Uncle!!!

Yes - Uncle...

is what I shouted upstairs to Susi during my first solo-change of little Riley at 2AM our first night back from the hospital. I'll spare you the gory details, but let's just say... I was doing it wrong... really wrong. Thankfully, Susi came down in the nick of time, got Riley cleaned up, gave him a bottle, and got him settled down... then she got me cleaned up and gave me a bottle (of Johnny Walker) to settle me down.

Later that morning, I was at Mothercare an hour before it opened... glaring at anyone who even came near the iron grating should they dare to monopolise the time of whatever hapless salesperson I decided to unload on. In the end, I made the store manager's day - It was like one of those old school Toys R Us shopping sprees, except I wasn't just selecting that one coveted board game or reviewing jigsaw puzzles while the television audience screamed apoplectically at their television sets: "You fool!! Clean out the Trivial Pursuits and Cabbage Patch Kids!!". Nope - I went WHOLESALE, BABY! It was a true mission of mercy, and I already began to feel better as I lugged my sacks of goodies onto the 189 bus back to Cricklewood. Needless to say, I was back the very next morning to return most of what I'd bought.

Since most of you already have kids, I'm not going to presume that this is anything you haven't experienced in some less ridiculous form or another. I had been ready to call in the Red Cross, the National Guard, the ASPCA, ACLU, NAACP, OSHA and the Boy Scouts of America... Hell - I'd have called in the IRS if I'd thought I could negotiate a feed and nappy change into a tax audit. I'd held out hope that I'd be spending the first night home with Riley teaching him the Counties of England or how to play chess, but alas, that was the pinnacle of naive optimism at its finest. I now understand it will be at least a few weeks - maybe even a month - before we can do that. I had been foolishly optimistic, but now I know... and knowing is half the battle.

We're just a couple of weeks into this adventure, and already I'm fighting an uphill battle to be the second-most mature person in the house. The death knell was Susi's polite suggestion that I try to be "more like Riley"... finish my meals, perform my ablutions in an appropriate location, and on the whole, be cuter... a lot cuter! Frustratingly, surprising her this morning by spitting up my pancakes while donning nothing but an Infant-Sized Huggies did little to help my case. I can't see this ending well for me.

Let me step out of character just a moment and offer a most profound compliment without the disclaimers and conditions I usually apply to such things - not even a random reference to eighties consumer product commercialism. Susi has been, and continues to be, insanely amazing - throughout the entire pregnancy, birth, and our first weeks home. Being away from home, family, automobiles, 24 hour pharmacies and, most of all, Mummie, there was no one to turn to, and she led the fight with incredible cool-headedness and valor. She has definitely earned an extra portion of onion rings the next time we head out to the local!

Moving on to the wider picture, it was hard for us to reconcile the current severe drought situation in Southern England with the torrent of water that came into our flat through previously unidentified, non-plumbed orifices over the weekend. Although there are few things more banal than whinging about British weather, I'm utterly distraught looking out at our 40th consecutive day of rain while still under the governmental guidance of "If it's yellow, let it mellow... if it's brown, flush it down". Further the Met Office (England's government-run weather channel) is tempering expectations as only the English can by advising that even though the weather has been really 'poopie' for a 'pooping' long time, it's not the right kind of 'poopie' weather required to end the mother 'pooping' drought.

Europe seems to be monitoring the upcoming US elections with the usual sense of bemusement and understated fear. Four years of Democratic leadership has allowed governments over here to lapse into a false sense of security - military spending is down, social programmes are up - but that could all change in the blink of an eye should the "war monger" Republicans unseat the "passably civilized" Democrats. Most Europeans, if they could vote, would be staunchly Democrat, since economic stagnation and rampant social spending dissuades us Yanks from upsetting the delicate balance of quasi-communistic denial Europe has embraced since the second world war. So long as the war on public health care is front and center, our good friends and allies need not fear being squished into the under sole of the international boot we use to kick whatever hornet's nest unwittingly finding itself in our ever evolving "Axis of Evil".

And finally - take a second to close your eyes, sit back in your chair - and imagine whatever heartwarming and cuddly closing you wish to be here.

Have you got it??

OK - that's my signoff!!