Babies

We all know that everyone’s baby is the smartest, cutest and the best behaved unless of course their misbehaviour creates a good story to demonstrate how smart and cute they are.

At this point I should point out for the benefit for any of my family members reading. No, I am not pregnant.

With everyone carry a camera in their pocket these days, or in the case of my father in a leather pouch on his hip, no baby story is complete without a series of photos.

Baby stories by their very nature are competitive. The premise of every baby story is simple; my baby is better than your baby.

Baby stories can extend beyond human life to the animal members of the family. My brand new puppy just graduated from Puppy Pre-school. Here is a picture of him wearing his graduation mortarboard style hat and a ribbon. He still can’t sit because he just wants to come and be next to me – but he graduated.

My puppy likes to lie in and dig through my veggie patch. He has flattened all of the silver beat and has dug up and eaten all of my carrots. But he is such a cheeky boy, he brings the carrot tops to me like he has killed them to protect me from them.

My wife is twelve weeks pregnant, here is the ultrasound, and here is the 3D image. For the record the 3D image is very detailed. VERY detailed. Looking at the image left me with the thought that I have just looked directly into my colleague’s wife’s womb.  It is to be noted that 12 week old foetus are very creepy. The 3D image could be a poster for an upcoming horror movie blockbuster.

My 2 month old baby daughter says “Da, da, da”, she is so clever. All of the books say most babies do not even start to babble until around 4 months of age and my daughter is already talking. She is calling me Dad, at only two months.

I have the pleasure of petting sitting for a few weeks. The animals are around seven years old and not mine but for the next month they are my babies. Walking them, feeding them, bathing them, talking nonsensically and tucking them into bed. Yes, tucking them in!

Normally I am a sane person. Pets are pets, people are people and each should be treated as such. I just can’t help it though. The cats are just adorable, contents and placid and love to be patted, held and cuddled whilst trying to maintain an air of independence unique to our feline friends. The dogs could not be more eager to please. They just want to love and be loved.

As a result of this love craving the dogs are always right there. To be honest the cats are always in close proximity too.  It is so adorable if not crowded. Sitting on a two seater couch with two cats and two dogs, one of which is a German Shepherd.

Each one clambering to be the closest. And no baby brag is complete without a photo or two.

The pets I am looking after are so intelligent. They all respond to voice commands but more than that they are intuitive pre-empting commands before they are even given.

And look, have you ever seen cuter animals than my (borrowed) babies?