Children say the funniest things

Now that Rosemary's speech has developed so far, we get to note down cute/funny/silly things she says. I wonder how long we will continue doing that?

Yesterday, while pushing one of the dining room chairs around the room:

'Come on, chair. Let's go over there.'

Last night, in her sleep:

Contented sigh... 'My daddy.'

The other night, in her sleep:

'No, no, no... No shoes!'

(As you can see, she has inherited her mother's habit of saying bizarre things while asleep.)

Manners maketh the man - or the small person, anyway

Rosemary said 'Please' today. Very distinctly. She's said 'Yes peas' and 'Pee' and variations on the theme a fair bit, but this was very clear and not in response to anyone say 'Yes, please.' She was getting undressed ready for her bath and picked up the Sudocream (for those not in the know, this is a nappy rash cream), handed to me and said 'Please'. So, I put some Sudocream on her bum, despite the fact that it would be washed off again almost immediately. Well, she said 'Please'.

Sleep, baths and 'Here you go'

Rosemary has now missed her bath three nights running. On Tuesday night, we finished dinner just before 8pm and I had been hoping to watch Stargate Atlantis. Chris suggested that, as it was still early and Rosemary hadn't got particularly messy, she could have her bath after Atlantis. But she fell asleep at 9pm, sans bath. On Wednesday night, I decided that she had gone to bed early on Tuesday night because she hadn't had her bath and it must get her too excited, so decided that she wouldn't have one and would instead have one Thursday lunchtime. She went to bed at her normal time (10pm). And then she slept later for her afternoon nap and was still asleep when Granny got here, and was therefore late going up to Grandad's (and I forgot to ask Granny to give her a bath), so she hadn't had one yet. Then she decided (having had quite a busy day) that she would go to sleep when we got in from seeing Tia Eva, at 7.30pm, without either her dinner or a bath.

Tomorrow morning, we will not be going anywhere at all until she has had a bath. And she'll have one in the evening too, as per normal. Unless she falls asleep extra early.

In general, her sleep patterns are a little erratic at the moment, because she's cutting down to one nap a day. She's also going to bed at 9pm quite a bit more often. The super-early sleep (like tonight) is still only happening every couple of weeks, usually. When the clocks go back (they do go back, don't they, rather than forward?), it's possible her bedtime may end up settling down to 8pm. We shall see.

Anyway, enough of boring talk about sleep! Rosemary now has a whole phrase that she says: 'Here you go.' And she's a lot better at giving (back) things, to some extent it seems, purely so that she can say 'Here you go.' She'll also randomly (it seems, though it probably has a bunch of logic for her) pick things and hand them to you saying 'Here you go.' She's especially fond of bringing us leaves and sticks in the park. She also says 'You're welcome.' after you say 'Thank you' Of course, no-one but us would be able to interpret the sounds she makes as these words, but they are very, very clear to us!

Communication, sleeping, eating

Words, sounds and communication

Rosemary appears to be discovering the letter D at the moment. She is now regularly saying:

• dog
• duck
• dad/dada/dad-dad

and some D sounds that don't really seem to mean anything:

• do
• daw
• diddoo
• doddy

She also seems to be saying:

• good
• Ned (who on earth is Ned? She seems to really like him, anyway)
• lid (she referred to Eva's hat as her lid, though I think it may have just been a coincidence)

She's hardly using the M sound at all now. It's all daddy this and daddy that. The other morning, when Chris came into the room, she waved and said 'Dad, dad, dad!'.

She's waving hello and goodbye now. She waved at the video of herself yesterday. She also understands when I'm going to be going upstairs to work. Yesterday, I started to say 'I'm just going to go upstairs to do some work, but I'll be back down later.' (she was with her Granny, I wasn't just leaving her on her own in the living room or something!) and she was waving bye-bye before the third word. She's even waving good morning to the dog, now.

Sleeping and rolling

While asleep, she's now rolling all over the cot. She woke up 3 times last night having rolled so much she'd scared herself. But she's also rolling around without waking up, or waking up but being able to go straight back to sleep. When I peered in at her this morning, she'd rolled round so much that her head was facing the bottom far corner of the cot and she was lying diagonaly so her feet were almost poking out of the bars. She's almost always rolling straight onto her side when I put her in the cot, it seems, now.

Eating and feeding the dog

We think she may be wanting attention while she eats now. She eats a bit at the start of the meal and then tends to throw the food on the floor, as well as her cup and so on. This used to be an indication that she was full, but it's happening earlier now. Last night when we'd finished, we started clearing up the food in her chair and she decided to start eating again, and had pretty much a whole meals worth, while I sat chatting and smiling to her and offering her different items. She also seemed to enjoy taking food out of her bowl, which we haven't really used for a while - tend to just put the food straight on the tray of her chair, because otherwise the food would just get tipped on her head. The other possibility is that she's trying to feed the dog, because she quite often says 'Good' when she throws food on the floor, so perhaps she's offering him some treats for being a good dog! I'm going to try giving her food in her bowl a bit more, now, and see if that makes a difference, and will make sure we offer more food when we've finished eating, too, in case that's what it's about. (Incidentally, she's been naturally increasing her milk intake when she's getting a bit less solid food, so she's certainly not starving, in case anyone was getting worried!)

Some random meanderings

So when I went to get Rosemary up this morning, she was lying on her back holding the book about dogs up open (albeit upside down) saying 'Dog, dog.' OK, it sounds more like 'Dud, dud', but she definitely means 'dog' because she uses it to refer to Wesley. She shouts it when he comes in the room. She says it when she seems him curled up on the bed. She says it when she hears him bark. It really does seem to be a proper word, referring one thing.

I'm sure someone (maybe her Granpa?) predicted that her first word woulb be 'Wesley' - well, almost. Of course, se also says 'Dad, dad' and 'Mum,mum,mum', but those words are used in other contexts: 'Dad' = 'I've got what I wanted and am happy'; 'Mum' = 'Give me that. I want that'. They do sometimes actually mean 'Dad' and 'Mum', too, but mostly when we equate to those other meanings!

And, yes, I'm quite chuffed that she was looking at a book. But not just looking, she had opened it up. And that she recognised that the pictures were dogs and it's not just Wesley who's a dog.

We bought an Ergo baby carrier, which arrived yesterday. It's brilliant, though so far I've only done the front carry, not the hip or back. The back carry looks a bit challenging, though apparently after a few goes it becomes really easy. I took Rosemary out in it this morning, with the dog (one of my main reasons for wanting one) and it was very comfortable. We had to come back before we made it to the park, though, as it started pouring with rain, and I hadn't practised putting the hood up and couldn't seem to work it out.

The new carier is much more comfortable than the old one (which is far too small now, but it was never very comfortable). It's also pretty simple to get on. I do want to get the back carry sorted out, as I think she'll like that a lot. I actually managed (very easily) to feed (nurse) her in it last night, too, which could be quite handy.

Of course, now I want the back pack and pouch, too. And maybe the papoose coat as well, though that might be going a bit far!I'll wait and see how much use it gets before buying any of these accessories, though. Just in case it gets used loads for a week or two and then is left to gather dust.

She's just fallen asleep on my lap. I guess an early morning walk, however brief, is very tiring! The dog is also asleep. It's a shame we don't have the summery weather that was here a week ago, as we could go for a long country walk. Instead it's raining so hard that you feel wet just looking at it.