Mike's musings

Hi, Fi!

Fi, my godmother, has just started reading this blog. She hadn't realised before that you can go to one page, and it'll update with the latest each time you visit. And you can backtrack, too. I'm really pleased that she's reading it, so "Hi, Fi!". (Oh, and feel free to add comments!)

Went for a lovely walk today with Jo: around an hour and three quarters, so something a little over 6 and a half miles, probably. I walked to Ridgewell and back via Tilbury (plus a little extra detour), which actually has some up and down bits. It's one of the things about this part of Essex that I like: I used to find the lack of almost any hills around Cambridge rather oppressive, but we have rolling hills here. Jo slept for about three quarters of an hour, and then woke up a little before we got to some cows. We walked through the field they were in, and she got just so excited: "ba, ba, ba!" I noticed as we past some other animals along the way (squirrels, sheep, horses, dogs, etc.) that "ba" is her generic word for any kind of animal. In fact, she saw a horse before I did, and told me about it with a "ba" or two. I'd noticed her saying "ba" to the cats before, but it was interesting to see her being quite consistent about it.

Even more than that, over the past couple of days she seems to be using "mama" and "dada" in a more targeted way. Moo gets "mama", and I get "dada". Not all the time, and she uses the syllables in general conversation, but she rarely says "mama" to me, or "dada" to Moo. For instance, I popped out to the shop to get some milk, and when I came back, Moo said that she'd crawled to the door that I'd just left through, saying "da-da-da". Until she found a leaf to eat, of course.

So, the beginnings of language? I do hope so. I so want to be able to understand a little of what she wants to express. She tells us so much without words already, and I'm sure we'll get even more when she can begin to talk.