Dear friends,
Well it’s that time of year again, folks. It’s getting dark before dinner, swine flu is in the air again, and the Hesselhoj household is buzzing with activity as preparations gather steam for the 2009 Christmas. The smell of summer is gone, the days are shorter and the morning autumn air is crisp, the BBQ’s have been packed away in the dusty garden sheds, the leaves are going brown and the sound of flip flops won’t be heard until next year. I love the smell of cut grass and when my wife embraces me covered in Hawaiian Tropic with a golden glow. This has now been replaced with a paler version in a black pyjamas, black scarf & wearing grandma’s fluffy comforters, and the scent of a baby hanging off her arm and the loud speaker comes on “Please change her diaper daddy”. Maya is now 4 months old and she drinks more milk than a Kiwi Rugby player and as a result daddy is busy sorting out new waste management policies in west London. As some sensible chap once commented on this smelly topic “If it looks like shit, smells like shit, mail it to your enemy…he will know what to do with it”. Unfortunately I have no enemies and it simply wouldn’t be possible to package up the goods.
Sleep – the most beautiful experience in life – except drink as WC Fields said, and yes I would agree with him yet having kids sort of makes you forget about sleep. People who say they sleep like a baby usually don’t have one! But when it comes to sleep both Reina and I have been blessed for now. Maya sleeps like Reina after a glass of wine. Both hands up in the air, legs slightly spread and a face with less facial expression than an ant on prozak. We try to keep it fairly quiet as we don’t want other tired looking parents to stab us out of envy, but I guess we have won the lottery for now. Yet this perfect child has clearly demonstrated to mummy and daddy that 7pm is just too early for bed, it sounds like Axl Rose in puberty when she rips it up to 110 decibels telling us to keep her company until 9pm. I can understand her, 7pm is only a good time to sleep if you are jetlagged or have a massive hangover. But the general Mama Tan has read in some book that babies at 4 months need sleep training so for now Maya is in Reina’s Paris Island Marine Corps bootcamp. When she finally falls asleep exactly at 9pm, good old Ralph Emerson manages to capture the moment “There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.” We sit in the living room enjoying some peace and quiet looking a little frazzled because we know the strange noises that are awaiting us in our bedroom when we go to bed around 11pm. Babies make some strange noises when sleeping, and in particularly Maya….. I am thinking about recording them so I can ask her later what she meant! Honestly, for all those men out there, don’t worry about snoring, a baby is ten times louder and it sounds like a mixture between Hulk Hogan wrestling Andre The Giant and a German Stucker dive bomber…so for once in your life the missus won’t elbow you during sleep.
They say a cynic is a man who when he smells flowers, looks around for the coffin. Maybe, but I think a cynic is a man who found out when he was about ten that there wasn’t any Santa Claus, and he is still upset. I am quite the opposite of a cynic, you might call me an optimist. In case you thought optimism was dead, the average pencil is 16 cm long with just 1cm for an eraser! Now back to the point on optimism, I historically have always driven fast and been known to get into minor altercations with other motorists. As a youngster I used to love driving fast while getting my wing wang squeezed and not spilling my drink, but as you mature the appetite for driving the car like a rental beast (.i.e. as if you stole it) is slowly fading away. I guess my optimistic view on how other people drive and there never being a car coming the other direction while making a silly overtaking maneuver is disappearing with age. “If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you’ve got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience” the issue with getting older is those thoughts become more realistic, luckily Maya is teaching us to think like kids again….she is a great excuse to do foolish things with enthusiasm and on that happy bombshell, have a great run up to Christmas and lets stay in touch for 2010.
Word up’
Danepack Shakur