With a twinkle in her eye, Starlight goes to sleep. Thankfully, Sunshine is out destroying her grandmother’s house or back or something. My wife tells me I don’t post about Starlight, so it’s time to rectify that. But what can you say about your experiences, when they generally consist of sitting and watching? While this is gold dust for an ex SAS or CIA type writing their interminable biographies, for the humble dad on a laptop trying to bash out a blog post, it’s quite slow.

When she was born, Starlight had a hip issue, which required physiotherapists to scrunch, stretch and generally man handle her legs before prescribing that she wear a harness for three months. My wife and I looked at each other. A harness? Although we imagined different things, they broadly conformed to some kind of Victorian torture device. The harness itself was, in fact, a fairly straightforward thing. Made of that nylon you see on bag handles, it looped over her shoulders, connected at the waist then splayed out, forming a sort of stirrups for the legs. When it was fitted, the kindly physio told us under no circumstances were we to adjust anything, except the loops that went around the feet. She then showed us how to do this. My wife had a go, it was perfect. I had a go, it was dreadful. The physio accused me of taking decades of research and advancement in materials science and turning it into some kind of Victorian torture device.

As she left, she asked that if ever I were to adjust those foot loops, I might ask my wife to check my work. Having failed to put together the most basic of flat packed furniture and shelves, I nodded my agreement. Then the strangest thing happened. People said “How is she?” and we said “Oh, she’s fine. But she has to wear this harness…” To which everyone – every single person – replied “Oh yes, the hip thing. My cousin / daughter / son / uncle / brother / etc. Had to wear one of those! It’s not so bad you know…” I had heard of this harness thing before, as my boss’ daughter had to have one – but I didn’t realise how widespread they were. It was like a secret everyone kept until you were ‘in the club’. As a digression, this is why this site is now one of my favourites. Getting an idea of other peoples’ experiences in the adventures of parenting really helps to prepare you for visiting those experiences yourself.

Sooner than we thought, the day came to have the harness removed. The paediatrician drew a quick breath when he saw the state of it – a casualty of many nappy explosions and the inability to be removed for a quick wash. And since, I had forgotten she was even in it – unless I see a photograph of her (when dressed, she looked like the daughter of a barrel), or someone brings it up. This is what prompted me to mention it – moving swiftly on.

Starlight is a happy enough child – often smiling, and especially to music and her big sister. She’s also a nighthawk, like her dad. We sit up nights, watching the Frontline and Mad Men or (for a few weeks) the late showing of the US Apprentice. She smiles knowingly as I give her a running commentary on the shows. I don’t know whether her smile is a sign of agreement, or if she wonders what kind of fool I must be to take all these things so seriously. When she cries, it is for a bottle. So perhaps, so far, she has not woken to the realisation of the kind of bumbling fool that is raising her.

Once, I looked over at her in her pram. Whatever way the light and shadow played, it looked to me like she had a black eye. I panicked. I had her in her travel suit, in her car seat, panicking. How this happened I had no idea. I did know that we were less precious with Starlight than we had been with Sunshine. Had we become so less precious that we allowed her to be so cruelly damaged? What had happened here? Guilt, frustration and some amount of anger coursed through my veins. Then, I could see the headlines: “Dad Batters Baby: Demands Hospital Fix Her”. What would the callers to Liveline say? What would Jan Moir say?

Once in the car, I saw her eye was fine. I was about to bring her back in when I saw my neighbour approaching. “Is everything alright?” she said. She must have seen me rushing out, and I think the colour had not returned to my face. Stridently, to complement my rush and focus in getting Starlight into the car, I said – with great concern – “I’ve run out of nappies. Have to go to the shop to get some”. The neighbour smiled and turned, shaking her head. I got into the car, cursing and drove around the block. Starlight, as always, chuckling to herself; the meaning of which is as mysterious to me as the Mona Lisa smile, the Sphinx’s riddle or the inner workings of macroeconomic finance in a post financial-market driven free market economy. Luckily, I don’t need to know about those things. And I think I’ll enjoy getting to know what her laugh is all about. At the start of this post, I reckoned it was quite slow, this new baby thing – but look at that; it appears I’ve plenty to say.