It was a day of “ooh, don’t they grow up fast” and “he’ll be bringing girlfriends home soon”, and that was just me. Luca has just celebrated his first birthday. I say ‘celebrated’. In fact, Luca toddled and cried and cooed and created carnage in much the same way as he does every day. His mother and I were the ones doing the celebrating, with a bottle of cheap bubbly and a large chocolate gateaux.

Oh, and a party. Luca invited 11 (count ‘em!) of his little friends round in the morning, with mums as extra, and together we all sang happy birthday, watched as Luca threw his presents around, and munched – like the Hungry Caterpillar – through a selection of chocolate-coated goodies. After that, I made best use of the chaos created by the bubble machine (have you seen one? It’s like blowing bubbles through a machine gun - fab) to sneak off upstairs and hide for a couple of hours. One baby is a handful. Eleven babies all together in one small room is bedlam in nappies.  

So Luca is one year old, and a very lovely, happy, wonderful, brilliant, perfect, livewire little boy. He babbles and coos and has recently started taking the odd wobbly step on his own (though you have to be right there to catch him when his drunken progress ends in a face-first fling towards the floor). He has three teeth, five footballs, and a fondness for eating toilet paper. He is a little person with a huge character and we could hardly wish for more in our son – though we could certainly wish for more time in bed.

How things have changed. A year ago we brought home a tiny premature mouse with a wisp of golden hair and a cheeky glint in his eye. And we’ve had a year of panic, exhaustion, anxiety and love. He’s lead us a merry dance, with his funny intolerances and anti-social hours and determination to wring every bit of energy out of himself and us before finally dropping to sleep. But he’s ours, and he’s lovely, happy, wonderful, brilliant and perfect.

 Did I say that bit already? Oh well. For these smitten parents, and for this very doting daddy, it really is worth repeating.

Well, we got married (and a week of last minute panic explains why I haven’t posted for a while). Luca is now the legitimate son of parents whose relationship has been sanctioned by law. He can rest secure in the knowledge that, should his mum and dad ever want to part – and the chances are slim, we like to think- they’d have to pay money to lawyers to do it, which means they probably never will. 

As my regular reader will know (hi mum!), I had resigned myself to the idea that Luca would probably ruin the day for everyone, by not sleeping at the right times, demanding our full attention, being overtired and bad tempered with in-laws and friends, and by acting like the perfectly normal, temperamental baby he is. I’d wondered out loud why on earth we’d decided to get married now, when we could wait a couple more years and get married when there was considerably less chance of complete disaster. I hoped that by expecting the worst, we would be pleasantly surprised if the day was just a smidgeon better than that.

And in the end…it was great! Forget the happy couple, Luca was the star of the show, cooing at smitten relatives, smiling for photographs, and giggling through the service. He played and babbled while his parents sipped expensive cocktails afterwards, and slept through the best part of the wedding meal. We’d deliberately spread the celebrations over two days in the hope that Luca would be good for at least one of them, but at the party next day he amazed everyone who knows him by making it two good days in a row. By the end of it all he was a bit overwhelmed, and a bit clingy with his mum, but all in all the little lad had done us proud.

Of course, like the foolish optimists we are, we’re now planning all sorts of ambitious outings and celebrations. Maybe we’ll have a little party for his first birthday? Maybe we’ll go on a belated honeymoon in September? Maybe Luca is now of an age when we can do pretty much what we like in confident expectation of his complete cooperation?

Hmm, maybe. Or maybe Luca was giving us this one, as a little reward for muddling through most of his first year without too much trauma. But when we’re discussing all these things and getting excited about the possibility of parties and holidays, I can’t help but imagine the smile playing about his lips, and the glint in his eyes, and the sentence that he whispers to himself, so softly that we never hear: “will they never, ever, learn.”   

One of the little known advantages of having a baby is that, although your days may feel longer, more stressful, and more likely to end in tears, it does make you appreciate the little things.

Now this blog is often little more than a soppy love note to my brilliant, wonderful (not to mention difficult, mardy, uncooperative…) son, so you probably think that, by little things, I mean the smile that plays around his lips when he first spots me in a crowded room, or the way he’s taken to staring in astonishment at the wonders of nature (or at least pigeons). But I don’t. Not this time.

No, by little things I mean the ten minutes I can grab behind a locked toilet door with the sports pages. A year ago, this was routine. Now, it’s blissful. Nichola talks about the joys of a shower that lasts more than three minutes, and how she savours every warming, soothing jet. Her friend mentions the wonderful moment when her baby falls asleep and she can wander up the street scoffing a bag of chips without fear of interruption. Oh yes, we know sophistication round our way.

There are loads more. I had a coffee in town on my own the other day. It was a revelation. There was no chance that Luca would chuck a teaspoon at the burly bloke in the next chair, or decide to escape the evil parents who are keeping him prisoner by crashing head first through the window, and I savoured every sip.

 Even telly seems better, and most of it’s rubbish. But you get to see so little (and what you do see is so often accompanied by the sound of cooing, crying, or a full scale tantrum) that a decent, uninterrupted  drama or documentary becomes an almost hypnotic experience. Drama? Documentary? Who am I kidding? From Wednesday, I’ll be watching every Big Brother like every other brain-addled parent, because an hour of mindless drivel at 9pm, after Luca is tucked up in bed, seems – right now – like the pinnacle of relaxing entertainment.       

Nichola and I are getting married in a few weeks. It’s a small, family-only do in the local registry office, with a bit of a party in the upstairs room of a pub the next day. We could have done the whole £15,000 country house hotel thing, with speeches and Champagne and individually hand crafted bridesmaid dresses, but quite frankly we have better things to spend our parents’ money on.

The other reason we quickly eschewed the idea of doing anything fancy is that the love of our lives, our absolute pride and joy, would almost certainly have ruined it for everybody. When you have a baby who likes nothing more than to throw food at you, it’s probably not a good idea to spend £800 on a wedding dress.

It might not sound all that romantic, but we are approaching the happy day with a sense of almost joyful resignation. We are assuming that Luca will catch one of his endless colds two days before, and that we’ll wake on the morning of our nuptials after precisely two hours sleep.

We are pretty certain that our darling boy will then spend the ceremony crying, or at best throwing bits of rice cake and banana at the registrar. We’re equally confident the party will be a complete nightmare, with Luca spending five hours demanding to be walked around the room by his parents, all the while kicking a slowly disintegrating chicken drumstick and sneezing on our friends.

The more we have come to accept this likely fate, the less stressed we’ve become. If our wedding is just a smidgeon better than the apocalyptic scenario we’ve discussed as length, and if we get the odd ten minutes to speak to our guests and throw down a vol-au-vent, it will be a roaring success. We are going into it with such low expectations that the possibility of a pleasant surprise is quite high.

So why are getting married now at all? Why not wait till Luca is a bit older (like 24)? Good questions, to which the answer is that I’m not quite sure. I think it has something to do with the confluence of reasonable finances and a ‘if not now then when?’ attitude. And it’s true that eight months ago, when we first agreed to do it (none of that down on bended knee stuff – Nichola agreed to get hitched on the condition I lobby the Government to bring back the Married Couples’ Allowance) we assumed that by now we’d have a far easier and more cooperative baby. How wrong we were.

 But even if our worst expectations come true, we can comfort ourselves with one thought. Imagine how much more disappointed we’d be if we’d spent £500 on flowers and arrived in a chauffeur-driven limo?

Nichola (to Luca): Aren’t you a cute boy?

Me: Thanks very much, nice of you to say so.

Nichola (to Luca): Would you like a lovely rusk?

Me: No thanks, I’m still full up from dinner.

Nichola (to Luca): It’s nearly seven, time for your bed young man.

Me: I’m 37, I’ll stay up till eight if I want!

Nichola (to Luca): Would you like a lovely pear?

Me: No, one would be just fine.

Grandma (to Nichola): Oh, isn’t he strong, he’ll be pulling himself up soon.

Me: Actually, I’ve been doing that for ages – I can walk and everything now!

Grandma (to Luca): Say mamma…Mamma…Ma-ma, Ma-ma.

Me: “Mamma”. Do I win a quid?

Nichola (to Luca): Isn’t daddy a complete prat?

Luca (with his eyes): I couldn’t agree more.

 The moral: when you have a baby, any sense of humour you may once have possessed goes straight out the window. 

The debate about teenage parents rages on. In the UK, we have one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in Europe. Our young people are breeding like rabbits. This, apparently, is a BAD thing.

There’s another side to this issue, however, which is rarely discussed. When I was taking care of (i.e. trying to reign in) Luca at 6am last Saturday morning, after he’d progressed from fast asleep to wild as a banshee in precisely six seconds, and after he’d lost interest in every one of his 300 toys and books in 10 minutes flat, and with the respite of breakfast still an hour away, I really wished I was a teenage dad. At least if I was 18, I might be able to muster up half the energy of my livewire son.

OK, so I wouldn’t have been as experienced, or mature, or just – well – as ready, as I am now, but all that seems to pale into insignificance at 6am when Luca is insisting on being walked on a circuit from the washing basket to the washing machine for the 18^th consecutive time. It doesn’t seem so important when I’m down on my haunches holding him steady as he takes his first hesitant steps and my bones are creaking and my tendons ache and I’m calculating how long I can reasonably leave it before I give him to his mother and grab another hour in bed, and the time is never, never, short enough.

Yes, I’d have missed out on the travelling and the career development (ha!) and the myriad sexual encounters (hahahahahaha), but at least I wouldn’t feel quite so old and knackered as Luca bombs about the place as if all the joy of life is to be found in those eight feet between the washing basket and the washing machine.

I feel particularly old at the moment, because another year has recently ticked over and I am now 37. Not so long ago, a 37 year old dad would be bidding farewell to his 18-year-old kids as they flew the nest, and looking forward to Saturday lie-ins and puke stain-free furniture and cruises on the Med.

And think of the future! When Luca is ten, I’ll be going on 47. “Come out and play football, daddy” he’ll cry, with all the boundless energy of youth. “OK son,” I’ll croak in reply, “but I’ll have to go in goal. I don’t want to put my plastic hip out again like last time.”

 So if a young person were to ask my advice, I dare say my pearls of wisdom would run somewhat contrary to the prevailing mood. Forget university, forget decent careers, forget having fun, and forget all that media gubbins about 40 being the new 30. Squeeze out a couple of nippers by the time you’re 21, and look forward to retirement from serious parental duties by the time you’re 40. Trust me, you’ll thank me for it one day.  

Luca is struggling with a slight cold again. It’s his fifth or sixth, which means that in terms of sneezes and sniffles, he’s bang on average. Apparently, most babies get between 10 and 12 colds in their first two years.

And what about daddies. I’ve had a cold, too. It’s fair to say that mine has inconvenienced me a lot less than Luca’s has inconvenienced him (I was rubbish at five-a-side the other day – that’s about it) but, frankly, colds are the least of my worries. Since Luca was born, I’ve put on half a stone, I eat more rubbish food than I ever did before, I do less exercise, and I can practically see the grey hairs sprouting in my increasingly salt and pepper hair.

Parental health is not often discussed. Naturally enough, we tend to concentrate on the health of our precious new arrivals, who only have to be in the same square mile as a bloke blowing his nose (or so it seems to me) to come down with something that keeps them – and their parents - up half the night. But I tell you, the first year (and let’s hope it’s only the first year) of Luca’s life has seen my body take a right battering.

How? Well, here’s a quick run down of a typical day from the weekend. Luca had been awake with his cold, so I’d probably had about five hours sleep. Not too bad, and more than his mother, but three down on what I’d really like (actually, make that five down on what I’d really like). To make it worse, he was making a funny wheezing sound. Probably nothing, but enough to send his over-anxious parents’ stress levels through the roof.

Now, a year ago Saturday mornings were set aside for a good 40 minute run. There’s no chance of that now. If I’m leaving the house, I’m leaving the house with Luca, so that Nichola can have a break/tidy the house/make up some baby mush etc etc ad infinitum. So instead of a healthy run, I had a less-healthy stroll. Again, not bad, but not so good when you consider what’s to come.

Because then we went to Mothercare. Nothing unusual about that, but a year ago Saturday afternoons were for clothes shopping, eating out, sipping cold beers outside trendy bars on warm spring days, and so on. Now they’re about new changing mats and nappy rash cream. To make up for our loss we ended up in our favourite deli/café for meat and cheese-laden sandwiches. And cheesecake. And hot chocolate or sugary coffee. And ice cream for later. You get the picture. We always end up there now.

So we go home, to face an endless list of chores. By about 7.30pm the carnage has been cleared and, after a 45 minute battle, Luca is tucked up in bed. We look at each other. We’ve forgotten something, but at first , with so much else to think about, we can’t remember what. Oh yes, we have to eat. Which means we have to cook. Or get a take-away. Guess which option we plump for?

 And that’s an average Saturday. On Sunday morning I weigh myself and I’ve added another pound. “I’ll start running again next week,” I tell myself, knowing full well that I won’t. Then I remember the ice cream in the freezer, and life seems a little better again.  

The battle for Luca’s affections continues. On the surface, it would appear that his mother is winning. She’s the one who gets up in the middle of the night to sooth his anxious brow, and she’s the one he turns to when life’s problems and predicaments – sore gums, sneezes and sniffles, a falling out with a once favourite toy – just get too much. But I’m fighting back, and I’m doing it by appealing to his baser instincts.

And his baser instincts at the moment are to hate anything that causes him any physical discomfort whatsoever, even if it’s as trivial and fleeting as getting his face wiped with a damp cloth or getting his pants put on.

So I have a strategy, and it’s dark, dastardly and damned clever, though I say so myself. I’m simply disassociating myself with anything Luca dislikes. So when evil mummy is forcing a nasty old sweatshirt over his head (often the trigger for an unholy hullabaloo) I quietly tiptoe from the room. When she wipes the vegetable mush off his face – a guaranteed tantrum starter -  I stand out of his line of vision.

And when mummy’s out of the room, I take great delight in whispering subliminal propaganda in his ear. “If daddy were in charge,” I murmur, conspiratorially, “he’d never clean your face, and he’d never make you wear pants, and he’d let you pee on the floor, and that lentil mush she forces down your throat – well, it’d be ice cream and warm melted chocolate for tea every day…if daddy were in charge.”

He doesn’t understand exactly what I’m saying, of course, but I think he gets the gist. Daddy is the slack but fun one. Mummy might keep him healthy and well and make sure his bum’s clean, but daddy would let him do exactly what he wants. I intend to keep playing good cop to mummy’s bad cop right through Luca’s teenage years. “Of course you can have a beer, son. You are 13, after all.”

And I work it both ways. So just as mummy finishes pulling the nasty sweater over Luca’s head, and just as the tantrum subsides, daddy appears! And he’s all smiles and funny faces! And he’s holding Leo the Lion! And isn’t everything just fun…when daddy’s around.

 Then it’s time to get the damp cloth out again, so daddy slowly, silently slips away, to lurk in dark corners till he can play the joker all over again. 

We were up all night cramming. We decided that we wouldn’t go to bed until Luca had passed the rattle between his hands a hundred times, and until he’d mastered searching for a building block hidden under a cushion without prompting. We were also worried about his fighting weight, so we force fed him milk and rusks into the early hours. Yes, our boy was exhausted. Yes, he screamed for his bed. Yes, he was full to bursting. But nothing – nothing - could be left to chance. 

Actually, we did none of those things. But yesterday was a big day for the little feller. It was the first exam of what could be, if he so chooses, a quarter of a century of the bloody things.

OK, his 34 week examination is hardly up there with GCSEs or the 11 plus as a landmark moment, but it was still a nerve wracking half hour for his parents. What if he failed to put both feet on the floor? What if his weight was below average? What if his motor skills or pincer grip were lacking? In a nutshell, would failure in his 34 week exam place Luca firmly on a path that would lead inexorably to anti-social behaviour, criminality, and eventually the crack house?

Because, let’s face it, we’re an exam-centred society. Kids are getting tested earlier and earlier. We live in an area where they still have the grammar school system, which means (if we’re still here then) that a series of exams at the age of 11 could determine a great deal about our little boy’s adult life.

The 34 week examination is a lot more informal and requires no knowledge of the Battle of Hastings or right-angled triangles, of course. Luca was weighed and measured, and then was given things to look at and things to hold to make sure his motor skills were up to scratch.

There was a worrying few moments when everything he was given was promptly chucked on the floor, and we had to admit that if he does understand the word ‘no’, he simply chooses to ignore it. But he cooed away for half an hour, gripped a small red brick, followed a mobile with his eyes, and generally acted like a nine-month-old genius. That last bit is our interpretation, not the health visitor’s, but suffice to say that he passed, and if the phrase “with flying colours” was not actually on the examination form, we’re convinced that it was an impressive performance anyway.

 We were so delighted, in fact, that we celebrated with coffee and buns at the local caf. Luca got a rice cake. Tonight we’re starting him on Shakespeare.    

I’ve mentioned separation anxiety in this blog before, but now I’m not sure if it was the real thing. Over the last couple of weeks, Luca has reached a new level of clinginess. He won’t be put down for more than a few minutes. He screams when his mother leaves the room. He even cries when we put him on his changing mat, a moment which used to be greeted with smiles and coos (and poos, of course).

All the babies in his age group are going through the same thing, apparently, which is some comfort at least. It’s reassuring to know that you’re not the only parents going slowly insane, and it’s nice to think there’ll be some familiar faces in the padded cell.

It’s pretty hard for Luca, needless to say. Having finally realised that he is an individual entity – his own man, if you will – rather than a funny bit of his mum, he’s also realised that individual entities can end up all alone. I think he thinks he’s constantly on the verge of being abandoned (and if he carries on like this etc etc - only joking). His mother only has to leave the room and he’ll start sobbing, even if she’s all of 10 feet away and he can still see her.

But naturally, predictably, and inevitably, it’s far harder for me than it is for anyone else in the entire world. Luca only thinks he’s been a abandoned. I really have. Luca wants to be with mummy all the time. Mummy may be going nuts, but the maternal instinct means that she wants to be with Luca all the time, too. Luca is happy in daddy’s arms only so long as he is distracted from his longing for mummy. As soon as he remembers what he really wants, he lunges for her like a starving man spotting a donut.

 It is a bit sad, honest it is. I’d like to be able to comfort him when he’s in the middle of an abandonment paddy, but I can’t. Only mummy will do. But I can console myself with the knowledge that my time will eventually come. A friend reports that her little girl turned to her the other day and said, in an innocent tone, “I really like you mummy, but I love daddy.”

So, how’s Luca’s development coming? Goodness only knows, quite frankly. If one parenting book tells you that by eight and a half months he should be shuffling round on his bum, another will tell you he should be performing the polka. If one says he should be babbling consonants, another will tell you he should be reciting the soliloquy from Hamlet.

It’s not just books (and parenting websites), though. Other mums and dads are just as bad. Most of them don’t mean to do it (and God knows, we’re as bad as the next couple, I’m sure) but naturally enough, everyone wants to boast about their baby’s latest accomplishment. If your baby can’t do that particular trick yet, you tend to counter with one that you know he’s a little ahead with.

And thus begins an escalation of boasting that before too long heads inexorably into the arena of exaggeration. So little Tommy has started pulling himself up using the bars of his cot, eh? Not bad, but Luca’s just been picked for the 2008 Olympic gymnastic team. Beat that, buster.

This perhaps subconscious competitiveness can lead to parental worry (then again, just about anything, I’ve learned, can lead to parental worry, but there you go). Is Luca babbling enough? Should he be trying to crawl by now? Why does he keep overcooking my eggs? The fact is, if you get eight babies in a room – something which often happens at mother and baby groups – you’ll always get one who’s better at gripping, another who babbles incessantly, and another who has started to crawl before any of the others.

And you might get one mother (or father) who isn’t doing the baby one-upmanship subconsciously or innocently. A friend of a friend, we’re told, will often say things like, “so yours isn’t eating finger food yet? Our little Tommy was doing that weeks ago.”To which the only proper reply is, “oh, you said ‘eating’? I thought you said ‘making’. Oh yes, Luca’s been chopping his own carrots and peeling his own apples for weeks now. But I tell you what, he just will not learn to set the bloody video!”

What a carve up. It’s amazing how proud of your lineage you become when you’ve had a baby. Nichola and I have spent the last eight months claiming bits of Luca as our own. And let me tell you, I’m winning.

There seems no doubt that, for the moment at least, Luca looks more like me than he does his mother. Of course, that’s partly because he has big blue eyes and is very definitely a boy, and rumour has it that both those things also apply to me.

And there have been lots of occasions since his birth when people have said, “ooh, doesn’t he look like his daddy,” or words to that effect. They can’t be talking about my grey, sallow skin, the dark rings under my eyes or my increasingly unkempt hair, so I guess they must mean my classic, heart-shaped face and noble, well-defined cheekbones. Stop giggling at the back.

In fact, the first thing that struck me about Luca after he was born was his chin, which is definitely my chin, only without the greying stubble.

Apparently, it’s partly down to evolution. Babies look like their fathers in the weeks and months after birth to convince us that, yes, they really are our kids and, no, we mustn’t reject them or have them for dinner. Us poor men have no other way of knowing. If Luca didn’t have my big blue eyes and the grooved chin of a Wilson male, he could easily – for all I know - be the progeny of the milkman or the postman. Except we don’t have a milkman, and the postman’s a girl, but you get my drift 

But it’s not just looks. I’m pretty sure he has my big feet, too. In more generous moments, I’m prepared to grant Nichola his ears, but secretly I’m not entirely convinced they’re not mine as well. In fact, sometimes I wonder if Nichola’s genes play any part in the lad at all.

And then he starts to whine…

Yep, there are certainly aspects of Luca’s personality that derive from his mother’s side. Nichola reckons it’s his easy smile, his curiosity, and his love of literature (the Squeak Squeak book, for example). I’d say it’s more his short temper, his deft way with emotional blackmail, and the way he sometimes looks at me with utter disdain.

It’s worse when the in-laws get involved in the carve up. My mum reckons he has a sticky-out rib that’s common on her side of the family. Nichola’s dad reckons he can see lots of the family’s Italian roots in the lad, and for the sake of our retirement home in Tuscany I hope they show up in the way he plays football.Nichola will probably have the last laugh in all this. As he grows older Luca will probably come to resemble me a bit less, and her a bit more. And I have to grant her one more thing: Luca is absolutely fearless, which means he’s certainly inherited his mother’s balls.    

I sometimes wonder if I put too positive a spin on the whole parenthood thing on this blog. I wonder if I should spend more time emphasising the 4am ‘play’ times, or the ever-present niggling worries, or the fact that, when I say “there just aren’t enough hours in the day,” these days I actually mean it.

The reason I don’t spend more time on the negative things is obviously down to The Memory Drug. You might not have heard of it, but I am at a loss to explain the strange phenomenon of parental false memory syndrome without the presence of artificial stimulants. These must be injected into all new parents just after the birth, or why on earth would any right minded individual go through the whole shebang again?

Let me explain. Here’s a not untypical scenario: You’ve had four hours sleep. You’re covered in regurgitated rusk. You’re slumped on the sofa enjoying a brief moment of peace before bedlam begins again and you’re wondering where you’ll find the energy to cope. And then the phone goes and your mate will ask you about the baby and you’ll say, “well, it’s hard work, but he’s just so brilliant you forget about all that stuff.”

And that’s weird, because, yes, Luca is brilliant, but no, you don’t forget about all that stuff. Not completely. Parenthood gets you down sometimes. It can make you wish, fleetingly, for the old days, when you could have more than three pints without wondering what you’ll be like at 6am with a baby who wants constant entertainment. Don’t get me wrong. You don’t wish for a second that your wonderful son wasn’t around. You just wish he could make his own breakfast, take himself off to the park and amuse himself once in a while.

But you don’t mention all that on the phone. You don’t really think about it much. Luca is out with his mum at the moment and when he pops into my mind – as he does every minute – all I can see is his cheeky smile and his mad attempts to eat his own feet. I don’t think about the screaming, or the battle we’ll have later to get him to sleep, or the seemingly endless list of baby-related chores that still have to be done today.

 So you see, it’s like false memory syndrome. Unless you’re actually in the middle of the 4am ‘fun’ time, the good stuff just seems to overwhelm the bad. But the bad stuff is there. I suppose all I’m saying is that, when your baby lies on his mat, blows you a huge raspberry and screeches with sheer delight, the bad stuff really does seem worth it. 

Luca is no longer the compliant little chap who would take what he was given and like it. Oh no. Luca is asserting himself. He’s getting an independent streak. He’s started saying ‘no’ and, indeed, ‘you have got to be joking, fool!’, without even being able to speak.

If he doesn’t like what you’re trying to feed him, for instance, he’ll bat away the spoon. If you persist with the train noises and the pretence that you’re eating it as well (“yummy, Luca, look daddy love!”) he’ll try to whack the spoon out of your hand. When we refused to stop trying to get a perfectly good pasta mush into him the other day he pushed the bowl off his high table and smirked as it smashed on the floor.

It’s the same with toys. He kicks away teddies that he no longer has any use for with the greatest disdain. He delights in reaching for something he wants, meekly taking it from you, and then dropping it from a great height.

I was taking him for a walk the other day and – sensibly I thought -  put his little woolly hat on. Now global warming is undoubtedly doing its thing, but it was February and he is still a little baldy (or ‘Britney’), even after eight months.

He wasn’t having it. He pulled it off and dropped it out of the pushchair. I tried to put it back on him and the same thing happened. I didn’t try a third time, largely because of the look in his eyes that seemed to say, “I’m prepared to keep this up for a lot longer than you are, pal. Just try me.”

We’ve now lost several dummies in exactly the same way. Six weeks ago, if he got sick of a dummy, he’d spit it out. Now he tosses it into the street. Six weeks ago, if he woke his mummy by batting her around the head, it was just the involuntary movement of his excitedly flapping arms. Now we’re convinced he bats her on purpose.

And the proof came at his playgroup last week. He was sat on the floor with a couple of other babies. As soon as one of them picked up a toy, he wanted it, and so he took it. He likes trying to eat socks, and one of the other babies was wearing what he obviously considered a nice, juicy pair. So he nicked them.

This is obviously bad behaviour, or would be if he wasn’t eight months old and a bit young for concepts like right and wrong, or even right and left. But when Nichola told me about it I was also secretly pleased that he might be turning into the playgroup alpha male. The only worrying thing is that he seems to be turning into the alpha male at home, too, and not so long ago that used to be me. 

Luca is becoming troublesome. I don’t mean about his sleeping or off-the-scale energy levels or even his insistence on being entertained for 12 hours a day. Those things have always been a problem. No, this time I mean his sheer physicality. The lad is getting strong, and he’s desperate to use his newfound strength in all sorts of dangerous and self-destructive ways.

It does make you wonder what evolution was playing at. I mean, the newborn gazelle doesn’t wander up to a passing lion and shove its head in the beast’s mouth, just to see what’s in there. The baby wildebeest, to the best of my knowledge, doesn’t meander down to the water’s edge in search of a friendly crocodile for a game of tag. So why does Luca want to stick his hand in the blender?

I should make it clear that the blender was off at the time, but even so, his mother’s eagle eyes probably saved him from a gashed finger. And let me also say that the blender appeared to be well out of his reach. He was in his Bumbo - an ever-so-useful combination of baby seat and detention centre - on the worktop watching his mummy prepare breakfast. All dangerous objects had been carefully stashed out of his reach, or so we thought.

The next thing we know, he’s twisted 180 degrees and, simultaneously, reached well beyond the limits of his chubby little arms to pull the top off the blender jug. He was just preparing to make a lunge for the blades when we spotted him. We don’t know how he managed to do what seemed physically impossible for something his size, but my best guess is that he used The Force.   

Admittedly, we can’t blame evolution for this. Again, I’m no expert, but I don’t believe the archaeological record shows the presence of blenders in pre-historic times, when the human psyche was being moulded. The fossil of a Moulinex three speed has yet to be found next to the flint tools and animal bones.

But Luca now lunges for everything, eschewing any notion of personal safety. If a lion did happen to wander into our living room, he’d be tugging at its whiskers before you could say Jack Robinson. And he’s long and strong, which means you need your wits about you constantly. I was momentarily distracted by something on the news while I was holding him the other day, and the next thing I know he’s lunged for our huge Yukka plant and is busily dragging the whole thing – pot and all -  towards the edge of the table and oblivion.

I know other parents will be reading this and thinking, “welcome to our world”. Destructive ankle biters are, after all, the stuff of legend. But blimey, Luca isn’t even crawling yet. Still, he might be getting stronger and more agile by the day, but in some ways he’s still very much a newborn. He’s still sporting the hairstyle that from now on must be termed ‘the Britney’, for instance, and he’s yet to cut a single tooth. So when he really physically develops then – well – God help us all.

My son has just polished off a wholesome and delicious breakfast of organic avocado and banana. I know it was delicious because I was allowed to scrape the mush from the bottom of the blender. Last night I wanted an avocado for a salad to go with dinner. “Hands off,” said Nichola, in a tone that forbade further debate on the matter. “They’re for Luca, not for the likes of you.”

And that’s pretty much the way it is in our house these days. Organic fruit and vegetables of every colour and variety come into the house, sit temptingly on the fruit bowl or vegetable rack for a couple of days ripening to healthy perfection, and are then peeled, stewed and mushed for Luca’s delectation. The boy eats like a king, while I’m occasionally allowed to nibble on an apple.

It’s the same with meat. Luca has just started eating it, and now all day I’m assaulted by the delicious, savoury smells that waft from the kitchen, as stews and hotpots and one dish wonders are conjured up for our seven-month old gourmet. Nichola spent all last Sunday afternoon chopping and peeling and boiling. Damn it, she even made her own vegetable stock to add to baby food recipes. And when it comes to my own dinner? Yep, it’s pasta again.

I know that Luca eats better than me, because I get to gobble down anything he leaves. And all I can say is, who needs teeth! Baby food is delicious and hassle free. You don’t even have to chew! And Luca eats odd combinations that I wouldn’t ever think to put together, and which turn out to be lovely. Avocado and banana is one, beetroot, artichoke and apple another. Avocado and tinned papaya is just fabulous, or it seemed so from the teaspoonful I managed to steal from under the noses of Luca and the food police (his mother) the other day. In fact, Luca has eaten stuff in his first seven months that I’ve not had the pleasure of trying in 36 years! It’s all right and good, of course. Luca has a shiny new system that deserves to be nurtured with the full assortment of nature’s bounty. I have a knackered old system, that for far too long has been nurtured with booze and biscuits. So Luca gets the good stuff, and I get the leftovers. Tonight, however, I have hatched a dastardly plan to nick one of his pears.    

Luca is just over seven months old, which is apparently the time when friends and family feel free to start asking a question they’ve clearly been itching to ask for ages. Are we having another one, and when will we start trying?

It’s a question that’s caught this first time dad a bit unawares. Another! Are you kidding? Do we really seem that stupid!?

Actually, it’s a bit more complicated than that. And it’s true, the possibility of squeezing another ankle biter out before the window of fertility slams shut in our faces has cropped up in our conversation. You see, if I’m honest, neither of us are spring chickens anymore. I can’t even raise myself from the sofa these days without letting out a middle-aged groan of pain. When you’re past the mid-point of your 30s, you can’t hang about forever.

So, are we going to have another? The answer is, there’s a decent chance. It would be great for Luca to have a little friend to play with, or at least torment and bully when he felt the need to let off a bit of steam (I was the youngest of two boys, I know how it works). If he had a baby sister, in fifteen years or so he could cop off with her mates! He might lose our wholehearted and exclusive attention in the short term, but he’ll be thanking us for it when he’s surrounded by adoring teenage girls.

But herein lies the problem. I think about another baby only in terms of how it will affect the beautiful baby we already have. The fact is, I can’t imagine giving Luca less of my time and attention. It’s not that I’ve only got a little bit of love to give. I’ve got tonnes of the stuff, but I can’t imagine not giving it all to him.

Of course, my rational mind says that, if another came along, I’d love and adore him or her just as much as I do Luca. But it does seem weird, because I do have a problem with other babies. Nichola is always banging on about other babies we know, and how cute/smart/adorable they are. And it must be a male thing, because every time she praises another kid I have to add, “but not as cute/smart/adorable as Luca”.

I tell you, if Brad and Angelina brought the angel-faced product of their perfect genes to our local caf (unlikely, but bear with me) I’d go, “yeah, nice sprog Brangelina, but I think you’ll find our Luca will be fighting off the most chicks in a few years time.” So it’s a tough one. Before Luca came along, I couldn’t imagine having a baby. Now that he’s here, I can’t imagine having another and diluting the attention I can lavish on him. But if my parents had thought that, I wouldn’t be here, and neither would Luca. And those thoughts are far too big for this time of the morning.    

Experts talk about the time in a baby’s life when they experience separation anxiety. In a nutshell, their growing self-awareness and increasingly sophisticated observations of the world make them realise that they are not as one with their mothers. They are separate, individual entities. Needless to say, this can come as quite a shock.

It seems to be coming as quite a shock to Luca, anyway. In the last couple of weeks he has started to get frightened by things that he used to either smile at or ignore. It can be a bit irrational. The one truly frightening thing in his life at the moment – daddy’s attempts to dance – are still the cause of much laughter and merriment. Mummy’s attempts to towel dry her hair, on the other hand, are suddenly met with pitiful howls and obvious distress (and not just because mummy with wet hair looks like Uncle Fester).

Other things upset him, too, and by ‘upset’ I mean ten minutes of screaming and tears. We’ve learnt over the months to interpret his various cries and whimpers, and these are definitely ones that say, “I’m scared, even if I’m not sure what I’m meant to be scared of.”

He burst into irrational tears at the sight of his uncle the other day. For months I’ve done this thing where I sneak up on him and loom over him from behind, which he used to consider the very pinnacle of physical comedy. Suddenly, it scares the living daylights out of him, so I must stop doing it (only joking, I have stopped, don’t call social services).

I shouldn’t overplay it. Most of the time Luca is happy as Larry (who was Larry, by the way, and why was he such a bundle of laughs?). But these new episodes mean that maybe he realises the world is not quite as harmless as he once thought. That view may be reinforced by certain unfortunate incidents, like the other day when he got overexcited with his maracas and bopped himself on the head. Let me tell you, nothing puts paid to a moment of father and son bonding like a stray maraca.  It’s a bit sad, really, thinking my little boy is starting to lose the notion that the world is just a big brilliant playground and everything in it has been designed to keep him happy. Now he just thinks most if it’s like that. Still, a fluffy lion and a long slurp of milk make him feel better again. If only comfort came so easily in the adult world.   

Luca and his mum are about to go out. He’s had a bit of a cold so he’s not attending his usual Monday morning playgroup, but he’s meeting up with a friend instead and they’ll be pushed up to town and maybe get the chance to do what they like doing best – looking at new stuff and squeaking in delight – when their mothers throw down a quick cuppa at the local caf.

Tomorrow, Luca will mostly be spending the day in the city centre, where he will join sophisticated society in one of many trendy coffee bars (though his drink of choice will be booby milk). On Wednesday, it’s some local coffee morning or other, where he will flirt with young ladies of his own age. On Thursday, he has his rhythm and rhyme class, where he will make a lot of noise. On Friday, his mother will arrange to meet another group of his pals for lunch, and he will attempt to eat the table mats.

And then it’s the weekend and we’ll all go out as much as possible, whether it’s somewhere nice in the city, like a museum (new stuff to look at), or somewhere rubbish that Nichola insists we ‘get out of the way now’, like Homebase (ditto, as far as Luca is concerned – a giant T-Rex skeleton or row upon shiny row of emulsion, its all magic to him).

In other words, Luca has a far more interesting social life than I do. He also eats better than I do (the boy will turn into a carrot if he eats any more of them) and has a more fashionable wardrobe, but that’s a different story.

Which is all how it should be, of course. And it’s quite encouraging. We moved into our neighbourhood from out of town, on the strength of a couple of recommendations and a bit of research on the internet, long before Luca was even a twinkle in his father’s eye. We picked it because it’s what we could afford at the time, and that wasn’t a great deal. Hence our area is a bit dull, a bit suburban, a bit rough round the edges, and felt - at the start -  a bit like somewhere we’d stay till we’d saved up a bit more cash and then ditch in favour of a trendier area nearer to the city.

And then Luca came along, and suddenly our unremarkable area started to reveal its charms (which was handy, because we never did save up enough money to afford the trendy area). With Luca, we scratched the surface and found that our area is choc-full of people hosting mother and baby groups, volunteers getting up at the break of dawn to get church halls ready for playgroups, and council initiatives to help house-bound new mothers get out and about.

When we first moved here – and for quite a while after that – we didn’t know anyone in the immediate vicinity. Now, Nichola seems to know just about everyone. One of her best friends lives just a few doors down from us, and six months ago they’d never exchanged a word.

It’s all quite nice, and proves that under the surface of our materialistic, self-centred society, a real community spirit still thrives. You just need a baby to see it. It’s something else Luca has given us, and right now he’s out and about, basking in the warmth of new-found friendships.