So you think you can dance?!

tod•dler
t•dl(r); noun, a young child who is just beginning to walk.

Over the last few days, Alice has cemented her role as household clown. No longer understudy to the master, she's become a real "toddler" - apart from in the obvious sense of the word - ie, she's showing no signs of walking.

She now seeks to entertain, by copying sounds or actions or general toomfoolery. Her new favourite song, "The Wheels on the bus", is celebrated by wild dancing. Picture the scene from "Love Actually", where Hugh Grant and his welsh bodyguard sing carols at the front door of a house in Wandsworth while searching for "Tiff" and some children dance in a crazy and rhythm-less manner in the doorway. That's Alice. She has the wipers ("Swish, swish, swish") down pat, thanks to months of Bear Hunt and the swishy swashy grass, and is on her way to making a sound a bit like "chatter" for the Mummies. When the other people on the bus go "Shh, Shh, Shh", she has now learned to put her finger in front of her mouth, but usually manages also to stick it up her nose to great aplomb. The rest of the song is spent rocking out. She was quite delighted when her swimming lesson this weekend had "the children in the pool, they swim, swim, swim" as one of the songs.

This morning, she was swinging on drawers while we tried to get ready for work, repeating words "sock" and "soos" and then in the car, made choking noises. Having secured my concerned attention, she started playing peek-a-boo with a book. Still obsessed with dogs, she points at anything and everything with four legs and yells "doool" (the letter g has temporarily left her vocabulary). The fact that the word is not quite clear, coupled with the fact that Alice can spot a canine at 50 paces is quite fortunate, as I have often thought that she was pointing at passing women and calling out "Dog". The fact of the matter is that she has seen a greyhound 3 blocks away, but I am relieved not to have to explain that, 'Oh yes, good morning. No, I'm terribly sorry; my daughter isn't actually calling you a "Dog"."

She is now into everything, is constantly on the move and wants to eat anything that anyone else is eating at any time of day. I'm taking the opportunity to get her used to food that she hasn't been that keen on before, like pasta and bits of cold chicken.

Still waiting for the real tantrums to start too. And the wanting to do everything herself. At the moment, my little pudding is happy to have most things done for her. Leaves more time for eating.

Editors note - No photos again, I'm afraid. The only time that I sat down over the weekend was for meals, but will make some dedicated photo uploading time soon.