Sun - November 14, 2004
He's on his feet!
Yes, indeed, he's now a proper homo
sapien having got onto his hind legs and made that small step from four-legged
beast to the upright dignity of human-kind
Whether his 'return of the living dead' zombie
stumbling counts as walking is another question but he definitely stands, takes
a couple of steps, stops, looks around a wee bit panicky and then slumps onto
his bum or his face. Close enough to walking for me. Henceforth, 8 November will
be officially recognised as the day Ewan made the evolutionary leap and became
the equivalent of a small ape. Mandy! Get the reins on him quick
before he disappears up the apple
tree.
Lookalikes?
Australopithecus afarensi or Ewan Hope?
Lookalikes?
Australopithecus afarensi or Ewan Hope?
Posted at 08:42 PM
Sun - October 31, 2004
Spooky goings on in the fishbowl
Is it the way the light's playing on the
water or is the ghost of Limpy haunting the top of the fridge?
Of course not literally the top of the fridge.
Can you imagine the ghost of a goldfish lying flapping on top of the fridge? No,
in the bowl. Look: if that's not the ghost of a goldfish, then it's not
hallowe'en.
It could just be some slivers of carrot carved to look like a fish.
Other news. We've been taking full advantage of the scandalously low priced .Mac service offered by Apple to upload all the really pants photos taken with the fabulous Treo 600 mobile phone / PDA / camera. The gadget might be fabulous but the photos are crap. Ewan's fault. Won't stay still. Always shoving his massive noggin into the camera. You can see the fruits of this technological advance by clicking here but don't say you weren't warned. They are rubbish.
It could just be some slivers of carrot carved to look like a fish.
Other news. We've been taking full advantage of the scandalously low priced .Mac service offered by Apple to upload all the really pants photos taken with the fabulous Treo 600 mobile phone / PDA / camera. The gadget might be fabulous but the photos are crap. Ewan's fault. Won't stay still. Always shoving his massive noggin into the camera. You can see the fruits of this technological advance by clicking here but don't say you weren't warned. They are rubbish.
Posted at 01:23 PM
Sun - October 24, 2004
Birthday tragedy - new pets die almost immediately
Poor wee boy. Gets his first pets for his
birthday and has to come face-to-face with death. But hey, let's not get all
Liverpudlian about it.
It's tragic. His first pets have gone and snuffed
it barely a week after their arrival. Actually not even a week. Last Monday he
got his birthday present from, well, let's not say who from seein' as they were
rubbish, obviously well past their 'give before' date and croaked almost
immediately. True, we might not have looked after them brilliantly but a cute
round bowl with a plastic plant and some gravel: what more could they have
wanted? Air maybe? Some food? Not to constantly swim around in circles with only
the spine of the Yellow Pages and the label on a bottle of oil (but good virgin
olive oil, not your supermarket barrel-scrapings) to read. Who knows?
But Limpy (the small one) is not limping any more and Dan is no longer the man. If all the previous cruelties weren't enough to get the social workers in, surely this must? Doubt it.
Anyhow, they've made their last swim to the big celestial tank in the sky via the downstairs, err, burial chute. Helped on their way by a whooshing torrent of clean water. They looked a bit perky as they went round the u-bend. Maybe it was just the movement of the water. Maybe it was the clean water they were after. In the short time they were with us we managed a couple of photos. Some might say they're out of focus and crap but I like to think of them as interestingly abstract, symbolising how any attempt to describe reality is only one of many possible narratives. Honest. As my late mentor Derrida explained "La 'déconstruction', c'est prendre une idée, une institution ou une valeur et en comprendre les mécanismes en enlevant le ciment qui la constitue. Au-delà de cette expression, qui peut intriguer ou faire fuir, c'est un philosophe qui peut aider à la compréhension de la société."
But Limpy (the small one) is not limping any more and Dan is no longer the man. If all the previous cruelties weren't enough to get the social workers in, surely this must? Doubt it.
Anyhow, they've made their last swim to the big celestial tank in the sky via the downstairs, err, burial chute. Helped on their way by a whooshing torrent of clean water. They looked a bit perky as they went round the u-bend. Maybe it was just the movement of the water. Maybe it was the clean water they were after. In the short time they were with us we managed a couple of photos. Some might say they're out of focus and crap but I like to think of them as interestingly abstract, symbolising how any attempt to describe reality is only one of many possible narratives. Honest. As my late mentor Derrida explained "La 'déconstruction', c'est prendre une idée, une institution ou une valeur et en comprendre les mécanismes en enlevant le ciment qui la constitue. Au-delà de cette expression, qui peut intriguer ou faire fuir, c'est un philosophe qui peut aider à la compréhension de la société."
Posted at 01:52 PM
Wed - October 13, 2004
Happy birthday to the wee man!
Aye, who'd have thought that after just
12 months we'd be celebrating young Ewan's first birthday
But it's true. Anybody with even the most
rudimentary understanding of how a calendar works knows that after 365 days have
passed (except in a leap year. Have I mentioned leap years?), the boy stops
being aged zero and becomes 1. And boy did he have fun! Opening presents after
breakfast, swimming and then a trip to West Barns to the East Links Family Park
to see some chickens, sheep, ostriches, llamas, ponies and cows. And rabbits and
guinea pigs and other things with two and four legs. And a train to take you
round. Great fun. So here's the man enjoying
himself.
Ah, but that's really unfair. Makes him look like an insufferable, greetin' face. He was very sleepy and couldn't let himself go to sleep. Overstimulated by all the garish plastic and loud toys that he'd been getting. And the swimming. Didn't know what to do with himself. He had a good time at the Park. Especially the wee chicks and the trampoline.
There we go. Bright educational plastic. 'C' is for caterpillar don't you know. Who's fat arse is that in the back? Beats me.
Ah, but that's really unfair. Makes him look like an insufferable, greetin' face. He was very sleepy and couldn't let himself go to sleep. Overstimulated by all the garish plastic and loud toys that he'd been getting. And the swimming. Didn't know what to do with himself. He had a good time at the Park. Especially the wee chicks and the trampoline.
There we go. Bright educational plastic. 'C' is for caterpillar don't you know. Who's fat arse is that in the back? Beats me.
Posted at 11:50 PM
Tue - October 12, 2004
Happy New Year!!
Shocking I accept. I'm still blaming the
lack of broadband (plus a major collapse in the software). But console yourself
with the thought that he hasn't learned the piano, discovered a new planet or
performed any major acts of athletic prowess. He just did the usual things that
a zero-year-old does. You've not missed much.
Still, now that I've got the bloody thing working
again, I thought I'd double the effort and do a bit of uploading before we say
goodbye to year zero and move into the sphere of natural numbers. First, we need to catch up on
all the events of the last three months.
Milestones:
He got his first pair of real shoes with laces and everything. Clarks of course. Size 3F. But no compass in the heel. Because...
He's nearly walking. Not quite. But cruising the furniture and falling over in style.
He's climbing the stairs but not on his own. He waits at the bottom for you to stand behind him and save his life. Sweet.
He's got 8 teeth. Four up, four down. Sharp as needles and he knows how to use them.
He loves bananas, pancakes, cameras, his monkey, noisy toys, getting his hair brushed, if you do a theatrically loud burp, poke his belly while he's drinking his milk or scratch his neck with a beardy face (but Mandy's getting electrolysis!).
He hates getting teeth brushed, sitting still, going to sleep.
He's said his first word. "Dad". What a boy!
He's nearly feeding himself (oh what a joy. Food everywhere.)
Here's some recent photos to bring you up to date.
He got his first pair of real shoes with laces and everything. Clarks of course. Size 3F. But no compass in the heel. Because...
He's nearly walking. Not quite. But cruising the furniture and falling over in style.
He's climbing the stairs but not on his own. He waits at the bottom for you to stand behind him and save his life. Sweet.
He's got 8 teeth. Four up, four down. Sharp as needles and he knows how to use them.
He loves bananas, pancakes, cameras, his monkey, noisy toys, getting his hair brushed, if you do a theatrically loud burp, poke his belly while he's drinking his milk or scratch his neck with a beardy face (but Mandy's getting electrolysis!).
He hates getting teeth brushed, sitting still, going to sleep.
He's said his first word. "Dad". What a boy!
He's nearly feeding himself (oh what a joy. Food everywhere.)
Here's some recent photos to bring you up to date.
Posted at 11:15 PM
Thu - July 22, 2004
On your feet lad, you crawl like a worm
It's taken no cajoling from anybody. He's
been desperate to get on his feet since he got feet. And that was quite early on
if you've been keeping up.
Aye, he's started getting up on his pins under
his own steam, falling over and bumping his noggin. Still, fool that he is, he
gets back up and does it all again. And again. And again, ad inf. Here he is,
still in his jammies at 4 in the afternoon today and trying to climb up the back
of a chair. But not a slob. The poor wee pet has been boakin' so had a day off
the nursery to recover and you only know you're sick when you're wearing your
pyjamas all day.
Nice though, if you're the da who's "forced" to stay home and cuddle him all day. Hard work. Honest. Still, as the other picture shows, he might be a holy terror when he's awake but he can still be as cute as a button when he's sleeping. Ah!
And check out the monkey - Jellycat.
Nice though, if you're the da who's "forced" to stay home and cuddle him all day. Hard work. Honest. Still, as the other picture shows, he might be a holy terror when he's awake but he can still be as cute as a button when he's sleeping. Ah!
And check out the monkey - Jellycat.
Posted at 11:04 PM
Tue - June 22, 2004
Five minutes at nursery and he's sick
Actually, it's been a month. But never
mind. If you thought the green food thing was like the Exorcist you should have
seen the boy with a tummy bug. Umbrellas at the ready!
Before we start on the news, here's the wee bit video promised some time back (I'm unrepentant - dial-up sucks, commuting takes ages and there's a garden to look after. Anyway, he's not developing that much. It's just mooing and cheek now. And you can't even slap them any more).
(In case you're wondering, the sudden swoop is me going for whatever he was heading for before he got there. That happens a lot.)
Anyway, never mind about him. The big news is that I've been really badly bitten about the Brassicas. Youch! According to the vegetable expert some pigeon-faced pigeon has taken a fancy to the tender and juicy young leaves of me brocolli, broccoli, broccolli. Whatever it's called. It's all eaten now anyway. Replaced by spinach. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. Gee Olive! And now some blackbird's scoffing the strawberries and raspberries.
Posted at 11:54 PM
Mon - May 17, 2004
It's taken a while
It's a bit desperate. There's not been an update
for months and the audience is getting restless
I blame BT. It's the lack of broadband. It's a
sad reflection of the state of the Edinburgh housing market that for a wee boy
to get a swing (and big boys to get a garage and a shed and a greenhouse and
somewhere to hang their hammock) you have to move back in time to a place where
broadband is just a press release with a promise of connection in summer 2005.
God, it's awful. Waiting for the modem to connect and then just waiting and
waiting for web pages to load. And if somebody (you know who) is on the phone,
you can't use the internet at all. Bloody
Norah!
So it's taken bloody ages to make an update. Not helped by the fact that I couldn't find the charger for the digital camera in all the unopened boxes. Still it's been a bit busy what with demolishing bits of the hoose, getting the veg planted in the garden and lazing in the sun of a weekend. But today has been a big day for the boy: his first day at nursery. Yep, Mandy's had to go back to work (poor wee pet!) and Ewan's been sent to "nursery" for a full day of sensory overload in the company of screaming weans and blaring "baby tunes". He seemed happy enough after it and he's a bit of a star with the staff at the nursery what with not screeching as much as the other inmates, err, students, customers, weans, whatever they are. A bit tired but cheerful enough. Doesn't seem to have learned anything, which is a blessing.
Anyhow, for the complaining whiners out there, here's how the man's looking these days. Aged a lot in a month. He's crawling as well. Wee bit of video of that coming soon. Very amusing. Likes his swing as well.
So it's taken bloody ages to make an update. Not helped by the fact that I couldn't find the charger for the digital camera in all the unopened boxes. Still it's been a bit busy what with demolishing bits of the hoose, getting the veg planted in the garden and lazing in the sun of a weekend. But today has been a big day for the boy: his first day at nursery. Yep, Mandy's had to go back to work (poor wee pet!) and Ewan's been sent to "nursery" for a full day of sensory overload in the company of screaming weans and blaring "baby tunes". He seemed happy enough after it and he's a bit of a star with the staff at the nursery what with not screeching as much as the other inmates, err, students, customers, weans, whatever they are. A bit tired but cheerful enough. Doesn't seem to have learned anything, which is a blessing.
Anyhow, for the complaining whiners out there, here's how the man's looking these days. Aged a lot in a month. He's crawling as well. Wee bit of video of that coming soon. Very amusing. Likes his swing as well.
Posted at 11:00 PM
Thu - March 25, 2004
Colgate: chases plaque and the devil
As everybody knows, it's never too early to start
smearing toothpaste all over your face and chewing your bright new toothbrush.
Yep, the boy's got the first wee nub of a tooth but true to form he's laughing
his way through it. Which is just as well for us. Still, even though it's barely
more than a white dot on an otherwise unblemished gum, that didn't stop Mandy
dashing out and getting him something to brush it with. That and some minty
Colgate.
He's also coping well with the solids although there was a minute there when you could easily have mistaken him for a young Linda Blair. I mean, look at that picture in the middle and tell me that between that, the strange tummy rumbling and the foul pong brought about by broccoli, you wouldn't be waiting for the head to rotate and standing by the phone to get a priest.
He's also coping well with the solids although there was a minute there when you could easily have mistaken him for a young Linda Blair. I mean, look at that picture in the middle and tell me that between that, the strange tummy rumbling and the foul pong brought about by broccoli, you wouldn't be waiting for the head to rotate and standing by the phone to get a priest.
Posted at 09:01 PM
Mon - March 15, 2004
He's got a cold again
... and everybody else suffers for
it.
Poor wee beggar. The snot's tripping him again.
And guess where he got that cold from? His Da. Aye, that's what happens. I get
it, he gets it then Mandy gets it. And then she gives it back to me. That's
life.
Of course the problem isn't that he's coughin' and splutterin' and wheezin'. The problem is that he comes into bed with us and lies there spread-eagled taking up the whole bed. I'm squashed against the wall and Mandy's bum's hanging out the front while he thrashes his arms around and spreads himself about. Brilliant!
Of course the problem isn't that he's coughin' and splutterin' and wheezin'. The problem is that he comes into bed with us and lies there spread-eagled taking up the whole bed. I'm squashed against the wall and Mandy's bum's hanging out the front while he thrashes his arms around and spreads himself about. Brilliant!
Posted at 10:02 PM
Thu - March 11, 2004
Not that he's counting
But he's counting. That's the trouble
with having feedback and no-one feeding back
Yeah, you never know who's keeping up to date
with the fun and laughs that make up the life of young Ewan so he's starting
keeping a tally. It's over there on the right. How depressed is he going to be
if it never gets above 10? Poor wee man. Nae mates.
Posted at 09:03 PM
Tue - March 9, 2004
How a mini-adventurer unwinds
Life's not all fun and even a wee boy
needs to relax
It's probably hard to believe but life isn't
always about having fun. He's learning new games all the time. Just today he was
learning how to fall over (softly, onto the bed, while he was trying to stand
up. He loved it. No need to reach for the phone). But even a boy like Ewan needs
to get himself into a nice warm bath, put his feet up, suck his toes and relax.
He's only just realised that he can get his feet that far. And since he doesn't
do much, he hasn't got any cheesy feet to worry about.
Sometimes he likes to stick a paper bag on his head and pretend to be a wizard or just get himself a bottle and fall asleep in front of the telly.
Sometimes he likes to stick a paper bag on his head and pretend to be a wizard or just get himself a bottle and fall asleep in front of the telly.
Posted at 08:24 PM
Sat - February 28, 2004
Our boy's a superhero!
As he lives and breathes (underwater by
the miracle of Oxygum) Ewan's saving the planet
Hard as it might be to believe, there's at least
one of these things that doesn't start with "Aye". But, apart from that, people
of a certain age have often commented on the startling resemblance between young
Ewan and the foremost Manga superhero of the 1960s, Marine Boy. He's a
fascinating character (and Marine Boy's quite interesting too). For instance, he
was an eco-warrior long before ugly, smelly Vegan drop-outs were building
tunnels under perfectly good stretches of motorway. Or before Greenpeace had even thought of taking to the
seas with their Rainbow Warrior boats. Marine Boy would patrol
the oceans with Neptina, on the back of his dolphin, Splasher, using his sonic
boomerang to fight all sorts of goons trying to exploit the sea. Do I want
another drink? Maybe just wee
one.
Of course, Ewan's not actually Marine Boy (he's just a wee boy. If Marine Boy was still around he'd be more like a middle aged, fat-arsed walrus, sitting on the sofa slugging beer in front of the telly and ranting at Newsnight. Maybe he's his reincarnation) but what with the Water Babies swimming lessons, it might not be long. Maybe I'll take him down to Portobello one day and if I see a clear patch of water between the condoms, tampons and other "floaters" I'll chuck him in.
Of course, Ewan's not actually Marine Boy (he's just a wee boy. If Marine Boy was still around he'd be more like a middle aged, fat-arsed walrus, sitting on the sofa slugging beer in front of the telly and ranting at Newsnight. Maybe he's his reincarnation) but what with the Water Babies swimming lessons, it might not be long. Maybe I'll take him down to Portobello one day and if I see a clear patch of water between the condoms, tampons and other "floaters" I'll chuck him in.
Posted at 10:42 PM
Thu - February 26, 2004
Young Ewan's hit the bottle
It's true, at the tender age of four (and
a half) months, the stresses of modern life have got the better of the wee
man
Aye, it's long been an inevitable part of a young
boy's growing up that he starts on the binge drinking. We've all been there (and
some people haven't stopped although not me, of course). Tennants Super Lager,
Strongbow or Buckfast are the usual tipples of choice but in
Ewan's case it's Cow and Gate. In between his (yummy) plates of
mashed carrot and broccoli with baby rice he hits the bottle and can down five
or six a day. It could be much worse, it could be a Nestlé product he's
drinking and then how would his poor mother get herself a cappuccino in
Morningside without boycotting her own baby!!
Don't get me wrong, he's not like one of those lager louts that you read about. He's always sociable enough - smiling and laughing - but you know it's a problem when a young man's drinking until he collapses asleep. Sometimes he drinks so much that he can't be roused at all and has to be put to bed fully clothed. And then there's the vomiting and wetting himself in his sleep. It's all very worrying. I mean, look at him.
Don't get me wrong, he's not like one of those lager louts that you read about. He's always sociable enough - smiling and laughing - but you know it's a problem when a young man's drinking until he collapses asleep. Sometimes he drinks so much that he can't be roused at all and has to be put to bed fully clothed. And then there's the vomiting and wetting himself in his sleep. It's all very worrying. I mean, look at him.
Posted at 10:35 PM
Fri - February 13, 2004
Baby milestone 2 - His first solid one
Meal that is. His first solid will be
along in a couple of hours
Aye, it's solids all round. Well, semi-solid.
More like mush really. And that's the baby rice going in. Christ only knows what
it'll be like when it comes back out. If it ever does. Who knows what'll happen
to his wee belly once you start shoveling this kind of muck in. A tasty plate of
Solvite.
Posted at 06:12 PM
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Published On: Nov 14, 2004 10:45 PM
Published On: Nov 14, 2004 10:45 PM