Stand down soldier, you don’t have to do anything to impress me. Just turn up in one piece and that will do, so leave off your mum and let her keep some food down please. French toast is hardly a luxury food and she’s got enough to worry about just now, thinking about if she should get the H151 jab or not, worried about what it might do to you.

And besides, on the food front, I’m dying to go out for a decent curry.

Two things are also quite apparent from this: your dad certainly won’t be fit and you may get called Arthur as in arthuritis (or the more common spelling of arthritis) from the spinal damage I’m getting sleeping on spare beds, couches and your big sister’s bed because you’re playing havoc with your mum’s body temperature.

Anyway, goodnight Arthur.

* I don’t think that means watching all the Saw films.

For that have an extra gulp of amniotic fluid or whatever it is you do in there to chill when you aren’t too busy dividing cells and stuff.

(or perhaps I’m just a damn good cook. Anyway, like your big sister, mum can now expect pasta bake non-stop for months.)

For this, you’re getting called Zanzibar. Or couch, ‘cos that’s certainly what I associate you with mostly at the moment.

Having said that, I wonder if you’re doing morse code and asking your mum to change the channel on TV because – even though you’ve only existed for five or so months – you’re hearing all the same jokes from the constant reruns of Friends on E4 that your mum has on as background noise kinda constantly. (Not that the show is on much but the six characters are pretty much screenburnt into the TV now. Kinda strange watching Troy and wondering why the ghosts of Chandler and Joey are flanking Brad Pitt into battle.)

I swear if your first words are “he was on a break” there’s going to be issues…

I kiss her forehead gently as she murmurs a little. I wonder where five years went and wish they had been in more slow-motion.

I go next door and the other lady of the house is also out like a light, trying to get some restful sleep to take the strain off her sore legs and back. Again, all cosied-up like a hamster, but she’ll wake up in the middle of the night a few times before giving up the ghost around 6am, but between now and then there should be some respite. I don’t lean over to kiss her forehead because if I wake her up there will be hell to pay.

And inside her sleeps and dreams a little bundle of something. For you the world is always quite dark still (your mum probably shouldn’t have work so much navy and black all the time), but it’s warm – cramped, but warm. I have no idea what your little dreams are like – probably of somewhere you can stretch without hitting organs – but I hope they’re nice and I hope they let you know you’re loved. Failing that, I hope you feel loved.

It’s not a wild Saturday night by any definition – in fact it hardly has a pulse – but seeing you three, still, content, at peace. I’ll take that tonight. The wind can howl outside and it can stay there. In here, it’s tranquil sleeps for all.

Sleep tight the three of you.

One joy that we found clearing out the garage, getting ready for the extension work, so you two have decent living space, was the old Calvin and Hobbes books that I bought (some for me, some for the then girlfriend) and it was one of the things that your mum and I both agreed were going to stay – and then I found this new, rare interview with the author.

Yes, we have the heavier-than-a-Transmogrifier special three-volume hardback (top present from your mum) but there’s something about keeping these originals for you to play with as well – and no doubt colour in with crayons – and I hope they make you laugh and gasp and more importantly than that, make you wonder and imagine and never stop exploring – either yourself or your surroundings.

And the books are back in boxes – for now – but it was good to hold them and remember back to the guy who was terrible at doing his hair, who wanted to write books, who kept girlfriends waiting while he read a bit more about the noises scientific progress made. He thought he had a good imagination, but he never imagined the fun you two would bring along. But he did have the good sense to remember all the best lines from Calvin’s dad when you ask questions about the world being black and white.

Your mum can read you the hedgehog story though.