Harriet's gastronomic journey this week came to a shuddering halt. Nothing was right and nothing was good enough; neither savoury food nor sweet; not even milk. On the worst night she woke every half an hour so the following day was just the perfect moment for our ******* of a neighbour to park his car as close to our house as he legally could and blare music out as loudly as he could. J was shattered, Harriet was inconsolable and I was in the deepest despair I have reached so far.
The worst moment came when J successfully fed her some pudding. After a little doze she became extremely irritable so we put her into her walker to cheer her up. She threw up everything J had spent so long coaxing into her and the prospect of another hellish night appeared. All the problems with the scrapheap neighbours were as nothing as compared to the misery of cleaning up that banana and apple dessert.
We had already formed the theory of course but on Friday the first positive sighting was confirmed: a little sliver of white along her gum announced the arrival of her first tooth.
Gradually things have been getting better. It has mostly been back to milk but on Friday night we managed half a jar of chocolate pudding and on Saturday night it was a whole jar of sweet breakfast porridge. The best news came this morning when she had the entire jar of beans and bacon. It has been necessary to develop some new distraction techniques and now we have to be extremely strict about making her lie down after every meal whether she approves or not. But it's a little bit of progress.
Every time she has cried to date there has been something we could do whether it was feed her, change her or play with her. But this is the first time we just have to let go a little bit as she does something all by herself. Our pride and anxiety are in a tense equality.
So quickly it has come to this.
