Talking sense

I'm sitting writing this waiting for Harry to go to sleep in the room next door.

At the moment, he's talking away to the various toys that share his bed, telling them about the day at the seaside he's just spent with my mum and dad.

And while I would like to go downstairs and get some tea, it’s lovely listening to him chatting away.

What it also does is reinforce how far his speech has come on since Christmas; he's now stringing long, often complicated sentences together, telling us about something that has happened or, more often, something that he wants to happen.

As my granddad said at the weekend, he's becoming a real little chatterbox. This is an understatement; Harry just doesn't stop talking.

He often surprises me by throwing a new word into conversation. The other day, for instance, he announced that we should go outside. "It's beautiful," he said, which isn't the sort of statement I'd expect to hear from a 28 month-old.

Of course, Harry's ability to pick up new words has its downsides, and we have to be careful what we say now because he's likely to repeat it, parrot-like. He's also picked up a couple of bad habits, including say "Eh?" when he doesn't quite catch what you've said. This is immediately followed by a reprimand from Melissa or myself, whereupon Harry looks sheepish and says "pardon".

Mind you, I was even more shocked the other day when I was sitting on the sofa when Harry tried to push past unsuccessfully. “Move big bottom, daddy,” he said. I was speechless.

If that's as bad as it gets, though, I think we'll have got away with it.
Anyway, he's just shouted "Daddy working on computer." I think that's my cue to go downstairs.