Bullfrog among the tadpoles

Well, we've done it again, packed up what feels like every baby-related item in the entire flat and driven to the airport. This time we forgot the connectors that attach the car seat to the buggy. I say 'we' here however this does really mean 'me'. Having been in charge of all things baby-related I then had to get up 4 times in the night with the little spud and resultantly, anything I hadn't already packed got left behind in the morning-after haze.

I think science should be looking very carefully into the constituent components of breast-milk. On a diet of nothing but this, Charlie can get up 4 times in the night for half to one hour each (not to eat, mind you, but to roll around in his cot, throw off his blankets, wriggle out of his pjs and then get cold and scream), dance for an hour in his bouncer a couple of times a day, have a lovely time kicking and pooing on his mat all day, have a few scant naps and be raring to dance all night the next night. Seeing as it is my body producing all this get-up-and-go energy, it's hardly surprising that I forgot the car-seat connectors. What is more suprising is that I remembered the car seat. And the baby.

Having arrived here in France we jetted directly to the grandparent's house where C was duly prodded, bounced, cooed at and made a fuss of and he duly smiled and cooed and made faces back. We left him in the capable hands of his Papi et Mami and sat down to a brief meal and I could hear them discussing him terms of wonder in the other room 'Mais, il est ENORME!' 'Il et si lourde!' 'Oh la la' (no, I'm not making this up). Clearly, the lovely and petite mamans of their other five grandchildren produced perfectly tiny little French pixies and they were not expecting this enormous Colonial potato who is now paddling around in their gene pool.

To be fair, Charlie isn't fat. He's just huge. Long and solid. Much more suited to cutting down trees and frying up pancakes over an open fire than looking chic and tousled and Parisian in a rollneck jumper. About this I am a little sad. Ignoring the fact that both D and I are fairly tall and somewhat solid individuals ourselves, I had somewhat hoped that enough French blood would be running through his veins that he would have a certain delicacy of features, however alas, this is possibly not to be - and in fact it may be the petite nature of D's belle-soeurs who provided that shot of 'je ne sais quois' into D's family. Who knows. Either way, I love the little spud even if he has taken this opportunity to throw up into my hair, even if he is about to grow out of his expensive car-seat, even if he is draining me and killing my back. I just can't help it, I love him and I sat in that kitchen thinking 'that's MY baby who's huge that is, I did that, aren't I clever, isn't he lovely?' and all sorts of other mindless, Motherhood-related soppiness. In fact, it was worth the entire flight just to see him cooed over by other people clearly as besotted as I am, just as it was when we went to Canada. I guess there are a few side benefits to this travelling thing.