The L-ster is 2 and a quarter!

Am pushed for time so am going to do a 5 minute stream-of-consciousness brain dump for this month's Leo update.... here goes.... beautiful soft hair getting curlier again as the weather warms up. Has had stinky green cold this week and is good at having his nose blown but also wipes it on things (the sofa, my trousers) and tells me he's doing it! "WIpe nose on sofa.." "What Leo? Oops too late." Using appropriate phrases and unprompted, not just echoing. Eg "Mind head!" (getting into car seat), "Hold on tight" (on swings), "Thank you Mummy nice day" at bedtime etc. Is very good with his sister, generally, but knows (of course) that a never-fail way to get our attention is to give her a quick biff or lie on her, so does that from time to time - very rarely hurts her though. Can almost count to 20 but misses a couple of the teens out often. Walks more than he uses the pram now, and is in charge of gate opening and closing when we go out - holds it open while I push the pram through and then closes it. Helpful little darling!

The last few Saturdays Ben has taken him to the pool and he loves swimming with Daddy, keeps talking about it - knows Saturday is when Ben doesn't go to work and they go swimming. Also talks about today and yesterday. Enjoys cooking, especially mixing - we have made a cake, bread and pizza together this week and the day after the cake he asked Ben if he could have "cake Leo made" for breakfast! When we made bread he kept saying "Put in oven now OK?" at every stage of the proceedings. Has a scooter from the Toy Library and can scoot down the hall "Leo Cooting"! Is climbing like a monkey - can do rope nets at the park, quite high - scares the pants off me, also has done a runner in the park twice this month, and the second time when I caught him up and told him he mustn't run away because it's dangerous (was heading towards a road) he looked at me gravely and said "Road busy, cars coming" little bugger ! Brrrrring! Time's up. And that was 10 minutes not 5! Web album here

26 months

Leo is now 26 mnths old and such a lad. He is taller every time I look at him and a strong, solid boy. You couldn’t call him chubby any more – has changed shape massively over the past year as can be seen if you look back at pics of the visit to England last August.

He now speaks fluent English (!) and pretty much doesn’t stop talking when he’s awake and hanging out with the family, although can be shy and quiet around others. Around the time Angharad was born, I started making a list of words he could say. I haven’t updated it for ages and it’s now pointless doing so because he now knows too many to list and learns them far quicker than I can keep up. He can speak, basically, and comes out with several new words every day and often new concepts / sentence constructions too. He is also parroting things that we say, including his first profanity which was an immediate echo of his potty-mouthed mother. It hasn’t been repeated and I’m being much more careful about what I say….

He’s started being more interested in clothes, sometimes insisting on wearing certain things like his cycle helmet which he wore all afternoon the other day (without going anywhere near a bike) and Big Socks pulled up to his knees. It’s a good look, you’ll surely agree.

Cracking sense of humour, now makes jokes like “Oooh, tiger!” When you say “Tiger? Where?” he shrugs and then wets himself laughing at the confused look on your face. Also does funny voices, and thinks saying "belly button" in different ways is the funniest thing ever (whispering, high pitched, growling). Very good value at the mo – it’s such a fun age.

Extracts from the non-stop chattergram …

“Nice today. Nice on train Mummy.”

“In park Leo, in park Mummy, in park Hadad.”

“Throw stones in water.”

“oooh, BIG splash!”

“Banjo on table / up tree/ Bonzo asleep now”

“Banjo GET DOWN”

“Hadad done BIG poo”

“Leo’s turn!” (evidently it’s always Leo’s turn, and never anyone elses’)

“Mummy Leo fall down”

“Leo running FAST”

(on the train) “Next stop Mummy”

[oh dear, we’ve missed the train] “Next train Mummy”

“Helicopter in sky. White helicopter. Helicopter FAST”

“No poo, just fart”

“Watch Thomas on telly? One more….” (holds 1 finger up for emphasis!!)

“Leo go on naughty cushion now?”

[why are you on the cushion?] “Hit Hadad. Sorry Hadad.”

“Go on train Daddy swim?”

“Red light”

“Click clack” (when doing anything up – seatbelt, chin strap on cycle helmet etc)

"Another tram - 2 trams!"

"Leo crossing road!"

Have done a web album for this month to avoid cluttering up the blog. Seems to be a lot of food featured in it… well he is his mothers’ son in that respect :-)