Talking and not Talking

Not taken any photos this week, so here's one of Eve from the weekend. She coloured her face in purple, we laughed, so she went off and coloured it in green over the top - brilliant!


We have had a very busy week - Tuesday especially, with shopping, Rhythm Time, collect Eve from school, ballet, then a birthday party. The party was lovely - it's so good to see all the little friends playig together. And most of the eldest siblings (and their mums) have 'known' each other since they were a matter of weeks old. Beth (two) was very good at blowing out her candles, which reminded me of Noah's second birthday a couple of months ago, when he kept reaching out to the candle flames trying to touch them instead of blowing them out.....
One of the nicest bits of the day was the walk up to Beth's house. It's up hill all the way, and I think probably the hottest, most humid day of the year so far, so it might seem strange that this was the most relaxing part of a hectic day - but both Eve and Thom were asleep in the pushchair (having fallen asleep in the car on the way home from ballet), so Noah-Boots sat on the hood and held onto the handle (it's a pretty sturdy vehicle - I must take a photo) and 'chatted' to me all the way, pointing things out and asking or telling me what they were. He is getting much better at the start of words, even though the endings are still getting kind of lost. So we had car, door, gate, house, sheep, and he learned fence, tree and van. Also strawberry (gor-rerry) which he already knows - he spotted them and asked for them as soon as we arrived at Beth's party. It was lovely to spend a bit of time 'just' Noah and I, as Eve is always so talkative and Thom kind of has the edge physically, so Noah deserves a bit more of both whenever I can. He was really keen and interested, and the look on his little face when I obviously understood what he was saying to me was, and always is, something very precious. Noah rocks!
So, his speech therapist came to visit us yesterday, fortunately whilst Eve was at school, (she kind of dominates the conversation......!) and I was kind of (oh so foolishly) expecting him to show off all of his new words and sounds as he's come a long way since she last visited us at home. Bridget started off with a bear game - the bears started fighting.....we moved onto Noah's own garage - the truck started fighting the helicopter (a favourite passtime)......we started building the train track - the trains started fighting......then Nemo and the crocodile hand puppet had a fight, then Noah started fighting the sofa cushions......... They were all very good natured fights and had lots of sound effects, mainly of the 'Gah!' variety, but not much evidence of his growing vocabulary - he was clearly in physical play mood and having none of our attempts to change this! Good for him, eh......my little monkey boy.