Up (on her feet) date

After months of indifference to the joys of bipedal propulsion, Tilly finally decided to emulate her peers and get walking. Her timing was impeccable – having teased us for weeks, she waited for the afternoon of Dom’s 4th birthday party to pull this particular rabbit from her hat. Too canny to try to upstage the birthday boy at his own party, she waited until we retreated to the house afterwards for restorative cups of tea and more present opening. So it was that her Nan, Granddad and Aunty Jobley (as well as us) all witnessed the all-important First Steps – Granddad, ever ready with his camera, even capturing the actual event whilst I only managed the instant historical reconstruction (1,2). For about a week after, walking only happened when she felt like it which was emphatically not when we wanted to show her and her new party trick off. Now, three weeks later, she seems to be defaulting to walking – mainly because it lets her carry stuff about more easily. When I say stuff, I mean her board books, which she constantly carries from her basket to wherever you may be sitting, perhaps allowing you to read as much as two pages before setting off to get another book.

Her next trick follows on from this. Having supplied you with all her books she will then clamber onto to the sofa and slide down into the corner ready to be read to. The unaided dismount is still a little heart-stopping, as is the lurch over the arm for a look, but it is pretty cute. (And reminds me of her big brother).

Her vocabulary has expanded a little – we’ve gone from ‘Hiya!’ and ‘Hullo!’ to ‘Cheers!’, ‘Buh-bye!’, ‘Yeh!’, ‘RoRo’ (when she wants to play Row, row your boat)‘Daddah’ (could be me or DomDom that one) and from looking out the window at nursery, ‘Trattah’ (Tractor). On the Bremner front, she does dinosaurs (Roarrrr), rabbits (a lip smacking noise) and a rapid mouth opening and shutting which can stand for either fish or chicken. She also does a fab-macca-thumbsaloft which never fails to make us smile.

She loves music and will respond to the oddest snatches of rhythm with a dance that’s somewhere halfway between the birdy dance and the electric boogaloo. Best of all, she’ll sing along to the “Eh! Eh! Eh! Eh!” chorus of Vampire Weekends’s A – Punk. She is great.

Where’s Dom gone?

So Dom turned four a few weeks ago and you’ll not be reading about it here.

Cute, embarrassing stories about the little man have been all well and good whilst he’s been a toddler. At some point though his computer literate peers will start googling each other and, frankly, it’s hard enough being a kid without all the ammo this blog would provide them. So, it might be a few years off yet but it’s time to start hiding Dom behind a password.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you secret wassocks™ (name subject to change/ inspiration). I’m using Vox which is free and, much like Flickr, lets me control exactly who gets to see each of my posts and photos. Email me (jim@wassocks·com) or leave a comment on this post if you want an invite (to either). To be clear, everyone who has ever intentionally read this blog is welcome to join us over there, it’s just the googlebots and people stumbling upon wassocks accidentally that I’m trying to hide Dom from. Business will continue here as normal, but it will be all Tilly all the time from now on.

I’ll leave you with this pic of Dom and his Mum, and a snippit of a conversation he had with his Aunty Jobley the other weekend

Dom (pointing at the chocolate he’d got on his wrists whilst making cornflake buns):

Jobley, I’ve got stuff on my arm ankles

See you over there.