Hope is now speaking in not just fluent Hopeish but also structured English. She’s started forming sentences.
“Granby peeling orange for Hopey” came out of the blue yesterday, and was followed by, “Hopey put cheese in fridge”. Today she’s trotted round cheerfully offering to help with the washing, to wash her hands, to sweep the leaves and to eat my chocolate. She also asked to drive the car!!!
I love watching and listening to her as she grows and develops, it amazes me constantly what she is absorbing and is so quickly able to process and use herself in context putting toothpaste on her toothbrush (bishbosh), putting jam in her porridge, fetching and carrying, drying her toys on towels when they get wet, doing buttons up, putting shoes on … I know nothing earth shattering but for her it is ground breaking… and this evening she even managed to blow her own bubbles (before she’s always broken the shiny surface of the bubble dippy thing).
A friend has given her the most wonderful Advent Calendar; 24 little numbered red bags each with a present inside. Today’s bag had a bottle of bubbles in it. Hope remembers from one day to the next which number bag to look in and she is able to open the little bags and remove the presents. They’re slightly too well wrapped up so she looks up and asks me to “up and down” which is Hopeish for open it (I have to up and down the toothpaste, the coconut oil, the shampoo bottle, her toy bucket, the carseat harness and the little velcro strap on her shoes.
Her singing as well is becoming absurdly good … the whole of Frere Jacques, and from only a few hearings now by herself she can sing Away in A Manger and also one from playgroup, Shake Shake the Apple Tree, and when I forgot the words the other day she told me off, “silly mummy” and told me the right words! She knows all the words to all the songs on her car CDs and more often than not now asks for them with very specific names and gets extremely annoyed when I get the request wrong, “tree frog” is 3 little speckled frogs, “galumph” is “we all know frogs go la di da di da”, “town” is upsidy down town and so on … and she’s delighted when I pick up on the song she’s singing and join in with her … she even applauds and says “yay Mummy singing” … I’m taking the compliment while it’s there, I’m sure it won’t be long before she realises I have a shocking singing voice!!!
She’s getting ever more determined, “stop it Mummy” when I’m drying her hair or picking up the toys she’s strategically arranged around the kitchen floor, “enough” when she hands me (with both hands) the plate with whatever she doesn’t to eat want still on it, “down” when she’s keen to escape the high chair, and “go out now” when she wants to get up in the morning or go out for a walk. This evening she decided when she wanted to go to bed and announced, “Mummy Hope sleeping now” …
She’s also getting increasingly into jokes, blowing raspberries on my tummy when she’s finished breastfeeding and collapsing into fits of giggles, and this evening when her bottom emitted a little windy noise, she chortled and said, “Mummy bottom”… little monkey!
One of my favorite moments came this evening she found her father asleep on the sofa and came into the kitchen, “Daddy sleeping and snoring Mummy, LOUD”… she was right!
She’ll be reciting Shakespearean sonnets next.
