I haven't got a speech problem, Mum has a hearing problem

I was in my toyshop today (will post photo soon). I was washing up and asked Mummy, "Ah watt to dye ny has wif a tow."
Mummy: "You want to buy a house with a cow?"
Me: "Nono. Ah watt to dye ny hans wif a towl."
Mummy: "Oh, you want to dry your hands with a towel. OK, hold on, I'll get you one." And she ran upstairs. Honestly, wasn't I clear the first time? I mean, parents don't geddit. She's soooo deaf.

Back home

When I got back to Boobie and Zaida's, lots of furniture had been moved round from when I last remembered. Boobie explained that it was the first night of Pesach (Passover) and the table, which seemed to have doubled in length, was laid for the first Seder (Passover meal).

Auntie Julie was there as well, as she had been helping Boobie out. She asked: "Joel, did you go on holiday?"
- "Yesz."
- "Did you go with Mummy and Daddy?"
- "Yesz."
- "Did you have a good time?"
- "Yesz."
- "Did you see lots of nice things?"
- "Oah-Yesz."
- "You're saying yes to everything!" Auntie Julie laughed. " Joel, do you want a three-course meal with chips?"
- "No."

Conversations II

On the plane, on the way back from San Francisco, I got about two hours sleep in the whole ten hour overnight flight. So did Mummy and Daddy. Daddy said he nearly got Deep Vein Thrombosis overnight with his legs cramped and crossed double with the weight of Mummy's legs and my head on top. Dad's such a drama queen. I was the one who couldn't get comfy stretched out on top of Mummy and Daddy. I did insist, however, on having my head end on Mummy and sitting on her for the duration of the flight. I mean, why sit on Daddy when Mummy's there to be sat on?

As we were coming in to land at Heathrow, I reminded Mummy that I needed to put my shoes on again:
- "Shoos!"
- "What's the matter, Joel, you want your shoes?"
- "Yesz."
- "Can you say, 'Please'?"
- "Cheese!"
- "Good boy. Look, Joel, Mummy can't quite reach your shoes now. Do you mind waiting another minute? You can put your shoes on in a minute."
- "Aw-wight. Aww-right."

Conversations I

- "No Tat! No Tat!"
- "Oh, dear, is there no cat, Joel?"
- "No Dork!"
- "Oh, there's no dog either?"
- "No Sheek!"
- "That's right, there are no sheep here inside the car. Joel, is there a duck?"
- "Yesz."
- "Where's the duck?"
- "Derr."

Mummy spent the rest of the car journey wondering whether there really had been a duck inside the car.

Still no cats

Opened the door of the fridge this morning.

"No Tat!"

Ran to Mum to tell her about my important discovery:

"Mama! No Tat! Tat, no noo! Oh Dear!"

Grammar Lesson

Today I've learnt a new grammatical construct which I'd like, in turn, to teach you: the Feline Negative.

I love cats. "Tat!" I'll say, pointing at a cat, or a picture of a cat. Or at Jess the cat, from Postman Pat (one of my absolute favouritest ever TV programs). Cats are great. But sometimes there just isn't a cat around. Here's where the Feline Negative comes in: "No Tat!"

Simply put, it points out the lack of a cat in any particular area. This clever grammatical device allows one to talk about Cats in many more situations than previously thought. I can now confidently point to a tree that does not contain a cat and say, "No Tat!" Similarly for paths, under cars, in cupboards and so on. You get the idea. I've tried it out in a range of situations today and I must say I like it.

I guess I should find out at some point if there's a Canine Negative and the suchlike. But for the while, cats (or no cats) are enough for me.

Less embarrassing

Mum's secretly relieved because in the last few days I have been calling her, "Mama!" instead of "Baba!"

Word associations

As well as a source of endless observer fascination, I've noticed that doors take... keys. "Keys!"

And Mummy's handbag has three sets of keys: front door keys, car door keys, and spare keys.

I'm loving raiding Mummy's handbag and trying out all the keys in the doors. I'm nearly 100% sure the car door key fits into the bathroom door somehow - I just have to keep trying it. And telling Mum as I do so, "Door! Keys!"

I love doors

I've appointed myself as Chief Door Observer 2009.

Every door I encounter, I point out to Mum: "Door!"

That's every door, during the course of the whole day. The front door, the fridge door, the car door ("Tar! Door!") the nursery front door, the nursery inside door with the buzzer, the nursery keycode door, all cupboard doors, and every door on the telly.

Verbiose

Mum ran through the words I can say so far.

- "Joel, can you say,'Daddy'?"
- "Dada!"

- "Good boy! Can you say 'Mummy'?"
- "Baba!"

- "Hmmm. Moving on... Can you say 'Dog'?"
- "Dork!"

- "Good boy! Can you say, 'Cat'?"
- "Tat!"

- "Can you say, 'Duck'?"
- "Duk! Duk."

- "Can you say, 'Star?'"
- I smile, because I'm confident about that one. "Tar!"

- "Can you say, 'Cheerios'?"
- "Chee-ya."

- "You're such a clever boy, Joel! Can you say, 'Cheese'?"
- "Chs."

First snog!

This picture appeared in all of the gossip press and all over Uh-Oh, Not-OK! and Tatter magazines and websites within hours of it being taken.

Let me explain.

I took Mum and Dad along to see all of my friends from NCT this afternoon. It was great - Dexter's mum works at a educational charity centre and there was a load of fun playgroup stuff, and.... toys! Here's a picture of my butch pals Dexter (left) and Rafi (right). Rafi appears somewhat bemused by Dexter's confident swagger:

Here's a picture of the lovely Evie, who can enunciate the word "doggie" all too enviously:

Here's Maddie (right) feeding grapes to Chloe (left):

And this is the mystery lady herself, vivacious Isla, on the trampoline:

Isla and I had a great time in the ball pool. It mainly consisted of me floating and finding two balls of the same colour and presenting them to Daddy, saying "Dall!" "Dour!" "Doar!" Isla decided that the best fun was had by throwing the balls out of the ball pool, and one donked me on the forehead very hard, which dazed me for a few seconds.


When it was time to come out of the ball pool, Isla's dad said, "Give Joel a kiss!" and Dad said, "Joel, give Isla a kiss!" So we did, because we're young and obedient in that way, and haven't worked out the ick factor of the opposite sex because we have trouble identifying who's a girl, who's a boy and what's a toy. Isla's also great at puckering up: I think her mum taught her.

The grown-ups' main achievement of the day was getting all of us eighteen-month-olds all together on the same bench at the same time in a row, to take our first group photo. Dexter sort of wandered off, but nevertheless the effect was basically there:

Yep, all in all a rather good day.

The year started with chicken pox

Yes, dear readers, it's a sad start to the year for me. On Thursday Mum noticed that I had a strange boil on my palm and wondered where it came from. But then lots more appeared all over me and the doctor confirmed that I've got chicken pox.

I'm not feeling too happy right now. It's all itchy and I've got lots of unpleasant looking spots all over, including on my otherwise very pretty face. It's quite uncomfortable to lie down at the moment, but at least I've found a solution for this - last night I just decided not to go to sleep. Of course, Mum and Dad tried to put me to bed a few times but it was easy to get them to give up on that - just scream your lungs out for a few minutes despite everything they try to do, and they take you downstairs again. I'm just sorry that I eventually got so tired that I fell asleep for a couple of hours, from 7 am to 9 am. It's been a while since I've done an all-nighter...

Apparently I could be better as early as the middle of the week or as late as a whole week after that. I want to be cute again so I hope it's sooner rather than later.