TV... YOU CAN COUNT ON IT

Is it normal for a 16 month old to nearly be able to count to ten? Charlotte's latest party trick is (usually while looking at the numbers up the side of her bottle at bedtime) "two, see, sore, ive, six, eight, nine, TEN" said with a massive grin and an "aren't I clever" look! One and seven are usually sadly lacking!

For a while she's wandered up to the TV when the weather or Sky Sports News has been on and pointed at numbers - usually 2, 3 or 8 - and said them. But now she's nearly there with reciting 1-10 at various points through the day. She's been obsessed with her little number/picture books since she could sit up and hold a book, so I guess it's all come from there.

And now one of her favourite TV shows is Numtums. It's only 5 minutes long and she'll happily sit transfixed. I'm loathe to say "one of her favourite TV shows" because I'm afraid the honest truth is she does end up watching a bit more than I'd like some days. Her bedtime routine has always started with half an hour of TV before bath - usually a combination of Abney and Teal, Waybuloo, Peppa Pig and/or In The Night Garden.

Charlie and Lola and the more recent 74 Zoo Lane really haven't caught her attention - so thank goodness for Sky Plus! But by far and away her favourite show of the moment is Raa Raa The Noisy Lion. It doesn't matter how grumpy she is, it always cheers her up. She's even started to sing along to the theme tune and knows most of the characters' names (as she also does with Night Garden). The best thing is that you can download podcasts of it from the CBeebies website, so car journeys are also less fraught when she's fed up of her Children's Songs CD.

But the point is we (almost) always watch the shows together, so we're interacting, talking about what she can see etc. Rather than using it as a babysitter. And I'm still definitely reading to her more each day than she watches TV. Given that she has a vocabulary of way more than 50 words, I can only assume the TV that she does watch is complimenting the reading.

Oh, and her sleeping is still rubbish and after another spell of hunger strike her feeding's picking up slowly again - but the less said about all that the better.

11 MONTHS OLD

The last month's all been a bit higgeldy-piggedly as we've been moving house (again!). Not surprisingly, Charlotte's been a little unsettled - more clingy than usual, crying when one of us leaves a room, and wanting her dummy more. But she's been much more like her old self today - and only had her dummy for sleeping (Long naps today of 50 mins and more than an hour!).

Despite having had three homes in her first 11 months, it's the first time - aside from being at her grandparents' - that she's had a garden. She really didn't like the grass at first when we practised her walking, but was fine after a couple of days. Here's Charlotte enjoying the sun:

Her speech and communication continues to astound us. She's such a mimic - trying to copy lots of words we say, and although they don't really sound much like the actual word we can hear she's really trying. She can point to her head, hair, eyes, nose, mouth, tongue (she loves that one!), tummy, hands, feet and toes - and can do animal noises (or approximations of!) for a cow, duck, pig, sheep and - her favourite - monkey!

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But the little monkey still seems to have a mental block when it comes to 'Mummy'.... I'm still 'Dad-deeee' - and her Daddy gets the best receptions every time!!

BUBBLES, BALLS AND BUMBLE BEES

Sat having dinner the other evening, myself and my OH worked out that Charlotte now recognises and responds to about FIFTY words! How the hell did that happen? Is that normal for 10 months?

She can point out the animals - from Bumble Bee to Octopus in her books, she knows what 'more', 'up' and 'high' mean among many others, and she does hand actions for things like 'star' and 'spider'. She's been saying Daddy (to most people), bubbles and ball for quite a while now, but it's the responding with actions or pointing to items that seems to be advancing at quite a pace. And she can do a rough attempt at about half a dozen animal noises. Brilliant!

Walking with support is also improving every day - and she's usually much happier up on two feet these days than sat down. Crawling still looks like it's going to pass her by. Interestingly - she'll happily sit for ages if she's got a few books to occupy her - in particular the That's Not My... series which are excellent.