My Birth was fairly normal.

Ok, two weeks earlier I hadn’t been moving around much inside Frowny, but then, why would I? I didn’t have any particularly pressing engagements and I was perfectly happy thank you. Besides, Flower Girl hadn’t moved much inside Frowny either – it’s not exactly cavernous in there – so it was hardly anything to worry about. Still, to be on the safe side they hooked Frowny up to a machine where she had to press a little button every time she felt me kick. If she tried that today she’d be black and blue and have repetitive strain injury from pressing the button – I’ve certainly made up for all the lost kicks since.

As for the birth itself, I was very glad to see they hadn’t gone in for any of that ‘natural childbirth’ nonsense… I mean, what’s normal about being dropped head first into an inflatable paddling pool as your first life experience? Smiley was there with the camera – oh the indignity! Naked and covered in afterbirth – would you want your photo taken like that?

But feeding? Now I knew something wasn’t right about this; I was absolutely ravenous but had the most excruciating heartburn and indigestion. I tried screaming the place down but no one paid a blind bit of notice because apparently ‘all babies do that’.

We stayed in hospital for three nights and then I was unleashed upon the world. And I can’t say I was particularly impressed. Well I didn’t actually notice much of it at first as I just couldn’t shake off the heartburn, then on my first night out we were invited to a barbeque of all things. Now I’ll admit that I was still fairly naïve at this age but I wasn’t born yesterday; even I knew that the world had progressed beyond the hunter-gatherer stage and that April in the UK was too cold to be eating outside. I was having none of it and cried all night. Frowny and Smiley were going to have to learn who was in charge sooner or later so they may as well start now.

As for all this bonding malarkey, I still reckon that’s over-rated. I could tell even from this age that people come and people go and quite frankly they’re all much of a muchness. Some are nicer than others but that’s as far as I’m willing to go with commitment. Besides, it was still very early in my relationship with Frowny and I didn’t want to commit myself too early.

Anyway a few days went by and I still had the heartburn. This couldn’t be right, so I tried displaying my concern with the only communication tools I had available to me: I screwed up my face as tightly as it would go, balled my fists, and screamed as loudly as I could the whole time. I managed to keep this up for several days – even I was impressed with my stamina – but unsurprisingly this also made me sick… what on earth did I have to do to get some attention? That’s when I first began to suspect that my so-called parents might have Special Needs. Either that or they were both extremely dim. I was beginning to hope I was adopted.

There was also a ‘Health’ visitor who came round once a week. I tried giving her the full routine every time but after each performance she’d say the same thing: “Oh yes, some babies are just a bit sick like that. And angry. And don’t sleep. It’s all perfectly normal”. Did she assume I was a hypochondriac? I could forgive Smiley and Frowny to a certain extent, they were young, had no medical training and only limited experience with babies. But this woman was plainly an idiot.

They kept up the shared ignorance routine for 6 weeks but I wasn’t going to be beaten this early in the game. Eventually I saw a different Health Visitor who decided that this… forgive me while I quote her technical medical jargon directly… was not right. Not exactly Dr. Kildare but you have to work with what you’ve got and at least she was on the right track. She sent us straight to the Casualty department (that’s The Emergency Room for my American readers who prefer more drama).

I was finally being treated with the respect I deserved and they prescribed proper medicines for Reflux, which is the fancy name for heartburn and throwing up. Not only that, but I was to return every week for a check up. I still suspected they might be holding back on the really good stuff so I kept up a bit of a fuss until I was prescribed with phenobarbitone to ‘calm me down’: apparently it’s the most widely-used anticonvulsant worldwide, but the important thing is that it also has sedative and hypnotic qualities. Groovy.

So at 3 months I became a happy, well-adjusted member of society and began my long career as a junkie – and all at the State’s expense… Ker-ching! The consultant said he’d never seen a baby laugh so much.

Well, wouldn’t you?

I have a pink ball.

It’s my favourite thing in the world. There I’ve said it, I’m not proud of it but there it is. It’s not even pink; it’s actually purple on one side and orange on the other, but for some reason (probably due to the brain’s psychological response to colour opponency… but hey, what do I know?) everyone says it’s pink.

I’ve had teddies and rattles and light-up toys and things that glow in the dark and chew toys and bead runs and wooden trains and squishy things and rainmaker tubes and goodness knows what else, but while they’re fun for a few days the novelty soon wears off and I always come back to my Pink Ball.

I’ve probably had it since I was about two years old – I think it originally came as part of a TOMY set and I sometimes see one or two of the others knocking about but it’s only the pink one that does it for me.

I can’t explain the attachment, it isn’t based on a sentimental nostalgia for my childhood and it doesn’t remind me of my mother. Pink Ball is about 4cm in diameter and made of a rigid plastic, which is comforting to chew on and has the advantage of not deteriorating, but doesn’t particularly taste of anything. It looks and feels nice but it’s hardly an aesthetic masterpiece. It’s just the right size for my hand, but that’s irrational as my hands have grown considerably over the years. It makes a nice clickety-click plastic noise when it bounces, but you wouldn’t exactly describe that as music to stir the soul. It fits in and out of plastic cups and ball tubes in a really satisfying way but none of this can explain my emotional bond.

One of my ‘companions’ took me on a day trip to a Theme Park a few years ago. I was going through one of my Pink Ball obsessions at the time and Frowny gave her strict instructions not to lose it. We took a ride on the steam train but as soon as we were underway I thought I’d test her resolve by throwing the ball out of the window – I just can’t help myself sometimes – and this poor girl, possibly in fear of Frowny’s wrath, made the guard hold up the next departure while she and an engineer walked the length of the track in search of the ball. Now that’s devotion to duty.

Sometimes it goes missing for days, weeks or months at a time. It rolls under a cupboard or behind the TV or gets lost at the bottom of the toy basket and lies there. Waiting. Pink ball is, above all, patient. I usually turn the house upside down for a day or two in futile search but then move on; there’s an old quote that goes something along the lines of: If you love somebody, let them go. If they return, they were always yours. If they don’t, they never were.

And Pink Ball always comes back.

Today it’s looking a bit battered. There’s a crack on one side and part of it is starting to cave in (the legacy of a few too many trips down the stairs) but I still love it. I don’t know how much longer it will last.

Or what I will do when it’s gone.