D’ya hear yer man

I had a week off last week. Except it wasn’t really a week off. When you have a five and a half month old in the house you’re never really ‘off’.

I wouldn’t change it for the world though. Lucy’s smiles to tears ratio is still around the 5:1 mark in favour of smiles so all the tribulations are rendered obsolete.

So after a week at the beck and call of a tiny baby I’m back to the Lurgan Mail where I have to ensure Clint’s demands are met. In a way their needs are not that different. As long as they’re both well fed and have plenty of toys to play with you’ll find they’re both very easy to get along with.

Just to clarify, Clint’s toys of choice are model tanks, BB guns, laptops and iPhones. Lucy is slightly more aloof in her tastes in that she prefers monkey phones and chewable mice.

(Both of us can throw tantrums - ED).

Over the blue moon

To say I was over the moon when Man City won the Premiership in dramatic fashion on Sunday is an understatement.

When you’re a Leicester fan like myself you don’t have much to cheer, so when somebody other than Man Utd wins the title that’s reason enough for me to celebrate. Plus, the fashion in which it happened couldn’t have been any more exciting.

I was watching the game in the house and as a consequence of City’s late winner I jumped out of my seat, let a roar out of me and mounted the sofa. What I forgot in that split second of pandemonium was that Lucy was sitting in her ‘play centre’ just across the room from me and Karen was catching up on some much needed sleep upstairs.

When the dust settled I had to deal with a crying baby and a cranky wife.

Unbelievably, in spite of the uproar, Lucy has jumped on the bandwagon and become a Man City fan. I suppose the boys in blue from Manchester are a fairly baby-friendly team, what with players like Yaya Toure (what babies say when they want to go for a walk) and Zabaletta (the noise babies make when they break wind in the bath).

Breach of privacy

One thing I’ve noticed about having a young child is that your boundaries of privacy become significantly reduced. For example a couple of months back we were out shopping and Lucy was in a bit of a tizz while I tried to get her coat on.

I sensed a nearby presence and I looked up from what I was doing to see this woman standing over us having a good gawk. “Don’t mind me - I’m just watching,” she said, before proceeding to tell me how cute Lucy was and enquire as to her age, weight, diet and sleeping pattern.

When the same woman caught me in her back garden with a set of binoculars she was a lot more sensitive about her privacy. I tried the ‘Don’t mind me - I’m just watching’ line, but it didn’t win me any favours with either the lady or the investigating officer.

Just last week when I was off I encountered another stranger with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. I was wheeling Lucy through a department store when the lady approached us and said, “She’s a lovely wee thing - what’s her name?”

“Lucy,” I replied.

“That’s a lovely name,” said the woman. “What age is she?”

“Five months and a bit,” I said.

“She’s very big for her age,” said the woman. “Is that two wee teeth I see?”

“Yes,” I replied. “She’s had them for a couple of weeks - they’re giving her awful bother.”

At this point Lucy’s face turned crimson and she let out a ominous, low growl.

“She must be going to the toilet,” said the woman. “How cute.”

Cute? I should have asked her if she wanted to change the nappy. Instead, since this complete stranger now knew all of Lucy’s vital statistics I decided to satisfy her inquisitive nature by giving her some details about myself in the same vein.

And so I told her, “My name is Graeme. I’m 35 and three quarters. Here’s a copy of my dental history and for the record my last bowel movement was at 10.05am.”

Needless to say her response was not, “How cute.”

Weekly teaser

The answer to last week’s teaser was: in order to outwit the evil king the peasant says, “I will be shot” thus rendering unfeasible his hanging for telling the truth or his shooting for telling a lie.

Here’s this week’s teaser: Remarriage and adoption excluded, is it possible to have a grandmother who is younger than your mother?