Runaway train

They were right of course, the smug bastards.

‘It will go by so fast’.

It does. It has. 40 plus weeks of pregnancy have come and gone in a ridiculous flash, Mango is here and about to turn 12 weeks old.

Twelve bloody weeks old, in no time at all we’ve gone from measuring her existence in minutes, hours, or even days, to dozens of weeks. Months.

She still stares exactly as she did that very first time, that kind of unwavering, uncompromising stare that actors try to perfect in order to be dubbed 'the new Pacino'. For the rest, she’s constantly changing, evolving.

What strikes me most is her independence. That may sound ridiculous of someone who needs changing and feeding, but it’s her spark that’s independent, her spirit.

As long as someone is there to tend to her, she’s fine, she’s happy. She doesn’t need us, yet we couldn’t live without her, and my adult brain can’t quite get itself around that infant inspired realisation.

It comes down to this, she doesn’t know or care about what it took to get her here, she owes us nothing, and neither should she. The weight of what went before is for us to carry, not her.

At 12 weeks old she has probably already needed us as much as she ever will as a child. Depressingly, but rightly, as it should be.

It goes by so fast.

Smug bastards.

Babelfish

‘Haaai’ she says, if you haven’t shoved your face in front of hers in a while.

That’s ‘Hello’ to you and me. Not so much a welcoming hello but edging more towards that sarcastic fake teeth filled smiley hello that groups of girls use amongst themselves on a night out.

‘Eh’ is her ‘Meh’. She usually rolls this one off in conjunction with a sigh and a scornful glance before turning her head in the opposite direction. To be interpreted in no other way than ‘you haven’t amused me with that sound or stupid face, so piss off’.

A very pitiful sounding ‘Mmmboo’ means she’s knackered. Stop trying to keep her awake as she’s flat out exhausted and things will only deteriorate rapidly until you ensure that she finds herself in a prime position to have an uninterrupted snooze. ‘Mmmboo’ is often joined by sad baby face.

Like many Dutch words, her ‘Ngong’ has a couple of meanings. Namely ‘give me a bottle now’ and ‘I’m about to scream my head off through starvation’. Take the bottle from her mouth mid-feed and you are likely to be bombarded with a string of ‘Ngong ngong ngong’s.

'Nnngh, nnngh, nnngh’ is especially for me. When it is accompanied with a frown and a reddening face literally translates to ‘Daddy quick! Make an excuse to leave me with Mammy because I’m in the process of filling this nappy with something that will turn you off your lunch.’

‘Gaaaaaaah ef ef ef muhm muhm aaaheeuw’ highlighted with two big headlamp eyes almost certainly means, ‘Please go read this. Please, please, please help daddy help that big sweaty Englishman raise funds for a trust that helps families who have lost children. Normal families just like yours, or your neighbour’s, or your friends, who face financial difficulties during the darkest times they are likely to face. You can help someone simply by donating any amount at all here.’

She may sound a wee bit pushy, but she has a point.

Neil and Rachael's story.

The official Joseph Salmon trust site.

The Hadrian’s Walk blog.

The Hadrian’s walkers donation site.

My personal donation site for the trust.

The Nederlander

I’ve had ten of them.

Friday was the tenth ‘Koninginnedag’ I’ve had the dubious pleasure of experiencing.

Ten times I’ve seen the Dutch national holiday come and go in its usual sea of orange clothing, odd songs, and untimely downpours. Yet not once have I ever particularly enjoyed it, other than as an excuse to imbibe that little bit extra. Not a surprise I suppose, being a foreigner.

I wonder about Mango though, technically she is Irish, despite her birthplace, but for all intents and purposes she’s going to have her early years surrounded by the same things that every other little Dutch girl has.

Her Irish passport is winging its way to us as we speak, albeit probably via the hands of an Israeli assassin, or first being used as an incentive for an Arab billionaire to invest in some Galway based businesses. Should it eventually arrive in one piece it will be the only thing to set her aside from all her peers at school or daycare.

She will be sung Dutch songs, will be told Dutch fairy tales, and will play Dutch games with her little Dutch friends.

She’ll be cycling before she can walk, having cheese for breakfast, and talking with a funny accent.

We’re raising a foreigner.

A cute one though.