Long time no blog

Now all two of you avid readers will have noticed a long absence of news about little Max. Well we were on holidays. En vacances en France! Tres bien! I didn't advertise this beforehand because I know for a fact that one of you avid followers is a burglar with my home address, just waiting for advanced notice of a trip and bang - the apartment would be cleared out! Sorry I seem to have slipped through a few tenses there.

So news of Max - well it turns out that there is a little switch in a baby's head that flicks on at about five or six weeks. This activates their personality, motor function and realisation that there is a world and people in it. Max's has flipped. He is of course seven weeks old (and two days) now, and still 'very advanced'.

His switch flipped a couple of weeks ago, just before we went to France. He started to properly look at things. Not just stare blankly into space. He started to recognise his mum and dad and not just flick his head from side to side in search of food. It is very funny to look back at what we thought were smiles. They were just wind, we turn to each other and knowingly smile at our young parent naivety. I wonder if there is a conspiracy of silence amongst older parents to let the young ones have their imaginings and not burst their bubble.

Well if I thought that the things he did were cute, there is a whole world of cute having its six days of creation at the moment. He is smiling, laughing, grabbing for things, looking at his mobile, toys and visitors. He is very nearly properly interactive. Now we are not at the stage of teaching him the alphabet but we have high hopes for an early appearance on 'So you think you can dance' judging by his hyperactive arms and leg movements.

So the real sickeningly cute thing is the smiles for his mum and dad. I was not prepared for this. When he is not troubled by hunger, wind or a nappy and when he sees one of us, his face breaks out in a smile. And it is just us. We two are the two he is happy about - distinctly. Sure in his world - she is the one with the food and he is the one who takes away the waste but i will settle for that level of pigeon-holing if it means a smile like that!

But it's not all joy and glee. I want to recount a very disturbing development that goes along with improved brain function, drool. Lots of drool. The vomit I can handle. That's simple, wipe it up, wash the clothes and move on. The drool is more subtle. It creeps where the vomit assaults. Let me explain. It's the summer. At night I take the astonishing move of discarding the top half of my Dickensian style night attire. When the little man needs soothing in the darkness, up over the shoulder he goes. Rocking backward and forward is the best plan for getting him back to slumberland. Imagine then if you will the sensation of warm but cooling liquid dropping down your exposed back in the middle of the night. Horror stories begin in such a way. At first it feels like an insect is crawling - legs, creeping down. then it feels like an itch, so you scratch and your hand comes away moist. Cue the screaming girl and you have the full picture. I know I should hang a cloth over my shoulder, but lets face the reality of sleep deprivation, at 2:30 am I am incapable of any cleverness, nevermind motor function.