321-330/365
Yep, left for a moment at the sand table and you were having a good munch. You are absolutely determined to eat non-food items. In fact, you seem to prefer them to actual food. For example, after refusing breakfast one morning, I caught you chowing down on a pine cone you'd found in Little R's room. Another day, you picked at your snack, but them chewed on a stick in the garden. You kept dipping it in the stagnant paddling pool water, presumably to add flavour. To add insult to irritation, you usually throw and smear your food all over the floor, table, chair and yourself while NOT eating it. Sigh. I mean, I admire your curiosity. I'm just OVER cleaning up after you.
Your first taste of a lolly (a 100% fruit, no added sugar lolly, obviously!).
Unimpressed. Give me a twig any day!
Charismatic little one. You've realised that you can make us laugh, so you deliberately do cute things. This is your necklace wearing trick (I remember Little R going through the everything's-a-necklace phase like it was yesterday!) You blow raspberries on my tummy at least once a day. You initiate games of peekaboo (usually in the muslin curtains) and you say "ro-ro-ro" to get us to play 'Row Row the Boat' with you. The other day, you crawled into Little R's room, carefully lay yourself back onto his beanbag and beamed around at everyone. It was hilariously deliberate. Like a little snapshot of the older you.
First experience of a paddling pool. You sat down, realised it was cold and wailed a bit. Then you acclimatised and spent a happy ten minutes splashing about. This is more than Little R did. He will paddle with his feet but was NOT impressed when I tricked him into jumping in (knowing he'd slide onto his bottom- I'm so evil!). We also invested in some water shooters. He love to squirt water at us. He hates to get wet himself. That's going to be an interesting dynamic! My little sister was exactly the same. It'll be interesting to see what happens when you're old enough to squirt him!
Exploring the outdoors on a trip to Hollow Trees. Note the super-cute shoes on your feet. Size 2G. Smallest size of shoes they make ^_^
While Little R is at nursery, you get to play at your own pace. You do a lot of imaginative play for an under-one, probably because you join in so many of Little R's games. You are great at pretend eating and drinking.
I pushed you around on this for a while at toddlers, which you loved. Your legs are not quite long enough to rest on the loops at the front, but you worked out what the handles are for.
I have to admit, I find you a challenging picnic companion. It's great that the mess isn't going all over the kitchen floor. The problem is, you tend to crawl around and take food from everyone else's plates. I love this little outfit though. Look at those denim shorts. And your legs, looking chunky for a change!
On a walk around Lackford Lakes, Little R had a laminated clipboard so we could tick off all the animals we saw (Canada goose: CHECK, blackbird: CHECK, black-headed gull: CHECK, shelduck: CHECK, heron: CHECK, kingfisher: NO CHECK - diaappointed toddler). He was in charge of carrying that. I was in charge of carrying you. You were in charge of carrying the pen. You were super proud of your job and giggled and waved cheerily. You are very into birds at the moment. You sign "bird" near your ear when you can hear a bird and say "burr". If you see one you sign and then point to where it is. You can also identify ducks and say "ack ack". And you like trees too. You say "tree", "cheese" and "keys" and they're all subtly different words. I'm suddenly listening and watching you carefully when you're "talking", because you are trying to tell us specific things and ask for the words for everything you see around you. You're a compulsive communicator.
Tonight I whizzed downstairs to get the camera because your post-bath hair was so fluffy and cute (and blonde! Sun-bleached baby!). I came back up and snapped this photo of you reading yourself a bedtime story. "Baaaah". Sounded like your sheep noise. Strange, because it was a book about a duck!