Pride update.

As my daughter's age approaches the eight month mark, the list of her achievements and abilities continues to grow at an impressive rate. She now has four teeth, which seem to have emerged in no particular order. The symmetry I naively expected has failed to transpire, but this has had no effect on the efficient use she makes of her gnashers as she munches away on whichever concoction my wife and I subject them to. Not that much of it touches the sides, mind you, such is the voracity of her appetite. Root vegetables seem to be a common feature of her favourite meals, which I think indicates a certain cultured maturity in her taste.

Decision making seems to play in increasing role in other aspects of her life. Like any child, she is developing a strong sense of what she doesn't like, and how to express this. At high volume. What I find more admirable - and more positive - is her ability to discern what she does like. Holding her in front of her toy collection is all the invitation she needs to make a carefully considered selection. The repetition in her choices suggests that they are good ones. As a man often plagued by indecision I sincerely hope that this quality of my daughter's stays with her.

Her mobility is also improving. Although yet to fully master crawling, she does occasionally struggle forwards on her knees and elbows, even if she doesn't fully understand how she has achieved this. I am confident that, with each such happy accident, she is programming the instinct which will soon take over.

Crawling may, however, soon be rendered unnecessary. Her legs have been capable of supporting her weight since she was about five minutes old. She has now progressed to the point where a slight balance deficit is the only thing between her and independent perambulation. Thus, when you hold her hands, she walks eagerly in whichever direction she's facing, eating up the ground like Usain Bolt. And nothing makes her happier.

Convenient, then, that she has recently mastered a useful means of expressing this happiness: clapping. I say mastered. Maybe that's a bit generous. Picture a weightlifter who has put too much flour on his hands. The thing he or she would do to remedy such a situation is what my daughter does. Frequently. I should clarify that she is yet to attempt weightlifting. Although she is very strong.

We still haven't identified the language, but she can definitely talk. One of her preferred statements is "Dadadadadadadadada". My wife's interpretation of this differs from my own. While she sees it as a meaningless, albeit entertaining phonetic, I see no problem in isolating any two of its syllables to leave the word every father yearns to hear from his child. Yes folks: my daughter calls me Dada. Sometimes I'm even there when she does it.

All of these excellent capabilities, and yet she still almost never sleeps. At least not for any significant length of time. All I want for Christmas is eight solid hours. And my wife, as a light sleeper, and the one with all the milk (and, if I'm honest, our daughter's first choice of nocturnal visitor), suffers hugely more than I do. Just imagine how much amazing stuff our daughter could do after a good night's sleep.

Daddy dreams.

It was my birthday last week.

It's got a zero and a three in it.

While you calculate the permutations of that, I shall inform you that the celebrations on the day began with my daughter awakening me (with my wife's help), resplendent in her new Arsenal kit. This provided me with far more joy and pride than I could have predicted. Of course I have no intention of goonering her up for trips to Asda. In fact I'll try to minimise the pressure I will inevitably put on her to follow my allegiance as she grows up. I think that, in order for it to be genuine, one's choice of football team must be a personal decision, rather than an imposed one. A bit like religion really. Nevertheless, my red and white fingers are firmly crossed.

I have subsequently concluded that this start to my birthday was the manifestation of one of those slightly embarrassing, idealistic visions of parenthood that you don't even realise you're having. This epiphany has compelled me to search my subconscious for other examples, to accompany that of my first-born dressing up as Cesc Fabregas.

Some, I am sure, are common to most parents, and therefore easier to admit to. The first time she walks, her relieved smile at the end of her first day at school, graduation, wedding, etc etc. So far, so obvious.

I suppose my more bespoke reveries are really based on the hope that my daughter will be like me, and share some of my interests. Football is one of these. I also long for the day when we discuss our favourite books. Even heated debate on this subject will be welcome. I want to take her to art galleries and see her gasp in awe at the understated power of a Mondrian. I can't wait until the day she shoots me down with some carefully pitched sarcasm, or enjoys studying a map for a bit longer than necessary.

I should stress that, if my daughter is reading this in twenty years' time and feeling any regret at the non-occurrence of any of the above, then she absolutely shouldn't. I will be proud of whatever tastes, hobbies, achievements or idiosyncrasies she develops, as long as she takes unashamed pride in them.

And as long as she doesn't support Sp*rs.

Things I love about my daughter

My daughter is now six months, sixteen days and eleven hours old. What better way to mark the occasion than by outlining her most impressive and endearing characteristics?

So, in no particular order:

1. When she wakes up, invariably in a good mood, her beaming grin is often accompanied by an enthusiastic gargling noise, which emanates gleefully from the back of her throat. My best description of the sound is that it lies somewhere between the soothing white noise your television used to make in the good old days when BBC2 went to sleep, and the creaking inhalation made by the terrifying, inky mess confronted by Sarah Michelle Gellar in The Grudge (Incidentally, my wife has for years objected to my impersonation of this but, quite unfairly, is more than happy with our daughter's). Of course, these two references straddle quite a large expanse of middle ground. But rest assured that their audio average, as demonstrated by my daughter, is the sound of contagious joy personified.

2. She has a resilience which dwarves my own. Having spent a significant proportion of her existence fighting off one infection after another, she is now suffering from a particularly malicious cold, regrettably contracted from my wife (whose own resistance is similarly impressive). After spending yesterday evening being mildly amused by her own frequent sneezing, our daughter awoke not long into the night barely able to draw breath through the mucus which had suddenly plugged every sinus, and was embarking on an aggressive takeover of her throat. Fear, pain and panic caused howls of distress and streaming tears, as my wife and I struggled to pacify her. Ultimately we resorted to shutting the family in the bathroom with the shower turned up to eleven, in an attempt to exorcise the snotty demon with steam. Relative calm eventually ensued, but symptoms which would certainly keep me under the duvet have clearly persisted today. Yet my daughter has kept up her proverbial pecker, following with the usual tenacity her rigorous schedule of energetic banging, grabbing, sucking, pooing and grinning. Knowing the extent of her suffering, each burst of energy seemed like a stubborn little miracle.

3. She does an excellent poo. For the first five or so months of her life, I developed a naive assumption that my daughter would forever more only produce occasional bursts of pressurised orange liquid. On the contrary, of course, her introduction to solid food has heralded the dawning of a new era. And this era is brown, solid and regular. And it absolutely stinks. I am suitably proud.

4. The way she rolls. For a few weeks now, crawling has been only just eluding her. The will and the strength are there, but sadly the knees aren't. Once she overcomes this hurdle there'll be no stopping her, but in the meantime she compensates by rolling and spinning across the ground faster than I can run, and I was consistently the second fastest runner in my year at school. Until I started smoking. And drinking. How can I fail to be filled with pride at this display of physical prowess in my offspring?

5. She's very touchy-feely. This manifests itself in various ways, some more violent than others, but all equally charming. She demonstrates her affection for someone by slapping them swiftly in the face. And she's got a good arm on her. Furthermore, the slap often coincides with a scratch, but we consider this our punishment for not cutting her fingernails every five minutes, and thus love her all the more for it. She means well. In her less energetic moments, her favoured conditions in which to fall asleep involve being held in somebody's arms (preferably Mummy's), at just such a height that she can suck her thumb while simultaneously stroking their face with the fingers of the same hand. This is extremely adorable.

There are more than five things I love about my daughter. But that will do for now.

A bit self-indulgent and not as funny as usual but nevertheless very insightful.

I've recently been promoted at work.

Hurray. Go me, etc.

I'm not just showing off. As you might expect, this has brought with it more pressure and stress. I'm gradually getting used to these consequences of earning a bit more, and of being a little bit more proud of myself. But at first I really struggled to cope, as the added tension triggered some sort of depression in me and left me crying into my wife's arms and phoning my parents in the middle of their holiday to feel sorry for myself at them. I had a crisis of confidence which made me question my ability to do the job I had been given and, worst of all, to be a father. How could I fulfill my stereotypical role as protector, carer and role model when I had been reduced to a pathetic, quivering mess?

Believe it or not, I'm trying not to be melodramatic, and as I say, I'm adjusting to it all now with the help of those mentioned above as well as my colleagues, to all of whom I'm extremely grateful. But the experience has caused me to question where the balance should lie between being somebody you and your child can be proud of, and ensuring that you maintain a happy and stable demeanour.

My memories from my own childhood are of pride in my father's importance at work, and in his self-evidently hardworking nature, but also of worry at the obvious stress this caused him. Undoubtedly these memories have influenced my thinking in either direction. I'm sure most boys just want to impress their dad deep down. Mine made no attempt to disguise his joy when I told him of my promotion, and I think this was a factor in my applying for it in the first place. Yet I had decided long ago that I considered happiness to be far more important than wealth or status. So why the change of heart?

Of course, as a parent, it would be irresponsible of me to refuse a chance to earn a few more pennies for the family coffers, but I think pride was a bigger factor. I'm ashamed to say it, but I didn't like the idea of telling my daughter that I work in a shop. Now at least I can say that I'm a vaguely important person in a shop. To reiterate, I'm ashamed to confess to this feeling, but the lesson I'm learning here is that the responsibilities of parenthood force you to confront your ideologies. I'm still of the opinion that happiness is better than wealth or importance, but I no longer always feel that my opinions should come first.

So the balance has shifted, whether I wanted it to or not, but I'm also learning that you can still have it both ways. I come home from work a bit more stressed than I used to, but it is precisely by then being the best father I can that I can overcome the tension and the worry. It's a bit harder, but that's why getting the balance right is the real source of pride. Tellingly, it was the same stressed father of my childhood who used his experience to help me through my own little episode. Thus it all falls into place, and it turns out that everything's OK after all.

Hurray. Go me, etc.

The story of the little infection that didn't know when to go away and leave us all alone.

Apologies, oh legion of readers, for the delay in bringing to you this latest installment of amateurish, self-interested, baby-related philosophising. The past month has been - if not traumatic - then at least trying for me and, probably to a greater extent, for my wife (I am still to decide whether the disproportionate burden-bearing on the mother's part is a product of nature, a society which is still more misogynistic than we care to admit, or simply my instinctive tendency for evasive apathy. But this is a debate for another day). Most of all, this has been a hard time for our daughter.

Since you last heard from me, she has suffered a continuous series of persistent, albeit non life-threatening ailments. There have also been notable triumphs, more of which later. Bad news first.

One development which, I suppose, falls under the headings of both pain and progress, has been the notorious ordeal that is teething. One of our daughter's middle bottom ones (Like many otherwise reasonable people I'm no great fan of dentistry or its practitioners, and am thus unaware of technical tooth terms) was the first of many candidates to make the breakthrough a few weeks ago. The legendary distress caused by this is, it turns out, of the kind that has to be witnessed first hand to be truly appreciated.

Relentless screaming for two solid days.

And if there's one thing the past month has taught us, it's that our daughter is a trooper. When she fulfills my vicarious prophecy of becoming a professional footballer, she will be the one who pioneers not diving and rolling about like a cheating coward. When our daughter screams, it really hurts. My advice is to use Anbesol and Nurofen, and to have an amazingly patient wife. Still: only nineteen teeth to go. And I could never have predicted the magnitude of the paternal pride evoked by the merest glimpse of the little flash of white in her smile.

But all this has been no more than a distraction from the real ailments. Shortly after having her last jabs about a month ago, our daughter's right ear began to extrude a worrying volume of waxy gunky gunkwax. Also, we observed, it smelt like a dirty bin. After allowing a day to establish that these symptoms were not likely to eradicate themselves, we made the first of many subsequent trips to the doctor, who swiftly confirmed our suspicion that our daughter was suffering from her first ear infection. This was to be tackled by her first course of antibiotics.

To cut a long story short, four further consultations with irritatingly alternating doctors, and four courses of antibiotics, and now one of ear drops, are yet to vanquish this infection. Initially its symptoms consisted of more screaming, as well as frenzied rubbing of the offending ear which often nearly amounted to its removal. The sleep patterns which were previously just starting to emerge were immediately abandoned in favour of not really ever sleeping at all.

Mercifully, these symptoms have largely subsided in spite of the infection's stubborn refusal to do so itself. However, multiple courses of medicine have caused their own problems. All of these events have transpired, I suspect, to make me grateful for having learnt as a child to spell diarrhoea (If you think I've spelt it wrong, then go and live in America). In addition to the gushing poo (accompanied by stomach cramps and what my wife affectionately refers to as "sore undercarriage"), this medical onslaught may or may not have been responsible for the eye infection which our daughter has now also developed. So her five month old body is currently being bombarded with antibiotics, ear drops and eye drops, each three or four times every day.

One could argue that it's best to get it all out of the way at once, a bit like having twins. Except of course that these maladies are not finite: the chances of their recurrence are unaffected by any previous suffering. And the difficulty we have discovered is that, when your child is suffering in several simultaneous ways - and has yet to learn any of the languages that you speak - it's very difficult to work out what the problem is and how to solve it. I think the doctors have the same trouble.

In spite of all this, I have been genuinely amazed at our daughter's resilience. Of course I am aware that many children and their parents suffer far, far worse, and I am eternally grateful for every healthy aspect of my daughter's physiology. But nevertheless, she has put up with an awful lot recently, and still found time for plenty of happiness and achievement.

Between all the screaming and discomfort, our daughter has discovered and perfected the art of rolling over. Once agin I am overcome with pride as she thrusts her weight determinedly to her right, always bravely confronting the struggle at the last with the inconvenient obstacle caused by her right shoulder. More often than not now, her momentum is sufficiently judged to overcome this hurdle, leaving her lying satisfied on her front as she raises her head to meet you with a look of triumphant glee, another epic undertaking complete. She also sat up unassisted for a good ten seconds the other day. However her failure to repeat this feat has led us to reluctantly conclude that it was a fluke.

Her co-ordination in general is rapidly improving. She can remove my glasses at will in one swiftly executed movement. This might be more irritating than impressive if she didn't always agree to give them straight back. And her ability to harvest huge clumps of my chest hair will no doubt ensure my qualification as a metrosexual before the year is out.

This co-ordination has also helped with her burgeoning talent for eating solid food. She now knows more-or-less how and when to open, close, chew and swallow. And then dribble and smear. Maybe there is room for improvement, but I think weaning will soon be feasible.

I commented to someone the other day (during one of those mutually smug "Oh yes, I also am a father, aren't we excellent" chats to which I am now privy) that the second two months of fatherhood were much easier than the first two. Well, the fifth has been the hardest yet. But also the most rewarding.

Big and happy.

Once again (projection of my issues with the colour pink onto various straw men aside) I have been remiss in my reportage of my daughter's unwavering development. For this I apologise. Here's what you've been missing:

She continues to grow at a mightily impressive rate. At just over four months, she is now over 18lb, a weight usually recommended for ladies twice her age. Not to suggest, of course, that this is a bad thing: her growth seems lately to be focussed upwards more than outwards. The best description I can muster of my daughter's current length is to say that, when I hold her under her armpits and extend my own arms fully above my head, she can quite comfortably backheel me in the face. This is an ability which she happily exploits at every opportunity. I should probably take heed of my wife's pleas for me to stop holding her like that.

In a further, very significant development, our daughter has four imminent teeth. Two middle ones at the bottom and two canines (alright then: vampire teeth), one on each side at the top, are very much visible just beneath the surface, albeit yet to break through. This stage has been reached over the past two or three weeks, and I'd have to say that - apart from slightly more frequent grumbles, a lot of dribbling, and a propensity for putting any available object into her mouth, she's taking it all rather well. This would appear to indicate that our daughter is made of strong, resilient stuff. Excellent news. Sadly though, this does weaken my claim that my impassioned and heavily dramatic reaction to any affliction I suffer is somehow hereditary. I must instead conclude that it is because I am a man.

Perfectly timed to coincide with the tooth growth, has been our daughter's introduction to real food. Early attempts at baby rice met with amusing but disappointing results, as eager curiosity failed to overcome the confusion of a novice, and the rice dropped unchewed and unloved from a tongue unable to reconcile itself to the new flavour. And the small, heroic quantity that ran this gauntlet and made it to our daughter's stomach was not treated well when it got there, as her nappy was soon to discover.

Gentle perseverance, however, has resulted in some progress. One day last week, my wife introduced further rice to our daughter's mouth, and PING: something clicked. Or should that be pinged? Anyway, the eating instinct suddenly kicked in as she chomped gummily away on the solid(ish) stuff, before despatching it throatwards with the nonchalant efficiency of a seasoned professional. Only today, our daughter enjoyed her first sample of butternut squash: an experience to which I think she beat me by about twenty years. I should clarify that these have only been tasters: our daughter is still breast fed, and will hopefully remain so for a good couple of months. And I should reiterate my immense gratitude and pride in my wife for her steadfast commitment to this.

Our daughter's personality is also flourishing. She graciously takes pity on her father and knows just how to make him glow with joy, pride and other cliches. Upon seeing me after any significant absence, her brow wrinkles at first, before recognition and delight compete to spread across her face, jointly manifesting themselves in a beaming grin which I defy anyone to improve upon. Another preeminently lovable habit of hers is to squeal for all she's worth as a demonstration of happiness. In combination with seeing the unbridled joy on her face, this is absolutely adorable. Regrettably, without visual confirmation it sounds like the blood curdling scream of a Wes Craven protagonist at the climax of her panic. I dread to think of the conclusions our neighbours must draw from the noise, with the sinister accompaniment of our satisfied laughter in the background.

But she's just happy. Which means that everything's OK.

Exciting new look!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is so exciting I was compelled to use more exclamation marks than a hyperactive PE teacher enthusiastically designing a poster about his birthday party. Probably one involving squat thrusts. When you consider that I am one of those punctuation scrooges who see exclamation marks as the literary equivalent of laughing at your own joke, you'll begin to gain some understanding of the level of excitement on show here.

I invite you all to gasp in admiration at my blog's beguiling and appropriately pink new look. Of course, blog historians of the future will be unaware of its previously underwhelming aesthetic. But you, privileged readers of the present, will no doubt be suitably impressed by the transformation. Congratulations on sharing in the glory.

Homophobes and cliche-phobes may object to my choice of colour. To homophobes I say that you are now wrong about at least two things, and also that you should take the matter up with the football and rugby teams of Palermo and Stade Francais respectively. And to cliche-phobes I cite the determined reluctance of my wife and I - prior to our daughter's birth - to allow pink to permeate every aspect of her life, and the rapid crumbling of this resolve in the face of the colour's irrefutable suitability for little girls. You try having a daughter and let's see how long you persevere with cream and beige. And what sort of a stupid, made-up term for yourself is cliche-phobe anyway?