General Update

Jessicat is now 17 months old! She is loving her new found mobility. Her favourite activity of the moment is to go outside and pick dandelions or daisies, or put pebbles in a bucket. When the weather is warm, this means I can sit outside with her and flick through a magazine whilst she amuses herself pottering around. Less enjoyable are the tantrums that ensue when we bring her back indoors, but you can't have it all....

I must confess that I have become very slack about letting Jessicat watch TV. I am ashamed to say that she probably watches about an hour of CBeebies a day. Favourite programmes include In the Night Garden, Teletubbies, Razzle Dazzle and Something Special. I hope I am slighty redeemed by the fact that we buy a lot of the magazine tie-ins for these programmes to spend time doing sticking and colouring together.

Jessicat babbles away to us now. It sounds like proper speech. She can say yes or no clearly, and has no problem in letting us know her mind! She attempts to say many words - eg bird, moon, bubble, fruit flakes etc - but often only manages the inital consonant. No sign yet of her beginning to link words together, but hopefully this is not far away now she is so talkative. She also seems much more cheeful and less shy at the moment; I just hope this carries on.

I am in the process of recovering from another nasty cold, which may account for the slightly downbeat tone of this latest update. I just hope Jess does not succumb. Back soon hopefully with more cheerful news.

Back to basics....

...with a few simple but well crafted and enjoyable books aimed at babies and toddlers:

Bedtime - Tony Ross. My little madam enjoys reading about the little princess!

Going to Bed Book - Sandra Boynton. Very enjoyable for both of us.

Who's There Spot? - Eric Hill.

Busy Babies Go to the Gym - Jane Kemp. Jessicat seems to show less interest in animals now (once a favourite topic) and more fascination with the activities of other toddlers, so books like this which focus on the daily activities Jess herself participates in go down well. Bit dull for adults to keep reading though.

Baby Loves Peekaboo - at least this has sturdy cardboard flaps to withstand Jess's handling.

Toddlerdom hits with a vengeance

As well as a highly mobile little girl, we have one who knows how to throw a tantrum! Aaargh!!! A typical flashpoint at the moment would be us telling Jessicat that she can't go out to the back garden for some reason. This leads to up to 30 minutes of sobbing and angry yelling. Gulp. But, Jess often manages to be totally adorable just a short while after. She looks so cute toddling around, beaming at people with pride in her own mobility (though desperately shy if they dare to come too close), and is so loving that she melts my heart.

So it's a time of contrasts at the moment. Reading is not high on Jessicat's agenda - there is too much exploring and emptying to be done. Our main times for sharing books now seems to be mealtimes. We still have a huge pile sat on the dining room table that we make our way through regularly, and when I am bored with these, I intersperse new books that we've picked up from the library. Nursery rhymes continue to be much loved, and Jessicat really enjoys joining in with the actions now.

Books (and a glass of wine or port and lemon) are still my salvation at the end of a fractious day. At the moment, I am devouring the Alice books by Susan Juby; I can only describe them as a sort of Canadian version of Adrian Mole. Shelved on the young adult section, they probably won't be noticed by a lot of people - what a sad waste.