Holding the babies

A text from Anna this morning to say Anton was ill. Went up the hill a bit before noon to discover Anton in the grips of the lung-attacking flu I had last week. Anton assured me, however, that his was much worse, and he has to have an x-ray on Monday for pneumonia. This may trump coughing blood so I had to be sympathetic.

Anna was off to run a charity clothes sale, so I was on hand to amuse the babies in a Godfatherly fashion.

After feeding Oskar who is an unbelievably sweet natured and placid baby, I took Klaudia off to the park in her push chair. She loves the swings and enjoyed the small slide. She had her eyes fixed on the big slide however, which made me feel a bit twitchy but she managed it several times but she was fine with it as long as I held her hand as she went through netting and over little chain bridges and so on.

I felt like thrashing a slightly larger child who barged her: it must be hard not to shout at other people's kids if you are a parent. However, we both had an extremely nice time, despite the fact that she had made me carry Baby her large baby doll with a red ribbon with shoes that constantly fell off. Funny how the sex of a child seems to be an imprint deeper than socialisation.

Even at three, she was really careful not to get her pink shoes dirty, as she pointed out that the edges were already dirty. Later she stopped mid scramble to show me she had mud on her hand and wouldn't continue before I wiped it off.

Then to the cafe in the park which was quite busy. Klaudia asked me where we were going to sit and we had a beaker of milk, a large cup of tea and shared a chocolate brownie. Klaudia also shared some of her opinions on the superiority of the big slide to swings, and on the badness of balloons. There was a helium filled one on the ceiling which she pointed out, and said she hadn't liked the balloons at her party. Poor thing is traumatised by the sound of balloons bursting.

Klaudia insisted on walking all the way home, and holding my hand, while chatting to me and singing. It is impossible not to be enchanted by Klaudia and slightly humbled too. However big and clever I may think I am, it doesn't add up to a hill of beans compared to the fact that my Goddaughter likes me.

Then back to see Anton and play with Oskar till he fell asleep on Anton, who then passed him to me as it hurt his lungs. I had Oskar sleeping on me and gently dribbling into my sweater for an hour. Then feeding time. Anton struggled up again to prepare food, and I spooned it into Oskar with Klaudia sitting on my knee eating yogurt, and I felt very much the godfather.

After Anna had returned from a successful afternoon, I went home to roast a chicken. Thanks to my pies are bad brainwashing, I even managed not to gorge on the whole thing.

After this spent the evening on yet another hot cyberdate with Sarah Sprinkles on skype. She is exceedlingly nice, and talking to her was a lovely way to end a lovely day.

Below Klaudia in the park.