A babbling Georgie Georgie

Over the past few weeks George has found his voice. He started with the occasional "mumumum" which came out when he was sad and hungry. And then he worked out "dada" and was so delighted with the reaction he got from Alby and me "silly Georgie, daddy's at work", that he has continued to say it. Sometimes non stop for ten minutes. Sometimes non stop for thirty minutes. Obviously as the one who has given up work to devote all my time with him I am thrilled.

When he was first learning to make the sound he had to really think about it, you could see him working his mouth trying to get his tongue and jaw around the sound. It was like he was chomping out the sound. Too cute. Too funny.

"Dadadadada" is his favourite but we're also getting the random "bababa", "yayayaya", "pp" and "hiya". At really chatty times you get the occasional squeal and squeak too much to mine and Alby's amusement.

One of the hard things with an Albug around is that George often gets shouted down. Albs hasn't quite worked out that you have to let Georgie speak and then echo back the sounds, despite me constantly trying to teach him. He gets too excited laughing at Georgie and shouting back "Dada's at work Georgie, Dada's at work." Poor George. And poor working daddy.

What I love most is that George will stay quiet for hours, for almost the whole day and then we take him for the evening dog walk or get him in the bath and he just doesn't shut up. As Albs would say "he's just so hilarious."

For the past two days as well as all the random noises George has started blowing raspberries again. Lordy knows why. Similar to talking he can do it for twenty minutes straight. We've put it down to teething, making a far fetched claim it must help with his gums in an effort to hide the real truth: we've got ourselves another cheeky one. And I love him to bits.

A new Christmas tradition

I have a memory from when I was about six or seven of my mum driving me through a blizzard to get to the theatre for us to watch The Nutcracker. Or maybe it was Swan Lake. Truth be told I don't remember the ballet itself at all. My memory is of my mum being a bit scared of the weather but carrying on anyway and of me being amazed that she was doing this for me. I remember thinking  'why hasn't she given up?' This is one of the many many examples of how impressive my mum is. And also explains my own grit, determination and sometimes downright ridiculous decision making at times.

We were never silly enough to drive through another blizzard but my parents did ensure dance was a part of my childhood even after I'd outgrown my tutu and hung up the ballet shoes for good. For the past decade however, my exposure to ballet has been limited to cheesy films of ballerinas joining up with street dancers (yes, they are as bad as they sound). That is until today. The day Alby and I went to see our first proper ballet at the local theatre.

Yes we did go and see 'dogs don't do ballet' in Winchester last year but as it was based on a children's book about a ballet loving dog and performed by teenagers I've decided it doesn't really count.

Waiting for the show to start

Today we watched the Snow Queen. And despite having a fidgety, whispering, tired four year old next to me, despite my view being blocked every now and then from Alby sitting in my lap and despite having to answer his questions I spent the whole performance with a smile on my face. A smile made all broader each time Trouble Monkey sat upright, gripped the arms of his seat and stared transfixed at the stage (opening scene with the Snow Quuen breaking the looking glass, when Kay gets the glass in his eye and turns punchy, when the Snow Quuen puts Kay under her spell, when  Gerda meets the witch and finally - spoiler alert, when the Snow Quuen gets killed. Oh and the scene with the Pirates too. I don't think they really were pirates but trying to whisper an explanation of what gypsies are was beyond me.)

Albug got into all the clapping after each dance. The very first time we clapped, after the very first scene he looked up at me confused and asked "is it over?" making the row in front laugh. Hee hee. Sorry chap, we've got another 90minutes to go.

I loved it. It wasn't the national ballet, the Royal ballet or Sadlers Wells but it was well done, it was simple happy making. I had a date with my little man, we have already agreed to repeat next year and once Georgie is old enough to join us we will make it a family outing. Yay.

Whilst Trouble Monkey and I had our first date of the year George had his own first in the evening - he crawled into the downstairs restroom, found a bar of soap and tried eating it. Cue a very upset, soap-scented baby desperately sucking on his sippy cup for the next ten minutes. Think we'll dodge making this one a tradition too.