Welcome to Reuben Matthew Joseph

The first call came at an unwelcome 05:45 yesterday morning - Dozybean had finally started the laborious process of expelling Small Blurry Baby from its comfort zone amid (I expect) lots of grunting and groaning; possibly a bit of bad language as well.


Plenty of hot water and towels must have been on hand (I'm given to understand from many a 1950s movie that no birth can take place without hot water and towels), as we received the news at around half past seven that Small Blurry Baby had arrived safe and sound at one minute past six and at the healthy weight of 6lb3oz. For any astrologers amongst the readership he was born at grid reference 50 22'37.73'' N 4 08'29.5'' W. Now you can map out his entire personality (yeah, right).


I have to stop calling him SBB now, of course. He's (as you'll have guessed from the headline) Reuben Matthew Joseph Trace. Pleasingly, if you conveniently leave out the Joseph bit, his initials become RMT - hooray, a mini trades unionist!


Mrs The Millbrooker and I haven't yet met the newest member of the clan, Dozybean and YarMatt are quite rightly taking a day of rest and getting to know their pink wrinkly thing without interruption from cooing grandparents...so all I have to offer is photos of our celebrations at Millbrooker Towers last night.


Rather delightfully Dong and Shazzerooneypoos had arrived for film club just as the news was being broken, so we had company of the finest to help us celebrate. Dong, who is as everyone knows a big softy at heart, grabbed Mrs The Millbrooker into a huge bear hug as soon as she'd finished the call from Dozybean:


A bottle of bubbly was hastily fetched from the 'fridge and the cork allowed to fly, slightly denting the old lath and plaster over our heads (oops), and precipitating an unholy mess of Formula One celebration style spray. Mostly over Dong, but it got almost everywhere else as well (more oops).
Luckily, Mrs The Millbrooker was on hand to clear up after me:
Eventually, after lots and lots of mopping up, and the unceremonious dumping of one sodden bowl of Pringles into the bin, we were ready for the official toasting of welcome from Millbrooker Towers...to Reuben Matthew Joseph, with love from Nana, The Dragon Lord, Dong and Auntie Shazzerooneypoos!

Cheers, hic.