Making Up Stories

We had a babysitter for G on Thursday night so the two of us could go for a night out in town. When we got back the babysitter said that after G had got out of bed, she told her a made-up story about "Princess G" in order to get her to drift back off to sleep.

The law of unintended consequences became apparent by Friday night. Books are now very last week, and every story has to involve some kind of made-up thing about our heroine (Princess G, Fairy Queen G, always G) doing something exciting. It's clear we're going to have to seriously improve our powers of creativity in order to make bedtime as stress-free as it, thankfully, usually is.

The picture was taken earlier on Friday, when we headed back to Saddleworth to take in a bit of the Whit Friday brass band contest in Dobcross. This was G's fourth Whit Friday, so I was supposed we were due a really rainy one.

Leading The Applause

This was G's third year as a spectator at the Whit Friday celebrations in Dobcross. She first went as a baby, and last year she was a bit bigger, but this time she was old enough to start to enjoy all the brass music during the evening contest.

She put in some rudimentary dance moves as each of the bands played, then joined in with everyone else to clap them off afterwards. Here she is leading the applause for the Diggle B band. She's proving to be such an enthusiastic learner, next year I might volunteer her services as a guest adjudicator.

A Walk And A Cake

Now that I'm working more, I don't get as many days at home with G as I used to. In fact, she spent the first three days of this week at nursery, and yesterday in the creche at the university where I've been teaching, so it made a bit of a change this morning not to have to rush around getting her ready to go out.

We celebrated later on by going for a walk along the local canal. G has got a lot better at this recently. Last summer, she'd usually turn around every few steps and ask to be carried. But now she's able to toddle along on her own at a reasonable speed without getting too tired. As the picture above shows, she can get away surprisingly quickly if you turn your back for a moment. She seems to know not to go too close to anything dangerous though.

We walked a bit further to the local garden centre, which claims to have the widest selection of cakes in the north west. I have no idea whether this is true or not, but, given that she is Salford-born and partial to raisins, I decided to treat G to an Eccles cake.

She ate it all. Or at least, she ate what didn't end up on the floor, her top, or all around her face. Having come out without G's bag, I had to ask a nearby table of mums-with-babies for some wipes. Salfordian or not, I might get her something less flaky next time.

Train Set

G can be a bit timid around older children. In the playground, she usually backs away when a bigger toddler wants to go ahead of her on the slide, or swings, or whatever. G often needs a bit of encouragement from me to get her elbows out and stand her ground.

This isn't the case when G is with younger ones, however. Whenever I take her to a parent-and-toddler group these days, she's invariably one of the oldest children there. At yesterday's group in Dobcross, she spent much of her time playing in one of the two big plastic cars. After a couple of occasions when she looked like she was about to barge a little girl out of the way to get back behind the wheel, I decided she needed distracting with something else.

And look what I found. A box of wooden tracks and trains were over in the corner of the room. I put together a rudimentary track, stuck a few of the carriages together, and G was kept amused for the rest of the morning.

"Chuffa-chuffa-chuffa-chuffa-toot-toot!" she said repeatedly. I didn't have the heart to explain that the trains were all diesel.

Sporty Tot

G's journey to becoming an Olympic athlete has begun. The council is laying on various activities for bored youngsters over the summer holidays, and one such is Sporty Tots, a series of free sessions for the under 5s held in the local schools. The first was in our village this morning so I took G along to see how she got on.

I wasn't exactly sure what sort of sporty things they'd get the little ones doing, although I was hopeful somebody would be on hand to teach G to throw, an important life skill which sadly passes many girls by.

When we turned up, it was clear G was by far the youngest of the children who would be taking part. Not that it seemed to bother her. During all the different games she ran around with a big smile on her face. Even though she only had a sketchy grip on what she was actually supposed to be doing, nobody seemed to mind, least of all G.

The picture shows her playing with the hula hoops. Long after the game that actually involved the hula hoops had ended, she kept on toddling back over to where they were to pick them up again. As far as the Olympics goes, I think they do use hoops, albeit in the rhythmic gymnastics. Besides the fact I'm not entirely convinced that's actually a sport, I'm not sure the ever-unsubtle G quite has the poise for it anyway. Will have to go back next week, if only to work on that throwing.

Spot The Toddler

Ok, so it isn't all that difficult to pick G out of this picture. But of all the ones I took of her yesterday on our trip to the Brownhill Nature Garden, she was always at least ten yards in front of me, toddling off to explore something else.

I must have walked past the garden dozens if not hundreds of times without ever going in. It's between Dobcross and Uppermill, squished in between the river, canal, railway line and road. But I'm glad to have finally discovered it. It's certainly safe enough to let G run around on her own, something which I'm increasingly reluctant to do elsewhere, given that she always looks like she's about to toddle out in front of a passing truck or something.

The only shame was that we must have been in the garden for the best part of an hour, and were the only people there. A sadly hidden gem in our little corner of the world.

Thistles

Here's G during one of our regular afternoon walks down by our local canal. That's the Saddleworth Viaduct in the background, and even though I'm no expert on flora and fauna, as a Scotsman I have no trouble identifying those things on the left as thistles.

The main reason for posting this photo though is to remind myself that, no matter how often people tell me how much G is growing, she's clearly still pretty small. In the grander scheme of things and that.

Teddy Bears' Picnic

I took G to a teddy bears' picnic last week. Because it was being held in our local Sure Start centre, not only was it free, but specifically you all paid for it. This photo shows G enjoying a taxpayer-funded sandwich. You'll be glad to know that she enjoyed it very much.

Before we left home, I had pondered filling G up with a second helping of breakfast, just so she wouldn't show me up by eating more than her fair share at the picnic. More fool me for not doing so. After polishing off her allocated sandwich and fruit, a mum next to me offered G the sandwiches that her little ones didn't want.

Unsurprisingly, G started chewing her way through a second sandwich. One of the leaders of the group came by and collected the half-finished plates belonging to all the other little ones, but still G ploughed on. By the time she'd polished off half of the third, I finally took it off her, because all the others were getting impatient waiting for the singing to the start.

As for the nursery rhymes, I noticed the woman leading the singing had one or two slight variations to the lyrics. For example, she finished Miss Polly Had A Dolly with "I'll be back in the morning with my bill bill bill" instead of "yes I will will will" which is how I've always done it. Perhaps it's just because I was brought up in the socialist utopia of Scotland, but I was shocked to learn that Miss Polly had apparently gone private. Clearly the waiting lists for dollies with unspecified illnesses are still too long.

Fundraiser

The other day a local mum came over to me (we were both at a teddy bears' picnic, but that's a whole other story) and asked for my e-mail address, so she could send me a "cute photo" she'd taken of G. And here it is!

This was on Sunday, during a free concert by our local brass band in the centre of the village. During a break, someone came on the microphone to ask if there were any "young volunteers" to pick up the collection buckets to take around the crowd. I looked down to find that G was already one step ahead, had grabbed two, and was toddling about, a look of determination on her face.

Everyone laughed. And, as the picture shows, I had to put down my pint to go and make sure the buckets got to some slightly older kids, more capable of carting them around without almost toppling over. G got her moment as the centre of attention though, which I'm sure is all she really wanted, little show off.

Trumpet

G has been to Saddleworth's Whit Friday walks and band contests before. But last year she was just a baby, and far too little to appreciate much of the music and pageantry (for what it's all about, you can read an article I wrote for The Guardian, yes that one, here).

This time was a bit different. At the age of almost 21 months, G was able to take in a lot more of what was going on around her, which particularly involved taking a close interest in the various doting older ladies she encountered during the day.

Also keeping G occupied, as shown in the photo taken during the morning Whit Friday service in our local village square, was a toy trumpet. Mrs J was late back from work on Thursday night because, she said, she simply had to stop by a well-known toy retailer and buy one. With brass bands coming and going all day, she correctly predicted that G would inevitably want to join in.

Given that some of the young children in the Dobcross Youth Band didn't look all that much older than G, it was easy to imagine that it might be her marching with them a few years from now. Much to my surprise, and even though G hasn't yet worked out that you only have to blow into the trumpet rather than put one end entirely in your mouth, the prospect of this filled me with pride.

I won't try to push her into it though. Well, maybe just a teeny bit.

Royal Wedding

Our local primary school was showing today's Royal Wedding on a big screen, so the three of us joined dozens of other local folk in the school hall to see the ceremony.

Lots of families were there so there were plenty of children milling about. The older ones sat down at the front to see the action, but G and a few of the others preferred to toddle about at the back.

I wasn't all that bothered about seeing the whole thing myself, which was just as well because I spent most of the time chasing G around. She didn't even flicker when the image of Kate in her dress appeared on the screen, but briefly settled in to watch when she heard the band strike up. Given other recent evidence, I think I might be raising a dancer, rather than a model.

Dancing With The Morris Men

The Saddleworth Morris Men visit a few of our local villages every Good Friday, and do a bit of dancing followed by a bit of drinking. It being such a beautiful day, we put G in her trike and pushed her up the hill into Dobcross Square to see them pass through. She sat quietly and watched as they did their performance, but had obviously been looking more closely than we realised.

Once the dancers had retired to the nearby pub for a swift one before the next village, their accordion player started up again with a bit of music. Hearing this, G toddled over and started doing her own version of morris dancing. This mainly involved waving her arms about, bending her knees and smiling rather than anything you could objectively describe as actual dancing, but, as the photo shows, everyone was very impressed.

G certainly enjoyed being the centre of attention. She can never be a true morris man because, well, let's just say she wasn't born into it. But if they're letting women join by the time she grows up, I'm sure she'll be first to volunteer.

Sunday Times Photoshoot

This picture of me and G appeared in The Sunday Times yesterday. It was illustrating a story about dads and babies, and appeared on page 4, hilariously pushing the article on the revolution in Egypt down to page 28.

The piece was about recent research in the US which suggested men were becoming increasingly keen to have children, as women focus more on their careers instead. As a stay-at-home dad, the article said that I "typified the new type of family setup." Not my words, but the words of The Sunday Times. And who am I to argue?

A photographer came round on Friday to take the pictures. He took some in our house then a few down by the canal in Dobcross, the village where we live. He then kindly sent me all the ones which weren't chosen for the paper.

This led me to think of a handy tip to help beat the economic downturn. People pay good money to have professional photos taken of their families. Clearly, all you actually have to do is be newsworthy enough to get a paper to do it for free. There's probably a limit to how far you should take that though. I don't think police mugshots are generally of such good quality.

(All pictures: Bob Collier for The Sunday Times)

Christmas Day

This was G's second Christmas. She's grown up a lot since last year, and was able to investigate her sack of presents for herself. She's also got the hang of the idea of taking the paper off her presents, but still needed a bit of help from me to fully get at all of her new toys.

In fact, because she still doesn't have much idea of what Christmas is and why it's incredibly exciting, G actually let me and Mrs J have a lie-in until 9am. That's something that I can't imagine we'll be able to do on Christmas Day for an awfully long time to come.

G also didn't complain as we soon dragged her away from her presents to go into our local village of Dobcross at lunchtime to check out the brass band's carol concert. As it has been for most of the last month, it was well below freezing even in the middle of the day. But under all her winter clothes, G didn't seem to mind too much.

There were quite a lot of families with young kids at the band club, many of them clutching various gadgets and other things they'd clearly unwrapped that morning. G was in the mood for showing off, and crawled all over the room smiling and gurgling. She even bumped into some of her little friends from one of the parent and baby groups I take her to. There was still no proper walking from her though.

G started to get tired so we took her back home for a nap while Mrs J cooked up Christmas dinner. Once G got up later we all sat down to eat. G had a bit of everything on her plate, and happily munched through just about all of it.

The only exception, predictably enough, were the sprouts. As soon as she put one of the little green things in her mouth she made a disgusted face and spat it out. Seeing as me and Mrs J both quite like sprouts, her dislike of them can't be genetic. Maybe we'll try them out on her again next year.

On The Swings

This morning me and G were stuck in the house. Mrs J had gone off to work with both her keys and mine, which meant the two of us were locked in. It was like a particularly dull episode of The Crystal Maze, only without Richard O'Brien, but with the a baby who has been coughing and snuffling all week with the first of doubtless many colds she'll get this winter.

After a while Mrs J drove back to let us out (no crystal required), and I put G in her new trike and took her down to the park in our local village for a go on the swings. That made her forget her cold for a while, and her spluttering was replaced by a broad smile as she swung back and forward. Every time we go she seems to want to swing higher. I can see it ending in tears one day soon, but at least the park has got a nice soft landing area.

At The Cricket

On Saturday I was supposed to join Mrs J and G at a first birthday party for one of G's little friends. About ten minutes before we were going to leave I got a phone call asking if I'd be able to fill in at (very) short notice for my cricket team, Delph and Dobcross Second XI. I decided an afternoon of sporting endeavour might be more my thing than a house full of babies, so left Mrs J to take G to the party, dug my whites out of the cupboard and got down to the ground. I scored five not out, so I'm sure you'll agree it was well worth it.

Yesterday we all went back to the ground to watch a bit of our First XI playing a cup semi-final. The photo shows G relaxing while enjoying the action. Thankfully I wasn't on the field, so she was spared the embarrassment of actually having to watch me play. I've decided I'm going to have to improve a lot before I even think about letting that happen, which is probably for the best for both of us.

Looking In The Other Direction

Here's a picture of me and G yesterday afternoon, in the centre of our village watching the local brass band doing a free outdoor concert. Something other than the music had clearly caught G's attention at the moment Mrs J took the photo, which makes the image a bit reminiscent of the cover art from The Verve's Urban Hymns album. Not sure which one of us is Richard Ashcroft and which is Nick McCabe, though.

G was still looking in the other direction later in the day, when England played Germany at the World Cup. She seemed singularly disinterested in the first half, and didn't protest when I put her down for a nap during half-time. Perhaps she just couldn't face watching any more of England's terrible defending.

Having lived in England for more than ten years, my old yearning for England to lose every game 10-0 has slowly ebbed away. Now that I've got an English-born daughter, I actually felt obliged yesterday to hope for an England victory. At least I wasn't too disappointed when that hope was crushingly snuffed out by the Germans. Even though she was too young to understand it all this time, I suspect G has plenty more such disappointments ahead of her. Especially if I force her to support Scotland as well as England.

Whit Friday

Today is Whit Friday. If that means nothing to you it's hardly surprising, because it's not exactly near the top of the league for big religious festivals these days. It's not even on the same level as Epiphany, let alone Easter.

Everywhere that is, except Saddleworth. Here Whit Friday is the biggest day of the year, with every village holding a Whit Walk and service in the morning, and then a brass band contest in the afternoon and evening. Why the tradition of celebrating Whit Friday has survived here and nowhere else is not exactly clear, but survived it has. And having moved into the area earlier this year, today was our first Whit Friday in Saddleworth.

With Mrs J off work, we took G up to the middle of our nearest village, Dobcross, in time for the service in the square at 10 o'clock. The picture at the top shows the Dobcross Silver Band marching in. The whole village seemed to be there, and after a few hymns and readings we all walked off behind the band down to Uppermill where bands and walkers from all over the area met for another service. Everyone gets a break now before the serious business of the contests begins later, accompanied by lots of drinking.

The Dobcross Youth Band were there this morning too, with some very junior members who didn't look all that much older than G. If we stay in this area, hopefully we'll be back in years to come to watch G all dressed up and wielding a trombone or something similar. She certainly seemed to enjoy her first experience of it.

Six Months

G is six months old today. I could write something reflecting on the beautiful journey we've been on as a family since the day she was born, and talking about all of the wonderful emotions we've experienced. But if you've been reading this blog over the last six months, you'll know that kind of nonsense isn't really my style. And besides, G decided to get up at 4 o'clock this morning and refused to go back to sleep, so I'm feeling a bit tired to do anything creative.

Instead, here's a picture Mrs J took of us last night, as I took G for her first trip in her new carrier. We went for a walk up the hill to the postbox and back, and G smiled all the way.

A Cold Day

Here's G looking singularly unimpressed by a duck waddling past. I took this by the side of the River Colne in Marsden, after deciding it would be a good idea to drive over the top for a walk around the village. It's been one of those lovely winter days, mostly clear and sunny skies with a sprinkling of snow on the ground. We've had the odd mini-blizzard during the day, but we managed to get to Marsden and back without getting stranded.

Even though it's only a short distance away, Marsden seems to be much higher up than Dobcross, and it certainly seemed a lot colder today. Pushing G around I quickly found my hands going red and then numb, and she wasn't looking particularly warm either, so I called an early halt and stopped in at a coffee shop for a brew. It was selling some homemade ice cream, which seemed like an especially bold business decision in the middle of winter. I didn't try any.

Earlier, I went to the parent and baby group in the church hall in Dobcross. For the second week running I turned up with some homebaking to dish out in the form of millionaire's shortbread. This prompted some general discussion among the other mums along the lines of how I was putting them to shame. I can tell that if I keep bringing sweet treats every week, instead of becoming more popular (as you'd expect in, say, an office) it might actually have the opposite effect. Such are the paradoxes faced by the stay-at-home dad.

The group finishes with a little singsong for the kids (most of them are toddlers). Among the nursery rhymes I sang today, for the first time in at least 20 years, were Jack and Jill, The Grand Old Duke of York and Hickory Dickory Dock. G isn't old enough to join in yet, but when she is I hope she'll prefer something a bit trendier.