Saturday 18 January 2014

Walkie Talkie Time

Time moves on and so do my grandsons. It was delightful at Christmas, having fourteen-month-old Phynn and two-and-a-quarter year old LHG together at their Aunty Carmela’s house. They'd developed so much, even from the last time they were together, two months earlier.

As I wrote in an earlier blog, Phynn’s parents have had to lay a thick carpet on top of the terracotta tiles in their living room, due to his proclivity for launching himself onto the floor from the settee. Now he can walk properly, his new trick is to climb onto the two beanbags piled up to prevent him getting behind the settee, and launch himself from those onto the settee itself. He still has no fear. At Christmas, with a house full (thirteen at one point), he loved scampering around the chaos, being buffeted by dogs as tall as him. I’m told that barely two weeks after his first half-dozen steps, he insisted on walking all the way around a museum and would not be carried. Mmm, wonder how long the novelty of that will last.

Judging by my experience with LHG, not that long. Although a good little walker, there are many times when he will scoot in front of you and stretch his arms up. That means, “Carry me, please.” Despite his galloping language skills, he doesn’t often express that desire in words. He says an awful lot of other things though. A car journey is full of pointing and observations like, “Red bus. Green tractor. Woo woo [Emergency vehicles]. Bridge.” At the end of the journey there’s the inevitable, “Out. Stuck. Stuck!” at his futile attempts to undo his car seat straps.

I see him at least twice a week and there are always new words to be heard. His sentences are also getting longer, with things like, “Where Pa?”, “There Nonna house,” and, “It rain Nonna car window [it’s raining on Nonna’s car’s windscreen].” And despite so many items now being declared ‘my…’ (my cup, my woo woo or simply, “My!”), his house still remains, “Mummy house”. When that phrase goes from being a statement to a sad lament, we know it’s shorthand for, “I’m tired now and I want to go home to my bed.”

Poor little Phynn got firsthand experience of LHG’s “my” phase at Christmas. As yet he only gazes in bewilderment as the toy he was enjoying is removed from his grasp.

I don’t expect it will be long before he learns to grab it back and without language declare, “No! My!”



 "My!"
(With Great-Grandpa TC)