Torrents of phlegmy puke

Right. It's been a while. Sorry about that. We've been a bit busy lately, you see. Never mind the stress of work or the logistical nightmare that is planning christmas. Over the past fortnight or so my wife and I have faced the sternest test of our patience, sanity and parenting skills to date. Both of our daughters have suffered from colds of a satanic intensity. Of course, the two of them were already familiar with the snotty menace that is the common cold. But there was nothing common about this lurgy.

Our eldest was the first to be afflicted, when a mild but lingering sore throat developed overnight into a three-day frenzy of anguished screaming and terrifying vomiting. For a few nights, my wife and I exchanged a large proportion of our precious sleep for sustained periods of being drenched in torrents of phlegmy puke. We spent hours sat up in bed feeding our daughter's obsession with her pacifying Very Best of Elmo DVD. It is a good DVD, to be fair. It's got Ray Charles in it. And somebody called Jason Mraz, who appears to have converted a hit single of his into a bizarre but curiously endearing anthem to overcoming agoraphobia, all for Elmo's benefit.

I digress. It was a huge relief when our daughter's symptoms advanced to mere snot and coughing, which eventually subsided to a state of near normality. If anything we were all slightly disappointed to wave goodbye to her husky voice, which added a further dimension to her unique, cheeky charm. The days of pent-up hyperactivity with which she met her recovery were as difficult to manage as the horrors that preceded them, but much more enjoyable.

And this prolonged burst of physical enthusiasm coincided perfectly with our younger daughter's submission to the bug. We had known that it was only a question of when the same symptoms would be repeated in her. The only mercy was that - being only a couple of months old - her usual habits weren't too different from the major effects of the cold: screaming, vomiting and sleeplessness. The trouble was that - even at the best of times - our daughter's default scream sears furiously through the darkest corners of the brain of anyone within earshot. My wife and I have by now adjusted to this sonic peril where others find it hard to bear; we have even come to view it with a sense of pride. But such was the obvious distress caused to our daughter by her illness that the scream's magnitude became all the more severe.

I can only apologise to our neighbours.

Thankfully, a mild rattle in her chest is all that remains of our youngest's plight. She is back to being the relatively peaceful and cheerful young lady that I intended to be boasting about here two weeks ago. Popular wisdom contends that young babies are incapable of genuinely smiling. If they appear to do so, continues popular wisdom, somewhat arrogantly, it is simply because of wind. I can refute this claim with absolute certainty, citing the fact that - since she was only about six weeks old - our second daughter has greeted the sight of Mummy's milk dispensers with a knowing grin and even an occasional chuckle. The cause of this reaction soon expanded to include Mummy's face. Since her recovery from the great plague of 2011, my daughter now sometimes offers the same beaming smile in response to my own appearance in her eyeline.

This pleases me greatly, in turn causing me to smile. Regardless of whether or not I have wind.

The crying game

I've gone soft.

I remember observing some time after the birth of my first daughter that fatherhood had made me more sensitive: more prone to displays of emotion. As someone who had previously been troubled by my inability to fully engage with sentimental matters, I welcomed this development. To a certain extent. I was nevertheless hopeful that, by the time my second daughter came along, I would have found a way to rein in these weepy tendencies. I've got a reputation to uphold, after all.

It seems that I have failed to achieve this. Double the daughters; double the distress. I am struggling to convince myself that this is all simply a consequence of my burgeoning maturity; that I am no longer susceptible to the misguided social consensus that real men don't cry. On the contrary, I can proudly display my transcendence over this notion.

So why is it so embarrassing?

As the duty manager at work the other day, I was presented with a distraught young man of about three or four who had been separated from his parents. His anguish was quite understandable (most of us have a traumatic memory of a similar occurrence in our own youth) so I was unsurprised at the relief I felt when - before I had the chance to take any decisive action - his mum appeared on the far side of the shop, calling desperately to him as he sprinted at her, tears flowing and arms outstretched.

What I wasn't expecting was my reaction after this reunion had taken place. All too suddenly I knew I was about to cry. I was in the middle of a busy shop, of which I was supposed to be in charge, and I was welling up. I genuinely had to take myself away for a minute to compose myself. The more generous among you may find this endearing. Others will now be laughing at me, with some justification. Either way, it was unprofessional at best.

At least I was in a position of less responsibility today when an even more surprising source provoked my tear glands. It was my day off, and mid-afternoon before my wife and I were able to enjoy the sitting privileges granted to us only when both daughters are asleep. We chose to celebrate this by watching a recording made the night before of our favourite misanthropic, improvised sitcom, Curb your Enthusiasm. Larry David is capable of drawing various reactions from people: mirth, disgust, offence, guilty agreement, admiration... But he has never made me cry. Not even when Cheryl left him.

And yet today's scene, in which an entirely inconsequential character is urged to throw her baby from a burning building, to be caught by a former baseball player infamous for dropping catches, had me blubbing once more. The baby's jeopardy was nothing more than the setup for a joke about a baseball player. It was made abundantly clear that it was actually a plastic doll being filmed. But my new ability to collapse emotionally was immune to this fact.

Once I had completed the increasingly familiar task of composing myself, I was reminded of the aforementioned lost boy at work embarrassment. I turned to my wife to confess this tale to her. Only I couldn't get the words out, because guess what the memory of it made me do?

As I write this, there's a programme on TV about some soldiers' wives and girlfriends singing I'll Be There at a concert. I've got that tickle behind the eyeballs.

This has got to stop.

Advice for body builders

Cancel your gym membership; it is unnecessary. Return your Arnold Schwarzenegger body builder's bible (you know: the tome so mighty you need to be Mr Universe to be able to carry it home) to the bookshop whence it came; it is surplus to requirements. Dismiss your personal trainer; he or she is simply not needed. If you wish to beef up, all you require is a baby with a bit of gas in its tummy. I confess that there are times when I would be prepared to lend you mine for a couple of hours.

For although, on the whole, she is a calmer beast than her older sister, our beloved younger daughter's post-feed tantrums are like a good Arsenal counter attack: they develop quickly and result in a screamer. She can go from blissful gulping to lung-bursting wailing in seconds, and her lung capacity is matched only by the physical effort she demands from you, the pacifier, before she will abate. Several times each day she grants me this opportunity to tone muscles I didn't know I had.

Over the past five weeks my wife and I have developed various techniques which seem to hasten the placation. Their effectiveness is directly proportional to the effort required.

The classic rock

Basic cradling. Doesn't work in the slightest. Our daughter considers this an insult to her proud reputation, and as such will only raise the volume.

The fireman's lift

This is relatively easy, and until recently was quite effective. It entails hoisting my daughter on her front over my left shoulder and patting her firmly on the back with my right hand. Even in the glory days it would only work when accompanied by a rigorous number of laps of our living room. My wife used to refer to it as "Daddy magic" until it abruptly ceased to have any effect two days ago.

The ski Sunday

At least I get to sit down for this one. But that's as good as it gets. It involves holding her, facing me, on my knees and both of us swaying in tandem from side to side, as if slaloming quite awkwardly down the slopes of an Alp. In a chair. Um. It doesn't really have anything to do with skiing. I'm making up the names for these things as I go. This is also much less effective than it used to be.

The up and down

Holding my daughter under the armpits in front of me, and simply lifting her slowly up and down. This is really hard work. If you don't believe me, try it yourself with something that weighs about 14lb, or even with a child if you can legally obtain one. I usually can't last more than about thirty 'reps' (as I believe strong people call them) and I'm quite proud of that. But the trouble with this method is that it suppresses the screams only until the precise moment when your arms can take no more.

The indecisive croucher

This is when I hold my daughter out in front of me, one arm around her waist and one supporting her head (but leaning back, as is her wont, and as it inconveniently was when she was born), and bend at the knees (my knees), holding this position for a moment before standing again, and repeating until the screaming stops. This sounds simple enough, but an awful lot of repeating is usually required. And the longer this trial of endurance continues, the more the pain increases. I'm getting thighs like tree trunks. Seriously: I'll be in Roberto Carlos territory before long. But persevere through the burn and tranquility is often eventually restored.

The Status Quo

The current favourite. Similar to the indecisive croucher, but with added back and forth motion. Picture an ageing guitarist, too slow and tired to attempt star jumps, and settling instead for this deceptively strenuous activity. I discovered the efficacy of this technique only yesterday and was happy to make good, prolonged use of it, until I found that I could barely stand as soon as I stopped.

I don't remember it being this much hard work the first time around. If I'd put in this much effort, I'd have spent the intervening months painting myself orange and entering contests in Las Vegas. Or whatever it is that muscly people do.

In other pacification news, the eponymous anti-hero of our older daughter's placatory animation of choice - the gruffalo - has officially now made the transition from scary to hilarious in her eyes. When he made his appearance in her 467th viewing this evening, her surprising response was hysterical laughter. We seem to have desensitized her to fear.

Just in time for Halloween.

Four hands are better than two.

Tomorrow I return to work after my paternity leave/holiday combo. I am less than jubilant about this, as is my wife. I have tried to convince her that my contribution to keeping our two young ladies in check is really negligible, therefore my impending absence for forty hours a week should pose little threat to her sanity. One could even argue that she will now in fact have one less child to supervise.

My case was undermined last Friday night, however, when I was granted special dispensation to make a foray into Big London City to have a rare night of fun with my friends. Of course, these people are also my wife's friends, so I was extremely appreciative of her brave sacrifice in staying at home with the girls so that I could be the social representative for both of us. This appreciation became tinged with guilt when I heard my wife's anguished description of the nightmare that had been bath time that evening. Imagine the popular redneck refrain Duelling Banjos, but with the twangy instruments replaced by screams which escalate in almost endless competition with each other. So more Dante than Deliverance, I suppose. This was a harrowing experience for my wife to endure unassisted and her sense of trepidation has only increased as a result. At least nobody had to squeal like a pig.

So the relative serenity of having one parent per child on a full-time basis is now at an end. The difficulties we have for the past month overcome together will now be doubled. How, for example, will my wife transfer both children upstairs on her own? Daughter A can make this journey under her own steam, but must be carefully overseen at close proximity. Daughter B is unable to move anywhere under her own steam, and must therefore be carried. Each activity requires two arms. They must occur concurrently. My wife does not have four arms. As such she will be left with a choice between abandoning one child's safety to the hands of fate or not doing a wee all day.

Some mornings I get up at 6:00 for work. I will now be compelled to get everyone else up at the same time (bearing in mind that my wife and younger daughter are people for whom sleep is currently at a premium) so that I can assist with the washing, nappy changing, dressing and feeding of others before I depart. The alternative will be to eat my bowl of Krave and do my morning poo in absolute silence before sneaking away and leaving my wife to deal with the getting up of the girls by herself. Again, there seems to be no desirable option here.

Similar logistical nightmares will apply to preparing meals, leaving the house, appeasing the wounded, entertaining the restless, and pretty much every activity that takes place in the course of an average parental day. All require disagreeable compromise when there are more children than parents on hand. And these are just the examples we can think of now. If only I didn't have to go to work.

We have started buying lottery tickets.

Oh dear

When I was born, I am reliably informed, my sister (who at the time was two years and twelve days old) suddenly developed a limp. On the whole she took to her little brother reasonably well. I'm still here to tell you about it, after all. But she persisted for some time with this limp.

It's an attention thing, you see.

We've been wondering what our older daughter's equivalent of the limp would be in response to the birth of her own younger sibling. In general she has adjusted to the change in circumstances with a maturity and grace which has surpassed my wildest expectations, and which belies her tender age. I have to keep reminding myself that she is only 19 months old.

Each time she sees the little person who keeps distracting Mummy and Daddy, she continues to gleefully exclaim "It's a baby!" When she can't locate her sister, she enquires "Baby, where are you?" Most adorably of all, she insists on showering her with gentle stroking, kisses and, more recently, loving hugs. Only this evening she took it upon herself to curl up on the sofa with Mummy and baby and I cried with joy a little bit.

But mature, graceful and adorable though she may be, she would be abnormal if she displayed no reaction at all to the small reduction in the amount of time her audience devotes to her. A few signs of this reaction have begun to leak out, each one a contender to become The Limp.

Screaming

This was the first indication of insecurity in our eldest, having begun almost as soon as our youngest arrived home. It is also by far the most troublesome, so mercifully it seems to have subsided. Although these assaults on the ear drums usually take the form of happy squeals, I would much prefer a nice, quiet smile.

Having a lie down

I'm not sure if this counts because I think it may have started when she was still an only child. But it's all been a bit of a blur really, so I can't be certain. Occasionally, when something perturbs her, she will simply throw herself onto her bum and then onto her back, before staring with relative serenity at the ceiling/sky/whatever's up there, until someone demonstrates concern.

I actually quite like this idiosyncratic little piece of behaviour, in the same way that one might secretly admire a man in strange shoes, for just being unpretentiously odd enough to pull it off.

Fake choking

This is a bad one. Occasionally, like anyone, she will have a drink and allow a bit to go down the wrong hole. Much coughing, spluttering and alarm will duly follow. A few days ago one such incident occurred and we could metaphorically see the proverbial penny dropping as she was instantly surrounded by worried adults anxious to establish her wellbeing.

Ever since this moment, we have become increasingly reluctant to leave her alone with a drink, having watched her rapidly perfect a very convincing cough and splutter, invariably accompanied by a martyr's assertion that she's OK. As recommended by all the experts, we resist rewarding this attention-seeking behaviour with attention. However, this approach exposes us to a perilous Boy Who Cried Wolf style crisis. Thus I hope to see a swift end to this particular habit.

Oh dear

This is the contender which I think, sadly, may abide to become our older daughter's Limp. At first it was extremely endearing to hear her adopt my own simple phrase in response to misfortune: "Oh dear." By day two of this my delight had begun to give way to a weary hope that she may soon grow as tired of those two words as we had, after hearing her repeat them ad infinitum. By day three, she had progressed to creating problems of her own - engineering a carefully controlled fall, or 'dropping' her lunch on the floor - in order to generate a reason to say the magic words. Now she cannot resist saying them even before she has contrived a cue for doing so.

I pointed out to her today, after one such gambit, that the sincerity of her regret was called into question by its being expressed before its cause had taken place. She neglected to invoke in response the recent discovery that neutrinos can travel faster than the speed of light and that - by implication - cause can in fact follow effect (this would have really impressed me), and instead played the only-19-months-old card; feigning incomprehension and, consequently, innocence.

In the face of this belligerence, I fear that we may be stuck with these two words. The worst thing is that I was the source.

Oh dear.

WE DONE A BABY AGAIN

Well that was a bit of excitement.

Legend has it that second births are quicker, easier and even relatively serene experiences.

This is nonsense.

Our second beautiful daughter (I don't have any ugly ones) was born on Tuesday 20th September 2011 at 6:15pm, weighing 9lb 8oz, placing her first by a single ounce in the well documented League of Birth Weights of My Children. Exciting stats, I'm sure you'll agree. Well, that's just the interesting tip of a riveting iceberg.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

Prologue

On Monday morning my daughter and I accompanied my wife to her fortnightly appointment with the midwife. Initially we were directed to see a substitute, who was reluctant to conduct the cervical sweep we had been promised (on the quite reasonable condition that we had not had the baby by this point) by our regular midwife. I regret to say that I do not fully understand the workings of a cervical sweep, other than that it is intended to stimulate things into action.

This reluctance proved immaterial just as we were preparing ourselves to sigh and wander off, disappointed, when the original midwife reappeared, like a cervical guardian angel. Quick as a flash, she whisked my wife away and provided all the sweeping necessary.

Slightly exceeding the speed limit

On Tuesday I was back at work, struggling as I had for the previous month or so to overcome the persistent distraction offered by the likelihood of my wife having a baby at any moment. Despite the midwife's proactive intervention the previous day I was beginning to resign myself once more to another day of distracted impatience and concern for my wife's discomfort.

So it seemed odd, even to me, how calm I remained when I received the phonecall I had been awaiting for so long from my wife. It was about 1 o'clock, I think, when she made contact to reveal that she was almost certainly in labour and was en route to the hospital with her mum and our daughter. I should forego the long standing plan of driving home to collect her and instead meet her at the hospital. This minor adjustment to the plan was enough to convince me that this was no false alarm.

I maintain that it was my impressive sense of responsibility, rather than blind panic, which made me briefly consider finishing what I was doing before I strolled over to my colleagues to announce my departure and the reason for it. A few excited hugs later, all that remained was the decadent pleasure of interrupting my boss and his boss, who had been deep in what was undoubtedly very important conversation, to announce that I was sorry to interrupt (I wasn't) but my wife was in labour so I would see them in four weeks.

The good wishes of these important people still rang in my ears as I hit the road. The first half of my journey was plagued by guilt resulting from my failure to have phoned my parents before I left (my dad was tasked with delivering my mum to the delivery suite so that she could proudly assume the role of second birth partner). The second half of my journey was plagued by guilt resulting from my having phoned my parents while I was driving. Under the circumstances I dismissed all this remorse on the basis that two wrongs do make a right when your wife is in labour.

By the time I arrived at the hospital the first signs of panic were apparent as I realised that I had no recollection of where I should go next. The second ward I dramatically burst in upon turned out to be the right one, but not quite at the right time. Now, I confess that I may slightly have exceeded the speed limit on my way to the hospital, but I was shocked, and only slightly proud, to discover that I had beaten my wife there. After a few minutes of shamefully stereotypical pacing around the ward's waiting room I looked up to see my wife, daughter and mother-in-law struggling up the corridor towards me. My first, distant glance at my wife's face confirmed that this was most certainly going to be it.

You're doing really well

Not only are second births quicker, easier and even relatively serene experiences, but we had confidently chosen for this one to take place underwater. Our midwife had successfully sold water birthing to us as a zen-like treat; almost as enjoyable as not giving birth at all.

A nurse then employed medical knowledge to confirm what I already knew: that my wife was in labour. This was followed by some minor confusion about where the hospital bag had got to, before Nana departed with our impeccably behaved daughter in tow. Meanwhile my wife was in agony in a wheelchair in the birth pool room and I was failing to do anything useful as the midwife and her very keen student helper struggled to fill and heat the pool faster than my wife's cervix could dilate.

I should at this point clarify that the midwife by which we were now being attended was different to the one with whom we had ben keeping antenatal appointments. This is not really significant, but both ladies were very nice and helpful, and deserve to be considered as distinct entities.

Just as the midwife announced that the waters in the pool were only seconds away from being ready to receive a pregnant lady, the waters in my wife broke, revealing themselves to be full of meconium (baby poo, for the uninitiated). I was unable to fathom the abject disappointment which immediately appeared upon everyone else's face until I was informed that meconium in the waters implies a risk of the baby inhaling the poo and contracting a lung infection. This risk necessitates careful monitoring and swift suction of the baby's lungs after birth, neither of which are possible in a birthing pool. Thus, we made a despondent procession to the next room, with its conventional bed and lack of warm water.

Soon after this, my mother arrived into what must have been a somewhat awkward situation for her. This was at about 3 o'clock, by which time my wife was fully dilated and ready to push. Her fears that a repeat of the torturous six-hour marathon that this stage entailed in the birth of our first daughter were confidently allayed by the midwife, who proclaimed that six minutes would be a more accurate timeframe.

My wife had made it abundantly clear some time ago that I would risk being punched aggressively in the face if I offered her the patronising encouragement that "you're doing really well." But it felt so very inadequate to provide only "that's it my darling"s, "take a deep breath"s and "well done"s that I had fallen on back on the truthful but forbidden phrase by the time these six minutes had become two hours. My wife was now demanding an epidural with the vehemence that can be summoned only by a lady who has been through this before and been denied such relief. Of course there are serious risks and drawbacks with such a course of action, which is why such vehemence was necessary to convince the midwife to seek a doctor's opinion on the matter.

Enter the villain of the piece.

Doctors

I cannot recall the name of the doctor who came into the room and told my wife, in sentences broken up by my her frequent and excruciating contractions, that she just needed to push a bit harder really. Our midwife later expressed her surprise that my wife had not hit the doctor at this point. She settled instead for shouting quite aggressively that it was physically impossible for pushing to be done harder than she had been demonstrating for the previous two hours. These were not the exact words she used. The doctor was obviously scared by this outburst, and performed a swift volte face, suggesting that maybe an epidural would be a good idea.

An unsettling lull followed this, as the midwife and her assistant followed the doctor out of the room, leaving my mother and I to console my wife through her continuing agony. Eventually the midwife returned with a different doctor, who wasted little time in conducting a very thorough examination of the baby's position and establishing that it was this which was of concern, and rendering futile my wife's intense and sustained pain thus far. The baby was facing backwards, which had somehow caused her chin to become jammed on the birth canal. My wife's pushing had indeed been textbook stuff, but would continue to be unsuccessful unless drastic measures were taken.

This new doctor's opinion, then, was that my wife should be immediately rushed to the operating theatre for a faster acting spinal epidural, followed by an attempt to forcibly extract our new daughter with forceps. If this failed to work, then an emergency caesarian would be necessary. This announcement triggered a chilling sense of terror in the room. The anaesthetist was suddenly on hand, as if this new torture had always been inevitable, describing the considerable dangers to which my wife must consent for he and the doctor to subject her to in order to save our baby.

Theatre

I was now more scared than I can ever remember having been. And this was not the usual, self-interested fear of pain or inconvenience, but genuine, altruistic terror over the fundamental wellbeing of those I love. I left my mum in what must have been a state of uninformed bewilderment as I hurriedly changed into the scrubs with which I was provided before following my poor wife into the operating theatre.

In other circumstances I might have marvelled excitedly at the Houseesque surroundings in which the aforementioned anaesthetist struggled for much longer than anyone was comfortable with to insert a needle about a metre long into my wife's spine. We were left in no doubt as to the seriousness of the consequences should my wife move a muscle while this was taking place. Yet time and time again, I saw the anaesthetist shake his head in disappointment at his failure to hit the right spot, as my wife battled heroically through half a dozen contractions with no pain relief and no movement.

After what seemed like a lifetime, he at last achieved his goal and calm descended upon the room. Suddenly my wife was sharing jokes with me as she resumed pushing, but this time with the surreal inability to feel the pain which had accompanied it for so long, and with the doctor using medieval instruments to wrench on our baby's head. This was traumatic in so many ways, but at least my wife's pain had for now abated. And these draconian measures ultimately got the job done.

Within minutes our daughter was born, about five and a half hours after the labour had started. For the hour or so since the drama had intensified, I had been visibly struggling to rein in my emotions. Medical staff who should really have been focussing on my wife kept stopping to express their concern for me. Finally I let my guard down and had a bit of a weep as our new child was placed awkwardly in my anaesthetised wife's arms. It was her turn to feel bewildered as she was confronted by a precious child whose hard earned emergence she had been unable to feel. She felt like she had cheated. I tried to convince her that she had put more than enough into the project.

The delighted relief I was now sharing with my wife gradually gave way to renewed terror, in the manner of a self-indulgent horror film which doesn't know when to call time on its climaxes, as our daughter was whisked away to a far corner of the room where two doctors tried with increasing urgency and panic to get her screaming. As I saw one of these doctors start pumping our baby's chest I started to develop a grim certainty that this would end badly. But just as I was about to start screaming, our daughter did.

I should take this opportunity to offer my sincerest gratitude to the many staff who have helped us throughout the pregnancy and birth. I have eulogised before about the sacrosanct wonders of the NHS. This traumatic experience has been an excellent demonstration of the value of this institution and its staff. It's no exaggeration to say that, in a time or country with fewer or less knowledgeable staff, not to mention the equipment at their disposal, I could by now be a single father of one. I will never find the words to fully express how much I owe to the people - not least our midwife - who took the actions they bravely decided were necessary to make everything ok.

Epilogue

It is now just about Thursday. Our second daughter is over thirty hours old. On Wednesday afternoon she and my wife were allowed to leave the hospital to return home with me. She looks nothing like our first daughter, but is nevertheless beautiful. She has a surprisingly good covering of hair on her head, big blue eyes and a ladylike mouth which is somehow capable of expressing a knowing superiority. The horrific bruising left on her head by the forceps has already begun to subside. Her fingers and toes are as long as they are perfect. She is very good at breastfeeding.

My wife is still in considerable pain. Amidst the climactic conclusion to the birth, I am ashamed to say that I failed to fully appreciate the effect upon her of the frightful forceps. Only tonight has she completely lost the benefit of the morphine with which I understand her epidural was laced. I don't think she will tonight add to the 3 hours' sleep she has managed in the last two days. I am going to work hard tomorrow.

Our older daughter's reaction to her new sister has been an issue about which we have speculated for many months. Upon their first meeting she smiled and exclaimed: "Baby! Baby! It's a baby!" This was as good as we could have hoped for, but it was quickly tempered by the tears and screams as she witnessd her sister being breastfed by her mum. A welcome afternoon nap later though, and she was stroking and kissing the new arrival with her best approximation of a gentle, loving touch.

It's a start.

Also: I look pretty good in scrubs.

Desperate measures

We really want to have a baby now. Why is she still in there? My nerves are increasingly frayed, having spent every waking minute of the last few weeks expecting it to happen at any moment. But our imminent second daughter is evidently too comfortable where she is to instigate the change of scenery which is customary for phoetuses her age.

I can't begin to imagine how my wife feels. Well, I have an inkling, because she has told me, but my point is that this indefinite wait is much worse for her than for me. She must withstand continued discomfort, insomnia and immobility, all of which are now increasing exponentially their devastating impact upon her life. My wife is left in the ridiculous position of yearning desperately for an event of which she is absolutely terrified. The fact that she has previously survived one such event offers her little consolation; it only gives tangible form to her terror. Yet such is her current condition that yearn she does for labour to come.

And so we have reluctantly begun to give credence to some of the solutions offered by legend to our impatient plight. The fact that I am writing this, rather than a joyous recollection of birth, is indicative that these solutions are yet to bear fruit. We have failed to have any joy in the following ways:

Curry

We eat curry fairly regularly anyway. It has never been closely followed by either of us having a baby, so I was sceptical about its efficacy even before we had one (curry, not baby) last week. Admittedly we played safer than the labour-inducing theory demands, sticking with our usual korma and massala. Nice aftertaste; no babies.

Castor oil

Apparently this works by flushing out one's system, causing internal movements of such magnitude that one's uterus is disturbed into action. This, by all accounts, entails some rather unpleasant experiences. You have to be very keen indeed to give birth in the next 48 hours if you are to tread this path. Which is why we spent some time looking for castor oil in Asda today. The drawback with this method? We couldn't find any.

Twelve pineapples

This is a ridiculous notion. The thinking is that pineapples contain a labour-inducing chemical called bromelain, but only in such quantities that the consumption of one of these spiky fruits would get you about a twelfth of the way to the maternity ward. Clearly the prospect of eating the requisite dozen in one sitting is more daunting than infinite pregnancy.

One useful consequence of this theory is that I can at any time effectively express my sympathy for my wife's ongoing turmoil by offering to buy her twelve pineapples.

A long walk

If my wife's heavily pregnant condition allowed her even to contemplate such physical activity, then she would be far less inclined to take this or any other measure to bring the pregnancy to a climactic end. Thus, this possibility is rendered paradoxical at best.

Nipple stimulation

The idea of this is to make one's body think it is breast feeding, the result of which presumably is to induce in it a better-late-than-never style panic, causing it to cough up someone to be fed. This sounds almost sensible, and not altogether unpleasant until you discover that, to produce the desired effect, the stimulation is required for five hours a day. Outrageous.

Other methods

There are other methods, but my Mum reads this, so all I will say is that they are fun but they don't work.

And so we wait.

Get ready

My wife keeps thinking she's about to have a baby. Normally, as a responsible husband, I would be obliged to seek help for a spouse with such an alarming delusion. Except that this is no delusion. I also keep thinking she's about to have a baby. She is about to have a baby. I keep issuing warnings to my boss at work:

"I may have to disappear for four weeks at any moment."

"Yes, yes. Not due for another month though, is it?"

"Well no, but..."

"I shouldn't worry then."

I don't think he believes me. Of course it should and could be another month until labour day. But our first daughter arrived a month early, and my wife is experiencing portents of birth with increasing frequency. Her sleepless nights have been made yet more uncomfortable by the acute backache she suffers at sudden intervals. Her bump is dropping like a stone. A really heavy stone in her womb. There is no delicate way to add that she keeps feeling like she's being poked from within down there. This makes it difficult to resist imagining our next daughter knocking impatiently on the exit door.

Our only plausible reaction to all of these omens is to get ready. The hospital bag has been packed and waiting in the hall for a week or so now. I have taken to illegally keeping my phone on me at work. (On silent, of course.) Today we have reluctantly turned down an invitation to a friend's birthday lunch on the grounds that the venue is more than ten miles from the nearest maternity ward. I have become less prone than usual to taking risks with the volume of petrol in my car. Most dramatically of all: I can at no point drink more than the legal driving limit. Not that this is something I regularly do anyway, but not being allowed to makes me curiously thirsty.

Another addition to our preparation is that we have the grandmothers on call, eagerly awaiting the opportunity to cushion the forthcoming frenzy of child-based activity with generous helpings of love, attention and maternal wisdom. One of their main responsibilities will be to ensure that our first daughter retains an acceptable level of attention throughout the drama to come. I will be the sole birth partner for this birth, as the product of the previous one is kept company by Nana at home.

But it's in the long term that we must continue to make our daughter know how much she is loved, needed and wanted. And she, herself seems alive to this issue already. She has recently become extremely cute, being unprecedentedly forthcoming with the hugs and kisses. Even more impressive, though, is the acceleration in the growth of her vocabulary. She has, in the last couple of days, mastered the words apple, beans, ball, star and circle, all of which she will describe while eating, pointing at or bouncing as appropriate. I'm increasingly convinced that she is familiar with the numbers two and four. Clearly she is an even numbers kind of girl.

She also knows her favourite toys by name now, and will regularly request the company of or converse with Puppy, LaLa, Lola and, most pertinently of all, Baby. This will soon be a very useful word around here.

What's inside me?

Have you seen the film Alien? Even if you haven't, I'm sure there's a scene in it which has wormed its way into your consciousness. I'm talking about the bit in which John Hurt (I think) enquires in a quite exasperated tone as to what's inside him. The answer is rapidly forthcoming when an alien bursts through his chest, in a manner which is at once horrifying and slightly funny.

My wife cannot now help but fear the same fate befalling her at any moment. Logic, biology and the scans we have had all serve to reassure us that she contains a nice human of our own making, rather than an evil alien which will grow up to bleed acid all over the intergalactic colonialist scientists of an unspeakably bleak future.

But the nice human is clearly attempting to make a similar exit from its host. From within my wife she pounds away like a cat in a bag with increasing frequency. That these movements seem more deliberate and calculated than in previous weeks adds to the sense that she is a very mature foetus: ready to come out and face the world any time now.

I spend much of my spare time watching my wife's tummy in bewilderment at this show of force. And my wife finds this form of entertainment increasingly painful, as in fact she now finds most things. Medication for a previously undiagnosed thyroid malfunction has ensured that she is in much better physical condition than when pregnant with our first daughter but, nevertheless, discomfort is now a constant companion. She has for the last week or so been coping with the disadvantage of a head between her legs. A full night's sleep is a long-lost friend of hers who has neglected to visit for some time.

All of which considerable inconvenience has led to a ridiculous sense of relief that, soon, my wife will repeat the single most painful experience of her life. She will undergo physical trauma which is literally inconceivable to me, even as I watch it first hand. And, preposterously, I'm quite looking forward to it - not because I'll then get a few weeks off work - but because this will represent the climax of eight or nine months of escalating discomfort. Once this has happened, my wife can begin to heal, sleep and become human again. Then all we have to do is raise two children. So maybe the sleep bit will have to wait.

John Hurt didn't know how lucky he was.

Wind of change

My wife is now over seven months pregnant. Even my own forgetfulness is now helpless in the face of the overwhelming evidence of impending baby. The bump has, in recent weeks, dramatically increased its protrusion, into both the space immediately in front of its host, and our collective awareness. And my wife is forced to withstand increasing discomfort. She is now less mobile, and suffers from extreme fatigue and aching whenever she attempts to overcome this. She is relentlessly pounded from within by an ominously active daughter-to-be, who seems to have run out of space in there, and demonstrates this with sharp, angry elbows. She often chooses to do so throughout the night, which would hinder anybody's sleep.

None of these symptoms are unusual in the latter stages of pregnancy. Indeed, my sunny (and, potentially, slightly insensitive) outlook leads me to conclude that my wife's suffering is slightly less than while she was incubating our first daughter. Slightly.

One less common consequence of this gestation has been the terrifying magnification of my wife's sense of smell. Under normal circumstances she can give a police dog an olfactory run for its money, able as she is to identify any given scent at a hundred paces. I have often marvelled at this sensory skill, but now it has become tinged with an uneasy tension. For if I so much as break wind in the same continent, I know that I have caused in my beloved an unpleasant nausea, which will more-or-less ruin her day.

Let me be clear: my wife is very much the victim of this phenomenon; I am the wrongdoer. But with each such occurrence I cannot help but feel that I would have got away with it, if it wasn't for those pesky nostrils.

So I must learn to restrict the odours I create, which means restraining my liberal attitude to flatulence. Such are the myriad ways in which parenthood can change you.

Bigmouth strikes again

It is, perhaps, not as well documented as it should be that I can fit the big end of a pint glass in my mouth.

On Tuesday, my 16 month-old daughter opted to fit an entire slice of bread into hers.

All of which lends itself rather nicely to making a heavily contrived Smiths reference.

That is all.

The name game

I am very pleased with the name we chose for our daughter, and I believe my wife agrees. It came to us fairly quickly, and we reached an instant accord regarding its suitability. It is not too common, but not so unusual as to provoke accusations of snobbery or - worse - pretentiousness. To get away with such maverick child labelling you have to be either upper class or a veteran of eighties pop culture.

Two other naming obstacles, around which we skirted with effortless panache, are less well documented. You can't name your child after anyone you have ever known, unless you are certain that you will love the original holder of the title, to a degree that transcends the threat of awkward sycophancy, forever and ever. And you must avoid at all costs using a name already claimed by a friend for their child. This is copying, and will certainly be frowned upon by your friend who may, with some justification, construe your decision as one which dilutes the cherished identity of their beloved. Nobody wants that.

Our daughter's name follows all of these rules and, furthermore, it suits her perfectly. Of course we are bound to perceive the moniker in terms of the person with it that we have known so well for 16 months, making this a self-fulfilling prophecy. But, being as objective as I can, I do think that its phonetic implications match her character and appearance. We made the right decision.

And so to round two. One again we have been tasked by our own fertility with devising an appellation which meets all of the above requirements while pleasing us and those whose opinions we value. And once again I believe we have come up trumps.

Yet I can't quite shake the feeling that we're suffering from difficult second album syndrome. I've been unable to overcome my fear of telling people our choice. What if others associate the name with an unsavoury celebrity whose attachment to it has passed us by? What if they see it not - as we do - as the paradigm of beauty and elegance with just a bit of an edge but, for example, as the epitome of malevolent evil?

I have no more reason to worry about these possibilities than I did previously. I'm sure, in a couple of years, we'll be as happy with our selection as we are now with its predecessor. But I can't fully commit to it. I think that perhaps we're the victims of our own prior success at naming. We've set the bar very high where previously there wasn't even a bar, if you see what I mean.

This is difficult. I should have just insisted on Smorgasbord and Juxtaposition.

Baby when the lights go out

I used to quite like a nice power cut. I think they appealed to my cynical, luddite side, offering as they do a taster of the bleak aftermath of some cataclysmic event.

One day the modern world will be undone, I would reassure myself, stripped bare of its electricity and its convenience-determined arrogance. And on that day, the cream will rise. Triumph will belong to the ones who never saw the point of an iPad; the ones who have neglected to clarify their career goals; the ones who - without a single glance at Wikipedia - remember facts about science and grammar. Well science will be useful, anyway.

The ones who had their priorities right all along will be vindicated when the power runs out. So I would reassure myself.

But, after last night's "network incident" in our part of the world, I am forced to admit that parenthood may have caused my priorities to change somewhat.

A sweltering couple of days, hot on the heels of a stressful week at work, had left me, not to mention my heavily pregnant wife, drained and eager to get our overtired daughter to sleep so that we could just sit and have a bit of telly time before bed. At around 8 o'clock I finally turned on the relaxing evening lamp in the corner of our living room, and was about to do the same to the television when the light disappeared and everything stopped.

The adjustment to our entertainment plans that this necessitated was soon overcome. As Ones Who Have Our Priorities Right, we were able to rediscover the art of conversation with relative ease. I even dared to feel a relaxing sense of novelty. But this was not to last, because the only way we had been able to make our daughter's bedroom habitable was by rescuing our electric fan from the roof, aiming it at her cot and turning it up to eleven.

It was only reasonable, then, that our daughter should awaken and make known her dissatisfaction at the fan's abrupt cessation. Eventually we succumbed and brought her downstairs to inhabit our dark, quiet world. The novelty of this world had already begun to wear off when, some time later, we surrendered ourselves to bedtime.

Our daughter's room still a furnace, our only option was to take her to our slightly cooler boudoir with us in the hope that we could keep her sufficiently calm until fan capabilities were resumed. But the thing about our daughter is, she knows when she's on bonus time, and she enjoys it. Thus a prolonged period of diving around joyously but quite violently on our bed followed. And that was just her. Well, mostly. Eventually this bout of activity began to subside, as mine and my wife's fatigue became contagious. With great relief I believed that we may all yet salvage some sleep from the night.

Which is when the hitherto unnoticed Loud Kazoo Bird kicked off outside, soon to be accompanied by his friend the Car Alarm Bird. Together they traumatised us with a sustained, surreal and frankly terrifying cacophony. At this stage I concluded that I had at last been driven beyond sanity, and have no further recollection of the night. Logic dictates that I refuse to countenance the possibility that I fell asleep. Next thing I knew though, there were unnecessary lights on and it was time to go to work. As I crept silently out of the front door I noticed the reassuring hum of an electric fan emanating from my daughter's bedroom.

My wife has since discovered that the ridiculous symphony which had tormented us the previous night was created by mere starlings. I urge you to look the phenomenon up on an internet which I have now stopped dismissing as an overrated and unnecessary luxury of an arrogant modern age.

Hot air

I've been lucky enough to have had some memorable experiences in my life.

I have gazed over Manhattan from the top of the Empire State Building. This was breathtaking. Although it was a bit foggy.

I have seen Arsenal play Barcelona at Wembley stadium. The cheating, diving Catalans won, but it was still a dream come true.

I have awoken beside my wife-to-be on a beautiful, sunny morning, surrounded by the stunning panorama of a Norwegian fjord. I was overwhelmed by the serene beauty around me.

I once rescued a drunken, disabled man who had fallen into a dark, deserted ditch from his mobility vehicle, breaking it in the process. I pushed him home on it, over a very steep bridge. Mobility vehicles are really heavy. He expressed gratitude as only the truly inebriated can, and I found it all very rewarding.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the... no, that was someone else actually. But the others were all me.

And yet it was only last week that I had what was, hyperbole notwithstanding, the single most satisfying experience of my life. As I settled down to a bit of Tweenies on the old telly box, I optimistically picked up my daughter and placed her on the sofa beside me, before awaiting the inevitable frustrated scream of protest at my impudent attempt to dictate her movements and influence her affections.

But, instead, something remarkable happened. My daughter snuggled up beside me and relaxed comfortably under my arm to enjoy Max's highly entertaining report from a hot air balloon festival. And she stayed quite happily like this for the duration, very much in the style of a tiny little grown up who loves her daddy and is not afraid to show it.

Now this is why I got into this parenting lark.

Then, as the credits rolled, she gave a frustrated scream of protest at my impudent attempt to dictate her movements and influence her affections.

Holiday

Our daughter has just returned from her first ever holiday. We went too. As did my parents who, incidentally, are her grandparents. And we all had a rather nice time. Far from manifesting our fears over her ability to sit happily in a car for five hours, or to sleep in a strange room three hundred miles from home, our daughter had the time of her life, and was impeccably behaved throughout. Well, near enough.

Furthermore, the change of scenery seems to have accelerated - or at least highlighted - her development. It was only shortly before we went that she had finally mastered walking. But tottering around our dining room table is a far cry from the determined sprints she repeatedly made towards the open staircase in our delightful holiday retreat. Or, conversely, from serene strolls in the Cornish countryside to which she took with mature and eager aplomb last week. I'm assuming that an aplomb can be eager. And mature.

Her conversation seems significantly closer to taking place in English now. She is still to learn many real words, but has at least redoubled her efforts to invent her own. These efforts now centre around the Two Syllables Game, in which she lists endless pairs of phonetics which are apparently randomly chosen, yet delivered with decisive conviction. "Dada, uh-oh, ahblig, findoo, woodum..." This can go on for ages, and is surprisingly entertaining. Especially when her arbitrary stylings coincide with my schoolboy sense of humour, as they did the other day when she declared: "Dick-yes." My wife and I have now taken to using this phrase as often as possible. But not in polite company.

Interestingly, within 24 hours of our return home, another curious development in her speech suddenly took place. She woke up on Monday having decided that "Mama", "Dada" and "Nana" were now to be referred to as "Mummy", "Daddy" and "Nanny." We're all agreed that this is a welcome modification.

It's a truism that changes in a person are more easily noticed by those who see the person less often. This, of course, is why you probably spent your youth being intermittently subjected to confirmation by your grandparents that you had grown. As someone who sees my daughter every day, the changes in her are too discrete to cause me much of a surprise. But I have come to appreciate the delight with which other relatives - who aren't fortunate enough to have quite such frequent access to her - greet her every development.

What I hadn't realised until now was that a change of scenery can have a similar effect. The changes in our daughter over the past week seem all the more pronounced even to us because - although, clearly, we spent the week in her company - we weren't seeing her in her usual environment. So her abilities at walking and talking as demonstrated in our house were separated by a week from those displayed before we left.

Does that make sense? I shouldn't really watch TV while I'm trying to express vague ideas about notions I haven't quite clarified.

The aftermath of sneezing

"I just sneezed," exclaimed my wife a couple of days ago, "And I didn't do a wee! Woohoo!"

This, apparently, marked a rare triumph in the existence of a pregnant lady. All but the most fortunate are condemned to endure a small but disappointing leak, which serves as an unfortunate counterweight to the well-documented joy of sneezing.

Ever the opportunistic - but sensitive - chronicler of such affairs, I immediately asked if my wife would mind my relating this event to the interweb. She gave not only her generous permission, but also the suggestion that I include the following advice:

Ladies: always do your pelvic floor exercises.

Thus I discovered the purpose of pelvic floor exercises.

In other, less intimate news, the physiotherapy mooted as the solution to my wife's troublesome pelvis has been rejected, on the advice of her midwife, in favour of a chiropractor. His modus operandum seems to involve frequent but brief appointments, during which he quickly makes everything a little bit more painful than it was. I'm sure he's just playing the long game. It does seem to help with the aftermath of sneezing, at least. My wife is otherwise keeping rather well, and continues to astonish me with the level of productivity she maintains.

Our daughter has been consolidating her abilities at walking and talking. She can now traverse great distances and has begun planning her assault on Everest. She is also more chatty by the day. Happily, approximately 95% of her conversation currently consists of the word "Dada." I shall enjoy it while it lasts. Just a moment ago, she also commemorated my annual shorts-wearing day by delicately and lovingly kissing my knee.

Which was nice for everyone.

My daughter, the grown up lady

Our daughter has suddenly grown up. I thought we'd have to wait until the end of her first term at university (which I calculate, at the current rate of increase, will cost us about £2 million. Just for one term) to notice such a rapid change in her, but no. Maybe she's been inspired by the weather or something.

The big news is that we can now officially classify her as bipedal. It's still early days, and there was no climactic inaugural walking event like they have in the films and the stories. Rather, she started to slip in the odd step here and there, as a subtle addition to her routine of diving recklessly between pieces of furniture. Gradually these steps have become more commonplace, culminating yesterday evening in a nice, leisurely stroll across the room. Of course, I was outside watering the flowers at the time. But my wife has no reason to lie to me about this.

She is also making considerable progress with the other big -alking. Her current favourite pastime is to grab any phone (or remote control) within reach and conduct an imaginary conversation into it. It's still largely gibberish, but each phone call starts with a gleeful "Ey oh!" in much the same manner as I imagine an Outhere Brother - or perhaps an excited teletubby - might answer a call.

But she doesn't need a prop to encourage her to converse. She often bangs on about somebody called Mjubba. An imaginary friend perhaps? She seems to be quite fond of him or her, anyway. I am also told that - when I am expected home from work or anywhere else I may have been - my daughter tends to crane her neck to gain a good view of the front door while saying, "Dadaaaaaa, where aaaaaaare yooooou?" It's a real shame that, by definition, I'll never be there to hear this. But, again, I choose to take my wife's word for it.

Our daughter has also been honing her array of animal noises. Never mind that this honing seems to have involved streamlining the repertoire down to two. In her wonderful world, all mammals grunt like Peppa Pig, and all birds say "uck, uck." The latter also serves as a request for Mummy or Daddy to look at this please. Which is quite convenient when she wants us to look at a bird.

In other very exciting news, my wife had another scan this week. We have scythed our way through a forest of red tape, in order to swich our allegiance from the hospital in which we ended our previous pregnancy, to the one in which we began it. It's further away, but offers my wife the opportunity to be on the same medical trial that she was before, and this trial is very pertinent to her particular medical needs, about which I shall divulge no more. Suffice it to say that, once again, we will be treated to a view of the inside of my wife's womb more frequently than most. Well, most people are never treated to a view of the inside of my wife's womb, but you know what I mean.

Back to the very exciting news: it's probably another girl. Yippee!

SPD 2: cruise control*

My wife is now over fifteen weeks pregnant. Our new creation is apparently the size of an apple. But a big apple, like a cooking apple or a New York City. It's not really the size of a New York City. Can you imagine how uncomfortable that would be for her? The cooking apple is causing enough trouble as it is.

It's interesting to compare and contrast the effects of this pregnancy with the previous one. I think that, by this stage the last time around, the phenomenally unbearable itching had begun its assault on my wife's physical and psychological comfort. Mercifully, thus far, this ordeal has failed to present itself to her. I'd give my right arm to keep it that way. And I'm right-handed.

One symptom from which she is suffering once again is the propensity to fall asleep at about 9pm every day. This could, of course, be related to the infinitely energetic one year-old with whom she now spends most of her time - a factor which was absent from the prior gestation, being as it was the gestation of said one year-old, some time before she became a one year-old. The onus, then, is on me to step up the level of assistance I provide. I'm trying to do so, although one thing I have learned from a combination of parenthood and my instinctively lazy nature is that you can and should always try a bit harder. And I will.

The symptom whose return we feared the most has now, sadly, come back to haunt my wife's existence. Furthermore, it has embarked upon this haunting earlier than it did before. My understanding (assisted by Christine Hill at ivillage.co.uk) of SPD, or Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction is thus:

The human pelvis is actually made of three bones which meet at the front and sides, where they are held in 'fixed' joints (the one at the front called the symphysis pubis) by determined ligaments which create the illusion I always shared with most other people: that the pelvis is one, uninterrupted bone. Only pregnancy dispels this myth, when production of the hormone relaxin is increased to help these ligaments do some relaxin' in preparation for the birth. So far, so sensible. But the dysfunction occurs when the relaxin starts the relaxin' too early.

Imagine, if you will then, your pelvis splitting in two down the front, each half grinding on the other every time you put any weight on it. This is what my wife went through for several months when pregnant before, and now knows that she will suffer for even longer this time. By the time she was in labour with our daughter, she literally could not move for the pain the SPD caused her, rendering the hormone's name ironic at best. It is apparently normal for victims of this affliction to be struck again, and worse, during any subsequent pregnancy.

This normality offers no consolation. And with the aforementioned bundle of energy to chase around the house, I am frankly astounded by my wife's ability to not crumple in a small heap of despair in the corner. Opinion is divided as to any possible treatment for this affliction. Some say physiotherapy can help; others that there is nothing you can do whatsoever. We're going to try physiotherapy. In the meantime, as I have said, I need to up my game. On which note I'm off to clean the bathroom.

*I fully acknowledge that the "cruise control" element of this post's title is entirely inappropriate and quite possibly insensitive. But what sort of a man would turn down the opportunity to make a heavily contrived reference to such a landmark of modern cinema?

A tale of two hospitals

We went for our twelve week scan last week. It wasn't until afterwards that my wife and I revealed to each other that we had each independently allowed paranoia to get the better of us, and had expected something untoward to be revealed. I suppose this fear was a residual effect of the miscarriage we once suffered. Even the successful birth of our most excellent daughter couldn't quite banish that demon.

But we needn't have worried. As far as it is possible to tell at this early stage, all is well with our next project. He or she is a relatively ordinary size and shape, and is also a wriggler. My wife reflected that this does not bode well for our hopes of a calm, gentle baby to contrast with our daughter. But we'll settle for another healthy but energetic one.

What was interesting about our latest scanny adventure was the contrast it demonstrated between the two hospitals we have graced in search of sonography. You may not know or recall that we moved house half way through our daughter's gestation. So - although she was born at our current health emporium - the early medical attention with which we are now being reacquainted took place at a different venue.

The prior experience was one of long waits in vast (yet somehow still stuffy) waiting rooms, which rendered appointment times a ridiculous notion, as one's patience was tested to the limit before being rewarded with the attention of a delightful and attentive team of sonographers and assorted helpers. They really seemed to care. Admittedly this may have been why everyone's appointment overran.

Our new hospital adopts a contrasting ideology. You, the expecting, are but cattle, to be efficiently herded from one corridor to the next in a ruthless system which spares nobody in its merciless pursuit of timely box-ticking. My wife was duly provided with a scan, several forms to fill in (quickly), a blood test and at least two conversations with a terrifying but deceptively witty receptionist, who seems to have perfected a kind of Jack-Dee-of-administration persona. And we were in and out in about twenty minutes.

I can see the merits of both systems. One can't underestimate the benefit of feeling cared for but, in principle, surely it's better to help as many people as possible than to make a few people feel really good about themselves? I suppose, ideally, hospitals would achieve both. But that would require more staff, and there doesn't seem to be much money about at the moment, so we'll resign ourselves to being herded through the next six months.

Sister act 2

And now, as advertised, further musings upon the areas in which my daughter shows early signs of big sister prowess:

Generosity

From the first time we allowed our daughter to handle her own food, she has demonstrated a quite touching inclination to share it. She simply will not let any rusk, carrot stick or blueberry pass her lips until she has successfully offered it to whichever person initially provided her with the morsel in question. To see this person nibble (or quite convincingly pretend to) upon her snack fills our daughter with glee.

This instinctive generosity is an adorable and highly commendable trait, and one which should ensure that she will always do her utmost to provide for her sibling, as well as setting him or her an excellent example.

Of course it could be that our daughter suspects my wife and I of attempting to poison her, and is simply taking the sensible precaution of having us taste her food first to attest to its safety. I should stress that - inadvertent egg crises aside - we have never poisoned her. Nevertheless, the self preservation instinct implied by this theory is also a very useful characteristic in a sister.

Coolness

I can honestly say that my proudest achievement as a father came only about a week ago, when I taught my daughter to high-five. Oh yes. I need only hold my outstretched palm near her, and her little mit slaps satisfyingly away at it, spreading contagious joy across the faces of all present. Anybody who has ever been anywhere near the 1980s will know that there is no greater indication of whether a person is cool, or perhaps rad, or bodacious.

Thus, I can now claim indisputably that my daughter is worthy of all of these adjectives. And this, above all else, will cement her position as trusted life mentor in the eyes of her younger brother or sister.

Abrupt Ending 2

I don't have to go to work today. But I can't think of any more examples. Which is not to say that there are none. But that is all for now.

Sister act

As I observe and interact with my daughter, I cannot now help but look for indications of how she will fare as a big sister. Our first scan of Child Number Two in Terms of Chronology but Certainly Not Preference is due to take place next week. We may or may not then discover whether our daughter will be the big sister of a little sister or a little brother. Depending upon your attitude towards gender stereotypes you may feel that this is a crucial factor in determining the older sibling role, but there are some generally useful characteristics for which we can already be on the lookout.

Presence

My wife and I are often moved to accuse our daughter of bullying us. Since minute one she has been big for her age, and this size is increasingly attributable to muscle rather than fat. Whilst we do our utmost to be consistent in calmly admonishing bad behaviour and celebrating good behaviour, inevitably our daughter still has an inclination to do things we would rather she did not. In these instances any attempt at gentle restraint usually ends in our daughter causing injury to the restrainer. For example, my effort to prevent her from diving off the edge of our bed this morning was successful, but only at the cost of a bitten leg for me. And don't get me started on the tugs of war over the TV remote.

How does all of this relate to her potential as a big sister? Well, I envisage that this physical and psychological relentlessness will help her to fulfill the protective older sibling role more traditionally taken on by a big brother. Our new addition will never have a big brother, so I am grateful for the prospect of our daughter transcending the stereotype in this manner, for there is no messing with her, and surely never will be. The very best protagonists in this role achieve results through their potential for action alone. In football, this quality is known amongst top defenders as presence.

Independent Responsibility

This morning, when my wife retrieved our daughter from her bedroom, she found the little lady stood in her cot, turning her bedroom light on and off, having somehow removed herself from her sleeping bag (which we use - as is practical as well as fashionable - in lieu of a duvet for her). She had also cleared her cot of all toys. In short, our daughter had got herself up. Admittedly we still had to brush her teeth, but I was much older than one year before I started doing that voluntarily.

I choose to see this behaviour as encouraging evidence of our daughter's responsible nature. As such I confidently look forward to the day when she relieves my wife and I of parental responsibilities, offering to change all of her brother or sister's nappies and clean up after their meals. This will be nice.

Entertainment

Crucial to a good relationship between our daughter and her sibling is the elder partner's capacity to attract the attention of the younger by being suitably entertaining. My wife and I have never been in any doubt as to the quality of her personality. She makes my wife laugh a lot more than I do, and I'm really funny. Just this week our daughter has added to her considerable repertoire by perfecting the piggy grunt style noise of which she herself was so fond in her early months. She has also already mastered the Amazing Tongue Circus which I fine-tuned, to the unanimous amazement of my friends and acquaintances, at about 17.

I am confident that she will be of interest and inspiration to her protege.

Conversation

The sentences our daughter utters, although apparently still nonsensical to our naive ears, are increasing daily in both frequency and the proportion and variety of consonants they contain. By the time she is a big sister I have no doubt that she will be a walking, talking Oxford English Dictionary, from which her sibling will learn, as common wisdom suggests that younger children do. Having another little person from whom they copy their early habits and activities gives them a head start in learning the best of these, or so goes the theory. Our younger one will be learning from the best.

Abrupt Ending

There are more, but I have to go to work. I can't wait until my children relieve me of that responsibility.

Landmark

Today was my daughter's first birthday. The happiest and most bewildering experience of my life was exactly one year ago. Well, almost one year and a day now. I meant to write this earlier but I've been clearing up wrapping paper and that sort of thing. It seems only proper that I commemorate the occasion in writing. I want to somehow embrace all of the highs and lows of the past twelve months, but without being tedious or repetitive. I want to condense the considerable variety of lessons I have learned into one snappy conclusion, but without resorting to patronising cliche.

I had thought I might approach this by writing about the ways in which fatherhood has changed me since a year ago. But honestly I'm not sure if it has. I'm still quite vain, a bit lazy and prepared to go to incredible lengths to avoid confrontation. If you had asked me before my daughter was born whether one could be a good parent in spite of these characteristics, then I would have offered a vain but non-confrontational response to the effect that no, I would need to change, and fully expected to.

Of course I have only my own experience to comment upon, and it's not easy to generalise about these things, but I think that parenthood in fact magnifies any strengths or weaknesses in one's character. I can only hope that my daughter (and her impending sibling) learns from me to take pride in her qualities, rest during pertinent opportunities and settle disagreements in a calm, mature manner.

One cliche, the use of which I can justify only because it is so unequivocally true, is that the positives of parenting outweigh the negatives. Admittedly, for a long time I struggled to cope with the disruption of sleep, managing to do so only because of my wife's vastly superior ability not to be lazy. And anyone who claims to enjoy changing nappies is in need of either psychiatric or olfactory treatment. But most difficult of all to cope with is the relentless weight of responsibility. In my previous life I had only to make it through the day at work before resuming a carefree existence at home each evening. Now I must continue to put the needs of at least one other person before my own for twenty four hours a day.

But sleep can be caught up with. Nappies, in reality, smell no worse than any bathroom recently visited by me. And, as a vain person, I am easily capable of appreciating the power of responsibility as a source of pride. But actually none of these rational considerations are even necessary to justify the cliche. Because when my daughter wakes me up in the middle of the night, I have come to relish it as an opportunity to spend more time with her. Every trip out with her is a chance to show off the adorable bundle of joy and curiosity which I helped to create. I cope with my responsibilities at work only by thinking of how much I enjoy my responsibilities at home.

For a long time I thought that these were ideals of which I had to convince myself. But at some point unnoticed by me I realised that I genuinely feel this way. All the hard work really does pay off. Hard work which I achieved in spite of my limitations, I think because I sensed that there was something in it for me. I'm greedy as well.

In short, my daughter makes me very happy. This is a simple, wonderful truth. My shortcomings and qualities have no discernible bearing upon this. I sincerely hope that this is the experience of all parents. If not, then this is a tribute not to parenthood, but to my daughter. Happy birthday to her.

Love spreads

Another fear which accompanies the prospect of Number Two is one which, I suspect, forever tickles the conscience of all parents of more than one: how do you spread the love evenly? Favouritism is, sensibly, something of a parenting taboo, and will certainly never be our intention. But balancing the time, love and worry you devote to your offspring already feels like a tactical minefield. For example: I shall have to stop referring to our expected as "Number Two".

Naturally, when Baby B (also an inadvisable epithet) arrives, we hope and expect to lavish upon her or him the same level of care and attention our daughter quite rightly enjoyed (and still does). But how do we do this without neglecting our daughter? I remember experiencing the same fears, albeit on a smaller scale, when my sister's second son was born. What if I didn't feel the same natural inclination to fulfill with gusto my uncle duties the second time around? I needn't have worried: both boys are equally entertaining, adorable and excellent, and I trust that I have reflected this in my interactions with them.

Another interesting aspect of this - and really the crucial one - is how the siblings involved feel. Our daughter will be about 19 months old when she starts learning to share. To what extent will she appreciate the nuances in the family lifestyle? I'm sure she will at least be sensitive to any reduction in the level of attention she receives. I believe the common manner of reconciling this difficulty is to describe it as character building.

Already I am occasionally aware that my mind is on my wife and the contents of her womb when previously it would have been on my daughter. Whilst she is a very perceptive young lady, I think I have thus far managed to shield her from this bleak truth. Nevertheless, as if in response to the impending competition, she does seem to have raised her game of late.

The days when pulling herself up was an achievement at which to be marvelled are long gone. This act is now a simple norm, to be expected whenever she arrives at any landmark taller than herself. She has now advanced to free standing. Oh yes. Admittedly she seems not be doing it deliberately, but perhaps that's why it looks so effortless. Her communication skills have also progressed to the point where she is fully capable of uttering any sound in the English language. It's just that she doesn't want to. She wants to say "Nana," again and again and again. About which Nana seems quite pleased.

But our daughter's current coup de grace is the stair climbing. We were impressed a few weeks ago when she managed one step unaided. But, virtually overnight, she pioneered a method of turning one step into two through an ingenious combination of knee and elbow work, and just sort of fearlessly repeated this until there were no more stairs to scale. Of course, we have conducted the relevant risk assessment and ensure that she is cautiously followed at close quarters when performing this feat, yet I still find it extremely impressive. Even I get a bit confused on the stairs sometimes if I think about it too much. A bit like Theo Walcott in on goal.

Child 1b can't climb the stairs.

Seriously though, I'm not sure I or anyone else will ever know the answer to the division of parenting labour question. But I'm hopeful that the answer is that, instead of dividing the love, you are able to multiply it. Of course, you can't multiply time, but we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. Maybe Science will have come up with something by the end of September.

Commence phase 2

My wife and I are not great believers in waiting three months before telling people you're pregnant. We consider our jointly held opinion on this to be reasonably well-qualified, having previously suffered the not uncommon - but nevertheless devastating - tragedy of miscarriage. On that occasion we questioned whether we had been foolishly premature in our glee, but ultimately concluded that the support and sympathy of those who knew what we had lost was invaluable in overcoming it.

Now why would I bring this up now?

Indeed. We're only about six weeks in, but our family oven is once again accommodating bun. My wonderful wife is up the duff redux. Our daughter is to be a big sister. And we are very much delighted about this.

Of course there are fears and worries to acknowledge before they can be rationalised away. How the Dickens are we going to afford to sustain such an enormous family? The savings upon which we relied during my wife's previous maternity leave are now somewhat more meagre as a result. Already we have embarked upon a frenzy of commerce: desperately selling off the less valued members of DVD and CD collections which had grown better appointed than self-respecting parents of two can afford. Besides which, we have no family silver.

Mercifully, many of the major expenses will this time be unnecessary. We already have the cot, buggy, toys and clothes (provided our new creation is either female or develops an early curiosity for cross-dressing). The daunting prospect of rearranging all the bedrooms, upon reflection, pales in comparison to the full moving house experience to which we subjected ourselves last time.

Crucially, the biggest fear presented by our first child barely registers on the scale this time around. This concerns the dread that I suspect all first-time parents feel but struggle to articulate, and that many parents of more than one fail to appreciate the lack of: that of simply having what it takes to be a parent. Well I am still very much aware of the terror I felt (but struggled to articulate), regarding my ability to take on the basic responsibility and selflessness required by fatherhood. I'm not sure how, but so far it seems that I am capable not only of making these sacrifices, but of enjoying them. I refuse to mask my pride in this fact, and I enjoy its implication: this is one big worry I need not feel this time. As for my wife, I was never concerned about her capacity for selflessness in the first place.

So, all things considered, whilst I am aware that we have opted for a smaller than average gap between child one and child two, I am confident that our reasons for trepidation are vastly outweighed by those for joy, delight, optimism and that sort of thing. For a long time, my wife and I have been in agreement that our daughter would benefit from the company of a sibling. Their closeness in age will surely mean that this benefit is all the more keenly felt.

So, in summary: Yay! We have once again successfully procreated! Does anybody want to buy a CD?

Parental puke peril

In my later teenage years I, like many, would enjoy the occasional night on the tiles on a Friday evening. On the whole, my friends and I were quite sensible and left our home town relatively untroubled as a result of our inebriation, besides subjecting those within earshot to slightly less inhibited pretentious, pseudo-intellectual musings than we did elsewhere in the week.

On one notable occasion though, I did make my own small contribution to what journalists are obliged to call BOOZE BRITAIN. The reason I recall this occasion here is that - while I don't believe I troubled any other of my fellow citizens that fateful evening - I caused my parents considerable trauma.

Essentially what happened was that I displayed a rare inability to know my limits, as a result of which I embarked upon an epic expulsion of vomit out of my Dad's car window before he had dutifully delivered me home. Further violent regurgitation ensued in the kitchen sink before I somehow found my way into bed. I awoke late the next morning with a hangover and a vague sense of mild shame, only to have this sense quickly specified and magnified by my anguished parents, as they attempted to convey to me the terror that I had caused them throughout the night: I had been entirely unaware of the unabating frenzy of puke to which I had subjected them from my own bed. My parents had had to stay up with me as I unknowingly produced this horrific spectacle. They quite reasonably feared for my life at one stage, and quite possibly saved it.

Needless to say, this is a deeply unpleasant tale, and one of which I am quite ashamed. I hope my parents know that I have been very sorry and duly grateful to them ever since. But it was only last week that I began to fully understand just how awful that night must have been for them. My daughter was not, of course, disgracefully drunk, but suffered for a good five days and nights from what has only now been identified as a urinary infection. She seems to have recovered from this ailment now that we know what it was, but last week her symptoms were as mysterious as they were terrifying.

During the days she would replace eating and drinking with desperate screaming. During the nights she would replace sleeping with desperate screaming and violent retching, as her temperature fluctuated wildly between extremes it should never reach. I am aware that all loving parents are susceptible to alarm in response to any threat to their child's wellbeing, but I assure you that I haven't exaggerated these symptoms, or the effect they had upon my wife and I. Several times I fought back tears as I watched my helpless, sleep deprived daughter dry heaving like, well, like an extremely drunken teenager.

Which is when the parallels occurred to me between this incident and the one I had caused all those years ago. Of course there are obvious differences. My daughter is about seventeen years younger than I was then, and was in no way responsible for her affliction, but last week I felt the same helpless, incomprehensible fear and inconsolable sympathy for my child that I must have subjected my own parents to on the Night I Didn't Know my Limits.

Sorry Mum. Sorry Dad.

But hey, my daughter's better now. And I don't touch vodka anymore.

"Boing," said Zebedee, "time for bed."

This has nothing to do with The Magic Roundabout. Sorry.

Babies love routine. This is one aspect of parenting upon which there is a general consensus. It helps them to develop a sense of cause and effect, and to feel safe, happy and comfortable in their lifestyle. Or something like that.

I was less conscious of the extent to which I love routine. It is perhaps more because of this than my awareness of good parenting practice that we have indeed developed regular patterns in our daughter's average day. In fact, to be fair, it's almost entirely down to my wife's awareness of good parenting practice. But I'm a willing follower of her lead.

Mindful of the remote possibility that anybody hopes to glean hints and tips from reading this, I thought I might outline our daughter's very exciting bedtime routine.

Her dinner usually starts being thrown on the floor at around 5:30 or 6:00pm. This is washed down eagerly with a bottle of milk, accompanied by the requisite episode of In the Night Garden. If the lengthly after dinner clean-up is unfinished by the time Iggle Piggle awakens (in his melancholy little boat in a darkly infinite sea, another vainly hopeful dream of company and joy in the woods ended with wretched inevitability) then we'll set our daughter free on the floor to expend any remaining energy. Of course, careful supervision ensures that the resultant wave of destruction is conducted safely. Before long however, tears of frustration often begin to outweigh our daughter's enjoyment of this last hurrah. This is when we know it's bedtime.

Unless I'm still at work, or occasionally being very selfish when Arsenal are on the telly, my wife and I share the bathtime duties. One of us will get the water running (each of us knows the exact angle to which the tap should be turned to achieve the correct temperature) while the other prepares the pyjamas, nappy and sleeping bag on our bed. Then I'll entertain my progeny as my wife prepares herself for the bath. Our daughter has introduced her own elements to the routine at this stage. Her wind up Winnie the Pooh musical thingy hangs from our bedhead, and she takes great, daily delight in clambering across the duvet and pillows in order to attain a position from which she can grab Winnie before rolling around with him for a bit.

Just as the challenge of preventing our daughter from consuming her new nappy starts to irk me slightly, I usually hear my wife's announcement that both she and the bath are ready to receive the washee. Quick as a flash, I whip off my daughter's clothes (in the unashamedly silly and entertaining manner which is the ambition of all dads) before commencing the weeees.

The weeees are a very important element of this routine, and represent - I am sure - my daughter's favourite use of her father. They involve my holding the now naked baby under her armpits and saying "One... Two... Three" as I bounce her three times on the bed. The grin has usually appeared by this point, but this is just the amuse bouche of the weeees. On three, I begin flying her to the bath. (Not literally: I'm still holding on to her. To do otherwise would be irresponsible.) Each swoop is accompanied by a big "Weeee" from me and a squeal of delight from her. It takes four swoops to reach Mummy in the bath. During the weeees I always have to overcome a brief, irrational fear of accidentally throwing my daughter down the stairs. This has never happened.

The bath itself is really my wife's domain. While I clear away any dirty clothes and nappies I can find, our daughter is being a bit washed and a lot entertained by her mother. A vast array of bath toys are involved, the favourites of which are Duncan the dolphin (whose introduction is always made with a list of all the Duncans we can think of: Peter Duncan, Duncan Goodhew, Duncan from Blue, etc.) and a collection of four stacking cups, each of which has a face, a hole and a name. I can never recall their names, for which my wife regularly and quite rightly scolds me.

Once the cleaning and the playing are complete, the singing begins. The singing is always the same. We begin with:

Bobbing along,

Bobbing along,

On the bottom of the beautiful briny sea,

Bobbibobbobbibobbobbibob

Bobbing along,

Bobbing along,

On the bottom of the beautiful briny sea.

These are all the words we know, so as my wife passes our daughter into my towel-bearing arms, we launch into a bit of Frog Song:

Bom bom bom,

Aiyah,

Bom bom bom,

Aiyah,

Bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom,

Aiyah,

Bom bom bom,

Bom bom bom,

We all stand together,

Bom bom.

By this juncture my daughter and I are on our way back to the bedroom, during which journey I do the whistley bit, which I won't attempt to transcribe here. Then, as I dry her:

Ahh ahahh,

Ahahh ahahahh,

Keeping us warm in the night,

Bobbobbob bombombombombom,

Ahh ahahh,

Ahahh ahahahh,

Something something something,

Holding me tight.

(This stretches my vocal range)

Win or lose,

Sink or swim,

One thing is certain,

We'll never give in.

Hand in hand,

Side by side,

We all stand together

Bom bom.

By now I have finished drying the little lady, and begun to apply generous quantities of cream all over her (always in this order: head, face, tummy, legs, arms, back, back of head, bum.) It is imperative that I make curious slurping noises to ward off the frustration which usually creeps back in to her mind as I perform this creaming ritual. I always feel that another song would be useful here, but invariably forget every song ever written at this very impertinent moment. My wife has dried herself and returned to the bedroom at this point, and we join forces in the struggle to apply a nappy, vest, pyjamas and sleeping bag to a child who was quite enjoying being naked.

With this stage complete, I leave my wife to settle our daughter in her cot with beautiful renditions of Somewhere Over the Rainbow and You are My Sunshine while I disappear off downstairs to do dinner or something. Job done. Until she wakes up screaming half an hour later. Actually this happens a lot less than it used to.

The whole process, from the end of her dinner to the genesis of ours, takes about an hour. It used to feel like a bit of a chore, but is now the highlight of my day.

As I say, I like routines too.