My youngest daughter just did not laugh. She recognised us, accepted hugs and kisses , even joined in silly games of Peek a Boo, but although on occasions her face could be said to be not quite as solemn as usual , still there was no laughter . Tears and yells on occasions, but never a giggle and she was 9 months old before she reached out, even for a toy. There was simply no positive response, yet we loved her nevertheless. Did she love us?
Before her birth things had not gone well. I lost her twin sister at 18 weeks of my pregnancy, but Lizzie hung on. In labour her heart rate dropped as low as 18 - it could be expected to be somewhere over 130. At birth she was just a purple rag doll. It was well over two minutes before she took that first gasp - was she damaged? Was it permanent? – I fell into depression, deeper and deeper. But she thrived physically, met all the milestones exactly on time, and her language skills by one year old were brilliant ‘Daddy gone work. Back later’, but still so solemn.
When she was almost 2 her sister started school and each day would bring back a book . That first week we had the breakthrough . On the way home we read Spike Milligan’s ‘On the Ning Nang Nong’ and the laughter rang out. Her sister laughed at the funny words and so did she. They repeated lines back and forth, giggling so much they could barely get the words out. Me, I was laughing in relief, in joy, in ecstasy . This mad Irishman had got through to my wonderful daughter when all else had failed. She had woken up!
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