I love my Mummy ...

I have been enjoying T's learning to speak much more than any other phase of his development, something probably evidenced with the number of posts on the subject! His learning to walk filled me with stress after he took his first steps and then went back to crawling, not just once but a number of times, and although of course it's been amazing to see him grow exponentially over the last year and a half, this has really happened without me noticing. One day he was a babe in arms, the next he was standing tall. I must have had my back turned for five minutes and didn't notice until it was too late.

There are still new words at a rate of knots. He's made up his own name for Grandpa (my husband's father) - papa. He has been saying 'pandpa', a much closer attempt at the 'proper' word, for months now, but this version seems to have stuck.

I only have to tell him something once or twice before he can repeat it ad nauseum. Current favourite words are carpark (which, very sweetly, always comes out as parcark) and helicopter (hey-co-ter). I imagine he likes the feel of the words in his mouth, rolling the letters around on his tongue and enjoying my repeating them back to him. All we need now is to get him to remember that you always keep hold of Mummy's hand in the aforementioned carpark, and to actually do it!

There have been some words I have longed to hear, although I honestly didn't realise they'd come not from the mouth of my beloved son, but from Martin Waddell.

Do you know the story Owl Babies? It's one of T's favourites, evidenced by the fact that I can now recite it from start to finish without looking at the pages, and often do to calm down a fractious toddler whilst out and about. T joins in of course. I leave a blank and he fills in the words he knows.

Once there were THREE baby owls, Sarah, Percy and Bill. They lived in a hole in the trunk of a TREE with their owl mother. The hole had twigs and leaves and owl feathers in it. It was their 'OUSE!

We read it again yesterday. T laughs at my 'Bill' (baby owl) voice, doing a great impression of 'I want my Mummy' at the appropriate points. We turned to the last page, owl mother safely returned to the children who had missed her too much.

What's all the fuss, their owl mother asked. You knew I'd come back.
'I knew it' said Sarah
'and I knew it' said Percy

'I love my Mummy' said T, clear as a bell. But just in case I misunderstood who was actually saying these words he followed it with the last two from the story ...

'said Bill'

I think in years to come I'll edit this memory, changing it in my mind, shortening it slightly, topping and tailing it as it were and stopping just a second or two early. The first time T told me he loved me, just before those eight extra characters spoilt all my fun!