Chickenpox

G's remarkable run of having avoided all of the main childhood illnesses finally ended this week. Nursery called on Wednesday afternoon to say she'd come down with chickenpox. Nearly three-and-a-half years with nothing worse than a couple of mild bouts of conjunctivitis means we've all been pretty fortunate, and I didn't mind too much staying in on Thursday and Friday to take care of her.

Taking Calpol ("pink medicine") is something G does quite willingly, but then it is sweet enough to make me consider a sly spoonful whenever I get it out. But rubbing the inevitable calamine lotion over G's spotty body was a bit more like hard work. Trying to attack a particularly large scabby one in her left ear, I had to virtually pin her down over my knee to keep her from wriggling, while also trying to get her lengthening hair out of the way.

I got the cream on, but it didn't last very long. Twenty minutes later, as we were sat next to each other on the sofa watching TV, G said: "Daddy, look!" and I turned to see her holding out her finger, the scab from her ear on the end of it. Almost enough to put you off Twiglets for life.

Eye Drops

G has had conjunctivitis before, and this week she got a bit of it again. I spotted on Thursday that she had a red eye, and I got more suspicious on Friday morning when she slept for a full hour-and-a-half past her typical 7:15am wake-up (this has only been the usual time since she moved into a proper bed, I can no longer get away with leaving her in her cot until she dozes off for another hour, but that's another story).

Eventually she toddled in to my room, hiding behind her hair and with her arms out for a hug. Her right eye was full of the familiar yellowy gunk, so I called the local surgery. The nurse was happy enough to put a prescription behind the counter for us so I didn't even need to see a doctor when we got along there later in the morning. That was the good news. That bad news was that it was for the dreaded eye drops.

I remember hating having eye drops when I was little, and I can confirm that G likes the whole experience even less. Applying said drops to a writhing toddler is really a two-man job, but I've now developed a technique which is just about successful most of the time.

It involves putting G on her back across my knees, pinning her arms down with my left arm, while my right hand hovers vaguely over her eyes with the bottle. The drops don't have to go right into the eye. Seeing as she's got them tightly shut anyway, the inside of the bridge of the nose is ok, because they then trickle in when she eventually opens them. Well, more or less.

One day I'll film it so I can release an instructional video on YouTube. I wouldn't put us both through it every time but, you know, the drops really do work.

Sore Eyes

Having got through more than two years with nothing worse than the odd cold, G's ox-like constitution has finally given in to something slightly more serious. I got a call from her nursery yesterday to say she'd woken up from her nap with gunky eyes, which is apparently the technical term for conjunctivitis. And so here she is on the sofa today, seemingly happy enough even though she's stuck with me and away from all her new friends at nursery.

We went out to see the doctor this afternoon and he prescribed some eye drops. I had conjunctivitis as a little boy, and I can certainly remember not being very co-operative when my mum tried to prise open my sticky eyes to put some drops in. In fact, I may have screamed loud enough for the neighbours to hear. So it was with some trepidation that I got the little bottle out of the packet, perched G on my knee and tried to get it somewhere near her eyes.

It didn't go very well. I can now confirm that trying to keep a wriggly toddler subdued with one hand while squeezing liquid out of a bottle with the other is hard. When you have to try to open said toddler's resolutely-shut eyes at the same time, you could really be doing with an extra hand, which I didn't have. So after a bit of Clockwork Orange-style prising open, and a couple of drops in the general direction of the lower eyelid, I gave up and let G calm down in front of the always-soothing CBeebies. Apparently I have to do this every three hours. Might wait until Mrs J gets home before trying it again.

Cut Finger

I was putting away the shopping in the kitchen earlier when I notice G walking over with her hands in front her. There was red all over her fingers, and she'd got a bit on her jumper too. I was about to castigate her for drawing on herself, when I realised that the felt pens were still well out of reach on the shelf. No, G had managed to cut herself and was bleeding.

I would probably have sprung into some kind of urgent action had G been at all bothered about this. Instead, she held out her arms and said "hands" in a confused sort of way, as I dug out the antiseptic wipes and a plaster from the medical box. Actually getting the plaster on caused a lot more upset than the injury to her finger, and she picked at it for a few minutes before settling down in front of some CBeebies, my daytime treat to her for being such a brave little soldier.

It turned out that she'd managed to break a small glass which had been hidden inside something else in the living room. As I picked up the broken bits, I found a couple dramatically stained with blood, rather in the manner of a crime scene off TV. Any guilt on my part was tempered by the fact it was hardly a major emergency, though. Given that Mrs J has managed to break each of her four limbs during her life, I'll save that for when G does something similar.

Afternoon Tea

G interrupted a tea party the other day. The Pensions Minister was in our area to speak to local old folks and do a spot of political campaigning, so I went along to interview him for Saddleworth News. G came too, but was less interested in meeting a senior politician, and much more intent on stealing a biscuit or two from the spread which everyone had been enjoying.

Seeing as she was being so good, I let her have this Bourbon and then a Custard Cream, which at least helped keep her quiet during the interview too. As the photo shows, she seemed to really savour the Bourbon in particular, which suggests she might have inherited Mrs J's love of chocolate.

I probably should have saved the treat for yesterday. It was time for G to get another couple of injections, including the MMR jab. Even though the controversy about the MMR's purported link to autism has now faded away, it's still fairly notorious for leaving little ones feeling under the weather for a while. I had the Calpol at the ready, but I didn't need it, because after just a few seconds of post-jab tears G had forgotten all about the injections, and has been fine ever since.

She even managed a smile and a wave at the nurse before we left the surgery. G is definitely daddy's little soldier.

Still Teething

G started getting teeth around last Christmas when she was still just three months old. Ever since, she's often looked much as she does in the photo above, with a stream of drool trickling slowly down onto a soggy bib. Given that I took this picture today, you can see that she's quite clearly still teething. The ever-reliable Wikipedia tells us that teething normally takes place over a timeframe of six to nine months. G has now been at it for ten, and there's no sign of her stopping yet.

Teething involves teeth actually forcing their way through a baby's gums, and it looks very painful indeed. I'm actually amazed that, beyond the odd grumble treated with a dose of Calpol, G has managed to put up with it so far without crying. Thinking back to how I managed the last time I had trouble with my teeth, I'd have spent most of the last ten months on the sofa weeping bitter tears if I'd had to go through the same thing.

G can't have long to go now though. She doesn't actually let me anywhere near her mouth if she can help it, so I can only check on the progress of her teeth by dangling her upside down over my knees and peering into her gob. As best I can tell, all her teeth are now either fully formed or about to poke through. One day soon, I'll be able to actually show off all of the tops G has to wear, without having to cover them up with slobber-catchers.

Chips

Last week was my birthday, and the three of us went for a short holiday in Pembrokeshire. We were vaguely down that way anyway for a wedding the weekend before, so thought we'd go and see a bit of the country we've not been to before.

Mrs J had made sure we'd got a hotel room with a restaurant close enough for us to go down for a meal while using the baby monitor to make sure G was sleeping soundly. Or at least that's what was supposed to happen. When it was time to put G to sleep for the night, she was uncharacteristically reluctant. She whined, she gurgled, she wanted to play, she cried. We tried all the things we usually do, such as dosing her up on Calpol, but to no effect. If she could talk, G would have been frowning and saying "I'm not tired" in that way sulky eight-year-olds do.

So we got room service instead, and had my birthday tea with the plates perched on the slightly unsteady dressing table. As the photo shows, we gave G a couple of chips to keep her quiet. This could be construed as bad parenting, but seeing as it worked for the duration of the meal, I don't really care.

G eventually drifted off, but was in a foul mood the following morning presumably because, yes, she hadn't had enough sleep. That'll teach her.

Sick

This weekend was my first time away from G this year, and I drove all the way to Aberdeen and back for the engagement party of two of my friends. While it was good to get away, by Saturday afternoon I'd already demanded Mrs J send me several photos of exactly what G was doing. Clearly I was missing her more than I expected.

I got back last night to find that G had thrown up her evening feed in epic style and had a bit of a temperature. Very unusually, she didn't sleep properly either, which didn't do me much good following my long and tiring weekend of drinking and driving (not at the same time though, of course). When G vomited up her first two feeds of this morning (the second all over my clothes, which I'd foolishly just put on) and kept whining and crying, it was obvious there was something the matter.

Ever since G was born I've heard people talking about how babies have a character all of their own, but at least in the early months of her life I never really saw it in her. She just seemed to cry and eat and sleep and smile like all of the other babies I've ever seen, often doing all of them in quick succession. But today I spotted her pulling the same kind of feeling-sorry-for-myself faces that I produce when I've got man flu. Not that I'm suggesting G was trying to get sympathy, I'm sure she's not quite devious enough for that yet, but I think it shows she's developing a personality of some sort. This is a very pleasing thing for a parent to experience, even if it is accompanied by large amounts of vomit and a need to keep the washing machine almost constantly in use.

Anyway, today ought to have been a miserable day spent nursing my poorly baby, but, as it always does on these occasions, Calpol came to the rescue. A dose of the purple goo was enough to calm G down for a trip out at lunchtime, and her next feed stayed down after I gave it to her in two separate goes. Then she caught up on sleep for two and a half hours, and now seems back to her usual self. It's fair to say Calpol has now replaced Irn Bru as the one product I would advertise for free.

Tooth Fury

Our happy, smiling little girl has been replaced for the time being by a moodier, whinier baby. G's first tooth is coming through, and she's not all that happy about it. There's a bit of crying, and a lot of what you see in the picture above, which is poking her tongue inside the front of her mouth and drooling a lot (a bib is essential wear these days). I don't really blame her, I complain constantly when I get toothache, so all things considered she's actually dealing with it pretty well.

I suspect the main reason G isn't as miserable as she might be is Calpol. Sweet, sweet Calpol. What did parents do before it? Actually, that doesn't even bear thinking about. Suffice to say that losing the bottle of Calpol is now the single thing I fear most. By a long way.

Sitting In Daddy's Chair

Here's photographic proof, if any were needed, of who is really in charge of our household these days. G has already taken my chair. Soon CBeebies will be on the telly every day, and the only book I'll be allowed to read will be The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Obviously I'm used to having one female telling me what to do, but I now realise that will increase to two before I know it.

As for the constant puking, it seems to have stopped for the time being after Mrs J started giving G drops along with her feeds. Not before a particularly epic sick-up earlier today though, in which G showed off the latest thing she's learned - projectile vomiting. Another reason why wooden floors are better than carpets.

The Early Stages Of Teething

One of the favourite parlour games of new parents is to look at various illnesses and problems which affect babies, and compare the typical symptoms to whatever your little one is doing that day. We've had a busy time of it recently, with a wedding in Nottingham, a 30th birthday party in rural Shropshire, and now we're back in Mrs J's hometown of Monmouth for Christmas (the picture shows G out in her pram enjoying some of the icy Welsh weather). And during these last few days G has given us plenty of material for this parlour game, with a lot of evening crying, excessive drooling, chewing on anything that goes near her mouth, and a pair of very rosy cheeks. The Internet (and it's a fool who doubts what they read on the Internet) says this is probably the early stages of teething.

It can't be real teething, the bit where the teeth actually start poking through the gums. That's not supposed to start for a while yet. And looking carefully into little G's mouth (as I often do, usually when mopping up her latest post-feed vomit), there certainly aren't any teeth in there. But apparently things do move around inside her gob well ahead of time, so this could be what's causing G to be so difficult.

But to be honest, it doesn't really matter what amateur diagnosis we come up with for G, the solution is always the same. Dose her up with Calpol and hope for the best. See, being a doctor can't be that hard.

I Love The Smell Of Calpol In The Morning

After a few days of angelic behaviour, with plenty of smiles and gurgles, G has been restless and grouchy all weekend. It's not that she won't go to sleep at all, but she's finding it hard to settle down properly, and is constantly waking up to whine and cry. This is a bit annoying.

What it means is that, after briefly getting to the stage where we were just about going to bed at the same time, Mrs J and me are back on opposite shifts. Mornings for her, nights for me. It's now the early hours of Monday morning, so Mrs J is asleep and I'm up with the little one. I don't actually mind doing it on this night of the week, because there's a live American football game to keep me entertained during the all-too-fleeting occasions when G does manage to drift off (the NFL is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine, along with rhubarb and custard sweets and jangly Scottish guitar band Del Amitri). I've managed to capture one of those snoozy moments in the picture above.

One reason why G may be asleep for the time being is that I've dosed her up on some of the good stuff, Calpol. I don't want you to think I've just given her some drugs because I can't think of anything else to do that will get her to sleep. Oh no, that is absolutely not the reason. The thing is, I've had a bit of a sore throat all day, and was wondering whether G might have one too, which could be the thing keeping her from settling down. So basically I had no choice but to give her some Calpol. That's it. That's the only reason.

Actually giving her the stuff took me back years. To be precise, it took me back to when I was four, and I spent three months at home with a shocking case of whooping cough that kept me and my long-suffering mum up for night after night. I'd forgotten all about that sickly sweet smell that wafts out when you open the bottle. I'm sure I'll get plenty of chances to reacquaint myself with it before long.

Smiler!

So here it is, the long-awaited photo of G smiling. We've been getting smiles off her for a few weeks already, but they've usually been too fleeting to catch on film. And besides, who wants to start scrabbling around for a camera when your daughter's smiling at you? If the smile follows minutes or even hours of crying, it's better to savour it than worry about trying to capture a Hallmark moment. However, she smiled so much during this week's trip to see my mum, uncle and aunt in Washington (that's this Washington, not that one) that we couldn't fail to get a few smiley pictures.

We drove up on Monday, just after she'd had another couple of injections. We'd been warned that she might not take the jabs too well, so we both went down to the surgery expecting to spend the whole journey north doling out Calpol and trying to soothe a grouchy G. But happily for both her and us, the injections didn't seem to bother her, and she slept more or less the whole way.

Her good mood continued during the two days we were in Washington. There was hardly any crying, and lots of smiling, gurgling and (possibly best of all) sleeping. I've heard lots of people say that they wished their babies could have stayed at a particular age forever, and never grown up. I always thought that sounded ridiculous, but G's been on such adorable form this week I now see what they mean. I still want her to grow up though. I need to be able to embarrass her with the contents of this blog.

First Injection

G had the first of her injections today. We'd been warned that babies often don't take too kindly to jabs so both of us took G to the clinic for her shot, just in case it all ended in floods of unbearable tears. G was getting the BCG injection, which protects against tuberculosis. It's actually only 80% effective and lasts just 15 years or so (you may remember getting a booster shot while a teenager, apparently they don't bother with this anymore), but I suppose it's better than actually getting TB. It's only actually given to babies in certain high-risk parts of the country, of which central Manchester is one, although I'm not sure whether this makes G lucky to get the extra protection or unlucky to live in a disease-ridden hellhole.

She was fast asleep when we went into the nurse's room, and I had to wake her up and hold her very steady while the needle went in. There was a bit of screaming, but she dropped back off to sleep in the car on the way home. Next week G gets the full set of baby injections, and apparently it's likely to be a lot more traumatic, so I'll have to remember to stock up on Calpol (note - other child medicines are available, but Calpol's the only one anybody has heard of).

The clinic was in Beswick, right next to where the Manchester Super Casino isn't going to be built. I made sure G was proudly representing her home city of Salford though, as you can see from the photo. The other thing to notice about the photo is that I reckon G looks a lot like me in it. People have been saying that she looks like me for weeks, but I haven't really seen it until now. Obviously she's soon going to have more hair than me, but other than that there's no doubt she's her daddy's little girl.

Either My Baby Has Colic, Or She Is Merely Consumed By Some Unspeakable Rage

For the second night running, Mrs J left the flat and within minutes I was confronted with a suddenly very angry baby. Last night G ended up crying for several hours. I knew she wasn't hungry, and it wasn't her nappy either. I suppose she might have been too tired, but every time she appeared ready to drift off to sleep she woke up again, expressing what can pleasantly be described as considerable displeasure at whatever it was that was ailing her.

Apparently the big question facing parents in this situation is: does my baby have colic? I'd always assumed that colic was some kind of common baby illness, like measles or chicken pox or scurvy, until I finally got round to reading about it. Well, it's certainly common, and it definitely affects babies, making them cry a lot for no apparent reason. But that's just about all anybody seems able to agree on.

The traditional explanation was that colic was something to do with babies struggling to digest properly, although nobody really knew what exactly. That's still a popular theory, although there are a few others around, including the baby's environment, how the pregnancy went, and that there's not actually anything wrong with the baby at all. Not that any of this academic arguing is of much interest to the parent of such a child, because the hours of crying are real enough. But unsurprisingly, medical professionals have wildly differing views on what to do about the problem, ranging from nothing (because, well, crying is what babies do) to pumping a variety of narcotics with long names into your little one, which may or may not help hold back the baby rage.

The thing is, nobody can really be sure about anything, because babies can't tell you what's wrong with them. The scream for 'Ow! I have terrible pain in my stomach because of a build-up of gas!" is much the same as the scream for "I'm really bored of you daddy and your ridiculous tongue sticking-out game, what time does mummy get home?"

We're going for the narcotics option, in the form of some drops to give G before feeding to help her digest her milk, in case she's lactose intolerant like her mum. The good news about this is that it's a plausible theory for why our little girl is crying, and is easily treatable. The bad news is that it would put me into a minority of proper milk drinkers in our family. I don't much fancy a lifetime of trying to find new ways to cook meals involving goat's cheese, which is not even close to featuring in my personal list of top ten cheeses. But if G really hates ordinary milk as much as the picture above suggests, I don't suppose I've got any choice.