My Son the Viking

Tonight James was in his happy place.  First of all it was spaghetti bolognese for dinner – which would be his favourite if he wasn’t aware of the existence of lasagne*.  Then he managed to locate a Chupa Chup from God only knows where and I stupidly let him have it.  By bed time most of the Chupa Chup had made it into his little mouth and I had to prize the barren stick from his fist.  My efforts were rewarded by a series of grunts and angry squeals. 

When I’d finally managed to wrest the thing from him I surveyed the mess.  His hands and face were totally covered in sticky grey fuzz.  The hand that hadn’t been holding the lollipop looked like a domestic tumbleweed, so thick was the accumulation of hair and dust.  When he saw the face washer coming he narrowed his little eyes and quickly tried to shove as many sickly sweet strawberry–flavoured fingers into his gob as he could.

You see, my son is a Viking.  Three minutes alone in a room with him and you too will be dreaming of Valhalla and the valkyries.  It’s all there – the red hair, sturdy body – the devotion to food and a tendency to simply smash anything that doesn’t go his way (including his patient, long-suffering big sister).  After the first peace-loving little mite we can only conclude that there really is something to that nature side of the whole debate and James’ nature was clearly genetically forged in the heat of battle on a longship somewhere around 893AD.

Our boy does not merely eat and drink – he scoffs and quaffs.  No meal is complete unless the evidence of it is all over his face and through his hair.  And were we to allow it, he would almost certainly be 80% carnivore.  Meat in all its forms is his favourite.  The other 20% would be made up of cheese sauce and anything sweet. 

Having Charlotte first left me with some distinct impressions that I can now see are nothing short of naïve and totally useless as preparation for a baby like James.  First of all she was so dainty that nothing we owned needed replacing before he got here.  Everything was almost as good as when we bought it – even the high chair – which surely is the first to show signs of wear as baby navigates mashed pumpkin and learns the actual location of its mouth is nowhere near its ear. 

Consequently when the little guy came along I had seriously thought that I would be passing all of my baby-related items on to a better home when he outgrew them.  I now see that for the good of humanity a wasteland must be found, all clothes and accoutrements piled up, liberally splashed with something highly flammable and then everything sent on to the next life.

The warning signs were there the night he was born.  After worrying away at my breast for three hours and getting increasingly hostile I summoned a midwife to work out what the little guy’s problem was.  She laughed at my miffed expression, explained that I’d given birth to a four kilo Viking baby and that what he was after was milk and I technically didn’t have any.  She suggested I hand him over so they could give him some formula and get some sleep.

Six hours later I was convinced he’d died in his sleep because they still hadn’t brought him back.  Closer investigation in the nursery revealed my son, flat on his back, mouth wide open and out cold.  No, no whiskey for baby – only a tablespoon of formula but it did the trick.  He obviously has some lingering memory of just how good that first meal was because he’s been attempting to maintain full capacity in that little Buddha belly ever since.  And attempting to thrash anyone that gets in the way.

* Everything’s better with cheese sauce!