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My daughter is a very brave and resilient young person. I don’t know where she gets it from because both her parents are whiny cowards. But I am slightly in awe of how little she complains.
We’d had a day off as a family before I head off on the next leg of the tour. Phoebe had had a bit of temperature and she and I had had a roughish night. But she bounced back quite well and I managed to fight through my tiredness, wondering if it was possible to make a detour to my in-laws sofa.
We went to the Science Museum where Phoebe played with the giant lego (and I built a huge tower of single bricks for my, I mean her amusement) and donned a little waterproof coat to play in the water feature. She was having fun. We then went for lunch in a Kensington Tapas place and I drank a couple of beers and ate some nice food and in the spring global warming sunshine it felt like we were abroad.
Then we walked home across Hyde Park, passing the gaudy memorial to Prince Albert (I made my wife promise that she’d so something similar for me) and up to Kensington Palace. Phoebe was pretty alert and happy and loved going on the swings at the Princess Diana Memorial playground. Even when we were home she played with me, walking from object to object in the basement, not quite confident enough yet to let do for too long.
She had seemed happy, but later when I fed her had looked a bit shaky and tired and then had been unusually happy to lie on me while I held her. I thought that maybe she was just tired from the long day,but her temperature went up again and she had a nose bleed while she slept and then got a bit grouchy when my wife tried to take her temperature in one ear. But not that grouchy.
After calling 111 we were advised to take her into hospital. We were reluctant to do this as we were about to watch The Walking Dead and drink wine. But apparently when you’re a parent you have to make some sacrifices. But kudos to the amazing NHS for seeing us so quickly and efficiently and not taking any risks. We drove to Paddington and were seen within 20 minutes. And it turned out that the nose bleed that had prompted us to call was more or less irrelevant and that Phoebe had an ear infection. And yet she’d been through this long day with good humour and thrown herself into everything we’d done. I’d been a right prima donna because I was a little bit tired. Whose baby is this child? It’s not mine, but she’s got my face so I reckon it’s got to be either Charley Boorman or Me2.
We’ve done a couple of hospital trips already (always precautionary) so it wasn’t quite as scary as it might have been, though I was still nervous, of course. Poor Phoebe was exhausted and confused but kept it together and how lucky are we to live in a country where a doctor is waiting to see you so quickly for free? And for how long? We then headed up the road where I picked up some free antibiotics from someone else working late. Most impressive was my hardy daughter who is fiercely independent and confident for one so tiny. I know that because of the extra hugs I get when she’s feeling vulnerable and they don’t come very often!
I am proud to be her dad, but not sure I can take any of the credit for her.
