In which ThingOne makes movie-and-TV references, and her parents hang their heads in shame

1) Gremlins
I'm proud to say I've got ThingOne shouting "Bright light, bright light" like a Mogwai (from Gremlins) when a light is turned on. (Here's a sample from the film. Needs sound, of course. Might not work if your browser doesn't have the relevant plug-in)

That she says "dark light" when we turn a light off is mildly amusing to me too, but since it's not from a film it doesn't count as an inappropriate movie/TV reference.

2) Pulp Fiction
Continuing on this theme, I have accidentally trained ThingOne to shoot her mother with a mchine gun (a pretend machine gun of course) when the toast pops up in the toaster, as in this clip from Pulp Fiction (from about the 50 second mark). I did it one day and ThingOne copied, and now does it fairly often. Her machine gun impression is pretty poor, and really she just waves her hands around and makes a noise, but it's a little disturbing.

3) 300
Having seen and enjoyed 300, I tried to train ThingOne to shout "SPARTA" in a macho way at the top of her voice. This worked to a certain extent, though she generally just makes a very loud noise. She finds it really funny though, and I'm looking forward to the day she gets the word right and can shout it round Sainsburys (when she's there with her mum, preferably).

4) Mission Impossible
Many of you will already have seen the mission ThingOne was sent on when she was just seven months old:


5) 24
This is the embarrassing one that makes us look like terrible parents.

It's Anne's fault. She said "Dammit" when she dropped something on the pavement the other day, and ThingOne repeated it. Anne tried to convince ThingOne she'd actually said that something was "jammy", but ThingOne was having none of it.

And so, ThingOne has now been shouting "Dammit" quite a lot, generally when something is on the floor or is dropped. She's like a little Jack Bauer.

We're torn between finding it very funny and trying to stop her doing it. We don't really know how to stop it though. ThingOne and I were at my mum's today and I went to put a potato on ThingOne's plate. It fell off the spoon and onto her plate, and ThingOne shouted "Dammit Daddy!" My mum and I couldn't stop laughing, but we both tried hard to hide our laughter from ThingOne. My mum had to leave the room.

What have we done? For our own amusement we've created this little imitator, but I feel we've lost control of her. It's Frankinstein's monster all over again!


6) Il Colosso di Rodi (The Colossus of Rhodes)
(I'm referring to the 1961 Sergio Leone film of course)

Here's the Colossus:
And here's how Anne discovered ThingOne the other day after she'd been playing one of her favourite games: emptying out the kitchen cupboards and playing with the salad spinner:

Little Drummer Girl

ThingOne was really well behaved this weekend when we visited some friends in Catford. She's a little actress and loves to play for a crowd, so is generally good value when we visit people. What surprised us was that she was also very good when Anne or I held our friends' new baby. ThingOne often gets a bit antsy when Anne holds babies at the NCT things she organises and goes to, so we were wondering how she'd react with both of us and a baby. Conscious that ThingOne's going to have to put up with competition for our affections from next February, we're trying to prepare her and ourselves gradually.

As it was, ThingOne didn't bat an eyelid. She even gleefully shouted "Mummy hold baby Mimi" (Mimi = Millie). It might have helped that she was sitting on a friend's lap eating a big bowl of fruit salad at the time. That gives us an idea of a possible distraction for when The Bud arrives. Later we put Millie on ThingOne's lap (ThingOne was on my lap at the time so I could ensure ThingOne didn't try to do Millie any damage). ThingOne wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but didn't seem to mind too much. She's been telling us about Baby Mimi ever since, so Millie obviously made an impression.

On Sunday, after returning to Cambridge, we were looking for a wardrobe for ThingOne's room in Habitat and ThingOne took a shine to a toy drum. She'd been so good I bought it for her (soft-touch dad). We had a coffee in Starbucks and I said to Anne that I was enjoying how easy parenting was at the moment, though was aware that things could be tougher once we reach the so-called Terrible Twos. Somewhat predictably ThingOne then screamed ALL THE WAY ROUND THE SUPERMARKET because we didn't let her go on the Bob The Builder ride at the entrance (I'm beginning to resent shops putting these rides in). "BOB!" she screamed as Anne and I tried to stay calm and calm ThingOne. "BOB!!!" I don't really know how she knows Bob the Builder - she's never seen it on TV She saw some Bob toys at her grandfather's house earlier in the year but she seemed to know then who Bob was already.

I was looking out for a helicopter toy for ThingOne in the supermarket and found one for 97p. Since she was such a terror I didn't give it to her that day (and she'd had a drum already). ThingOne got upset that I had left for work early on Monday and wasn't there when she got up. "Daddy's left you a present", Anne said to try to cheer her up. Anne handed ThingOne the helicopter and it seemed to do the trick. "Helitoptop!" she exclaimed. Almost immediately though, ThingOne looked concerned, held up her other hand and said "No plane?"

ThingOne's marvellous adventures in France

France 279, originally uploaded by skenttaylor.

We've been back a week now, but I wanted to note (mainly to jog my memory as we forget how ThingOne's developed in future) what ThingOne got up to on our holiday.

She developed a lot over the week. She had just started counting to ten before we left, and by the time we got back was pretty consistent with that and had learned colours too. She was telling anyone that was interested (or otherwise) what colour everything was.

We thought she'd be impressed with the plane journey there, since she always points out planes in the sky. As it was, she didn't seem all that interested. But she was VERY interested when a helicopter landed in a field right next to us on the short walk to the beach, and then took off again (as was I - it's always fun watching helicopters!) She was talking about the "helitoptop" for the rest of the week.

We seemed to spend a lot of our time running around the toilet block near our cabin/static caravan (it was the shower block too, but we called it the toilet block as we found it a funnier thing for ThingOne to plead us to take her to). It was a pretty majestic toilet block to be fair. The main things she liked were all the steps within the courtyard of the toilet block (told you it wasn't a grotty little block). By the time we came home she was much more proficient with steps, and we can now while away a good period of time playing on and around steps.

She developed in lots more ways which are harder for me to put my finger on. She suddenly seems a little more toddler and a little less baby. She still doesn't have an awful lot of hair, so people still often mistake her for a boy (or "garcon" while we were away), but we can really see her turning into a little girl in front of our eyes.

On Monday morning when I was about to return to work, ThingOne sat at the breakfast table saying, "ThingOne Daddy sandcastle, yeah?" and "ThingOne beach, yeah?" It broke our hearts to think that she thought life would be like that from now on, and now she had to face the harsh realities of back-to-normal. I felt bad for having to go to work and wanted to pull a sickie and spend more time with her.

(And I don't know where she's got this ending-every-question-with-"yeah" thing from. We'll have to put a stop to that.)

Bake it so

DSC03336, originally uploaded by skenttaylor.

We are currently on hols at a Eurocamp in the south of France (Canet Plage near Perpignon). I am typing on a weird French keyboard, and am having trouble finding punctuation marks.

ThingOne is very much enjoying her time in the sun, the pool, the sea and with mum and dad. She has a swim suit (pictured) in which she looks like Captain Picard.

Best of all, she's sleeping well. Over 12 hours each night so far! And since we've kept her on UK time this means Anne and I are getting to sleep until 8.30. Just amazing.

So now we know what to do with the next one: just wear him/her out each day at the pool/park/beach and give him/her constant attention.

How hard can that be?

Mole location

ThingOne's become interested in moles, having found Anne has one on her chest, ThingOne has one on her leg, and I have one on my stomach.

Today, with me out at work, ThingOne started pointing at Anne's chest mole. ("Chest mole" isn't a euphemism btw.)

Anne: "That's Mummy's mole. Where's ThingOne's mole?"

ThingOne points to her leg.

Anne (trying to get ThingOne to say "tummy" or indicate a stomach in another way): "And where's Daddy's mole?"

ThingOne: "Work."

Sometimes she makes us feel like we ask silly questions.

In other news, we had five days of potty training and have decided to give up for the time being. ThingOne's made some progress but was getting really stressed by it. If we weren't going on holiday to France on Friday we might have persevered, but we've decided we don't want to fight her all week. She can be a baby for a bit longer. (But had better be out of nappies when The Bud arrives!)