Instant Karma’s gonna get you …. June 2007

We were all invited to a ‘naming day’ yesterday. This is a new one on me, but apparently alleviates your guilt for not bringing up your child into a sanctimonious society where values and principles are intrinsically bestowed upon the ‘guests of honour’ as well as the parents. I always wondered what the role of the Godfather and Godmother were, and what your moral obligations should be to the Lord and society when you’re learned that little Billy has been nicked for the fourth time in as many days for ram-raiding the local Aldi store in a transit van, wiping out the entire stockroom and making off with goods to the value of £25.50.

In days gone by, I suspect little Billy would have been brought before the parish elders and his Godparents held responsible for ensuring his moral punishment was right and proper, and that the whole family would share the burden of shame equally. These days I suspect the whole family would share the burden of whatever little Billy managed to procure on EBay.

I digress. The ‘Naming Day’ was a bit of a washout, which was a shame. The parents had gone to the trouble of hiring a pub garden complete with Bouncy Castles and games for the kids, although ‘game of the day’ seemed to be ‘who can scream like a right brat the loudest most often’ for which there was some serious competition. Inevitably, it rained, so we took refuge inside the pub and as luck would have it there was a table right next to the buffet. Result!

Now, my 6 month old son is still trying to get accustomed to life outside his warm and comfortable play gym, and is currently going through a bit of an ‘unsettled’ patch. We think he skipped the baby phase completely and has gone straight to 2 year-old, except he can’t even sit up yet, and as a result he gets very frustrated with himself. He hates being strapped down in a buggy, hates lying down on the floor, can’t roll himself over on his back if he rolls on his front, is teething as well, and generally quite upset that his life is so dependant on everybody else. I can see trouble ahead with this one ….

Anyway, true to form, the boy began his ‘bored’ routine once we settled by the buffet, which starts off with some minor whinging leading eventually to full-scale decible testing of the 747 magnitude. Lucie has found a subtle answer to this though – she covers his buggy with a blanket and after a few minutes he falls asleep. Brilliant! We call him Parrot-boy now.

So, in any event, it worked this time and we were free to spend at least an hour stuffing our faces and having a break. Inevitably, one little girl eventually wandered over and was obviously curious about what was under the blanket, and you have to bear in mind I had had 3 pints of Abbot Real Ale by this time (5% – wonderful stuff). She could just about make out there was a baby under there but eventually her curiosity got the better of her.

“Why is the baby under the blanket?” She politely enquired.

“Because he’s really ugly” I retorted.

She looked at me like only kids can with that mixture of surprise and innocence with her mouth half-open, not really sure what she should say next. Her predicament was saved however by a combination of her Dad laughing hysterically and my own wife kicking me in the shins. 3 year old kids – no sense of humour.

We stayed until it was time to go, which was handy. We then loaded ugly parrot-boy into the car and pulled down the shade on his window. Closing the door the same little girl had been observing this, and gave me a knowing and strangely sympathetic smile. Too ugly for the car as well, obviously.

Sometimes I wonder why my life is so full of bad karma ….