Three Beautiful Things

1. After breakfast, Alec and I sprawl on the bed and  have a very long nap -- so long that lunch is almost late. 2. It is disgusting when your baby picks things up off the floor -- and not even your own floor -- and tries to eat them, but it's rather endearing when he offers such 'found food' to people sitting at the next table. 3. When I go up -- quite late -- I find that Nick is in our bed and not sleeping in his study.

1. Lenses of oil on water magnify the bottom of the bread tin. 2. A man and a woman are talking outside the window. Only the child on the man's shoulders sees Alec in his blue cardigan waving and smiling. 3. A box of peppermint creams in opulent red and gold foil printed with moons and suns and stars. They look as if they might have magical properties -- with this one you'll see the future. This one will make you sprout (temporary) wings. That one has a flavour now lost to history. Another will give you visions of paradise.

1. "Happy birthday, manlet." This morning -- it's really stretching the definition of morning, though -- I don't mind helping Alec back to sleep in the small hours. 2. If I have no pocket, I stash my handkerchief down the front of my dress. Alec has a habit of pulling it out. He looks as proud as if he'd produced the flags of all the nations, a bunch of flowers and a live dove. 3. To watch him anticipate. He giggles before a 'boo' or the popping of the weasel. He holds his breath for the turning on (or off, either will do) of the radio. And he flutters his fingers greedily when I offer him milk.

Alec was one today. He seems big and little at the same time. I'll write more about him tomorrow. 1. Maggie's first words are reported on Facebook. We like and like and like. 2. We open -- it's a slow business, though -- a couple more of Alec's Christmas presents. He takes his time, stripping off tiny pieces of wrapping, tasting them, offering them to us, getting distracted by the contents of the previous parcel. I wish I was more like him. 3. Everyone else is in bed. This is my time in my kitchen.

1. Uncle Rob carries Alec, fast asleep, in the backpack. When asked if he is all right, Robert complains: "He's snoring." 2. To see, in the twilight, away up the road, the missing blue boot. 3. I go to the sitting room, but no-one is there. Black needle shadows. The Christmas tree glows softly in the dark.

1. Outside our bedroom door is a wooden cart with a baby Christmas tree on it. "For Alec," says my mother. He touches the red baubles with a gentle -- gently, Alec -- finger. 2. Rosey is down at the bottom of the world -- just a conference call away from a family Christmas. She says the weather is good, and she's going skiing later, though there's a chance she might be needed for co-piloting . 3. We'd been told that he would prefer the wrapping paper to everything else. In the end, it's a book with a finger puppet that lights up his world.

1. Nick needs some peace, so I take the baby in the backpack (there is no room to get the pushchair out because of all the packing) and go to the park. It's quiet and cold, and children keep asking why Alec is not wearing any shoes. "He's growing too fast," I tell them. I wonder what their parents are thinking about my baby standing on the roundabout in his socks? We sit together on the big swings and he dozes against my chest while I sing fragments of songs. Another mother and son are on the other two swings -- but he's about ten times older than Alec. 2. The beams are laced and lanced with holly and ivy, and we are home for Christmas. 3. The sound of the back door and Robert's modest 'Hello?'