Penguins

I should explain the penguin days title. Payeh the penguin is Nina's "soft toy" - like her security blanket, I guess. I can't even really remember how it started but it was in November of last year. I remember we were at a friend's house, and she was describing how her baby had taken up this cat to feel secure in his bed. And I read somewhere that you can encourage them to pick a favourite toy by supplying a few and seeing if they attach to one. It was probably in the 'No cry sleep solution' book; the whole crying-it-out thing really never worked for us. Anyway we had this cute little penguin, and we left it in her cot, and she tried to call it 'penguin' but it came out 'payeh'. And that was that. She'd go off every day with it, it helped her sleep and especially to get back to sleep if she woke up. It got all bedraggled and eventually we got another one because it would have been such a disaster if it had been lost. And the new one looked so clean and fluffy and we thought, how could that even have been the same toy? So I took a picture of the two of them. When she got the second one she was delighted, laughed, and put them together. They kissed tenderly and made friends, very sweet, and then she flung them both to the floor and giggled. Now only a couple of months later, she doesn't take Payeh with her when she goes out, and doesn't really ask for him at night, though we always put him in and usually his clean little friend too. And, worst of all: she called him "Pengie". So already those penguin days are fading. It's such a paradox, and I know it's not exactly a headline - but how can my baby have become this sentence-uttering, tantrum-throwing, penguin-independent jumping toddler in an almost unobserved instant, when the hour between 5:30 and 6:30 is so LONG?


Ok, so, funny things recently: apparently she has just gotten over this, but there's been a phase where you'd point to all the people in the room - that's Oscar, that's Eva, that's Joejoe, that's Mummy - and then point to her chest and say, and who's that? and she'd say "Coat!". 


First sentence: "Mama. Back. Trip."  (that was in December. My trip to Finnish Lapland was a big deal). She then went though this great phase of "I LOVE papa! I LOVE mama!", which has sadly stopped for now.  And a recent sentence: "Look, Mummy! I foun' a cracker!" (munch munch). Yep, you stowed that one away for a good while.