<Carol Channing> Raspberries! </Carol Channing>

[macneil]

Okay, remember I was optimistically asking about the best way to make my baby start talking? That was back in the heady days when my baby could say 'ah-goo' and appeared to be considering other consonants. That's all gone now. All she does is blow raspberries. Even ah-goo is out the window. I don't think this just a phase, I think I've given birth to Anne out of Little Britain.

Also, she was born with good hair. Not Suri good, but good. Now at 4 months she is totally bald, except for horrible Dickensian curls below the baldest bald spot at the back. What's the longest babies can be totally bald for? I take no responsibility for this. While she was in my uterus she was a model baby. 'Good spine! Beautiful spine!' scanners said, when I went to have her looked at. She came out of me looking peachy and beautiful and tiny. Now is 55th percentile length and NINETIETH percentile weight, bald, flaky all over, blows raspberries. The thing is, around the birth, I sent everyone the tiny, lush-haired pretty baby pictures, and now I'm coming back to England in two weeks with a big fat flaky baby. I stopped sending pictures ages ago. Would anyone like to lend me their tiny neat pretty baby for a week so I can fool people into thinking mine hasn't changed?

If you've had asked yesterday you'd have been welcome to my baby (6m) however she has behaved herself today!

I am also blessed with a baby who does nothing that blows raspberries whilst friends babies seem to be making Dada sounds, re the hair, I once cared for a baby girl who was bald until she was 18months I'm afraid, but I saw her a few years ago and she had the most beautiful thick, long, curly blond hair so don;t worry too much.

Just think in years to come when you need her to do something, you can threaten to post her baby pictures on the net for all her friends to see!

I'm afraid to say I was almost completely bald until I was 18 months too, but then I got lovely blonde hair Is the hair that she has now dark or fair?

Her options are 100 generations of pure mouse from every one of her father's ancestors, or my flat brown hair (my dad is also mousy, although my mum has Chinese hair). I don't think we are going to be blessed with gifts from the blonde fairy, and little wispy blonde hair looks girlish and angelic, she could get away with that. But little wispy brown hair just looks bald. I'm giving her a Bobby Charlton combover at the moment. EIGHTEEN MONTHS!

No one in England has seen her since she was 4 weeks old. I just can't believe how much she's let herself go.

Slather her in aqueous cream, dress her in vertical stripes and plonk a hat on her, no one will be any the wiser!

I'm sorry, I can't help laughing at this....

When dd was about 10 months old I was advised by an Asian lady sitting next to me in the clinic (apropos of nothing, this was her entree to the conversation!) that I must shave her head, it would make the hair grow back so much thicker!

So you could always shave her and tell everyone that's why you've done it...

Otherwise I'd go with the vertical stripes idea - maybe an A-line skirt too, to minimise the waist area?

TBH, I think 18 months is the most "challenging" age.

DD did not have "total head coverage" till she was about 2 and we were quite adept at swirly combovers. She used to wear a hat quite a lot, which was a bit more than a "fashion statement". She was also quite, ahem, bulky. Do you remember what the late great Les Dawson used to look like when dressed as a woman? DD was uncannily similar...

I recommend some "conversational feature" shoes.