My Baby...

One day last week, I collected S from nursery, and she seemed to have grown noticeably, since I dropped her off. Just lately, she has been growing up and learning new things at a rate of what seems like a mile a minute: 

• She used to sit quietly in the pushchair when we walked into town, perhaps reading one of her books. Now she sits up, pointing out doors, cars, bikes, dogs, cats. 

• When we get to the shops, she demands, "out!" and takes my hand to drag me around.

• When we go into the supermarket, she demands a banana. 

• She tells me which colour she's using to draw all over the floor. 

• She has learned to ask for Mr Tumble (though she calls him Mummle). 

• Asking for a drink has gone from "nuck" to "too" to "dink" in the space of a couple of weeks. The first time she said "dink" her face lit up, like she knew she'd finally hit the nail on the head!

• She can unzip her coat and pull it off.

• She can mostly hold her umbrella over her head all the way to nursery.

All of this, seemingly overnight.

On the one hand, it's a bit *sniff* that I no longer have a tiny baby I can cradle in my arms and coo at... 

I know babies have growth spurts; I read all about wonder weeks, and I've written essays on toddler vocabulary spurts... but this, I was not prepared for. It's kinda fun! She loves to say her new words and watch my face. We walk down the street shouting, "Car! Tree! Cat! Dog!"

I've just downloaded the Timehop app to my mobile. It's been very weird to look at it each day and see what I was updating last year, two years ago, three years ago. This time in 2010, I was having a breakdown. This time in 2012, I was a petrified new mother. If at either of those times, you had told me I would have spent yesterday afternoon with my two-year-old, reading "Mummle" and Dear Zoo, I would have laughed at you. 

It's so lovely to see my baby growing up, to see her learning new words, new things, new sounds. 

And yeah, I did this. Would you just look at what I made!