I have said it before and I will no doubt say it again and again in the future but my daughter really is at SUCH a great age at the moment. I am sure most parents would agree there are certain periods in their children’s development when they can sit back and make the same proclamation. Perhaps it lasts. I fear not.
Throughout her fifteenth month and into her sixteenth Mrs T has been a absolute delight – entertaining us each day with something new. To her, the world has suddenly become a lot of fun!
There are so many things to LAUGH at: like mummy shaking her head so fast her hair whacks her on her face (sadly when she copies, her short curly locks stay stubbornly fixed to her head); like trying to shove food in daddy’s mouth; like hiding behind napkins, clothes, her bowl – usually not very well – and shouting ‘HIYA’; like crawling really fast across the room chanting ‘hee ha, hee ha’; like pointing at everything and anything and exclaiming ‘Dah’; like slapping her growing, rounded belly and grinning when she sees it, naked, in the bath; like resting her head on her soft ball and pretending to go to sleep; like her farting, loudly, both of us laughing together.
Older children still tickle her enormously, seeing them run across the room or lie down on the floor is enough to make her laugh out loud. She loves the mischievousness they evoke and gets carried away with the excitement and energy they exude.
When she is isn’t laughing she is clapping and copying what we do. She picks up so much. Cal recently taught her ‘uh oh’ so she sporadically exclaims this, usually when she drops stuff from her high chair or does something she knows she shouldn’t. Clever lady!
One day towards the end of November she suddenly started putting the tips of her two forefingers together when I was singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and I suddenly realised she was making the diamond shape. She must have picked it up from the music class at nursery. Such a small action but I felt so much pride. Words, actions, life – it is all clicking and she is gradually piecing it together in her head. Now that nursery rhyme is one of her favourites and she is gradually learning the rest of the actions (still working on the words).
Every morning after she wakes up, I open the curtains and she exclaims ‘golly gah’ several times (her name for a dog). I can’t see any but then that is no great surprise, she attributes this name to most creatures which are furry and have four legs, like squirrels, cats and cows. I am trying to educate her but it is going to take time.
Me: Dog
Mrs T: Golly Gay
Me: (pointing to a picture of a dog) Doggy
Mrs T: Golly Gah
Me: Cat, say CAT
Mrs T: GOLLY GAH!
Incidentally, she LOVES golly gahs….I mean DOGS.
So many things get a clap now too… Singing, eating, performing the silliest of actions to entertain her is rewarded with outbursts of spontaneous clapping – which are so, so appreciated.
She also likes putting things behind her head – bits of bread, pasta, balls, toys – perhaps she thinks they are going to disappear if she puts them behind her and they can no longer be seen by her.
As Christmas week approached her eighth tooth came through on the bottom, a few days later she was laughing while lying down and I realised one of her molars had come through. No idea how long that had been hiding back there but fair to say it hadn’t, as I feared, caused her much trouble at all.
Now, she is on the brink of walking and today stood up on her own for the longest time yet – I am talking AT LEAST 10 seconds. In the meantime she takes pleasure in climbing on me and clambouring over me. In fact, she doesn’t seem too fussed about taking any steps. Perhaps she is enjoying this moment in time too much and this great age.