Audrey Beautiful

Audrey is growing and changing every day lately, becoming more of a little person than ever. She toddles about clinging on to furniture/people, still not quite brave enough to strike out by herself unless she's sufficiently distracted that she forgets to be nervous. She plays more and more with the other children at our various baby groups and has her own opinions on things. I love to see her independence and spirit as much as I love the clingy, cuddly moments where all she wants is mama.

She fell and got a bump on her head last weekend that had us on the phone to the doctor in floods of tears, however the doctor reassured us that she was absolutely fine and gave us a list of (rather frightening) symptoms to watch out for to make sure she didn't have concussion - she showed none of them and in fact had a rather lovely, if quiet, weekend.

She's recognising people more and more lately - happy to see them, sad to see them go. She has this adorable way of saying "Ooooh!" at interesting things, which she's presumably learnt from us doing the same to her to show her something cool. It happens a lot at the library, in the beloved children's corner with the tatty duplo and the hanging paper butterflies made by the school age children's craft groups, and the purple hippo full of baby books.

"Ooooh!"

Oh how she loves books. It gladdens me to see it. If there was one thing I could give her, like the fairies at the beginning of Sleeping Beauty, it would be a love of literature. Books she likes recently include the "That's not my..." series (that's not my rabbit! His tail is too fluffy). She likes books with pictures of dogs, books which rattle or ring, books with different textures to feel, books with pictures of babies and books with pictures of lions and elephants. We go 2-3 times a week and swap our current favourites for new ones, which are then read over and over again before we make the next trip.

The library is a fantastic resource, we buy a lot of books for her (especially from second hand book shops) but there's just no way we'd be able to keep up with how fast she goes through them if it weren't for the library. Plus it's a great open space for her to crawl around and practice walking and interact with the other children.

Notice the cute dress which I made myself, oh yes! (I'm proud of it, can you tell?) Sewing is so not my thing, knitting is my thing. But I had an idea for a cute dress and some fabric lying around in my craft box, so I had a go. And I'm quite pleased with it!

Some of Audrey's favourite things lately:

Taking things off shelves. Like, everything she can reach. And she's so tall now, she can reach things you wouldn't expect!

Hitting the cats and pulling their tails quite horribly. We say "Audrey! Gently, gently," and take her hand and show her how to stroke them nicely. She finds this hilarious and returns the favour, picking up our hands and making us stroke them too.

Any soft animal toy, but especially a rabbit puppet of Ian's that she drags around everywhere by one ear and holds out to people. "Make it come alive!" When we make it nod and wave, shake her hand and whisper in her ear, she squeals laughter.

Trouble has just this moment learnt how to open our chinchilla's cage. So I think that's my cue to go!