Time is passing so quickly. I’m sure Daisy’s first ten weeks felt like a lifetime, but here we are, barely had time to turn around, and he’s already into the 3-6 months size clothes.

Henry’s doing pretty well. He’s still exclusively breastfed - the Health Visitor seemed mildly impressed. Apparently, it’s increasingly common to mix and match, if you breastfeed at all, these days. Can’t see the point, myself. I’m still expressing a bottle a day, as a hangover from all the expressing we did in that first week, but even that’s more faff than I’m really comfy with. If my right nipple ever properly heals, I may well stop. Then again, it’s possible that the pumping is what’s stopping it healing. Who knows? At least I always have a bottle in the fridge at bed time, to guard against those nights when he’s growing like crazy, and won’t go to bed because he’s drunk me dry, and is still hungry. Express in the morning, and have to spare at night, that’s what I say.

HiddenAnyway, he’s growing beautifully. He slipped from the 98.something ridiculous percentile to the 91st, in the first few weeks, but since week three, he has stayed on that 91% line like a textbook baby. Which is pretty impressive, considering the bulk of the babies they used to define normal on those growth charts were bottle fed, and therefore doing their growing much more consistently than most breastfed infants.His head control is something I barely think about, now, and he’s worked out how to roll onto his side, in either direction. Not right over, but he sometimes sleeps on his side. Doesn’t look that comfy, in a hammock that isn’t flat, but since I know he can get back by himself, I figure it’s up to him to decide.He is getting to the point of needing toys to play with, and has developed a passionate love for the mobiles that are still hanging over the change mat from when Daisy used to use it. He gazes up at them, smiles at them, coos at them, and generally treats them like long lost friends.

Daisy, too, is one of his favourite sources of entertainment, and she has run to me at least twice today to tell me that he gave her a big smile. It’s fab that she gets so much delight from delighting him. It strikes me as a promising start to their relationship, though there’s still plenty of time for them to hate each other…

Henry also likes baths. He especially likes it when I drip water onto his tummy from a great height. I showed him how to splash, yesterday, and I’m sure he was having a go, though to little effect.The baby wearing thing seems to have taken, too, which I’m pleased about. I wanted it to be good, and it is. Good enough that he’s never yet been in the pram. At all. It’s still folded up in the back room where it’s been since I was pregnant. I’m not quite ready to get rid of it, but I’m starting to wonder if we’ll ever use it. Or if he’ll tolerate it, the day we try, I suppose…

In some ways he’s a very similar baby to Daisy, but in some ways he’s completely different. And I suppose, in some ways, I’m completely different, too, which causes some of his differentness. I always maintained that Daisy could never be left to cry. I’m sure it was partly because I didn’t want to do it, but it was mostly because she seemed to be capable of getting more and more hysterical, with no apparently limit or ceiling to how far she could take it. Henry does cry, but he rarely gets beside himself, and will express his discontent for ten minutes, before giving up and going to sleep. I suspect he has a much more laid-back temperament, which given that he has to live with Daisy for the next fifteen years, might be just as well. Also, he hates the car. At the beginning, he would tolerate the car for up to an hour, but it struck me as a bad sign that he didn’t automatically fall asleep in the car, which was always the fail-safe with Daisy. I’ve never driven Henry around Liverpool at 4am, not because he’s my second and I’m hardened/wiser/whatever, but because it wouldn’t work for him. He’s different. In recent weeks, he’s decided that the car is actually pretty tedious, and his tolerance is down to about twenty minutes. I can see that this child will drive us to the in-car DVD player at a very early stage.

He’s pretty fascinating and wonderful, and I can’t work out which I love more - the similarities, which make me feel wise and experienced, or the differences, which keep me on my toes, and make him the unique little person that he is.

OK, I admit we’ve left it late. I feel the peer pressure, people, you don’t have to go on about it. However, for various reasons the timing hasn’t been right before now, so a couple of weeks ago, at the age of 2 years 11 months, Daisy began the potty training in earnest.

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