So, in no particular order:
1. When she wakes up, invariably in a good mood, her beaming grin is often accompanied by an enthusiastic gargling noise, which emanates gleefully from the back of her throat. My best description of the sound is that it lies somewhere between the soothing white noise your television used to make in the good old days when BBC2 went to sleep, and the creaking inhalation made by the terrifying, inky mess confronted by Sarah Michelle Gellar in The Grudge (Incidentally, my wife has for years objected to my impersonation of this but, quite unfairly, is more than happy with our daughter's). Of course, these two references straddle quite a large expanse of middle ground. But rest assured that their audio average, as demonstrated by my daughter, is the sound of contagious joy personified.
2. She has a resilience which dwarves my own. Having spent a significant proportion of her existence fighting off one infection after another, she is now suffering from a particularly malicious cold, regrettably contracted from my wife (whose own resistance is similarly impressive). After spending yesterday evening being mildly amused by her own frequent sneezing, our daughter awoke not long into the night barely able to draw breath through the mucus which had suddenly plugged every sinus, and was embarking on an aggressive takeover of her throat. Fear, pain and panic caused howls of distress and streaming tears, as my wife and I struggled to pacify her. Ultimately we resorted to shutting the family in the bathroom with the shower turned up to eleven, in an attempt to exorcise the snotty demon with steam. Relative calm eventually ensued, but symptoms which would certainly keep me under the duvet have clearly persisted today. Yet my daughter has kept up her proverbial pecker, following with the usual tenacity her rigorous schedule of energetic banging, grabbing, sucking, pooing and grinning. Knowing the extent of her suffering, each burst of energy seemed like a stubborn little miracle.
3. She does an excellent poo. For the first five or so months of her life, I developed a naive assumption that my daughter would forever more only produce occasional bursts of pressurised orange liquid. On the contrary, of course, her introduction to solid food has heralded the dawning of a new era. And this era is brown, solid and regular. And it absolutely stinks. I am suitably proud.
4. The way she rolls. For a few weeks now, crawling has been only just eluding her. The will and the strength are there, but sadly the knees aren't. Once she overcomes this hurdle there'll be no stopping her, but in the meantime she compensates by rolling and spinning across the ground faster than I can run, and I was consistently the second fastest runner in my year at school. Until I started smoking. And drinking. How can I fail to be filled with pride at this display of physical prowess in my offspring?
5. She's very touchy-feely. This manifests itself in various ways, some more violent than others, but all equally charming. She demonstrates her affection for someone by slapping them swiftly in the face. And she's got a good arm on her. Furthermore, the slap often coincides with a scratch, but we consider this our punishment for not cutting her fingernails every five minutes, and thus love her all the more for it. She means well. In her less energetic moments, her favoured conditions in which to fall asleep involve being held in somebody's arms (preferably Mummy's), at just such a height that she can suck her thumb while simultaneously stroking their face with the fingers of the same hand. This is extremely adorable.
There are more than five things I love about my daughter. But that will do for now.
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