Comparisons

C is about twice as long as when we first met now. Not literally, just, well, I don't know, just that she's been growing a lot. There is a person there in the bouncy chair, rather than a protoplasmic red blob of screams.

She is chattier than F, and already much more social. C likes loud noises, like washing machines, hoovers and her older sister. Lucky, that. F used to scream in horror if you tried to clean the flat, or if you woke her up by being noisy. C will occasionally scream with horror if the flat is otherwise too quiet, or if you leave her alone in a room for any length of time.

F did weeing on people, C does her hosepoops. C wants to be wrapped up in blankets even on stifling summer days, F didn't like getting too hot. F was much quieter when she was tiny. C chats nonsense quite a lot already, as well as making an amazing array of alien grunts, hisses and pops. It's like having a talkative snake in the corner of the room.

Can it be that not being the sole focus of your parents' attention is actually good for a baby? C seems very cheerful and calm, less nervy than F. Better at grabbing your attention, perhaps, seeing as she has to compete for it. She smiles a lot, and waves and babbles hellos when she's at the height of her awakeness cycles.

Maybe she just seems cheerful and calm compared to F, who is currently often sulky and argumentative. She threw milk over the kitchen twice last week, because she wanted something else. She's learned to say sorry after such behaviour, but finds it outrageous that you might still get a punishment even after apologising.

They get on very well together, luckily. F was blowing long raspberries at C over breakfast today, something she usually gets reprimanded for (unless they're really funny ones, then it's hard not to join in. Consistency as a parent is a tough line to walk). If C finds it hilarious, who are we to disagree?

V and I are far more tired than we were with just F around. Even if C is up to six or even seven hour blocks of sleep, she has timed her wakening shouts to the deepest parts of my sleep. There's that magnificent feeling at 0230 when you stagger out of bed and into the nearest wall, wondering why you are mobile, what awful catastrophe has triggered your instinctive panic this time.

Then you open the nappy and discover it.