Washing Up

G has got over her recent bout of chickenpox, but not before we spent last week stuck in the house with her. Some working from home from Mrs J and me got us through G's regular nursery days of Monday to Wednesday, and I was back at home as normal with her on Thursday and Friday, although I was reluctant to take her anywhere until the last of her spots had definitely scabbed over.

Which meant we had to do a lot of home-based activities, including plenty of baking. But as this picture demonstrates, it's not just the stirring and licking the bowl that G can take part in these days. She's developed an urge to help me do the washing up afterwards too.

This means that either I'm becoming increasingly obsolete in our household, or perhaps she's already thinking about her first teenage Saturday job in a restaurant. G might have to grow a bit first though, I'm not sure standing on chairs is generally considered acceptable in most kitchens.

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.

Entertaining Herself

I was ill for a couple of days this week. Nothing too noteworthy, just the usual early winter bit of sickness that makes you not want to do anything apart from lie in bed, groaning pathetically. Unfortunately, the worst of it coincided with Thursday, which just happened to be my only day of the week with G at home.

She gave me a lie-in, which was very decent of her, but the long sleep only served to give her more energy when she finally decided to wake up. "Get up daddy!" she repeated, excitedly, trying to pull the duvet from where I'd attempted to securely anchor it. "Daddy's feeling sick, daddy's very sad," I managed in response. G thought for a moment, and said: "I kiss you and make it better!" followed all-too-inevitably by, "There! All better! Get up daddy!"

Later in the day I had to go back to bed, but managed to persuade her to come with me with the lure of Mrs J's iPad, which she'd thoughtfully left behind for just such an eventuality. I dozed off, and woke up some time later to find G still enthusiastically tapping away at the thing. She could well have been ordering boxloads of fine wines and other expensive fripperies for all I knew, but at that particular moment I was happy that something other than me was keeping her occupied.

I'm feeling much better now, by the way. The picture was taken last weekend, on the swings in a park in Salford.

Impressing The Health Visitor

It's been a while since G last saw a health visitor. But as we've recently moved, one came round today. It was to let me know about what's on offer in the local area and, presumably, to check up on me a bit.

G has been a bit under the weather this week. She had a temperature on Monday night so I kept her off nursery on Tuesday, and she came home within an hour of being there on Wednesday morning with the same problem. She was pretty sluggish waking up this morning, and after refusing breakfast clambered back up the stairs and got back into bed: "Close the curtains daddy, I'm still sleepy," she said, sounding sorry for herself.

I needed to get her up again because the visitor was due at 10:15am, and I had to bribe G with the promise of biscuits if she went back downstairs and ate some cereal. She was just finishing the biscuits when the doorbell went, which was good timing (they were only ginger nuts, nothing chocolatey or fancy, but still, these first impressions matter, at least to me).

Even better, as we all sat down at the kitchen table, G turned to me: "I'm still hungry daddy". I replied: "What would you like to eat?" She paused, then delivered a winning line: "Um... an apple!" I wondered whether the health visitor thought we'd been rehearsing it all morning.

Later on, G was playing with her blocks as she often does, when I noticed that she'd taken to separating them all out into different colours, as shown in the picture. Possibly a bit OCD of her. Not sure what I'll think if she starts colour-coding the fruit bowl.

Early Bedtime

I missed G altogether today. Mrs J has been under the weather for the past few days with a throat infection and accompanying headaches. G was restless during the night, which is very unusual, so we assumed she was coming down with something too.

I went off to work and Mrs J took G to nursery after they'd both caught up on a bit of sleep. Although she doesn't have a temperature, the nursery staff said G hadn't been herself and had been very quiet. Then, when Mrs J got her back home later, she didn't have any tea and lay down like this on the sofa. Clearly, someone was very tired. I got back at 7 o'clock and G was already in bed, well over an hour earlier than normal.

Hopefully she'll be feeling a bit better tomorrow.

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.

Birthday Girl

It was G's second birthday today. Here she is opening her presents in the living room this morning, still in her pyjamas. She got quite a few, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Last night in the same room there was a rather different scene. After she'd struggled to go off to sleep, a very rare event indeed, we finally got her out of bed and put her on the sofa with us to quietly watch a bit of TV. No sooner had the face of Richard Madeley appeared during an episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, then I heard a gulp, and then a splat. G had just thrown up in epic style all over my lap. Whether this had anything to do with Richard Madeley or not I don't know, but I choose to believe that it did.

To put this in a bit of perspective, G is never ill. She has an iron constitution. Beyond a bit of colic at about six weeks, and the odd cold, she hasn't been sick at all. No chickenpox, no mumps, no whooping cough. Some babies always seem to be ill, but G isn't one of them.

Perhaps unsurprisingly then, she didn't seem to have much idea of what had just happened, and was very upset. But she finally got off to sleep and showed no ill effects this morning, although the stack of presents and, possibly just as importantly, shiny paper to rip up, may have had something to do with that.

Just like last year, we took her to Chester Zoo for the day. Unlike last year, when it was decidedly chilly, today was roasting hot. G flagged a bit through a combination of the heat and tiredness from her broken night's sleep. But I did manage to snap a picture of a rare moment when G was actually walking under her own power, and not either being carried or asking to be carried.

She could even see over a few of the low fences this year to get a better look at the animals. Favourites included the chimpanzees and the elephants, although despite my best efforts I failed to generate much interest from her in my favourite animal in the zoo, the okapi. But then I suppose a creature that's part-giraffe, part-horse and part-zebra seems perfectly normal when you're only two.

On The Swings

This morning me and G were stuck in the house. Mrs J had gone off to work with both her keys and mine, which meant the two of us were locked in. It was like a particularly dull episode of The Crystal Maze, only without Richard O'Brien, but with the a baby who has been coughing and snuffling all week with the first of doubtless many colds she'll get this winter.

After a while Mrs J drove back to let us out (no crystal required), and I put G in her new trike and took her down to the park in our local village for a go on the swings. That made her forget her cold for a while, and her spluttering was replaced by a broad smile as she swung back and forward. Every time we go she seems to want to swing higher. I can see it ending in tears one day soon, but at least the park has got a nice soft landing area.

Projectile Vomit

G has mastered the ability to projectile vomit in even the most unlikely of situations. Just now she was lying on her back on my lap with her head over the end of my knees, looking at things upside down, as she often does. Suddenly there was a wretch, and then a splashing sound as she managed to send a stream of sick over her nose, forehead and the carpet.

I mopped her up and sat her on the sofa before taking this picture. As you can see, she wasn't bothered at all. In fact, she was really rather pleased with herself.

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.

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.

Baby Vomit

I'm sure there was a time when I didn't constantly reek of baby vomit. But between you and me, I'm struggling to remember exactly when that was. Baby G has been puking up very regularly over the last couple of weeks, which has come as a bit of a surprise because she only rarely did so when she was very young. But she's more than making up for it now.

The picture was taken during our recent stay in Wales, after a particularly bad series of sick-ups caused us to give G an impromptu bath in the sink. Curiously, she doesn't seem at all bothered by all the vomiting. The only clue she's even doing it is a bit of a gulp and, a second or two later, yet another stream of white liquid dribbling out of her mouth and down either myself or Mrs J (if we're unlucky) or onto a muslin cloth (on the rare occasions we're quick enough to anticipate it). The vomit itself kind of resembles salad cream and, I imagine, tastes like it too.

We don't know why G has started being sick so often, although seeing as she's not in any distress it can't be anything too serious. The Internet offers us lots of possible reasons, but it's almost not worth bothering trying to find out exactly what's going on because, let's face it, all babies throw up. It's just what they do.

Although it's usually easy to clean the vomit up, the smell is much harder to shift. Currently we're trying to show off our flat to would-be tenants, an activity that traditionally involves the baking of fresh bread to give off a welcoming aroma. All we can manage is freshly-spewed baby sick. Not quite sure whether an estate agent would be able to put a convincing positive spin on that.

It's Your First Christmas, Baby

G enjoyed her first Christmas. Or at least she seemed to enjoy most of it, the inevitable bits of crying notwithstanding. The crying may have been down to early teething, a lack of sleep brought on by too much noise and excitement, or just sheer disappointment at the outcome of the Christmas chart battle. Yes, G (or, in a more real sense, I) was particularly upset that both this lovely seasonal song by Laura Marling and this very apt one by Boyracer failed to make any impact on the contest between Rage Against The Machine and the guy from X Factor. Ah well, there's always next year.

The photo above shows a bit of daddy-daughter playtime. This is my favourite game, and judging by her usual reaction, G gets a kick out of it too. I like to tell her she's flying and that this is all good training for her future career as an astronaut, but the best I ever get in return is a silly grin. I've been playing this game for her for two months without any problems, but literally seconds after this picture was taken all the excitement got a bit much for G and she was sick on my face. I'll still keep playing the astronaut game with her, although maybe I should start calling it 'vomit roulette' or something.

On Christmas morning Mrs J put G in a seasonal outfit and helped her with her presents. Predictably enough, G had a mountain of pressies that piled together was far bigger than her entire body. Also predictably, the shiny paper and tearing sounds held just as much interest for her as any of her new toys. In fact, as this picture below clearly demonstrates, she was actually more interested in one of the presents her daddy received:

Later on it was time for Christmas dinner, or Christmas lunch if you're a posh southerner (G is neither of these things). If she's awake when people are eating at the table, she usually starts whining until Mrs J picks G up and puts her on her lap so she can see what's going on. This isn't normally much of a problem, but Christmas dinner is a bit tricky to eat with just a fork, so I did my best to distract G with the hat from one of the crackers, to her obvious delight:

Inevitably, shortly after this picture was taken G started making her 'I'm bored down here' noises and I had to cut Mrs J's turkey and roasties into bite-sized pieces for her. But other than that and a bit of her typical evening crying, G was pretty well-behaved throughout Christmas. She even slept happily through the night every night, allowing the rest of us to get on with the serious business of cracking open the Christmas booze, eating too many chocolates and staring in a daze at the telly. Something tells me that G won't be quite so accommodating and easygoing next year. Or any of the dozen years after that.

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.

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.

Here Comes The Bride, There Goes The Vomit

We spent the weekend in Birmingham for the wedding of two of our friends, Chris and Kathryn. We'd been invited long before G was born and weren't really sure whether it would be a good idea to go. If she'd been born any later, or if there'd been any medical issues after the birth, we might have had to give it a miss. But we reckon things have been going ok, and of course we really wanted to be there, so we decided to give it a go and drove down on Friday afternoon.

Something about the movement means G likes car journeys, and she slept most of the way to Birmingham. It's the same when she's in her pram, and she was again snoozing happily when we got to the church on Saturday. Mrs J and G got lots of compliments from friends and strangers about how well they both looked so soon after the birth. This didn't make me quite as smug as it normally would because I couldn't shake the feeling that we'd forgotten something important amidst all the baby paraphernalia. Sure enough, we'd left the card behind in the hotel room. At least we got it that way round, I don't think anyone would have been impressed if we'd brought the card and lost the baby.

The service itself was lovely, the bride and groom looked wonderful and everyone was obviously having a great time. Mrs J gave G an extra big feed in the hope it would keep her quiet, but she was pretty restless during the reception. She kept looking around at all of the people when she should have been sleeping. Unsurprisingly, G soon got grouchy, so the two of us had to do a relay to make sure we both got to eat some dinner. However, as the picture shows, we did eventually manage to get her to sleep for a while next to the table. This meant G ended up staying at the reception longer than a baby boy a full seven weeks older than her, so it was one-up to her in the baby competition.

As the evening do started, Mrs J took the little one off for a feed in an ante-room. I'd managed to get halfway through my first pint of the day when I got a call from Mrs J telling me G had just thrown up on her dress. When I went to inspect the damage, I have to admit I was surprised by quite how epic the vomit was. It was also accurately aimed, all over the dress and not a drop on the carpet. Not that G seemed particularly bothered as we made our excuses and left. The excitement of the day might have got a bit too much for her, but she hadn't lost her ability to get our attention. She probably won't be quite so pleased with herself when we give her the dry cleaning bill on her 16th birthday.

Eyes Bigger Than Her Stomach

G was very peckish at lunchtime. Mrs J had given her a feed but she still seemed to want a bit more. So Mrs J decided to make up a little bottle of formula to make sure G didn't go hungry. We'd done this a couple of times before and it had gone ok, and sure enough after the top-up G was quickly into a deep sleep. Feeling smug, we took her around town and even stopped off at Common in the Northern Quarter on the way back for a hot chocolate (Mrs J) and a cheeky pint of Marble Manchester Bitter (me).

This smugness lasted until shortly after we got home, when G sicked up everywhere. Then, after a brief interlude during which Mrs J changed her clothes and calmed the little one down, G was sick again. This prompted a bit of low-key whining from G, and a more heartfelt outburst from Mrs J: "I've only got two pairs of trousers that fit, and she's just been sick over both of them!" Still, looking on the bright side, it was baby's first proper vomit. As reasons to celebrate go it's not exactly up there with first words or first tooth, but it's better than nothing I suppose.

As you can see from the picture, Mrs J has forgiven G. We all eat too much every now and again after all. But we're going to Birmingham tomorrow for a friend's wedding on Saturday, and if G throws up all over Mrs J's dress during the reception, I don't think she'll be quite so forgiving.