Owls

Kate is now eighteen months old and is learning new words every day. Her vocabulary is pretty extensive at this point, including words like star, moon, drink, sun, baby, duck, bunny, meow for cat, raah for lion, mama, da, bird (pronounced like a Brit - "buhd" - our nanny's influence!), car, ball, moo for cow, high-pitched mimi for mouse, bear, pig, please (said ever so sweetly every time she asks for something - so I find it extremely hard to refuse her!) and...................owl.

She learnt to say owl when we were finishing our holiday in France and her grandmother was reading her a Winnie-the-Pooh book. She seems to have fallen in love with Owl. So for two days in the car all we heard was,"ow-wl" over and over and over again. We've been back just over two weeks now and it hasn't stopped. She has determined where all the owls are in the house (you wouldn't believe how many you probably have yourself). She will pick a book out of a pile and turn to me and say,"Ow-wl." I initially doubted there would be an owl in the book but once I started reading it to her I'd see that she was right - an owl would be sitting in a tree, peeking in a window.....I don't doubt anymore.

I've given in. I bought her a little owl soft toy which she kisses all the time. Sometimes the first thing she says in the morning is "ow-wl". When she says owl to me I say owl back. I've never really thought much about owls, but they are growing on me. Like a wart.

Here is a series of pictures of Kate from our holiday. She keeps trying to take the camera away from me.

.....one with Daddy, lookin' cool.....

....and the only one where she looks like me....!