You scratch your nose, you scratch mine

It doesn't seem to matter how snuggly George's little mits fit, he always seems to wake up with his hands free and a scratch (or four or five) somewhere – usually on his head.

Mummy keeps his nails nice and short but somehow he still manages to scratch himself. The other day he gave himself a long line that stretched from the top of his ear almost to his little nostril and together with the red dash on his nose and the marks on his head from previous days, looked as if we'd been putting him to bed in a bramble bush.

It bothers us a lot more than it does him – especially when it's shopping day. Instead of proudly showing him off, mummy and daddy give him much more of a lower profile to avoid the looks that say 'just what have you been doing to that poor baby?'.

This week daddy didn't feel quite so much of a paranoid parent – George managed to hang on to daddy's face long enough to give him a matching scratch on his nose which certainly got people feeling sorry for him instead...

George needed feeding half way through a shopping trip, so mummy and daddy went to the nearest cafe where mummy sat down to give George his bottle and daddy joined the queue for refreshments. Daddy returned to the table with coffee and tea and two little jugs of milk only to realise that he'd forgotten the teaspoons. Two ladies on the next table overheard his muttering and took pity on him when they saw his attempt to stir coffee by a) swishing it about, and b) using his finger. So much so that one of them got up and walked all the way across the crowded cafe just to fetch two teaspoons. How kind was that? With results like that George can scratch daddy's nose any time.

What mummy and daddy have noticed they have been enjoying over the past few months is the way they have been able to expand their use of the English language. George should be no different to all the other kids who grow up with fantastic imaginations when he has started life listening to sentences such as:

"There's a row of animals stuck to your bottom."

"Oh dear, you've got sick on the cow's hoof now."

"How did you get that elephant on your head?"

"I wish that darn crab would shut up."

"Are you looking at my slipper?"

(Of course, the last sentence has more impact when repeated Robert De Niro style).