White woes

We haven't had the best of times since my last post.

The first unfortunate little incident happened at about a quarter past midnight this morning. I'd turned off my light shortly after 11, about an hour earlier than normal, in need of some extra rest following the excesses of Tuesday evening's rugby dinner.

However, I was woken up by Jamie coughing very loudly and repeatedly. After a couple of minutes, I thought it best to look in on him. And from a parent's point of view, if you've made the effort to get up for a look, you might as well give your charge a bit of a stroke whilst you're there. So, I reached down to put my hands on him.

He was warm and sticky. Not ideal, but not that unusual. But he was also gooey which was clearly not normal. It took a second for the penny to drop - and then it did.

Our little man had just chucked up buckets - all over himself, his sleeping bag, his sleepsuit and his cot. And he was now trying very hard to get back to sleep, face down in a puddle of boke.

I had no option but to do what every other man I know would have done - shout for the baby's mother (what?!)

I hadn't a clue what else to do and women always tell us they know best in any case. This was Vanessa's chance to do it for the sisters.

To be fair, I did more than play my part in the overall operation. We stripped him down together, then I cleaned him up whilst Vanessa dealt with the "cot situation."

And finally, somewhat heroically one might suggest, I took him into the spare room for the next five and bit hours until it was time for Vanessa to get up to go to London.

Jamie tossed and turned pretty much throughout, meaning I didn't get a heck of a lot of sleep. I was therefore very much looking forward to this evening for a bit of R&R. What I didn't expect was to come home to a power cut.

To shorten yet another of my very long, dull stories, we appeared to be the only house on our street with no electric, I couldn't get hold of Vanessa to find out who our supplier is (she's in charge of all that stuff - I'm in charge of bins, as you know) and Jamie was getting very restless as it became pitch black in our house.

All we had for light was his Thomas The Tank Engine torch (thank heavens) and some chocolate biscuits for sustenance.

About an hour and 20 minutes later, just when matters were getting a touch on the desperate side and with Vanessa's mum now on the way over to rescue her grandson, Vanessa finally returned my call - and the lights miraculously and simultaneously came back on.

Clearly, both of our mini-difficulties could have been worse - but I do still feel the need to be cheered up.

Hopefully BNP scumbag Nick Griffin will get taken apart on Question Time later tonight. That would do the trick.

2047 UPDATE: They say bad things come in threes but you still might struggle to believe this. Jamie's just produced another mega-barf all over himself and his cot. But please do not be alarmed - Vanessa's in there scrubbing as I type.