First Boyfriend

This week's big news is that G has her first boyfriend. They met in the old-fashioned way, at nursery.

Mrs J first became suspicious a couple of weeks ago, when she arrived to pick up G, who wanted to take an Octonauts toy home with her. "You can't take that with you, it belongs to nursery," said Mrs J. "But N said I could take it," pleaded G. The nursery leader let them take the toys as long as they brought them back, which might say something about G's negotiating skills.

Since then, Mrs J has noticed that G and N are usually the last children left in the group when she goes to collect G. Clearly, romance has blossomed during this time alone together. In the car on the way home on Tuesday, unprompted, G announced: "N is my boyfriend. And I am a girlfriend". When she got back and Mrs J relayed this news, I asked G what N was like. "We play with toys together!" she said, excitedly. All very sweet, but I suppose I'd better be ready for her to come home inconsolably upset one day, just in case.

I took this picture yesterday, during a walk at the lake at Clifton Country Park.

Playdate

We had a trip up the road to Aberdeen last week, so G could see a couple of friends, including her first meeting with a baby boy over from Australia. It's a long drive even without a recently-potty-trained toddler in the back, so I was prepared for a lengthy and miserable journey. But G's new-found love of Thomas The Tank Engine helped no end.

After a bit of a snooze on the way up, she managed to use the potty at a service station then spent a couple of hours quietly watching Thomas chuff his way about Sodor (the DVD I'd brought was mostly from the Ringo Starr era, obviously). So no trouble at all.

The return journey on Friday evening was even more successful. I hoped a night-time drive would help her sleep, and sure enough she dozed off in front of the DVD before we'd even reached Dundee, not waking up again until we were passing Lancaster. "Where's Thomas?" was the first thing she said, rubbing her eyes, as I'd unplugged it as soon as I'd realised she was asleep. So she got an extra half an hour or so of train-based fun before we finally made it home.

You might consider all this TV to be a bad thing, and I suppose it is, but it's infinitely better than a long drive on your own with a whining toddler. And for that reason, the portable DVD player remains one of the great inventions of mankind.

Our actual stay in Aberdeen, cold and surprisingly snowy even though it's only October, was well worth the trip. G is a couple of years older than the little ones we went to see, but she managed to play nicely and share the toys without too much persuasion. However, as the photo shows, she preferred to get me to join in with even more ludicrous games of hide-and-seek.

Goodbyes

We're moving house this weekend, and so today was G's last day at her current nursery. She's been there for almost a year, overcoming early tears to settle in, have lots of fun and make plenty of friends. For most of the time she's been doing nursery two days a week, although as I've been working more often it's regularly been full weeks lately. As if to reassure us that it's not a big deal, she often spends her time away from nursery chattering about what she's been doing there, so I've no doubt it's been a great experience for her. I don't do adverts, so I'll tell you for free that the Fire Station Nursery in Mossley is a very good one.

And so today was all about goodbyes. I'd been talking to G over the past couple of days about how she was going to have to say goodbye to her friends and the staff, although I'm sure she doesn't really understand the first thing about it. But it was a weirdly emotional scene when I went to pick her up, and encouraged her to say goodbye to the other toddlers.

She waved cheerily at them all, saying all of their names, completely unaware that she is probably never going to see any of their little smiling faces ever again. I mean, she knew all of their names! Perhaps I'm just going a bit soft, but I had to resist the temptation to burst into tears at the sadness of it all. Although given that I was in a room full of women who probably see this sort of thing every week, I thought better of it.

Next week, G will be at a new nursery with new staff and lots of new boys and girls to play with. Even before she starts she'll probably have forgotten all about the friends she's made here, but I'll remember.

And just in case I forget, they gave me the folder they've been recording her progress in all this time. I think this is the closest thing I've ever seen to those semi-mythical permanent records my teachers always used to chunter about in school.

It's fascinating, in a way that only a collection of mundane papers about your own child can be. There's lots of information in there about G's development, including the revelation that it was about a month before she managed not to get upset after I dropped her off. It was all uphill from then on.

Ground Floor

We've had an old friend staying with us this weekend, and here's G doing her best to get in the way as I tried to get the spare room ready the other day. We went to the airport to meet him on Friday, and I had to be creative to keep G entertained while we waited. Eventually we ended up going up and down in one of the big lifts, with G repeating what the disembodied announcer was saying. "Ground floor!" she chirruped happily, at least 397 times. Next time I'll remember to take her a book.

Day Out In Saltaire

We went to visit some friends for a day out yesterday. The three of us drove over to Saltaire, the workers' village established by venerable mill owner Sir Titus Salt. Clearly proud of his creation, he named it after himself, but I suppose as a mega-rich Victorian entrepreneur that was his prerogative.

His mill is now a complex of various things, and the picture shows G at our lunch table before we went for a walk around the village, a walk which included a ride on a little old tramway up the valley.

We were with our friends Penny and Sam, who had been at a wedding in Saltaire the night before. Penny is the person responsible for introducing me to Mrs J more than 11 years ago. This means that G basically owes her entire existence to Penny, so it was just as well G was generally very well behaved during our day out, although she did repeatedly insist that Mrs J had to carry her everywhere when she got tired of walking.

This might have something to do with the fact that G sees a lot more of me, and so whenever Mrs J is around, I am immediately a bit old hat. Yesterday, after a lot of "Mummy carry! Mummy carry!" Mrs J eventually gave up, protesting about sore arms. When I then picked G up she immediately burst into unconvincing tearful whines, wanting her mummy. This forced us into a quick pitstop for afternoon tea, a few mouthfuls of scones enough to cheer G up again. It's clear that the way to earn G's favour is still through her belly.

Self Portrait

Ok, so it's not exactly a self-portrait, I took this picture of G and me earlier by putting the camera in my outstretched right arm and pointing it in our general direction. I think it came out pretty well.

G is still too young to understand what cameras are, let alone how to use one to take a photo of herself. But she has worked out that I'm doing something significant when I aim it at her, because she usually smiles and tries to grab the thing. She always likes being the centre of attention, my little girl.

She was on particularly good form over the weekend as we took her to see some of our friends. One said, "She always seems so happy." I tried to explain that this is a bit misleading, and that G tends to be at her smiley best in front of other people, probably precisely because she is in front of other people. G saves her whingeing and whining for when she's stuck on her own with me, which is of course entirely understandable. She soon brightens up again when I get the camera out though.

The G-Dog Meets A Real Dog

I sometimes call G the G-Dog. Partly this is because it seems reasonable to have a selection of short nicknames for her, so I don't have to use her much fancier, proper name all the time. And partly because she's obviously cool enough to have a hip-hop name. I'm tempted to take things further and start putting her in big shades and a medallion, although I think other parents might do more than just look at me sideways if I started turning up to baby groups with G in full Flavor Flav attire.

Anyway, a couple of friends came to stay this weekend and brought their Border Terrier. As the photo shows, this meant the G-Dog got to hang out with a real dog. Both of them seemed to enjoy it, and G spent a lot of time closely watching what her new friend was doing. Mrs J thinks this means we should get a dog, although I'm inclined to wait until G is a few years older, so it can be her pet as well. If I'm feeling generous I might even let G choose the name. At least, unlike me, she probably wouldn't think it'd be amusing to call it Snoop Dogg.

Christmas Party

We took G to her first Christmas party last night. The three of us went over to Leeds where a couple of our friends were laying on their annual festive feast, which has grown over the years to be so big there were 20 people packed into their living room for a share of this turkey and an array of other treats.

Mrs J went out the night before for a 30th birthday, so we decided that she'd be designated driver yesterday and deal with G if she started playing up. This meant I could get on with the serious business of drinking beer and generally making a prat of myself. We put G in a Christmassy dress but she wasn't in much of a party mood, and managed to ignore the noisy crowd of drinkers and drift off to sleep early in the evening.

After dinner came the party games, and we split into two teams to take part in a variety of activities including electro-shocking tanks (I lost), speed mince-pie eating and Xbox karaoke (Mrs J stormed to victory). The final tiebreaker involved three people from each side trying to down up to three pints of ale out of a comedy horn which had been bought (on the Internet, of course) for the occasion. Despite having to do an extra half pint because of our poor performances in most of the earlier events, my team came within four seconds of winning, although this photo reveals that my technique may need some work.

G was upstairs and (mostly) asleep during all of this, but I'm sure when I tell her about it when she's older she'll be very proud.

Whitworth Art Gallery

Continuing our patronage of the Manchester arts scene, I took G down to the Whitworth Art Gallery today. Shamefully, during the whole year I studied at the university (which is basically next door) I never actually got round to going to the gallery, so thought I'd better put that right. And besides, people kept telling me the café was brilliant, which is enough reason to visit anywhere.

It's been a cold day in Manchester so I wrapped both G and myself up in plenty of layers and set off for the walk down Oxford Road. I'd arranged to meet a friend for lunch and made sure I turned up in plenty of time so I could have a quick walk around the gallery with G. When it comes to museums I usually prefer looking at stuff rather than art, but I enjoyed an interesting exhibition on American prints of the 20th century. There was also an exhibition about art as it relates to trees, and I have to say that lost me a bit. True to form, G was fast asleep throughout.

We both perked up when it was time to go to the café to meet my friend for a coffee and some food (I had a tasty Indian parsnip soup, who knew the Indians liked their parsnips?). Well I say we both perked up, I certainly did, although as you can see, G remained oblivious to everything until I got her out of her pram so my friend could have a hold. Even then G stayed snoozy, and not even the occasional groups of bored-looking students disrupted her. I tried telling my friend that G isn't always so angelic, but I don't think she believed me.

The Back Room Of The Castle

We took G to the pub this afternoon. A friend of ours is up from London for the weekend and he was meeting people in The Castle, just round the corner from our flat. So for the first time since Mrs J was heavily pregnant, we decided to pop down there. As you can see from the picture, we installed G in her pram in the back room, next to the old piano, and got a round in. The one on the right was G's (we brought it with us).

As it turned out, she remained asleep the whole time we were there, although we didn't chance our luck by staying too long. Besides, you never know when someone from social services is going to turn up. Apparently they take a dim view of this sort of thing.

Naked Baby Photos

Mrs J went out with one of her friends yesterday lunchtime for a meal of some of the things she wasn't allowed to have while she was pregnant. She had a starter with some poached eggs in it, then a medium-rare steak and finally some chocolate fondant pudding, along with a big glass of wine. I didn't feel too left out though because I stayed in with G and watched some of the rugby union, and it was just as well I did (I was younger than G the last time we beat them).

Later on, I went out and left Mrs J and her friend alone with G and a camera. When I came back I found they'd carried out a whole photo shoot with the poor girl. I've decided to post up the naked baby photos partly because going in the bath already seems to be G's favourite time of the day, but mostly because I'm already looking forward to embarrassing her with them at her 16th birthday.

The Other Side Of The Pennines

We took G for her first trip over the Pennines today. I'd softened our little Lancastrian girl up for this culture shock by baking some Yorkshire parkin last night, and she didn't show any anxiety during the drive on the M62. Admittedly, this probably had nothing to do with the gingery smell of traditional Yorkshire baked goods and everything to do with the fact she always sleeps during car journeys, but whatever.

We were visiting some friends in Leeds who are about to leave for France to run a chalet business for the winter season. They're going to be doing the catering and, having tried some of their food this lunchtime, I can say it'll be worth staying there for that alone, never mind the skiing.

Typically, G chose the middle of lunch to present us with her latest epic nappy. She'd seemed a bit unsettled and, as it was almost feeding time, I took her into our friends' bathroom for what I hoped would be a quick change. Imagine my delight on discovering that she'd managed to overflow her nappy again, even though it was a size bigger than the one she destroyed last week. This led to lots of wailing, screaming and wriggling, as I tried to get her dirty clothes off, clean everything up and then get some new clothes on. G hasn't yet realised that the more thrashing about she does in these situations, the longer the whole unpleasant business takes. I'm hoping it's a lesson she'll learn soon.

Eventually I managed to make her presentable again and after she'd been fed she calmed right down again. Calm enough in fact to get passed around everyone without crying, as the photo at the top shows. But then she's usually a little angel whenever she knows that anyone else is watching. It's the rest of the time we need to sort out.

On Her Best Behaviour

We've been trying to give each other some regular time away from G so we don't end up going completely insane. Yesterday was my turn for a few hours off duty, so I went over to Halifax to see some friends and to watch their FA Cup fourth qualifying round match with Wrexham. Since you ask, they lost 1-0 to an injury time goal, and there wasn't much sign of the magic of the cup.

Although it was good to be away for a while, by the end of the game I was already looking forward to getting back. Mrs J had taken G round the shops in Manchester, and said she'd been restless all afternoon. We had some friends coming over for dinner so when I got home I tried to settle G down. She likes being held a bit too much and has developed an annoying habit of waking back up as soon as you put her down to sleep. But at the third time of asking she properly drifted off, just as tea was ready. Our friends were suitably impressed as G slept soundly for the rest of the evening.

Inevitably, it didn't last. Almost as soon as our friends had gone G was back to being grouchy, and I was up until almost 2 o'clock looking after her. Then Mrs J was up with her for another three hours after that. We've clearly been living in Manchester for a while now, because Mrs J later sleepily told me G had been "mithering" the whole time. Rather than an extra hour in bed, we ended up with about three hours fewer.

Today, our friends came over again, but true to form by this time G was back to her angelic best behaviour. Everyone that meets her must think we have such an easy life. As you can see from the picture, she's still asleep. But because Mrs J has gone for a nap and I'm now on my own with her, I know I'm probably about 38 seconds away from some more crying.