Setting objectives

Looking at the babies of my friends, it's definitely clear that all of them develop at their own rates - some crawl early, some babble words, and one annoying child at the baby music class we go to was not only walking at 7 months, but could follow instructions to go and get herself an egg-shaped shaker and bring it back.  Show-off over-achiever.  Every time I see her, I'm surprised she hasn't yet got a job as an investment banker or corporate lawyer.

So, according to the great wisdom that is the Internet, at nine months old, the baby should be doing the following:

Gains weight at a slower rate - about 15 grams per day

Because I have nothing better to do than weigh the baby on a daily basis.  For fuck's sake.


Bowel and bladder become more regular

If by "more regular" you mean violent explosions requiring a complete change of clothes, yes, they're as regular as clockwork; i.e. whenever I've just put her in a special outfit and we're just about to leave the house.


Puts hands forward when the head is pointed to the ground to protect self from falling

Don't try this while Social Services are watching.


Is able to crawl

Nope.  But she can shuffle on her tummy like a sea slug.  Usually towards my shoes.  Before you suggest this is some type of inbuilt girly nascent shoe fetish, I would like to point out that said shoes are manky old Nike trainers, and the only reason she's shuffling towards them is to suck the laces.  So if that is her fetish, well, at least it's not a cliché.


Throws or shakes objects

Oh yes.  In fact, her favourite thing to throw is food.  Not any old piece of bread or bit of banana though.  Basically the distance she'll throw it is directly proportionally to the length of time I've spent preparing it.  Hence: rice cake straight out of the packet - not thrown.  Lovingly-prepared organic no-sugar carrot and banana muffins - 3 metres.  Potential future career as a shot-putter.


Understands the meaning of 'no'

Not sure on this one.  She recognises it.  Because it's what Mummy says whenever the little viper savages my nipples with one of her four teeth.  I hesitate to say she understands the meaning of it, because whenever I say it, she looks at me and laughs.  So she either doesn't understand, or is a sadist.  It's hard to know.  Though she also laughs when she hits me over the head with the Sky remote, so perhaps I should be leaning towards the latter.

I had a really lovely moment last week where I thought she was trying to kiss me.  I held her close in a cuddle... and she took the opportunity to clamp down on my neck.

She does, however, understand the meaning of the word "cat".  I can ask her where the cat is, and her little neck snaps round to try and spot Monty Cat.  She loves Monty Cat.  She wants nothing more than to bury her face in the cat's fur (and probably give him a good bite whilst she's there).  Monty Cat is not convinced about her.  He likes (very much) the fact that she throws food, but would generally prefer to keep out of her sticky little grasp.

All in all, she's doing OK.  I think we'll keep her for now.

Inventive parenting

Every so often as a parent, the fog of tiredness briefly lifts and the sunshine of genius shines through as your sleep-deprived brain suddenly spews out an idea of sheer brilliance that will change parenting as we know it forever.

Unfortunately, because at that particular moment (and at most particular moments) you happen to be up to your elbows in another human being's faecal matter / vomit / your own tit juice, it's not always that convenient to grab a pen and write it down.  And because you're so sleep deprived, and generally busy disposing of faecal matter / vomit / tit juice, the world moves on and you forget it.

Hence I strongly believe there are literally thousands of brilliant inventions thought up by women in the early hours of the morning, whilst being milked by their offspring.  I have thought of at least twenty, approximately eighteen of which were forgotten immediately.  Some of them were immensely practical and could be put into production tomorrow.  Some relied on technology that has not yet been invented.  Here are those I could remember.

1.  Did you always vow you would never be one of those parents who sniffs your child's bum to see if they need changing?  Me too.  Did you then realise that short of trying the "golden finger" in the nappy, there's actually no other way to know?  Basically you are so used to the smell of poo, that you now need it approximately 3cm from your nose to sense it.  You do this without shame in restaurants, at friends' houses and whilst you're eating your dinner.  Don't worry!  I have a solution!  INVENTION: A handy text message to let you know when it's time to crack open the wet wipes.  Or a Tweet, or an email.  I'm not picky.  Admittedly I have no idea how this would actually work, technologically speaking, but wouldn't it be brilliant?  Come on, scientists, pull your (golden) finger out.


2.  Babygros.  Try doing them up on the right poppers at 3 in the morning, when you've had no sleep since last August.  Feel the frustration of having one popper left over.  And having to un-pop and start all over again.  And then doing it wrong again.  And again.  All the time your offspring screams and wiggles like an octopus stuck in a lampshade.  This invention is immensely easy to do.  INVENTION: Colour-coded poppers.  Each babygro has three different coloured poppers (i.e. red, green, blue, red, green, blue, repeat as necessary) which have a correspondingly-coloured bit to pop it in to.  Think of the video / audio colour-coded ports and leads on the back of a PC.  Easy.  Do it.


3.  As I can't remember any others (which were of course, all as brilliant as the two above)... INVENTION: Nappy notepad.  Each nappy comes with a space on the back to scrawl down your brilliant ideas whilst you're taking care of the baby's needs.  The downside is that in the morning, your notes will undoubtedly read, "Cheese - why underneath?  Maybe umbrella."  And you will have no idea at all what it means.  But you can still collect them all and perhaps turn them into some sort of avant-garde free verse.

I am happy to accept royalties for any or all of these ideas when they are put into production.  Thank you.