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.

Decoration

We took the plunge last week and decorated the nursery. It never occurred to me beforehand how seminal this is. We were going to pay a man to do the job, but time, money and frustration determined that we chose instead to do it ourselves. So I spent last weekend lovingly painting walls and even woodwork an exciting shade of white. And I'm so glad I did. I feel like my daughter and I have bonded by proxy.

Maybe this seems so significant because we moved here not long ago, so every change we make to the house represents our first (and therefore extremely meaningful) mark on that particular part of it. I do generally feel a slightly excessive amount of pride upon surveying the fruits of our decorating labour so far. In fact, self congratulation is one of my many talents.

But I think this is a parents-to-be thing. It's difficult to stop thinking about my impending fatherhood, thus I feel increasingly emotionally prepared. However, I can naively daydream all I want about what my daughter will sound like when she laughs, or how I'll handle our first disagreement, or what she'll say about me to her friends in 15 years - but with my pragmatic hat on, I realise that nothing compares to decorating the nursery as a real, tangible indication of a baby on the way.

We can now stand in a space created exclusively for our daughter. We can look at the walls, floor and furniture that she will gaze upon in her formative years (although hopefully she'll have more interesting considerations to attend to than staring at the walls). Furthermore, the toys, clothes and various other equipment so far accumulated by our daughter now have a home, which seems to instill in them a purpose.

Another side to this - which I only recognised while I was painting away - is the fond memories I have of watching my Dad decorate my room when I was young. He used to teach me about nouns and verbs while he was painting away. It has been suggested to me that this particular aspect of the memory is not so cool, but my English GCSE begs to differ. Thanks Dad.

It seems obvious that this association has shaped my bizarre emotional connection with decorating. But I should also note that I have been displaying bizarre emotions all over the shop lately. As an example, I have recently been reduced to tears by The Sopranos, Doctor Who, and a predictably predictable Nicholas-Cage-showing-his-sensitive-side vehicle called The Family Man, which ordinarily I would be ashamed of even watching. Well, I still am, and yet I feel obliged to admit that it had me weeping like a hormonal drama queen who's just seen the end of The Champ, having not blinked for ages.

I can only assume that this is some sort of sympathy-hormone issue. I can't decide whether my newfound emotional vulnerability will be a timely aid in my relationship with my daughter, or an embarrassing affliction, from which I hope to recover immediately. I think it depends on who asks.

P.S. Eagle-eyed readers who haven't done already can discover our daughter's name in the accompanying pictures. So now you know. Sorry for being shy about it.