The baby smiled for the first time the other day, which is lucky for him as he was in danger of being stuck in a basket and pushed into the current of the River Ure.

I have a theory that the first smile is timed to coincide with mum and dad reaching the lowest of low ebbs after six weeks of sleep deprivation and banshee-like screaming. It's the baby's way of saying: "Please love me. Please don't flush me down the toilet. Things will get better."

Finney, Fin, Finbad, Fat Boy Fin went five days without pooing last week. Each day I would come home from work and ask if he'd performed. Each day the answer was the same. Lots of wee but no poo. We were both worried, but then I asked Google - as I seem to be doing a lot these days - and apparently one week is not unusual between number twos for babies. The learning curve is becoming an overhang.

It struck me the other day that until I became a parent the only bottom I had ever wiped was my own. It was a situation I was comfortable with. Having said that, you can do a much more thorough job when it's not your own.

The football season is back. Yey. Redmire United have started the season poorly. Four games, three defeats, one win, several injuries and a fight between midfielders at the Reeth Show dance. Apparently, the right winger took exception to the left winger chatting up his ex-girlfriend. The five-one drubbing at the hands of Richmond Mavericks (them with the lovely pitch) last Saturday was made all the more painful by a rotund substitute kicking me so hard on the backside that I bled.

Apologies for the amount of poo, wee and bums in this blog. It's what my world seems to consist of at the moment.