Help! Where's The Manual?: *Husband/Daddy Footnote*

Firstly I would like to draw your attention to the title of this entry – Yes, I am no longer writing Boyfriend Footnotes. This is an explanation for the lack of blogging over the last couple of months.

A lot has happened since our last liaison in the world of babies. The Boy's linguistic skills have gone from gurgling to Sarah-esque rabbiting. He has chosen his favourite sounds: ‘Dadda’ and ‘Eh!’ The first is designed to tease his father as each time he does a string of ‘dada, dada, dad-e’ I look at him to see if I can see a sign of recognition and see if he is talking directly to me. Once I suspected I was being called to his side but sadly I think it was more wishful thinking on my part. All in good time I suppose – he has the words, he just needs to work out their meaning.

The Latter word – ‘Eh!’ was designed to haunt and tease MY Dad. Hunter's Grandad, it seems, has found his conversational and intellectual equal. My dad started to mirror Hunter's noises when he pushed out a ‘eh’ or ‘ahhh’ and it went back and forth like an absurd Samuel Beckett play. So successful was this battle of minds that the following morning Hunter saw his Grandad, stared at him and went ‘Eh!’

Scared that visits to his grandparents would be preceded by the words ‘Going to see Nanny and Eh!’ my Dad has ceased this little game. (Below, the clip shows that our friend Matt has taken up the mantle of baby whisperer.)

This chatty nature has lead me to conclude that although a lot of people say Hunter looks like his dad increasingly he appears to be morphing into to his Mummy.

Evidence 1.

His ability to talk – A LOT!... And not always make sense.

Evidence 2.

All his sparkly new Christmas presents don’t compare to the grubby Sky remote control so we took an old remote, removed the batteries and let him play with that so we don’t have our viewing interrupted. Hunter won’t play with that remote – he only likes the one that is functioning. He doesn’t notice the channel changing and even prefers that remote when the TV is switched off. How does he know? Too smart for his dad! Also this proves that like his mum he insists on being couch commander.

Evidence 3.

Whenever a camera is in close proximatey he locates it, poses and holds the stare until his ‘best side’ is photographed. He loves the limelight… Sarah anyone?

RAs Sarah said, other developments are his movement or lack thereof. He leans to get to a toy but when it seems out of reach he soon scraps that for a closer, lesser favoured toy: ‘If at first you don’t succeed, lower your standards!’Sadly I fear he won’t be a footballer any time soon with his lack of mobility but maybe he’s too bright to be a pig gut kicker anyway.

I’m off to kiss Sarah Junior to sleep.