She’s very into reflections at the moment, in puddles, in windows, in picture glass and so on but mainly in the bathroom mirror. While I’m having a bath in the morning she will stand and study herself minutely, nose pressed up to the glass quietly saying, “ears, eyes, eyebrows, hair, tummy, tummy button, bottom, toes” etc to herself and pointing to the relevant bit. After she has a bath now she’ll wriggle free of the towel and stand there, tummy sticking wonderfully out, and look at her reflection.
“Hopey”, she’ll say happily and then point to her nipple and say, “Hopey’s milky” which makes me smile, or her tummy button, and then she’ll turn and look at my tummy button, and say something cheering like “wobbily tummy mummy” before turning back and looking at a tiny bruise just below her knee, or the little scrape from where she fell over trying to hop in the park, or the sole of her left foot.
Then she’ll scamper into the ‘nappy room’ and say cheerfully, “all done”, happy in the knowledge that she knows what she looks like.
I’d also like to reflect tonight on the fact that she says, “Effelunt” … most of her many words are coming out right now, that one stays pleasingly wrong …and long may it remain so!!!
Her other recent achievement is to recognize letters. I bought some of those foam ones that go on the side of the bath and she now demands a bath almost as soon as she’s had breakfast so much does she enjoy arranging the “ABCs” … if I ask her to pick out the H for Hope or the M for Mummy she does unhesitatingly, but if I pick up a letter and say what’s this she’ll say, “uh for Mummy”, “uh for Hope”, “uh for Daddy” and so on, she gets the right letter and word and she knows what she means … and again this makes me smile … as does the fact that she picked up the L tonight and said “uh for Lovely”.
… and while I’m at it another thing … she had some haddock last night, she loves cod, she loves prawns, but clearly doesn’t love haddock. “yeuch ‘SGUSTING” she said vehemently as she spat it out!!! I’m not sure I’ve ever said the word disgusting infront of her, I must have done, or maybe she’s heard if from one of her little friends, but this made me laugh so much that I nearly choked on my haddock!!!
… oh oh oh and a final thing … she sings constantly, now a wide range of songs, the party pieces being Frere Jacques and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (in perfect tune) from start to finish. She leaps from song to song, sleeping bunnies to dingle dangle scarecrows, turtles named Tim to dicky birds Peter and Paul, and she’s now made up her own composition which she sings to herself when we’re out for a walk, “Busy bee, buzzzzzzy bee, ALL AROUND” … it has a particular rhythm which she claps and always the same tune and intonation. A song writing musician in the making perhaps.
OK – reflections over for now, and time for bed.
oh and one more for the road, almost 1000 people have ‘liked’ my Huffington Post pieces so far … utterly humbled and amazed, and I personally have ‘likes’ on facebook and now ‘fans’ … such is the reach of Huff Post … quite incredible and most chuffed.
