Independent woman

I was reflecting to my mother-in-law yesterday that - in my well qualified opinion - her granddaughter looks more like a child than a baby now. It was one of those revelatory moments in which you have thought something for a while, but only realise you think it once you've said so to somebody else. Something in her face triggered my realisation. (My daughter's face, not my mother-in-law's). Possibly her cheeks have shed a little puppy fat; possibly her teeth are a little bit more visible with each beaming grin to which she treats us; or could it be the added intensity with which the wisdom of experience now glows in her eyes?

Whatever the reason, my wife and I are increasingly aware that the double-edged sword of development has been well and truly, um, unsheathed in our daughter. Dubious metaphors aside, on the one hand I can now relate on a very mild level to my own mother's distress at seeing me move out of the family home, when I consider the peaceful vulnerability and complete dependency upon us which defined our daughter a few months ago, but which now exist only in our cherished memories.

On the other hand, new sources of pride now come thick and fast as her increasing independence of thought and movement compel her frequently to discover and hone new abilities. A few weeks ago crawling on her knees suddenly became the norm, as opposed to the occasional variation it previously constituted from the tummy-based commando shuffle she relied upon for so long. The added speed which is the consequence of this new technique has enabled her to pursue her programme of autonomous exploration with greater confidence. Being able to go where she wants has coincided with knowing where she wants to go.

This development also evidently represented the dawning of a new, more balanced era. She soon advanced to a variety of nonchalant sitting positions, ranging from bolt upright to leaning on one arm with a kind of casual Roman decadence. These have since been followed by a preference for kneeling and, now, standing herself up with the aid of absolutely any surface within reach. As yet she can't or won't listen to our advice about checking the stability of said surfaces beforehand, which requires my wife or myself to be on constant alert: hands poised on either side of our daughter like some sort of faith healer working intently on the baby's kidney chakras.

All of these new stances aid our daughter in using her christmas present: a tiny little red piano boasting one, magnificently tinny octave. My adoration of this is bettered only by my daughter's. Her compositions need some work, but she does love to bash them out with gusto. For a love of making music (or 'noise') is another of her recent discoveries. One of the only regrets I have concerning my youth is my failure to have mastered a musical instrument. The signs are good that my daughter will have no such reason for remorse.

And, should her penchant for piano peter out, then her passion for percussion will persevere. Which is why we also got her a little drum. I think even the most cool and rational parents find it difficult to resist seeing portents of future brilliance in every action of their offspring, and I'm no different. If she's not the next Ben Folds, then I think our daughter's a certainty for a role in Stomp at the very least.

She's getting very good at social interaction as well. She has always been happiest among crowds, but now she definitely recognises people and reacts accordingly: she has distinct relationships with people. My favourite example of this is the knowing grin she gives me each day upon my return from work. Nobody else is entitled to this particular privilege, and it is easily my best thing, ever. But other, less regular visitors, are accorded varying receptions according to our daughter's specific memories of them. Nana, as a relatively frequent attendee, is also often treated to a smile; the postman gets nothing.

Child psychologists, anthropologists and other clever people will probably dismiss me as a naive and partisan optimist, but I consider that this discernment between greetings represents a quite advanced level of awareness and communication in my daughter. And, speaking of communication, she has also added some exciting new phonetics to her lexicon. For a long time she kept it largely to "Dadadadadadada", which suited my narcissistic side just fine, but on the whole I am pleased to witness the growing array of noises which now comprise her vocabulary. "Bwabwabwa" is the current favourite, of both its speaker and its audience. It's a difficult noise to make unenthusiastically. She also reserves a different tone of voice for conversations with her toys. This is very cute.

I'm grateful that I can appreciate these nuances in her communication, because I'm sure in about fifteen years she won't talk to me at all. But I'll still find a way to be proud of that.

Further adventures in children's television

Some other visual feasts have crept into our daughter's daily routine of late. Some are good. Some are terrifying. There's something for everyone.

Zingzillas falls into the latter category. As usual I haven't quite given it my full attention, but I maintain that this is a deliberate shortcoming because wildly inaccurate interpretations are funnier. The basic premise of Zingzillas seems to be that some hitherto undiscovered evolutionary branch of anthropomorphised primates has been stranded for an undisclosed length of time on a tropical island. This group has risen above its plight by developing advanced levels of loud clothing, musical ability and the enthusiasm and electricity required to maintain this lifestyle.

This should be an ebullient feast of optimism, which I'm sure is the intention. But it all leaves me with a disturbing sense of unease. I've been trying to put my finger on the cause of this reaction. Maybe it's the massive, lifeless eyes protruding from the protagonists' heads. Maybe it's the relentless gusto with which every task or hurdle presented to them by their simple life is met with song.

But no. I think what really worries me is the old human. Apparently an awkward music nerd was marooned on this island in the seventies. He has since been held prisoner by the big, bog-eyed monkeys and made to participate in their bizarre musical culture. He does appear to have made the best of it: keeping his head down while diligently lending his considerable keyboard skills to proceedings as if his life depends on it, which it may well do. The sinister atmosphere evoked by this poor man's situation is epitomised by the fact that they haven't even offered him a change of clothes. They prance about in their natty threads while leaving this unfortunate captive to suffer in the anachronistic safari suit he washed up in. Now what sort of example is this setting for children?*

Waybaloo (apologies for potentially incorrect spelling) is the antidote to this horror. I have paid even less attention to this, having seen only one five minute burst yesterday. But burst is an inappropriate term, for five minutes was enough to lull me into a peaceful reverie as some very convincingly animated floating aliens soothed my troubled mind through the medium of virtual yoga. This all takes place in a dreamlike paradise which for some reason brought to mind happy memories of a computer game I am yet to identify. But it was obviously one that pleased me. And my daughter seemed to agree. I think there should definitely be more of this TV-as-opiate for children and adults alike.

I will soon write something which actually refers directly to my daughter. But I don't have time right now. There's telly to watch.

*I have now been informed by my wife that this man in fact appeared in only one episode, and is one of numerous people who are fortunate enough to be guests of the Zingzillas'. I apologise profusely for my erroneous slander, but also refer my wife to the above caveat about wild inaccuracies being good.

Philosophical interlude

As a teenager I was quietly self righteous in my views on ethics and principles and that sort of thing. My opinions were formed - I enjoyed telling myself - from a position of rational fairness rather than any particular political or cultural awareness. But I was vaguely conscious that these views often conflicted with those of my elders and betters, and the implication of this was that the responsibilities and complications of adulthood would challenge my outlook. I promised myself that, above all, I would remember how I felt at the time, and not let my conclusions be compromised.

Although it will be a while until my daughter is old enough to be affected by the issues concerned, it is dawning on me that parenthood will inevitably present these challenges sooner or later, and that I had better take stock of my thoughts, and galvanise my answers to all those difficult questions. Am I betraying my younger self if I dismiss my prior views as naive adolescent ramblings?

One relatively small example of these issues is swearing. It used to puzzle me that some words were arbitrarily determined as the evil utterances of the devil, while their synonyms were perfectly acceptable. "Poo", "bum" and "wee" were the innocently amusing alternatives to their darker linguistic siblings, even though the meanings of the sinister, taboo words were identical.

I planned to embark upon a subtle, idealistic crusade to overturn this injustice; gently creating some sort of marxist language in which all words are equal. But now I'm not so sure. As a parent I am forced to admit that I would be mortified to hear my daughter saying the bad words. I suppose the difference is that the general consensus has taken on a greater importance for me. It's easy to not care what people think of yourself, but to dismiss what others think of your offspring would constitute irresponsible parenting.

With this in mind I suppose I owe an apology to my parents, for failing to understand their own appreciation of this when I was young. Then again, I was either respectful or fearful enough to censor my language in the company of those for whom I knew it would be an issue, so perhaps I did understand this principle all along, only now I am more inclined to adhere to it.

All of which is a very roundabout way of arriving at the conclusion that what you say is less important than to whom you say it. "Poo" is a funnier word, anyway.

Perhaps cussing is an innocuous issue, but I think it serves as a microcosm for various others, in that fatherhood has compelled me at least to consider the virtue of pragmatism over principle. Another is appearance. By its very nature, I was more demonstrably rebellious on this subject in my youth. I was fairly close to being a model student at school, but I got told off a lot for failing to tuck in my shirt, or strangle myself by doing up my top button, reducing the circumference of my collar to one smaller than that of my neck. I always listened in class and completed my homework in a timely manner, so why did teachers persist in victimising me over these meaningless concerns?

I am less willing in this instance to concede ground. I still resent these episodes, and I'm still most often situated on the casual side of smart. But I will, for example, tuck in my shirt at a friend's wedding. Once again I think the difference is a consideration for the feelings of others. If my friend the hypothetical groom would rather I look presentable on his big day, then that overrides my need to be slightly more comfortable. And this is the general principle that I hope to instill in my daughter.

One philosophy which I hope never to renege on is a basic but big one: just be nice to people, really. I don't always succeed, but I always at least try to take the unselfish option, and avoid being motivated by greed. Even this principle is one that I have had cause to question. My career hasn't followed the path of which I dreamed. This is partly because I never really established the exact nature of the dream, but on cynical, self-pitying days I can't help resorting to the cliche that the selfish and relentlessly ambitious number highly amongst the successful.

Even if this is the case, though, I still cling to the notion that happiness is better than success, especially if that success is at the cost of someone else's happiness.

I don't yet feel like I've arrived at a coherent set of fundamental principles by which to live, but if I could summarise it all into one catchy motto for my daughter then it would be something like this:

Do what you like as long as you're not upsetting anyone reasonable.

I think it still needs a bit of work. But my teenage self would have been happy with it.

Remember when our baby was just a baby?

We're snowed in. We've decided to fend off the cabin fever by entertaining ourselves with video footage we made of our daughter in the summer, on a camera borrowed indefinitely from my wife's brother.

Although I'm aware on some subconscious level that babies grow and change at a phenomenal rate, it's easy to take these changes for granted when they occur in someone you study with great interest every day, thus viewing the developments incrementally. But having finally seen the footage from around four months ago, I'm struck by the differences in my now nine month-old daughter. I now have some sympathy with all those distant relatives who, upon meeting me once a year or so in my youth, would make astounded declarations concerning my own metamorphosis.

The outstanding revelation from July's footage is that I'm wearing shorts. And nothing on my feet. This is of course completely irrelevant, but merits a mention due to the stark contrast it represents with the foot or two of snow we're currently trapped by.

As for my daughter, I owe her an apology for underestimating the bountiful head of hair she now sports. Although still modestly covered in comparison to some of her more hirsute contemporaries, she is now a veritable lioness in relation to the Duncan Goodhew look she was working back in July. The one tuft she then had on the back of her neck was also distinctly more auburn than it seems now. Duncan Goodhew crossed with Amy Pond from Doctor Who, perhaps. On the swimmer scalp scale, I'm probably an Adrian Moorhouse, so this is a subject close to my heart. I'm relieved, therefore, to see this evidence of my daughter's progress.

A large proportion of our summer recordings consisted of our persistent efforts to get her to roll over. Seemingly endless attempts to capture this simple movement bore little fruit only four months ago, with the rare successes greeted by delighted whooping and hollering by all present. I do distinctly recall the epic nature of this challenge, but we've moved on. Our daughter can now reach any ground level location she chooses with nonchalant ease. Indeed, she is well into the mischievous, exploratory phase loved and adored by exhausted parents everywhere.

So crawling is mastered and, although she still can't walk unaided, she can really get about in her baby walker thingy (we call it her car, beacuse it's vaguely car themed and easier to say than "baby walker thingy"). She's up and down the living room like Nigel Mansell, with the one exception that her development is yet to include moustache growth. The few seconds a day when we dare to take our eyes off her, we spend laughing heartily in the face of mere rolling over.

Sadly, the conflict which results from our refusal to let her march head first into every solid object and sharp corner, no matter how inexplicably inviting they are to her, has resulted in the evocation of a less desirable sign of maturity: the hissy fit. In July things were so much more agreeable. Granted, she would cry all night long (which she now does a little bit less. A little bit), but the days were a blissful mix of silent curiosity and giggling. I'm sure nostalgia has clouded my memory of this somewhat, although the video seems to back up this assessment. Now though, if I so much as save her from caving her head in on the coffee table, I am met with screams of protest which might be construed by a lesser man than myself as ingratitude.

Other changes we had failed to fully appreciate include the gradual re-proportioning of her body. She still has enough reserves of fat to get her through this cold snap, but in July she was more of a tummy on legs. This of course is good news: we can extrapolate this development to confidently conclude that our daughter will turn out to be a healthy size and shape. Not that she's not now.

Teeth are quite easy to count, so we have maintained a more tangible awareness of her progress on that front. The first couple were still a novelty in July. Now she has eight. They are big, white and sharp. And she grinds them, which makes my skin crawl. But she seems to enjoy it.

All of this goes to demonstrate that, no matter how attentively you observe and admire your offspring, it's impossible to keep track of every detail. So thank goodness (and my brother-in-law) for the video camera.

We really must recharge the battery.

Watching strange things on the telly: a perk of having children.

I like to think of myself as the sort of person who's much too busy being all cultural to watch television.

But it's not true.

Having a baby can restrict one's social life somewhat, so - apart from reading or the odd game of scrabble - evening entertainment for my wife and I does tend to quite often involve the magic picture box in the corner. Of course we are quite discerning, carefully selecting only the most authentic and insightful drama for our perusal. Oh, and I'll watch any sport whatsoever. Latvian tiddlywinks championships? That'll do.

So it was inevitable that our daughter would develop her own taste for telly, and I have monitored her preferences with great interest. She seems to consistently favour two programmes in particular.

The first of these is a popular choice amongst her generation: In the Night Garden. I must confess to being a novice in this area, but I have seen enough to become vaguely familiar with some of the finer points. Please accept my apologies, however, for any inaccuracies in the interpretation that follows.

The opening credits are powerfully hypnotic, largely due to their painstaking stop-motion animation. Something (whose exact nature I can't quite recall) is in a boat, in the sea, at night. Then the camera pans up to the sky, whose stars mutate dreamily into beautiful white flowers which multiply to fill the screen before parting to reveal a forest which, by this point in proceedings, I am compelled to describe as magical. Then it gets really trippy.

We've all heard the rumours about The Magic Roundabout having been conceived by some Belgians off their Flemish faces on LSD. It's hard to imagine In the Night Garden having anything other than a very similar genesis. I'm reliably informed that each episode begins with a Matrix red pill/blue pill style, fate-defining cliffhanger, which revolves around a choice between two modes of transport to the night garden. The ninky-nonk - some sort of early Persian circus themed train - is my daughter's favourite option. I am yet to experience the pleasure of the other possibility, but I gather that its name is something which rhymes with ninky-nonk. I'm not sure where the tension comes from.

Once this difficult decision has been made, we are introduced to the characters who inhabit the night garden. My personal favourite is the one with a funny shaped head who lives in a cave and collects rocks, in order to pursue his hobby of cleaning rocks. I can't remember his name. Sorry. There are also some very small creatures. I wasn't really paying much attention to them. Then there's Oopsy Daisy, an endearing young lady who falls over a lot, which ties in conveniently with her name and catchphrase (which is the same as her name).

But the hero of the piece is undoubtedly Iggle Piggle. Our daughter loves Iggle Piggle. Now, I don't wish to offend, but there's no getting away from the fact that Iggle Piggle looks quite phallic. This must have been deliberate. This chap's appearance represents the subversive legacy of a Belgian drug dealer's contribution to children's TV. He's got a really good song though. He sings it a lot.

These characters basically do some stuff that they always do, and then it's all repeated in rudimentary animated form. We don't usually bother with that bit. But I can definitely see the appeal of In the Night Garden. It's mental, but in an overwhelmingly cosy way.

The same cannot be said of the other show that holds our daughter's rapt attention in all circumstances: The Weakest Link. I'm sure there's no need for me to offer much description of this. People clearly selected precisely for their ignorance fail to answer insultingly easy questions, all of which serves only to provide a platform for an old witch to sneer cheap insults at them. And they're all delighted that this is happening. So is our daughter.

But what really irritates me about this bullying based quiz is the determination of the writers to have Anne Robinson introduce each question under a very specific category. So a poser about, I don't know, tomato ketchup would begin "In ketchups..." I think we're supposed to assume that this one question has been drawn from a vast bank of ketchup trivia at the fingertips of Ms. Robinson. Which seems unlikely to me. Hopefully our daughter will grow out of The Weakest Link.

But not In the Night Garden.

Egg related morning of terror.

Our daughter's diet is at least as varied as my own these days. Indeed, sometimes more ingredients are crowbarred together in one of her meals than I manage in an average week. But she seems to enjoy most of the ridiculous parsnip, prune and peach melba type combinations with which we experiment on her palette.

So, being a man who loves a good egg, I was overjoyed one recent morning when my wife suggested scrambling some for the three of us for breakfast. Sharing the meal with our daughter meant sacrificing salt and pepper from the recipe, but we agreed that this was a worthy forfeit to pay for the honour of enjoying such a hallowed culinary experience with our offspring.

She didn't really like it.

As I swallowed my disappointment at my daughter's failure to do the same with her eggs, she chose instead to carefully spread the remainder all over her face. This is a common response of hers to any reluctance to eat something, so we let her get on with it.

Within five or ten minutes, though, an alarming redness started to appear on her face, wherever the egg had been rubbed. At first I remained nonchalantly calm; confident that this merited less worry than finishing my coffee. But my wife's greater concern soon seemed justified, as the redness rapidly grew more angry, and was joined by some frightening blotchy-welty-rashiness. It was as if our daughter had developed years' worth of very severe eczema in a few minutes.

In what seemed at the time like the most sensible option, we bathed the patient immediately; vigorously and repeatedly soaping the affected areas. Even as we did so, these areas were multiplying, appearing all over her body - including in places where no egg to skin contact had been made. This development was the one which saw my panic level catch up with my wife's. I clearly don't know as much as I should about allergies, but suddenly horrific visions of closing airways and blue faces crept ominously across my mind. This could end badly.

Our next step was to decide between spending Sunday in the waiting room of A&E and phoning NHS Direct. Mercifully, there was still no sign of our daughter experiencing any respiratory difficulties, so we chose the phone option. The nice lady on the other end reassuringly established that our daughter was indeed still breathing quite happily before promising that a nurse with an equally calming demeanour would phone us back within half an hour.

By the time the nurse did get in touch, the initial blotches were beginning to subside, so her soothing Bristolian tones served more as confirmation than revelation of our daughter's immediate recovery. She explained that egg allergies are fairly common in babies and toddlers, and are usually grown out of. Serenity was thus soon restored. We were, nevertheless, left with instructions to steer our daughter well clear of all edible ova for the foreseeable future, as well as a mild, confused sheepishness caused by the fuss we had made, tempered only by relief that it had ultimately been unnecessary.

My wife was still overcome with remorse for some time afterwards. I did my best to comfort her by pointing out that an incident such as this was the only way we could have discovered that it was a possibility. Personally I found this more confusing than comforting. I think I had stumbled upon a paradox.

But I digress. The whole episode underlined to me the tenuous fragility of a baby's life. Maybe our panic turned out to be disproportionate, but we were lucky. I wonder how many similar events end in a tragedy which no amount of love or care could have prevented. Obviously, as responsible parents, we will always take every conceivable measure to ensure our daughter's safety, but from now on I'm going to keep my fingers crossed as a backup.

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.