William’s Progress. Matt Rudd

the way of chores and because she seems to spend most of the day breast-feeding, I sit watching my pasta get cold because I am holding Jacob. Every time I put him down, he cries.

      ‘He needs a feed,’ I say hopefully.

      ‘I fed him five minutes ago. I’ll take him in a second. And anyway, you can hold him with one hand and eat with the other.’ Isabel is way ahead of the curve on this whole parenting thing. Despite being sore, tired, pale and red-nippled, she is already putting things into perspective, behaving rationally, becoming supermum.

      ‘No, I can’t. I might drop him.’ I’m not quite there yet.

      ‘No, you won’t. Just relax.’

      So I relax, take a mouthful of pasta and Jacob’s head lolls unexpectedly, striking the edge of the table. It takes ten minutes for him to stop crying. It takes ten hours for me to stop freaking out at my own stupid stupidity. Isabel says it’s only a little bump. I say he could have been killed. And even if it is only a little bump, he still has a bruise.

      And the health visitor is coming tomorrow.

      Wednesday 9 January

      The health visit is compulsory. Society does not allow people to vanish into domestic anonymity without first double-checking that they are not doing horrible things to their newborn children.

      This is unfortunate because the bruise looks epic this morning. It looks like I’ve punched him. I look like a heroin addict because I haven’t slept for three nights. We will be flagged as an abusive family. Jacob will be taken away from us and raised by horribly strict foster parents who, at least, will never try to stuff their faces with pasta while holding an eight-day-old infant. Years from now, Jacob and I will be reunited, perhaps on a television show presented by Esther Rantzen. And I will try to explain that I hadn’t meant to bang his head on the table, I just hadn’t realised how floppy a newborn child’s head could be. And the crowd will boo. And Jacob will tell Esther how, despite his strict Christian upbringing, he finds it hard to forgive me.

      

      ‘Morning. I’m the health visitor.’

      ‘Morning. Hi. Come in, come in. How are you? Can I get you a cup of tea? Or something stronger? No. Silly. Of course not. Don’t know what I’m saying. Tea? Yes, right away. Isabel and Jacob are in the front room. Okay. Fine. Right. Okay.’

      Brilliant. The same guilty ramblings I spout when I’m going through customs. Which is why I always get searched. And now why this health visitor is going to take Jacob away from us.

      ‘Here’s your tea. Hahahaha. Can’t remember if you said white. Or black. So I’ve brought both. I mean milk. I’ve brought milk.’

      Calm down, you idiot.

      The health visitor tells Isabel that she shouldn’t co-sleep. It’s dangerous.

      Isabel tells the health visitor that it isn’t and that it’s up to her how she raises her own child.

      The health visitor makes a note.

      This is going badly. I explain, apropos of nothing, that the bruise was an accident. She makes another note. Isabel rolls her eyes really theatrically at me, as if to say, ‘Why on earth have you mentioned the bruise?’ I throw back a ‘What?!’ face, as if to say, ‘What?!’ The health visitor makes another note, so I pretend I have some e-mails to answer.

      Ten minutes later, the coast is clear and Isabel reveals that the woman asked if I was abusing her. Apparently, they have to ask. Apparently, Isabel saw it as a good opportunity to make a joke about our marriage. ‘Only mentally’ she had answered, laughing. And instead of laughing, the health visitor had made another note.

      Saturday 12 January

      I think we have a routine. Bed at 8 p.m. Awake at 5.30 a.m. Naps at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. This is fine. This is survival, at least. And Isabel and Jacob seem to be sleeping rather beautifully together. I know this because I still can’t relax. It’s not just the whole panda thing; it’s the responsibility. The sheer mind-blowing responsibility of having a baby totally dependent on you. Well, us. Well, her. But at least we have a routine.

      Sunday 13 January

      We don’t have a routine.

      Monday 14 January

      The routine is that I have to get up at 5.30 a.m., even though I haven’t slept, and read Thurber to Jacob while Isabel sleeps. She’s still recovering. He prefers Thurber to Hardy – I can tell by the way he dribbles faster. Isabel reckons I should stick with The Hungry Caterpillar but Jacob finds the inevitability of the caterpillar’s descent into teenage obesity depressing.

      Tuesday 15 January

      I can’t do it any more. I can’t go shopping, tidy the house, change eight thousand nappies, make tea, make coffee, bounce Jacob to sleep, bounce myself awake, tidy the house again, attempt to write thank-you letters to all the people who have sent us chintzy flowers, lurid babygros and mindless, noisy, cluttery plastic toys. I can’t then tidy the house again, make breakfast, lunch, dinner, a second dinner (because, as I think we’ve established, Isabel is breast-feeding and needs all the energy she can get, even if this means matching the caloric intake of an Olympic decathlete) and a midnight breakfast, and tidy the house again. I can’t do it.

      I love being a dad. I’m delighted we’re all alive and that Jacob appears to be not just growing but taking an interest in serious literature. Honestly, though, this is even worse than the third trimester, when Isabel was at her itchiest, her most disconcertingly oversexed, her most bloated and her most intemperate all at the same time.

      Thursday 17 January

      It’s not worse than the third trimester. I have slept. Hallelujah, I have slept. True, I have been forced from my own bed, but this is understandable. They need each other. I need sleep. The sofa bed: my new salvation.

      Friday 18 January

      Isabel’s mum has decided that Isabel’s decision not to buy a pram because she wants to carry Jacob everywhere is a silly one. ‘You are not a hunter-gatherer. You are not toiling in the harsh conditions of the African bush. You are in Britain. Your mother didn’t escape from the tyranny of Communist Poland and marry your fine upstanding English father in order to produce offspring that behave like they live in a hut. So, darlink, I have been to John Lewis and have spoken with the lady who is expert in prams, and I have bought you a Bugaboo.’

      The Bugaboo is the four-by-four of the pram world: excellent for pushing up a mountain, but something of a handful if you have a small house and you confine most of your pram-pushing to standard-width pavements. Still, it looks cool. And Caroline, the most vocal of the NCT baby-group mums (yes, they have formed a gang and she is the leader), has a sister who claims her children are five centimetres taller than all the other children at her nursery solely because she used a Bugaboo. This, pontificated Caroline, is because it’s the only buggy that allows the child to lie flat. This helps their bones to stretch. When I pointed out that it might be genes, she replied that it might…but was it really worth the risk? Was it really worth having a buggy – or a sling – which could stunt the growth of a baby?

      ‘I bet the Hunchback of Notre Dame’s parents didn’t use a Bugaboo,’ said her husband, in an attempt to diffuse his wife. And then the conversation moved on to torn perineums.

      Saturday 19 January

      Only two days until I go back to work. Bravely, I volunteer to take Jacob out for an hour on my own to give Isabel some morning ‘me-time’. I aim for the park, proud new dad pushing quite grumpy baby. Grannies smile as I lift him out of the buggy to show him what our local