Some time ago, while I was out working and therefore missed it, Caitriona had her first solid meal. Actually, 'solid' is misleading, as it's got the consistency of thick soup with no bits in it, but she's now very happy to sit in her chair while we try to spoon food into her mouth.

From me, probably, she got the urgency with which she eats, the desperate desire to get the food in because you never know when you will ever have food again. Or maybe she's just hungry. Or maybe it's because I'm her dad and she knows how absent minded I can be.

The other thing is that she shows a greater eagerness to chew the high chair - which was a gift from my parents - than to eat the food we give her. She takes particular pleasure in chewing the rounded wooden edge of the chair back. This also involves leaning round away from the spoon, so it's not helpful at all.

I think the main reason for this is that she's teething. For the past couple of weeks she's been crankier than usual and one by one, four little teeth have appeared in the front of her mouth - two at the front, two at the bottom.

Coupled with her discovery of what fun it is to smack everyone, plus the even better pleasure of pulling on her daddy's chest hairs, added to her great enthusiasm for books - pulling and tearing them, sucking the TV remote control, and kicking other family members in the eye, and you can see what potential exists for a very lively family experience over the next few weeks. Months. Okay, years. And years.

Yeah, I know. It's been a while.

And it will be a while again. I've been working, flat out, trying to get some TV stuff made. It's a welcome bonus for my budget but it's playing havoc with my time. I can get a call any day, even if nothing was planned for the day, and I may have to rush out at short notice or get on the internet to find out something that will then turn out not to be needed.

It goes with the territory, and it's fun working in television, but it steals your life.

I like my life, I've had quite a lot of it so far, and I hope to have a lot more before I'm too old to enjoy it. So I'm not planning to keep this up for long.

I actually have some good plans for the future, including one change to Life As It Happens which I hope to announce shortly.

In the meantime, just pretend I've written something clever and witty. Uh, like before ...

And if you need to read some good stuff, why not visit dooce.com? She's usually good.