Recently, someone asked me why I don’t mention my baby daughter as much as my son in this column. They wondered whether it was to protect her privacy, which suggests I’d made that choice for her, while idly recycling everything that happens to my son for content, for reasons best known to myself. The answer I usually give is that she doesn’t do much, not least anything I haven’t covered regarding my son. There’s also the fact that her babyhood has corresponded with a particularly eventful period in my son’s life – his speech has exploded, he’s started school, and comes home every day filled with new wonders.
Neither of these explanations is untrue, but they also don’t tell the full story. The fact is, for the first eight months of her life, she has been, well, a baby. And babies are quite unreasonable. I didn’t want to complain about the constant crying or refusing to sleep, or her reticence to bond with me, her perfect father, because I presumed it would be reductive and boring, not to mention eerily reminiscent of the times I wrote about my son doing the same things four years ago. To write about one baby being hard work is unfortunate, to do it twice smacks of carelessness.
Whatever the case, I have been remiss, so I can redress that now. At nine months old, she is very nearly perfect, with a small, biscuity face, a laugh that could cure a migraine and a smile that could melt glass. She enjoys Melty Sticks and big, fake kisses on her tummy. She has no teeth, but bizarrely powerful legs and looks likely to walk before she turns a year old, which will be a nightmare. She worships her mother, on whose face she plants gummy, toothless kisses all day long. She adores her brother, whose every appearance she greets like an old Irish lady getting a visit from Daniel O’Donnell. She is aware of her father’s existence and wishes me well.
She has recently developed a fondness for clapping. It’s unlikely she gained this skill from her mother, a woman unburdened by rhythm of any kind and who is, in fact, so incapable of keeping time that her own clapping sounds broadly identical to a bucket of human hands being emptied down a well. My daughter has the grip of a scrum half and the bowel movements of a professional darts player. She has a tickly spot on her cheeks that will soothe her when she’s in great distress. Things which cause her great distress include: basically everything.
She is the one child on Earth who detests car seats and refuses to sleep when in motion. She sometimes rolls on to her back and can’t get up, but appears to find this situation hilarious and will laugh uncontrollably as she struggles, with futility, to right herself. At this, we too will laugh, and before long her clapping starts.
She is, in short, a marvel. And if that’s not worth a round of applause, I don’t know what is.
Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? by Séamas O’Reilly is out now (Little, Brown, £16.99). Buy a copy from guardianbookshop at £14.78
Follow Séamas on Twitter @shockproofbeats
