I Have Seen This Face a Thousand Times

The numerous joys of motherhood...... no 10,423

This morning Olivia was laying on her Daddy's chest as he lay on the bed and tried to make her giggle. She obviously wasn't impressed as she vomited on his face. In her defence she missed his mouth by about an inch and it trickled down his cheek and down his back. Luckily he saw the funny side and we both collapsed into laughter. As Daddy M said at the time comedy is tragedy mixed with timing.

What makes this a joy of motherhood rather than fatherhood...the fact that it didn't happen to me:)

A Passion Play

A scene from earlier this evening...

Dramatis Personae:
DAD_TO_BE - A mid thirties father of a six week-old baby.
OLIVIA - a six week-old baby.

INT - LOUNGE - NIGHT

A man, DAD_TO_BE is sitting in a dimmed room cradling his baby daughter, OLIVIA, in his arms. His wife has just left the room. He talks to the apparently-sleeping baby quietly.

DAD_TO_BE
(sotto voce)
We love you, Olivia.

DAD_TO_BE looks at the baby as if to guage her reaction. She remains apparently unmoved and asleep.

DAD_TO_BE (CONT.)
(sotto voce)
Daddy loves Olivia.
Daddy thinks Olivia is
his masterwork, yes he does!
Daddy thinks Olivia is the
best thing he has ever made...

The man stares down at his child, full of emotion as, with perfect comedic timing FX: OLIVIA loudly farts.

The baby opens her eyes and smiles.

I've Got a Photograph, I've Got a Picture of You

(Olivia asked if I would let her write this miscellaneous gallery entry herself, so I'm going to correct her spelling but otherwise hand over to her for a bit.)

"This is me doing a yawn while being held by my Daddy. His job is to change my nappy and I did a very brilliant joke on him where I did a poo and then my Daddy cleaned me up and put a new nappy on and then before he could do it up I did another poo and then my Daddy cleaned me up and put a new nappy on and then before he could do it up I did another poo but I only did it three times because more than three violates the cardinal rules of comedy. It was very brilliant.

"I like him.

"This is me about to have my first bath and you can see my cord is shrivelling and black and Debra who is the lady that caught me when I came out says it will fall off soon and this is very brilliant.

"This is me having my first bath and I used to like Debra but now I am not sure and I know I don't like baths - they are not very brilliant at all.

"Debra is checking my heart and my lungs and she says they are very brilliant so now I like her again and she also checked my reflexes and did this thing on my legs where she checked me for clicky hips and my Mummy and my Daddy both went a bit green when she did it but it was okay really.

"This is me and my Great Nana who I am named after and she was very happy to see me and she liked me a very lot indeed and she wasn't even rude about me like she was about my Daddy when he was a baby and this is because I am too cute for words and even people who aren't related to me say that this is the truth so it must be.

"I like her.

"I am sitting with my Mummy, my Nana and my Great Nana and this makes four lots of ladies in a row and my Grandma is taking my photograph and it is very brilliant indeed.

"I am very tiredly now and I think I am going to ask my Mummy to make me some foods and then I am going to have some sleeps in my brain. That would be very brilliant."