English as a foreign language

Emily is now 21 months old and her vocabulary is expanding with every day and whilst some of it is amusing, some cute, some confusing (for both of us), some however is...erm...well lets just say it's not suitable for pre-watershed.


Now I have been making valiant attempts to think about everything I say before I say it, which is truly exhausting at times! And I am constantly berating those around me everytime some one lets slip an obscenity. And I honestly never realised what a foul mouthed, obscenity uttering family I come from and my friends aren't much better! 


However what I did not account for are the words, that if pronounced incorrectly, could be portrayed rather badly. Especially if we were, for example, in a public place with lots of people within earshot! 


So the word 'Coat' my daughter has trouble pronouncing it properly. And I bet you can probably guess where I am going with this one. Yes in the middle of the pub on a Saturday lunch-time, post food and about to leave my daughter points and announces, rather loudly,


 "Look mama, dada's cock"! 

Embracing your inner child...

So post Christmas my house now resembles an aisle in Toys R Us, every shelf, surface and available space has toys of every nature rammed onto or into it! Emily now has two toys boxes, both full and yet somehow my lounge floor space has still strunk and I already removed the coffee table last year. Most of the lounge is taken up by a huge, pink, trampoline (kindly donated and I mean this most sincerely, by a family friend), numerous items that Emily will either push around or sits on while I push her around, books, building blocks, jigsaws, teddies, a pretend till that actually has a scanner that makes the bleeping noise (no...really!), a play kettle - one of two she received, the other living upstairs in her play kitchen with a play toaster, play washing machine, play ironing board, a dolly's cot, dressing up clothes, fairy costumes (x 2), a magnetic drawing board, more books, teddies, teddies, teddies, teddies, did I mention teddies? A Waybaloo Nok Tok, Tickle me Elmo and on and on and on. You get the idea. Do I really only have one child? I keep expecting at least another one or two to appear from somewhere.


So you would have thought with all this to amuse her she would embrace hours of fun filled entertainment. However being, as yet, an only child (despite my suspicions that there may be more children around here somewhere), mummy becomes play mate to her doting daughter. So my days are now filled with not just real domestic chores but pretend ones also. I mean really, trust me ironing is still ironing even when it's pretend!


However I have to say that it's hard not to embrace your inner child, when decked out in fairy wings, sitting in the middle of your little girls bedroom being served imaginary food on plastic plates and drinking imaginary tea out of cups that smell suspiciously like apple juice. Even I have to admit that maybe it's just better to 'go with it' sometimes. Besides it beats the hell out of tackling the real piles of washing up waiting for you downstairs.


And I know I am not alone. Come on hands up, how many of you stood imaging yourself playing with your children's toys before purchasing them? Yes, yes you know who you are! And why not, we all need an excuse to behave like the children we still are, on occasion. Otherwise life just gets a little bit too serious.


Although I do have just one question;


"How come I still get left with the imaginary washing up??!" 

To a new year and another chance for us to get it right.

So we are officially into a new decade and the beginning of 2011. Whilst all that is great, I am just happy to have survived my first term at College, my first family Christmas at the new, owned not rented, family home, my first cooking of the Christmas dinner and my first proper full year as a mum.

It has been a year full of firsts actually, first birthday party, first steps, first duvet, first words and now we even have full sentences on occasion and Emily is also doing very well in learning to talk...ha, ha, ho, ho. First full nights sleep...again... and you all know how much I like my sleep! 

It has also been a year to see the end of many things, the end of sterilising, the end of formula, the end of dummies, the end of having to carry my daughter everywhere because she is 10 months old and still cannot crawl!! And let it be known that Emily is a lot heavier than most children her age...trust me I have held other children to test this theory (children I know of course I don't just go about randomly picking up other peoples children because...well that would be strange and would probably get me arrested...anyway). Yes we have discovered the joys of walking and running and movement in general and now she never stops, moving I mean. Emily has two settings, on and off! The only time she doesn't move is when she's asleep and even then she is quite the wriggler at times.  

So, I am not one for resolutions, they seem so obviously fallible and I just set myself up for failure, instead I look to the new year with hope in my heart and a spring in my step. Courage renewed and the will to fight another day. I welcome the changes that are around the corner. I will endeavour to put right what went wrong this year.  I look forward to all the new challenges we will face. I embrace the terrible twos that are creeping ever closer, day by day, like a little cloud looming somewhere on the horizon and I even welcome the prospect of turning 30 in February and the little lines that are starting to permanently creep across my forehead...well okay I am working on those last two!