Manners!

Peesh and ankoo. The magic words. The key to your parents goodwill. The password that gets you what you want.

It’s still an ongoing project but recently we have got unprompted ‘please’ and ‘thank you’s’ from Rose. Obviously, this is after months of not giving her things until she says it of course.

Additionally I’ve always made a point of saying ‘thank you’ when she gives me something or done something I’ve asked and I hope some of this is rubbing off. The politeness of your children is one of the many things you don’t appreciate fully until your own do it.

It’s a good sign in any case and we’re really quite proud.

Fashionista

Rose has made her first fashion choice this week. She is a minor fan of ‘in the night garden’ and requested her top with the tomblyboos on.

She can also spot the difference between boots and shoes and knows all the names of her clothing (trousers, shirts, dress etc.). Other than the tomblyboo top she doesn’t really comment on what she wears but this may be the start of an awareness of fashion.

I’m not looking forward to fighting over what she wears in the morning as I’ve heard from other parents. It’s only a matter of time though I guess.

She counts

On top of the new explosion of words we have had from Rose recently, numbers have started to make an appearance too.

It started when we just counted things out such as climbing the stairs or counting the number of blocks. Rose was soon keen to join in with this counting and began to repeat some of the numbers. She can now (mostly) repeat the numbers 2-10 although not in order and i’m not at all sure that she understands that ‘4′ actually means four things. Weirdly, the only number she doesn’t seem to want to say is ‘one’. She always starts with ‘two’.

I like to think she has made great progress in just a few weeks and I dare say it won’t be long before she is having a crack a Fermat’s last theorem.

Me, you and mummy and daddy

Rose with 'bread'

A while ago Deborah tried to compile a list of Rose’s vocabulary and since then things have really taken off. In fact the words are coming so thick and fast it’s become very difficult to keep up recording them.

A real help recently has been the bbc program alphablocks that teaches phonetics. Rose loves the little cartoons and enjoys saying the sounds.

Things have gone well since rose has been able to say her favourite foodstuffs – bread, water, apple, yoghurt – and she is always keen to point out animals – bird, dog, cat, hippo (on her change mat). She is also making a good start with numbers though at the moment she does dwell on ‘two’.

The one problem that we still can’t seem to solve is the difference between mummy and daddy. For ages we were both ‘daddy’ which may have just meant ‘responsible grown up’. She has been able to say ‘mummy’ for a long time but almost willfully refuses to say it to Deborah and even I get it occasionally. I’m sure this will play out fine in time.

What has been going a bit better is the concept of ‘me’ and ‘you’ and ‘I’ that must seem a bit abstract but rose seems to be understanding.

I really can’t wait for some proper conversions which i’m sure won’t be long now.

Backpacks

We went for a family walk last weekend to Lullingstone Country Park. Just a little 4 mile amble round some pretty Kent countryside but it was nice to find that Rose still likes the backpack and we are still fit enough to carry her.

If we didn’t have the baby carrier trips out would have been severely limited since Rose came on the scene. As it is Rose has been carried along English beaches, cliff-tops, around volcanoes, down cave systems, round Sainsbury’s and many a shopping centre.

Me and Rose in Lullingstone Country Park

Of course she gets bigger and heavier by the day but also much better at walking so it’s days will eventually be numbered. For the time being though it is still indispensable.

On a regular day Rose walks all the way to and from nursery now which must be a good 300-400m each way. She’ll be leaping tall buildings before long.