Week 43

16th -  22nd October 2005

Emma's Entry

The day has taken its toll on Evan and he zonks out...

Evan absolutely adores the cats and he just won't leave them alone now. If he is on the floor and they come into view, he's off, following them around laughing and being generally noisy. He doesn't mean to scare them, he just wants to be able to touch them. The problem is, he is quite heavy handed and also very loud and excitable around them that it just scares them. If we are there to help him stroke them, it's ok, but most of the time he just follows them as they are just that little too quick for him. He'll follow them right up to the cat flap. They disappear outside and his attention then turns to the cat flap and he'll just sit there pushing it open! Meal times are usually quite funny if Evan is still awake. He eats his dinner earlier whilst at nursery so we tend to eat at the table with him playing on the floor next to us and when Cleo (one of our cats) sits next to us begging, Evan turns his attention to her and they will just go round in circles around the table.

Evan is generally more vocal and loud these days, though we still don't have real words yet. The closest we have is "splash". Every evening when we bath Evan all I have to say is "Evan, splash mummy" or "splash, splash" and he knows exactly what I mean. He will launch into this tirade of kicks and splat his hands down into the water causing some tremendous splashes. If he gets his whole body bouncing, it turns into a wave that can actually pour over the edge of the bath drowning me and the bathroom in the process. Well this week he actually started to copy me and he says something that sounds like splash but it's actually more like: "stash, stash".

Ooh what shall I play with - the crisp packet or the camera case?

Evan is more into his silly sounds (just like me) than into actual words. His says "da da" a lot and "yah yah". All those daddy's that think babies say "daddy" first are misinformed, it must just be a natural progression onto sounds that makes babies say "da da" because we've never mentioned the daddy word and even Evan knows how to say it :), so I am pretty sure he has no idea what he is saying when he says "da da". The sounds that he is making are really quite funny and usually make me laugh lots of attempt to mimic him. He can do this kind of cool growl that sounds like "gaaahhhhh" or "aaaagghhhh" but saying it in the back of your throat so it's all husky and growl like. This week he has started clucking with his tongue and I have no idea where he picked that up from because neither Caroline or I have made that noise in front of him before.

I haven't really sat down with him repeating words to him and showing him objects along with the word but I have started doing that a little more. When we play with the ball or the stacking cups, I'll reference the word ball and cup a lot. I have no idea if I am doing the right thing but together we'll learn eventually.

A memorable event this week was getting Evan his first pair of shoes. He hasn't worn any footwear to date and he found the introduction of shoes to his feet very bizarre. We only use them outside when he is playing at nursery, though he is "wearing them in" in the picture above. It was funny at first because he spent ages just grabbing them, then he tried to eat them and now finally he can just about cope with them on his feet whilst crawling. Standing and walking with our aide is more tricky as they make his feet feel heavier than what he was previously used to.

Emma