London Zoo!

The other week Mummy and Daddy took me to London Zoo to see all the animals. I know lots of animal names and have seen them in pictures, but this was the first time I saw them for real.

It was all very exciting. If I had to choose a favourite, I would choose what I call the baby monkey having Scrummy, but Mummy says that doesn't count because it was a statue of a baby gorilla feeding from its mum. But it WAS my favourite thing. I stroked it and kissed it and would have spent ages with it but was dragged off to see the real gorillas, which weren't nearly so interesting. I did like the monkeys, though, although I was easily distracted by a human baby - I went straight over and leaned into the pushchair to give it a kiss! I love babies.

Another of my best animals was the tigers. We couldn't see them at first because some people were in the enclosure doing 'Be a keeper for a day' but we went and had a drink and when we came back they were there! I loved them and was very excited to see them. They didn't drink all Daddy's beer like in my book, though.

I will post pictures, but I just tried and it didn't, so I will try another day.

I do dressing-up

I love dressing up. But I don't like to just put any old thing on, oh no. What I like doing is dressing up like a grown-up, because now I am no longer a baby I am very nearly a grown-up, you know.

I love hats, but especially like to wear Mummy and Daddy's shoes. Mummy says I'm not allowed to wear her heels because I might fall and bang my head, but I am allowed to wear her Birkenstocks and any of her flat shoes.

Here I am in some of my favourite outfits.

Pictures

I have had a complaint. Grandma has said there are not enough pictures on my blog, and that I haven't put any on for ages. Well. I am BUSY. Humph. don't I have enough to do, what with learning to talk, and sing, and dance, and climb and going to messy play and on playdates, and shopping, and walks, and all sorts of stuff.

Well. Anyway. I'll post some pictures. Some will be old cos yeah, okay, I haven't posted any for ages.

Will do them in separate posts. I think that will be better.

And no more complaints! Some people are so hard to please.

A post from Mummy

I have decided to hop on here while Lilia is asleep, as it's been a long time since I wrote in her little book about how she is getting on and rather than do that I thought it would make a nice post to update.

She's now 20 months, and in the last six months has really turned into a little girl rather than being a baby any more.

Physically, she is obviously taller! She has that lovely little pot belly all toddlers have, but her legs no longer have her deliciously chunky baby thighs, but instead are proper girl legs, with normal thighs. She does still have one of her baby 'creases' at the top of her leg, but I think that will soon be gone too.

I've noticed her growth most recently because she has suddenly become too big for most of her clothes! Her arms are much longer, but the main difference is a lot of her tops simply stopped being able to stretch over her tummy, and her tights don't quite pull up over her bottom any more.

She is obviously very good at walking now, having been doing it for six months, but she has also started to run, although with varying degrees of success - every so often she will just run too fast and her feet will lag behind until she falls over. She is also trying desperately to jump, which is probably the next developmental milestone. She tries and tries, and watches older children, but can only really manage a kind of bounce at the moment, which is very cute. She loves being held under the arms and 'jumped', and bouncing on the bed is popular.

She has only in the last two weeks mastered climbing steps on slides, so we now have a slide in the garden which she loves. We're hoping to get a swing too but all these things are quite pricey so it will have to wait a bit unless I can get an ebay bargain.

In terms of her speech, she is incredible. It's at the stage of a normal to-and-a-half- to three-year-old, with complex sentences like "I cooking a cake. Needs longer in oven. Ready now. Tastes good." and the hilarious "I done a poo! Change nappy!".

Being able to communicate with her so well makes life much more interesting, and we so far have had almost no tantrums because she is able to tell us what she wants, and we are able to tell her why she can't have it!

She knows all her colours, can count to ten(although seven often gets missed out), knows all the basic shapes, understands and uses big/small, up/down, on/off, on/under, in/out, knows what writing is, and also likes to 'read' to herself. She has also started memorising rhymes and her storybooks and reciting bits of them to herself or to us. It is very cute to see her doing the actions as she says "Two lil dicky birrs sit on a wall, one nay Peter, one nay Paul. Fie-way Peter, fie-way Paul, cuh back Peter, cuh back Paul". She also knows Twinkle Star, I'm a little teapot, Tommy Thumb, Hop Little Bunnies, and probably some more I'm forgetting.

My habit of making up songs all day has come back to bite me on the bum as I now constantly get "do HONG Mummy, do HONG" and have to make up some song about going shopping or putting socks on or whatever.

She is able to clean her own teeth, although we do them as well to be sure, she brushes her own hair, helps wash it, and also is beginning to be able to take off her clothes. And she has very strong opinions on clothes! She chooses er own outfit each day and knows what she wants - today she demanded "deni skirt"" when said denim skirt was in the washing basket and not visible.

Some of her habits are just hilarious, and some are very annoying, like squashing food in her hands while saying "squash it, sqeeeeeeeeeeze it" but mostly she is an absolute joy and pleasure; this is such a lovely age I almost don't want her to grow up!

I'm sure there's more, but it will have to be for another post. Better sign off before she realises I've highjacked her account ;)