My baby girl thinks I’m pretty great

Posted: November 8, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Matters that Matter, Observe my tips | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I took her to the shops today.

She had a massive poo whilst driving there and she handled it like a champ. So did I.

In the rear-view-mirror, her face was doing the typical contortions of one expelling, what I’m sure we can all agree is amongst the worst things ever, a poop – whilst Daddy is singing along to Jessie-Jay on the radio in an attempt to make the whole scene more…musical?

By the time we arrived, her complexion had returned from hellish-rouge to healthy-human, and the gargles and goo-goos were back aplenty, ready for a nappy-change.

Then came my might – the thing of which I am without question the best of in the world:
distractingly amusing sounds and funny faces.

It’s a big difference between babies and men. I’ve never encountered a face so funny, or a sound so amusing, that I wouldn’t know my nappy was being changed.

My daughter was oblivious. At seven months, she generally is.

The amount of things my daughter doesn’t pick-up on is only dwarfed by sheer number of things she picks up and puts in her mouth.

But in the car’s boot, with nothing in reach to distract, it was down to the irresistible power of my face and the sounds that come out of it to make the following two minutes less awful.

There was poo, there was laughter, and there was the risk of each overwhelming both of us – but we persevered, and went shopping.

The dirty nappy went in the shop bin, my daughter went in the pram, and I went into performance mode.

An integral part of fatherhood is taking blows to the brain.

They’re both the height and depths of humour, and like her older siblings, my youngest baby girl loves to laugh at when I do what I do best.

A proportion of those impacts are something I suppose I’m proud:

  • My son (6) hitting me in the head with sporting equipment, for humorous purposes.
  • My eldest daughter (4) hitting me in the head with props, for amateur dramatics purposes.
  • Me (36) hitting myself in the head with whatever is nearest to hand, for competitive purposes (can’t let me son out-do me)
  • And my wife (N/A) hitting me in the head, for reasonable purposes.

The third of those – hitting myself in the brain – goes down something-smashing when it comes to fathering a baby girl.

If you’d like some hints as to what to grab for self-brain-bashing, I’d recommend whatever is nearest to hand for the sake of speed, but noise and colour should be appreciated for the awesome power they hold: like tins of beans and tinsel.

There’s a lot of tinsel at the shop, for arboreal/cultural purposes at this time of year, but no one there knows it’s also for brain-bashing purposes. Same for the tinned beans – it’s got nothing to do with fibre.

I’m struggling to write this blog, due in part to the regular severity of the impacts to my brain which cause such delightful bursts of laughter or, even better, the shining smiles of pure happiness from my baby girl.

It’s also due to the effects of the lychee-liqueur which has thus far turned out to be a wonderful purchase, with the promise of it being less-so tomorrow morning.

Then came the pram ‘uh-ohs’ – in which I push the pram, daughter nonchalantly perched within, away and panic in what I’d best describe as in a ‘flappy headed’ way, before pulling her back with a hint of a jolt but with my own laughing smile upon arrival – matched and soundly beaten only by hers.

She really is the most adorably scrumptious of little things that there ever could be, and you might feel the same about your offspring but I’m right because this is my blog and I’m right.

Take your own kids shopping – I’m occupied with the best thing since someone had the bright idea of having things under the sun, and sliced bread.

Due to what I presume to be a clerical error (by which I mean ecclesiastical rather than administrative) – I find there are no baskets proffered in the shop entrance, meaning I have to load items for purchase beneath the pram itself.

Here’s an opportunity to vanish and return, aka ‘Peekabo’.

With each item loaded onto the conveyer belt towards the till, I duck out. Briefly (and I really do mean briefly – I doubt I’ve ever been briefer), I’m away and suddenly I’m back – and sure enough I’m hitting myself in the same head from which funny noises and faces are emitting.

And she’s smiling joyously. The kind of joy you don’t remember.

From there it’s pay, parking ticket, load stuff in the car, daughter in her car-seat (featuring multiple checks on the way home to ensure I definitely packed her), visor down as the sun sets early this time of year, bish, bash, bosh, I’m a dad.

And the smiles and laughter, in addition to the excited little kicks of the even-littler legs, tells me all I’ve ever really needed to know: my baby girl thinks I’m pretty great.

Sam

Covered in crab and grinning: the bad decision of the week

Posted: August 3, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Adventure Forever | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Yesterday we were at the Brickfields in Lower Halstow, Kent. There’s an intriguing history to this place, but finding out more about that is up to you – I’m busy blogging.

My family and I go there every once in a while, to be outside, watch the boats and the herons, and mainly to scroll through the mud and shells with our eyes and fingers, looking for preferable pottery.

‘Preferable pottery’ is what stands out most to you at the time. There are a million fractured segments of all kinds of earthworks there: the classic blue and white (which you can still find far from the estuary shore – in fields up hills), to glass bottle heads, brown jug handles, and pieces of pottery with an array of colours – depicting floral scenes, boats and ships, and sometimes words.

I like reading pottery – that’s my kind of preferable.

Yesterday’s preferable pottery read: “….ING THE TEETH & GUM…”

Underneath is featured what appears to be a glorious hair-do, or equally glorious wig.

My wife picked up one bit, for the obligatory fun of it (you could tell because she said so), my daughter picked up a few pink pieces, and my son a few hundred. My youngest daughter chose not to get involved, being 5 months young.

We only keep a few, sprinkling the rest back along the shore line, telling first-time visitors that we do this every week with our own supply of broken china to supplement the shoreline pottery becoming depleted.

Whilst my wife, son and youngest withdrew to eat M&Ms, my eldest daughter and I continued to search for pink pieces, and were quickly diverted in attention upon discovering we could explode crabs.

The long-dead, sun-dried crab corpses, which if you give a little finger-flick can cause them to explode in exactly the way you’d want a crab to explode.

We had a really great time, and my wife was horrified.

As my son raced over to take part too (who wouldn’t, aside from my wife?), I found a larger crab claw that was, I now know – regrettably, fresher.

Fresher – not fresh.

It wouldn’t explode, but giving it a little squeeze in the right places, you could penetrate the exoskeleton (most unpleasantly – this is all awful), and tug what I supposed to be tendons and make the claw pinch.

We all smiled.

And then a memory from the depths of our DNA, that crawls from the soul – up the spine – and straight out through the brain in all directions, said GET AWAY FROM THAT SMELL.

We all ran. Pursued by the stench.

The smell of rotten, long-dead-but-not-long-enough crab flesh was now all over me, my children, and worst of all – my finger tips, potentially ruining everything I was forth-hence to touch and even-more worst of all: type.

We all did that thing fathers, sons, and daughter do, which was to run separately in different directions whilst simultaneously arriving at ‘destination mother’ and, my word, we were loud and smelly.

My children demanded direct attention in some vague form, whilst I knew what I needed – babywipes, anti-bacterial gel, and for my wife to smell my fingertips.

Two out of three ain’t bad, but even as I write this 24 hours later, the pong is being bounced off my keyboard with every letter and I’m reminded of my bad decision of the week.

We went out for lunch afterwards, at a garden centre, whilst I walked like a surgeon post scrub-up, till making my way to the toilets and washing my hands multiple times before I caved in to desperation and slathered my hands in pure vinegar.

Nothing worked. Even time, known for decimating empires, wasn’t making a dent on this particular fragrance.

I’m going to be that guy who stinks of seaside-death, and slightly of vinegar, from here-on.

Still, at least the kids got to see the way a crab’s claw works. And the importance of hygiene.

Even from the worst decision of the week, there was an upside.

At some point we were covered in crab and grinning, albeit before the whiff.

Adventure forever.

Sam

Are we not allowed to be a bit shit? ‘Presidentially shit’?

Posted: December 3, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Matters that Matter | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Biden has, for the previous few years, been degraded on a manner of counts.

One – he’s President, and that’s unforgivable to many.

Two – he’s Democrat, and I know some people who hate that kind of party.

Three – the Afghanistan withdrawal, an undemocratic vendetta against Trump, being too fragile in all capacities and appearing goofy of a kind only previously espoused by Bush jnr.

This week President Biden pardoned his son of crimes he definitely did, after promising he definitely wouldn’t.

The Oval Office has such power, but it is also proudly presumed that this power is not to be used in a way that results in poor PR.

‘Optics’ are a crucial component of the American mythos, and the Constitution guarantees this purely through the way it is written. It presumes innocence of purpose with absolute power of authority.

Biden was a father before a President.

Evidently.

And if Biden jnr makes his way across the world now, taking drugs and owning firearms for which he doesn’t have a license….fine.

If he continues to be a figurehead of funding, receiving millions of dollars from the arrangements of his father….fine.

In honesty, this is something I expect of government, modern and historical. It’s the premise of the opportunity of governing: you don’t have to worry about particular things because we know you’re busy enough.

Of course, you can also sway a nation towards better times, with a better identity, but you can also get your little boy (I’m a father and I think this perception will never truly diminish) off of drug and firearm charges.

I’d do the same.

I’d ruin the optics of the constitution in favour of the reality of the Declaration.

Pursuing happiness.

The guy needs help, not jail time.

And President Biden needs to do what he still perceives (cataracts aside) as the right thing, which as a father myself – I’d do too…..fine.

Because we’re accordingly all a bit shit (Biden is ‘Presidentially shit’!). Because we’re human. And prideful optics are easily surrendered for the cause we hold more important – which is family.

What does that mean for me and you – those without Presidential representation and power? It means we were as previous: wishing our Dad’s could save the day because we’re a bit shit.

Biden jnr needs non-negotiable therapy. President Biden needs a nap.

And we need to appreciate that we’d protect ours too, when the occasion presents itself.

Obviously.

Otherwise you’d be a bad father. And that makes for a bad president. And that bodes poorly for all.

My son is my lightbulb

Posted: November 4, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Matters that Matter | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

My son is my lightbulb.

It’s not his fault, but he exceeds in illumination and has effect on my life in which I feel as though I’ve had a bright idea whenever I’m in his presence.

He’s like being on a diet.

When dieting, I’m perpetually stuck with the ingenious prospect of keeping at it, head down and mouth hollow and shut, or to indulge in that enlightening option of gorging until I realise the need to diet again (which is a brilliant solution as dieting is should really be encouraged).

When I hold my son, or when I come through the front door, poke my head around the corner to see if he’s there, to be met with the inquisitive tilt of the head and resulting smile of a little fellow who loves me, I have the idea of making everything perfect, just for him.

It’s a good idea, no?

I thought so anyway, and so I surveyed the globe for things that need tidying.
It seems, I’ve quite a task ahead of me.

It occurred to me that religious people have been looking to correct the wrongs of the world since the dawn of things like dawns being given names, but to no long-term success. Considering they had God on their side (according to press releases), and bearing in mind that I’ve distinctly less divine powers than the average kids party magician, I feel any ability to introduce a white rabbit from a hat is unlikely to see things peacefully concluded in Syria.

Certainly, I could overload each opposing force with white rabbits until all combatants were incapacitated with the drowsiness brought on from gluttony of a certain delicious stew, and all armies were made unidentifiable from one another owing to the shockingly speedy new trend of all clothing being made from cosy white fur, but despite my being a carnivore, I wouldn’t want to send a billion bunnies to their war-ending ruin.
Just imagine the emails I’d get.

Rather more, if I were to engage the electives from either side in a simple magic show, I think I’d be amongst those shot, my wand being nothing more than not really a wand.

There would be those who would argue that despite all my previous promises of world-revolutionising changes to the planet in the name of my son, this is all clearly bollocks as I wouldn’t send a billion rabbits to die in the Middle East.

To which I’d say: “fair enough, I guess I’ll have to then”, and would proceed to load myself comfortably into the back of the latest air-strike capable bomber and then go about vomiting white rabbits from out of my hat at the speed of magic.

Why doesn’t God do this, I don’t know, and neither do you.

Either way, I’ve still an urge to improve the world in every manner I can.

I feel that will include fighting for changes and fighting for traditions, which are all going to be according to what I deem best for my boy anyway.

I’d produce one rabbit perhaps, from a pet shop rather than from one of my hats (which I’m actually going to wear later and don’t want smelling of a rabbit with stage fright), and give this to him so he can hold it and smell it and feel little life in his little hands.
I think that would help him in some way.

We’ll stay clear of Syria until it gets too close, at which point we’ll go away from it, because I don’t ever want him to go through what children and the children-grown are suffering over there.

I’m not divine, and can’t change too much around Earth. I’ll love my son until I’m gone, hoping only that he’ll have known how much I loved him, tried to keep him happy and safe, and to remember that when the times like those in Syria come to him, he remember the preciousness and wonder of life before he takes his next step.

He is my lightbulb. On.

Sam

Writing With Impetus, Before It’s Too Late

Posted: October 22, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty., Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Well who’d have thought, I’m actually writing.

Sorry for the delay and even greater apologies for the delay ending and writing resuming.

I know I don’t write articles for everyone’s tastes – that’s why (as well as a distinct lack of writing talent), they’re not overly-well received.

For example, I was walking down the street the other day (it doesn’t matter which street or which day because this is fiction) and I noticed I wasn’t a millionaire.

How embarrassing.

And to think; I was really in the mood for a Rolex…

Still, no pounds equals one impetus. Lack of millions of pounds gives one glorious idea, to become a millionaire.

Not even a millionaire – that comes across as ideal hostage material – but instead ‘comfortable’. Such as having a house and no concerns about it.

I would like a house, all mine, my walls and my windows, preferably my own ceiling, I don’t give a fuck who the potted plants belong to, so long as I get my necessary verticals and horizontals.

And I’ve a good job, with a good wife enjoying a good pregnancy, a good future filled with good prospects, and a good urge to write, as well as a good thesaurus filled with good synonyms and I can apply anytime I like (but I’m comfortable now and the book is just out of bother’s reach).

So, aside from the typical life of typical pleasantries, I might just indulge in this writing habit I’ve tried my best to give-up and start actually writing.

So, now, I’m actually writing.

I tried writing as a practise for this yesterday.

I thought I’d try writing about my hair.

It went so well I burnt the first draft, not realising I only had one good (thesaurus still out of reach) draft in me and I’d put too much effort into burning my laptop to sit down with remaining stoker (pen) and surviving kindling (note-pad) to let loose another masterpiece in one evening.

Thus we’re here, writing about writing and progressing just as I’d hoped.

I’d like to write for my supper, though I think writing for my breakfast would be greater inspiration.

Sure, at supper time one has a day’s worth of worth to pen down with a fire-stoker, but in the morning you’ve got a wonderfully blank piece of paper to ruin perfectly with just the kind of prose that can set a day right. This is a metaphor.

What a metaphor!

However, I’ve missed breakfast and have moved onto a mid-evening port, in the glow of a newly borrowed laptop and the warmth of a reason to write.

Millionairehood/millionairedom/millionairity.

Or rather being a home-owner/house-holder/property-possessor/abode-abider.

Since I’ve moved onto alliteration, I might burn this laptop too, but I don’t think my pen could last to stoke another fire.

Still, this is breakfast writing, and perhaps since this is now a great (wife passed me thesaurus) post-port time in the evening, I can write about that which has happened across the planet as of late.

I was reading the other morning that we’re all fucked.

Whilst I enjoyed Al Gore’s somewhat more bar-chart method of translating the complex data, I do prefer an image of inferno and the prose that practically smell with the sheer excitement of the author.

Sensationalist writing is like fascism. It gets things done when they’re ready to be done.

If I hadn’t been in the mood to like-totally freak out, then it wouldn’t have been successfully sensationalism. If 1930’s Germany hadn’t been in the mood for a snappier uniform and literally snappier mode of marching, they wouldn’t have done what 1930’s Germany did (lose).

With another reference to writing about writing, we have now arrived at the point at which the author has drawn parallels to the Nazis, with very little reason to. And whilst that’s fine in these-and-thus days, if you’d have tried that in 1930’s Germany, you’d have been writing as a contemporary.

I’ve realised I’m feeling silly, and here we thus-hence-and-therefore are (this thesaurus might now be deemed too-near. That’s writing, I’m “deeming” things).

Besides, upon the news of the planet being universally fucked, I’m more inclined to take things a tad more jovially.

For this reason, I’m mixing tales of hair, being a millionaire, Nazis, and Al Gore.

BBC News has a ‘Top Ten Most Read’ section, and the number one point for a recent single day was the end of the world being very much so ‘nigh’. The following day, perhaps even the afternoon of the day prior, the nation’s focus was on Taylor Swift at long last revealing how she feels about US politics.

I don’t want to say that how Taylor Swift feels about politics in the US is not important. But the lack of verbalised opinion in regard to the viewpoint of “FUCK how Taylor Swift feels about politics in the US” gives rise to the righteousness of the previous day’s number one story.

We’re fucked, and the following day we were slightly more fucked, and slightly more deserving.

With a baby on the way, I’ve impetus to de-fuck the world, but Taylor Swift doesn’t listen to me and she’s the one with millions of many things.

I’ve very few things totalling in the millions.

I’ve millions of atoms of course, but I tend not to count them (it’d take ages).

I do have a son on the way though. And whilst he’s not a million things either, he is one thing that could be more than a million things and it up to people like me (the fellow that caused him into being about, along with his culpable mother) to take action.

Unfortunately for my son, the particular action I’ll be taking is writing about my hair.

Who knows? It might pay for a house for him to grow up into a fucked-up world.

I’ll keep typing, tomorrow.

It’s good to be back

All the best,

Sam