Drool

The less like a baby G looks, the more conscious I am of some of the baby things she still does. Chief among these is drooling. Her chin and clothes have been drenched on a daily basis since she first started getting her teeth through at three months old, and even though she's had all her teeth for quite a while now, still the drooling continues.

In truth, it's not as bad as it used to be. As well as now having her teeth through, G has also been using a proper cup to drink from, which has apparently had the welcome side effect of teaching her how to swallow in a tidier fashion. Both these factors mean the amount of drool coming from her mouth has reduced significantly from a torrent to a more occasional trickle.

In an attempt to make G look more like the toddler she is, I've even abandoned the bibs which used to be an absolute necessity. But, as the picture shows, this often only means that her top gets soaked through by the end of the day. The damp patch is a reminder that she's not yet as grown up as she sometimes seems.

On The Television

Imagine my surprise last Friday when, during the lead story about the Phil Woolas judicial review on the local ITV Granada news, a familiar looking man-with-baby popped up in the background. The footage was actually taken a couple of weeks ago in Uppermill during a visit to the area by a leading politician, one of many we're going to experience in the coming weeks as a by-election looms.

Given how long broadcasters usually hang on to archive pictures for, I might find that me and G are illustrating political stories on Granada for some time to come. After all, the same poor woman's suffered years of breast cancer screening on the BBC, and I remember during my days working at Sky when someone phoned up to explain that an elderly person who featured in a report on pensioners had long since died. But that's just the magic of television, I suppose.

A Granada crew came back to film us today, only this time to do an interview for a story on the by-election to be shown on Thursday. The reporter was keen for me to give my opinion while holding G, clearly in the knowledge that would add considerable credibility to what I had to say. Unfortunately, G drooled all the way through the first take, so I had to do it again. She must have either been doing a bit more teething, or expressing her general distaste for all politicians. Sadly she didn't elaborate on which it was.

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.

Three Meals A Day

Here's G looking thoughtful as she munches her way through her lunch today. She's now onto three proper meals a day, which usually consists of porridge for breakfast, a pot of some kind of baby food for lunch, and some of whatever we're having for tea. Her intake of milk is supposed to go down accordingly, but she's still greedily polishing off her bottles, which suggests she's not going to grow up to be a fussy eater.

She's been a bit miserable at times over the last few days, as her next teeth poke their way through. G has had her two bottom front teeth for a while, and now her two upper fangs are slowly coming into view. This might make her look like a baby vampire, but I know for certain she's definitely not because garlic breadsticks are one of her favourite snacks.

G was on angelic form during her latest election campaign stop this morning, at the office of the local Labour candidate, who's also a pretty well-known government minister. The minister's wife looked after G while I did the interview, and I just about had to prise her back afterwards. G also tried to eat her red rosette, although I think that says less about her support for Labour's policies and more about the fact that just about any object within reach currently goes into her mouth.

Half Term

G is as miserable as a wet day in, well, Saddleworth. Her first couple of teeth are now poking through the gum at the bottom of her mouth. I'd show you a picture, but she spends most of her time running her tongue over the area in a mixture of confusion and distress. Last night's crying was pretty bad, but it's probably no worse than the kind of whingeing I produce whenever I've got toothache. And her little mouth does look very sore.

It's half term this week, which means a lot of the parent-and-baby activities I've been taking her to aren't running. By lunchtime, and already fed up of being in the house, I pushed G into Uppermill during a break in the almost relentless drizzle (an essential part of half-term just like when I was young, it's good to see things remaining the same in such a fast-changing world). The village was full of miserable and bored looking kids getting soaked and wondering what to do with themselves. As I started to walk back home the rain returned, but at least G didn't get wet, as the picture above shows. But no matter how snug she looked, I wouldn't swap places with her if it meant inheriting her toothache.

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.

Rosy Cheeks

We're moving house this weekend, to our new place in Saddleworth. This means the flat is filling with boxes full of all our stuff. All this chaos might account for G making a bit of a nuisance of herself by being grouchy today. The picture above caught just about the only time she's smiled all day, and those rosy cheeks suggest we're getting closer to the appearance of her first teeth, so maybe that's what's bothering her. Hopefully she'll be in a better mood tomorrow, because if moving house is the most stressful thing you can do, I'm guessing moving house with a whining baby is even worse.

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.