May update

Leo is very good value at the moment, he keeps doing things that I want to remember and write down but I'm sure I've forgotten half of them! Here goes.

Non-stop chatting He still loves telling stories. Language development is so fascinating - I find it intriguing that he gets (maybe not consciously) that there are text types, and that story language is different to informal spoken language. For example a few weeks ago we were in the car, and he was flicking through 'Touch and Feel Kittens' which is a factual picture book. He made up a whole kitten-based story, which I can't remember all of, but it started "Once there was a kitten, who loved roses" (how gorgeous is that??) and the end was something about "and, sure enough..." blah blah blah. Anyway the point being that those are not words/ constructions we often use in normal speech. He also likes to tell jokes (over and over and over and over again... ooh my sides are splitting). He has two main genres of joke: mixed-up animals ("a kanga-pig?"), or replacing words in a song, sentence or rhyme with "poo" (bet Granny loves that one) or with things around him at the time. The other day he came home from occasional care, and when I asked him what he'd been doing he told me that he'd sung "'Teletubbies say eh-poo' to Will, and that was my joke."

I also find it incredible how the brain just soaks up vocabulary, and files it away in the right place to be trotted out and wow your mother at an appropriate time... earlier this week he was drinking out of a pink beaker and when he'd finished he stuck it over his face and said "look Mummy I'm a pig" ("yes dear, oink oink") "Yes, this is my pink snout"!! One of the neighbours gave him a tambourine last week and after bashing it for a while, he put it on his head and said, "is a hat like a catten." "A hat like a what?" I said. " "Like a catten. A catten of a boat." It really did look like a captain's hat as well, with a ribbon around it. The next day he was driving a box around the floor and 'it is a ferry going very fast on the water, and there is a captain on the ferry, he is the driver.' I can't remember any other gems although there are lots of them! He seems to use 'last week'/ 'next week' as past / future - he's used 'last week' to refer to something that happened this morning or months ago! This morning we were talking about balls (as you do) and he said "remember when my ball went on the train track last week?" (that happened in January).

Favourite books and toys Trains are still #1, he always has a track laid out on his bedroom floor and will happily play with it by himself for a good while. We've recently got a few more Aussie animals to go with his set, and they're currently in with the train track too so sometimes in his running commentary you'll hear "stop penican (pelican) stop, is a train coming!" or "is a platypus on the bridge!" Loves playdough, cooking (real and pretend), and playing with a little bit of flour on the table making tracks, patterns and swirls. A prolific painter, loves rollers and mixing colours ("mix mix mix... I making a lighter shade" "a lighter shade..yes dear"... see what I mean about appropriate vocabulary??). Current top books: Ginger by Charlotte Voake, which he calls the Bonzo book - because it really is about Ginger Bonzo from the Bins, it's uncanny. "His ears were black with dirt, and his tail was like a piece of string." From Head to Toe by Eric Carle - so cute when he kicks like a donkey.

Fave food Nothing particularly new to report other than that he loves eggs and asks for them all the time, and would eat far more than is healthy if I let him... he often has a hard-boiled egg or two for lunch when we're out and about, and also loves omelette. He loves helping to make omelette (he cracks the eggs for me), and the other day told me exactly how you do it: "We going to crack egg in bowl and mix egg and egg is orange and we cook some egg and is very hot."