Saturday is Millie’s appointment with the eye consultant at our local hospital (St Mary’s in Sidcup) to see exactly what – if anything – should be done about her squint.  Expectation is that it will require an operation: what sort and when is hopefully what we’ll be told on Saturday.

Now, much as I’m not the least bit bothered about operations on myself, the prospect of Millie needing one is a rather different kettle of fish.

It isn’t that I don’t think it’s necessary (if a qualified doctor tells me it is I believe them) or don’t trust the wonderful NHS; rather that, well…she’s my little girl, and the slightest prospect of her being in pain and frightened immediately sets off huge alarm bells in my head.  It’s something that absolutely cannot be allowed to happen.

Already I’m thinking, ‘Well, if she has to stay in overnight then I’ll stay in with her,’ and the Lovely Melanie has already said the same.  One of us needs to look after the Bubbah though – clever girl though she is, she can’t quite fend for herself yet!

But from a purely selfish perspective (you knew there was one, didn’t you?) I just know it’ll be on one of the weekends when the Lovely Melanie and I (or, more often, just me) have stag do’s, weddings, birthday parties, festivals and heaven knows what else booked.

Millie’s got form for that kind of timing, for those of you who remember her birth and Glastonbury Festival…

More excellent Bubbah news in that she’s now properly sorted out the crawling thing.  She’s 11 months, which is quite late for a baby to start crawling, but the Lovely Melanie and I think that’s down to a combination of things.

Our house mostly isn’t carpeted downstairs, and the wooden floors make it quite difficult for a bubbah to get a grip.  Also, she does spend quite a lot of time in ‘Davros’, her baby walker, so crawling must seem a bit counter-intuitive to her.  As I’ve said before, I don’t think Bubbah will spend much time crawling – she already completely understands the concepts of walking and of cruising, and – having spent so much time on her feet – crawling must seem a step backwards for her!

Well, she’s got a month to master it before she goes to nursery in the middle of February when the Lovely Melanie returns to work.

That’s going to be a bit of a revolution in our house – three days a week dropping off two children at nursery before work or picking them up after work (remember: we don’t have a car).  I suspect Bubbah’s not going to like it.  I suspect I’m not going to like it much, to be honest – ‘mental’ is the word that springs initially to mind…

Millie, for her part, has discovered the Book Of Dreams (or as you may know it, the Argos catalogue) and is currently reading it from cover to cover, making a list of things she wants.  In all fairness, most of the things aren’t for her – Millie’s not so silly as to selfishly ask for things only for herself, no, no, no: these are things that her babies need.

Her babies are Baby Bobby and Baby Alice, two dolls that she spends a lot of time looking after at the moment.  They get their teeth cleaned when we do, they get nappies changed when Bubbah does, they need feeding at mealtimes, tucking in at night, wrapping up in blankets when they’re cold, toys to play with…

You get the idea.

Anyway, they also need two cots and two dummies (a blue one and a pink one) and who knows what else.

It’s not all bad news however, since in looking through the Book Of Dreams she’s naming a lot of the things she sees, or asking what they are, so at least it’s expanding her vocabulary at the same time as transforming her into a good little aspirational consumer capitalist.