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.