8 month checkup

We had the 8 month checkup today. It went better than I expected. The health visitor running it may not have been completely on the ball, but she was quite personable, which goes a long way to making the whole experience better.

The thing is pretty simple, which is probably why we got no details in advance. People with an 8 month or so old child show up at 10am. Whoever comes that day is seen. First they weigh the kid, then everyone sits around a big playmat while the health visitor asks us questions about sleeping, eating, excreting, and so on.

Three babies showed up today. The other two families were a baby boy, an older sister and a mother. Not only was I the only father there, I was the only male over 9 months. The other two babies were barely just sitting up. My little one, held up by me, toddled over to the playmat, plopped down and started crawling. She stopped when she found a small rubber duck which she popped in her mouth and started chewing (I suggested she get some hoisin sauce to go with it).

One family was seen separately due to not speaking English. So really it was 2 babies and their parents being questioned. L did most of the talking for us. I'm not sure if I was just being quiet, or if the health visitor was subtly directing all questions at her. Or maybe she just likes talking about our child. L says it's like a woman in the sciences – if you don't speak up you'll be completely looked over.

After the group questions, the two families took turns doing 1:1 with the health visitor. Answering questions and getting answers to whatever was on our minds. Turns out all issues we wondered about the wee one are pretty common and will work out over time. It was mostly things like her standing funny and her bloodshot eyelid. She's also a bit small for her age, but that might just be due to all the colds she's had lately. They said to come back in 6 weeks and see if the little one's fallen down another percentile group. I didn't want to ask them anything too esoteric or prone to soapbox opinions, since I doubt we'd have gotten anything we didn't already know – read a book or follow my dubious advice.

Seeing the babe with other children her age is a huge contrast. She's soooooo inquisitive. Craning her neck here and there to see what was happening just out of sight. Picking up and playing and chewing on everything (I'm still worried we'll get another fever out of that exchange). With one child she would have taken the dummy right from his mouth if we'd not stopped her.

We're so going to have our hands full with this one. But it's worth it. She's all smiles and excitement and delight. Just an amazing little creature who just drinks in the world around her. She'll sometimes just sit and stare at some other child and a day or two later she's got an impressive new skill. Today she was all about showing off what she can do as much as she could. I'm really impressed by her. I know that by the time they hit 5, all these development differences disappear. But for now I half-facetiously think that it must be good genes or hybrid vigour and that maybe she is a wunderkind.

Now we are cruising

The little one started crawling and standing at around the same time, back in Feb. Her crawling is getting much better. She was flopping one hesitant hand on the floor at a time. Now she'll move from room to hallway – where she'll get distracted by something and stay for a while.

She can also now stand, but only holding on to something. So she'll pull herself up on a baby gate, chair, table or whatever she can find, and then just stand for ages. She's taken to bending down while holding on to pick up a toy. It's cute – she bends over like an old lady. Weird symmetry there.

She's also trying very hard to stand without holding on to anything. But she ends up just doing a downward facing dog. I suspect standing on her own will be coming quite soon.

She's cruising to the extent that she'll hold on to something and slowly shuffle down the length of it to get where she wants to be. For those non-baby people reading this, cruising means just that – walking by holding on to something and moving along it.

She likes standing. She seems to really like it, and will pull herself up whenever she can. All. The. Time. Especially when she's upset. It seems to be her way of self-soothing.
Which is quite annoying, since a child learning to self sooth is the big hurdle on the way to getting them to fall asleep on their own. And clearly, she's not going to fall asleep while standing, holding on to the side of a cot. So easy sleeping is not in the cards for us anytime soon. In fact, I can hear the wife downstairs right now trying to sing her to sleep. I'm always torn, if I go down there to try to help, seeing me may wake the girl. Or maybe tag-teaming the lulling may help. It's really hard to tell how the wee one's going to react.

As an aside, I've not posted for ages and ages. I've been ill with complications and now springtime allergies. The wife was ill. The child was ill. I'd had nothing to write about except how unpleasant a family of snot and fever was. And I've done that enough times that I figured a break was in order. I read a book. And ate a lot of ice cream.

On a final note, I finally got the cheque from Virgin Atlantic for the damage they did to the pram on our flight to the States when she was 3 months old. She was 7 months old when we got the cheque. Again, not impressed.

Turning into my father

Somehow I've managed to find myself on a plane, for work, 3 of the past 4 weeks. I had in mind, when the child came, I would work from home a day or so a week. Rarely travel. How did I find myself working from Europe far more often than I was expecting to work from home?

I'm travelling more often than I was 10 years ago, when I thought I was travelling loads – once week out of every 8 on average. And back then L was fully self-suffcient. And by that I mean I have made commitments by being a parent that she now has to pick up the shortfall for. Back then the only comittments were household chores and pleasant company – something that she could safely do on her own or live without.

My father spent a fair chunk of my very early years working from another city. I just remember him leaving for the week and coming back... on weekends maybe – it's hard to remember. I don't resent him for it, and I didn't resent him for it. I just did not want that for myself.

These things just sneak up on you.

It irks me that somehow I ended up on a path I did not want.

I came home last night after a 3 day trip and the wee one smiled and slowly crawled to me across the floor.

She wasn't doing that when I left.