More words, and a tiff over the TIF

This is so exciting, in the last couple of days we've had T's first sentences and more new words!

Last night, T was in the bath with Daddy. I usually do the getting out, holding whilst he brushes his teeth (no-one is allowed to help beyond putting the paste on the brush) and babygrow-ing. At the moment he's also taking antibiotics though, plus Minadex buildy-up syrup to try and give him some energy back, and we're giving him ibuprofen before bed because he's still not 100%. My husband needed to hold T whilst I shot the medicine into his mouth with the syringe, hopefully sufficiently fast that he couldn't spit it out afterwards. We do this in the bath to catch the sticky syrup which almost always escapes, and to allow easy cleaning up. 2.5ml of Amoxycillin went in, success. 5ml of Minadex was less easy, it tastes better, but with a larger amount I need to keep him still for longer. I reloaded the syringe for the third and final time with the viscous Nurofen for Children and, as I approached the bath again, T very clearly said 'what's that one?' ... not just one word, but three!!

I had thought it might be a fluke, but no, his next sentence (well, two adjoining words) followed soon afterwards. T was on his back on the floor in his room. I was distracting him whilst I applied his exzema cream. Once he starts to wriggle mid-creaming I've had it, he's sooo slippery! To that end I was singing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' whilst he opened and closed his hands, doing the actions. I got to the end of the first section ('...how I wonder what you are') and paused to pump another glug of emollient into my palm. At this point T flung his arms into the air for the next line of the song and said, clear as a bell 'up above'. I was agog, of course it is! The cream dripped from my hand onto the carpet, and before I could collect myself together and complete the line he'd started ('Up above the world so high ...') he'd noticed my attention was elsewhere and had flipped over and super-crawled off. By the time I'd wiped my hands and gathered him up in the towel, he'd done a wee on the carpet. Harumph.

Today we met friends at the Manchester Christmas Markets . It was cold cold cold, and the grotesque bowling ball style Father Christmas over the Town Hall entrance lacked the warmth of the blow-up version who peeked over the apex of the roof when I was young. There was plenty to look at though, and despite T's best tantrums when I wouldn't give him the whole of my still-warm macaroon, we had a lovely time. Over noodles at Wagamama at lunchtime, T reached for a pot of colouring implements to draw on his 'noodle doodle' children's menu, and very clearly said 'crayon'. That's a pretty cool word to use isn't it? None of your one syllable nonsense, this is proper vocab!

Back at home, things are almost as frosty as outdoors. If you're a Greater Manchester resident, you have until 10 pm tomorrow to return your vote on the TIF proposals, whether you think the 10 Greater Manchester authorities should bid to the Government's Transport Improvement Fund for money to improve public transport in the region, improvements which would be part funded by a peak time congestion charge. I am voting yes. Traffic in Manchester is atrocious. Journey times are the slowest in the UK, even worse than London. This is my city. I love it for its people, passion and places. Places that, if we don't do something, will become surrounded with nose-to-nose cars, each pumping out noxious fumes, meaning no picnics in the park on summer days, no games of rounders on the school fields, no walks through town and village centres, pottering in and out of the shops. Road use cannot continue to grow at its current rate. End of.

My husband however, is voting no. He is worried how we'll bear the cost, an extra £25 a week, £100 a month, for him to drive into the city. The TIF bid promises the charge wont be brought in until public transport improvements have been made. In Ramsbottom though, we're not on the map. No, seriously. Although we live in Greater Manchester and have been balloted on the proposals, Ramsbottom, a thin Christmas-tree shaped wedge extending North of Bury, isn't even represented on the official information which has accompanied our voting papers. Our options will remain the same, TIF or no. The (expensive) bus to the (expensive) metrolink to town. Why should he pay for something which will make no positive difference to his life?

Ignoring the fact that actually our votes will have cancelled each other out, and will therefore have no impact on the result, on Friday we'll find out which of us has picked the winning side.