communicate with us.

For instance, when he wakes up in a morning, he will ask for his juice; when he wants to watch his favourite television programme, Noddy, he will tell you.

Harry’s also good at following instructions (when he wants to, that is). If you ask him to pass you something, he will go and fetch it for you. Or if you ask him what sound a train makes, he makes a ‘toot toot’ noise.

According to my very limited research, the next six months will see his talking increase rapidly. One article I read said that between 18 months and two years, toddlers can learn up to 50 words a day, which means I’m going to have to start watching what I say.

As I’ve said before, Harry’s full of energy and he’s not afraid to explore his surroundings. The downside of all this activity, however, is that he does tend to get into a few bumps and scrapes – literally.

The other day, he tried to pick up a rather large picture frame that I’d carelessly left on our bedroom floor. Before I could grab him, he’d managed to scratch his eye, drawing blood and prompting an understandable crying fit.

But all this extra activity is having one desirable side-effect – he’s absolutely shattered by the end of the day.

Last week we broke a new record – Harry slept from quarter to seven at night until ten past eight the following morning. Even then, we had to wake him up because Melissa had to go to work.

And although sleeping until eight is still quite unusual, he’s certainly better than ever at night now. The knock-on effect is that Melissa and I are also sleeping much better – it’s remarkable how much sharper you feel having that extra hour and a half in bed.

I just hope I haven’t tempted fate.