3 Little Lives Enter Stage Left

Two text messages arrived in today. Each beep was the birth of a new life.

First there was Marcel then later when I was mixed up in mixing plaster to finish off a never ending job, Milos came along. Marcel hadn't cried yet so his father loved him all the more. The voice of baby Milos was not heard over that of his father who chanted triumphantly like a conquistador who'd found a new coast.

A new generation is permeating our lives. It's peeping out through the clothes of newborns and from the padded security of expensive pushchairs.

Pablo chipped a tooth today as he was about to leave the crèche bound for the park to play on the swings and slides. It's chipped good and proper. A chip like the triangular chunk that breaks off a bar of chocolate. A piece that will, they tell us , manifest its absence by darkening the colour of the trunk it left in situ. The enamel triangle chipped off Pablo and was swept away at clean-up time or disappeared into the dust of the day.

Night has fallen and Pablo is asleep on his side, one arm tucked back under him, the hand appearing behind him. The other arm lies before him, the palm facing upwards like there's nothing to hide.

Marcel and Milos are, I am sure, crying now, for they are hungry or they are lonely or they are uncomfortable or simply because they are alive.

And there goes life. Ay and it's a good day to be alive.

Welcome to life chaps, welcome on stage.