Like father, oh mother

Thankfully for him, Jamie has inherited none of my looks. But on the flip side, he appears to have picked up my restlessness.

An old school friend once labelled me "Bee-In-The-Bum-Barry" and most people could see what she meant for I'm not very good at doing cool, calm and collected.

And tonight provided a perfect illustration of why I fear Master White is made out of at least some of the same highly-strung material. His bedtime routine was as normal and I put him down in his cot, ready to watch him drift off. But he had other ideas.

He pulled himself on to his feet, dangled his arms over the side of the cot and smiled manically. I put him down again. He reached up for a high five. I carried him over to a chair to nurse him to sleep. He lay and cackled at me. I took him downstairs to see if a bit of Champions' League football would do the trick. He battered me round the face with both fists, stopping every so often for a celebratory high five. His mother had a go at settling him down. He laughed and high-fived her too.

Eventually, she dragged him off to bed and, an hour and a quarter after his normal bedtime, he went to sleep. Dear oh dear.

But whilst I do feel somewhat guilty and certainly sympathetic for my contamination of Jamie's otherwise hugely impressive genetic make-up, it hasn't exactly been easy for me either.

My mum retired not that long ago after a lifetime as a nurse. Since then, she's done a number of things of note including getting a new mad dog called Boris and becoming an IT whizz.

The following is an extract of an e-mail I received from her on Friday morning:

"Boris has been dragging his bum on the carpet and so I went on the Internet and discovered it was engorged anal glands, this is why they sniff bums. It said you could go to the vet or do it yourself so I thought why not.

"Unfortunately it was raining and so I did it in the house with great results - only thing is the house stinks. Still Boris is happy and I saved money - maybe I could advertise and do it for other folk's dogs. I'll try anything.

"Love Mum."

Hopefully you see my point.