Parental puke peril

In my later teenage years I, like many, would enjoy the occasional night on the tiles on a Friday evening. On the whole, my friends and I were quite sensible and left our home town relatively untroubled as a result of our inebriation, besides subjecting those within earshot to slightly less inhibited pretentious, pseudo-intellectual musings than we did elsewhere in the week.

On one notable occasion though, I did make my own small contribution to what journalists are obliged to call BOOZE BRITAIN. The reason I recall this occasion here is that - while I don't believe I troubled any other of my fellow citizens that fateful evening - I caused my parents considerable trauma.

Essentially what happened was that I displayed a rare inability to know my limits, as a result of which I embarked upon an epic expulsion of vomit out of my Dad's car window before he had dutifully delivered me home. Further violent regurgitation ensued in the kitchen sink before I somehow found my way into bed. I awoke late the next morning with a hangover and a vague sense of mild shame, only to have this sense quickly specified and magnified by my anguished parents, as they attempted to convey to me the terror that I had caused them throughout the night: I had been entirely unaware of the unabating frenzy of puke to which I had subjected them from my own bed. My parents had had to stay up with me as I unknowingly produced this horrific spectacle. They quite reasonably feared for my life at one stage, and quite possibly saved it.

Needless to say, this is a deeply unpleasant tale, and one of which I am quite ashamed. I hope my parents know that I have been very sorry and duly grateful to them ever since. But it was only last week that I began to fully understand just how awful that night must have been for them. My daughter was not, of course, disgracefully drunk, but suffered for a good five days and nights from what has only now been identified as a urinary infection. She seems to have recovered from this ailment now that we know what it was, but last week her symptoms were as mysterious as they were terrifying.

During the days she would replace eating and drinking with desperate screaming. During the nights she would replace sleeping with desperate screaming and violent retching, as her temperature fluctuated wildly between extremes it should never reach. I am aware that all loving parents are susceptible to alarm in response to any threat to their child's wellbeing, but I assure you that I haven't exaggerated these symptoms, or the effect they had upon my wife and I. Several times I fought back tears as I watched my helpless, sleep deprived daughter dry heaving like, well, like an extremely drunken teenager.

Which is when the parallels occurred to me between this incident and the one I had caused all those years ago. Of course there are obvious differences. My daughter is about seventeen years younger than I was then, and was in no way responsible for her affliction, but last week I felt the same helpless, incomprehensible fear and inconsolable sympathy for my child that I must have subjected my own parents to on the Night I Didn't Know my Limits.

Sorry Mum. Sorry Dad.

But hey, my daughter's better now. And I don't touch vodka anymore.

"Boing," said Zebedee, "time for bed."

This has nothing to do with The Magic Roundabout. Sorry.

Babies love routine. This is one aspect of parenting upon which there is a general consensus. It helps them to develop a sense of cause and effect, and to feel safe, happy and comfortable in their lifestyle. Or something like that.

I was less conscious of the extent to which I love routine. It is perhaps more because of this than my awareness of good parenting practice that we have indeed developed regular patterns in our daughter's average day. In fact, to be fair, it's almost entirely down to my wife's awareness of good parenting practice. But I'm a willing follower of her lead.

Mindful of the remote possibility that anybody hopes to glean hints and tips from reading this, I thought I might outline our daughter's very exciting bedtime routine.

Her dinner usually starts being thrown on the floor at around 5:30 or 6:00pm. This is washed down eagerly with a bottle of milk, accompanied by the requisite episode of In the Night Garden. If the lengthly after dinner clean-up is unfinished by the time Iggle Piggle awakens (in his melancholy little boat in a darkly infinite sea, another vainly hopeful dream of company and joy in the woods ended with wretched inevitability) then we'll set our daughter free on the floor to expend any remaining energy. Of course, careful supervision ensures that the resultant wave of destruction is conducted safely. Before long however, tears of frustration often begin to outweigh our daughter's enjoyment of this last hurrah. This is when we know it's bedtime.

Unless I'm still at work, or occasionally being very selfish when Arsenal are on the telly, my wife and I share the bathtime duties. One of us will get the water running (each of us knows the exact angle to which the tap should be turned to achieve the correct temperature) while the other prepares the pyjamas, nappy and sleeping bag on our bed. Then I'll entertain my progeny as my wife prepares herself for the bath. Our daughter has introduced her own elements to the routine at this stage. Her wind up Winnie the Pooh musical thingy hangs from our bedhead, and she takes great, daily delight in clambering across the duvet and pillows in order to attain a position from which she can grab Winnie before rolling around with him for a bit.

Just as the challenge of preventing our daughter from consuming her new nappy starts to irk me slightly, I usually hear my wife's announcement that both she and the bath are ready to receive the washee. Quick as a flash, I whip off my daughter's clothes (in the unashamedly silly and entertaining manner which is the ambition of all dads) before commencing the weeees.

The weeees are a very important element of this routine, and represent - I am sure - my daughter's favourite use of her father. They involve my holding the now naked baby under her armpits and saying "One... Two... Three" as I bounce her three times on the bed. The grin has usually appeared by this point, but this is just the amuse bouche of the weeees. On three, I begin flying her to the bath. (Not literally: I'm still holding on to her. To do otherwise would be irresponsible.) Each swoop is accompanied by a big "Weeee" from me and a squeal of delight from her. It takes four swoops to reach Mummy in the bath. During the weeees I always have to overcome a brief, irrational fear of accidentally throwing my daughter down the stairs. This has never happened.

The bath itself is really my wife's domain. While I clear away any dirty clothes and nappies I can find, our daughter is being a bit washed and a lot entertained by her mother. A vast array of bath toys are involved, the favourites of which are Duncan the dolphin (whose introduction is always made with a list of all the Duncans we can think of: Peter Duncan, Duncan Goodhew, Duncan from Blue, etc.) and a collection of four stacking cups, each of which has a face, a hole and a name. I can never recall their names, for which my wife regularly and quite rightly scolds me.

Once the cleaning and the playing are complete, the singing begins. The singing is always the same. We begin with:

Bobbing along,

Bobbing along,

On the bottom of the beautiful briny sea,

Bobbibobbobbibobbobbibob

Bobbing along,

Bobbing along,

On the bottom of the beautiful briny sea.

These are all the words we know, so as my wife passes our daughter into my towel-bearing arms, we launch into a bit of Frog Song:

Bom bom bom,

Aiyah,

Bom bom bom,

Aiyah,

Bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom,

Aiyah,

Bom bom bom,

Bom bom bom,

We all stand together,

Bom bom.

By this juncture my daughter and I are on our way back to the bedroom, during which journey I do the whistley bit, which I won't attempt to transcribe here. Then, as I dry her:

Ahh ahahh,

Ahahh ahahahh,

Keeping us warm in the night,

Bobbobbob bombombombombom,

Ahh ahahh,

Ahahh ahahahh,

Something something something,

Holding me tight.

(This stretches my vocal range)

Win or lose,

Sink or swim,

One thing is certain,

We'll never give in.

Hand in hand,

Side by side,

We all stand together

Bom bom.

By now I have finished drying the little lady, and begun to apply generous quantities of cream all over her (always in this order: head, face, tummy, legs, arms, back, back of head, bum.) It is imperative that I make curious slurping noises to ward off the frustration which usually creeps back in to her mind as I perform this creaming ritual. I always feel that another song would be useful here, but invariably forget every song ever written at this very impertinent moment. My wife has dried herself and returned to the bedroom at this point, and we join forces in the struggle to apply a nappy, vest, pyjamas and sleeping bag to a child who was quite enjoying being naked.

With this stage complete, I leave my wife to settle our daughter in her cot with beautiful renditions of Somewhere Over the Rainbow and You are My Sunshine while I disappear off downstairs to do dinner or something. Job done. Until she wakes up screaming half an hour later. Actually this happens a lot less than it used to.

The whole process, from the end of her dinner to the genesis of ours, takes about an hour. It used to feel like a bit of a chore, but is now the highlight of my day.

As I say, I like routines too.