Gremlin’s Fireside Chat

Maeve, like most children her age is coming along in leaps and bounds. There are many sights to be interesting in, concepts to be learned and the slippery complex task which is speech mastered. Maeve has shown definite progress in these area’s in acquiring new words and has started stringing simple sentences together along with showing understanding of simple instructions and expectations of other people.

A simple example would be Maeve in the last couple of days has picked up the words “Help” and “Tower” – the latter usually said when she is building a tower of large lego like bricks to impressive heights. This evening my Archos hand-held music/video/browser which Maeve likes to watch childrens movies on ran out of battery juice and needed recharging. Maeve came across and grabbed my hand and said “Help Me” in a clear voice; I said “and” to which she replied “Please”. She also likes to come over to me and throw her arms out and say “carry me”.

This week I have started to ask Maeve to put her toys away before she goes to bed. I say “Put away X” and normally she understands and moves the offending item from the floor to someplace like her toy box. Maeve also can understand and to correctly respond to questions like “where are your shoes”, “find your shoes”, “Find your bobo” (Bobo = feeding bottle or mug) and “go to bed”. Needless to say her favourite word is still “no” although other new words seem to be “socks” and “spoons” have started to appear (along with Panda,Lion, Elephant,Dog,Cat and Ben-10) and she shows the basics of counting (2-6) when she walks down the stairs.

Maeve as every is a happy loving daughter who loves to smile and has a ready dirty laugh.

I thought that I had a decade or two until my daughter (now 23 months old) discovered boys. As a father I now understand the perils of men – we only after one thing, but I had thought that I had a decade or two before all I became was “the taxi service”. This was shattered this evening when my wife mentioned in passing that when she went to pick up Maeve from the creche on Friday it was mentioned our Daughter was “very friendly and affectionate” and even “had a boyfriend” since one of the staff had seen her hugging and kissing some other boy in the creche.

I know that girls mature fast these days…. but Lord let them learn to speak a language first!!!

- New words of the day “Penguin, Sword and Tower”.

Maeve has shown some new skill’s and traits in the last couple of days she did not have before. Firstly she has started to sing – unfortunately it is the song “I love you, you love me, were one big family” .. by that purple horror Barney the Dinosaur; But she can sing. Also Maeve understand how keys work and that if you turn them clock-wise the door is locked and if you turn it anti-clockwise you unlock the door. This means of course we have to hide all the keys where Maeve cannot get them. I have this nasty mental picture of locking us out of a room and not allowing us in.

Finally on another linguistic/world-model level Maeve started yesterday to use the words “my” and “me” for the first time – and in the right context; For example: when grabbing a toy panda back from me she said “my panda”, and when shown some photo’s of herself and asked “who is that” she said “me”.

Finally Maeve’s bright ginger hair has started growing and thickening. No longer does Maeve look like her bald father.

Maeve is coming along nicely in most respects – she can answer simple questions like “who are we waiting for” (mommy is the answer) and make observations like “Mommy’s gone” “BoBo Apple Please” (Bottle of apple juice please). Although “No” is he favourite answer to most things she is a real treasure.

On the downside, driving home from the creche yesterday I saw in the rear view mirror Maeve pickling her nose and eating the snot – gross.

Maeve was 21 months old last Friday… and what an independent mischievous little lady she has become. She can walk and run; Always seems to have a ready smile and a giggle for anyone. This morning she surprised us by counting from 2 till 8 when she walked down the stairs with me guarding the way. The reason Maeve started with 2 was when she made the first step I said “one” … the rest was all her own doing. He mom was a witness Very much proud parents.

Anyway here is a picture I took in the car when she finally fell asleep.

… I do wish we could get rid of the “doody” (as they are called in Dublin) from her mouth. Apart from that I like the whole strong shadow look.

The following week is going to be tough since I will be in Romania on a business trip and it will be the first time I will have spent any time away from my Daughter..