Nature or nurture

George is developing a little personality all of his own – well, I say all of his own, but there are bits that he definitely gets from his mummy and daddy.

Unlike daddy, he's a real happy chappy first thing in the morning, and just like mummy he sticks his tongue out a little when he laughs.

This week he's found his hands and the first two fingers on his right hand have found a permanent home in his mouth – apparently daddy sucked these two fingers (his own – not George's) when he was a baby. The only trouble with this is that when someone coos at George he beams toothlessly as his fingers slip out of his mouth, giving the impression that he is either making a very rude gesture or asking for a cigarette.

The other thing George has found this week is his voice. He has always been a gurgling, ga-ga-ing baby, but all of a sudden his vocal range has taken on a whole new variety of sounds and volumes – probably to make himself heard after a noisy few days away with grandparents and dog. Hopefully, volume will be restored to normal level over the next week or so.

George, now four months old, has been trying a little bit of baby rice and pear puree and he seems to instinctively know how to use a spoon just as well as he knew how to suck on a nipple or teat. It's something we haven't taught him and, as spoons are an invention, must be a genetic mutation now inbuilt into the human genome – or perhaps it's just that we shoved something with food on directly in front of his mouth. Anyway, after a couple of mouthfuls with a measure of unsure frowning, George decided he quite liked this new development on the eating front – mummy and daddy's unsure frowns were concentrated on the fact that feeding times look to be a far more messy affair in future.

With this latest development comes the need for a food processor – not a need as such, but certainly time and effort saving – and it seems that with every passing day, just as George is learning something new, mummy and daddy are learning that they need something new too.

The realisation that our car is just too small means more expense on the horizon. Supermarket shopping and a pushchair thingy will not fit, and after a midweek break – when more luggage belonged to George than four adults – something will have to change if there are to be any holidays in the future.

So, recently, mummy and daddy have been making a mental note of all the cars that might meet their requirements – mummy points out a shiny Audi A4 estate, daddy points out a sleek Jag X-type estate, mummy notices a fashionable Volvo V50 estate and then daddy spots the perfect solution – a Transit van.