The Church of Humpty

I have started getting a taste of what my future will be like with a teenage daughter. Camilla has been insisting that she knows more than I do. Example: "Where's Daddy?" "At work." "No, he's not at work. He's at the supermarket." "No - he's at work." "No, Mummy, he's NOT AT WORK!!!!"

She's becoming a mini-grown up in lots of good ways too, though. It's very endearing hearing "you're welcome, Mummy" and "Good job, Mummy." Last week Camilla helped me make snickerdoodles. It took much longer with her help than without, but I was impressed that she was able to take my dough balls and roll them in cinnamon sugar, then put them on a baking tray. Several times when I handed her a ball she said "Good job, Mummy. You're so helpful, Mummy." Can't get much cuter than that!

Camilla is still obsessed with nursery rhymes. She never tires of hearing the same songs over and over again. The same cannot be said for us. All I can do is borrow new nursery rhyme compilations from the library every couple of weeks - it's such a relief to have 'Little Miss Tucket' as well as 'Little Miss Muffet' but the novelty is very short-lived. I sometimes relieve the boredom with some of my own 'adult' versions - only in my head of course. Of the dozens of nursery rhymes Camilla knows off by heart, Humpty and Miss Muffet still reign supreme. I'm not sure that Camilla understands that they aren't real. She often asks us where they are. Camilla's adoration of Humpty actually comes close to worship. She draws images of her egg deity all over the house, and refuses to accept that he cannot be put back together again. In her unique Church of Humpty, Humpty never dies. Instead he is magically resurreggted.

Stanley has astonished us recently by not being a mere face-bashing brute. In spite of being ignored by all of us 99% of the time, he has started talking. He says "bye bye" while waving, "UP" when he wants to be picked up, "Mummy", "Daddy", "BaoBao" and "mi--" (milk). He can also imitate multi-syllabic words with amazing accuracy, and does an excellent "miaow" and "quack". When combined with the fact that he gives full kisses on the lips and has eyelashes most women dream of, he is really quite adorable at the moment. But don't let his verbal maturity fool you. He still manages to hit his head 10 times in a row on the same bit of table top. So we're hardly in genius territory.

OK, time to read Camilla some nursery rhymes. I can't wait!