My baby is a heifer!!!
I weighed myself the other day. I do this occasionally, if I am feeling overly cheerful in the morning, as this tends to make me feel a bit ill.
I climbed on to the scales. I looked at the digital readout. I goggled at it a bit, and decided to eat fewer pies. Then I realised that I was holding the baby.
A foolish mistake to make. But it gave me the opportunity to put her down, weigh myself again, then work out how much it was that she weighed (it is quite easy, you take one figure away from the other, there is no need to involve a health visitor at all).
I looked up her weight on the NHS percentile chart.
My baby is a heifer!!!
She is off the scale. That is not an overly-enthusiastic way of saying that she is a ‘bit heavy’; she is genuinely and incontrovertibly off the scale of what babies should weight. I checked it twice, then examined her closely. She does not seem to be especially porky, nor has she got a particularly large head, nor did she have lots of spare change in her pockets.
Short Tony pointed out to me that this ‘get on the scales carrying something then put it down and get on the scales again and take one figure away from the other (not involving a health visitor)’ process was a bit like a scene from one of the Mr Bean programmes.
I found this a bit depressing as I have a specific rule in life not to base any of my actions on scenes from the Mr Bean programmes or, indeed, anything that was written by or has involved Richard Curtis. It makes it so inconvenient when one meets American ladies in country house situations.
I stared at Baby Servalan. If there is going to be a new world record heavy baby then it may as well be her; it is just sad that Roy Castle is not around to formally announce it to the world.