It’s weird. How very spookily twinny…

At precisely 5.25pm yesterday, Rosa crawled right across the kitchen floor. She’s been trying to get her knees in the right spot under her chubby belly for some 10 weeks now, and then suddenly, at this precise moment, as if in a crawling masterclass having had the technique finally explained, she was off. Ruby at the time, was in her hight chair, back to Rosa, scoffing a particularly large chunk of cheddar, oblivious to the athletic milestone being passed beneath her.

Precisely one hour later at 6.25pm, Ruby, having tried to get her knees in the right spot under her own (slightly less) chubby belly also for 10 long weeks, crawled obligingly right up the corridor to her waiting bath, as if she too had suddenly fully understood the functions of her quadriceps, patellae and hip joints.

This is very exciting, and must prove to my mind, their split egg-ness; exciting mostly, because I’ve just saved myself £90 on DNA zygosity testing. Pint, anyone?

Who was it exactly, that decided that contact with floor renders food instantly inedible?

I’ve been observing my babies. Doing their best to crawl, damp sticky fingers making good contact with less than squeaky clean floor, occasional pause for rest, contemplation maybe, then thumb (in Rosa’s case), straight into mouth. Yum.

Now given that babies have been carrying out this kind of reckless behaviour for centuries without even a hint of extinction, not to mention the insertion of any thing to hand into the favourite orifice just on the off chance that it may be quite delicious, who on earth decided that food that had escaped the the plate need be condemned to the bin? That breaking the rule just once, would leave one struck down with some terrible debilitating infliction?

My house and its contents are relatively safe; cave baby might have fared a lot worse, I suspect, dead rodent, decomposing bird… But anyway – I reckon for more most people, whether to salvage floor food or not would depend a bit on who’s looking. Which reminds me, it was my brother that told his small son that it was “fine to drink from the carton (of juice) as long as nobody sees you doing it”. Not sure about that, but it does make me smile.

Even I (who scrapes mould off food) would be delighted to chuck a Mr Kipling away using the floor as an excuse, but the slice of home made tarte tatin I had recently? I’d scrape that off the carpark…

As for who masterminded the current fashion in germ hysteria - food production industry bigwigs probably (shift more units), in cahoots with fear mongering antibacterial soap makers. And who invented that ghastly stuff? Probably the same people who peddle those pricey little shots of probionic gloop, bacteria for the gut. Oh – so we’re OK to eat bacteria then? Oh, these are friendly bacteria, I get it.

Thrush, incidentally, I’m told is rife nowadays, under the fingernails due to that antibacterial soap stuff, mostly among women. So there’s a good reason not to buy it, rant rant…