Since you last heard from me, she has suffered a continuous series of persistent, albeit non life-threatening ailments. There have also been notable triumphs, more of which later. Bad news first.
One development which, I suppose, falls under the headings of both pain and progress, has been the notorious ordeal that is teething. One of our daughter's middle bottom ones (Like many otherwise reasonable people I'm no great fan of dentistry or its practitioners, and am thus unaware of technical tooth terms) was the first of many candidates to make the breakthrough a few weeks ago. The legendary distress caused by this is, it turns out, of the kind that has to be witnessed first hand to be truly appreciated.
Relentless screaming for two solid days.
And if there's one thing the past month has taught us, it's that our daughter is a trooper. When she fulfills my vicarious prophecy of becoming a professional footballer, she will be the one who pioneers not diving and rolling about like a cheating coward. When our daughter screams, it really hurts. My advice is to use Anbesol and Nurofen, and to have an amazingly patient wife. Still: only nineteen teeth to go. And I could never have predicted the magnitude of the paternal pride evoked by the merest glimpse of the little flash of white in her smile.
But all this has been no more than a distraction from the real ailments. Shortly after having her last jabs about a month ago, our daughter's right ear began to extrude a worrying volume of waxy gunky gunkwax. Also, we observed, it smelt like a dirty bin. After allowing a day to establish that these symptoms were not likely to eradicate themselves, we made the first of many subsequent trips to the doctor, who swiftly confirmed our suspicion that our daughter was suffering from her first ear infection. This was to be tackled by her first course of antibiotics.
To cut a long story short, four further consultations with irritatingly alternating doctors, and four courses of antibiotics, and now one of ear drops, are yet to vanquish this infection. Initially its symptoms consisted of more screaming, as well as frenzied rubbing of the offending ear which often nearly amounted to its removal. The sleep patterns which were previously just starting to emerge were immediately abandoned in favour of not really ever sleeping at all.
Mercifully, these symptoms have largely subsided in spite of the infection's stubborn refusal to do so itself. However, multiple courses of medicine have caused their own problems. All of these events have transpired, I suspect, to make me grateful for having learnt as a child to spell diarrhoea (If you think I've spelt it wrong, then go and live in America). In addition to the gushing poo (accompanied by stomach cramps and what my wife affectionately refers to as "sore undercarriage"), this medical onslaught may or may not have been responsible for the eye infection which our daughter has now also developed. So her five month old body is currently being bombarded with antibiotics, ear drops and eye drops, each three or four times every day.
One could argue that it's best to get it all out of the way at once, a bit like having twins. Except of course that these maladies are not finite: the chances of their recurrence are unaffected by any previous suffering. And the difficulty we have discovered is that, when your child is suffering in several simultaneous ways - and has yet to learn any of the languages that you speak - it's very difficult to work out what the problem is and how to solve it. I think the doctors have the same trouble.
In spite of all this, I have been genuinely amazed at our daughter's resilience. Of course I am aware that many children and their parents suffer far, far worse, and I am eternally grateful for every healthy aspect of my daughter's physiology. But nevertheless, she has put up with an awful lot recently, and still found time for plenty of happiness and achievement.
Between all the screaming and discomfort, our daughter has discovered and perfected the art of rolling over. Once agin I am overcome with pride as she thrusts her weight determinedly to her right, always bravely confronting the struggle at the last with the inconvenient obstacle caused by her right shoulder. More often than not now, her momentum is sufficiently judged to overcome this hurdle, leaving her lying satisfied on her front as she raises her head to meet you with a look of triumphant glee, another epic undertaking complete. She also sat up unassisted for a good ten seconds the other day. However her failure to repeat this feat has led us to reluctantly conclude that it was a fluke.
Her co-ordination in general is rapidly improving. She can remove my glasses at will in one swiftly executed movement. This might be more irritating than impressive if she didn't always agree to give them straight back. And her ability to harvest huge clumps of my chest hair will no doubt ensure my qualification as a metrosexual before the year is out.
This co-ordination has also helped with her burgeoning talent for eating solid food. She now knows more-or-less how and when to open, close, chew and swallow. And then dribble and smear. Maybe there is room for improvement, but I think weaning will soon be feasible.
I commented to someone the other day (during one of those mutually smug "Oh yes, I also am a father, aren't we excellent" chats to which I am now privy) that the second two months of fatherhood were much easier than the first two. Well, the fifth has been the hardest yet. But also the most rewarding.
