A game, a walk, a song, a story...

[ailbhe]

Today Linnea walked from our house to the town centre. That's most of a mile. I carried her across the roads that don't have proper pedestrian crossings, of course.

She's fifteen-and-a-half months old.

We played chasing for a good part of the morning, and climbing, and "Horsey, horsey, don't you stop," and Washing The Dishes, and Brushing Our Teeth, and some other great games along those lines.

After we walked into town we had an Incident, involving a book in a shop that she wanted to take with her when we left, so I forced her into the buggy, and we ate lunch in the churchyard at St Mary's Butts, under the trees, with plenty of birdies around to be observed. She doesn't like tuna and sweetcorn sandwiches. There is to be No Further Doubt on this matter. None.

She went to sleep, I bought groceries and ran errands, she woke up, we went for apple juice and playing at the Biscuit Tin Cafe again - she drew pictures and we read books, mainly. Then we came home.

This evening she wanted Rob to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to her. He was eating dinner, so I tried to substitute myself. Nope. No dice. Only Daddy's voice will do. Those of you who have heard Rob sing now have a deeper understanding of the bonds of true affection - any, devotion - between doting daddy and darling daughter.

Then she sang it herself. She can hold the tune at least as well as Rob can. We're very impressed.

Her vocabulary, at present, is... ever-expanding. I illustrate: 23 July: No, Hiya, Hello, Thank-you (ankew, ta-too), There (Deh), That (Da't), Ball (Baw), Birdie (Buhdie), Pussy (Puthy); 24 July: Baby; 28 July: Goggie (doggie); 30 July: Daddy (doggie); 2 August: Nana (banana); 4 August: Teddy; 5 August: Dow (Down); 7 August: Gow (car); 16 August: Ow (out), Pane (plane), Tea; 17 August: Deep-daw (see-saw), Ba-ba (bye-bye).

Many of her mispronunciations aren't, unless you don't think in an English accent, which I don't. Yes, she's learning to speak with an English accent. I'll figure it out eventually. And there are other sounds Rob and I can interpret but strangers couldn't, really. We're not tracking those. You'll note she didn't have any new words the week of my EUA? I didn't notice any. I'm trying to keep track though. It's less than two months since I was worried that she wouldn't talk at all. And she pronounces "Ball" exactly the way my father-in-law does.

Comments

[richtermom.livejournal.com]

Squeaky has done the meandering walk for quite a while -- set her down and see what gets her attention, then try to distract her with something in the direction you want to go. But Tuesday night we figured out one way of getting her to stay focused on the goal is to make Daddy walk a good distance ahead -- at least 20 feet, up to a block ahead. We hiked about a mile in about half an hour with only a block or two of carrying.

Her language is exploding. Every little while she'll come up with a SENTENCE. Clear as day. "I want that." (Okay, it sounds like I wandat, but what else could that be? Especially with the nonverbals.) Last night it was "Where's the moon?" (Wezdamoom?) 18 months and not quite two weeks.