Twenty-One Months

Wow, only three months till Daisy's two! News this month is that she's started going to nursery one day a week, on a Thursday. It's a lovely place just at the end of our road and she's settling in really well there. Her key worker is Laura and the other two staff members in Daisy's age group are Carla and Louise, and they're all great. The first week was quite difficult - more for me than for Daisy :). She started to cry when we got to the nursery in the morning (she'd been for three settling-in sessions so knew where she was, and also knew that I'd be leaving soon), and I felt guilty about leaving her and started tearing up myself. When she saw that I was upset she cried even more, so after some sympathy from the staff members they suggested that I just leave and she'd be fine. Sure enough, I called the nursery after half an hour and was told she'd cried for a couple of minutes and had been absolutely fine since then. She did have a moment at nap time as it's a lot different from the way she naps at home - it's much earlier, for a start; they put them down at noon, whereas she naps from 13:30 till 15:00 at home, plus the room wasn't as dark as she's used to, but Carla lay down with her and cuddled her till she fell asleep, and she slept for an hour. When I went to pick her up I took a look in the window before going in the room and she was running round with the other kids, perfectly happy. When she saw me, I half-expected her to cry, but she just said, 'Hello Mummy. Daisy draw a picture!'

Daisy's speech is slowly moving from one- and two-word phrases to slightly longer sentences. For instance, she now asks where something's gone: rather than 'where ball?' she now asks 'where's the ball gone?' She's also learning her right and left, and while she hasn't quite got it sussed yet (if you ask her which foot this is, she almost always says the right one, regardless of whether it's the right or left), she's definitely getting there. I keep having to watch how I praise her - my usual phrase is 'that's right!' but I don't want to confuse her when she correctly identifies her left foot... ;).

She has a couple of really cute phrases that make me laugh every time she says them - evidently if I inadvertently knock her or something, I say 'Oops! Sorry darling', because if she does something to warrant an 'Oops', such as dropping something, she says 'Sorry darling' straight after it :). She got some new slippers last month with dogs on them, and she started calling them 'goggies' instead of slippers. This progressed to us saying 'shall we put your doggies on?' to her now calling them her 'goggie-ons'. She's also started to pre-empt my praising her for doing something really good by saying 'Wen [well] done Daisy!'

This month she's consolidated her love for Peppa Pig, and can sometimes be heard singing the theme tune, although she won't do it when I get the video camera out :). She loves muddy puddles, as Peppa does, and when we go 'gidding' [digging] in the garden she spends a lot of time splashing through any puddle she can find. If there aren't any, she likes it when I pour water onto the mat we have in front of the shed, which has a lip all around it so the water can't escape, and she uses that as a muddy puddle instead. She has developed a taste for the Muppets, which is something Jon was happy to have cultivated but now wishes he hadn't been quite so successful as the 'Best of the Muppets' DVD we have is getting very worn very quickly... She can say Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzy Bear, Gonzo and Rolf, and she calls them the 'Nup-pets'.

When I ask her to listen to me, I sign the word 'listen' at the same time as saying the word, by cupping my hand round my ear. She now does her version too, which involves opening her eyes as wide as possible, touching her cheek with her fingers and saying 'Sen!'

Our bedtime routine now includes songs as well as story time. Her current favourite books are The Very Hungry Caterpillar puppet book, 'Doctor Daisy' and her Story Town friends 'Queen Clara' and 'Teacher Tina'. Her favourite songs are Five Speckled Frogs and Five Little Ducks, and my favourite is a Sing & Sign one called 'Open Shut' because the last line is 'Now I need a cuddle' and she throws her arms around my neck ;). I'll try and get her on video singing it. She really doesn't perform on demand - the other day I distinctly heard her singing 'Lighty budda dweam' (Row, row, row the boat), but as soon as I suggested that we sing it together, she said 'No' and that was that :). I have, however, managed to take videos of these three songs/rhymes over the past month.

Finally, she weighs 22lbs 9oz, so for the majority of clothes retailers, she still easily fits into 9-12 month clothes, which are usually up to 25lbs. I love my tiny little girl!