When T and D were really tiny, me and my sister, S, were in and out of the baby clinic all the time, and always on about which percentile they were on, and wasn't it interesting how the one with the bigger feet (T) was also the heavier.

Over time, we realised that these clinics don't really do anything apart from make babies cry by taking all their clothes off and putting them in grocer's scales that are sadistically untailored to the comfort of a naked person. In fairness, they are pretty upfront about how little they can help you: its full name is the Well Baby Clinic, the understanding being that if there's anything actually wrong with your baby, you have to take it to the doctor's surgery, where people know things.

S said why didn't I take T's clothes off, hand him to her, she could guess his weight, I could say: "What do you think that funny spot is?", she could shrug and say, "I dunno", tell me off for forgetting my little red baby book, check I didn't have post-natal depression with a couple of subtle questions such as "are you feeling happy in yourself?" and we'd have done the whole process in a mere fraction of the time.

But of course there's a country mile between making snide remarks about a baby clinic and admitting, to yourself and the world generally, that you're not going to go any more. So we've never said we're not going, we've just, apparently, not gone.

The eight-month check is a whole different guess-the-weight-of-the-baby game. There are developmental milestones to check, and other questions, such as: "Where did you last see your little red baby book?" The trouble is, the clinics are used to dealing with the mothers of newborns, who are very easily cowed, and will do anything, and walk anywhere, in whatever weather, just to be in the same room as someone who will nod and say, "Yeah, he looks fine."

Mothers of eight-month-olds are a different proposition altogether; a lot more like regular people, in many respects. So both me and S called the health visitor (oh, now I'm just lying. Only S called; I have yet to get round to it), when D was eight months, and nine weeks later they returned her call, giving her an appointment and telling her to confirm. Eighty minutes after that she called back to confirm, and they said: "You left it too long, we've given your appointment away. Can't you do it yourself?" (Spooky. It's like we've been bugged.)

"Yes and no" is the answer to the suggestion. You can check babies' hearing and sight by making loud noises and waving things at them, and hoping they don't ignore you. Naturally, testicles and their full descent into the scrotum aren't an issue for S and D (when T was first born, the health visitor gave me a leaflet about testicular cancer, pointed at C and said: "You need to check his as well." My heart did sink a bit.

I wasn't feeling at my very most alluring anyway, and suddenly I was going to have to start chasing the males round the house, feeling their nads, like a veterinary nurse).

S can weigh and measure D and plot her on the chart (she hasn't lost her red book), but she can't check her for hip dysplasia. I mean, we've both seen it done, you just have to spatchcock their little legs, like chickens, but we wouldn't know what we were looking for. And we're not 100% on hidden spina bifida, either. So, in summary, her health authority is totally useless.

Round my hood, things are a bit better, but my friend L was still told she couldn't have an appointment until her daughter was 11 months old, and when she protested, they said she could always bring her in and wait for a cancellation, but the wait could be anything up to eight hours. As I say, they're used to dealing with pliable newborn-mothers.

I heard this midwife from Holland on the radio the other day, saying, "When a baby is born, a mother is born also." "Ah, that's nice," I thought. "That's a nice, Dutch thing to say." But on mature consideration, I think the mother who 's born when the baby is born is not, in the fullness of time, the mother she ends up being. After the initial blossoming of my softer, nicer instincts, I have gone back to being just as arsey as I was to begin with.