FOR the first few months, Chloe – our first grandchild – has gone through her short life wearing a puzzled frown, blinking at the light and trying to make sense of all the colours and shapes around her. Then, out of the blue, came an exhilarating moment of magic. The first smile.

My wife was holding her and I was being an amusing grandad by making a noise like a horse snorting. Even if I say so myself, I’m quite good at being a snorting horse.

And it did the trick because the puzzled frown dissolved. Suddenly, at 15 weeks old, Chloe could see this strange man, pulling a face and making a funny noise, and it made her smile and gurgle.

It’s hard to adequately describe the feeling. There’s this fluttering in the tummy that rises up inside and surfaces into a smile of your own. Like the excitement of being a little boy again on Christmas morning when you first see the presents under the tree and say out loud: “He brought me a bike.”

And once that first smile has been delivered, it’s quickly followed by more. They become a collection of smiles with the next one eagerly anticipated.

People keep asking if I’m enjoying being a grandad and, of course, the emphatic answer is yes. I’m thoroughly enjoying the whole experience of having a smiley baby to fall in love with.

And, to be quite honest, I’m also getting great pleasure out of seeing my son – known throughout the history of this column as the Big Friendly Giant – admirably learning to cope with the pressures of being a dad.

Although it’s all a bit of a blur, I have to confess that my memories of him as a baby are not at all smiley. He was our first and he cried – a lot. He had a particular habit of crying in the early hours of the morning. My wife and I used to take it in shifts so we could have three hours sleep.

I lost count of the times I had to take him downstairs to watch Winnie The Pooh and The Blustery Day over and over again while I nudged his rocker with my foot in a bid to get him back to sleep. And then, just as he nodded off, it was time for me to head off to work, feeling like a zombie, with darker rings under my eyes than any panda that’s ever chewed a bamboo shoot.

These days, when he comes round for his tea as a 26-year-old dad, it isn’t long before the BFG falls asleep on the settee. He looks like death warmed up most of the time.

“We had a really bad night last night,” he said at the weekend. “I was up at the crack of dawn – watching Winnie The Pooh and The Blustery Day.”

I didn’t just smile, I burst out laughing. I may even have snorted a little.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

THANK you to Hayley Jones, of Darlington, for getting in touch about a slight misunderstanding my son Henry, aged four.

Henry’s grandad is “gluten free” – prompting Henry to ask: “When will Grandad be gluten four?”

MEANWHILE, my lovely cousin Susan went to watch grandson Luke having his swimming lesson.

On the way to the pool, Luke, seven, declared: “It’s really hard swimming. We have to do backstroke…on our backs…going backwards!”

AND, finally, thanks to Colin, of Stockton, whose grandson Alfie, six, was having his breakfast and looking out of the window while a blackbird pulled a big fat worm out of the garden.

“Thank God for Coco Pops,” sighed Alfie.