They did (think I was her Grandad)!

My daughter is 15 months old! When Natalie was half way through her pregnancy with Bea back in November 2021, I wrote in my blog, ‘They’ll think I’m her Grandad!’ Well, they did! Just this last week, two strangers we bumped into at play centres addressed me directly as ‘Grandad’. This is a frequent mistake, and it embarrasses those who make it more than it bothers me; I would have made the same assumption in their shoes. It’s not really surprising given that I am old enough to be Bea’s great-grandfather (for example, if I had had a child at 23, then that child had had a child at 23, and then that child had had a child at 23!).

How is she shaping up? Well, she possesses a ready smile and has developed a lively sense of humour. She engages with strangers readily; she is going to be friendly and sociable, more than I ever was at her age. She is a handful, full of energy and activity; she cannot keep still for very long! She loves climbing, exploring, and ‘driving’ cars at play centres (although she is only self-sufficient when in reverse, otherwise she needs to be pushed!). At the same time, she seems to love books and does sit for some minutes perusing them, which is pleasing to observe.

There have been two pivotal moments in her life so far: her baptism on October 15th and her first birthday on March 18th. On both occasions we welcomed supportive guests and enjoyed wonderful celebration. The fact that she tried to dive in the large jug of water provided for baptism by the nuns at Wood Hall Monastery tells you two things about her. She loves active movement and, as a Pisces, she loves water and will try to jump in, however risky! The first birthday included a trip to Cannon Hall, which has been quite a find as we only live twenty minutes away. It has a stately house with museum, an active farm where you can observe lambing etc., a child’s play centre, restaurants, a shop full of enticing food, and expansive parkland, good for walking the dog.

Bea has walked since she was 11 months old, and can run when she wants to! She can say a few words although not consistently enough for us to claim that she is actually talking, if I’m honest. Examples of things that she says reasonably frequently are ‘here you are’, ‘water’, ‘see ya’, ‘hiya’, ‘Daddy’, ‘Mum’, and ‘Teddy’. She does give wonderful monologues in gibberish and sometimes sings them. She likes to point into the air while speaking; obviously, one of us must do that! I think it's me.

It will be obvious from what I have written just how thrilled Natalie and I are to have Bea as our daughter, and we are looking forward to each stage of development and the learning that will involve all of us. There are plenty of reasons to be very optimistic about the future, while also acknowledging the need to watch out for her safety because of her own natural instincts to climb, run, explore, and greet strangers. She does require 100% supervision. That’s probably true of all 1 year olds but it is especially true of Bea.

There have been some close calls and two trips to A & E! The first was when she was violently sick when still quite small, quite unlike the dribbling regurgitation of babies; this seems to have been a reaction to avocado. The second was after a fall off our bed to which we probably overreacted, but she did land awkwardly and heavily. Better safe than sorry!

Bea is fearless with most people and animals, including our little dog, Teddy. Teddy is harmless but he does like to make a show of defending himself by growling and making people wary. Yet Bea knows him so well that she is quite confident in going up to him and stroking him, sometimes a little roughly! She is bigger than him now. We have always been very careful about their relationship, for both their sakes, but now we feel confident about it. They get on really well; she loves cuddling up to him and imitating his barking, and he dotes on her.

Getting to know American cousin Luca

Bea is a delight to both our families, with hordes of devoted uncles, aunts, and cousins, not to mention two grandparents. She did very well as a flower girl at our niece Katie’s wedding in Maryland, USA, last month. She and her cousin Luca (two months younger) were pulled up the aisle in a cart with flowers. We could not really believe it but neither of them tried to get out! It would have been typical of Bea to try and do so, but she seemed to sense the occasion and so all went well. And she loved the dancing at the reception. She is already showing the signs of someone who will love singing and dancing. Hopefully, she will do these things better than her parents!

In my blog immediately after her birth, I wrote that Bea’s horoscope suggested a woman of ideals and visions, maybe a spiritual leader of some kind. Seeing how physical she is and how much she loves escaping from small spaces, I would add the possibility of explorer, naturalist, sailor, astronaut! Perhaps she will be the first captain of the real Star Ship Enterprise. Admittedly, she first needs to boldly grow more than two teeth and some hair (on the other hand, Patrick Stewart, who played the second star ship captain, was bald too!)

I am thrilled that Bea is clearly my daughter because she looks like me (which might prove a disadvantage in the world of modelling, should that be her chosen career). She looks like Natalie too, of course, but the resemblance to me was evident even to a seven year old girl who became interested in her as Bea and I waited for Natalie outside a store in Annapolis, Maryland, during our recent visit. Older children like to play with her. ‘She looks like you’, said the little girl with conviction. I was really impressed that someone of seven (I asked her how old she was) should be able to identify the resemblance between a 70 year old and a 1 year old. It proved that it must be obvious.

So it’s official – I really do have a daughter, even if I struggle to believe it at times. Surely she’s not actually mine, just someone else’s baby I am helping to look after? I'm sure that many other first-time parents will relate to that feeling of wonder and what I suppose we could call ‘imposter syndrome’, even if they experienced it at a much younger age than me.

I don’t think that Bea could have a better and more loving mother than Natalie, and I hope she realises it one day. Natalie is one of the world’s great planners, who always has an idea of what we can do to give Bea some stimulation. Consequently, Bea has been to many play sessions, activities to develop the senses, art, music, and dancing workshops. If she isn’t at least as famous as Adele by nineteen I shall ask for our money back! Added to that, Natalie has a keen eye for a rash, a patch of dry skin, or anything which suggests that a massage and application of some soothing cream might help. And she is brilliant at finding all manner of items and gadgets which help to make raising a baby a lot easier. They are very close, and Bea is still breast feeding. On the whole, Bea eats well, and likes meat which is a little embarrassing as several of her godparents are vegetarians or vegans!

In case you wondered, while Natalie is the one who notices the smelly nappies (my sense of smell has deteriorated with age!), I do change my fair share of them. I run around children’s play equipment making sure my danger-unaware daughter doesn’t stray too near the bottoms of slides. I read books about Rabbit’s Nap, Fox’s Socks, and Hide-and-Seek Pig repeatedly, as Bea never seems to tire of them and loves opening the little flaps where we try to locate the aforementioned socks and the hidden Hen whom Pig is seeking. So I am a hands-on father, in the way that few fathers were when I was a child, but all bar a few are today.

The next generation: with English cousin Harper

And so I am going to publish this blog on my second father’s day in 2023 as testimony to the all-encompassing love I feel for my wife and daughter. Imposter I may be, but a very happy and fulfilled one. I hope I am up to it as the years progress: the school runs, the open evenings and Christmas plays, the sleep-overs, the arguments about when Bea can have a mobile phone, etc., etc. And, of course, being a father has made me all the more concerned about the dangers in the world’s future that Bea and her generation will face. But I am cautiously optimistic that she and her peers will rise above it somehow, not completely unscathed but able to move humanity forward to the twenty-second century and beyond. And to Star Trek, the reality? Starship captain Beatrice Maunder dictating the ship’s log? Or, given that she will be 77 at the turn of 2100, maybe it will have to be left to the descendants of Beatrice Maunder to navigate the stars. But she will certainly escape Earth’s gravity if she gets just the merest opportunity!