Time at home

After several weekends in a row away from home, we've just had two weekends around Cambridge. Plus I had four days off work which were spent doing a bit of painting (walls and skirting boards rather than pictures of trees and helicopters) and spending time with 'the family' (this did involve drawing rather a lot of helicopters for ThingOne).

It's been great, and ThingOne has been on top form. Recovering from her illness has meant she's been eating for England, and she's been full of beans. We've been out for walks, swimming, to the park (a lot of times) and to 'Cheeky Monkey's' indoor play area.

ThingOne's latest obsessions include:

- dragon flies. I pointed one out to her last week and now we've noticed that just about every (children's) book we've got has one in it somewhere.

- the moon

- armpits (no idea why)

- baby kangaroos (she has a book featuring one, and spent part of yesterday with a toy kangaroo in the 'pouch' of her dungarees. This could be useful when we try to explain there's a baby sibling coming into her life.

- Letters. She keeps trying to sing the alphabet. I think it's just a song to her, but I'm not too keen on her learning another new thing as she's already counting to ten and learning about numbers. That said, I'm not going to stop her if she wants to talk about them. She's like a little sponge soaking up new information. My concern would be that all these new concepts will get confused with each other, but I guess that could be cleared up later. She really seems to like saying "Double-U". I've also got her running about the house with a plastic L (for ThingOne) held on her forehead. I thought this was funny as this indicates 'loser' in modern youth-parlance. She then had Anne and I with an M and D respectively (for Mummy and Daddy) on our foreheads.

Today when she was trying to ask me to do somethng for her I said, "Do you want me to take the lid off your water cup?". She answered "yes".
Trying to get a 'please' out of her I said "Yes what ThingOne?"
"Three bags full", she replied.

Tired and emotional

Oct 07 070, originally uploaded by skenttaylor.

ThingOne's not been well.

We visited some friends in Battersea at the weekend and the whole time we were there ThingOne was either grumpy or asleep. Not quite true since she did perk up whenever Bob the cat appeared (though Bob soon ran away whenever ThingOne approached him) and seemed a little happier whenever her Maisy DVD was on the TV. It dawned on us that we've been away from home each of the last six weekends, so perhaps we should all have a rest.

Not sure what's wrong with ThingOne, but she's a bit better today. She's ended up in our bed for the last few nights (though generally only after 5am).

It's reminded me that she's actually had a pretty healthy summer, after frequent short bouts of illness before that. Anne thinks her final *baby) teeth may be trying to make an appearance. Part of me think "No, please no!" but part of me thinks we might as well get it over with. Better now than after The Bud arrives I suppose.

The Bud's first movie homage

Bud 20 week 2, originally uploaded by skenttaylor.

At just 20 weeks (nearer 21 actually) The Bud is already referencing Kubrik. This is clearly a sophisticated parody/tribute to the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Clever child...

OCD child

Here's how we found ThingOne's toy box after she'd been playing with some blocks yesterday morning. See if you can guess what colour the face on the left side of the box is.

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: