Verbal ThingTwo

Having started speaking a fair bit later than ThingOne did, ThingTwo has found her tongue in the last few months and frequently gives a running commentary of everything that's happening from the moment she gets up. She's very sweet and likes to think she's very funny, a trait she gets from her father.

At the moment she's most likely to tell you what pants she's wearing. Or what she did in the potty. She's recently upgraded to pants from nappies, and is (rightly) very proud of herself. She seemed to get it very quickly, encouraged by chocolate buttons and the promise of Peppa Pig pants.

If she tells you something she'll want you to acknowledge what she's said, and generally wants you to repeat it to her. If you don't she'll tell you the same thing again. And again.

And again.

And so on.

Here she is singing a couple of songs this morning.

Funfair fun

 

We took the girls along to the Cambridge Town and Country Show on Sunday, an annual event on Parkers Piece with stalls, animals, food and, importantly, fairground rides for young kids. Both the kids love this sort of thing (obviously). We had a good morning wandering around, looking at animals, trying to teach ThingOne that the more she asked the less likely it was that she'd get, and putting the kids on various rides of dubious safety.

 

ThingTwo had loads of fun, though she wasn't allowed to go one a couple of the things ThingOne went on. Poor lass. ThingTwo's speech, which took ages longer than ThingOne's to really get going, is coming along brilliantly at the moment and true to form she barely shut up the whole time we were there.

The only dodgy thing we saw there were people walking around offering balloons to kids which, once the kids accepted the balloon, they tried to charge a pound for! There was no notice of price as they approached. This was pretty cunning but pretty bad form. The parents can either pay up or have to explain to their young kids they must return the balloon. I did the latter, obviously. If I'd had a pin on me I might have entertained myself a little with their stock. We're so used to the kids being given balloons on the street or at these sort of shows for free it didn't occur to me they'd demand money after the offering.

We had a picnic lunch, during which the girls seemed most enthusiastic about the raw veg and houmous. Plus Anne's left eye ballooned up after handling a Guinea Pig.

The girls had a great time. The one sore point for ThingOne was the large inflatable slide. She usually loves these, but the one today was a little fast for her (too bouncy really) and it upset her a bit. I was surprised when the nice man running it gave her a ticket to get her on the bouncy slide think for smaller kids which was next to it, and which ThingTwo was playing on.

Fortunately for me I got some video of ThingOne finding the big slide a little too much. It's the first slide she goes down in the video embedded below (or here in HD).

Overkill

I understand that if you look up the word 'Overkill' in the dictionary you'll see this photo.

ThingTwo balance bike

We got ThingOne her first bike last summer when she was three and a half. A year later and she's still not sure about it. She rides around the garden fine, but get her on the pavement and she doesn't like the wobbles. (She's still got the stabilisers on.) Part of the problem is that since she's worried about it she won't get any speed up, and if you don't get speed up the bike's going to wobble more. We regretted not getting her a balance bike (one without stabiliers or pedals - essentially a scooter you sit on).

Today we got a cheap balance bike for ThingTwo, as more than once she's tried to climb onto ThingOne's bike and fallen off. Hopefully that'll help her 'manage the wobble' and give her some fun. We're tempted to take the stabilisers and pedals off ThingOne's bike so they can both scoot around.

 

 

 

 

No Mr Bond, I expect you to die

Yesterday I got a book from the library for ThingOne called 006 and a bit. It's about a girl who pretends to be a spy. With hilarious consequences, obviously.

I explained to ThingOne what a spy is in order to put the book in some context for her. ("They fight baddies and wear discguises"). She didn't understand the title of the book so I told her about James Bond, whose number is 007. I told her there were books about him and they'd also made lots of films about the caddish MI5 agent.

"I want to watch James Bond films", ThingOne announced.
"You can when you're older ThingOne. Those films aren't for four year olds."
"But I want to watch them with you", she pleaded.
"You can ThingOne. When you're older we'll watch some of them together if you like", I reassured her.

ThingOne put a hand on each of my cheeks and pulled my head closer so that she could deliver the final blow with inches between our faces.

She looked me in the eyes and said, "But you'll be dead by then won't you?"

Lovely. Thanks for that ThingOne.