Where does the time go?

Affy was two last week. Already. We had a lovely little birthday tea to celebrate with friends Olivia and Joseph and their big sisters Bella and Abbie.

Affy is learning so many tricks and seems so grown up these days. Language development is of course fascinating and she now talks in full sentences and can pretty much get herself understood when she wants to, which is a real pleasure, mostly! Sometimes you need to be well practised to understand: “tapa” for “pasta” – definitely her favourite food, “gettie” for spagetti” and “molk” for milk. She still uses “my” for “I”. “My do it myself” is a favourite sentence. “Peas” means “please” and until recently she used it to mean “I want something”, which was nice to hear. However, she’s definitely mastered the phrase “I want” now, so I’m sure “please” will be out of the window for a while at least. “moo moo” has recently become a clearer “moothie” and “ololololo” is now definitely “olives”, so I can tell she’s learning fast.

She’s a bit of a food fuss pot at the moment, but I’m working hard to expand the repertoire. She’ll happily eat lentils, rice, pasta of course, baked potatoes, sausages and meat, but isn’t that keen on vegetables. However, she’s very keen on satsumas, grapes and apples and sometimes bananas so hopefully she gets enough vitamins eating those for now.

Physically Affy has also come on in leaps and bounds. Thanks to Fabio’s coaching she can now use Stella’s Scooter – which Stella didn’t learn how to use until she was four. She’s a demon in the playground and particularly likes hanging from the monkey bars which gives me a heart attack when I turn around and find her dangling about four feet from the ground with no obvious escape route other than downwards!

I take Affy swimming every week when Stella has lessons. I’m supposed to get in for Stella and so I take Affy in too. Affy is hilarious and thinks she can swim just like the big girls and to be honest, her confidence might pay off. She walks around in the toddler pool even though her chin barely comes above the water and can kick with the help of a float and move quite fast. She’s not concerned if she goes under the water either.

Affy goes to Little Buds three days a week now, one full day and two afternoons. She seems to really enjoy it and cries on the days when Stella goes and she doesn’t. She’s soon consoled, especially if Liz turns up. Liz is her babysitter who she is absolutely potty about. She’ll often say to me hopefully – “Liz coming?” – and has been known to cry if I say no.

Like her sister Affy loves to read books but she’s also really keen on building blocks. She got lots of duplo for her birthday and can amuse herself for quite a while building towers with it.

As I’ve been so rubbish at updating the blog here are some photos from the past six months: mainly from our summer holidays in Cornwall and Italy and the Lakes.