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I had another awesome afternoon with my daughter, making her laugh more than ever with my rendition of Frere Jacques, with most of the word replaced by ding and dong (suggesting that she will share my enjoyment of euphemisms for penis). She made me laugh and cry at the same time with her glee at this, chortling, kicking her legs and waving her arms. It is just the best feeling ever: better than sex (though you have to have sex in order to create one of these happiness machines) and much better than making people laugh on stage. I was buzzing all day from this burst of shared euphoria. I hope the three of us can laugh together like this at least once a day for the rest of our lives (or realistically of my life). The high I get from making strangers laugh (or indeed got from having sex with strangers) dissipates fast and morphs into something negative, but Phoebe’s laughter kept me walking on air all day. It’s pure and honest and really the most wonderful thing that I’ve ever experienced.
Before she just pooped and weed and burped and farted and to be honest, that was good enough for me. But this new sense of humour, even if all it is is her enjoying watching us laugh and joining in, is just miraculous.
But the more I am bound to this little girl the more I am filled with fear and dread. Tonight as I gave her her dream feed (a late night topping up of milk that we hope will make her sleep through to seven) she fell asleep and then started choking on the milk. It was a horribly alarming incident, her face contorting and her tongue poking out and I thought for a second she had gone limp and that I might have drowned her. But she was fine and drinking again within seconds. The horror of the possibility of losing her or hurting her is so immense, as I suppose it has to be for us to do all we can to keep her from harm (though I reckon I would anyway, Mother Nature you fucking bitch). What a beautiful nightmare my life has become.
The days are long (I was up at 5am this morning - the dream feed doesn’t always work) but it’s getting closer to normality again now. Although I lost weight in the first month of Phoebe’s life, I have piled it on a bit over the last couple of months so I am back on myFitnesspal and doing more exercise. I tend to overeat and not exercise when I am tired, so that’s been the problem, but today I managed a slow 3 mile run and to only exceed an aggregate of 1530 calories by about 100 calories (and I cam in under yesterday). I don’t know if I will be thin enough to fit properly into one of my new suits by Friday for the DVD, but it’s good to be back on track. I had tipped 87kg on Sunday, which is good by the standards of 2013, but I don’t really want to be over 83 and it would be good to get under 80 again like I did briefly in August last year. You know what would really help me with all this, one of those Apple watches… No, no. I promised I wouldn’t. How do these bastards drag me down? But you know, if it’s for the good of my health. You’ll look like an idiot, Herring. Or the coolest person in town. Nooooo!
More exciting names added to the upcoming series of RHLSTP. On June 15th Robert Webb will be joining me and on July 13th I will be chatting with Bridget Christie.
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