William’s Progress. Matt Rudd

      ‘Yes. A proper smile. It was beautiful.’ And Isabel didn’t look like a zombie parent any more, either. She looked happy, happy for me and happy for Jacob. We hugged and she took him off to bed while I checked the NHS handbook. Three months, they’re supposed to start smiling. Three months! Not five weeks. We have a genius on our hands. Cancel the Channel Five documentary. Phone Channel 4. We’re making The Child Who Smiled Seven Weeks Early.

      Friday 8 February

      Isabel, having read an article about the plight of the bumblebee, has signed us up as members of the Bumble Bee Conservation Trust. This despite the cost of nappies (the initial outlay for the cloth ones, plus the recurring outlay for the horrible plastic ones that will sit in a landfill for a thousand millennia because, as I had predicted, we really haven’t managed to keep up with the cloth-nappy washing demands), baby clothes, prenatal wardrobe, postnatal wardrobe and the Barn Owl Conservation Society she made us join last year when she read about barn owls being combine-harvested or something.

      As sole breadwinner in this house, excluding paltry maternity leave, I have been forced to put my foot down. From now on, barn owls and bumblebees will receive our support and sympathy. All other endangered animals will have to fend for themselves…

      Saturday 9 February

      …except, perhaps, for coral and red squirrels. And a certain type of parrot that only eats mangetout. I have conceded additional species on the understanding that I can go to the pub this evening, but only between the hours of 7 and 9 p.m.

      It was Andy’s idea that they come all the way down to my local pub because I have a baby. He’s clearly trying to get back in my good books. Johnson isn’t. He arrives grumbling about it being a long way to go for a couple of hours, seeing as they both live in London and I live in the sticks. Despite Andy being a bastard and Johnson being miserable, I am delighted. I am in the pub. I am a free man.

      The first pint vanishes in twelve seconds. The next two go almost as quickly. I should probably hold back: I am a dad now. But Johnson explains that it is important to wet the baby’s head, even if the baby isn’t here. And besides, I have to leave in an hour and they’ve come all this way, so we have another two pints in quick succession. We talk about nothing in particular, largely because baby talk is boring and talk about women would involve mentioning Saskia, which none of us feel like doing, given that we only have two hours.

      None of us, except Johnson.

      ‘Andy?’ he asks after a long draw of lager. ‘Do you find it weird sleeping with a girl with whom your mate has already slept? It’s only, I did that once, back when life was fun, and the image of my mate, naked, kept popping into my head every time we shagged. It got to the point where I had to stop mid-coitus every time because it got all strange and homoerotic. I had to dump her because it felt like being in the wrong sort of threesome.’

      Andy looks first at Johnson, then at me. He sips his pint thoughtfully and says, ‘Saskia and William. It was almost five years ago. I think we can all assume it’s water under the bridge.’

      This is not the case. Saskia is still Saskia. Andy is still Andy. But the pub is still the pub, so after explaining that I’m fine with it as long as I never have to talk to Saskia, I have another quick pint and then another one. Then I suggest they come back because I have beers in the fridge.

      ‘And a baby in the living room,’ says Johnson. ‘We’ll leave you to it.’

      This proves to be a sensible decision. I zigzag home, open the door to the blissful domestic scene of Isabel still trying to make herself dinner, half undressed because she had momentarily given up on dinner and tried to go to bed, Jacob screaming in one arm, a soup spoon in the other, the kitchen looking like it has been ransacked by angry chimps.

      ‘Forget the coral and the parrots. You’re never going out again,’ she says. And she is only half joking.

      Sunday 10 February

      Everyone has decided on an egg-shaped bath. Everyone, except me. It will take four weeks to be delivered from Sweden or Denmark or whichever other design-obsessed country it is made in. Alex promises the bathroom will be started mid-March and finished mid-March.

      Thursday 14 February

      Even though we both disagree with Valentine’s Day, even though it is a stupid American invention designed to keep us as impoverished slaves of the capitalist system, even though I spent eight million quid at Budding Ideas last year (motto still: ‘Flowers for that special occasion or just because you want to say I love you.’ Spew), I have no choice but to return and spend another eight million quid this year on a dozen long-stemmed red roses.

      Then we have an argument because twenty minutes after I present them to her, I discover them in a vase in the bedroom…with the long stems cut off.

      ‘I wanted to use this vase.’

      ‘The short one?’

      ‘Yes, the short one.’

      ‘So you cut off the long stems?’

      ‘Yes, is that a problem?’

      ‘Well, I could have saved seven and a half million pounds if I’d known you were going to cut the stems off.’

      ‘Do you want me to get the stems out of the bin, or can I enjoy the flowers you gave me in the way I want?’

      Eight million pounds out of pocket and an argument for my troubles. But I decide to remain circumspect. We are both very tired and very ratty. It is no wonder that little things are triggering arguments more than usual. I must remain calm. I must remain calm because this is the first step on the long Zen Path to the Mastery of Parenting.

      THE ZEN PATH TO THE MASTERY OF PARENTING

      Step one: you must remain calm in the face of petty marital discord and not let it develop into a proper argument as it may have done in the time before children. Arguments take energy. You do not have energy. Whereas before, you could afford to spend days bickering about Marmite toast, bathroom usage and unappreciated long-stemmed roses, now you must centre yourself and allow these minor annoyances to wash away.

      Step two: you must remain calm in the face of stressful situations as well. If you get a parking ticket, you must accept it and move on with your day. If someone, that someone being Isabel, spills red wine on the expensive white rug you bought for Christmas, you must shrug and volunteer to clean it. If you find yourself in Sainsburys still wearing your pyjama bottoms because you were halfway through getting dressed when your child woke up and started screaming (and if there’s one thing you’ve learned, it’s that you can only stop the screaming if you get to the child in the first ten seconds), but in your head, you’ve finished getting dressed and you only remember you haven’t when the checkout girl gives you a funny look, you must simply close your eyes, imagine a calm place, a garden perhaps, full of recently sprayed orchids, then pay the bill and leave quickly before anyone can call the police.

      Step three: you must remain calm, even when it makes no sense to do so. Like when you haven’t slept continuously for more than an hour in six weeks, when you get home from work and have four hours of tidying to do before you can have dinner, which you can’t have because it’s then your turn to take the baby because your wife is exhausted and then you find the only way to get your child to sleep is by jogging around with him in a tight anticlockwise circle while reciting ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ backwards in the voice of Barry White. For an hour.

      I am still struggling with step one.

      Friday 15 February

      I have asked Isabel to start packing now for our incredibly ill-conceived trip to Devon on Saturday. She has agreed to