Our youngest daughter last week reached the grand old age of one. The mathematical implications of this are literally severalfold. She is now a year older than she was, not to mention only one year younger than her sister. She is eligible to play with toys which enthusiastically state "12 months +!!!" on the box. (Actually I've never seen one with exclamation marks, but they're definitely implied.) Don't tell anyone, but she has in fact dabbled with such toys before. The difference is that she can now do so with a clear conscience, because overnight her throat rapidly expanded to allow the safe swallowing of small pieces of plastic. Similarly, she has developed a sudden tolerance to medicines and must now consume double the amount to achieve the same effect.
Just sixteen years remain until she can learn to drive. We're already behind on our savings for the lessons. In seventeen years she can begin to absolutely never, ever drink or smoke. Best of all, our daughter is one percent of the way to her letter from the grandchild of Wills and Kate. I wonder if monarchs will still write letters in 2111. I wonder if taxpayers will still fund the extravagant lifestyles of arbitrarily determined families in supposedly democratic societies in 2111.
Anyway, controversial cynicism aside, I can't help but use this landmark as a point at which to compare and contrast the progress made by each of my daughters. I am, of course, very clear that IT IS NOT A COMPETITION, but I think it's natural to find interesting the different routes their respective journeys have taken.
The most obvious comparison involves a notable skill our youngest daughter has just mastered: walking. She is now fully bipedal. For a couple of weeks she had Theo Walcott Shooting Syndrome (TWSS): she could only do it when she wasn't thinking about it, or when she was confident that nobody was looking. But, aged one year and two days, she decided it was time to go public and spent the day toddling between different people and pieces of furniture. With each such venture her confidence visibly grew; now she is ready to give lessons in perambulation to other babies. From memory, her big sister reached the TWSS stage at roughly the same age, but it lasted much longer. She broke through the barrier at about fifteen months, so if it was a competition, WHICH IT IS NOT, then that would be 1-0 to the young pretender. This is commonly held to be normal amongst younger siblings; they have the advantage of daily demonstrations by their elders from which to learn.
The scores, WHICH WE ARE NOT KEEPING, are drawn level by the other obvious development: talking. Although not what one might call fluent, our eldest had mastered a few phrases not long after her first birthday. Daughter 2.0 will have to accelerate somewhat to meet this target. Her noises are definitely becoming more varied and discernible from one another, but none of them could yet qualify as words. Laughter, on the other hand, is to her what the word 'snow' reputedly is to eskimos. She has a complex and useful system of variations upon the theme of mirth, each more delightful than the last. Who needs English when you can communicate all of your needs by adorable chuckling? Still: 1-1.
In order to prompt other interesting comparisons, I have just re-read the blog post I wrote upon the occasion of our first daughter's first birthday, some nineteen months ago. What I learned was this: I was really self-involved nineteen months ago.
It was all about me. I barely mentioned the progeny at all. Shameful, really. In my defence, I did - in the course of discussing myself at such length - describe myself as vain. Furthermore, though, I proposed that fatherhood doesn't really change one's characteristics. Well, the evidence nineteen months on begs to differ. I have today managed five paragraphs - many of them featuring more than two sentences - before talking about me. So perhaps parenthood has changed me. I am now, clearly, not even remotely self-obsessed.
In paradoxical summary then: parenthood has made me less inclined to make the subject of parenthood all about me. I suppose I'll need a few more years of it before I become fully modest. Watch this space.
