A few more firsts

This is Jemima meeting a potty for the first time, we decided to let her play with it and have it around so that when potty training starts it will be an entirely familiar item - and hopefully easier to train with !
Jemima enjoyed meeting her first duck, she also met chickens and a puppy that day but I don't think she was convinced the puppy was real and was far more interested in the birds, another of her favourite words!
This is Jemima saying "ball", one of her collection of words that she freely uses. I did prompt her this time but mostly she'll point at a ball and say it of her own accord, the same with "shoes", "cat" and all her other favourite things !

This is Jemima deciding that her piece of apple simply wasn't enough and the whole of Mummy's looked rather better !

Walking !!

We're spending a lot of time at my parents' house right now and I can't upload pictures whilst here but I just have to post quickly about the amazing progress Jemima is making towards walking. She is adding more and more steps on to her toddles and seems to do better when distracted or at least not the center of attention. We can get her to walk quite well when we ask her to but she likes to set off independently and has reached one side of the sitting from the far end so all power to her !

Jemima also has her first few words for sure, not just repeating sounds but knowing what they relate to and saying them with no prompting at all. These include "shoes", "bird" and "ball" but the cutest has got to be "shoes" whispered with a little lisp !! She also says the Greek word for grandpa which is Papou....or rather, she's freely calling my dad Pooh and totally getting away with it - too cute !

We took her to the beach today and she loved looking at the sea, the seagull nursery and all the people. I'll upload photos as soon as I can.

Looking older !

I've thought about the possibility that adults might treat Jemima as if she's older and have expectations of her that aren't age appropriate because she's tall. Well, it's already happening. At the shoe shop, the assistant asked whether she was walking confidently and I replied that she was not, she's only taking steps between furniture and around things. I asked if her shoe size was normal for her age (as I think she's on the large side !) and the woman said that she was very average. I exclaimed, "Very average, are you sure ?!" and told her that Jemima is only just 11 months at which ponit the woman realised.... and said "ah yes, she is very tall for her age !"...........

Today a lady in the supermarket queue told me, after receiving several very toothy grins from Jemima, that her 10 month old was teething heavily and already had her second top tooth coming through. She asked me how old Jemima was and I said 11 months and a few days and the surprise was more than evident. Oh well, all I care about is that Jemima is thriving, healthy, bright and outgoing, I'm sure she'll take after me and her grandmother and always look younger than her age when it matters !

Just a few updates

I forgot to say that Jemima now prefers to hold her own bottle, this has steadily increased in the last week, she'll actually take it out of my hands to hold it herself ! This means we can go for a walk and she'll be merrily drinking away until she snoozes off and, at home, she likes to nearly finish the bottle then often takes the nearly empty bottle into her cot with her - believe me this hasn't been my plan but she's quite set on what she wants and when ! We don't have a strict sleep routine so Jemima falls asleep when she needs to, I'm fairly good at reading her, and she now sleeps through the night - YEYEYEYEY!!!!

We're going for professional photos with Venture tomorrow, I'm very excited as every picture I've seen of theirs, on friends' walls and online, just looks fantastic. I've now lost 50lbs in total so I'm feeling confident enough to enjoy the shoot and I know there will be some wonderful family pictures at the end of it.

Jemima grins and waves and talks to everybody, she now chatters in her stroller as if narrating our walks for me. She's so alert and I think will soon be enjoying walking and running alongside me when we go for our jaunts.