...ck...

By George, she's got it - finally the "ck" sounds escapes Alice's lips. Bless her little Cotton soCKs, she can now ask for Cuddles (rather than "duddles" [generic, anyone picking her up will do], "muddles" [a cuddle from Mummy] or "daddles" [a cuddle from Daddy]), accurately describe duCKs and booKs, and provide a running commentary during a power cut each time the outer hallway light-on-a-60 second-auto-off-switch went out (annoyingly often when you have your head in a fuse box): "darK".

She is so excited by this new sound that she practises it at every opportunity, combined with whatever other group of letters and enunciations that take her fancy - they don't have to be real words and they don't have to be words that she has heard before - she just babbles away, rhapsodising on a theme of "CK".

Mostly it's cute. Yesterday however, in a twist of fate, one of the daycare ladies remarked that Alice, during one of these oratories, had "dropped the f-bomb".

At 16 months! Ah, the shame.