we’ve just returned from an afternoon in the playground.

it’s getting to be quite a regular sunday afternoon event, tea, beer, biscuits and snacks, bicycles, doll prams, playing, standing, sitting, baby prams.

there are two new babies in the playground – ingrid and oliver. both mums are third time round mums with children aged 6 and 4, so it is interesting to watch their children’s reactions to the new sibling.

today, ingrid woke up and i decided i should give her a bit of a cuddle. she’s a lovely little thing, and so fun to cuddle. very easy baby, especially when you can hand her off. but let’s put it this way, she didn’t vomit on me, so i didn’t get any real flashbacks to almost four years ago. and she wasn’t covered in tubes and tape either.

i gently smacked her back and fell into the swinging rhythm that you never forget, and katie said, "oh charles, come take a look at your gorgeous wife." and charles wandered over and said, "oh i know." and he gave me a kiss and admired ingrid and then oliver. i held ingrid probably for a good 30 minutes when:

suddenly sela was at my side. "why are you holding baby ingrid?" she asked. she has seen me holding ingrid before, but never for such a prolonged period of time.

"to help her mummy." i answered.

and sela didn’t leave my side. she held my leg and circled round it, she leaned against me, she kept asking me questions.

i asked a fellow dweller if she wanted to have a go holding baby ingrid. "oh, no thanks. makes me broody."

i thought about broody-ness as i trotted into the flat, my little ducks in a row behind me.

"ingrid is a very sweet baby, and i like holding other people’s babies, but that is as far as it goes." i said in a voice that could only be called definite.

"really?" he said, in a voice that could only be categorized as nostalgic.

"YES" i replied. "they don’t stay babies forever, charles. do you really want to go through sibling rivalry, and a two year old, a three year old, car seats, nappies, baby food in ice trays all over again?"

he didn’t answer, and i know that he would not be upset and would actually be delighted if yes, we did go through that all over again.

and yes, i spoke more definitely than i sometimes feel, but honestly, someone has to be sensible.

right?