Bigger and better adventures

Talia has become a complete hoot since she got the gift of the gab. She comes out with new things every day and I have to say it is the most amazing time, you can see her soaking things up like a sponge - and squirting them all back out again.

* When I take off her nappy, we look at it together.  If she’s pooped, she says “oooooh, poo!” and if she hasn’t, she says “All gone poo! Nuffing poo!”

* For the first time ever, she tried to sing “head, shole, knee, toes”, with pretty good hand actions.  Less fortunately it was while sitting at the front of a synagogue in front of the rabbi in the middle of the serious bit of the service.  :lol:  It was hilarious.

* She is completely mad about animals, especially zoo and farm animals, and can name loads of them.  She has Maisy’s Farm on DVD and watches it every day.  It has lots of baby animals so we had this conversation this morning.  Me: “what’s a baby duck called?” T:”duck-ing!”  Me: “That’s right Talia, very good! What’s a baby pig called?” T:(huge grin) “pig-ing!”  Me: “Mmm, I think a baby pig is called a piglet. What’s a baby sheep called?” T: (another huge grin) “sheep-let!”

Talia is a master of doing things differently to your average or textbook baby. As we sometimes say at home, “we don’t do normal”.

Her first word was “cat”, and she said “okay” (yes) weeks before she learned to say no. It was starting to bother me that, even with a vocab which passed 10 words, then 30, then 60, she still didn’t have a word for me - her mummy. I use the word mummy all the time, and if I asked where mummy was, she would point at me - so I knew she understood the word and what it meant. But months passed and if she wanted me, she just said “euuuuurgh!”

Then, on New Year’s morning, she pointed at me and said “maaa” and I was pretty happy with that, but the real word finally arrived last night. We were eating dinner when she pointed at me and said, perfectly clearly, “mum!” The tears of happiness welled up in my eyes (not hard, as I was feeling quite emotional after leaving her weeping at the childcare centre earlier in the day.) Finally, after about 90 other words, she has found the one word that means the most to me.

I feel like I’ve been given the most wonderful gift of love.

After what seems like an eternity of da-da, dye-dye, ya-ya, ha-gi etc, Talia has been experimenting with some new sounds this past week.

New sound #1:  ssssssth (a bit like having a lisp).  Talia came up with this sound last week and I spent a bit of time trying to get her to say ‘yes’ - she can almost manage “eeyeth”.  It would be impressive to have a baby who says yes before she says no.

New sound #2: nan-nan/nun-nun.  I was very excited when I heard this yesterday morning, and I imagine her nana will be too when she gets back from the UK and hears it for herself.

New sound #3: mummum.  This happened late in the afternoon yesterday.  She actually said “da-da-da-mum-mum-mum’ but I was so surprised to hear it so soon after the excitement of nan-nan that I wouldn’t have quite believed it if we didn’t happen to be out with a friend, who was able to confirm that she really did say mum-mum-mum.

WOO-HOO!!!  Once again I am feeling ridiculously proud of my clever little daughter.

As another blogging mother I know said recently, there’s an advantage in being lazy. By the time you eventually write a post, there is so much more news to put into it!

Well, since the excitement of Talia sitting by herself a few days before Christmas, we’ve had all kinds of excitement.

• the sitting just gets better and better
• she can now say da da (dai dai)
• she has been in a swimming pool for the first time
• she is grasping objects with both hands
• she held a bottle by herself for a time while drinking from it
• she is using one object to hit another object (usually the formula tin, which makes a good drum)
• she has discovered her lower legs and reaches down to hold her shin/ankle
• her shrieking volume has increased (ouch)
• and now, she can roll over from front to back!

At last, a way to avoid the dreaded tummy time - roll straight over onto your back!! I think she would have done it sooner if she had figured out how to move her arm out of the way. Daddyfeatures showed her how to do it 2 days ago and now she remembers the trick and puts it into practice.

We are officially declaring the last two weeks as “wonder weeks”. So much change in such a short time, it is just fantastic to watch Talia’s development happening before our eyes.

Happy new year everyone - 2008 is going to be just amazing.

After a couple of weeks where she hardly said anything, Talia has resumed chatting and is now starting to make some new noises. Last night, after a busy day visiting her great-grandmother and grandparents and being a star attraction at my work Christmas drinks, she had plenty to say.

I’m sure I heard her say “d” for the first time, and she has also started trying to blow raspberries. I may regret it when she blows a raspberry while I’m trying to feed her, but at the moment it is just very cute.

It was last night of her first Hannukah. It doesn’t have quite the photographic opportunities that come with Christmas, but it was still special for us.