All smiles

Secret April

On secret wassocks (eh?) this month: Haircut, Ouch!, Poorly, Sorry, Good Knight, Joke (and another), Maybe, But but but..., Twirly!

Chairwoman

Tilly's vocabulary is expanding nicely, with new additions to the repertoire being a fairly frequent occurence. I asked her yesterday if she'd seen Tasha (her keyworker) at nursery to which she replied, "Tash-shah". I thought I'd try my luck and asked if she'd seen Kelly too."Eh-leee" was the reply. Having got two of the three Baby Bear staff in the bag, so to speak, I went for the hat-trick and asked her about Sam. Nada. She loves Sam but couldn't quite manage her name. In fact, she loves all three of them. The other night when Jim was picking her up, she was half way out of the building when she remembered she had not said goodbye to Tasha. She toddled back, waving, with her mouth all ready for a kiss goodbye. Adorable? Oh yes.

At home, she is very good at the word "cheese", which is handy for about 65% of our family meals. For the remaining 35% she is very good at letting us now whether the offering is acceptable or otherwise by very definite nodding and shaking of the head, plus a good bit of Grandad Steve-style pointing. Should be good for when we go to Spain.

Tilly's keen not to miss out on any newly ironed £20 notes Auntie Jo may have about her person, and to that end has (almost) mastered her name, shouting, "Djoe! Djoe!" when she sees her. This extends to looking hopefully around me towards the lounge door whenever her name is mentioned whilst we are eating, in case she happens to be coming in.

We went to the Nursery Parents evening earlier this week. Tilly is obviously doing great and loves her time there. The staff were telling us how she loves the little settee they have - there are lots of photos in her file with her sitting on this settee, looking at books. Apparently she loves it so much, she edges other kids off it so she can reclaim her territory! Feisty little madam.

Sprung

The warm spring sunshine yesterday evening saw Tilly exploring the garden and, as far as we can remember, having her first go on the slide that Nan bought for Dom and any/all future kids we may or may not have. She absolutely loved it, which I think might come across in the above pictures. It also reminds me of one of my favourite photos of the little man.

(I just read this out loud to Helen who's busy breadmaking again, and she thought I meant this picture)

First trike capability

On a whim, I pulled out the indoor trike for Tilly to have a go on this morning whilst Dom was at church with his Mum. Like a duck to water, within ten minutes she was mounting/dismounting unaided, tooting the horn and slowly scooting herself along. Best of all, when Dom returned and had a go she got behind him and pushed because that's what you do. Wheeeeee!

Pretty eyed, pirate smile

Supergrass

Sprung The snap above is Tilly loving her first off-road toddling. Having been walking a little over a month and equipped with brand new big girl shoes, she took advantage of yesterday’s beautiful weather to trot around on the admittedly somewhat unkempt backgarden lawn. She loved it.

Vowels By accident we’ve been discovering the nursery rhymes that Tilly’s been enjoying at nursery. Sing Grand Old Duke of York and she’ll throw her hands up in the air (when she was up, she was up). Twinkle twinkle little star sees her twinkling her little fingers and attempting to make a diamond shape. Best of all, Old Macdonald sees her randomly shouting “E! I! O!” at you for the rest of the day.

A nice cup of milk and a sit down Old before her time, Tilly has become increasingly fond of having somewhere to perch to look through her picture books. At her granddads she’s tried getting comfy sitting atop one of his speakers and here she would plonk herself on the book-basket wedged between the fireguard and the TV cabinet. Dom kindly let her have his little wooden desk-chair from his room and it’s hard to imagine how she could be more pleased.