Development Wars (or Why Does Baby Have No Teeth)

If you ever want to prove the old parenting cliché “all children develop differently” then have a second child. When Baby was still a bump my wife was fond of telling me that this child was going to take everything at 100 mph. Annoyingly, she was almost right. Almost.

Boy crawled. He did this for quite a while starting at 11 months. Then, very slowly he cruised. Then finally, around 15 months he walked, slowly and steadily. He did climb once but he fell down and after that he decided that climbing wasn’t for him. Baby didn’t crawl. The second she realised she could propel herself on her bottom using her arms she did so. Then she cruised for like a couple of days. By her first birthday she was walking. Baby climbs. She considers falling an occupational hazard, that occupation being destroying the fucking house and moving all our stuff around. Sorry. But she’s just done it again.

Boy slept through the night from about 8 weeks. Baby has never slept through the night. Not once in fifteen fucking months. Sorry again.

Boy won’t eat anything spicy. Baby will lick 2 alarm Chilli-Con-Carne off your plate. (Boy makes up for his dislike of spicy by liking other weird adult food such as sushi, anchovies and Stilton).

At her 12 month check Baby was given some blocks by the Health Visitor. She was supposed to bang them together to get her milestone. She stacked them. The Health Visitor said “that’s an 18 month milestone”. We all beamed with pleasure except the Health Visitor who was not going to tick off the milestone till Baby banged the blocks together because that’s what it says on the fucking form (sorry). We urged, demonstrated and pleaded with Baby to bang them together with no joy. Then we got up to leave and finally she banged them together. Once. Then she fixed the Health Visitor with a look that said “what are you going to do about that then eh?”. Boy never did this sort of thing.

But where they differ most of all is in the production of teeth. By 15 months Boy was pretty much done teeth wise. Baby has 6 teeth at the same stage and boy have they been an effort. It goes like this. There is a huge fucking scream (sorry again) and you will notice her face is red, her nappy is full and noxious and she is not going to calm down. Only the application of Calpol, Neurofen  and a teething powder, in that order, will calm her and then not for an hour  and then not for long. This goes on for days at the end of which she will have produced nothing. Nada. Not a single toothy-peg.

At this rate it’s going to carry on till she’s five.