Amy

In the race for fitness, weight loss and generally better health I have fallen at the first hurdle. It was, depending on how you view it an enormous hurdle of record proportions or one quite tiny weighing 7lb ish (actually 7lb 9). I haven’t been to the gym for 2 weeks or played football for 3 and the reason is my beautiful new daughter Amy. As I type she is lying in her bed, out cold, a look of pleasure on her face that is known in the Thackeray household as ‘milky drunk’. Honestly, I have no idea where she gets it from.

I won’t go in to medical details, far too unfair on my wife. Suffice it to say that she needed to be induced and Amy was not immediately forthcoming. Two days were spent, on my part at least, hanging round the Royal Sussex County Hospital Maternity Ward listening to a cats chorus of labouring women. Still, in that time I got to read four chapters of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, three newspapers, fifteen different posters on breastfeeding, many of which had survived the 1970s and the somewhat confusing instructions on N’s combined telly and telephone contraption. So at least I was fractionally better educated when she did make an appearance compared to when said appearance was due.

Since we got her home I have been enjoying some paternity leave, not very much sleep and re-acquainting myself with baby signals. Roughly these are ‘I took a dump’ (red face and smelly bottom), ‘feed me’ (eating of hand and bobbing of head) or ‘windy’ (beatific smile). Anything else can be translated as ‘I am generally displeased’. Or ‘I am about to become hungry / take a dump / have wind’. Owen has been – seriously for a minute – a wonderful big brother. Aside from trying to climb in to the Moses basket to hug her. There has not been a moment of resentment (so far) and at times he has been almost mawkishly soppy. He has also been a great help. I am really hoping this lasts as going from one to two just adds another sibling-rivalry-type dimension of stress to the average middle class parent already worrying about everything from school placements to whether he was being deliberately nasty to little Jimmy last week at toddler art and craft when he hid the purple crayon in his pants.

The other thing paternity leave gives you a new awareness of is daytime TV. For instance there’s Escape to the Country in which a couple with great faces and fashion sense for Radio get to see lots of houses with Agas in that they can’t quite afford. Then there’s Bargain Hunt in which couples with faces and fashion senses designed for Radio buy some stuff then sell it for a loss at auction. I once caught Owen playing a game of Bargain Hunt with his stuffed toys and was minded to reprimand N for the amount of daytime telly he was watching but actually you only need to see these shows twice to understand the format. The rest is just a variation on a theme using people and places and the overall effect is as trance-inducing as meditation or good Scotch. It’s television you can dip in and out of, sometimes days apart, and given what knowledge sponges three year olds are it’s little wonder Owen fantasises that Happy Monkey was trying to make a profit selling a three day old Smartie to the blue team.

But where was I? Ah yes. Weight loss. Haven’t lost any. Starting again this week. Honest. I have been eating healthier (yes really, lots of fish, salad, roasted veg and fruits). I have cut down on the booze too (sleep deprivation and St Emilion do not mix). So next week it’s time to get back on the treadmill and see if it’s helping. Great South Run is T minus one year and counting.