"Put down that wrench!"

Up rather early this morning with the sound of a vomiting garklet. Cot disinfected, garklet bathed, and laundry on, and it's still not yet 7am. Still, at least he's still cheery.

Anyway, as much for our benefit as for yours, here's the young lad's current (consistent) vocabulary, as well as we can make it out.

gat

Any furry, four-legged mammal, most commonly a cat.

dak, duk

A bird, most commonly a duck.

dada

Daddy. Or Mummy. Or Alex. Or, in fact, any person.

bana

Banana.

baya

A vehicle (including aeroplanes)

bala

Aeroplane

bu-bow

Bubble. Or any round, see-through and pretty thing (raindrops on windows, etc).

buk

Book.

lo, elo, iya

Hello.

bye-a

Goodbye.

bow

The noise made by something falling or being thrown.

baw

A ball, or something which can be thrown.

uh oh

1. Oh dear, something has fallen down. It may have been an accident, but it's more likely that I did it on purpose.

2. Oh dear, something is not right. Also used when someone sneezes.

da

That, the thing that I am pointing at. Why do my stupid parents not understand what I'm saying to them?

Given this, it's hardly surprising that one of his favourite books (if not his absolute favourite) is the wonderful Sadie the Airmail Pilot, which features a cat who flies planes. Things don't get better than this for the under-twos, it seems.

...and the Word was "uh-oh".

So much for "mama" or "dada".

Now that the garklet's first birthday is out of the way (see ias's journal for an account), we've started putting up the decorations. Himself seems to be rather taken by the tree and its adornments (in his words: dah!), and I've managed to stop himself from electrocuting himself by sucking the fairy lights.

We've decided that our living tree of the past two years is really looking too sorry; it was charmingly crooked when we bought it, now it's charmingly crooked, marginally taller, and rather the worst for wear. Think of it as the Steve Buscemi of the tree world. In a few years it'll have developed enough character to make a statement, at which point we might let it back into the house. For now, we have a young, fresh tree, a bit on the short side, but nonetheless attractive. Think of it as the Thora Birch of the tree world.

Regarding decorations, I thought I'd add a few new ones to those that we've built up over recent years. We didn't have something for the apex of the tree, so I've added a jaunty cameo of a middle-aged Isaac Newton, which I've complemented with these hanging decorations:

Thanks to everyone that came to Alex's naming ceremony yesterday - we had an enjoyable, if hectic, time, and we hope that you did likewise.

The only downside to the day was that we'd forgotten to put the freshly-charged battery back in the camera, so we have no photographs of our own - if people could stick full-sized images online and send us a pointer, we'd be much obliged.

Noticed while sorting through photos for the grandparents:

Alex	Alex

Alternatively:

I've just spent the last hour stripping and cleaning my (well, effectively ias's) Thinkpad after the garklet managed to surreptitiously vomit into the keyboard and then give the keys a good hammering to work the gunge in well. Thanks to Lenovo's support pages (which presumably they inherited from IBM), I was able to easily find the right manuals with instructions for taking apart an R51. The keyboard now only smells faintly of baby puke, and I suspect that will fade as the keyboard dries out fully.

So my question to LJ is this: where's the equivalent information on the Apple website for disassembling a MacBook Pro?

Well, today has been exciting, and not in a good way.

Since the garklet turned six months old last week (and if truth be told, for a couple of weeks before that) we've been introducing him to solid foods. We're going down the baby-led weaning route, mainly because it seems to be more fun for him. So far he's eaten: carrots, broccoli, parsnips (roast and boiled), potatoes (roast and boiled), spinach, asparagus, green beans, avocado, pear, nectarine, banana, strawberries, chicken and haddock. He's enjoyed some of them (pear in particular, also broccoli, strawberries and asparagus), and hasn't been too impressed with others (boiled potatoes, haddock, banana, avocado).

This morning, we gave him some well-cooked scrambled eggs (containing eggs alone - no butter, salt or pepper) for breakfast. He seemed unimpressed by the texture in his fist, and didn't seem to like the taste (but also didn't seem to be getting any of it into him). I gave him a little on the spoon, which he spat out, so we decided to call it a day. He then gave the remaining egg a good mash with his fists before rubbing his eyes (before I could stop him - he's managed to give himself conjunctivitis in the last week by rubbing his eyes when he's had a heavy cold).

So, wiped off the unimpressed baby with a tea towel and took him down to the sofa while ias finished her breakfast at her leisure...and noticed that his face and arms had come up in a nettle-like rash, basically everywhere that the egg had touched.

Phoned the out-of-hours GP, who told us to take him to A&E (parts of his lips started going blue while we were on the phone). Got to A&E at 1130 (he'd had the egg at 1100), was triaged as 'urgent' by 1145...and waited another two and a half hours before he got seen by either a doctor or another nurse (by this time, the initial hives had subsided, and he was onto a second wave of puffiness and splotches).

We now have a bottle of Piriton, instructions to see our GP for referral to the allergy unit, and to avoid egg in future.

Therefore, we will now not be feeding the garklet the following foods: egg custard, french toast, creme brulee, boiled eggs and toast soldiers, egg pasta, spaghetti carbonara, scotch eggs, eggs benedict, eggs florentine, mayonnaise, christmas pudding, victoria sponge and a myriad of other foods.

Today we are mostly being very, very tired.

Generally busy weekend - Eurovision party on Saturday night, which involved a great deal of tidying. Gark Villa survived the attack of experimental subjects L and T rather better than last time, mostly thanks to the oilcloth on the table. The garklet seemed to enjoy the attention from them, even when he was being flattened by their boundless enthusiasm.

On the topic of the garklet, two important milestones were passed this weekend. Firstly, he cut his first tooth. Secondly, he ate (or at least gummed) his first solid food, being a carrot grabbed from ias's plate. I present the following two images as proof:

As you also may be able to tell from those photos, we don't currently have a cat.

Of course, the addition of the new tooth meant that his nibs woke about every hour last night, so all three of us are now feeling rather fragile...

• Restlessness, irritability and disturbed sleep patterns? Check.
• Sore, red gums? Not clear.
• Flushed cheeks? Check.
• Loss of appetite? If by that you mean lots of little feeds rather than substantial big feeds, then yes.
• A slight rise in temperature (but not above 39°C, which indicates a fever)? Check.
• Dribbling (which may cause a rash or sore, chapped skin on the chin)? Check.
• A sudden desire to chew anything they can lay their hands on? Check.
• An urge to bite? Judging by the gum marks on ias's arm this morning, yes.

Either the garklet is turning into a vampire, or he's starting to teethe. He's not shown any sensitivity to either garlic or sunlight, so I assume that the latter is more likely to be the case.

Off up to town with ias and the garklet yesterday to see the Holbein exhibition at Tate Britain before it finishes, but not our most successful day out. Slept poorly the night before, and had a headache for most of the day that left me feeling grouchy and tearful by turns. Finally got out of the house after noon, thanks to a combination of arguments about pannetone (don't ask) and last minute feeds.

Got to the Tate at 3pm, only to find that they were selling tickets for entrance at 5pm by that point, so decided to book online and come back on Sunday. Saw some other bits of the permanent exhibition, including Too Much Turner in the Clore. Introduced the garklet to his first Mondrian, which he found fascinating (we'd already found that he likes Bridget Riley, and the Deluxe mode in jwz's xscreensaver). Walked from Pimlico to Villiers Street to meet hsw, which was lovely. The garklet seems to be building up a fanclub.

And now the not-so-great bit. Went to the Melton Mowbray for the London Circle, to see the Usual Suspects and also to point at London fandom and tell the garklet that one day all of this would be his, so he'd better start thinking of a title for his fanzine.

...and we got thrown out because their license doesn't allow children in the pub. I didn't see a sign on the outside of the pub prohibiting under-18s, and the 2003 Licensing Act makes no provision for barring children from pubs. It does have a number of other sensible provisions concerning children and alcohol, none of which apply to the garklet since, at exactly four weeks old, he never buys his own drinks let alone those for others, and sticks to milk anyhow. The duty manager in the pub (not the licensee) wasn't able to show me the specific conditions of their license that prohibited children from entering the pub.

Therefore, I shall this morning be phoning Trading Standards at the City of London and asking them if the premises license for the Melton Mowbray stipulates no children. If it doesn't, I'll be formally lodging a complaint with Fuller's, and if it does, I'll be complaining to Trading Standards because the Melton Mowbray weren't able to show me the license copy or summary that they should have had on prominent display.