If that continues we’ll be well chuffed, but don’t want to count the chickens just yet!

Max William King

Well, today was a big day. It saw the arrival of my 2nd child – a bouncing baby boy, whom we’ve named Max William King. I say bouncing, as he was 8lb 7oz, which, if he’d been allowed to bake another two weeks as nature decrees, he might have ended up nearly 9lb – I think then they might have had to fit a sunroof, rather than just a letterbox!

He looks a lot like his sister did when she arrived, which I suppose is no surprise, given that they have the same parents (I think).

Funny thing was, although today was a BIG day, it also felt like quite a small day: we weren’t that nervous about it, we had everything organised, and the NHS were, again, more than up to the job. So it all felt pretty normal, like maybe going to the dentist (albeit for a MAJOR extraction).

Tomorrow I’m going to take Amelie over to the hospital to meet her new baby brother, and I think that will be when it hits home. She’s been our life for the past 19 months, and we’ve been hers; and yet tomorrow we will introduce someone else equally (if not more so for a time) important than she is – poor kid! What will be going through her head when she sees this thing taking up all Mummy’s time, and being held all day long!

She’s such a character, that I don’t think it will faze her too much – although she might crank up the attention seeking a little bit, just to see if she can get noticed.

Father of two eh? Who’d have thunk it.

Well, they are. Or at least they were that night. I’m sure some of them will be again, and some will win something one day, but let’s call a spade a spade.

Apropos that victory (natch) for Milk, and something that happens on a regular basis in my house, I thought I’d bring up the subject of Use By, Best Before and Sell By dates.

Before we go any further, I love my Girlfriend, who is also the Mother of my wonderful Daughter and has another one brewing, as it were. However, there is one aspect of her behaviour which I find brilliantly off the wall and endearing at the same time, and it’s her relationship with the dates printed on the side of everything these days.

For the most part, if a perishable good is even in the same lunar cycle as its Use By date, she will become agitated, and make moves to hide it from me, so that it can then be discarded without my noticing.

However, as we order our shopping online, and I do all the cooking in our house, I know exactly what we’ve got at all times, so her efforts are largely in vain.

Notwithstanding the waste of money, my beef isn’t so much with this particular habit as with the behaviour that she displays alongside it. For example, whilst pouring 2 pints of perfectly drinkable milk down the sink (as she did this morning), she can be happily cutting the mould off the cheddar before making her daily sandwiches.

Whilst chucking out a chicken that’s been deep frozen for 2 months, she can be happily reheating a pie portion from the fridge I made 6 days before.

I don’t try and work out what’s going on in her head – I’ve long since given up on that – but I do wonder about it.

Anyone who can charge £45 for a nylon John Travolta disco “suit” and keep a straight face must surely be guilty of something, and if not: the law needs to be changed.

As it turns out, my brother had a pretty cool outfit a few years back for a do when we were at Uni together – mine has long since gone, and I wouldn’t be able to get the trousers above my knees these days anyway, but his is languishing in my other brother’s wardrobe apparently. Complete with afro!

I was a bit miffed to have missed it, but on my return on Sunday night she duly performed her new moves on the kitchen floor. Quite emotional really, and since then all I’ve done is try to encourage her to take her first steps – just for me!

However, yesterday my beautiful baby girl started to clap her hands, aged nearly 9 months. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me. That silly gesture that has always made me wonder what it is all about, suddenly became something magical. And that’s the beauty of being a Father I guess.

Not just so that you can appreciate clapping, but that it makes you see wonder and beauty and joy in the little things, all over again.