Gremlin’s Fireside Chat

“Oh My God!!” or better known as OMG was one of the first things I heard this morning; and one uttered by my 2 year 2 month old Daughter Maeve. The cause of the utterance was plain to see when I looked down the stairs and saw Maeve trolley on its side spilling small coloured wooden bricks all over the hall. Maeve’s arms were in the air and the appropriate verbal intonation of surprise and shock was emphasized in her speech. My assumption is that Maeve had tried to push her trolley up the stairs!!

I think that Maeve probably learn’t this phrase in the creche since its is not one my wife or I use that often, but is a good illustration of Maeve’s situational and verbal skills to date – one that continues to amaze and fascinate me. Earlier in the week Maeve and I were waiting in the chinese takeaway with another woman and her young son. I asked how old the lad was and his mom said two-and-a-half years, to which I replied with my daughters age. The mom was surprised because my daughter at the time was dancing around the takeaway dancing and singing to Petula Clarkes “Downtown” tune on my iPhone – Maeve loves learning words and phrases from tunes she finds “catchy” such as: “Downtown” by Petula Clarke, Theme tune to “Ben 10″ (and the associated TV adverts – Maeve is a BIG Ben-10 fan), The “Skye boat song” and “The Wild Mountain Thyme” by “The Corries” to name a few. The lads mom says “I am surprised. My boy can hardly speak”.

The creche told us Maeve insistently tries to speak; most of which she says I admit I don’t understand, but new words are being found all the time. Its something the creche is very good at and I try to help as much as possible – for example we took her down the harbour to look at ships and boats and she can say “ship”,”boat”, “airplane”, “helicopter”,”car”,”bus” etc; and good language skills are something that I feel is the basis of high intelligence. Maeve has come along a long way not only in speech but also in comprehension. Phrases like “take this to mommy/daddy/grandma/grandpa” are understood and Maeve can tell us what she wants to do “go down stairs for bobo (bottle of milk)”,”want food”, “go down stairs to dada”, “ben 10 on TV”, “want a wee wee”,”Wash hands” or sometimes with the appropriate hand gestures as well – “no dada, no!” when I do something she does not like – like singing when she is trying to listen to some music she likes.

This is all fascinating and I want to record it all before I forget. I am beginning to feel this blog is not only for Maeve, but for me and my wife. My wife mentioned a few days ago about reading in my blog about my feelings at Maeve being rushed to hospital with suspected meningitis, or one or two events she had forgotten about. Human memory is a fragile thing at the best of times and prone to faulty recall of events. So I will continue to record things here so when I get older I have things I can look back on with fondness and something to pass on to Maeve to remember her growing up.

I have never really been a fan of the “greeting card invented” days such as “Mothers Day”, “Fathers Day” or “Birthdays” if it comes to that – where is “Grandfathers day” or “Poor Day” I ask; anyway I digress. I had planned to take my wife and daughter to Dublin zoo for some while now and mothers day (provided the weather was good) was an ideal opportunity. It proved to be a treasure. We all enjoyed it – Tigers, Wolves,Elephants and Meerkats being my favourites. The look of sheer joy on Maeves face when she first saw a real monkey was one I will remember for a long time. Maeve ran pretty much all the three hours we spent in the zoo – so for the first time Maeve fell asleep at 19:00 and slept though till 08:00 the next morning.

Here are the latest pictures of my Daughter – she is growing up fast now, and her English is expanding daily:

Potty training at the creche has paid off. Although my daughter has been dragging me to the toilet help her “turn on the light” and “lift her” onto the baby toilet seat cover for a while now; but yesterday was the first time the call for “wee wee” actually resulted in some of the afore mentioned stuff. The funny thing was she was so proud at doing it – as well she should.

I am continuously amazed at how fast she picks things up like words and phrases and has figured out that when I pick up my wallet it usually means I am leaving the house – so she rushes off to put on her shoes and coat (which she can do at 2 years 1 month old) so she can come along.

Its the end of February and my wife is off on her usual monthly business trip to Germany. Naturally this means I do the crèche run – no problem.

Well today on the way home Maeve showed off her new comprehension skills regarding what people say. I know that the crèche have been undertaking word-and-picture flash cards recently because my wife mentioned it and Maeve has been using more and more words like “shower”,”bath”,”fish” and so on recently. Well as I said we were driving on the way home – Maeve in the back – and I said “What is Maeve doing?” to which she replied in clear English “Picking Nose”. True enough when I was looking in the mirror she was well engrossed with that task. A little while later my 2 year old said “Where’s Mommy?” to which I replied “Mommies in Germany for a few days”. A few seconds later Maeve used for the first time the one word that can cause no end of problems – “Why”. “Why” she said … “Because mommy works for a German company” …. “Why” …. “Because she needs to meet people in Germany” … “why” …. and so on. It’s fantastic Maeve understands the meaning of the word “why” and has an inquisitive mind; but I can see that there are going to be some long conversations as she gets older that I need to do some planning for – especially for those uncomfortable questions about why she cannot do something (drink, drive etc) whilst we can.

The clock is ticking and the ticks are getting louder.

I had intended when I started out this blog to talk about more “professional” and technical things about life as an independent software developer contractor, but as my wife pointed out recently my blog is more of an adoration site about our daughter Maeve and her growing up. This is of course true, and I make no apologies for this turn of events. I just love being a father. I know its “not manly” and seems to go against modern “post feminist” thinking, but the truth is I love my daughter and feel no shame about showing it.

Well today we will be off to visit my mom and sister in Meath. Mom has just been released from hospital after a nasty chest infection – TBTG – and its time we made a visit. No doubt Maeve will show them her new verbal skills (more and longer sentences), her ability to put on her own shoes and something which has struck me as odd. Maeve has been trying to write. OK all kids like trying to scribble with a pen on any piece of paper (or surface) she can find. Maeve this week has obviously been writing along the lines of a note pad (just above like when you write) with squiggles small enough not to cross the line above and in groups with space between them. The squiggles are just that – no written words – but they obviously are Maeve’s attempts in that a lot of the “words” in the squiggles are circular joined up shapes and look like some foreign language if you did not know better. The other odd thing is she is writing all this in a right-to-left fashion. Don’t know what that means, but I do remember as a child when I was learning to “write proper” thinking that writing right-to-left was so much more natural and easier than left-to-right.

Okay its time to sign off and enjoy a love hot mug of coffee and a slice of meat loaf I made last night.