Professor Piet Haers

Piet Haers - the professor

Regular readers will recognise this name. He's the man who fixed Jake's smile back in January 2009.

A man to whom we, and Jake will be forever grateful. Obviously because of his expert handiwork, but also his manner and the part of the astonishingly good NHS machine which kicked in less than 24 hours after diagnosis.

I know he's a professor, but confess to not knowing much more about his actual specialism. Maxillofacial surgery is a far greater subject than just fixing smiles, so any attempt to properly define the qualification which he so studiously trained for and attained would almost certainly underplay such an achievement,

All I know is that he did an amazing job, most professionally and delivered what he said he would. He'll also perform a minor lip adjustment next year and another when Jake's 8 or 9 and hopefully that'll be that.

'Piet Haers' as a search term delivers more traffic to this site than any other and to all those people researching the man who might be about to fix them or a loved one, I'll just say you are very lucky to be in the care of this man. It never ceases to amaze me the work people do. You could earn what he earns (I'm presuming here) as a lawyer, a banker, a busy plumber even but you'd never make the profound differences to individuals and their familes as a surgeon could.

So, for no other reason than it's good to always count your blessings, thank you once more Piet Haers for all you've done for Jake and our family, we'll be forever in your debt.

Freddie Fernie comes of age (not really)

So, now both our boys have been christened. As I said in my little speech yesterday, we're not particularly religious but we are traditional and a church is the best place for a christening. I'm certainly not into 'naming days' but they do seem a little less hypocritical.

I think I wrote somewhere on this blog before that before our wedding Clare and I went to hear our bans being read in the run up to our big day. Clare's point of view was that we didn't want to appear hypocrites by getting married in a church just for the sake of the photos, but my contention was that by going so as not to appear hypocritical was more hypocritical in itself. That there should be no other purpose to going to church than the natural will and wanting to go for whatever purposes, spiritual or otherwise. Otherwise, other than for a contrived purpose.

Anyway, I felt it was a nice thing to do for the people who do go for the genuine reasons; lots of people get an awful lot out of the church it's central to their community and indeed, their week is structured around it. So, going for them, I thought was enough.

And actually, this church is a place which holds only good memories and it is an uplifting place. It's equidistant from both sets of our parents, we got married there, Jake was christened there and yesterday Freddie was christened there. It's always been great weather and we've had three lovely days with our nearest and dearest.

So yesterday Freddie, he of the far less dramatic journey to planet earth than his brother, was christened at St. Mary the Virgin church, Headley, Surrey. He looked so cute wearing Jake's hand-me-down christening get-up and looked for the first time, less like a baby and more like a toddler. Also, he's pretty massive and the main comment was how big he is! On Saturday at a kid's party we went to, a lady came up to me and asked if he was 'about one' and was surprised when I told her, 'six months'. Anyway, big is good, big means eating lots and he eats A LOT, so all's well there.

Lastly, a nod to Jake, my best mate, who is so much fun. Unlike some dads it took me longer to fall in love with my kids, of course the love was there immediately, but what I mean is, it took me longer to become a kid-type of guy...the type who rolls around on the floor and play for hours on end. Of course I do those things, but before it was out of a sort of sense of duty. Now I want to and it feels natural. And I'm so glad of that transition as I felt I was lacking something...o.k. probably over-analysing but you question yourself more as a parent than ever before and it's great I feel the way I do now.

For the first time, I don't want Jake getting any older. He is a perfect mix of communicable, cute, innocent, playful and loving and I know that he'll soon answer back and the inevitable tantrums will start. He goes to pre-school four mornings a week and it's crazy to think that there's a part of his life which we don't fully know every detail of. The other day he came home and said 'bonjour Daddy'. Which is mental really. You'd think they'd concentrate on English before moving to foreign languages but what do I know!

Have a good day all.