Brown-hand Luke

You've probably heard of the 'farmer's tan', where one is tanned in the shape of one's t-shirt... well, the spud has a 'baby tan' in which the entire body, which is always covered in factor 50 and a layer of clothes, is as white as paper however the hands, slobbered on enough to remove sunscreen in 5 minutes, are brown. For proof of this, see very cute picture abovenof the spud happily wearing my hat. (I realise this picture is possibly only cute to members of the spud's family but there you have it, Motherhood for you).

I would hereby like to rescind the remarks I made a while ago about never being able to relax on the beach as long as the spud is a baby. Today, he played happily in the sand (without eating any) under the shade umbrella for hours. I mean it - he was happy for hours. We also took him for a paddle in the sea which he enjoyed very much, thank you. Amazing. I read half a book and the only worrisome moment was when he decided he was going to eat a whole peach from scratch and about 3/4 of the way through decided that a whole peach all to himself was clearly selfish particularly since Mummy was just lying there looking at that paper stuff and obviously needed sustenance. Once this bizarre thought had formed in his word-free head he was totally fixated and spent several minutes thrusting a cold, sticky, mainly-eaten peach into the vicinity of my mouth, getting it all over my book, my face, my arms and, confusingly, my back, necessitating a new visit to the waves.

I have discovered an excellent way to absorb a baby's attention for a considerable period of time. First, dig a hole in the sand about a foot deep and say 9 inches around. Your baby, should it be old enough, will be fascinated by this and will love packing down the sand which comes out of the hole and trying to toss it back in. Then, when your hole is done, stand the baby in it and read your book while it spends a glorious 15 minutes pulling sand into the hole and treading it down until the hole is shallow enough to crawl out of. Next, spend 15 more minutes washing the sand off the baby. Start again.

Time for bed here. Praying for a long night out of the spud who has taken to waking several times before dawn. Hopefully the sun and sand experience will help him snooze - if not that, then the three sips of normandy cider his grandparents encouraged him to take this evening might just do the trick...