Andrew Dubber     

The title of this post is borrowed from a song by The Veils and it’s kind of in response to all of the people I know who are having children right now. It’s pretty much an epidemic. Everyone seems either about to have a baby, to have recently had a baby, or just found out they’re pregnant.

Of course, we were into that particular fad before any of you guys – and now Jake, at 16, has finished his GCSEs. That’s a picture of him, taken yesterday at his high school prom. And yes, he’s the only person in this family who owns a suit.

He’s just been accepted into CTC Kingshurst Academy – a 6th form college, where he is going to start doing the International Baccalaureate – a relief, since Solihull 6th Form College decided to drop the programme after he’d been accepted there.

He’s spending his holidays so far doing a bit of graphic design, some (paid) sound engineering work, a spot of skateboarding, staying up and making up for lost time on all of those computer games he wasn’t able to play in the lead-up to his exams, a spot of drum practice and some full-on chilling out with his girlfriend Hannah, and his best friend Ethan.

So this is just to say – to members of my family and the many of my friends (including some yet to make their news public) – if you’re going through the early stages, the doctor’s appointments, the morning sickness, the colic, the lost sleep, the midnight feeds and the constant full-attention responsibility for something so fragile (and, of course, so cute), then enjoy it, remember that it doesn’t last forever, and in the end – if you’re lucky – they turn out like this.

Jake’s awesome – intelligent, interesting, creative and funny – and we’re really proud of him.